27th February 2008

Rosie Reed responds to letter in last weeks SNJ 

I welcome the acknowledgement from Martin Ecclestone (SNJ, February 20th) of the enormous significance of climate change for the future of the earth. Unfortunately he goes on to disappoint by falling back on the usual specious arguments in favour of nuclear power.

Building up the nuclear infrastructure will be a slow process - far too slow to make a difference on global warming. A 2006 study found that for nuclear power to play a meaningful role in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the world would need to build a new plant every one to two weeks until mid-century. In addition, nuclear power is far from being carbon-free, as release of CO2 during construction of new plants will take many years to offset, and uranium mining is hugely energy intensive.  

But the disadvantages don’t end there; nuclear power is also extremely risky. No country in the world has yet succeeded in building a secure long-term underground waste repository. A by-product of nuclear energy creation is depleted uranium, which has become so common that weapons manufacturers can buy it cheaply, and there is now a growing black market in radioactive materials.Furthermore, if terrorists can crash large planes into the Pentagon, they can certainly find a way to attack nuclear reactors. In effect, a simple conventional explosive used against a nuclear facility would serve as a large radiological weapon.

Martin Ecclestone claims that another Chernobyl would be impossible, yet there are no guarantees that states like North Korea will build reactors up to the standards of modern Western plants. While he dismisses the human consequences of Chernobyl in such a cursory way, there are more than 50 published scientific studies indicating that it may already have claimed 500,000 lives.
      

It is scientific fact that there are cleaner, cheaper, and faster alternatives to nuclear that come with none of the hazards. The real problem is that the amount of money we have invested in renewables, conservation and energy efficiency is onlya tiny fractionof that which the nuclear and fossil fuels industries have enjoyed.

Of course wind power alone will not be sufficient for our needs -  it is the combination of high-tech energy conservation, wind, solar, wave and tide power that will solve our energy requirements. Recent advances in photovoltaic technology mean that solar power may very soon become commercially competitive, while geothermal power also has an important future.

Whatever arguments are put forward in favour of nuclear power, whether negligent or simply defective, the frightening reality is that its huge costs and dangers are merely being forwarded to future generations.

Rosie Reed