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Debunking Anti-Nuclear Talking Points

By Eric McErlain
There are a pair of letters to the editor that appeared in today's edition of the Financial Times that offer good rejoinders to a number of standard anti-nuclear talking points.

The first comes from our friend Ian Hore-Lacy of the World Nuclear Association:
Nuclear energy's carbon output from the full fuel cycle is not a matter for conjecture; audited figures are published, and are very much the same as the best figures for renewables. In particular, they are typically about 2 per cent of what you would get from using coal, and if one goes to very low-grade uranium ores, that figure could rise to 3 per cent. Hardly a big deal, and it certainly shows that greenhouse-friendliness is significant.
For more on total lifecycle emissions, go into our archives for a review of the issue by David Bradish. Be aware that WNA maintains its own blog as well.

The second letter comes from FT reader Terence Price, and deals with the question of the uranium supply:
What is not always realised by those unfamiliar with the mining industry is that the published figures for "reserves" have no automatic relationship to the amount of material in the earth's crust. They simply describe the amount that has been identified from geological exploration, and could be mined commercially given the market price. If the price rises, this automatically increases the accessible "reserves". A senior geologist once told me: "Uranium is where you look for it". There is plenty in countries friendly to the UK - Canada, Australia and half a dozen others.
Our definitive post on this subject was contributed last Summer by Clifton Farrell. Give it another read.

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