MichaelShellenberger

That it's a literally one of the safest things humans do. It's not just the safest way to make reliable power. It's just one of the safest things in general that we do.

Multiple a ha moments — in fact, I keep having them.

Stewart Brand and Michael Lind pressed on me privately to rethink nuclear.

In 2007 we wrote we might need to consider nuclear.

We included nuclear innovation as one of many things needed for climate in 2009.

But the more I learned about energy and its role in human development the more I understood why reliable and cheap electricity was key and in that department there's only two low-carbon options: hydro and nuclear.

That Governor Jerry Brown was almost certainly behind it. I haven't met a single person who thinks that the President of the PUC would have — on his own — dictated San Onofre settlement terms to Southern California Edison without Brown having approved it and perhaps put him up to it in advance. Brown gets involved in all sorts of far smaller contracts. Inconceivable that Peevey would have kept him out of the loop.

What that means is that Brown has personally and through his people killed more nuclear power plants than any other individual in the world. Had Brown and his guys not killed nuclear plants — some built, some well-along in their planning — California would be 77 percent clean power today instead of 58.

The idealistic nuclear visionaries of the fifties and sixties didn't know how to deal with the anti-nuclear zealots of the seventies and eighties, who didn't hesitate to lie and attack them personally. The response from the industry was to retreat into a kind of defensive crouch.

As usual, positive change is coming from younger folks who got concerned about global warming, figured out nuclear was the most important technology for addressing it, and became nuclear engineers.

Yes, we address directly all of the most commonly repeated myths about nuclear energy on our web site, and continue to update it in response to queries.

We also provide graphs from reputable sources like IPCC and Lancet that you can download or screenshot to upload as comments on social media.

http://www.environmentalprogress.org/key-questions/