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2004 Oct, Newsletter No.74 |
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Written by SONE
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Friday, 01 October 2004 |
Global warming is not the only reason to go nuclear
It should not have come as a surprise this month that the global level
of carbon dioxide, as measured in Hawaii, is rising. We are putting
more CO2 into the atmosphere. Whether this or natural variations are
causing global warming is a contentious issue with arguments raging on
both sides.
Global warming is not the only reason to go nuclear
It should not have come as a surprise this month that the global level
of carbon dioxide, as measured in Hawaii, is rising. We are putting
more CO2 into the atmosphere. Whether this or natural variations are
causing global warming is a contentious issue with arguments raging on
both sides.
There are many who regard global warming/climate change as nuclear’s
trump card. We advise against playing it too strongly or too often lest
people think it is nuclear’s only argument. Surely the point is that,
whatever the cause, it is a sensible precaution to avoid thickening the
globe’s warming blanket of greenhouse gases. Only nuclear can do that.
But nuclear would be necessary whether or not global warming were
bringing the threat of climate change. We can think of five reasons for
this:
1 - COST: nuclear must now be the cheapest generating option on the
basis of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s findings that gas and
nuclear were more or less level pegging at 2.2-2.3pkWh before this
year’s gas price increases. What is more, unlike gas, nuclear’s current
price takes account of the estimated cost of decommissioning and waste
management. Gas prices are not rising because of global warming.
2 - SECURITY: nuclear has generated baseload electricity reliably for
50 years and could do so for centuries. There are no doubts about its
technology or, in contrast to gas, the availability and cost of its
fuel. It represents national security.
3 – SAFETY: after nearly 50 years in the UK without a recorded death
from a radiation accident, nuclear electricity must be the safest form
of generation yet devised by man. Only 45 deaths have been attributed
to the worst nuclear accident – Chernobyl. That is roughly the annual
death toll in our mines in the safer later years of coal mining.
4 – WASTE: Nuclear produces relatively small amounts of waste compared
with other forms of reliable power generation. Future nuclear power
stations will produce even less – a tenth that of current designs. And
the nuclear industry can handle its waste safely – if it is allowed to
do so.
5 – NATIONAL INTEREST: In the foreseeable future we have no prospect of
meeting the nation’s needs and obligations without nuclear power. Our
economy will be undermined without a growing nuclear industry.
Let’s tell Britain and the world we can’t do without it – and leave anti-nukes with the impossible
task of establishing the contrary.
An FoE bishop goes critical
Bishop Hugh Montefiore, one of the more colourful on the bench before
he retired, revealed two things in the Independent of 22 October: he
has come to support nuclear by process of rational argument; and has
been forced to resign from the board of trustees of Friends of the
Earth as a result.
The Independent devoted a whole page to the news story and gave the
bishop half of its opinion page to an article he had written for The
Tablet – and then wrote a leader saying he is wrong. “It is through
renewable energy that the world must save itself from the perils of
climate change”, it claimed.
The bishop based his case on the dangers of global warming. He said
that as a theologian he believed people had a duty to safeguard the
future of the planet. As a committed environmentalist, he had come to
the conclusion that the solution was to make more use of nuclear
energy. The advantages far outweighed any objections.
“When I told my fellow trustees [of FoE] that I wished to write on
nuclear energy, I was told this is not compatible with being a trustee.
I have therefore resigned because no alternative was open to me.” He
added a sound bite that will be used repeatedly in the years to come:
“The future of the planet is more important than membership of the
Friends of the Earth”.
After rehearsing arguments familiar to SONE members, the bishop wrote:
“The real reason why the Government has not taken up the nuclear option
is because it lacks public acceptance, due to scare stories in the
media and the stonewalling opposition of powerful environmental
organisations. Most, if not all, of the objections do not stand up to
objective assessment”.
Greenpeace’s deterrent
It is, of course, entirely reasonable for Friends of the Earth to ditch
Bishop Montefiore for his apostasy. But it is entirely unreasonable for
them then to claim, as Tony Juniper, their chief executive did on BBC
Radio 4 on 24 October, that they are not against nuclear in principle.
The bishop has played a useful clarifying role and we welcome him to
the ranks of the enlightened. But the informed energy and environment
debate that Bishop Montefiore seeks to promote also requires some
urgent clarification from Greenpeace. It is rumoured that they have a
very substantial war chest that they are itching to throw against the
first party that comes out for nuclear power.
