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2006 Nuclear Issues v28 04 |
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Written by Nuclear Issues
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Saturday, 01 April 2006 |
Nuclear Issues is also available as a pdf download
Chernobyl not Japan
Twenty year ago when the Chernobyl accident occurred the scientist said
that one small consolation was that we would now get real result from
studies of the effects of low level radiation. So where are they? The
figures that are being used by the media are truly ridiculous.
And they are still quoting estimates of 4000 total deaths to come based on the results of far more unreliable calculations from Japanese atom bomb survivors – note “survivors”; many of them are still living healthy lives sixty years after the events.
But now after twenty year the results of studies of Chernobyl survivors is far more reliable. There were plenty of administrative faults but still the majority of the liquidators – the 200 000 to 600 000 firemen and soldiers who undertook the main clean up operations in the first two years – had modern dosimeters and fairly good records of the health were maintained. At the time of the Japanese atom bombs we did not even know what dosimeters were.
The trouble is that people are just not dying fast enough for the scientist. Among the liquidators based on Japanese experience there should have been 200 or more excess leukaemia’s in the first four years peaking at two years and falling away to none after four. But there were NONE. Then in the next twenty years hundred of other types of cancer were predicted peaking at ten years and falling away to none today. There were NONE.
Of course there were many bureaucratic mistakes so the scientists just ignore the results. But they are still far more reliable than the Japanese estimates. Could it not be that the Japanese estimates and linear extrapolation back to zero are the ones at fault? But then at last, thyroid cancers in children seemed to bear a relation to how close they had been living to Chernobyl and the drinking of milk contaminated with iodine-131. This has an eight day half life so it would only have affected children living near Chernobyl in the first two or three weeks after the accident and fortunately it is a form of cancer that can be treated effectively. The trouble with these results is that they came before expected according to Japanese experience and they carried on too long after the accident. But still they appear to relate to the doses actually received so they have become firm figures.
Perhaps the most misrepresented are the so called “Chernobyl children” who have been dragged round the world as being affected by the accident even though many of them were not even conceived at the time. We are happy that children from under privileged backgrounds should be welcomed for holidays, if appropriate, but it should be applied to all children not just those living somewhere near Chernobyl. Some children have even been shown with radiation effects such as loss of hair, but these are children being treated – usually successfully – with radiation in cancer clinics rather than anything from Chernobyl.
What then are the facts? Due to the initial accident there were two death from the explosion and 237 were treated for severe radiation syndrome. This diagnosis was confirmed in 134 cases. In the first year 28 of these people sadly died and another 26 shortly thereafter. AND THAT IS IT as far as deaths which can defenitely be attributed to Chernobyl.
There was generally bad health in the region but this was due more to media and political hysteria. A report from the IAEA says the absence of attributable deaths does not mean that there were none. On the other hand it could mean that there were none. The IAEA again uses the questionable Japanese survivor figures to estimate a total of 4000 deaths in the future but it could be none – we will never know.
Some readers may be a little shocked by this over simplified analysis. But it makes a change from the shocking rubbish we normally hear.
Keeping the lights on
Over the next nine years a substantial amount of new electricity plant will have to be built to fill the gap which could arise when some 15-25 GWe of generating plant (nearly one-quarter of UK capacity) is expected to be decommissioned. Further investment on a comparable scale in the following ten years would also be required. This report by the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee (16 MPs: 5 Conservative, 9 Labour and 2 Lib Dem) expresses doubts over the future role of nuclear power, and in particular whether stations could be built to be in operation in time; believes that renewable energies could offer a solution, but only with a much greater support effort by the Government, and at a substantial cost; while falling back on the expectation that we will end up importing more gas. With over 300 pages of evidence and questions their study amounts to a minipublic inquiry.
In trying to make recommendations the EAC report demonstrates the inherent difficulty in reaching a conclusion on controversial matters where opinions and beliefs are heavily influenced by wishes or desires and where facts can be open to different interpretations, or disputed. There are fundamental differences in attitude between those who look to ever-advancing technological progress to solve social and economic problems and those who see technology as one source of the problem and advocate a return to a less complex, more frugal, less populated and less polluting world.
