Bid for Britain's nuclear power stations goes piff paff poof

Posted by jamie - 1 August 2008 at 3:13pm - Comments

It's usually poor form to laugh at another's misfortunes, but in this case I feel a slight chortle is more than justified. EDF's bid to takeover British Energy - the semi-state owned company charged with looking after the UK's nuclear power stations - has been kicked out, throwing a spanner of cosmic proportions into our government's plans for a new atomic age. Oops, butterfingers.

The French state-owned power company was expected to announce this morning that the ink was drying on the deal, worth over £12 billion, but early this morning it released a statement saying it was pulling out. Although the government was apparently more than happy to accept the offer on the table, it only owns 35 per cent of British Energy, some other stakeholders were not so keen. Given the ongoing hikes in energy prices, they think their assets are worth far more and so thumbed a collective raspberry at EDF's bid.

So why is there reason to be cheerful? If the deal had gone ahead, it would have dealt a hammer blow to our chances of meeting the legally binding Renewables Obligations, which must see at least 15 per cent of our total energy coming from renewables by 2020. Why? Because EDF have gone on record saying that if there is significant growth in renewable energy, the case for nuclear falls apart. 

And considering that we were about to hand over a large chuck of the UK energy industry to a French company, this would have meant any decisions about closing our energy gap or investing in renewables would have been made in Paris rather than Westminster. 

So where does that leave everyone? EDF won't now get their hands on the eight existing nuclear power stations it was after. It wasn't after the reactors themselves: these sites are prime candidates for any future nuclear development, so the company would have had a key stake in the government's plans. Speaking of which, ministers lose the chance to deal with one company to get their power stations built - dealing with several will make the process much more complicated. And that's not to mention the cash they were hoping would line the Treasury's coffers. 

Business secretary John Hutton appeared on the Today programme this morning, putting a brave face on the matter, peddling the nonsense that we still need new nuclear power stations. Even reporter Robert Peston got himself in a lather about how we now risk "the lights going out". 

This is really just a shameful attempt to scare everyone into accepting nuclear power. A new report by clever energy people Pöyry demonstrates that if the government actually does fulfil its commitments to meet EU renewable energy targets (and doesn't keep trying to stitch them up again and again) and its own ambitions to increase energy efficiency and reduce demand, then we won't need any more nuclear power stations. Or any new coal or gas ones, either. And that's true even by the government's own reckoning. So a little less scaremongering from the likes of Hutton and from a media that really should know better wouldn't go amiss. Instead, I'd like to see a bit more effort put into delivering the real energy solutions which will help us beat climate change. 

Meanwhile, across the Channel our French colleagues have filed complaints against Areva about the leak last month at the Tricastin plant in Provence which saw uranium entering groundwater supplies. If you're not convinced that nuclear power is a terrible idea, this very disturbing report from the area will change your mind.

Article tagged as: british energy, climate change, EDF, energy, nuclear power
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A new atomic age may not be as dangerous as you may think. The levels of cosmic background radiation from that we experience on a day to day basis is far more than we expect.
Even though nuclear deposits in the earth may sound like a horrific idea, it is no less dangerous than living near granite areas in Scotland. Radiation is natural. Having nuclear waste encased underground would almost certainly not threaten nearby areas unless (stupidly) it is near modes of watery (or otherwise) transport.
In the 60's some people had even been treated for sinusitis with radium, and although its risks are apparant and highly possible, many people still chose to cling to an irrational fear of what may be a necessary intermediate step to providing the UK (eventually) with a fully renewable source of energy.

The only justified concerns of nuclear should be that of a meltdown. But there is a critical ratio that is required for any nuclear substance which, if gone over, would risk a chain reaction beyond control. However, in nuclear power stations there is insufficient material undergoing fission at any stage for there to be such a risk (or at least, it has been engineered in this way since Chernoble).

The blockade against nuclear power forces power companies elsewhere to create CCGT, or coal (God forbid!) power plants instead, which are less efficient, and more dangerous to working personnel.

The renewable alternatives are slim. Ironically individual wind tubines very rarely produce enough energy to save the oil used to produce it in the first place. Furthermore, these turbines depreciate within only twenty five years. Its unpredictability too is mainly due to the fact that if wind speed were to drop by half, the energy produced (ignoring inefficiencies) would be scythed to an eighth!

I wont bother even mentioning solar power in the Uk, although the solar projects in the US are very promising.

