The Externalities of Nuclear Power: First, Assume We Have a Can Opener...

Ecology Law Currents, Vol. 35, p. 17, 2008

12 Pages Posted: 5 Dec 2009

Date Written: 2008

Abstract

The nuclear power industry has latched on to global warming as an argument for its renaissance. Although even industry proponents acknowledge that the problem of disposing of spent nuclear fuel remains unsolved, the industry routinely assumes this problem will be solved in the future. Unfortunately, this is the same assumption made by nuclear energy proponents at the beginning of the nuclear industry fifty years ago. We haven’t solved the nuclear waste problem in the past half century, and there is no reason to think we will be more likely to do so in the next one. Like the shipwrecked economist in the old joke, the nuclear industry continues to postulate that we should “assume we have a can opener” for the nuclear waste problem.

Suggested Citation

Coplan, Karl S., The Externalities of Nuclear Power: First, Assume We Have a Can Opener... (2008). Ecology Law Currents, Vol. 35, p. 17, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1517966

Karl S. Coplan (Contact Author)

Pace University School of Law ( email )

78 North Broadway
White Plains, NY 10603
United States
914 422 4343 (Phone)
914 422 4437 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
97
Abstract Views
777
Rank
489,057
PlumX Metrics