The Italian nuclear engineer and safety expert Cesare Silvi explains why he left his former pro-nuclear stance for solar and other renewable energy sources:

“I soon came to the conclusion that neither international cooperation nor technological advancements would guarantee human societies to build and safely run nuclear reactors in all possible conditions on Earth (earthquakes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, wars, terrorism, climate change, tsunamis, pandemics, etc.). I am sadly reminded of this turning point in my life as I listen to the news about the earthquake, tsunami and extremely worrying nuclear crisis in Japan.”

Silvi warns that “there will definitely be worse accidents” if we continue with nuclear power:

“Why not consider Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima as warnings of greater catastrophes to come and avoid the inevitable by shutting them down, much like changing your diet and/or lifestyle after finding out that your cholesterol or blood pressure is elevated, rather than continuing down the same path until a heart attack or stroke strikes?”

According to Silvi the world could easily replace nuclear power simply by reducing our energy usage and introducing energy efficiency programs:

“Nuclear today only generates about 12 percent of the developed world’s electricity. By instituting an energy efficiency program,” Silvi suggests, “we could fill the gap caused by shutting them all down and put this malevolent genie back into the bottle.”

And the public in Italy seems to agree with Silvi’s anti-nuclear sentiments as they voted against new investments in nuclear energy in a recent referendum in the country. In Japan only 19 of the 54 country’s nuclear reactors are now operating. The others are offline for various reasons since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. At the same time the country’s wind farms are fully operational and were actually unscathed by the massive earthquake disaster. And people claim that nuclear is a stable energy source…