nuclear is not the answer to climate change

Everything you ever wanted to know about nuclear generation and its environmental costs.

Nuclear or no nuclear? The future of generation in the UK

I read this article on oD and was struck by how unpolemical it was. Most articles on this issue are stridently calling for 50 new nuclear power stations by yesterday or predicting orders of magnitude increases in incidences of cancer as a resuolt of such policies. I've rarely found such a balanced rebuttal of the idea.

On the other hand I've rarely felt as overwhelmed by Green Party propaganda as this item- part of a distinctly polemical Green Party email bulletin- made me feel:


NP DOES NOT PROVIDE AN ANSWER TO GLOBAL WARMING BECAUSE:
1 Electricity Produced by Nuclear Power (NP) is not CO2 free
"The use of nuclear power causes, at the end of the road and under the
most favourable conditions, approximately one-third as much CO2-emission as gas-fired electricity production. The rich uranium ores required to achieve this reduction are, however, so limited that if the entire present world electricity demand were to be provided by nuclear power, these ores would be
exhausted within four years. Use of the remaining poorer ores in nuclear reactors would produce more CO2 emission than burning fossil fuels directly." - ref: http://www.oprit.rug.nl/deenen

2 Conventional NP offers an insignificant contribution to world energy needs
Uranium reserves are so limited that a fourfold expansion of the world's nuclear fleet would exhaust the known global reserves of uranium. It would produce maybe 5% (maybe less) of the world's energy needs for some thirty years, then that would be it.


Breeder technology would offer a more significant amount, but.

3.fast Breeder technology means uncontrollable nuclear weapons
proliferation. The plutonium-driven fast breeder reactors could make a more significant contribution, but this would mean kissing goodbye to any notion of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states and terrorists, because there would be so much plutonium around, there is no way we could keep it from falling into the hands of terrorists.

4 NP possession now implies Nuclear War later
No country has developed nuclear weapons without first having a nuclear power programme. That is what the fuss is about in Iran and North Korea. If we have weapons, we will inevitably use them at some time in the future, because no human system is perfect. America has already used them once, on the Japanese. US presidents have considered using them many times since Hiroshima. Next time they use them, there is a risk that everyone else will join in, producing a nuclear holocaust. The only way to avoid this is to get rid of nuclear weapons, which means we must get rid of nuclear power.

5 Nuclear Power is Not Insured
UK NP stations carry ?140 million of public liability insurance, and the Government would contribute an equal amount, but after that - tough luck if there is an MCA. Ironically, the planning Inspector ruled that we could not have a wind farm near Hinkley point NPS because a blade might break off... and damage the NPS.

6 Routine discharges of radioactive materials cause cancer
There is a vast amount of writing on this subject, but it is not necessary to develop it here, since it could be argued that a few local cancers are a small price to pay if nuclear power saves us from the catastrophe of global warming, and the relatives of the cancer victims could be compensated. The low level Radiation Campaign is a useful site for this information: http://www.llrc.org/index.html

7 Nuclear Power Stations are vulnerable to terrorist attack
9/11 demonstrated the acute vulnerability of the structures of western civilisation to attack from terrorists motivated by suicidal religious convictions. We cannot hope that humane and rational considerations would
inhibit terrorists from using the same technique on one or more NPS. It would be consistent with the modus operandi of Al-Qaeda to do this kind of high profile action. It is a moot point whether a jumbo jet would breach containment, but it would certainly disrupt the coolant circuits sufficiently to cause releases, and a critical incident (major meltdown) cannot be ruled out

8 The waste problem is not solved - and not solvable
Some nuclear wastes have radioactivity that remains dangerous to human and animal health for 250,000 years. What ethical right do we have to dump that problem on our descendants for the sake of a few years worth of electricity?

9 NP stations (NPS) are vulnerable to changes brought about by Global Warming
They are mostly built near the sea, for cooling and waste discharge purposes. Sea level rise due to global warming will add a huge amount to the decommissioning costs. If a new wave of NPS are built, they will have to be higher up, inland, which means they will have to take their coolant water from rivers. In hot summers recently, European NPS have been forced to close due to lack of cool river water, and in the warmer, drier future, the same could happen to UK NPS.

