Nuclear Power – The wrong answer to the right question

So it seems in the wonderful democracy that is the UK, that Tony Blair has single-handedly reversed the Labour parties original policy on Nuclear power, and now wants to introduce a fresh phase of Nuclear power plant building. No need for consultation with the voters, the usual tried and tested tactic of release Tony’s officially opinion before the report is finished and effectively spike it will do. Mind you the report was written with the help of some not so unconnected third parties, so it looks like Tony had all bases covered on this one!

I feel there is a lot of rubbish talked about nuclear power. The biggest problem the Green argument has is the apparent logic behind the “Nuclear power doesn’t release CO2 so is therefore a green energy source and needed to meet our Kyoto target”. So I’ve put together my thoughts on the matter to share with the world.

So does Nuclear power release Greenhouse gasses?
Not an easy one to answer. However one thing that should certainly be taken into account is total cost throughout its lifecycle. I read in the Ecologist that during construction each Nuclear reactor releases 20 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Nuclear reactors are obviously specialist pieces of equipment, with Japan being one of the few producers, and shipping a Nuclear reactor from Japan obviously uses a lot of fuel up! Also, because of the risk of the plant having a Nuclear meltdown, they tend to be built in remote places, like in the highlands of Scotland, which generally means loads of infrastructure needs to be specifically created.

CO2 is also released during the mining and refining of Nuclear power. Nuclear fuel rods are made by smashing up rocks which contain trace amounts of Uranium. Anything greater than 0.02% of Uranium per ton is considered good. This expends CO2 obviously, and has the minor side effect of some of the radioactive Uranium being released into the air in dust particles… so that’s all right then.

Most Greenhouse gases however are released during the conversion & enrichment process. Here, dangerous chemicals are used to purify the yellow cake ore to produce the high concentration of Uranium-235. Half a tonne of fluorine is used to turn one tonne of Uranium into it’s gas form which is part of the process. The global warming potential for Flourinated compunds is a not so insignificant 10,000 greater than CO2! Oh dear!

So does a Nuclear power plant release less than more traditional power stations? It’s hard to sum up really. The general consensus seems to be they release less, but the ways in which Nuclear power contribute towards global warming are much more hidden and complicated that I certainly don’t believe when combined with the other downsides that it is a better option than traditional forms of energy generation which you know where you are with.

Energy Security of Nuclear Power
“Ah, but Nuclear power is a more secure energy resource!”. Is it though? I read in the Ecologist that the spot price of Uranium has risen by 600% in the last four years! It makes sense, with Japan, Canada, US, China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa all increasing their nuclear capacity, demand has increased, which leads to price rises. So what about future supply of Uranium then? Australia has the worlds biggest reserves (40%). However, Australia has shown a lack of will to turn there country into a giant Uranium mine, and presumably worried about radioactive pollution have banned any new mines from opening. So what about the rest? They are divided handily into two camps. We have countries like Canada(3rd), South Africa(4th), Brazil(6th), Russia(7th) and the US(8th) of stable countries which are all increasing their own number of nuclear power stations, so presumably will be using their own Uranium rather than buying it from other countries, and so may have less to export in the future. The second group, is full of unstable countries such as Kazakhstan(2nd), Namibia(5th) & Uzbekistan (9th). All personal opinion of course, but it’s not a recipe for stable prices in my book, and it's important to note that the extreme start up costs of Nuclear commit you to using it for 60 plus years to get your return on investment, and who can predict what shape the political and world situation will be in 60 years?

What about the waste?
Well the UK government is big on irony, and it doesn’t come much bigger than two recent announcements in what can only be described as “joined up government” at its best. The first is that Tony wants his legacy to be new Nuclear power plants. The second being that according to our own government department responsible for dealing with radioactive waste, it will take 40 years to find a geologically stable place to bury our current waste, some of which has been sitting around in leaky tanks for 50 years or more! All for the bargain price of £70 billion (equivalent to cost of building 140 new super hospitals). And who pays for this clean up, well of course, it's the tax payers! Brilliant, not only have they already paid once for Nuclear power on their electricity bill, but they now get to pay twice for it! How very efficient we are! Just imagine what a £70 billion investment into renewables would bring? There'd be no need for the next generation of Nuclear power plants to be built as we'd have so much being generated from renewables that would easily make up the lack of future Nuclear power contribution to our energy mix. So Emperor Blair is proposing to continue this vicious cycle of Nuclear power sapping investment away from truely Green methods of producing electricity; he's such a forward thinking Prime Minister after all.

Recent Problems in the Nuclear Industry
Surely all the bad press about Nuclear accidents is all in the past now right? I mean, they been running them for so long that they’ve sorted out all the “little” problems by now? Well the answer is of course no. Sadly there’s no such thing as a fool proof design. Combined with the fact that humans don’t always do what they are told. Throw in the pressures of shareholders wanting large dividends and private Nuclear Power plants are under pressure. Some recent examples of problems are:

• 4 nuclear plants in Sweden shut down due to a defective part being installed in 1993 and not being picked up in over a decade of “maintenance checks”. Strangely I found very little main stream media in Europe reporting this! Particularly the route cause! Of course, Sweden took the bold step in a referendum in 1980 to phase out Nuclear power… yet another field where their bold and decisive vision has put them ahead of the UK with it's stradle every fence possible and leave the decission till it's an emergency policy.
  
• That other high-tec, style conscious country in the world known as Japan also seems to have had recent troubles with nuclear power.
  

So there's two major incidents in just August 2006 described above, and those are just what I know! So with our Government record on major infrastructure projects do I have any confidence that we can do better than other leading countries... do I b#llocks!

So what can you do?
If you object to New Nuclear power stations being built, there are a few easy things you can do?

• The first is to sign the online petition for Europeans against Nuclear Power.
  
• Probably the most important thing you can do though is to email your MP expressing your concerns about the issue and that you are against it. So who is your MP? You can find out here, and it includes a handy bit where you can send them a message over the net.
  
• You can switch your electricity supplier to a green one like Good-Energy or Ecotricity that do not buy wholesale electricity from Nuclear power stations thereby reducing the economic demand for it, whilst also increasing the demand for renewables
  
• Finally, you can reduce your use of electricity by having energy saving lightbulbs, switching off Hi-Fi’s/TV’s when you leave the room, and generally not wasting it.
  

Anyway, I hope this post has given people something to thing about.

Cheers

Andy