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These Nonsensical Arguments For Nuclear Power
The Government Has Been Rushed Into A Bad Decision by A Clever Public Relations Campaign
Although today's White Paper on energy is accompanied by a "consultation" about nuclear power, pronouncements from both of Britain's prime ministers leave little room for doubt that the British Government believes that the country's energy problems cannot be solved without recourse to a new generation of nuclear power.
Ministers insist that although nuclear power is not a silver bullet, it has to be part of the picture - that without it we can neither reach our goals of reducing carbon emissions nor avoid placing ourselves in the hands of Mr Putin and his successors in title to Russia's vast reserves of gas. I believe that the Government is profoundly wrong about nuclear power and has allowed itself to be rushed into a bad decision by a clever but deceptive public relations campaign by the nuclear industry.
The first thing to grasp about energy is that electricity makes up only about a third of the picture. Most of the energy used in Britain goes into heating buildings and powering vehicles - for neither of which is nuclear power a plausible source. Nuclear power stations supply less than five per cent of our primary energy. Perhaps more surprisingly, a similar point can be made about gas, the vast majority of which goes to heat buildings rather than to produce electricity. If we want to reduce our dependence on gas, we would be much better employed in improving the insulation of our houses than building nuclear power stations.
The second point to grasp about energy policy is that timing is all. The Government points out that a large amount of existing nuclear capacity is due to close in the next 15 years. It gives the impression that unless we agree to replace it with new nuclear power stations we are in danger of suffering power shortages. But this is nonsense. The Government in its more honest moments admits that even with radical reform of the planning and licensing system, nuclear power stations take so long to bring on line that they can contribute little before 2020. That means that whatever happens on nuclear power, we will have to find other ways of filling the gap. We need to be looking now for the most efficient and environmentally friendly way of filling that gap and not let ourselves be distracted by nuclear.
And what about the period after 2020? No one can be certain about a period so far in the future, but it is clear that by that time a number of safer and more attractive technologies will be available - from carbon capture and storage (which the European Commission proposes to make compulsory from 2020) to tidal power, wave power and offshore wind power.
Carbon capture will allow the continued use of gas and coal, at least for a transitional period until we can move to a fully renewable system - which has to be the ultimate aim of energy policy both from the point of view of climate change and of security of supply. Carbon capture has great advantages over nuclear power - it is far more flexible than nuclear power, which means that it is much better at operating in conjunction with renewables and with microgeneration; it poses no challenges for proliferation policy - one of the big difficulties of a world-wide nuclear renaissance - and far fewer problems for counter-terrorism policy and thus for civil liberties; and it does not need the hidden subsidies that nuclear continues to receive, for example the cap on liability for nuclear accidents.
If we attempt to promote both nuclear power and carbon capture we risk undermining early investment in carbon capture, and, in the long term, we risk crowding out renewables. New analysis for the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party shows exactly that: by 2050 the effect of allowing nuclear power to operate alongside carbon capture and renewables is to reduce the contribution of wind power and wave power. It will hardly affect the share of gas and coal carbon capture - largely because nuclear cannot compete economically in the role of flexibly balancing the electricity grid.
That would not leave us significantly better off in terms of avoiding imported gas, but it would leave farther away a fully sustainable system.
Instead we should be aiming at a non-nuclear low carbon electricity generating system. With sensible incentives, especially a carbon price for the electricity generating industry around the levels suggested by Sir Nicholas Stern, it is entirely possible by 2050 to eliminate more than 90 per cent of the carbon emitted in 1990. No one doubts that the physical resources exist in Britain. In terms of the potential of wind, tide and wave we have power for many times existing demand. The only question is how to get there.
The writer is the Liberal Democrats' spokesman on energy.
© 2007 The Independent
12 Comments so far
Show AllTo solve the energy/pollution crisis, you've got to explore options. One of those options is nuclear and it should not be dismissed.
With the right safeguards and processes, it's effective, affordable, and safe.
The carbon capture method still pollutes regardless and it's science is unproven. Nuclear energy is a known science with decades of proven worth. CO2 is a natural part of the planet's atmosphere. Nuclear generation does not produce CO2.
The alternative of continuing to dump coal-spew into the air is unacceptable. Large quantities of uranium and thorium and other radioactive elements in coal ash are not being treated as radioactive waste. These products emit low-level radiation, but because of regulatory differences, coal-fired power plants are allowed to release massive quantities of radioactive material that would provoke enormous public outcry if the same amounts were released from nuclear facilities. Burning coal injects 2,000 tons of radioactive elements into our atmosphere, unmonitored, each and every year!! You're worried about Nuclear??
Nuclear waste products from coal combustion are being allowed to be dispersed throughout the biosphere in an unregulated manner every single day, yet where is the outrage about this??
"Nuclear power plants are, next to nuclear warheads themselves, the most dangerous devices that man has ever created. Their construction and proliferation is the most irresponsible, in fact the most criminal, act ever to have taken place on this planet."
Patrick Moore, Assault on Future Generations,
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/nuclear
The most effective thing for reducing fuel use in Britain would be a systematic program to insulate old residences.
Likewise, the most effective immediate way to reduce petrol use and pollution would be a systematic effort to make sure that all motor vehicles are tuned.
For all those who favor nuclear power I have one statement, allow us to store the waste in your back yard. Suddenly no one is pro nuclear power.
Nuclear power is dirty and very expensive. The sad thing is that we already have access to abundant fusion power in the form of wind and solar. If we spent the money on these that we have of nuclear we would be free of oil and coal already.