This might explain why both Tony Blair and Michael Howard ran away from
the issue in their recent speeches on the environment. On the other
hand, you would be able to knock us down with a feather if, without the
trauma of the lights going out, any major party declared for nuclear
before the general election.
The fact remains that some politicians believe Greenpeace is exercising
a negative force on the democratic process by brandishing its cash. If
that is so, then we clearly need to know where Greenpeace gets its
money from. Who, or what, is it an eminence vert for?
The verb to meacher…
Michael Meacher, the sacked Environment Minister, has introduced a new
verb to the infinitely flexible English language. It is to meacher. It
is a concise way of describing a silver-tongued politician who brings
soft soap, extreme unction and snake oil to his normal disingenuousness
and then blows the gaff. So what’s brought this on?
We refer to Mr Meacher’s article in the Guardian on 22 October in which
he wailed about “the public scandal” of the Committee Examining the
Relative Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE). He was scandalised by the
committee’s deletion from its little-noticed but reassuring report the
arguments of two virulently anti-nuclear activists, Richard Bramhall,
of the Low Level Radiation Campaign, and Dr Chris Busby, of Green Audit.
The two adopted a “confrontational” approach, as they described it,
during the committee’s deliberations, repeatedly asserting that the
number of deaths each year from cancer due to the effects of radiation
was 100-300 times greater than officially estimated.
We understand that in spite of at least two attempts to find
appropriate wording for their minority report, they refused to accept
any significant amendments. Accordingly, the committee voted against a
dissenting statement because it was not scientifically founded. This
was understandably distressing to Mr Meacher who apparently appointed
the CERRIE committee in the hope of dealing a killer blow to nuclear
power.
“Why have these shenanigans been used to gag a critical debate about
public health?” he meachered in the Guardian. “May be it is because if
these arguments suggesting far higher fatalities than officially
admitted from radiationinduced leukaemias and other cancers were
included in a government report, it could well lead to a legal
challenge to the regulatory approvals granted to nuclear power stations
– without which the nuclear industry could not function”.
Thank you, Mr Meacher, for telling us why you appointed the committee in the first place.
…and gaffes galore
We think we should reveal that Professor Jack Simmons (Westminster
University), a member of SONE’s committee, was also a member of CERRIE.
But it turns out that Mr Meacher appointed him, not to balance the
argument, but because a talk he gave was completely misunderstood as
anti-nuke!
Now Mr Meacher has been forced to deny claims from CERRIE that he tried
to “manipulate” its work and “bully” it. Professor Dudley Goodhead,
chairman of CERRIE and director of the MRC’s radiation and genome
stability unit, told the Observer of 24 October that he came under
extraordinary pressure from Mr Meacher to include the Bramhall/Busby
minority report in the official report. But it gets even worse. CERRIE
was originally called a consultative exercise when set up in 2001. Then
Mr Meacher changed its status to a committee, even though a committee
has apparently more stringent rules governing membership. This has
given rise to worries that the impartial, independent advice of
scientists could be compromised in future.
Meanwhile, the splendid Dr Busby is trying to frighten the residents on
both sides of the Solway Firth coast by claiming that “a wave of toxic
plutonium” is making its way to them from Sellafield. “There is no safe
limit for plutonium”, he told the Sunday Times. “These particles drift
inland and can be inhaled. The health effects will not be felt for
another 10 years. They will continue to rise until 2050”.
I think we have the measure of the scaremongering Dr Busby. CERRIE says his claims are not founded in science.
The krypton scare
Talking of scaremongering, readers will recall the recent apparently
fruitless exchange between the Secretary and Paul Brown, The Guardian’s
environment correspondent, who said krypton gas discharged from
Sellafield was blamed for 100 cancers a year. We still await details.
Dr Peter Hodgson, a member at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, draws
attention to his book Our Nuclear Future in which he pleads for
attention to be concentrated, in assessing public hazards, on what
could really happen rather the alarmist scenarios circulated by
anti-nuclear groups. He says that in nearly all cases of nuclear
accidents the best course of action is to stay indoors for a few hours,
with windows and doors closed and ventilation fans off, while krypton,
an inert gas, is dispersed by the wind. The buildings themselves would
shield the occupants from krypton’s low level radiation.
