Amory Lovins is the granddaddy of renewable energy. During the 1973 energy crisis, he started advocating ‘soft energy paths.’ Soft energy sources are solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy sources. And Lovins focuses on micropower — essentially community energy to cut down on electricity wasted in transit. He simply isn’t a fan of big power plants.

So it comes as no surprise that he has an article in Newsweek about energy — nuclear power in particular. In “Missing the Market Meltdown,” Lovins' agenda is to shoot down recent claims that nuclear energy is experiencing a revival, of sorts. And his arguments are solid.

• $71 billion in private capital for renewable energy last year and none for nuclear
• Rising nuclear fuel costs
• Distance that nuclear plants must be placed from populations, and the resulting grid costs
• 21 percent of nuclear plants are simply abandoned as failures

But I can’t help thinking that Lovins is a little too broad in his dismissal of nuclear energy. There is no question that renewable energy sources are ideal for a wide variety of situations, but there are some levels of energy use that continue to remain outside the reach of renewable energy sources. We simply can’t convert over to renewable energy fast enough to eliminate the need for big power plants. Despite that $71 billion in renewable investments that Lovins cites, renewable energy represents just 5 percent of global power capacity. According to the UN Energy Program’s 2007 Global Power Report, the world’s renewable energy capability is growing by leaps and bounds — wind power by 28 percent, for example. But there is still a huge need for power that renewable sources haven’t caught up with and will continue to be filled by power plants for years to come. Nuclear energy happens to be a bit more ideal for filling that big power plant need than a coal-burning facility spewing carbon emissions into the air.

I would love to see a solar panel on every roof and I doubt that I’ll ever want to live next door to a nuclear power plant. If I need to augment my micropower source, though, I’d prefer that the electric company piped me nuclear energy instead of electricity produced from burning coal. Despite our renewable energy ideals, I just don’t think that we can boil down energy policy to ‘nuclear is bad.’ There are a few sources that it’s at least somewhat ‘better than.’

I believe that moderate position on nuclear policy is necessary. While there are problems with nuclear power, investing in nuclear research could still provide useful results. Lovins, in a 2006 interview, pointed to “promised low costs [that] already have failed to materialize for next-generation light water reactors.” But research and development present the opportunity to build towards those promised low costs.

Nuclear power isn't perfect, but it can help keep down carbon emissions while we get renewable energy right.

Photo by Jurvetson