And then, of course, there is the intractable nuclear waste issue.  A few countries are still planning to develop permanent underground repositories, such as Canada and Sweden, and likely China. But there is a  growing reluctance in other quarters to pursue the permanent underground nuclear waste burial option.

Aside from the fact that the underground burial option is certainly no solution to the waste problem and should not be pursued, the act of challenging and thus slowing the development of nuclear waste repositories has helped to “buy time,” for the expansion of green energy and conservation technology.

Renewable green energy may only be providing a small percentage of the world’s energy now, but the tipping point is great news for all of us who have worked so long to bring about a “paradigm shift” away from nuclear energy and fossil fuel toward a sustainable alternative clean energy future and a much safer and healthier planet.

Walt Robbins

August, 2010

TIPPING POINT

The beginning of the end of nuclear power

The world’s powerful nuclear establishment took a big public relations hit in July, 2010.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Energy Agency-backed Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) project, declared that, for the second year in a row,  the quantity of  “newly installed capacity” of  renewable energy in Europe and the U.S. outpaced that for fossil fuels and nuclear. The report suggests the same outcome is likely on a global basis by next year.

As reported in the July 15, 2010 Report on Business section of the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper, the report stated that green energy has “reached a clear tipping point” as the main kind of new electricity supply.

Green energy includes such sources as wind power, solar energy, biomass, geothermal, hydro power, ocean wave and tidal power.  Also, energy conservation technology could be considered a major form of green energy.

Of course, it will be many years  before the tipping point becomes an overwhelming reality.  But the trend is quite clear. A comprehensive system of green energy and conservation alternatives is rapidly developing around the world.

Some countries continue to plan for more nuclear energy projects, e.g., China and Russia and even the U.S.  But it can take a decade or more to build nuclear plants, whereas many green energy and conservation projects can be completed in a much shorter period of that time.  Also, it is likely that countries now planning more nuclear energy will be unable to proceed with many of  their projects for financial, design and safety reasons.

There are many downsides to nuclear power generation.  To mention a few, it requires fabrication processes which cause noxious emissions and greenhouse gasses, uses non-renewable and ever more costly uranium deposits with increasing amounts of energy inputs, emits radioactive tritium into the air and water, requires massive public loans and subsidies, contributing greatly to the national debt, is the basis for nuclear weapons proliferation, and a desirable target for terrorism. It is a technology that must have an impossible-to-achieve perfect record of zero tolerance for accidents over an entire reactor life cycle, as there is no safe level of ionizing radiation.

Furthermore, some observers point out that , in the unlikely event that all planned nuclear reactors are finally built, they would contribute little or nothing to global energy supply or to the mitigation of any possible adverse effects of climate change, since they will largely be replacing old decommissioned reactors.

Grandfolkies dedicates this saga to the well being of future generations

Volume One -

1980-1984-

Originally published in paperback as "Getting

The Shaft, The Radioactive Waste Controversy in Manitoba."

Volume Two -

update: 1984-1988-

The growing prospect of nuclear waste dumps on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border intensifies the controversy

Volume Three -

update:1988-1998

Federal Environmental Panel concludes that Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s permanent underground nuclear waste burial concept lacks public acceptability.

Volume Four -

update:1998-2008

Mixed Oxide plutonium transport and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization and

nuclear waste issue grinds on

Nuclear Waste Saga

Spring-Summer 2012