NUCLEAR ENERGY, ‘GREEN’ ENERGY? EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT MOCKED FOR GOING NUKE

The proposal advanced by the European Parliament last week that categorizes nuclear energy and gas as climate-friendly investments in hopes to spur private funding in the technology.

The European Commission passed the proposal after tense debate among various countries in the EU. The Financial Times pointed out that France, for example, is bullish on nuclear power while Berlin is bearish, and has been turning to other energy sources. 

The designation will enable these projects to benefit from government subsidies and loans. 

The EU aims to be considered climate neutral by 2050, but the Ukraine War has thrown a wrench in those plans. Mother Jones pointed out that the “green” designation for gas and nuclear would be a “gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Bas Eickhout, the vice-president of the European parliament’s environment committee, called the vote a “dark day for the climate and energy transition,” the report said. 

The magazine also pointed to Svitlana Krakovska, a Ukrainian climate scientist, who said she was in “shock” after the vote.

“Russia’s war against Ukraine is a war paid for by climate-heating fossil fuels and the European parliament just voted to boost billions of funding to fossil gas from Russia,” she said. “How in the world is that in line with Europe’s stance to protect our planet and stand with Ukraine?”

The argument that nuclear energy is “green” is hung on the fact that it does not produce carbon dioxide emissions while natural gas emits about 58 percent as much carbon dioxide as coal, the U.S. Energy Information Association said.

The Trends Journal has reported extensively on nuclear power’s popularity in Europe. (See “ENERGY INFLATION AND GREEN ENERGY TYCOONS,” “RADIOACTIVE NUCLEAR WASTE, FUKUSHIMA, CHERNOBYL GOOD. COAL BAD,” “FRANCE EARMARKS BILLIONS FOR NUCLEAR AND ‘GREEN’ ENERGY; INVESTORS BULLISH ON URANIUM” and “FRANCE GOING NUKE TO COUNTER CLIMATE CHANGE.”)

France, for example, has about 1,200 producers of radioactive waste. About 90 percent of the waste is considered short-lived, but 10 percent is highly radioactive and its half-life can extend tens of thousands of years.

The European Environmental Bureau, an environmental lobby group, issued a statement in response to the vote that said billions of euros will now be “diverted into polluting energy sources that are far from being harmless and temporary, at the expense of energy efficiency and renewables.”

John Sterman, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan Sustainability Initiative, called the move an “extreme bald-face attempt to greenwash,” according to TweakTown.  

He said the plan included stipulations that natural gas projects will only be considered “green” if they can convert to renewable sources by 2035. He said these plants will “be producing significant greenhouse gasses, and worsening climate change.”

TREND FORECAST: Science has become completely politicized and “fact” seems to depend on who you’re asking and who would benefit. As we have forecast, it will be a long haul before the world goes “Green.” 

There will not be a fast move to alternative energies until new ones that are affordable, efficient and truly “sustainable,” are invented. 

And as for nuclear energy as an energy of the future, please see:

• “RADIOACTIVE NUCLEAR WASTE, FUKUSHIMA, CHERNOBYL GOOD. COAL BAD”
• “A NEW PATH TO CLEAN NUCLEAR ENERGY”
• “FRANCE EARMARKS BILLIONS FOR NUCLEAR AND ‘GREEN’ ENERGY; INVESTORS BULLISH ON URANIUM.”