From No Nukes to Pro Nukes

Former Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore has changed his position on nuclear power since he was part of the original "no nukes" movement in the 1970s. Moore is the author of the book, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist. In this interview, he explains why he believes the U.S. can't afford to lose nuclear power and why he believes its dangers are overstated.

Moore says the nation gets 20 percent of is baseload electricity form nuclear power, and it would be impossible to just drop that source from the energy mix without blackouts or the inability to supply the nation's daily needs. The alternative would be a switch to 100 percent fossil fuels, which would mean an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Moore says that's much more dangerous than the threat of a nuclear accident.

Of the three nuclear accidents that have occurred to date -- Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi, Moore says only one has caused a loss of life. He goes on to say that coal mining, and breathing fumes from coal-fired power plants are hundreds of times more deadly than that one nuclear accident. He says the other major energy sectors have deadly accidents all the time, but not the nuclear industry.

Moore also says the nuclear renaissance is alive and well in the United States, with two units at the Vogtle plant in Georgia getting permits from the NRC. China is building 20 nuclear plants, and 65 are under construction worldwide.

Moore believes the environmental movement made a mistake 40 years ago by lumping nuclear energy in with nuclear weapons as a threat to human life. He says had that mistake not been made, there would be many more nuclear plants in the United States today. If construction of nuclear plants had continued at its 1970s and 80s rate of about 40 per year, the U.S. would have nearly double the number of plants it has today, producing 45 to 50 percent of the nation's electricity. He says that would have met much lower greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and danger to human life.