The 20th anniversary of Chernobyl has come and gone, with the
inevitable festival of scaremongering, exaggeration and emotion. Our
progress in combating these anti-nuclear propensities is measured by
the scaling down of the Chernobyl death toll. Even the Independent
thought Greenpeace’s estimate of 100,000 “overblown” and said the best
estimates range between 16,000 and 60,000. The Chernobyl Forum’s
official figure is 56, with possibly 4,000 to come.
Even Greenpeace’s 100,000 represents a dramatic reduction in the figures that used to be bandied about.
We have discovered that wild life has returned to the exclusion zone around Chernobyl, even though it had never left it, as we can testify from our visit in 1994. The Daily Telegraph Magazine also claimed that the exclusion zone is barren. Again, not when we were there 12 years ago. Spring was bursting out all over.
This magazine also brought news of new Chernobyl heroes who tunnelled under the burning reactor to open a safety valve to prevent the molten core combining with groundwater to form a “critical mass”. We were told this would have produced an explosion six to ten times greater than the blast at the plant. This was news to us, too.
But then life is one long voyage of discovery in this vale of nuclear tears. An epidemiologist, John Urquhart, celebrated the anniversary linking an alleged rise of 11% in infant deaths in the UK in four years (1986-9) to where the rain fell as the fallout passed overhead. It was, he says, 4% in other areas. Mr Urquhart is an old hand at this game, having given evidence to the Black inquiry at Sellafield 20 years ago.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Agency has so far ratcheted up the cost of the British nuclear clean up to £70bn, which is modest compared with the £100bn the Green Party says it has cost so far.
While all this was going on Tory leader, David Cameron hared off to a retreating glacier in Spitzbergen to dramatise his green credentials. In the same noble cause Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, sorrowfully sold his 20 year-old gas-guzzling Jaguar. This dramatised the environmental difference between two of the parties: No Jag Campbell; two Jags Prescott.
Tony Blair spoiled the party by giving what The Guardian said was the strongest indication yet that he will press ahead with a new generation of nuclear power stations. This prompted the Liberal Democrats to say the Government had already decided to go nuclear. If so, this will be popular with the G8 group of industrialised countries which is due to back a nuclear expansion in July and the EU whose leaders (Germany and Austria apart) have strongly backed a nuclear revival to ease dependency on overseas energy suppliers and combat climate change.
The UK’s energy review could indeed be the defining moment Malcolm Wicks, the Energy Minister, promised Independent readers it would be.
SONE’S SUBMISSION TO REVIEWS
At the beginning of April – well before the deadline – SONE submitted its evidence to the Government’s energy review. We are also preparing memoranda for early submission to the two related Conservative reviews into energy and the quality of life. All are or will be posted in full on the SONE website.
We are grateful to members who have sent separate observations to the review, including this month R R Matthews (Esher). Adrian Ham, a Cheltenham member and former director general of the British Nuclear Industry Forum, has, with Robert Hall, submitted a substantial memorandum emphasising nuclear’s contribution to security but saying that it cannot be back on the agenda, as its deserves to be, on the basis of the present “shaky market framework”. The Ham/Hall submission comes with an interesting short history of nuclear power in the UK.
Dr W L Wilkinson FRS, a member of SONE’s committee, has also responded on SONE’s behalf to DEFRA’s consultation on policy for long-term management of solid low level radioactive waste.
He welcomed the encouragement of more flexibility in assessing disposal options. A riskbased approach to safety and environmental impact was also important and should be coupled with cost-benefit principles. He commended disposal in situ, to take the strain off Drigg, near Sellafield, subject to environment and costbenefit considerations.
What the government should do SONE’s energy review evidence was entered in four parts: 1) a covering letter; 2) a response to the Government’s invitation to comment on specific questions and issues raised in the consultative document; 3) a copy of the leaflet “The Looming Energy Crisis” which was sent to all members of the Government and MPs immediately after the general election; and 4) an elaboration on some of the points contained in the pamphlet.
In response to the Government’s invitation to comment on the considerations that should apply to new nuclear build, we said that if the Government decided Britain needed a greater measure of security of supply, medium- to long-term, it should:
1 – tell the nation that nuclear power must be developed urgently. for that to occur, it needed to:
2 – create a level playing field for nuclear in terms of taxation, carbon damage, and licensing and planning treatment; nuclear did not seek a subsidy but was entitled to fair play.
3 – ensure long-term access to the market on reasonable terms.
4 – having set the framework to achieve the objective – secure and clean energy – get out and stay out of the generators’ hair and stop trying to second-guess them.
