Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: New magnetic fusion technology could be ready in 5 years [View all]hunter
(38,264 posts)I think the difficulty of fusion is as is said, "God protecting fools and children."
Given that kind of power our current civilization would simply eat the earth.
It is better we humans learn to live in harmony with the natural environment now, rather than later.
I think this is the most valid reason for opposing nuclear power too. Safety-wise, even with accidents at obsolete plants like Chernobyl or Fukushima, nuclear power is still less deadly than fossil fuels.
I've no doubt that nuclear power could be cheap and fairly safe; that we could all be driving our lovely electric cars with minimal pollution, that we could supply great urban areas in dry climates with desalinated water too, and run great aqueducts everywhere.
But an entire planet covered with suburbs, strip mines, and "factory farms," with a few parks and huge cities in between, with every able adult working a "productive" forty plus hour work week, the oceans swarming with bulk ore carriers and container ships, and the skies full of airliners and freight planes, no, bloody hell no, that is NOT my vision of utopia. (I don't want the desert wilderness covered with solar power plants either.)
My utopia is a low-energy post-consumerist society with a population of maybe a billion or less living very gently upon the land with plenty of room for all the diverse species that survive this current global man-made environmental catastrophe.