amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine , transport and enrich uranium and to build the nuclear plant . And all that dirty power will be released during the 10 to 19 years that it takes to plan and build a nuclear plant . -LRB- A wind farm typically takes two to five years . -RRB- Stewart Brand says now is the time for nuclear power The on-the-ground footprint of nuclear power , through its plants and uranium mines , is about 1,000 times larger than it is for wind . Wind turbines are merely poles in the ground -- with lots of space between them that can be farmed , ranched or left open -- or poles in the ocean . Geothermal energy also has a much smaller footprint than nuclear ; solar only slightly more . But while geothermal , solar and wind are safe , nuclear is not . For nuclear to meet all the world 's energy needs today -- 12.5 terawatts -LRB- 1 terawatt = 1 trillion watts -RRB- -- more than 17,000 nuclear plants would be needed . Even if nuclear were only 5 percent of the solution , most countries would
Palo Alto , California -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- If our nation wants to reduce global warming , air pollution and energy instability , we should invest only in the best energy options . Nuclear energy is n't one of them . Every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on clean renewable energy and one more dollar spent on making the world a comparatively dirtier and a more dangerous place , because nuclear power and nuclear weapons go hand in hand . In the November issue of Scientific American , my colleague Mark DeLucchi of the University of California-Davis and I laid out a plan to power the world with nothing but wind , water and sun . After considering the best available technologies , we decided that a combination of wind , concentrated solar , geothermal , photovoltaics , tidal , wave and hydroelectric energy could more than meet all the planet 's energy needs , particularly if all the world 's vehicles could be run on electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cells . We rejected nuclear for several reasons . First , it 's not carbon-free , no matter what the advocates tell you . Vast