5 – enable through the NDA nuclear generators to take out competitive long-term decommissioning and waste storage contracts, though the NDA’s return-to-greenfield strategy was unacceptable if the Government decided, as it must, that nuclear generation needed to be developed on existing nuclear sites.
Do we want to curl up and die? The overall message was that nuclear power was required for medium to longer-term security of supply at affordable cost, especially as it came with the bonus of next to no greenhouse gas emissions.
We added one long-term comment: “The case for nuclear now is strengthened by the desirability, putting it at its lowest, of maintaining national expertise in a clean method of electricity generation and motive power production (including hydrogen) and conceivably salt-water desalination. Looked at in this way, the nuclear issue confronting this review raises the question as to whether Britain intends to reach out to the future or curl up in its cold and impoverished nest and die”
HOW THE LAND LIES
In giving “his strongest indication yet” (The Guardian) that he will press ahead with a new generation of nuclear power stations, Mr Blair said, in response to a question: “We are investing a lot in renewable energy. It is very, very important. But we are going to lose 20% of our power from nuclear, which is what we get at the moment. Looking forward, for reasons of energy security as much as for reasons of climate change, I think there is going to be a huge need to develop all of this”.
The Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks anticipated his Prime Minister in an interview in the Independent: “From business I have heard the same messages over and over. There is an appetite to invest in the energy sector, but greater long-term certainty on the direction of policy is vital. As one person put it, given the sums of money and timescales involved: ‘We don’t want a five-year signal for energy policy, we want a 50-year signal’ “And diversity is critical”, added Mr Wicks. “So we must not pitch different energy sources as being at loggerheads. Equally, government should be in the game of setting the framework, not fixing the mix.”
Conservative troublemakers On this evidence, some people have been listening to SONE. The Conservative Party has yet to hear from us formally, though Alan Duncan (Industry) and Peter Ainsworth (Environment) have had blasts from members and your Secretary. Mr Duncan got his for saying, limply, that the Tories could not go against the grain of public opinion on nuclear power; Mr Ainsworth for talking about the “huge” costs of nuclear power and decommissioning and “nuclear waste radioactive for millions of years” at a Tory Green Initiative meeting.
Your Secretary told Mr Ainsworth to put aside his prejudices and decide what he wanted to achieve. His route would lead to shortages of electricity medium- to long-term and more greenhouse gas output. SONE’s route would achieve what any responsible politician should be seeking: security of electricity supply at affordable cost without CO2.
Mr Ainsworth response was to say that he is not interested in hearing from people with “a closed mind and an open mouth”. The dialogue continues.
THE WAGES OF SPIN
The Commons’ all-party Environmental Audit Committee caused a lot of angst among members mid-month with a report that discovered a looming electricity gap and advocated more gasfired power stations while damning nuclear - and not just with faint praise. What was interesting about its publication was how it was selectively leaked to the anti-nuclear Guardian/Observer stable who ran enthusiastically with it before its release on Easter Sunday. This is out of the top drawer of spindoctoring.
SkyTV sought a response from SONE and your Secretary made the following points:
1 – The committee was right to say that nuclear could not do much short term about security of supply or CO2 emissions, unless the lives of ageing nuclear power stations, now being closed, could be extended. But that was no argument against nuclear’s medium- to long-term contribution to security, competitiveness and cleaner generation.
2 – MPs had a confounded cheek in dismissing nuclear’s short-term contribution to policy objectives when they, above all others, had ensured that nuclear could not ease short term problems by their sustained procrastination over its development.
3 – It was nonsense to say that nuclear could not contribute much more before 2020, given the time taken to build nuclear power stations. That depended on will. It would not take 15 years to build a power station if there was a war on – as we had presumed there was against global warming.
OUR VOICE IS HEARD
We should not assume that, confronted with a Chernobyl-fest and hopelessly divided politicians, it is all or even mostly one-way traffic on nuclear. Even Zac Goldsmith, deputy chairman of the Tories’ quality of life review, could not rule out nuclear in an article in the Independent on Sunday on April 23.
“It’s impossible responsibly to delete nuclear from the energy menu”, he wrote. “It may need to be considered. But that will only be the case in the event of failure by our politicians to exploit the alternatives”. His alternatives were the usual unreliable mix of renewables, energy efficiency, CHP etc. Like all his kind, he overlooks the problem of keeping the nation going while we are exploiting the often unavailable “alternatives”.
