quotations about nuclear energy
Briefly put, my claim is that nuclear energy is still in several, although not all, respects an experimental technology and, so I will argue, recognizing the experimental nature would improve the moral debate about the desirability of nuclear energy. It would, in particular, allow us to better take into account and deal with the uncertainties, and sometimes even ignorance, that surrounds at least some aspects of nuclear energy.
IBO VAN DE POEL
"Morally experimenting with nuclear energy", The Ethics of Nuclear Energy
And lord, we're especially thankful for nuclear power, the cleanest safest energy source there is. Except for solar, which is just a pipe dream.
HOMER SIMPSON
"Bart Vs. Thanksgiving", The Simpsons
Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water.
ANONYMOUS
It may sound strange to call a technology with which there is more than fifty years of operating experience experimental. I admit that -- as regards the uncertainties and risks -- nuclear energy is less experimental than fifty years ago. We might be able to make much more reliable estimates of the probability of a core meltdown than fifty years ago. A lot has been learned from the incidents and accidents that have occurred with nuclear energy over the last decades. Nevertheless, in some other aspects, nuclear energy may still be called experimental. This first and foremost applies to the issue of nuclear waste. With currently available technologies, nuclear waste will remain radiotoxic for an estimated period between 10,000 and 200,000 years, depending on the exact nuclear fuel cycle employed. Measured on these time scales, the current experience with the storage and disposal of nuclear waste is negligible. Even after a hundred years, operating experience with for example geological disposal will still only amount to about 1 percent or less of the time that the waste remains radiotoxic. So, nuclear waste storage and disposal is still a quite experimental technology.
IBO VAN DE POEL
"Morally experimenting with nuclear energy", The Ethics of Nuclear Energy
Nuclear energy is incomparably greater than the molecular energy which we use today.... What is lacking is the match to set the bonfire alight.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Thoughts and Adventures
For 50 years, nuclear power stations have produced three products which only a lunatic could want: bomb-explosive plutonium, lethal radioactive waste and electricity so dear it has to be heavily subsidised. They leave to future generations the task, and most of the cost, of making safe sites that have been polluted half-way to eternity.
JAMES BUCHAN
attributed, Science, Risk, and Policy
At any point in time, energy policy has to build on the legacy of the energy policy conducted in the past, amounting to the present structure of energy production and consumption. Consequently, a country heavily invested in nuclear energy is constrained in two ways: first, there are considerable sunk costs (i.e. what has been invested so far might become a 'stranded investment' in case of radical policy change) and inevitable future costs (e.g. from the nuclear facilities' dismantling and permanent disposal) that in the case of rapid phasing out are not balanced by sufficient returns on investment. Thus, a sudden end to nuclear energy comes with a bundle of financial problems that need to be resolved in that case (boiling down to the 'who pays?' question).
WOLFGANG C. MULLER
The Politics of Nuclear Energy in Western Europe
The history of nuclear energy is filled with too many cases of human failure, and of human and environmental harm, to sustain such uncritical trust in expertise or faith in cornucopian progress.
JAMES W. FELDMAN
foreword, Nuclear Reactions: Documenting American Encounters with Nuclear Energy
Nuclear energy is at a crossroads. While some concerned about climate change urge a rapid expansion of nuclear power to facilitate a shift away from fossil fuels ... others argue for a decisive rejection of nuclear energy, especially in the wake of Fukushima and ongoing difficulties with the storage of long-lived nuclear waste (e.g. Yucca Mountain). Interestingly, much of the argument on both sides is overtly ethical, highlighting objections to the most vulnerable and to future generations.
STEPHEN M. GARDINER
"The need for public 'explosion' in the ethics of radiological protection, especially for nuclear power", The Ethics of Nuclear Energy
If nuclear power plants are safe, let the commercial insurance industry insure them. Until these most expert judges of risk are willing to gamble with their money, I'm not willing to gamble with the health and safety of my family.
DONNA REED
attributed, In Stitches: a patchwork of feminist humor and satire
Sleeping next to a woman presents a greater radioactive risk than camping beside a nuclear power station.
PILE BOTHA
attributed, The Book of Contemporary Quotes
Oh, meltdown. It's one of these annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested fission surplus.
MR. BURNS
"Homer Defined", The Simpsons
Nuclear energy and foreign policy cannot coexist on the planet. The more deep the secret, the greater the determination of every nation to discover and exploit it. Nuclear energy insists on global government, on law, on order, and on the willingness of the community to take the responsibility for the acts of the individual.
E. B. WHITE
The Wild Flag, August 19, 1945
The release of nuclear energy is an event comparable to the first fire kindled by prehistoric man -- though there is no modern Prometheus but teams of clever yet less heroic fellows, useless as inspiration for epic poetry.
MAX BORN
postscript, The Restless Universe
We should also challenge this country to come up with strategies and technologies that allow us to produce nuclear energy without necessarily producing a byproduct that can be converted to something far more dangerous. I believe that can be done. It may not be done tomorrow, but it clearly needs to be worked on.
TOM VILSACK
speech, October 12, 2006
Nuclear energy is by no means finished; it remains one of the great hopes of mankind, and in due course it will play a major role, perhaps the decisive role in providing the energy that the world needs so badly. But that goal will not be reached on the road that we are now traveling. We need to back away from our present nuclear state in order to find a better way, a route less hazardous to human health and to the peace of the world and its very survival.
DAVID LILIENTHAL
Atomic Energy: A New Start
All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.
RONALD REAGAN
Burlington Free Press, February 15, 1980
I dispute the point that nuclear energy is 'clean' and 'cost-effective'. As I recall, when we first harnessed nuclear power it was to drop an atom bomb on a civilian population, not to save the environment. However, you must admit, the victors are never tried for war crimes.
E. A. BUCCHIANERI
Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
Every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on clean renewable energy and one more dollar spent on making the world a comparatively dirtier and a more dangerous place, because nuclear power and nuclear weapons go hand in hand.
MARK Z. JACOBSON
"Nuclear Power Is Too Risky", CNN, February 22, 2010
Fission is a process of deadly fascination; had nature chosen her constants just a little differently, we should have been deprived of its potential for social good and spared its power for social evil. Despite the former and despite the undeniable fact that the latter is responsible for nuclear and particle physics being decades in advance of what would otherwise have been their time, I know what my own choice for the constants would have been.
DENYS WILKINSON
Comments on Nuclear and Particle Physics, 1968