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By Root 758 0

lowest per capita emissions in the industrialized world thanks to its near-80 percent use of nuclear power, managed to commission five reactors per year at its peak of new-build in the 1980s.61 With 59 operating nuclear reactors, France is the world’s largest electricity exporter—much of it to its antinuclear neighbor, Germany. According to the Royal Academy of Engineering, the cost of nuclear electricity is roughly comparable to gas, less than coal, and much less than wind, giving the lie to the oft-heard objection that nuclear power is too expensive.62 By way of comparison, 2010 saw 13 new construction projects begin for nuclear power stations (eight of these in China, two in Russia, two in India, and one in Brazil), promising that by 2015 one new plant will be opening every month.63 The nuclear renaissance is happening, but it needs a step-change to be of any substantial help in tackling the climate planetary boundary.

In March 2011 the earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan set off a crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant which sent seismic shock waves around the world’s energy industry. Thanks to hyperbolic media coverage about a spreading radioactive cloud, people as far away as China and the United States began panic-buying salt and iodine tablets, while several embassies nearer by in Tokyo evacuated their staffs. As I discuss later, the actual dangers from increased radiation were minimal: those leaving Tokyo on aircraft will have soaked up more radiation from cosmic rays on their flights than if they had stayed put in the Japanese capital. No matter: The fear of radiation is vastly more potent than the real thing, and the Fukushima disaster led within days to panicky measures against nuclear power in Germany, China, and many other countries. Only time—and a little perspective—will tell whether Fukushima was enough to stall the nuclear renaissance, but I doubt it. Having mothballed several of its nuclear plants unnecessarily, the Germans immediately found themselves more dependent on coal—which by every measure is vastly more toxic and dangerous than nuclear. Japan too has little option but to stick with nuclear: It already imports large quantities of fossil fuels, and with a dense population packed into just a few small islands its renewables options are few.

All told, if the world moves away from nuclear as a result of Fukushima, several billion more tonnes of carbon will be being emitted annually by 2030 due to the implied resurgence of coal and gas for electricity generation, perhaps enough to tip the balance between a two-degree and a three-degree scenario in terms of the eventual global warming toll. This “gigatonne gap” attributable to loss of nuclear will make our even more stringent 350 boundary unobtainable, with all the ensuing climatic consequences outlined earlier in this chapter. To make such a choice based on an irrational view of nuclear power’s risks would be a devastating mistake for humanity to make. Environmentalists have been on the wrong side of this debate before, and they should think hard before allowing history to repeat itself. Any reasonable science-based assessment, such as Greens insist should guide us when considering climate change, refutes most of what the antinuclear lobby dishes out as “fact.” The British environmental writer George Monbiot has even compared antinuclear activists to global warming deniers in terms of their treatment of the science on radiation. To get a more ecologically-relevant idea of the upsides and downsides of nuclear, we need to bear all the planetary boundaries in mind—and as later chapters will show, it scores highly even compared to renewables.

As I have insisted repeatedly, the real debate should not be between nuclear or renewables: To have a realistic chance of limiting global warming we certainly need both. Much of the world’s power could also come from a comparatively small area of solar thermal plants constructed in the world’s hot deserts. For Europe, a fifth of the continent’s electricity could come from solar stations in the Sahara, with