Vrftsjtryk

It seems strange to me that that the new green deal wants clean and renewable power from solar and wind energy yet oppose nuclear energy. I have been googling experts consensus on nuclear energy and even tried to google experts against nuclear energy and so far all the results say nuclear is the greenest and most efficient power source that will reduce carbon emissions. So unless google is censoring dissenters, nuclear energy is by far our best option for green energy. The new green deal seems like a huge investment on inefficient technologies.

This is a broad topic, and for an overview I would suggest to look at the wikipedia article on the anti-nuclear movement.

The main points are:

• accidents which pose a risk to humans and the environment (see Fukushima or Chernobyl).


• waste disposal: the problem of disposing nuclear waste long-term is still completely unsolved, and the waste poses a threat to humans and the environment.


• limited supply and dependency on countries producing uranium.


• nuclear proliferation: there is a fear that nuclear powerplants can produce material for nuclear weapons.

Because of these reasons, nuclear energy isn't categorized as renewable (it depends on a non-renewable resource) or green (it at least has the potential to damage the environment to a high degree).

_{Your point about energy efficiency is probably better addressed in a separate question. But see eg this question where I included a comparison on energy returned on energy invested; wind and hydro are well above nuclear, while solar is just a bit below it.}

According to Holman Jenkins in 2016, the answer is murky, not least because the left are not unified against nuclear:

Honest greens have always said nuclear power is indispensable for achieving big carbon reduction. James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who has been chaining himself to fences since the first Bush administration, was in Illinois last week lobbying against closure of a nuclear plant. Ditto activist Michael Shellenberger. We might also include Bill McKibben, the Bernie Sanders of the climate movement and shouter of Exxon accusations, who told journalist William Tucker four years ago, “If I came out in favor of nuclear, it would split this movement in half.”

Nuclear (unlike solar) is one low-carbon energy technology that has zero chance without strong government support, yet is left out of renewables mandates. It’s the one non-carbon energy source that has actually been shrinking, losing ground to coal and natural gas.

What keeps nuclear costs high? Why do so many opponents misread the Fukushima meltdown, where 18,000 deaths were due to the earthquake and tsunami, none to radiation exposure, and none are expected from radiation exposure? Why has the U.S. experience of spiraling nuclear construction costs not been matched in South Korea, where normal learning has reduced the cost of construction?

The answer increasingly appears to be a real scientific fraud. In a series of peer-reviewed articles, toxicologist Edward Calabrese of the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows how a cabal of radiation geneticists in the 1940s doctored their results, and even a Nobel Prize acceptance speech, to exaggerate the health risk from low-level radiation exposure. At the time, Hermann Muller, their leader, was militating against above-ground atomic-bomb testing. “I think he got his beliefs and his science confused, and he couldn’t admit that the science was unresolved,” Mr. Calabrese told a UMass publication.