Judging by the evidence, people have done very, very well for themselves financially, by forming non-profits devoted to sowing doubt about global warming.

Wow - debunking global warming IS a political agenda. It is definitely not based in peer-reviewed science. And as Emily has stated, it is already a multi-billion dollar business. Good luck with your business plan!

Debunking global warming science (if you can call it science) is a legitimate scientific endeavor. If you know anything about science you would know even established theories are checked and verifyed or debunked all the time. Saying that debate fo global-warming/climate-change is over is the mark of a dictator or tyrant not science. It's like pushing science back to the time of the middle ages.

"Debunking" global warming science is attempted all the time. But so far, the number of peer-reviewed, published scientific articles that state that global warming is not happening or that state that global warming is happening but is NOT primarily the result of human activity are zero. None. Zip.

Established scientific theories are not "debunked all the time." Saying that a debate is over may simply be the truth. And, at this point, denying global warming is most definitely "like pushing science back to the time of the middle ages."

"Getting rich by playing off the publics stupidity," aside from being one of the historically legitimate tenants of American capitalism ("Let the buyer beware"), is EXACTLY what the dirty energy companies have been doing for years, with, up until recently, support of the Federal government.

I would like to rely on peer-reviewed science to direct what we do from this point onward. 

By the way - Austin, Texas, my home town, is in an extended drought, and the temperature was officially 107º F. yesterday, a record. The previous record was 102º F. The average high temperature for this time a year is 92º F.

Austin is also about to go over the ozone limit, which will cause EPA-mandated changes to what the city has to do (which will cost money), not because Austin produces that much pollution (we don't), but because the state approved new dirty coal power plants 100 miles away whose pollutants head straight to Austin.

Only the Federal Government can help control this mess. There simply is no other entity powerful enough to do it.

I don't want political ideology. I want action.

Getting all the green groups onto the same page vis legislation will be a herculean task.  The sector's fractured over ACES, from what I've observed.  

That's not unusual, though.  There's an activist ecology: Groups like Greenpeace push the toughest line.  It's often impossible to achieve politically but helps to raise the bar on what's possible.

That makes it easier for more middle-of-the-road groups to push for provisions that politicians would consider unthinkable, if not for the really impossible things other groups were asking for. 

Konstantin, how would a bill like this destroy manufacturing in the US?  

It makes manufacturing financially too expensive in the US. Not only that but I believe that special interests have bribed or used other means to give them an advantage in this bill and as a result the bill won't accomplish what it intended (or pretended) goal is.When i sthe last time you can trust government toprovide an honest bill thatthat won't penalize the average working person? If the last year is anything to go by just see the difference in what the federal government and the Federal Reserve have done: $14 triilion for the banks vs. $1 triilion for Main st.

Based on how it reads to me, the bill would accomplish a lot on expanding clean energy research, development, and adoption, and energy efficiency.  Both would bring on a surge in both manufacturing jobs and consumer-facing jobs.

[strikethrough]But certainly fossil energy and utility interests made pretty fine hash of setting ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.[/strikethrough]

Correction: special interests made a hash of the pollution credit auction v. allocation provisions.  Sorry for the error. 

Craig if you have any figures and charts to back up that CO2 claim please post them. You do realize that a nuclear power plant is designed to last at least 60 to 70 years right? Do those figures take that into account?

The nuclear plants I'm talking about are LiFTR. That stands for Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. They consume almost all the nuclear fuel and produce very very little waste that has to be stored for a short time not like conventional nuclear reactors at all.

Here are some links where you can learn what they are:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/02/aim-high-plan-for-factory-mass-produced.html

http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com

By the way, here is an interesting site that tells you the current level of CO2

http://co2now.org

The problem I have with nuclear power is that it is not economically viable to build a new reactor at this time.  If the price of carbon gets high enough, which eventually it should, then I'm sure more reactors will come on line.  But the licensing has been streamlined and there are large subsidies already in existence for the industry and yet still the markets do not put there money on nuclear power plants.  There are many reasons why but regardless they are not economically viable at this time.

On your LiFTR power plant there are no commercial scale LiFTR power plants online in the world at this time, only small experimental scale projects.  I'm all for going after every avenue for reducing GHG emissions and I think nuclear will be viable soon and new research can create oppurtunities.  But the markets have spoken on this and right now nuclear cost overruns are huge and not many wish to bet on that with their money at this time.

I don't know about the carbon footprint of nuclear vs. solar or wind or other alternatives I would guess that vs. any fossil fuel that nuclear is far far better on total carbon footprint. 

