Journalist Karel Beckman plaatste een uitgebreid verslag op Energypost.eu over het recente bezoek van Michael Shellenberger aan Amsterdam, waar hij het op opnam voor kernenergie.
An evening with ecomodernist Michael Shellenberger (or: a defence of nuclear power you have not heard before)
Pro-nuclear activist Michael Shellenberger, founder of the California-based global citizens movement Environmental Progress (“not paid by the nuclear industry“) was in Amsterdam recently, where he gave a very personal “Ecomodernist“defense of why nuclear power is good and how it should be supported. “It is about protecting the natural environment by concentrating human activity.“
Door: Karel Beckman
Few debates seem to be as deadlocked as that around nuclear power. The opponents insist it’s too dangerous even if it’s CO2-free, the defenders say its risks can be managed. The opponents also argue that nuclear power is too centralized and inflexible to function well in the flexible power system of the future. The defenders say it’s the unreliability of variable renewables that makes nuclear power the ideal CO2-free backstop.
Recently the opponents have been able to marshal another powerful argument: they point out that nuclear power has become too expensive compared to renewables to compete in the market. Even Nobuo Tanaka, former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and long-time nuclear advocate, recently admitted nuclear power is “ridiculously expensive“.