On the question of energy supply each side would be quite rational in choosing to believe those ‘facts’ and assumptions which uncertainty offers. That the EAC expresses doubts over the future role of nuclear power, while supporting the reliance on renewable energies and energy efficiency set out in the last White Paper says more about the predispositions of the Committee members than the practicalities of the problem.
Nuclear power
The EAC chooses to emphasise the doubts and problems that it believes could arise from a new nuclear programme. These are listed and discussed under the headings: Learning from the past; Could nuclear be built in time; Uranium supplies; Carbon emissions; Safety; Terrorism and proliferation; and Long-term waste disposal. In giving a largely negative response to all the above the EAC has chosen to believe what they wanted to hear by relying extensively on evidence submitted by long standing critics of nuclear power. These include Steve Thomas, (now a senior research fellow at the Public Services International Research Unit at the university of Greenwich), who gave evidence on behalf of opposing groups at the 1983 Sizewell B and 1987 Hinkley Point C public inquiries. His doubts that nuclear stations would meet the performance standards expected, previously rejected by the two Inspectors, now seem to have found favour with the EAC.
The EAC appears to have been similarly impressed by the timescale set out by Tom Burke (a former advisor to secretaries of State for the Environment and now a visiting Professor at London University) that a new nuclear station could not come into commercial operation before 2021, and therefore could play no part in filling the expected gap. But even on Burke’s 2021 figure a new nuclear programme would still make an important contribution to the Government target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050.
In 1978 Burke, then executive director of Friends of the Earth, wrote that “nuclear power lies at the heart of a vision of the future committed to an expansion of the present patterns of economic and industrial development. If we wish to argue for alternative patterns
... we must succeed in stopping the development of nuclear power.” (letter to Vole, October 1978). Suggestions for an eight to ten year timescale which could be achieved if generic licensing of reactor designs, and the reuse of existing licensed nuclear sites were not considered realistic by the Committee.
Again on the availability of uranium supplies the EAC was sceptical that a sufficiency of further deposits could be found and developed to avoid a world shortage. It accepted that ‘secondary’ sources, e.g. recovering and recycling the 96% of the uranium in spent fuel, and using ‘excess’ plutonium from military stockpiles in MOX fuel, would prove too expensive to be widely adopted. .
In supporting doubts that the carbon-free claims for nuclear power had been overstated the EAC rejected the evidence from British Energy based on the actual emissions from the Torness plant, and supported by studies from a number of bodies, including the Swedish State Power Board, and the IAEA that carbon emissions from nuclear plant were comparable to or even below those from the construction and operation of wind generators. Instead they seemed more sympathetic to opposing estimates made by two environmental organisations in the Netherlands and Germany and concluded by proposing that the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution should study the matter.
Inevitably on nuclear waste disposal the EAC repeats the mantra “No country in the world has yet solved the problems of long-term disposal of high-level waste.” This ignores the fact that both Finland and Sweden have firm plans for the construction of underground repositories for spent fuel, following intermediate storage in water pools as already in operation in Sweden. The problems are only ‘unsolved’ insofar as the repositories have not yet been completed and in use. Evidence from BNFL showed that in the Czech Republic, Japan, and Sweden the costs of decommissioning and waste disposal from their operating stations have been fully costed and amount to no more than EU 0.001 - 0.002 per kWh over their operating lifetimes.
Figures quoted for the supposedly high cost of the ‘nuclear legacy’ are irrelevant. It is difficult to establish how much of the legacy arises from the nuclear weapons programme. A country which ‘enjoys’ the ‘benefits’ of nuclear weapons must be prepared to pay for the cleanup costs this incurs. These costs should not be used to oppose a programme of new nuclear power stations; it is accepted that a programme of 10 GWe of nuclear power would over their lifetime operation and final decommissioning only add some 10-15 percent to the accumulated waste.
This is not to say that, apart from some obvious distortions of fact, the assumptions adopted by the EAC with regard to a new nuclear programme are in all instances wrong or necessarily misleading but the EAC should have considered the extent to which they are coloured by the underlying aim of their proponents – to move society towards an alternative way of life – before accepting and endorsing them. It might also be questioned if, after two previous lengthy public inquiries, we need a third to go again over much the same ground, with much the same people making much the same objections and receiving much the same answers.