Konstantin,

It is up to the proponents of nuclear energy to do the kind of cradle-to-grave carbon footprint I am talking about, and so far this has not been completed for any form of nuclear energy. Why not? Because the size of the footprint adds up so quickly that it is immediately apparent that the figures are not yet going to justify nuclear energy.

Some (but not all) of these figures include:

The carbon footprint of the mining process and the transportation of the raw ore to the site for fuel refinement. So far, almost all of the energy required for these activities comes from fossil fuel-powered technology.

The carbon footprint of the construction of the facilities required, including the reactor. These facilities require large amounts of cement, the manufacture of which in itself produces huge amounts of CO2.

The carbon footprint of the final disposal and/or the safe retirement of the entire industrial infrastructure.

Secondary carbon costs include:

The proper disposal of uranium mine tailings, which will leach low levels of radioactivity into the environment for centuries if not properly contained, if "proper" containment is even possible (I refer you to our currently woefully inadequate containment of coal ash).

The proper disposal of refuse from the fuel refining process, which is also radioactive.

Another significant concern is the tremendous amounts of water (some of which becomes contaminated) required to cool the reactor over the lifetime of the facility. Dumping the heated water from nuclear reactors into the environment has already caused significant environmental damage to American streams, rivers, and lakes.

I again point out that it is the job of the PROPONENTS of nuclear energy to provide the research that would indicate that nuclear power is safe, clean, and environmentally sound. It is not the responsibility of those who are understandably leery of such technology.

When I was a kid, I remember hearing, from the well-known, government employed nuclear scientists, Lewis L. Strauss, then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, that nuclear power was going to make electricity "too cheap to meter."

That was premature, to say the least. And it was NOT peer-reviewed science, it was opinion. But since it came from ONE well-known scientist, many considered it "science."

I am not willing to support nuclear energy until good, peer-reviewed science indicates that the carbon footprint is better than other available technologies and that the other significant environmental impacts of nuclear energy are adequately addressed.

Craig you wrote "I again point out that it is the job of the PROPONENTS of nuclear energy to provide the research that would indicate that nuclear power is safe, clean, and environmentally sound. It is not the responsibility of those who are understandably leery of such technology."

They already have over and over again many times. The information is there if you care to look. I haven't bothered to look up carbon footprints though cause I assume it's too low during the lifetime of the plant to consider.

If a total carbon footprint for nuclear energy has been done "over and over again many times," it sure is controversial. For an interesting discussion, read:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_carbon_footprint_of_nuclear_energy

Make sure to read past the first paragraph.

Here is a good, relatively unbiased report of a study:

http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99.html

It still doesn't address concerns about water and cooling issues. Please notice that solar and wind come out ahead of nuclear.

Nuclear's carbon footprint is really large in the construction stage.  It falls off considerably in terms of energy generation, of course.  Then the question becomes whether carbon footprint calculations alone are enough to justify the unsolved problems with fuel decommissioning and storage.

When I interviewed the former head of Greenpeace UK recently, for Grist, his answer was an unequivocal "yes" -- in his mind it's the lesser of two evils.  

Emily you seem to be of a mindset that nuclear power is evil. You seem to be judging science based on emotions. I think it's a bad idea to personify technology and science. People are responsible for how they use technology not science. You can say the same thing about almost all technology.

Konstantin, of all the things you could allege about me, or my work, stating that I am "of a mindset that nuclear power is evil" is one of the most demonstrably false.  

Sorry. I assumed you agreed with the quote you posted from the former  head of Greenpeace.

He's supporting expansion of nuclear power to help slash CO2 emissions. So I still don't get the point.

Experts in the field tell me there's no solution for nuclear waste on the immediate horizon - two to four decades out.   The technology you're advocating is really interesting, and maybe it's one of the things people are thinking about when they talk with me about long-term progress in the nuclear fuel cycle, but it's not yet proven beyond an experimental stage.  

I assume you mean 'no political solution for nuclear waste on the immediate horizon'.  From my understanding dry storage on site of current nuclear plants will work fine for the short term and dry storage for the long term will work as well.  On the very long term, I don't see the point in burying and sealing nuclear waste that could have a better solution in the next 100 years.

Emily I don't know who you talked to and I'm not a nuclear expert but saying "long-term progress in the nuclear fuel cycle ... but it's not yet proven beyond an experimental stage" is like saying 2+2=4 but it's not yet proven beyond the experimental stage.

