Scientists are increasingly concerned that the planet is headed for massive, irreversible changes due to global warming. In some cases, thos
To quote Alvin Weinberg, one of the pioneers of nuclear power, speaking in 1982 :
The ultimate justification for maintaining nuclear energy is the danger of accumulation of CO₂ in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuel. The atmosphere now carries 715 gigatonnes of carbon as CO₂ ; should even 20 per cent of the 10¹³ tonnes of coal be burned, and should 50 per cent remain airborne, the CO₂ in the atmosphere would more than double. Though we cannot say with certainty how much this would raise the average surface temperature of the globe, or even how the benefits and disbenefits of such an addition would balance, we are surely engaged in a geophysical experiment of gigantic proportion as we burn fossil fuel and inject it into the atmosphere. We ought at the very least keep our rate of injection as low as possible, perhaps even reduce it from its present value of about 5 gigatonnes of carbon per year. At present, almost 85 per cent of the world’s primary energy is generated by the developed world — OECD, Centrally Planned Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. Even through the next 50 years, according to projections such as those of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, about 70 per cent of the world’s energy will have been produced by these countries : if China is included, the fraction grows to 80 per cent. Thus the CO₂ problem, insofar as it is a problem, is being created by the developed world, not the much more populous underdeveloped world. Were this developed world to deploy reactors for a sizable fraction of its energy, the accumulation of CO₂ would be less than if fossil fuels were allowed to supply as large a fraction of primary demand as they now supply. For example, were the total primary energy supply of the developed world plus China increased from the current level of 8·5 terawatt years per year to, say, 16 terawatt years per year in 2030, and the carbon dioxide per unit of energy remained the same as today, then these countries would be throwing about 10 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every year, compared to the 5 gigatonnes they now inject each year. Suppose, however, these countries adopted the French energy policy of heavy reliance on nuclear power. France expects, in 1990, to throw slightly less CO₂ into the air than it did in 1980, despite the projected 25 per cent increase in total energy. The developed world, plus China could therefore cut the rate of accumulation of CO₂ in the atmosphere in half were 30 per cent of the world’s prime energy in 2030 supplied by nuclear energy. This would amount to about 5 terawatt years per year of heat energy ; or about 1500 reactors, each producing 3300 megawatts of heat, or 1000 megawatts of electricity. In view of the 475 large reactors already in operation or under construction, a world of 1500 reactors by 2030 does not seem to me unreasonable. And such a deployment would give the world an additional half a century or more to adjust to the consequences of the carbon dioxide that is now accumulating at about 2·5 gigatonnes of carbon each year.
—A Second Nuclear Era : Prospects and Perspectives, in The Nuclear Chain Reaction — Forty Years Later, Proceedings of a University of Chicago Commemorative Symposium (Robert G Sachs, editor)
