The nuclear option: The case for using nuclear power to combat climate change

In December 2015, world leaders will gather in Paris to hammer out a global treaty designed to ratchet back emissions of CO₂ into the atmosphere caused by the burning of fossil fuels. I would urge each delegate, upon checking into his or her hotel room, to step out on to the balcony, take a deep breath, look out at the lights of nuclear-powered Paris and draw inspiration for what a clean energy future might look like. Thanks to France's decision to deploy nuclear power in a big way some 30 years ago, the country's electric grid is now almost entirely carbon free. What's even more remarkable is that the vast majority of that transition was carried out in just 11 years (1969–1980), using the technology of the time. France today enjoys almost zero air pollution from the production of electricity and the cheapest electricity rates in western Europe. Will the climate activists and delegates take heed of what France has accomplished and look to it as a precursor of what might be possible globally? Preliminary negotiations in Lima in late 2014 have taken nuclear energy off the agenda of the climate talks. The world's leading environmental groups, which are largely driving the agenda, posit that nuclear energy is an unnecessary distraction on the road to a renewable energy future. In making their case they argue that humanity can reduce overall energy demand while simultaneously providing adequate energy to the 3 billion people who currently live with little or no electricity at all, and take care of the additional 3 billion people to be born between now and 2050. They argue that we are on track to being able to replace the entire existing fossil fuel infrastructure, abandon nuclear energy altogether, and meet all the world's energy needs by using renewable energy alone. And we've barely begun to talk about the additional energy that will be required to electrify the world's transportation sector and meet the growing demand for energy-intensive water desalination.