Nuclear is Not the Solution

The climate crisis has inspired new hope in nuclear energy. Its advocates claim we already have the technology of the future, ready to be perfected and deployed. But as M. V. Ramana argues in this urgent and lucid book, such think­ing is not only naïve but dangerous.Beyond the horrific risk of severe accidents and the intrac­table problem of waste disposal, nuclear energy fails the two key tests for any climate solution: cost and time. More expensive than wind and solar, it is also far slower to bring online. A typical plant takes a decade to build; permitting and financing often add another. These are years we do not have.Nuclear Is Not the Solution dismantles the myth of cheap, clean atomic energy and exposes the vested interests that seek to profit from the technology while offloading its costs and risks onto the public.

M.V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India (Penguin Books, 2012) and co-editor of Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream (Orient Longman, 2003). Ramana is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, the Canadian Pugwash Group, the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group, and the team that produces the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Leo Szilard Award from the American Physical Society.