In 2015, human activity released 35,810 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. In order to avoid catastrophic climate change, this number must quickly be reduced (to 22,000 million tons). Currently, our CO2 production grows by 2% every year (730 million tons) as people worldwide seek a more affluent lifestyle.

The World Nuclear Association (WNA) has a plan to solve this problem: building 1,000 new nuclear reactors before the year 2050.

That means we would need to build a nuclear power plant every 12 days for the next 33 years.

Our existing reactors (438) offset only 3 percent of global emissions ((1,183 million tons of CO2 or 3.3%)1.18Gt/35.81Gt). Every time a new reactor goes online, our carbon footprint goes down slightly, and only by 7/1,000 of 1%.

Along the way, outdated reactors must be decommissioned; the deadly waste must be tended in perpetuity; and each new reactor built will increase the probability of atomic disaster somewhere in the world. Constructing this infrastructure will cost $8.2 trillion ($8,200,000,000,000). Even after spending all this money and waiting all this time, by the year 2050, these new reactors will have offset only 3.9 GT of CO2, which is less than 10% of the reduction we will need. (9.3%)

The nuclear industry touts CO2 reduction to green-wash its agenda. For the nuclear industry $8.2T over 33 years is good business. For humanity, it is an opportunity cost—precious time and money wasted on the wrong thing. If we follow the WNA, another generation will pass and climate change will only get worse. We already have clean, cheap, and timely ways to reduce CO2 emissions, and nuclear power is not one of them. The nuclear solution to climate change is a smokescreen.