Renewable energies
The counter-argument is that the energy gap could better be closed by a combination of increased output from renewable sources as set out in the previous 2003 Energy White Paper. These will include off-shore wind, wave and tidal power as well as micro-generation with small-scale wind, photoelectric and chp units – including some technologies which are still in the conceptual or early stages of development and for which the potential for full scale economic deployment has yet to be demonstrated. It is also assumed that clean coal technologies with carbon capture and sequestration can be implemented on a large scale at an acceptable price.
Despite declaring in favour of this policy the EAC draws attention to many of the deficiencies in its implementation so far. Indeed it is implied that without a very much greater commitment and active support on the part of the Government this policy could fail. A striking illustration shows the near impossibility of coming anywhere near to the government target of reducing carbon emissions by 20 percent below the 1990 level by 2010.
The fall in emissions from 1990 is attributed to the ‘dash for gas’ when coal-fired plant was replaced by gas-fired. Now the reverse is taking place; with the steep increases in gas prices, coal is replacing gas. As a consequence carbon emissions from the electricity sector have risen from 41 MTC in 2000 to 47 MTC by 2004. There is in addition the, so far irresistible, rise in emissions from the road transport sector. In their report the EAC fails to mention evidence submitted to them that a 10 GWe replacement nuclear programme would prevent an increase of about 8 MTC a year compared to gas-fired plant, or up to twice that amount if the replacement was mainly by coal.
Another revealing diagram shows how far the renewable energy programme is falling short of the Government target and, once more, the near impossibility of meeting those targets on time, or even at all.
84 percent of the total renewable electricity in 2004 was generated from biofuels – mainly landfill gas. Of the remainder hydro contributed over 10 percent and wind only 4.4 percent, - “wind power – often seen as the main medium term source of renewable energy – contributed only 1,935 GWh – less than 0.5 percent of the total electricity generated in the UK.”
Despite reporting the optimistic assessment of the British Wind Power Association that wind power could contribute up to 20 percent of UK electricity by 2020, the EAC refers to the “immense” scale of development this would require with the installation of some 6,000 units of 5 MW turbines or even more if 3MW units were used. While the scope for generating substantial amounts of wind power could be far greater offshore, progress so far is “distressingly slow”. And it notes that “even” the British Wind Energy Association acknowledged that further progress would require some form of additional long-term financial support. It seems that the present support structure through the Renewables Obligation, which could rise to £1 billion/ year by 2010, is insufficient.
Yet against its own critical assessments of the renewables programme the EAC is still able to believe that renewables can deliver 20% of electricity generated by 2020, although admitting that it would require a far greater degree of commitment (and financial support?) than has hitherto been demonstrated. But as evidence from Scottish and Southern Electricity put the expected shortfall in electricity supply by 2020 at almost half of the expected demand. still leaves a gap of 30 percent.
Other technologies
Similar comments are made on the other potential new energy sources. Clean coal and carbon capture and storage technologies would need to be developed particularly in the light of recent DTI forecasts that coal will still constitute 25-30 percent of the total generating mix in 2015. But here again it is the case that a “ plethora of reports creates an impression of activity whilst progress in ‘learning by doing’ appears minimal.”
Distributed generation with small scale local micro generation units at the point of demand using a variety of technologies including micro-wind, micro-CHP, small-scale biomass generation, and photo-voltaics is seen as more promising, but this would require an ‘intelligent’ metering system.
For all these technologies the question is the extent to which they could contribute to filling an emerging energy gap well before 2020. While accepting arguments that proven nuclear stations could not be built in time the EAC seems prepared to believe that these new concepts, in some cases still under development, can be successfully brought into widespread use – but at a cost. It recognises that the total support under the Renewables Obligation could rise to as much as £42 billion over the lifetime of the obligation, although the figure could fall if renewables did become cost-effective .But it is emphasised that the consumer will have to pay, and the EAC warns that “Governments should make clear to consumers and taxpayers that low-carbon technologies have an explicit price premium: we cannot move to lowcarbon power generation on the basis of cheap energy.” In this, and indeed through out their report the low carbon technologies do not include nuclear power.
