Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, said that using more nuclear power plants to advance U.S. energy would be “inherently proliferation prone.” Patrick Moore, Co-Chairman of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and Co-Founder of Greenpeace, countered saying nuclear power was “one of the safest technologies ever invented” and “You’d have to take over the United States of America to steal this stuff.”

At a debate today, Moore claimed that nuclear energy is clean and does not emit greenhouse gases. He also stated that “nuclear waste” is 95 percent reusable which can lead to recycling potential energy. He remarked that nuclear energy is the only type of alternative power that can “effectively replace fossil fuels.” Makhijani believed that using other forms of energy like wind and solar would allow the U.S. to be free of energy carbon emissions in 40 years.

Moore said that wind and solar energy are “inherently intermittent” and these types of energy can disappear “three or four days at a time” while nuclear energy is “reliable.” Makhijani stated he would rectify this problem by allowing for “some storage” of these types of energy so people could use it whenever they wanted. Makhijani also questioned Moore’s statements about power and cleanliness of nuclear power saying that if they were true, Wall Street “would be lining up” to build nuclear power plants. Makhijani joked that Wall Street thought it was okay to give out subprime mortgages, but they felt nuclear power was “too risky.”

Makhijani felt that using wind energy would be cheaper than nuclear energy, and one must take that into account in this economic crisis. He also said that the U.S. has the capacity to do it within its borders. Moore submitted that it would cost more presently but nuclear power eventually “pays for itself” and Moore added that solar energy presently would cost five times what nuclear energy costs.