MYTH#2Nuclear energy is clean The problem of radioactive nuclear waste disposal is simply unsolvable, leaving a mess for future generations. Besides, lax international rules allow all kinds of abuses. France’s La Hague plant uses a pipeline to discharge hundreds of millions of litres of liquid radioactive waste into the English Channel polluting seas flowing to the Arctic. As for global warming how many Indians know that no country, including France and Japan that get 75% and 40% of their electricity respectively from nuclear power, has seen a reduction of carbon emissions because these are also created by transport and industry. Without a revolution in conventional economic thinking and organization which rejects the high-energy intensive model of growth (that in the first place justifies constructing nuclear plants) we cannot overcome the global warming problem. Between 1965 and 1995 Japan obtained an extra 45,000 megawatts through nuclear plants but its annual carbon emissions went up from 400 million tonnes (1965) to 1200 million tonnes (1995). To make a significant difference we would need to build one plant a week for the next 50 years. Either way, this is impossible and would entail huge costs and create an even more difficult and dangerous waste disposal problem.
