Who's Afraid of Nuclear Power

Script by Mark Hertsgaard
LinkTV, Sep 1, 2006

INTRO:

Welcome to Spotlight, Link TV's weekly series of investigative reports from around the world. I'm Mark Hertsgaard in San Francisco. This episode the spotlight is on nuclear power and global warming.

Global warming may be the best thing to happen to the nuclear industry in a long time.

The industry has been on its back for more than thirty years now. The last order for a new reactor in the United States was in 1974.

Five years later came a partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island. Seven years after that, a total meltdown at Chernobyl.

But economics remains the biggest shortcoming. Nuclear power plants take so long to build and cost so much that Wall Street turned its back on them twenty years ago.

Global warming fears haven't changed that, so far, but they have re-ignited interest in nuclear power, especially in some countries overseas, as you're about to see.

Here at Spotlight we're proud to present, from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the US premier of "Who's Afraid of Nuclear Power?" on Link TV, your connection to the world.

OUTRO:

You're watching Spotlight on Link TV. I'm Mark Hertsgaard.

The film you just saw assumes that, whatever its safety risks, nuclear power can fight global warming. But what if going nuclear actually makes global warming worse?

So says Amory Lovins, one of the world's leading energy economists. Set aside any safety and proliferation concerns, says Lovins, who consults for governments and corporations around the world.

Nuclear's key flaw is economic-nuclear power simply costs too much to compete with other options, especially energy efficiency.

Installing more efficient lights and appliances may not sound sexy, but energy efficiency has become the most powerful source of energy in the world.

How is that? Because using energy more efficiently means not having to produce extra energy in the first place.

What's more, improved efficiency is so much cheaper than nuclear power that it delivers two to ten times more greenhouse gas reductions per dollar invested.

In a world where private and government budgets are limited, diverting money from energy efficiency to nuclear power actually limits our ability to make greenhouse gas reductions.

Here at Spotlight we're proud to bring this film "Who's afraid of nuclear power?" to American audiences for the first time.

If you want to find out more about the nuclear power debate, you can check out the resources listed at the end of this program.

You can also find those resources at our website, www.linktv.org.

Following those listings you'll see a clip from next week's program. Until then, this is Mark Hertsgaard in San Francisco for Spotlight. Thanks for joining us.