GOING NUCLEAR (Founder of Greenpeace embraces nuclear power ~or~ Hell freezes Over!)

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.

An inescapable fact about the fuel cell car is that it's essentially an electric car with a battery that can be recharged, by filling it with hydrogen, as a conventional car can be refueled by filling it with gasoline. Hydrogen, however, is not a primary fuel--it has to be obtained by expending more energy than it will ultimately yield when consumed by a vehicle. The most efficient way to obtain hydrogen is by electrolyzing water, a process that would require vast amounts of electricity compared to the amount of electricity produced today, if all the other, major problems of hydrogen transport and use are solved. If that electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, there will be even more greenhouse gas emissions than there are now. Thus, significantly reducing our dependence on foreign oil by converting to hydrogen powered vehicles necessarily requires us to expand substantially our nuclear power industry, since nukes provide us with the only presently available, economically and technologically viable way to produce the hydrogen that would be needed to power fuel cell cars.

The most efficient way to obtain hydrogen is by electrolyzing water, a process that would require vast amounts of electricity compared to the amount of electricity produced today, if all the other, major problems of hydrogen transport and use are solved.

Actually, there are more efficient methods such as super-heating a hydrocarbon around a catalyst. Fuel cell reformers (which strip hydrogen from hydrocarbons) tend to do a decent job and don't use electrolysis.

The most important item about fuel cells is that they are more efficient than gasoline engines so they require a lot less hydrocarbon fuel. Theoretically you could just pull the hydrogen from the oceans via electrolysis, but this isn't very practical (for two reasons: 1) efficiency as described above, and 2) hydrogen gas does not have a very high energy density--i.e. you would need an enormous 'gas' tank or a cryogenic liquid hydrogen tank to be able to even drive 300 miles on one tank of 'gas'). Hydrocarbons will probably still be used and just be reformed in the car (stripped of hydrogen). But the high energy density octane mixtures that we refine out of crude oil will no longer be needed since we have massive methane reserves at the bottom of the oceans. If fuel cells become economical, they will grant us energy independence, but will probably not stop us from burning hydrocarbons (unless rabid environmentalists force us to take our hydrogen only via electrolysis powered by nuclear reactors).

Even some of the most entrenched environmentalists have reversed their position on nuclear energy. "My views have changed," wrote Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore in conjunction with Earth Day last week, "and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet... Every responsible environmentalist should support a move in that direction."

Sir......you are all of them!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.