Is there any nuclear generation process that doesn't produce toxic waste?
No
Is there any safe way to dispose of this waste yet devised?
No
How long does nuclear waste remain lethal to any life form on earth?
Millions of years.
What's so hard about understanding why nuclear power is a lame brained, short-sighted, and lethal way to generate electrical power?
I'll grant you that nuclear power is very controversial and will always remain so. But before you condemn it so vehemently, stop and consider a few things. {I'm not trying to change anyone's mind about the concept, but at least consider other viewpoints, OK?}
The fuel that feeds a nuclear power plant comes from the ground. It's all around us, always has been, always will be. We mine it, process it, and use it to make energy. When its energy is spent, we put it where? Back in the ground. Long term repositories of this material are deep underground in geologically stable strata and can sit there for millions of years. OK, it's sitting there, back where it was… who cares?
The technology has been in active use worldwide since the 1950s and huge leaps have been made in its safe operation. We're not talking about using the same Chernobyl era processes, much has been learned over the decades.
France has been very successful in implementing it. French government decided in 1974, just after the first oil shock, to expand rapidly the country's nuclear power capacity. This decision was taken in the context of France having substantial heavy engineering expertise but few indigenous energy resources. Nuclear energy, with the fuel cost being a relatively small part of the overall cost, made good sense in minimizing imports and achieving greater energy security. As a result of the 1974 decision, France now claims a substantial level of energy independence and almost the lowest cost electricity in Europe. Over 90% of its electricity is nuclear or hydro.
IF we could mitigate the long-term storage problem, the promise of nuclear fuel is worthy of consideration. Especially when you compare and contrast the alternative of burning coal! Why we allow this form of blatant pollution at this time is what's nonsensical! In coal-fired plants, we KNOW we're blasting particulate and radioactive elements directly into the atmosphere! At least with a modern nuclear power plant, there is no air pollution!
No, it's not perfect and there are certainly some serious challenges to its expansion as a major nationwide fuel source, but to completely demonize it is a short sighted stance, in my opinion.
PDFee--
You are so not correct--the stuff that comes out of the ground is useless for nuclear fuel until it is "enriched" or modified in structure to become a more highly toxic isotope of what comes out of the ground.
Furthermore the stuff in the ground is dispersed among enough other stuff so that it does not have the toxicity of the yellow cake that is refined down from tons and tons of raw dirt for the purpose of enrichment at a later time. To even suggest putting that stuff back into the ground is absurd and would require more energy than its extraction to achieve the same benign dispersal from which it was origianllly mined.
Hi PDFee, we have had our arguments in the past and I admit you are a well informed and thoughtful writer. But you don't mention anything about solar, wind, or tidal sources of energy. Maybe you are simply sticking to the subject addressed in the article. But what is your opinion about investing heavily in improving these clean and renewable sources of energy?
I corrected the spelling mistake
The number one problem with nuclear is the pollution of the background. There is always a given quantity of natural radiation called background radiation. This radiation contributes (along with other things) to the cancer and birth defect rates in the human population.
To use nuclear power you must mine, process, use, and dispose of the nuclear material. The uranium is bad enough; but bear in mind, a nuclear plant produces a variety of waste elements which are much more toxic. Additionally, going nuclear would revive the production of plutonium from uranium-238 (only U-235 is used in power plants). This is one of the most toxic substances known to man (body burden—what you can handle without getting sick—is somewhere around 1/1000th of a microgram, and we would be manufacturing the stuff by the ton).
In the end some of this radiation would enter the environment and slowly but surely the background radiation would increase. Fossil fuels have polluted "The Commons" known as the atmosphere. Nuclear would pollute "The Commons" known as the background.
As this background radiation increases, the rate of birth defects and cancers would also increase. This is why many consider going nuclear as immoral. You will use the energy today and for the next 10 thousand to 100 thousand years the human race will be subjected to the increased rate of cancers and birth defects. You may love using the energy, but your ancestors will pay a horrible price. Did I say price? Yes I did! That means nuclear is way too expensive. We need a different strategy!!!!!!!!!!!!
The most nonsensical solution is carbon capture. It is way too late in the game to promote a nascent, unproven technique. With carbon capture, politicians can pretend like they're combating climate change when it's really business as usual for coal companies. The oil industry will also benefit as the CO-2 will be used to force oil out of the ground. Why do you think our "wrong on every single issue" president is a proponent?
All nuclear power, even power generated safely with new technology, has a two fold waste issue. They are saying the waste can be transformed into a ceramic material and made safer, but the bottom line is that no one wants a huge nuclear waste dump in their backyard. In the US, the Hanford Waste site has a horrific track record for leaking materials into the ground water and environment and mismanagement. Then the US has the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, with locals protesting. I don't know where they could establish a nuclear waste dump within the UK without proximity to heavily populated cities.
The second issue is security of wastes from terrorists. If terrorists got their hands on nuclear weapon grade material or dirty bomb low grade material, it could be used to bomb urban areas. The hundreds of wasted sites we currently have in the US could be bombed with a similar effect of a dirty bomb releasing radioactive materials into the environment.
Denmark is emphasizing wind power and have huge wind turbines off their coast in the North Sea. They have had about one third of the energy from wind power, and that percentage is increasing. That would seem to be an easy option for the UK to follow Denmark's example. Those same huge wind turbines could also double up as a wave energy site, using the base of their huge towers for that purpose.