To bring global warming under control we must reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide by 60-80%, moving away from the burning of fossil fuels to less polluting practices and technologies such as wind and solar power, biomass fuel, co-generation of heat and power, and energy conservation and efficiency. According to Dr. James Hansen, the nation's chief climate scientist, the switch from carbon-emitting fuels must begin immediately to avoid catastrophic climate change and rapid sea-level rise. Green alternatives to fossil fuels may satisfy our energy needs as suggested by a Princeton University study by S. Pacala and R. Socolo even without additional nuclear power, plagued by high construction costs, weapons proliferation and waste storage problems, and environmental degradation. Is nuclear power "safe and clean" as the nuclear industry and the current Administration claim or do its drawbacks make it unsuitable in the fight against global warming? Here are the issues:

High Cost of Nuclear Energy
Unable to compete with other forms of energy production because of the high construction costs, no new nuclear power plant has been ordered and built in the United States in more than 30 years despite the large government subsidies of $77 billion dollars, government protection in case of nuclear accidents, and government-sponsored disposal of hazardous nuclear wastes. Subsidies of new nuclear power plants will not control global warming, make energy less expensive, or provide for more energy in the future according to a 2005 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Subsidies will, however, take funds away from safer, cleaner, and more efficient and resilient renewable energy development.

Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
Nuclear power plants can provide through their waste fuel the feed stock for making nuclear weapons and explosives. Nuclear explosives can be made with 1-3 kg of plutonium or 5-10 kg of highly enriched uranium. Uranium enrichment plants, now numbering eleven globally, should be tightly controlled by international agreement, but are not. Plants that reprocess nuclear fuel to recover plutonium such as those now operating in the United Kingdom, Japan, and France increase the risk of weapons proliferation due to the difficulty in accounting for the recovered material. India, refusing to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, provides an example of the expeditious route to weapons production through its commercial nuclear power program.

Nuclear Plant Safety
Although no meltdown of a nuclear reactor has occurred since Three Mile Island in 1979, near accidents such as the boric acid hole found in the Oak Harbor, Ohio, plant in 2002 make it evident that serious radioactive poisoning is always a possibility. Despite assurances to the contrary, successful terrorist assault against the most vulnerable of our nation's 104 commercial reactors could result in the release of radioactivity.

Environmental Degradation
Uranium mining and milling have degraded and polluted large areas of the western United States through open-pit mining and solution mining resulting in enormous volumes of radioactive wastes and contaminated aquifers. Carbon dioxide is released in the mining, milling, transportation of uranium ore and in the construction of nuclear power plants. The uranium enrichment process even with the newer gas centrifuges will result in tens of thousands of tons of depleted uranium. The most difficult problem is in disposing of the highly radioactive spent fuel rods, some 40,000 tons now awaiting disposition. The Yucca Mountain underground site for spent fuel rods, that will be radioactive for tens of thousands of years, may be inadequate in containing the underground leakage of radioactive materials into the water table once the canisters have corroded in the far distant future. The safe storage of nuclear waste in the United States has not been resolved.

Nuclear power has too many serious drawbacks to fight global warming on a massive scale. Nuclear power has security and safety problems, weapons proliferation dangers, waste disposal dilemmas, environmental threats, and the high costs of plant construction.