Sometime back I wrote a piece on the reasons why nuclear energy is not a very good solution to our energy woes, though I do include the fact that keeping existing nuke plants going makes some sense.

Oil and coal industries are doing their best to deny global warming altogether. The nuke inudstry is taking another approach. They are embracing global warming completely...and claiming that ONLY nuclear power can save us. I was open to this, but skeptical, particularly since their claims tended to be way overblown. And, as I outlined in the article linked to above, nuke plants cannot even begin to be part of the solution, beyond what we already have, for another 5-10 or MORE years because that is how long it takes to build a new plant. We need faster solutions.

But now a new report has come out that shows that nuclear energy is just plain too expensive to be a vaible option. Again, existing plants are probably needed, but new plants just aren't worth it. I suggested that in the article above, and was slammed for it. But seems I was indeed right:
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Sometimes when I set out to review a book, certain parts of the book inspire me to write before I am even ready to review it. I made many references to parts of what I was reading in John and Teresa Heinz Kerry's book, This Moment on Earth, before I reviewed it, for example.

Right now I am finishing up the latest book on Global Warming, titled...well, Global Warming: The Last Chance for Change, by Paul Brown, a long-time correspondent for The Guardian. I will review this book soon. It is excellent, far better than my initial expectations of it. Simply put, it is the most comprehensive and thorough discussion of the issue to date. A must read even for skeptics because if they can't address what is in this book then they have no right to be skeptics. But more on that in a later diary someday soon.

Right now I want to focus on a single chapter of this book: Chapter 13 discussing Nuclear Energy.

I have written about the issue of Nuke Enegery as it applies to Global Warming before. I have been swarmed by Nuke industry advocates, both reasonable and irrational, and discussed it at length. We had some Nuke Advocates of the more or less reasonable end on Culture Kitchen for awhile. But the arguements put forward by the nuke advocates alwasy struck me as too one-sided and too dismissive of any other opinion.
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