As the sun shone on millions of solar panels and unseasonable gusts turned thousands of turbine blades last Sunday, something remarkable happened to Britain’s power grid.
For a brief period, a record 70% of the electricity for the UK’s homes and businesses was low-carbon, as nuclear, solar and wind crowded out coal and even gas power stations. That afternoon was a glimpse into the future, of how energy provision will look in 13 years’ time because of binding carbon targets.
– The Guardian, Record levels of green energy in UK create strange new world for generators (my emphasis)
I find it strange and disorienting when people talk about nuclear (fission) energy as “green”.
It may be that the immediate emissions are minimal. But in the bigger picture, there is a great deal of very dangerous and difficult pollution that’s created. And even worse, this is pollution that’s passed on to a great number of future generations that didn’t agree to it, don’t have a voice in the matter, and don’t even benefit from it.
So is fission energy “green”? Only from the most narrow minded perspective. Taking the full picture into account, it certainly is not.
Fusion energy is more clean so that’s a bit different, but that’s still in the future.