THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES OF POWER-GENERATION

In two decades, three momentous changes have occurred that will influe nce power generation for decades to come. Coal has become a culprit re sponsible for respiratory disease and acid rain; carbon dioxide has be come a culprit widely believed capable of changes in climate greater t han any that have occurred in ten thousand years; and nuclear power in many countries has become an outcast. The irony is that nuclear power promised clean air and no greenhouse effect. The great gathering of h eads of state in Rio in 1992 was the celebration of a problem; whether it was the beginning of a solution remains to be seen.