Rifkin: "I think nuclear's -- it's really over."

"I think Fukushima was just the last point of departure.

The problem is this. There's about 400 nuclear power plants in the world. They're very old. They only make up 6 percent of our energy mix, that's all. But our scientific community says to have a minimum impact on climate change, minimum, you'd have to have 20 percent nuclear in the mix of energy. That means you'd have to have 4,000 nuclear power plants. That means you have to replace the existing 400 and build three nuclear power plants every 30 days for the next 60 years. That's not going to happen.

we simply don't know how to get rid of the nuclear waste. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but we spent $8 billion to build that failsafe vault at Yuka Mountain to put the nuclear material in. We can't open it up because it's already leaking. Number three, uranium costs go up right now with the existing power plants. We could recycle the uranium to plutonium like the French want to do, but then we've got problems with security issues around the world.

We don't have the water. Forty percent of all the water consumed in France last year went to cooling nuclear reactors. And when it comes back, the water's heated and it's dehydrating eco systems for agriculture. So from a business point of view...I just don't think it's part of the equation." The Diane Rehm Show, NPR, Transcript. Radio show.