What I mean by that is just like you know 2+2=4 from the laws of mathematics you know that these LiFTR and IFR nuclear plants can cleanly burn our nuclear waste (which is not really waste as it has alot of useful energy left in it) from the laws of physics  and make electricity in the process.

Konstantin, I talked to a physicist who is on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.  Around two weeks ago.

And scale is not irrelevant in many things, including nuclear physics.

Brook, I actually meant disposal solution, but I can see how what I wrote lacked clarity.  

From what I've been told, yes, the on site storage is working well enough for now.  I was thinking of the overall, long term problem of creating and needing to store more radioactive waste.

I wouldn't place a bet on which aspect of that gets solved first: the politics or the physics.  ;) 

Emily if you "talked to a physicist who is on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology" I suggest you get an "unbiased" opinion and talk to another nuclear physicist. The administration is heavily influenced by Amory Lovins and his Rocky Mountain Institute and his erroneous "negawatts" ideas. Some scientists have said that they believe Amory Lovins is working for the fossil fuels industry interests and I think they're right.

Maybe you can do an interview with some of the scientists at the "Energy from Thorium" website:

http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com

Regarding your reply to Brooks, the waste problem HAS been solved. If I could emphasize "HAS been solved" more I would.

Do yourself a favor and talk to an unbiased source not in the administration or connected to the administration.

Wha?... Shirley Ann Jackson supports nuclear power. She's a particle physicist!  She ran the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Pres. Clinton, and now heads a major technology university.  If she says there's no option for spent nuke fuel but storage, for the forseeable future, it probably ought to be taken pretty seriously.  

Read about my interview here:

http://globalwarming.change.org/blog/view/the_nuclear_alternative_to_coal

She is repeating the positions of the administration. If you do research the subject on spent fuel you could easily see that the opposite of what she told you is true. Other countries are reprocessing fuel for their conventional nuclear reactors. And just because she is a nuclear physicist doesn't mean she is familiar with breeder reactors like the LiFTR or IFRs. These LIFTR reactors were developed since almost the beginning but the military industrial complex wanted plutonium for their nuclear weapons so what we're stuck with today is conventional nuclear reactors not the clean efficient LiFTRs or IFRs.

If you want to get to the truth you're going to have to look at unbiased sources not the administration or political appointees, past or present. Talk to nuclear scientists. A good starting point is that site I mentioned.

Let me say this simply so there's no misunderstanding. Shirley Ann Jackson is wrong. She is either misinformed or being disingenuous. Did you read Dr. James hanson's paper to President Obama about these generation IV reactors? (based on a conference he had with nuclear scientists.

Here is the letter from his website at Columbia University:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081121_Obama.pdf

Konstantin,

You are assuming were we all standing against nuclear.  You've said that me, Emily, Shirley Ann Jackson, etc. are against it.  We aren't.  Please try not to assume you know where we are coming from before you finish reading our post and read what we're saying. 

The evidence is there that coal and fossil fuels need to go, quickly.  (over 2 decades quickly)  We need to go after every single avenue at reducing our emissions.  The easiest way, in my opinion, is to raise the price of emissions, pass efficiency standards, and fund research into alternatives.  The market will take care of the rest because as the price of emissions increases 'all' alternatives become cheaper by comparison.  So nuclear, solar, wind, biomass, conservation, tidal, geothermal, carbon capture into solid form from power plants, sun blocking, etc. etc.  Any and all avenues should be explored and studied but we shouldn't ram through one solution because we 'think' its best.  If things other then nuclear prove cheaper and better overall I can live with that, if 50 nuclear plants are built over the next 20 years including LiFTR I can live with that to.  So please stop acting like we only wish to poo poo on nuclear.

What Dr. Nicola Scafetta is delivering in this video is his opinion and doubts, not any new peer-reviewed scientific research. Einstein himself was unable to accept the Heisenberg principle ("Gentlemen, God does not play dice"), which essentially put an end to his incredible scientific career. One needs to be able to distinguish between the OPINION of any particular scientist (after all, they are all human beings with all the typical human failings) and peer-reviewed scientific RESEARCH.

Peer-reviewed science is VERY CLEAR - global warming is happening, it is happening now, and it is largely human-caused. There is no major scientific controversy about this.