In the context of Chernobyl, Michael Hanlon wrote in the Daily Mail: “Even the fact that atomic power produces little or no greenhouse gases has not been enough to sway the green lobby, who maintain an almost religious objection to this technology. Like all religions, the anti-nuclear movement has its myths – but we should not allow the lights to go out simply because we are afraid of the nuclear bogeyman”.
We hope Dr Andrea Sella, Department of Chemistry, University College, London, signals a determination by scientists to speak out against distortion of facts. She took Linda Walker, Chernobyl Children’s Project, to task for saying in newspaper correspondence there were no reliable statistics about the toll of Chernobyl radiation but sufficient anecdotal evidence to indicate a significant rise in disorders. Certainly not”, said Dr Sella, “Anecdote is ‘significant’ only because it is memorable. One can only draw conclusions on the basis of careful statistical analysis, not anecdote”.
Nuclear divides Greens Dominic Lawson, in the Independent, forecast that nuclear power would divide the environmentalist movement. Intellectually, he said, they “now appear more like conservatives, defenders of the status quo, too rigid in their thoughts to cope with internal dissent.
“When Hollywood joins the movement you know it’s reached its high-water mark. I was amused to see that Michael Douglas has been coopted, declaring that: ‘I will never be able to safely take my children to my father’s hometown in Belarus because of what happened there.’ Yes, you will, Michael. Listen to the birds of Chernobyl”.
Professor Ian Fells also made his mark in The Times. Renewables, he said, would play their part but should be used to replace gas and coal generation, not carbon-free nuclear power. He added: “The bulk of future electricity supply will have to rely more and more on nuclear power from new generation stations which will include breeder reactors and possibly fusion reactors as we move through the century, quadrupling our demand for electricity. Nuclear technology can ensure a supply of electricity to the world for 1,000 years if we have the courage and sense to choose this high technology route”.
CARBON SHAMBLES
The Government has had the mortification to admit that it will fail to meet its pledge to cut CO2 emissions by 20% (on 1990 levels) by 2010.
At best it says it will score only 15-18%. A fortnight later the Government’s Chief Scientist, Sir David King, told all and sundry they could forget about stabilising global warming at 2degsC above current average levels. Things have gone too far. We had better get used to the idea of 3degsC, with all the dire consequences.
This was interpreted by the Greens as providing cover for a pro-nuclear decision. It was strongly contradicted by 41 scientists who wrote to the Sunday Telegraph on April 23 rejecting the claim by Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society, that the evidence for human-caused global warming “is now compelling”.
Not so, they said. “Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise’”.
The challenge to the concept of man-made global warming is becoming more vocal. It is important to remember that the case for nuclear does not rest on its existence. SONE’s case for nuclear is the need to secure supplies at competitive cost. Nuclear’s bonus is that emits next to no greenhouse gases.
THE SCORE 10-7
Giles Chichester MEP, a SONE patron, attempted an audit of nuclear power’s advantages and disadvantages when he spoke to the European Nuclear Assembly on March 28. He listed the 10 advantages as:
1 – a new and additional source of energy; 2 – well-proven and mature technology; 3 – bulk, volume base-load power; 4 – predictability of electricity output; 5 – operating safety record; 6 – security of supply derived from proven technology, predictability of output and low fuel costs; 7 – longterm price stability; 8 – cost competitive; 9 – excellent long-term investment prospects; 10 – negligible carbon output over its life cycle.
The disadvantages were: 1 – public fears; 2 – radiation; 3 – Chernobyl; 4 – waste; 5 – estimates of decommissioning and waste management costs; 6 – security risks; and 7 – availability of uranium – all issues that needed to be treated through public education.
HALF A BUS-LOAD
A World Energy Council paper on nuclear waste management quotes the Finnish TVO company, now building a new nuclear power station, that 40 years’ operation of a nuclear plant at 90% capacity produces 970 cubic metres of spent fuel for disposal. Annually this is roughly equivalent to half a British double-decker bus.
GENERAL MEETING, JUNE 27
This year we are to hold our general meeting for members outside London in the Astely Suite at Birchwood Park, near Warrington, by courtesy of AMEC/NNC, on Tuesday, June 27.
Our speaker will be Sami Tulonen, the head of Foratom’s instititional relations unit for nuclear generation. Foratom is the European Atomic Forum. Mr Tulonen, a Finn, will speak on the European Commission’s security of supply green paper and Foratom’s follow-up actions.
There will be coffee from 11.30 and a buffet lunch. The meeting will open at noon and conclude at 3pm. There will be places for up to 50 members. Those wishing to attend should inform the Secretary as soon as possible on 020-8660-8970 or