Energy Efficiency
The other leg of the Energy White Paper was a reliance on increasing energy efficiency to reduce energy demand. Here again the EAC having first elaborated on the experience that increasing energy efficiency seems to result in an increase, not a decrease in energy – “technological advances have generally resulted in increases in consumption rather than reductions” so that “the demand for electricity is still increasing at about 1.5 percent a year” – finally chooses to believe the opposite: “energy efficiency can contribute very substantially to reductions in both demand and carbon emissions.”
Wishful thinking
The EAC does not fail to berate the DTI for their overoptimistic forecasts, for example in using the assumption, in October 2005, that oil prices would be at or below $20/barrel in real terms over the next 15 years. Yet they themselves commit a similar error, declaring that “the cost of gas in the UK is likely to fall again as the investment in UK gas infrastructure increases – thus confirming CCGT as the preferred choice of investors for new generating plant.” With the increasing dependence of Europe on Russian gas supply and evidence that Gazprom is prepared to use its dominating position to impose its own conditions, any fall in the price of UK gas seems, to say the least, unlikely, especially given that we are at the end of pipelines from Russia into Europe.
This must be a matter of serious concern given the assessment by the EAC that “any new investment in generating capacity outside the framework of the Renewable Obligation will almost certainly be in gas, and we will inevitably be dependent on new CCGT plants for most of the 15GWe to 20GWe of new generating plant we will need by 2016.” It is one of the strongest arguments for starting on a new nuclear programme in the shortest possible time. There is also the prospect of an OPEC-like gas cartel in which Russia and Iran would be important members.
The EAC also claims that the DTI appears to have been taken by surprise by the rapidity of the decline in North Sea oil reserves. Yet neither this report nor the DTI consultation paper Our Energy Challenge published for the new energy review makes any reference to the possibility (or as some would have it probability) that world oil production will peak within the next few years (if it has not already done so) to throw any plans or energy policies into complete disarray. Is the DTI to be taken by surprise again?
The EAC reports, and presumably would like to believe, some astonishingly low price projections for some renewable technologies – that by 2025, on-shore wind would become the cheapest of all forms of electricity generation in the UK, while photovoltaics would fall to 2 p/kWh in sunnier climes and could become cost competitive in global terms. Wave energy could fall from their current levels (between 12 p/kWh and 44 p/kWh) to become competitive with other forms of energy, given sufficient investment and deployment.
To maintain some balance however the EAC also refers to possible new developments in nuclear reactor technology or even fusion power within the next 30 years. As always one tends to believe what one wants to believe.
Financing nuclear new build
In their evidence to the EAC the major European utilities operating in the UK – EDF, E.ON and RWE – made it clear that they did not seek any direct financial support for new nuclear stations from the Government. But before investing in plant with an operating life of up to 60 years, they would require assurances of a long-term stability in the market, financial and operating conditions. Certainly, having seen the experience of the British energy shareholders who were in effect robbed of their investment while both the banks and Government profited from the reconstruction following the collapse of BE under NETA, private investors would be very wary of participating in any nuclear power project without seeing a very high return on their capital of up to 15 percent or more. Yet the cost of capital has a large effect on the unit generating cost. Figures from BNFL showed the generating cost increasing from 1.4 p/kWh to 4 p/kWh as the discount rate went up from 5 to 15 percent.
When considering the order for a new plant in Finland the Committee rejected that this might have any relevance for the UK as the structure of the Finnish market was so totally different. Nor did it consider whether the Finnish model could be successfully adopted in this country. In Finlnd the company building the new station, OL 3, is owned by two major electricity generating and supply groups together with four other companies. The electricity generated is supplied to the owners, according to their investment, at cost price and under very long-term contracts. Under this system some 60 companies participate and the electricity will be widely consumed by industry and society all over the country. Similar arrangements apply for the other two reactors on the Olkiluoto site, OL 1 and OL 2. This ensures the stability of the market and a low discount rate. A similar structure is found in Sweden where for instance the nuclear power company OKG is owned 54.5 percent by E.ON Sverige and 45.5 percent by the Finnish power company Fortum, which is also a major shareholder in the Olkiluoto nuclear stations.
This suggests it might be appropriate if EDF, RWE, and E.ON were to join together and build a series of nuclear stations in the UK using the Franco-German EPR, as in Finland and now planned for the Normandy coast. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 19 June 2006 )
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