Craig you are mistaken about what Dr Scafetta is presenting and about Dr Einstein too. Dr . Einstein very well accepted the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and it most certainly did not end his career.  What Dr. Scafetta is presenting is most certainly NOT opinion but real science as I'm sure you would see if you examine his research and check his credentials.

if you think there is no scientific controversy about global warming then I don't think you understand neither global warming nor how science works and neither how the IPCC works.

There's tons of active research and scientific discussion into how human-propelled global warming is affecting different systems on Earth -- ecosystems, climate systems, weather systsems, etch.  But there's no significant disagreement in the scientific community over the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

Seriously, whatever you're reading or hearing that suggests otherwise is at best honestly mistaken, and at worst trying to put something over on you.

On another note, Einstein's famous quote in response to the HUP was: "God does not play dice with the universe." 

My disagreement with the IPCC i sthat they ignore or neglect certain key issues.

Regarding Einstein, I think you are mistaken. That quote was about quantum theory as a whole not about the HUP. This is from an interesting article in the American Institute of Physics website:

http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/quantum1.htm

"By the mid 1930s, Einstein had accepted quantum mechanics as a consistent theory for the statistics of the behavior of atoms. He recognized that it was "the most successful physical theory of our time." ... Yet Einstein could not accept quantum mechanics as a completed theory, for its mathematics did not describe individual events. Einstein felt that a more basic theory, one that could completely describe how each individual atom behaved, might yet be found. ..."

The full article starts at:

http://www.aip.org/history/einstein

Craig I'm not "in the employ or have some financial interest in these same big energy companies, or somehow be invested in the dirty energy economy".

You seem to write from a perspective of the cultural perception and understanding of science like using terms such as "dirty energy economy".

Regarding where you wrote "denials of the reality of global warming, will be deleted as troll posts" where did I deny global warming? I doubt there is anyone in these replies that has the background or  scientific understanding to even begin to debate the actual issues of global warming.

Regarding nuclear power, one thing you'll notice of those that propose solar and wind power as a solution to our energy needs is that they don't provide the numbers to back up those claims.

Here are two charts that show the subsidies of various energy technologies and the estimated cost of those technologies in 2016:

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/megawatthour.jpg

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/levelizedelec.png

Well, a lot of the faux controversy over global warming's reality has been fomented via "astroturf" groups -- groups putting forth the face of environmental concern while advancing an environmentally destructive agenda -- bombarding the public with mis-information.  More of that than fossil energy-based scientific research, although the odds are there's been some of that, too.

I don't know much about the IER. i just saw those charts in a blog.

Nuclear power is virtually limitless. I don't advocate burning fossil fuels. They emit many pollutants harmful to health including radiation.

Solar and wind is heavily subsidized. They are much more expensive than nuclear and they can't provide enough energy for everyone. If we go with solar and wind energy instead of nuclear then that means that most of the world's people will be condemed to live a life of poverty.

This is from a question asked of Steve Kirsch in the article on huffington Post about the ACES bill:

"Between the cement and the mining of uranium - nuclear is hardly CO2 free."

Steve Kirsch - Huffpost Blogger: As the article points out, no additional mining of uranium is needed.

And there are ways to make cement now that do not emit CO2. Also, that is a very small one time amount, even if you make cement the conventional way.

This is a pretty interesting nuclear reactor technology, I agree. But it's only been prototyped so far, so very hard to tell if it could be brought up to scale safely.  

One of thepoints is you could design it to almost any scale you want. It doesn't have to be a huge 1 GW reactor, It could be 100 MW or 200 MW reactors. And by the way they are smaller than conventional nuclear reactors and can de design so they are air cooled and don't need water. Even solar power plants need water and water is hard to come by in the desert where some solar plants are proposed to be built.

Direct solar needs water, but the system is closed, and the designs I have read about don't need to be water cooled. More than a minimal amount of cooling would reduce the amount of electricity generated, particularly at night.

Wow - it seems like you already have your mind made up on solar and wind. Did you ever hear of direct solar? Are you aware of recent improvements in solar cells and batteries? Have you looked into energy generated by wave action and tides? And how about the one thing we haven't mentioned yet, energy conservation? Or do you agree with Dick Cheney that energy conservation is not legitimate energy policy?

The City of Austin just approved the building of the largest solar power plant in the United States because it makes economic sense. What do they know that you don't? Do you think this is going to condemn the people of Austin "to a life of poverty"? I disagree.

So you want to "bring clean reliable long lasting energy to the world's people" - sounds like you are in the energy business to me!

Regarding solar and wind, every competent review I've seen comes to the same conclusion, i.e. that solar and wind is much more expensive than nuclear energy. Nuclear also happens to be the most energy dense source available.

