What nuclear power can contribute

The big tasks of mankind are: Development, protection of the environment, peace, and saving of resources on behalf of coming generations. Poverty exerts the greatest stress upon nature, development and protection of the environment are therefore not contradictory. Mankind has enough energy and mineral resources (sources), enough technology to limit detrimental effluents (taking care of sinks), and enough capital to bring about well-being for all mankind. Well-being decelerates population growth; in this way a stable coexistence of man and nature can be achieved. To this goal, nuclear energy can contribute significantly. Even at a considerably higher level of exploitation, it would last for several 100 000 years. Nuclear energy can supply every kind of energy required and, jointly with higher efficiency, it can do so at low cost; as to that, nuclear energy is superior to renewable energies in most cases. Also, nuclear energy can be deployed quickly enough. At the present safety level (including fuel cycle) the risks of deploying nuclear energy are smaller than the risks of non-deployment, by several orders of magnitude, both with respect to risk magnitude and probability. The material basis for a sustainable well-being of man and nature on this earth does exist. To-day's prime issue is to remove mental road blocks. (orig.)