The environmentalist who went nuclear: why Greenpeace founder and activist Patrick Moore thinks the atom is the answer

Chief Executive, The, Sept, 2007

When Canadian-born Patrick Moore began his career more than 30 years ago as an environmental activist and founder of Greenpeace, he was appalled by all things nuclear. In 2000, British ecologist James Lovelock, best known for the Gaia hypothesis that holds that living and nonliving parts of the Earth are viewed as a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism, convinced him that if one is truly serious about reducing carbon greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, widely believed to cause global warming, one had to support nuclear energy--a power source that is carbon-free.

Moore now serves as chairman and chief scientist for Greenspirit Strategies Ltd., a Vancouver consulting firm that develops strategic planning for sustainability issues and works with such groups as the U.S. Green Building Council and the World Wildlife Fund. He also co-chairs--along with former EPA administrator and New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman--the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, an advocacy group of conservationists, academics, labor and business groups, and environmentalists who believe greater use of nuclear energy is critical to a U.S. energy policy. Moore spoke with CE's J.P. Donlon on why a once rabid anti-nuke went atomic--and why anyone who is serious about global climate change should also.

Given that you are a co-founder of Greenpeace, what was your epiphany in becoming a proponent of nuclear energy?

James Lovelock, a British scientist and father of the Gaia hypothesis, and an icon to the environmental movement, had always argued that nuclear power should have an important role in changing fossil fuel consumption. At the time, many of us thought he was a bit of a crank on that topic, but he was highly respected for his thoughts on life on Earth and atmospheric chemistry. When I visited him in 2000, he convinced me to change my opinion, which had become very entrenched. Since the '70s, many of us were focused on stopping nuclear holocaust and protesting against nuclear weapons.

In retrospect, we mistakenly lumped nuclear weapons with nuclear energy as if they were all part of the same holocaust. Today, that would be as foolish as banning nuclear medicine. Every technology has beneficial uses as well as destructive and even evil uses. An airplane can fly one to a meeting on world peace or it can drop a hydrogen bomb. In our anti-nuclear revolutionary zeal, we got it muddled. In the early Greenpeace days, this is one big area where I think we were very wrong.

How do former Greenpeace colleagues regard your apostasy?

With considerable disdain. They seem to be stuck in the '70s and unable to recognize the important role that nuclear energy can play in reducing fossil fuel consumption. It's quite ironic that the very people who are most concerned about climate change are generally the same ones who are against the solution that, from a technical point of view, is straightforward. Both hydroelectric and nuclear power are the only other base load power technologies apart from fossil fuels that can provide continuous electricity into the grid. That's it. No other large-scale technologies can provide continuous energy. Wind and solar are both intermittent, unreliable energy sources that cannot form the base load in a power grid.

What is your view of renewables?

Renewables are great except when they are far too expensive, like solar panels. Solar panels only make sense off the grid. My house in Mexico is powered by solar, which is off the grid. The cost is five to ten times what you pay for electricity depending upon where you live, which is why it doesn't make sense to put solar on the grid.

Biomass energy is also very important, particularly if we can succeed in developing cellulosic ethanol technology to where it's cost-effective. Considering the huge amount of feedstock there is in agricultural waste and forestry waste, its use should relieve pressure on other sources, such as starch from sugar cane and corn, which is already being stretched to the limit and pressuring food prices.

With respect to nuclear energy, how should we deal with political risk?

In the U.S., political risk is not a problem because 70 percent of the public supports nuclear. Eighty percent of the people who live near nuclear plants support nuclear because they have lived there for a while and they know the nuclear plant is good for their community. There are 64 nuclear sites in the U.S., most with one or two reactors on them, yet they were designed in some cases for up to eight reactors to be on the site. So it's possible to double capacity without even having any new nuclear sites.

Canada has also made the decision to move forward with new nuclear. Russia just announced it will build 50 nuclear plants. I don't see political backlash as an obstacle. Germany is a different story. It is the bull's-eye of anti-nuclear sentiment in the world. Compare France and Germany side by side. They share a common border. They've known each other for hundreds of years. France depends on nuclear for 80 percent of its power with hydro supplying another 10 percent--so almost no carbon emissions from their electricity sector. They have the second lowest per capita C[O.sub.2] emissions in Western Europe, Sweden being the lowest with 50 percent hydro and 50 percent nuclear.