Compared to nuclear energy there is nothing that comes close to providing the amount of energy for the lowest cost. It will even cost less than coal energy soon.

As I said above, solar energy means that people will be condemned to live in poverty.

By energy conservation I assume you mean Amory Lovin's "negawatt" idea? If so that is erroneos and here is a 5 part article that debunks that:

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2008/07/amory-lovins-and-his-nuclear-illusion.html

As for your last point I'm not in the energy business. I meant that I want to support and vote for energy solutions that provide energy to all the world including the poor of the world.

The city of Austin is probably getting huge subsidies to pay for the expensive solar plant. Do you have any numbers or info regarding the project?

The City of Austin opted out of an expansion of a nuclear power plant because it was too expensive.

Solar IS NOT more expensive than nuclear, from what I have seen, if ALL costs are factored in. I'm not saying that it never will be, but so far, the true cost of these technologies to the environment are very rarely considered.

So Austin is condemned to live in poverty! My, my! If you are that good at predicting the future, might I suggest the lottery?

Assume makes an ass of u and me. I am talking about the simple concept of getting more for less through efficiency. This concept did not start with Amory Lovins. I am concerned about the concept, not the personality. Care to tell me how efficiency is a bad idea?

So far, the City of Austin has gotten NO SUBSIDIES for building the solar power plant. It makes sense all on its own. It is a project where the City contracts solar power at a set price for a twenty-year period, and a private company builds, maintains, and decommissions the plant. The electrical rates are a little higher than what the City is now paying mostly for coal power, which is projected to rise well beyond the price of this solar power. This is in addition to the fact that surrounding coal-powered plants are already negatively impacting Austin's air quality, which causes large costs to the City in other ways.

Do you have any numbers, i/e/ costs, etc.info regarding the project?

Efficiency doesn't work cause of what's called Jevons paradox. Here is a blog post that explains it:

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2008/06/amory-lovins-and-his-nuclear-illusion_11.html

Here is the wikipedia entry about Jevons paradox:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

The Jevons paradox is an economic prediction. If you look at a climax ecosystem (say, a rain forest), you will find many niches with lots of special adaptations, making the whole system incredibly efficient. Economics does not take into account environmental and biological constraints. If we keep ignoring these constraints, nothing can save us. Our future energy decisions must be based on the natural sciences, and not on economics. Our job is to make the economics work GIVEN THE REAL RESTRAINTS, and not shoving the problem into the near future. Unrestrained human economics is what got us in this predicament in the first place!

Jevons paradox assumes a static environment, ie no other outside influences.  But cap and trade or a carbon tax will raise the costs of coal outside of the new efficiencies reducing their use outside of this paradox.  With cap and trade, by definition, there will be less carbon put into the atmosphere year on year.

So cap and trade changes the factors but I've read that ACES bill is a gift to special interests.

That's at least partly because you didn't call your congressman and ask them not to amend #ACES so much that it became more and more a gift to special interests.

The articles you post as references I invariably find to be heavily biased. That's really not helping your argument. Steve Kirsch is a cheerleader for the technology. He is not a scientist. He is an entrepreneur, and a terminally ill one, at that. Anyone trying to get me to support something by telling me it's too complicated to understand, and at the same time is NOT going to be around to see the results is going to have a real uphill battle, to say the least.

He also makes NO MENTION of the heat pollution involved with this technology, although he does mention that it produces a tremendous amount of heat, which he wants to use to power cars with boron (no mention of a mule team). And then he talks about reconverting old coal-fired plants into nuclear plants, of course assuming (there's that word again!) that there is enough cooling water at these sites and that the environmental impact will, of course, be acceptable.

Well, I got some ocean-front land on a tiny little South Pacific island that I'll sell you cheap, while it's still above water.

You are repeating the same myths and misinformation about nuclear energy that prevalant in popular culture and part of the people who are responsible for these deceptive myths are Amory Lovins, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the Council of Foreign Relations, and the fossil fuel industry.

If you have any actual science3 to back up your claims please post it. Everything I've read says you are wrong on what you say about nuclear energy. The only thing you didn't mention yet is transuranic elements.

Not to commit the fauz paus of using wikipedia but here it is and they do have sources quoted at the bottom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants

There are very high costs for building new nuclear plants, delays http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_28/b3992063.htm, shortages of components, shortages of expertise, etc. 

