International Law

Jerome on Gas after Fukushima

By Karl-Friedrich Lenz

I have been reading “Jerome a Paris” at the Dailykos site for a long time. He does financing for wind energy for a living and knows a thing or two about the industry.

His latest diary talks about the idea that natural gas should take up the slack left by moving away from nuclear energy. He is not convinced, and neither am I.

In my humble opinion, coal is by far the worst choice. Gas is second.

There is a lot of noise right now about the terrible danger of spouting a bit of radioactive material. I have received multiple advice to evacuate from Japan. The German Embassy has relocated to Osaka right now.

One reason for this kind of panic is that nuclear plants can be designed to avoid all radiation emissions so any tiny amount is an accident.

If, as with the coal plants, nuclear plants where spouting nasty stuff all the time in the first place, everybody would be used to it. As everybody is used to the fact that coal is dirty.

I would like to see the same level of panic directed at the CO2 emissions that we see now with radioactive emissions. There is more reason to be afraid of the former than of the latter.

Full post as published by Lenz Blog on March 19, 2011 (boomark / email).