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The Position Of The Sellafield Churches’ Forum |
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Written by Peter Wilson
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Friday, 08 December 2006 |
Contribution from a member of SONE and a leader of the religious community in West Cumbria - Peter Wilson
The Sellafield Churches’ Forum is an interdenominational group of
active Christians in Cumbria, living more or less close to Sellafield,
and although not necessarily associated with it broadly favouring the
site’s productive role in civil nuclear technology. In this they
recognise a sharp difference from many other Christians whose views
they genuinely respect. Nevertheless, while acknowledging substantial
grounds for concern about nuclear energy, they are convinced on
ethical, intellectual and pragmatic grounds that the arguments in its
favour are stronger and more soundly based. Indeed, they believe that
without it, meeting God-given responsibilities towards local, national
and international communities or the Earth in general would be
difficult or impossible.
In particular the Forum repudiates the idea that nuclear technology
bears an inherent moral taint from its origins in war. The rights and
wrongs of nuclear weapons are not at issue here. While the primarily
military purpose of Britain’s first nuclear power stations is
undisputed, that connection ceased long ago and never involved the
newer installations. Scientific discoveries are in themselves ethically
neutral, and moral judgements apply only to their use; when a need
appears pressing, refusing to take advantage of available means might
suggest ingratitude to God whose ordering of the universe has provided
them.
There are, of course, those who maintain that the alleged need for
nuclear energy does not really exist, or so far as it does, could be
met by means carrying less serious disadvantages. Up to a point this
view commands sympathy; western society is undoubtedly wasteful of
energy as well as of much else; its avid pursuit of the material
gratification that demands it is profoundly reprehensible, indeed
ultimately destructive of real happiness. Christians, even if not
themselves corrupted, may well have failed to put these arguments as
vigorously as they should. Nevertheless the idea of an idyllic
pre-industrial society is largely fantasy except as it was for the
relatively wealthy. Few of us would willingly return to the
inconveniences that even they had to endure, supposing a return to be
possible at present levels of population. Imposing such a form of
economy is thus politically inconceivable under any form of democratic
government. The best we can realistically hope under foreseeable
conditions is to restrain the demand and meet it with as little harm as
possible to the world or its people.
As a nation we are doing nothing of the sort. Granted that some doubt
remains about global warming as a result of carbon dioxide emissions,
it is likely enough and the threatened consequences severe enough to
warrant vigorous precautionary measures. Instead, for all the talk of
cutting emissions, they are actually rising. Although electricity
generation is by no means the sole source, it is a major contributor
and will remain so as long as it depends substantially on even the
cleanest kinds of hydrocarbon fuel.
Moreover, these mostly belong to other peoples and we have no right to
assume that they will always be willing to sell, to the ultimate
detriment of their own heirs. In any case, there are other customers
who might be preferred, and still more now starved of energy who could
reasonably demand a share in dwindling resources. Gas supply has
already been used as a means of political coercion, and the long
pipelines or sea routes are obvious targets for disruption. We depend
crucially on stable energy supplies, and the outcome of the government
review of 2003, proposing that eventually four-fifths of them should
come from so vulnerable a source, appears to be the height of folly
especially when the remaining fifth is unreliable.
Since that review, policy has been reconsidered, but with evident fear
of the opposition to be expected from anti-nuclear activists. It is
worth considering the rational basis of that opposition.
Safety issues
Concerns are expressed about both the reactors themselves, usually with
reference to Chernobyl, and their waste products. The steam explosion
and subsequent fire at Chernobyl, dispersing much of the core to the
environment, was the predictable result of breaching a whole sequence
of operating rules in a bungled experiment on a peculiarly unstable
type of reactor, never likely to be built again. The consequent known
deaths were about as many as occurred annually with little comment
through accidents in the British coal-mining industry alone. Apart from
treatable cancers that could probably have been avoided but for an
attempted cover-up, other figures are speculative and based on highly
unreliable assumptions, while remaining problems are chiefly
psychological. Wild life is now flourishing in the area.
