By Dave Cockcroft - 26 Nov 2005

Our position is clear – No New Nuclear, promote energy efficiency and uptake of micro renewables instead.

In order to “keep the lights on” surely it’s better to install low energy light bulbs than build nuclear power stations.

After brushing up on the nuclear power issue for the 25^th Nov Coffee House discussion I found myself more firmly against nuclear power than I had previously thought. The toxic legacy of new nuclear power stations is too great a price to pay for the small impact they will make on energy security and CO2 reduction. Costs are being underestimated by proponents and it is more cost effective to promote energy efficiency and the widespread uptake of micro renewables. Any subsidy to the nuclear industry will detract from development of true renewables and divert us once again from moving to a safe, secure and sustainable energy future.

This report has a summary of the anti-nuclear and pro-nuclear positions and links to further reading for each.

 

Summary of the anti-nuclear position

There has been a very quick turn around in government thinking from the 2003 Energy White Paper  that said (p61) “the current economics of nuclear power make it an unattractive option for new generating capacity and there are also important issues for nuclear waste to be resolved. This paper does not contain proposals for building new nuclear power stations.”

All very straight forward and clear, but two years later the UK Parliament Environment Audit Committee launched an inquiry entitled “Keeping the Lights on: Nuclear, Renewables, and Climate Change”. This suggests the swift change of direction was due to “recent poor performance on the UK in terms and carbon emissions” and more obscurely “widespread perception that parts of Government are strongly in favour of nuclear new build”. In framing the inquiry there are a number of important questions posed related to issues like “is nuclear new build compatible with the Governments aims on security and terrorism” or “what impact would a major programme of investment in nuclear have on investment in renewables and energy efficiency” and even “how carbon free is nuclear energy… how carbon intensive is the mining and processing of uranium ore”. Read the Green party response to "Keeping the Lights On".

Nothing changed in the fundamental economics of nuclear energy energy between 2003 and 2005, however the price of fossil fuels changed dramatically. Prices are on an upward trend driven by reserve depletion both at home (North Sea) and globally. Since our future supply of oil and natural gas will be highly dependent on imports from unstable regions, principally Russia and the Middle East, energy security has shot up the agenda. New nuclear build is being sold by it's proponents as a solution to climate change but do the facts stack up?

Politically the key phrase is “keeping the lights on” – no government dare risk being accused of allowing the lights to go out. They want to be able to say “we did everything we possibly could, even investing in (unpopular) nuclear power”. So it seems nuclear is a political football, being kicked around by powerful industry lobby groups, with which the government can appear to be addressing the coming energy crisis and failure to achieve even modest carbon emission targets.

There is very little substance to the pro nuclear arguments. Here’s a short summary of the anti-nuclear position. See the links in further reading (below) for more detail.

• Nuclear power is not CO2 neutral. The whole process including building and running the plant should be included in the analysis. In particular, the mining and processing of uranium fuel. Taking all this into account new nuclear would produce between 25% and 50% of the emissions of an equivalent gas fired power station.
• New build would take at least 10 years and would make no contribution to short term CO2 targets and minimal contribution to 2020 targets.
• The emissions get worse before long (depending on number of nuclear power stations world wide) as high-grade uranium deposits are depleted and lower grade ores need to be processed. Nuclear is not sustainable long term. Although there is a huge amount of uranium in the world most of it is in very low concentrations (for example in sea water) and extraction would require more energy that the fuel would yield.
• Fast breeder reactors would resolve the problems of limited uranium but these carry far higher risk of nuclear weapon proliferation. No country has yet established a reliable fast breeder fuel cycle and, if possible at all, it’s estimate to be at least 30 years away.
• The waste problem is still not solved. Proposals exist for handling high level wastes but the long time scales involved make all of these options uncertain to some degree. We are simply not dealing with low-level radioactive emissions, from cancer clusters around nuclear power plants to pollution of the Irish Sea and use of depleted uranium. We continue to build a toxic legacy for future generations.
• It is often said that 20% of UK energy comes from nuclear, in fact it’s 20% of  our electricity. Nuclear actually accounts for around 5% of our overall energy (i). To judge the effectiveness of nuclear in reducing CO2 emission it’s the lower (5%) contribution that is important. So nuclear, unless massively expanded, would prevent around 3% increase in emissions through 2020 and this is dwarfed by projected increase in vehicle emissions in the same period.
• Achieving CO2 targets is dependent on demand management and energy efficiency. For example enforcing motorway speed limits to improve fuel efficiency and would yield substantial CO2 savings, as would improving building insulation and making better use of central heating controls.
• The quoted cost of the new nuclear build is based on best case estimates. They ignore the lessons of past experience and exclude future costs such as decommissioning and long term waste management. In short the figures are fudged.
• There are many hidden subsidies for nuclear power and they detract from investment in renewables. For example the nuclear industry is not adequately insured. Commercial insurance judges the risks as too great, so the government is left to underwrite any accidents. In addition the government is left to pick up the bill for decommissioning, waste reprocessing and storage.
• Nuclear reactors reduce out security and have the potential for catastrophic disaster. Sources of uranium are no more secure than current oil or gas supplies. Reactors are vulnerable to terrorist attack and radioactive waste could be used in dirty bombs. In addition there is a link between commercial nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. That’s why there are such concerns about Iran’s nuclear reactor programme.
• One of the major criticisms of renewables is that they’re unreliable and would need back up capacity on the grid. Well exactly the same if true for nuclear. They are unreliable and prone to unscheduled shut down, sometime for prolonged periods.

