Nuclear Power Deemed the Greenest And Best Energy by Scientists

Nuclear power, one of the greenest and safest sources of energy, should be adopted to avoid impending energy crises, say conservation scientists, according to rt.com.

In an open letter that will soon be featured in the journal Conservation Biology, more than 65 biologists, including a chief scientist in the British government, were giving their support to nuclear power. They included Lord May of Oxford, a theoretical biologist at Oxford University, and Professor Tim Blackburn, a biodiversity expert at University College London.

Nuclear power is better than fossil fuels and could help to reduce the current change in the climate. They have also asked a green activist group to affirm that nuclear energy could be eco-friendly, and want to reassure them of its safety.

This energy source is also easily available. One lump of uranium, that is just as big as a golf ball, is enough to meet the needs of one person. It is like "56 tanker trucks of natural gas, 800 elephant-sized bags of coal or a renewable battery as tall as 16 "super" skyscraper buildings placed one on top of the other," according to The Independent.

"Much as leading climate scientists have recently advocated the development of safe, next-generation nuclear energy systems to combat climate change, we entreat the conservation and environmental community to weigh up the pros and cons of different energy sources using objective evidence and pragmatic trade-offs, rather than simply relying on idealistic perceptions of what is 'green,'" says the letter.

"Nuclear power - being far the most compact and energy-dense of sources - could also make a major, and perhaps leading, contribution ... It is time that conservationists make their voices heard in this policy area," it added.

Organized by two Australian scientists, Professor Barry Brook of the University of Tasmania, and Professor Corey Bradshaw of the University of Adelaide, both have jointly written a paper in Conservation Biology, pointing out that nuclear energy if globally implemented could be the safest and most cost-efficient energy source.

"Our main goal was to show - through careful, objective scientific analysis - that on the basis of cost, safety, emissions reduction, land use and pollution, nuclear power must be considered in the future energy mix," Bradshaw said.

There were many opponents to nuclear power, but those are due to unfounded stigmas, he said.

On the other hand, opponents to the concept of nuclear energy as well as the letter accused the writers of "overlooking fundamental literature" that is connected with nuclear science.

For instance, journalist and environmental science researcher Nafeez Ahmed said that the letter had ignored many negative fallouts of nuclear energy. Pointing out that most of the signatories were "conservation biologists, not energy scientists," he said that they were ignoring key literature that showed nuclear energy being implicated in emissions in a range of industries from mining to refining. Moreover, being so expensive, the nuclear source was highly "inefficient", he added.

Even though uranium is available, it is too expensive and tough to mine due to the scarcity of high-quality ores. In fact, the best alternatives are still solar and wind energy sources, due to enhancements in storage, reduced prices and improvements in efficiency.