Stanford Audience Unmoved by an Informed Debate Over the Need for a Nuclear Renaissance

Earlier this week, I discussed several encouraging aspects of a big intergovernmental meeting on clean energy that was held earlier this week in San Francisco. But I lamented that the agenda lacked any discussion of the role of nuclear energy in moving beyond fossil fuels in this century. (Keep in mind that even if you hate existing or planned nuclear plants, this energy source is still advancing in many countries, so discussing issues related to safety and security, as well as cost, would seem wise.)

Happily, Stanford University’s Precourt Energy Efficiency Center* filled in the Bay Area energy gap on Friday with a Silicon Valley Energy Summit, centered on a rousing and informed debate over this proposition: “The World Needs a Nuclear Renaissance.” Even better, for folks who were not there (like me) it was streamed live and archived on YouTube: 

Those speaking for the proposition were two Nobel laureates in physics, the former energy secretary Steven Chu, now a Stanford professor, and Burton Richter, emeritus director of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and author of a book on energy that I covered here quite awhile ago. Those against were no slouches: Ralph Cavanagh, senior attorney and co-director of the energy program at Natural Resources Defense Council, and Daniel Kammen, the director of the Renewable & Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley (who is also deeply involved in assessing nuclear technologies).

I hope you’ll watch and weigh in. Everyone made solid points because, as is so often the case, there is no single answer.

At the end, the skilled moderator, Jeffrey Ball, a former Wall Street Journal energy reporter who now lectures at Stanford, queried the audience to see which argument prevailed.

Nine people said they swayed in one direction. Eight were swayed the other. I’ll let you watch to figure out which side won, if you care. This result was clearly within the margin of error, and the unswayed majority demonstrates how positions on this issue, particularly among those most engaged, are deeply rooted and not open to suasion. Read Spencer Weart’s essential book, “The Rise of Nuclear Fear,” for more.

It’s valuable to have civil, informed discourse on contentious issues in which feelings, so often, get in the way of facts. I still long for a different format, in which stakeholders and experts on a tough issue seek “room for agreement” after clarifying their differences.

Just as a reminder, I was involved in a similar, but more informal, debate on nuclear energy last year in New York City, organized by  Columbia University’s Coalition on Sustainable Development around a screening of the pro-nuclear documentary “Pandora’s Promise.” I was the moderator. The discussants were the Robert Stone, the film’s director, Bill Nye, “the Science Guy,” and Gernot Wagner, an environmental economist who co-wrote the excellent book “ Climate Shock.”

Postscript | Belatedly, I’m hoping to draw your attention to an excellent short New Yorker article titled, “How Not to Debate Nuclear Energy and Climate Change,” by Michael Specter.