Nuclear Power

Controversy Over Nuclear Power as a Renewable Energy Source

In 1983, physicist Bernard Cohen proposed that uranium is effectively inexhaustible, and could therefore be considered a renewable source of energy. He claimed that fast breeder reactors, fueled by uranium extracted from seawater, could supply energy at least as long as the sun's expected remaining lifespan of five billion years. Nuclear energy has also been referred to as "renewable" by the politicians George W. Bush, Charlie Crist, and David Sainsbury.

Inclusion under the "renewable energy" classification could render nuclear power projects eligible for development aid under various jurisdictions. However, it has not been established that nuclear energy is inexhaustible, and issues such as peak uranium and uranium depletion are ongoing debates. No legislative body has yet included nuclear energy under any legal definition of "renewable energy sources" for provision of development support (see: Renewable energy development). Similarly, statutory and scientific definitions of renewable energies usually exclude nuclear energy. Commonly sourced definitions of renewable energy sources often omit or explicitly exclude nuclear energy sources as examples.

There are also environmental concerns over nuclear power, including the dangerous environmental hazards of nuclear waste and concerns that development of new plants cannot happen quickly enough to reduce CO2 emissions, such that nuclear energy is neither efficient nor effective in cutting CO2 emissions.

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