Eggs and Baskets

One main conclusion of every analysis that has looked at the decarbonization of human civilization is that there is no silver bullet. There are only silver BBs. Any time you take one BB out of the shell, you automatically place greater responsibility on the remaining ones.

The BBs we have at our disposal right now for reducing our dependence on carbon-emitting fuels on a civilizational scale include efficiency, conservation, hydro, wind and nuclear. That's it.

Efficiency and conservation are demand-side approaches that are a given no matter what happens on the supply side. On the supply side, hydro is pretty well maxed out, while solar, tidal and geothermal aren't large-scale players, and probably will never be large enough to have more than scattered local impacts.

For the world as a whole that leaves wind and nuclear as the only carbon-free energy sources. Both have their own problems. Wind power supply is currently far too small and imposes major requirements for grid redesign and storage if it's ever to scale adequately. Nuclear has issues (with current designs) around waste storage, proliferation, uranium supply and public perception. Both technologies are very expensive when considered on the scale required to decarbonize human civilization. Following either option (or even a mix) through to a 90% reduction in global carbon emissions will probably cost around $100 trillion.

If we take nuclear power off the table, that leaves wind power holding all the hopes of human civilization on its own. While that notion might sound romantic to a wind power supporter, to a risk analyst it sounds very much like putting all the world's eggs in one basket.

As a global civilization we simply can't afford to take nuclear power off the table while our entire future is still hanging in the balance.