That was about the worst accident imaginable in the civil nuclear
industry. The partial melt-down at Three Mile Island in 1979 had no
known casualties, and in all probability the same would apply to any
future accident; the risk appears to be at a level that in other
contexts would be dismissed as negligible - and life is inseparable
from some measure of risk.
Wastes
Issues here are of quantity, radioactivity and disposal. The amounts
are trivial compared with coal ash from a similar generated output, and
most of existing untreated wastes - certainly the more intractable -
are a legacy of past military projects. Despite all that is said to the
contrary, means of safe disposal have been known for decades. Because
of multiple containment, they should not even call for particularly
demanding geological conditions to prevent dangerous seepage. The great
bugbear, at least in the popular view, is radioactivity.
About this several things need to be emphasised:
- It has always been a natural feature of the environment and of all
living creatures. Nearly two thirds of the average individual dose in
the UK comes directly or indirectly from the ground beneath it, about
an eighth from space and a tenth from the potassium in our own bodies.
Practically all the rest is due to medical applications.
- By comparison the amounts about which so much fuss is made are
negligible - the assertion that “no level is safe” is a precautionary
assumption for regulating higher occupational exposures, wrongly taken
out of context with no factual support.
- The more radioactive a nuclide may be, the faster it necessarily
loses that activity; depending on the isotope, surplus energy can be
released in a rush or slowly over a longer period. The main emitters
after initial storage lose half their activity every thirty years, so
after a few centuries little of them will remain, and the activity of
the rest will be comparable with that of the original ore.
- The burden of risk left to our successors, even after a hypothetical
collapse of civilisation, is thus trivial compared with burdens of
indestructible waste that each generation bequeaths to those following,
and in particular with the loss of irreplaceable hydrocarbon resources
that we consume at prodigious rates without regard to future
populations.
Cost
Unlike coal-, oil- or gas-fired stations, where most of the expense
goes on fuel, a nuclear generator requires two-thirds of its investment
before any energy is sold. Consequently delays in approval or problems
in construction, vagaries in regulation or premature closure have a
disproportionate effect. Historic costs in Britain are thus
unrepresentative. Those for decommissioning early facilities are
especially so since in the first instance construction was for military
purposes with little thought for anything but the immediate urgency.
Overall estimates, based on modern approved designs of reactor and a
full working lifetime, are among the lowest for all sources even
allowing for eventual decommissioning (included in the design
principles) and waste management. Given a requirement to separate and
store carbon dioxide generated by hydrocarbon fuels, or plausible
penalties for emissions, the relative position becomes even better.
However, the lead times for financial return are long, requiring a
stable market, and the caution of private industry is entirely
understandable given the vagaries of government thinking and the
history of political interference here and abroad.
Financial cost is of course not the only consideration; impact on the
environment is more important. That is most evident in mining for
uranium, and implies that once obtained it should be put to the most
effective use. Current reactors in once-through mode realise only a
hundredth of the energy theoretically realisable; recovering and
recycling uranium and plutonium from used fuel improve this
significantly, but the real gain, by a factor of about sixty, would
come from using these and the enormous stocks of uranium tails from the
enrichment process in fast reactors.
Although operational emissions of carbon dioxide are low and due mainly
to ancillary activities, construction and uranium mining do add to
them. A recent assessment by the DTI estimates the total to be about
the same as for wind or slightly better.
Weapon proliferation
Uranium-fuelled reactors inevitably produce plutonium, which
incidentally provides up to almost a third of the total energy output
through its own fission. As first formed it is an effective nuclear
explosive, but on remaining in the reactor is degraded to a point where
it is very doubtful that it could be more than a contaminant in a
“dirty bomb”; claims that current civil plutonium could serve as an
explosive seem to have disregarded some crucial practical factors.
A contamination weapon would admittedly cause severe local problems,
though probably more through fear than actual danger. Descriptions of
plutonium as the most toxic substance on earth were apparently based on
equating a legally permissible intake with a lethal dose; direct
evidence of actual toxicity seems non-existent, and more genuinely
deadly materials are readily available.
