Nearly 20% of the world’s people have no electricity. They live in the Dark Ages. If their children are to raise themselves up to the Chinese level, they too will be burning lots more coal. Nuclear power plants are the only serious alternative to carbon-fired electricity, but nuclear power is anathema to most of the same people who want big reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions.
We will be able to know when activists and other politicians are serious about helping poor countries with clean energy when they start financing a new generation of nuclear power plants.
