The Dalai Lama has been an active voice opposing nuclear weapons. But after a whirlwind trip touring the tsunami-devastated northeastern patch of Japan for the first time, the religious figure said he is not absolutely against the promotion of nuclear energy.
Instead, the Dalai Lama on Monday said he is in support of using nuclear energy for peaceful means as a way to bridge the socioeconomic gap in developing countries in the absence of more efficient alternative energy sources.
“There is still many developing countries with a huge gap between rich and poor…millions of people’s lives remain under the poverty level and we have to think about these people,” the 76-year-old spiritual leader said at a news conference on Monday morning in Tokyo. He noted that other energy sources like wind and solar are too inefficient to put into realistic practice to meet the needs of fast-developing countries.
That is a take out from the Wall Street Journal here.
Dan Yuram notes:
He said that he is in support of nuclear energy for peaceful means as a way to bridge the socioeconomic gap in developing nations and in the absence of more efficient alternative energy sources.
"There are still many developing countries with a huge gap between rich and poor … millions of people's live remain under the poverty level."
He added that energy sources like wind and solar are too inefficient to put into realistic practice to meet the needs of developing nations.
Read Dan's comments fully here and here.
Holy Crimson Crappola, Batman! Speaking of technological endorsement! Anyway, it is clear that those writing off nuclear energy are simply wrong (not that their views on nuclear energy are not debatable but that its "going away" simply isn't happening). For better or worse, the debate is not over, nor is nuclear energy. Nuclear, like gas, solar, wind, hydro, oil and coal are going to around whether anyone likes it or not, for quite a long time.
Energy solutions to the climate crisis have not been 'settled' whatsoever.