The price of Uranium is at $54 http://www.uxc.com/review/uxc_g_price.html and getting higher (it was at $20 in 2005), with old soviet missile Uranium accounting for 45% of current Uranium supplies and set to run out in 2015, plus the new plants that are coming online creating new demand and the lag time of 10 years to ramp up Uranium mining, and the fact speculators have bought several reserve stocks of Uranium.  We are very likely to see higher prices in the future. http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/19/markets/uranium/index.htm

Security and disposal, due to the unique nature of nuclear energy will always bring more costs then other energy sources. 

Insurance for nuclear plants are heavily subsidized by the Price-Anderson Act which offers a large protection by the federal government. 

Decommissioning of nuclear power plants are far more expensive then other power plant facilities.

Nuclear waste disposal will be an ongoing expense due to the longevity and dangerousness of the substances, unlike other energy sources. 

Again I think nuclear is coming and it should, but it is very costly to do it and until lenders and utility executives see it as profitable, and with future decreased use of coal they might, we shouldn't expect a revolution.  (Unless you get a IV generation commercial reactor to purr like a kitten for a good price.)  :)

Brooks so I guess India, China, France, findland, Japan, Russia, and other countries are so stupid and morons for pursuing and building the very nuclear plants and technology I mentioned right? Obviously they must be stupid but anti-nuclear groups in the US are oh so smart and the rest of the world is stupid. That's the only argument left because everything else has been successfully refuted.

Mr. "K.",

To focus on just one issue: the effects of dumping heated water into the environment is not a myth, and it is not misinformation. I have seen the results with my own eyes. I do not need anyone to point this out for me or to tell me what my eyes have seen (not you or your lists of talking heads, that's for sure). Here you go:

http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/licensedtokill/executivesummary.htm

http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/06/05/nuclear-power-plants-water-rights-threaten-endangered-species/

http://www.riverkeeper.org/campaign.php/hudson_fisheries/the_facts/178-hudson-river-power-plant-fish-

And if you want more "unbiased" data, here it is:

http://books.google.com/books?id=11LI7XyEIsAC&pg=PA358&lpg=PA358&dq=Heated+water+released+from+nuclear+power+plant&source=bl&ots=eZQ7WHEOum&sig=IAJjKNyzupTEhkCreW38v8vfJv0&hl=en&ei=l6ZJSueCPMaEtwfB3JGUBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8

The release of large amounts of heated water into waterways by nuclear power plants is a significant problem to the environment, no doubt about it.

There are limits to how many people can live on the earth. There are limits to how much garbage we can dump into the environment without destroying the ecosystems upon which life depends. There are limits to how much power we can generate without permanently damaging our environment. There are limits to growth. Mankind is approaching these limits. I believe we should proceed with caution. I am what was at one time called "conservative."

When I was a kid, we were told that the oceans would supply us with limitless food and were the key to conquering hunger in the world. (At current rates, the UN now predicts that ALL ocean fishing stocks will be depleted by 2050.) We were told that "the solution to pollution is dilution." We were told that nuclear energy would make electricity "too cheap to meter." We were told that the biggest problem in the 21st century would be what to do with all our leisure time. We were told that the insecticide DDT was perfectly safe. We were told a lot of stuff by all kinds of people, and here we are.

Just because any particular country does something, even a fine country like "findland," certainly doesn't make it the right thing to do. India was a 49% owner of the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal, China built the Three Gorges dam, Japan promotes whaling, and Russia blessed us with Chernobyl. And the French, bless their little hearts, still have a problem with nuclear waste: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.htm 

Do you really want to be in the business of deciding which country is smart and which is stupid?

The only person currently posting on this blog who believes that all the arguments against nuclear energy have been refuted appears to be you. Does that make us all stupid?

James Lovelock has a degree in medicine. He has been a supporter of nuclear energy since at least 1988. This is not peer-review, and adds little to the discussion.

It's an opinion by a prominent scientist who was against nuclear power but changed his mind. I didn't say the article is a peer reviewed scientific article.

Lovelock, for those who don't know, is one of the authors of the influential "Gaia theory," which posits that the Earth's surface systems function as a single living organism.  

(I think the value of the Gaia theory is that it fundamentally shift one's mechanistic perspectives of natural phenomena toward more holistic understanding of how they interconnect, and affect each other. But Lovelock was pretty literal about it, if I recall correctly.) 

In any case, Lovelock has strongly influenced ideas in the environmental movement. So his coming out in favor of nuclear was a pretty big deal in enviro-advocate circles.