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[Turtle]

Originally Posted by REASON

I hate to be a thorn, but I recently listened to an interview on Democracy Now! with Amory Lovins, ...

I listened to him on Charlie Rose last week; I think he makes good points against nuclear power. Here's some of that:

Originally Posted by Amory Lovins

AMORY LOVINS: Again, it’s renewables, other than big hydro, plus co-generating electricity and heat together, usually in industry.

In 2006, micropower, for the first time, produced more electricity worldwide than nuclear did. A sixth of the world’s electricity is now micropower, a third of the new electricity. In a dozen industrial countries, micropower makes anywhere from a sixth to over half of all the electricity elsewhere. This is not a fringe activity anymore.

China, which has the world’s most ambitious nuclear program, by the end of 2006 had seven times that much capacity in distributed renewables, and they were growing it seven times faster. Take a look at 2007, in which the US or Spain or China added more wind capacity than the world added nuclear capacity. The US added more wind capacity last year than we’ve added coal capacity in the past five years put together.

And renewables, other than big hydro, got last year $71 billion of private capital; nuclear, as usual, got zero. It is only bought by central planners with a draw on the public purse. What does this tell you? I mean, what part of the story does anybody who take markets seriously not get?

Democracy Now! | Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse


Good call Reasonator.