Nuclear battleground
The only rational hope for secure and clean energy in the near future is nuclear power. Those who believe in a future of social progress underwritten by energy abundance must take on the
PR challenge themselves. Anyone who expected Gordon Brown’s unchallenged political authority to guarantee a new generation of nuclear plants looks like being sorely disappointed.
However, it is unlikely that even ‘new’ greens ‘armed with peer-reviewed science’ will be any more amenable to reason than old-fashioned greens – with their ignorance and contempt for peer-reviewed science.
Last year’s SDC report on nuclear power makes interesting reading. On almost every measure, the detail of the SDC report actually favours the nuclear option. It recognises that nuclear has an excellent safety record, that it could cause a large and rapid decrease in CO2 emissions, that modern reactor design substantially reduces decommissioning costs, that the nuclear power programme’s waste is just a fraction of Britain’s radioactive waste (the majority being from the military and hospitals), and that nuclear power is cheap and reliable (
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Of the 18 voting Sustainable Development Commissioners, two voted ‘Possibly’ to nuclear power, five voted ‘Not now’, and eight voted ‘No’. Voting was along predictable lines: only two members have a science or engineering background, four have no obvious affiliation, but 12 commissioners either make money promoting ‘sustainable energy’, or are members of solidly anti-nuclear lobby groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. From the voting, it would appear that three of the greener members did not bother to turn up and the rest did not read the report (9).
To come out against nuclear power, the SDC resorted to double-think and twisted rationalisation unrelated to true energy issues. In his commentary on the report, SDC chairman Sir Jonathon Porritt argues that nuclear power could be seen as a ‘get out of jail free card’ – not inflicting the kind of pain we deserve from our irresponsibility toward the planet; nuclear might compete for investment money against ‘renewables’; it could use up too much ‘political leadership’ and distract attention from alternatives; it might also set a bad example for gullible foreign countries; and encourage rogue regimes to build nuclear weapons.
Warheads into watts
In fact, instead of proliferating atomic weapons, nuclear power can destroy them. The disarmament treaties of the 1980s have released uranium and plutonium from warheads for use in reactors. Since 2000, 30 tonnes of enriched uranium have been released to civilian nuclear stations annually and displaced over 10,000 tonnes of uranium from mines – about 13 per cent of the world’s annual requirements (10).
Uranium is not in short supply – contrary to rumour. There is as much uranium in the ground as there is tin. There has been little new uranium exploration for 20 years, but already enough uranium has been discovered to last at least until the end of the century at current levels of use. The increasing efficiency of nuclear reactors means that they can now produce almost twice the electricity from the same amount of uranium. Even if the uranium ran out, new reactor designs can employ thorium as fuel and there is three times as much thorium in the ground as uranium.
And unlike our gas, much of which comes from unstable parts of the world, 40 per cent of the world’s known uranium supplies are in Australia, Canada and the USA. As with other mineral and energy resources, increasing prices makes new exploration more economically viable. Analogous with other minerals, there is probably 10 times more uranium easily available to be found by new exploration.
Modern reactors also produce much less waste than previous generations – only 10 per cent of the volume of low-level waste as before – and much of the high-level waste can be reprocessed into new fuel if supplies of ore were threatened or the costs of exploration and extraction escalated way beyond current projections.
In Washington DC, Adrian Heymer, senior director of the Nuclear Energy Institute says that once-hostile public opinion in the US is turning around. ‘When you tell people that 70 years of electricity for a typical four-bedroom family home leaves just one Coke can full of waste, they are impressed and reassured. And all the waste from the whole US civilian nuclear power programme over the last 49 years would cover just one football field, about twenty feet high. Compare that to the trillions of tons of carbon waste and chemicals released into the atmosphere from fossil fuels – not to mention 5,000 people killed in coal mining accidents every year.’
Britain’s existing nuclear plants were built without a thought for decommissioning, hence the unexpectedly high costs; though these are much less than is supposed. It is estimated that decommissioning costs for each reactor range from £1.3 to 1.8 billion – after an active and productive life of up to 40 years. For perspective, even before the latest wind expansion proposals, the government is currently spending £2billion a year on subsidies for alternative energy with almost nothing to show for it in terms of either electricity or carbon savings.
New reactors are built on modular designs that can be taken apart as easily as they are put together and decommissioning costs are built into the price of electricity charged to the consumer.
Challenging the green agenda
An unquestioning green agenda so dominates the news, media and commentariat that proponents of nuclear power tend to keep their heads down – although public opinion polls continue to show quite high approval for nuclear power.
Brazil’s experience in 2001 provides both comfort and guidance. By taking on misrepresentations, misunderstanding and lies and exposing the dishonest tactics of Greenpeace on many issues, the Brazilian Nuclear Energy Association undermined the credibility of a campaign against a new nuclear power plant (11).
Pro-nuclear groups got their facts right and ran a well-organised campaign. By the end, the president of Greenpeace was forced out, its ‘aura of credibility’ was destroyed and the organisation simply ceased to campaign against nuclear power in Brazil for over five years.
The message for Britain must be ‘armed only with peer-reviewed science we demand a new generation of nuclear power stations. Abundant, clean, secure energy is our right, and will help save the planet.’
Dr Rob Johnston is a freelance writer on the environment, health and science."