The editorial concerning nuclear power (“Don’t rule out nuclear power in warming climate,” In Our View, April 4) as an option to reduce our overall carbon footprint totally glosses over the two main arguments against nuclear power as a technological solution for power generation. It is unsafe, as many of the well-known accidents (Chernobyl and Three Mile Island) demonstrate. But even if a smaller-scale plant would be less accident prone, there is still the literally never-ending problem of disposal of waste fuel rods. This problem never goes away and has never been solved, nationwide.
We should be putting our money into solar and wind, both of which lack the safety and waste problems of nuclear power. Solar also has the advantage that it can be deployed in a decentralized way, such as on the roofs of south- and west-facing houses. If every suitable roof in Vancouver had just a few solar panels on it, our dependence on externally generated sources of electricity (natural gas, or nuclear) would be greatly reduced. Moreover, the installation of such panels would create local jobs.
No more money should be spent on investigating nuclear power as an alternative when other safer technologies exist.