Arguing the case
The case for nuclear power has been put three times over recent weeks
by your Secretary – to the Cirencester Science and Technology
Association on 22 September and to the Sustainable Energy and Energy
Efficiency EXPO at Olympia on 20 October. He also appeared in a BBC
Country File programme against the background of Dungeness nuclear
power station on October 3.
His case was later strengthened by France’s decision on October 22 to
announce Flamanville in Lower Normandy as the site for the first French
EPR advanced reactor with strong local support.
At Olympia, your Secretary made the point that the EXPO, like most
energy and environment conferences (and magazines) these days, had been
self-indulgent, driven by idealism rather than reality. The nation must
keep its feet on the ground about the contribution of renewables and
energy conservation to meeting its energy needs. They did not hold out
much prospect of filling much of the 54% gap in electricity supplies
that would open up if coal and nuclear power stations continued to
close.
“Greens” could not be serious about mitigating climate change if they opposed the development
of nuclear energy.
After all, the OECD claimed that nuclear power already avoids the
release to the atmosphere of more CO2 than would be avoided if Kyoto
yielded all its targets, including from its application in the USA.
“Sooner or later,” your Secretary said, “we shall have to face the fact
that we can’t do without nuclear power on cost, security and
environmental grounds. The question is not whether but when that
decision will be taken. Nuclear is the only clean, reliable and
sustainable form of power available. To be nuclear is to be sensibly
green and sustainable”.
When asked by a W S Atkins’consultant at Olympia why people are not
flocking to invest in nuclear if it is the cheapest option, your
Secretary said: “Well, would you, when the Government is so apparently
anti-nuclear, discriminates against it – eg through the climate change
levy – and procrastinates over a decision on a waste repository? But
what if the Government said Britain needs nuclear power? That would
change the entire atmosphere, provided, of course, the Government also
made a decision on long-term storage of waste”.
The French programme
The new 1,600MW third generation unit from Framatome to be built at
Flamanville is likely to be the first of 10 to be built by Electricite
de France. It is seeking investment in it by Belgian, German, Italian
and Spanish utilities. Construction is expected to start in 2007 for
commissioning five years later. This means it will start generating
about two years after Finland’s EPR at Olkiluoto.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has, incidentally, just issued
final design approval of the BNFL Westinghouse AP1000 reactor
Kyoto to be ratified?
It now looks as if Russia will ratify the Kyoto Treaty, thus bringing
it into force next year. Its Cabinet decided to send it to the Duma,
which is expected to be compliant, in the face of some fierce
opposition from President Putin’s economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov,
who thinks it will constrain Russia’s economic development.
Russia’s decision probably owes more to political bargaining – European
support for its membership of the World Trade Organisation – than
environmental enthusiasm.
Whether ratification will mean much with the USA standing outside and
China, India and Africa not covered is another matter. It requires the
developed nations to cut their emissions by 5.2% of 1990 levels between
2008-12. The EU’s share is an 8% cut and Britain’s 12.5%. Critics say
it won’t make much difference to global warming. They are probably
right, especially in view of the relaxed approach of EU members.
German/Swedish nonsense
Germany’s utilities are becoming increasingly critical of their
Red/Green coalition government’s hostility to nuclear power. They have
told the government that its policy of phasing out nuclear by 2023 and
requiring 20% electricity from renewables would require 37,000MW of new
fossil fuel power, including replacement of 20,600MW of nuclear
capacity. That would make the country’s 40% CO2 reduction target
unattainable. “Simultaneous realisation of both the phase-out and the
ambitious CO2 reduction targets is out of the question”, they say.
Sweden is to close another Barseback power station next year under the
phase out programme. Analysts point out that Sweden will now have to
import initially Russian generated electricity and then after 2008 from
the new Olkiluoto European reactor.
Material held over
It has been such a busy month that a lot of material has had to be held
over, including a summary of a lot of interesting letters to the media
by members. In a letter published in The Times on 22 September, Neville
Chamberlain, a member of the committee, said that after attending the
World Energy Congress in Sydney he was “convinced that the UK is out of
line with most of the rest of the world in so far failing to recognise
nuclear energy is an essential component in a safe, secure and
affordable energy mix”.
He also said Michael Howard, Tory leader, was misled if he believed
nuclear power was expensive. Presentation after presentation at the WEC
refuted this.
AGM report
The November issue of the Newsletter will take the form of the minutes of the annual general
meeting held at the Royal Academy of Engineering on 27 October. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 September 2005 )
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