SCGI

The Science Council for Global Initiatives (SCGI) is an international NGO dedicated to uplifting the standards of living of people of all nations while repairing our damaged environment.

Hurricane Harvey Makes The Case For Nuclear Power

by James Conca

Hurricane Harvey made land fall in Texas this week and the flooding was historic. What is shaping up to be the most costly natural disaster in American history, the storm has left refineries shut down, interrupted wind and solar generation, caused a constant worry about gas explosions, and caused a chain of events that led to explosions and fires at the Arkema chemical plant that is only the beginning.

Over a fifth of the country’s oil production has been shuttered. Natural gas futures hit a 2-year high as did gasoline prices at the pump.

But the Texas nuclear power plants have been running smoothly.

Retaking The Global Lead In Nuclear Technology

by Tom Blees

The United States is indisputably a world leader in many technologies. Yet the country’s leadership role in nuclear power has been in steady decline for many years. Spurred on by the specter of climate change and the insatiable and rapidly growing demand for energy in developing countries, a variety of advanced nuclear power concepts are being developed around the world, nowhere more so than in the USA. Yet transforming those exciting ideas into actual deployable products is a nearly impossible challenge here.

The consequences of losing a global leadership role in the nuclear power arena implies a lot more than a loss of prestige. Nuclear technology is spreading to many countries that are not members of the “nuclear club” of nations with nuclear weapons technology, so the international oversight of nuclear materials has never been more important. By abandoning our leadership in nuclear power technology, America is losing its influence in forging non-proliferation policies at the international level that should be allowing the spread of nuclear power to be accomplished safely.

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It goes completely against what most believe, but out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

July 24, 2017 by Hannah Ritchie

Our World in Data presents the empirical evidence on global development in entries dedicated to specific topics.
This blog post draws on data and research discussed in our entry on Energy Production and Changing Energy Sources.

 Energy production and consumption is a fundamental component to economic development, poverty alleviation, improvements in living standards, and ultimately health outcomes. We show this link between energy production and prosperity here, where we see a distinct relationship between energy use and gross domestic product per capita.
The unintentional consequences of energy production can, however, also result in negative health outcomes. The production of energy can be attributed to both mortality (deaths) and morbidity (severe illness) cases as a consequence of each stage of the energy production process: this includes accidents in the mining of the raw material, the processing and production phases, and pollution-related impacts. We have recently explored this trade-off with respect to development and air pollution.