Climate Gamble

Humankind has won many great victories in the fight against climate change. However, these victories are rarely acknowledged or reported. Is this because they were won with nuclear power?

Preventing dangerous climate change requires world energy production to be almost completely free from fossil fuels by 2050. At the same time, energy consumption keeps growing, as the population increases and those mired in poverty try to create better lives for themselves. With almost 87 percent of our energy produced with fossil fuels, the challenge is unprecedented in both its scale and urgency. International organizations agree that meeting this challenge will require the use of all the tools at our disposal: Renewable energy, more energy conservation and better efficiency, carbon capture and storage – and nuclear power.

At the same time, the global environment and energy discussion is largely dominated by a vocal opinion that climate challenge and global poverty should be conquered with nothing else than renewables, energy conservation and energy efficiency. This book explains how this opinion is largely based on very selective reading of relevant studies and reports, wishful thinking about the powers of technological miracles, and even straight-out falsification of statistics and misrepresentation of facts. Does the anti-nuclear movement really help to give people objective, relevant information they need to make up their minds about zero-carbon energy production, the scale of the challenge, and in particular the up- and downsides of nuclear power? Or are they just spreading fear and uncertainty, while making a huge gamble with the climate, potentially endangering both human civilization and the Earth’s ecosystems?