Elon Musk offered to eat food grown near nuclear reactors live to prove its safety, part of an attempt to persuade European leaders to expand nuclear power production amid gas shortages caused by Vladimir PutinX invasion of Ukraine.
“I hope it is now very clear that Europe should restart dormant nuclear power plants and increase the capacity of existing ones,” Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday evening.
“This is critical to national and international security,” he added just days after urging the US to increase oil and gas production to reduce Russian energy consumption.
A few minutes later the eccentric Tesla The CEO tried to allay fears of nuclear power in a tweet. “For those who (wrongly) think this is a radiation risk, choose what you think is the worst place. I will go there and eat local food on TV,” he wrote.
“I did it in Japan many years ago, shortly after Fukushima. The radiation risk is much lower than most people think,” he added, referring to the 2011 Fukushima disaster caused by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
Elon Musk pushed Europe to increase the production of nuclear energy and offered to eat food grown near reactors live to prove that they are safe.
Musk was in Fukushima in July 2011, according to SolarCity and Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, but it’s unclear if he ate the local food, as he claimed.
“In addition, nuclear energy is much better suited to global warming than burning hydrocarbons for energy,” Musk added.
His tweets sparked a discussion on Twitter about the safety and viability of nuclear power. Jim Osman, founder of the Edge Consulting Group, tweeted that Musk’s proposal would be a good idea “until someone gets mismanaged again and leaks everywhere.” This is a bigger risk.
British social media personality Adam Brooks sided with Musk, tweeting: “Thanks for speaking out. Businesses across the continent cannot afford such higher energy prices. This means mass unemployment is on the horizon.”
Technology podcaster Alex Barredo also seemed to side with Musk, tweeting, “Elon knows coal is the enemy.”
Musk’s tweet calling for more nuclear power in Europe comes just two days after he urged the US to increase oil and gas production to make up for cuts in supplies from Russia.
“I hate to say this, but we need to immediately increase oil and gas production. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures,” he tweeted on Friday.
“Obviously this will negatively impact Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot respond instantly to offset Russian oil and gas exports.”
America imported only about 8% of its oil and petroleum products from Russia last year, or about 672,000 barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Administration.
In contrast, the US imported 51% of its liquid oil from Canada and about 8.5% from Mexico. The US gets more oil from Saudi Arabia and small countries in Latin America and West Africa than from Russia.
However, the US is still feeling the impact of falling Russian oil prices as the AAA reported on Sunday that the national average price per gallon of gas has reached $4,009, the highest level since 2008. On Monday, the average price hit $4.10 a gallon, according to GasBuddy. .
He made the call on Twitter two days after urging the US to increase domestic oil and gas production to make up for the loss of Russian fuel.
Russian oil exports fell by a third, or about 2.5 million barrels a day, due to massive sanctions from the West, Energy Intelligence reported last Wednesday. While the sanctions do not specifically target Russian oil and gas, “buyers were generally reluctant to take risks buying Russian cargo,” Energy Intelligence reported.
Nuclear power has long been the subject of controversy in Europe, but last October France led a group of ten EU countries pushing for an alternative energy source to be labeled ‘green’ as the continent attempts to end its dependence on fossil fuels without destroying it. economy.
The panel, which includes Poland, Hungary and Finland, argued that nuclear power is “essential” to reduce the cost of energy and end Europe’s dependence on foreign imports, as well as reduce emissions without over-reliance on renewables.
But they have been opposed by another group, including Germany, Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg and Spain, who claim it is not safe.
The two most notorious nuclear power plant disasters include the destruction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 and the Fukushima accident in 2011.
Regarding Chernobyl, the United Nations assured last year in an assessment that “the vast majority of the population should not live in fear of serious health consequences.”
The UN also released a study last year saying it found no “adverse health effects” for Fukushima residents attributable to exposure to the disaster.
The two most notorious nuclear power plant disasters include the destruction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 and the Fukushima accident in 2011. With regard to Chernobyl (pictured above), the United Nations assured last year in an assessment that “the vast majority of the population should not live in fear of serious health consequences.”
The UN also released a study last year saying it found no “adverse health effects” for Fukushima residents associated with exposure to the disaster, the aftermath of which is pictured above.
But opponents of nuclear energy argue that the technology cannot be trusted and that the plants produce waste that is difficult to dispose of. Germany and Spain have committed to phasing out their nuclear power plants, and Germany is due to shut down next year.
Austria and Denmark produce most of their energy from renewable sources such as hydropower and wind, while Luxembourg imports 95% of its energy, which is mostly generated from fossil fuels.
All five countries have committed to cutting their carbon emissions but plan to do so using renewable energy sources: Austria aims to be 100% renewable by 2030, relying mostly on river-generated hydropower.
Meanwhile, discussions about a multinational ban on Russian oil picked up steam on Sunday when Oksana Markarova, Kyiv’s ambassador to the United States, urged President Joe Biden to stop all Russian oil imports in a Fox News interview Sunday. It came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a similar statement during a video call with members of the US Congress.
Markarova called for “tougher” sanctions on Moscow during an interview with Fox News Sunday over its behavior as a “terrorist state” amid growing allegations of human rights violations and targeted killings of civilians.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also said Sunday that the US is in “very active talks” with European allies over a broad blockade of Russian energy dollars.
He did not say whether the US was prepared to act unilaterally on such a ban, despite the large gap between US imports of Russian oil and Europe’s dependence on it.