Notes:

(i) From the DTI's energy stats department they have stated that: 'In terms of energy supplied, 3.6% of the total energy demand in the UK in 2004 was met by electricity generated from UK nuclear stations.' 

Further Reading 

No2NuclearPower.org -  has an excellent and very comprehensive report "Is nuclear power a solution to climate change?" as well as other materials that comprhensively bebunk the myth that nuclear power makes economic sense.

Greenpeace - Power to the people: decentralised energy not new nuclear plants. Wide coverage of the issues and their campaign against new nuclear build.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk

New Economics Foundation – Mirage and Oasis, an excellent report on the true costs of nuclear and the potential of renewables. The cost of new nuclear power has been underestimated by almost a factor of three and the potential of small scale renewables critically overlooked.

http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?PID=209 

A Nuclear Power Primer - introduction to the issues with links to further info.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-climate_change_debate/2587.jsp

No New Nukes: another useful site:

http://www.nonewnukes.org.uk/

Nuclear Power The Energy Balance - whole lifecycle analysis of the CO2 emissions of nuclear power.

http://www.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/

Nuclear power is not an answer to global warming because... by Richard Lawson

http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread.jspa?forumID=124&threadID=45299&messageID=69920

Friends of the Earth show how CO2 targets can be met without new nuclear build

http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/resource/general_readers.html#nuclear_power

Earth Track has updated information on the magnitude of subsidies to nuclear power in the United States - dowload pdf file:
 
http://www.earthtrack.net/earthtrack/library/NuclearSubsidies2005_NPRI.ppt
 

CO2 emissions - photos illustrating nuclear power's impact:

http://home.austarnet.com.au/davekimble/peakoil/nuclear.CO2.htm

For information on local nuclear issues search for Oldbury on this site.

DTI Energy Flowchart 2004 – graphically shows the UK energy flows and puts the nuclear contribution into perspective.

http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/inform/flowchart.pdf

Summary of the pro-nuclear position

prepared by Chris Brain

The are three main areas to the pro nuclear argument;

1. Reducing CO2 emissions.

• Progress on reaching Kyoto targets is not good. CO2 emissions are going up in last 2 years.
• Energy sector is significant factor in CO2, second only to that produced by industry.
• Nuclear is a proven low carbon process.
• It doesn’t seem likely that renewables and energy efficiency measures will enable energy sector to meet Kyoto targets.

2. Ensuring security of supply.

• Plenty of evidence that the decline of fossil fuels, decommission of present nuclear supplies and increased demand will require new sources of energy.
• Plenty of evidence that nuclear is a relatively stable form of supply.
• Pro-nuclear groups claim that security of supply is most important factor for consumers.
• Even if there’s a high growth in renewables they need a back up.

3. Technical arguments.

• Cost – figures produced by nuclear industry show nuclear to be cheapest alternative to fossil fuels. This is a complicated issue. Calculating the actual cost can result in many different answers depending on whether all the associated factors are included or excluded. Past bad costs blamed on public sector and extra costs due to opposition etc. Projected new good costs based on new technology and greater efficiency of private sector.
• Safety – arguments revolve mostly around Chernobyl. How bad was accident? Was it solely due to bad equipment and procedures of Soviets? Seems clear that accident wouldn’t have happened without mistakes made by technicians. <
• Waste – new processes make much less waste. Upcoming solutions for past waste will accommodate new waste.
• Benefits to economy – employs 40,000 in highly skilled work. Reduces costs of importing energy.

Further Reading

http://www-ns.iaea.org/

The home site of the International Atomic Energy Authority. The best place to find independent and objective evidence about nuclear power. Unfortunately the site is difficult to navigate because it is overloaded with reports on other reports and reports on how to make reports. There is actual factual information in there but it’s hard to get to. 

http://www.chernobyl.info/index.php

A more accessible site with lots of well backed up evidence on the Chernobyl accident.

http://www.unscear.org/pdffiles/annexj.pdf

The 2000 report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), on the short and long term effects of the Chernobyl accident. This is the most comprehensive and reliable report available so far, although it is far from conclusive.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/index.htm

The World Nuclear Association, a trade association representing the nuclear power industry. Hundreds of technical reports and accessible statements setting out the arguments for nuclear power.

http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/inform/energy_indicators/indicators2005.pdf

UK Energy Sector Indicators 2005. “Our Energy Future - Creating a low Carbon Economy” A report from the DTI on how to reduce CO2 emissions from the power industry.