Nuclear Energy Cheat Sheet

Nuclear reactors around the world. Source.

We have linked to articles about nuclear energy before, but this one is more like a cheat sheet for a yes opinion on the option than earlier articles we have read:

Why Nuclear Is the Best Energy

This article will convince you of that nuclear is the best source of energy.1 Don’t read it if you need your mind to remain anti-nuclear. If you are against nuclear, I recommend you to precisely write down your concerns and what it would take for you to be convinced that nuclear is great, otherwise you might move the goalposts subconsciously. 

To do justice to the topic, the article had to cover all the important aspects of nuclear energy, and as a result is long. I chose to publish it in one piece despite that so all the relevant information is in one place, and I can update it over time and you can bookmark, reference, and share it. Continue reading

Look At the Germans

Wind turbines surround a coal-fired power plant near Garzweiler in western Germany. Renewables now generate 27 percent of the country’s electricity, up from 9 percent a decade ago. PHOTO: Nat Geo

Wind turbines surround a coal-fired power plant near Garzweiler in western Germany. Renewables now generate 27 percent of the country’s electricity, up from 9 percent a decade ago. PHOTO: Nat Geo

Germany has been one of the few countries that have successfully moved away from nuclear energy. Germany has so far successfully shut down its nine units that had the capacity of generating enough power for at least 20 million homes in Europe. In fact, the contribution of nuclear power in Germany’s electricity generation has now fallen to just 16 percent and renewables are now the preferred source of electricity generation in the country.

Germany is pioneering an epochal transformation it calls the energiewende—an energy revolution that scientists say all nations must one day complete if a climate disaster is to be averted. Last year about 27 percent of its electricity came from renewable sources such as wind and solar power, three times what it got a decade ago and more than twice what the United States gets today. The change accelerated after the 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, which led Chancellor Angela Merkel to declare that Germany would shut all 17 of its own reactors by 2022.

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