Tag: management of natural resources

A small but growing chorus of ecological economists are saying that perhaps the best way to protect nature is to figure out just how much it’s worth — in cold, hard cash. In their quest to integrate Adam Smith with Rachel Carson, these proponents of “ecosystem valuation” are infuriating many of their colleagues: both economic evangelists preaching the gospel of the free market, and environmentalists who are horrified at the prospect of reducing the natural world to a cost-benefit analysis. At the epicenter of this maelstrom is Robert Costanza, director and founder of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, and cofounder of the International Society for Ecological Economics. In 1997, Costanza and his colleagues made news headlines around the world with a paper, published in the British journal Nature, that estimated the annual net worth of the biosphere: $33 trillion, a figure greater than the annual gross national products (GNP) of all the world’s economies combined.

Common fuel used in atomic reactors is uranium. Fast breeder reactor can use thorium and rest two are non-radioactive elements (lead, copper).