Happy New Year from the Breakthrough Institute

Tidal Shift on Nuclear
Where natural gas is now widely understood to be a stepwise improvement over coal, in 2013 scientists argued that, from a public health and climate perspective, nuclear energy is a vast improvement over gas. In the spring, former NASA climate scientist James Hansen and a colleague found that nuclear had saved 1.8 million lives from air pollution, and could save millions more if future electricity needs were met by nuclear instead of natural gas. 
Hansen's message was driven home by real-world events. The closure of one of California’s two nuclear plants resulted in carbon emissions from the state’s power sector skyrocketing 35 percent. The temporary closure of Japanese nuclear plants resulted in its emissions increasing 7 percent. Germany, which is investing billions in the transition to renewables, saw its emissions, coal-use, and even its wood-burning rise (along with electricity prices). 
Meanwhile, nuclear innovation continued apace. The UK government announced in November that it would build a new nuclear plant, one that will provide an astonishing 7 percent of its power, in a partnership with the French and the Chinese. China will double its nuclear capacity by 2020, and is innovating: with help from the US Department of Energy, China is pursuing alternatives (including a molten-salt thorium reactor) to water-cooled designs, which were evaluated in Breakthrough’s summer 2013 report How to Make Nuclear Cheap.
The atomic awakening culminated in November. Four highly-respected climate scientists (Hansen along with Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel and Tom Wigley) urged green groups to embrace nuclear. So did Virgin's Richard Branson. As did Armond Cohen, whose Clean Air Task Force conducts energy analyses for environmental philanthropies.
All throughout the year thoughtful commentary was made by Eduardo Porter, Justin Gillis, and Andrew Revkin of the New York Times; Bryan Walsh of TIME; Ashutosh Jogalekar and David Biello of Scientific American; Tim Wu, Paul Blustein, and Keith Kloor at Slate; Stephen Stromberg at the Washington Post; Michael Specter, Gareth Cook, and Hendrik Hertzberg at the New Yorker; and Christopher Joyce and Richard Harris at NPR.