Paris Fails to Revive the Nuclear Dream
In Paris, in early December, the advocates of nuclear power made yet another appeal to world leaders to adopt their technology as central to saving the planet from dangerous climate change.
Yet analysis of the plans of 195 governments that signed up to the Paris agreement, each with their own individual schemes on how to reduce national carbon emissions, show that nearly all of them exclude nuclear power.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/31/paris-fails-nuclear-dream/
The bottom line as Hansen keeps pointing out is CO2 emissions from fossil fuel generation, particularly coal must be reduced to near zero by mid-century or just after if we are to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming.
History tells us that the most significant emissions reductions have been achieved using nuclear power as demonstrated by France which in just 20 years replaced nearly all its fossil fuel electricity generation.
http://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/chiffres-cles-enHistory also shows that no country has achieved the same scale of reductions using renewables, energy efficiency measures or fossil carbon capture and storage as indicated by most COP21 plans.
If we are serious about CO2 mitigation we must use every technology available to achieve the emission reductions required.
In my country, Australia both major political parties just use climate change and carbon mitigation issues for short term political gain while maintaining the status quo. Until there is bipartisan agreement like the UK we will make no progress on emissions reduction.
The UK Climate Change Act established the world’s first legally binding climate change target. It aims to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% (from the 1990 baseline) by 2050.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2010-to-2015-government-policy-greenhouse-gas-emissions/2010-to-2015-government-policy-greenhouse-gas-emissions.This Act and the subsequent Carbon Plan, based on science not ideology has the support of the three major political parties in the UK.
The Carbon Plan can be found at;
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/47621/1358-the-carbon-plan.pdfA government video (unfortunately poor quality) detailing the Carbon Plan progress and future emission reduction goals can be found at;
http://www.iema.net/event-reports/uk-carbon-plan-deccThe Carbon Plan uses every CO2 mitigation strategy that is available and if every global major economy had a similar plan, there would be real hope that emissions could be reduced sufficiently to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Note that Professor David McKay (I am not anti renewables, I am pro arithmetic, plans must add up!) had a big input into this Carbon Plan.