In fact the issue is scarcely relevant to the present argument. Any
state really determined to acquire nuclear weapons can do so unless
prevented by force. It might use civil technology as a front, but our
denying ourselves the use of it would make little if any difference.
Terrorism
A successful attack on a nuclear installation would raise enormous
public concern. It would undoubtedly be troublesome, although the
actual risk to the public would probably be slight. In any case,
terrorists tend to favour soft targets, and those with substantial
concentrations of radioactive material are about the hardest in
existence. Such material might be obtained elsewhere, but that,
although a matter for concern, is not our responsibility.
Social concerns
Nuclear reactors are necessarily large units, and for economic reasons
tending to get larger. They are, therefore, disfavoured by “small is
beautiful” enthusiasts who, with some cause, distrust the power of
large organisations. Local micro-generation has its attractions and may
provide a useful input to the national energy mix. It has yet to be
determined whether practical considerations will really permit
widespread independence from the grid; industry and probably most
private consumers will almost certainly still need distribution from
large central generators. Transmission losses are slight, and inflated
figures occasionally quoted apparently stem from a complete
misunderstanding.
There is an argument that the current organisation of industrial
society is dehumanising, and that in helping to support it nuclear
energy is therefore doing a disservice. The sentiment is respectable
but seems impracticably utopian, and the nuclear question is only
incidental to it.
Alternatives
Great emphasis is now rightly placed on renewable energy sources,
although their present contribution is small and growing less rapidly
than might be wished. Moreover, however much may be spent on research,
there is no escaping the fundamental fact that while renewable energy
is desirable, the sources especially in the British climate are diffuse
and would need very large areas of collector to meet even a
substantially reduced demand. Wind is currently the most practicable
for expansion, but harnessed only within a certain range of strength;
claims for the output of a particular installation apparently refer to
rated capacity, seldom mentioning that it is in effect delivered for
only a quarter of the time, and an unpredictable quarter at that. The
value of its contribution is thus seriously compromised by the need for
fossil-fuelled reserves to cover its deficiencies at short notice, and
the instability it could create in the distribution system. Other
sources may be better in this respect, but have their own drawbacks.
Much has been made of hydrogen as an ultra-clean fuel, and if the
obstacles can be overcome it does offer a credible prospect of
substantially reducing harmful emissions from transport. However, it is
a secondary fuel - there are no hydrogen deposits in this part of the
solar system - and the inefficiency of conversion means using more of
the primary source than if it were applied directly. However, it may
constitute a means to overcome the intermittent nature of some
renewable energy sources, by in effect storing their output in bulk.
Nuclear fusion has long been seen as the great hope for relatively
clean energy, and if harnessed could indeed transform the situation.
Unfortunately, on current approaches the technical success that for
half a century has always seemed a few decades away would still meet
enormous practical obstacles to industrial application, and it may
never happen.
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The Sellafield Churches’ Forum believes that the world needs a variety
of energy sources. It maintains that the objections to nuclear energy
are unconvincing and that on the contrary, it is one of the most benign
available sources of reliable power. There are also other
considerations: major nuclear establishments, Sellafield in particular,
are crucial to their local economy; nuclear generation, for which fuel
can easily be stockpiled for many years’ operation, is one of the most
secure contributors to national energy supplies; and even in those
areas such as rural Africa where its large scale is not appropriate, it
has an indirect benefit in reducing competition for hydrocarbon fuels.
Thus it benefits the region, the nation and the world.
It is true that members of the Forum have a material interest in the
debate, and in several instances a past or continuing involvement in
the industry. However, this does not blind either their moral sense or
their reason, and at least they can claim a closer than average
familiarity with the facts. They therefore urge other Christians, even
if not convinced immediately by the arguments, to consider them
carefully and not assume automatically that religious commitment
demands opposition to nuclear power.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 11 December 2006 )
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