Vasco Castela.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace released the third edition of its Energy Revolution report, and it is all good news. Apparently, renewable energy is cheap and plentiful, and so reliable that we can start phasing out nuclear power production immediately.

The problem with this proposal is that it is disconnected from reality. Those who see this may regret that Greenpeace is not using honest tactics in its otherwise commendable mission. Those who do not see it are on their way to becoming rather paranoid activists—for if renewable energy is so readily available, only some kind of capitalist global conspiracy can be holding it back. This sort of environmental propaganda, matched with a measure of stubborn idealism, does a disservice to the environmental movement.

Greenpeace’s report optimistically claims that the sun alone is able to provide “around six times more [technically accessible] power than the world currently requires”. According to David MacKay, author of 2008’s Sustainable Energy—Without the Hot Air and professor at the University of Cambridge, the total area that would have to be dedicated to concentrating solar power in order to provide North America with all its current energy requirements is a little bigger than the area of Arizona. Six times that? That would mean an area nearly equivalent to that of B.C., Alberta, and Saskatchewan together, with no trees or farms, the ground entirely covered in solar mirrors.

Greenpeace has recently claimed that wind power can replace nuclear power, and proposed the construction of wind mills instead of new nuclear plants. Wind is unfortunately a very poor choice to replace nuclear, because it is, like the sun, an intermittent power source. When the wind dies down, a wind power plant may produce no power at all, while demand may remain constant.

As MacKay points out, supporters of wind energy may try to play down the problem by arguing that while wind is intermittent for an individual farm, the sum of all wind farms, taken together, is far less intermittent. But MacKay has shown that this is also not true. In 2007, there were 17 days when the output of Britain’s 1,632 windmills was less than 10 percent of their capacity. Although on windless days, energy may be obtained from storage systems, such as hydroelectric dams, these are not available everywhere. As the occasional blackout is not an option, this limits the use of wind power in many countries to covering small occasional shortages or exporting.

Greenpeace’s demagogy regarding the ease of the transition to renewables, in addition to alienating the more cool-headed and radicalizing the hard-core believers—which inevitably affects their credibility as environment spokespeople—could have an even more serious effect. Since renewables are not a realistic option for the bulk of power production worldwide, at least in the next few decades, Greenpeace’s continued antinuclear campaign helps coal to win by default. Yet coal, when judged objectively, seems to be worse than nuclear. Coal-burning is responsible for one-third of the world’s carbon dioxide pollution from all human activities, and air pollution from coal-fired plants kills 23,600 people per year in the U.S. alone, according to the Earth Policy Institute.

The state-of-the-art “clean” coal power plant to be completed in Chicago by 2011 will emit as much CO2 as two million cars, as pointed out in a recent article in the Chicago Tribune. A yearly nuclear disaster of the magnitude of Chernobyl would kill less people worldwide than air pollution from burning coal currently does—and that is without considering the effects of climate change. Canadian Patrick Moore, an early member of Greenpeace and a former director of Greenpeace International, is now pro-nuclear, and commented on the negative image of nuclear in a 2008 Newsweek interview: “we [at Greenpeace] made the mistake of lumping nuclear energy in with nuclear weapons, as if all things nuclear were evil....I think that’s as big a mistake as if you lumped nuclear medicine in with nuclear weapons.”

We may be tempted to forgive Greenpeace for the use of propaganda techniques, in its eagerness to convey a hopeful and strong message, and to save the world. But maybe we should not. It is not just a matter of the end not justifying the means, but also that the end itself is being compromised. I love Greenpeace. But not unconditionally.

Vasco Castela is an ethicist who lives in Vancouver. He holds a PhD in ethics from the University of Manchester.