10 NP would suck funding away from the real long term solutions which are energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Nuclear power was developed through massive state subsidies as part of the nuclear weapons development programme. These R+D costs are not included in conventional nuclear power costings. In the UK, these expenses were hidden from parliamentary inspection in the post-war public accounts as "Repairs to
Public Buildings". NP was a spin-off of the nuclear weapons effort.


The NP programme died off in the 90s, ironically not so much through the
activities of the green lobby as through the policies of Mrs Thatcher, who
although a staunch supporter of NP, insisted on privatising it. When the
City took a look at the books, they did not like what they saw, and decided
not to buy into it.

There is a finite amount of money available to meet the costs of Global
Warming. Energy Conservation is at least 7 times as effective in reducing
CO2 emissions than NP. PV cladding on every house in Britain would produce
more electricity than NP at a fraction of the cost.


Up until todayish I have been a supporter of new nuclear power stations after reading that they were economical, cheap and could be made carbon-neutral. Now I am not so sure.

For sure articles like the polemic I have posted here do not help me make up my mind. Claims that cheaply extractable global uranium reserves will be consumed in as little as 4 years if a 5-fold increase in nuclear generation becomes reality sound like bollocks but I don't know who to believe. The website of the global nuke industry say that there are 70 years of cheap uranium left so if you include a 5-fold increase then you have a mere 14 years left. I know its very different from 4 years but still, nuclear doesn't really sound like the long-term generation technology that we need. Far better to invest in renewable technology and a greatly uprated national grid to transport the enormous generation capcaity of remote regions to urban centres where they will be needed. Or we could just get TREC on the case. . . .

The problem with nuclear generation . . .

. . . is that there are so many hidden costs and its green credentials are not at all proven. Yeah, I know the French have been running nukes for years and have made it shine but the government really really needs to pour money into a comprehensive costings study comparing renewables and nukes before they make any rash decisions. . . . .Oh. What? . . . . They already have? . . . . . .

Oh well then.

MPs to push through new generation of nuke stations

The consequences of the failure of successive UK governments to act on good scientific advice and embrace renewable generation has finally come home to roost with the endorsement by "ministers" and "senior Whitehall sources" of a nuclear power stations instead. 20 GW of generation capacity is scheduled for decommissioning in the next 15 years and there are only plans to replace 20MW - 1/1000th of the loss, so they had to come up with something pretty substantial. And it was the nuke option.

The way I see it, this demonstrates misgovernment on an enormous scale. How can you neglect to plan for the long-term security of your country's energy supply? The opportunities offered by development of renewable technology, the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and the significant returns on offer for those who develop such technology have been made clear to government time after time. The continued failure to take the difficult decision to move away from conventional generation- for whatever reason, be it economic, strategic or environmental- has been passed from one administration to another. I am fully aware of the enormous cost involved in constructing such generation capacity but there is no excuse for avoiding it because it was too difficult or too expensive when this government is pissing money into an illegal war, illegal weapons of mass destruction, a near-mediaeval education system and a struggling NHS that haemorrages money like a cash-cow impaled upon the spear of New Labour's arrogance.

Greenpeace rock!

Ok, so they might be overly preoccupied with hugging whales and saving trees but they have also stopped the Blair administration's attempts to commit our country to a new age of nuclear power stations without any significant public consultation in its tracks!

Don't get me wrong- I am not anti-nuclear power as I am minded to agree with Prof. James Lovelock's insistence that only nuclear generation- which is a very mature technology- can save us from the worst effects of climate change. However I am no expert on the economics and practicalities of renewable generation and cannot claim to support that or nuclear generation without a lot more reading. My impression is that nuclear may be flawed but has overwhelming advantage of being relatively carbon neutral. It would also have the benefit of loosening the noose of Russian bully-boy tactics over their stranglehold on gas supplies to Europe.