I bumped into a Greenpeace member on the street one day and asked him why he did not support nuclear power. He changed the subject and told me that a decentralisation of power in the UK was necessary. However the expense of an operation on this scale is stratospheric. Whether the solution involves tearing up the national grid or not, I cannot forsee an inexpensive operation - epecially considering the costs of transporting energy, above or below ground

If nuclear power is not a viable option, I would like to know what is? I know we should economise, and use such things as solar panels and the like, but unless we make the intermediate step of harnessing nuclear power, we are embracing ignorance and plunging ourselves into a dark age.

I agree with 80% of the values of Greenpeace, but the stubborness to accept that nuclear power is an unavoidable neccessity, and to blindly believe that things that merely sound more environmentally friendly (like hybrid cars, which again ironically are by and large less efficient than those powered by petrol), are part of the backward mentality that threaten our campaign to reduce our detrimental impact on our world

replies to seb_spiers@hotmail.com

By anonphysicist - 5 August 2008 at 11:46pm

There's a difference between the background radiation we're exposed to all the time (and have evolved to cope with) and the acute man-made variety which is highly dangerous. It's one thing to be exposed to certain types of radiation as part of medical treatment in highly controlled circumstances (there's a good reason radiographers stand behind shielding every time the x-ray machine fires), another entirely to have extremely toxic byproducts from the nuclear industry leeching into the environment.

I'd be interested to see the information on which you base your assumptions about the generating capacity of wind turbines - can you provide more info? And yes, they have a life span - everything does, including nuclear power stations. At least with wind turbines they can be dismantled and replaced with no lethal waste to worry about or contaminated sites to monitor for decades or centuries.

Equally, any new development is going to cost something but the costs of nuclear far outstrip those of renewable energy sources or combined heat and power installations. The bill for dealing with just the waste and decommissioning of just the existing plants is currently estimated at £73bn, although that is just an estimate and has recently been rising sharply.

But to answer your question, we have plenty of viable, alternative options - here's the convenient solution to climate change.

web editor
gpuk

By jamie - 12 August 2008 at 3:55pm

Jamie, there is no difference between man-made radiation and natural radiation. The radioactive materials might be chemically different, but the radiation emitted is qualitatively the same. The difference between an acute exposure (which causes radiation sickness etc) and a low level exposure (which poses a small cancer risk) simply depends upon the quantity of radiation.

Acute effects (radiation sickness) require a large dose, upwards of 1000 mSv of exposure, delivered in a short space of time. This is equivalent to receiving 500 years-worth of average background radiation over a short period of time (minutes or possibly hours). Average exposure from the nuclear industry is 1000 times lower than background radiation and tens of millions of times lower than the level required for acute effects.

Apart from Chernobyl, nobody has ever been killed by an acute radiation dose from a civilian nuclear powerstation. The only acute exposures at Chernobyl were for those workers on-site who tackled the reactor itself. In contrast fatal accidents due to the misuse of medical radiation sources are fairly commonplace.

The only way to receive an acute dose from a radioactive waste repository would be to enter the repository and stay next to the waste for a period of time. (And after a few hundred years or so even this foolish action would not result in an acute dose, because the most highly active isotopes would have decayed). Any possible leeching from a nuclear repository would have the same character as background radiation (i.e. it would present a small cancer risk) and the repository is designed such that the risk around the site is a hundred times lower than background radiation for all time.

Persistent reference to the cost of decommissioning the UK’s legacy nuclear sites still does not make it relevant to new nuclear build. Most of the legacy decommissioning cost is related to research and military facilities. Only about a fifth of that bill relates to powerstations, and those old Magnox stations bear no resemblance to modern plant (which is designed to be easy to decommission to keep costs low).

The estimated bill for delivering 35% of our electricity from renewables by 2020 is £100billion. It will realistically cost another £5billion per year forever afterwards to incrementally replace those renewable generators. I am not saying that this should not be spent, but it is clearly wrong to state that equivalent nuclear powerstations would be more expensive.

By ColinG - 15 August 2008 at 2:25pm

in response to 'i am interested to see the information on which you base your assumptions about the generating capacity of wind turbines - can you provide more info?'

I found this out while doing work experience as a financial modeller for a power company. if you wish to find out exactly the average lifetime of wind turbines, power output and oil used to create a wind turbine -> the easiest answer would probably be to go visit a site that has them, or just ask a power company that owns one.

I also noticed a slight discrepency in your reply

There is only a difference in radiation (in terms of alpha, beta and gamma) from so called 'man-made radiation'. unless you are thinking of "Made-up-to-support-my-argument-radiation".
Honestly, as an obviously important member of this site, you shouldn't mislead people (which although I admit is for good intentions) with facts that are simply untrue, im sure I need not explain why.

Why lie to me?

How can I trust anything you write now?

In fact, it just feels like Greenpeace is seeking to succeed in destroying the world through pure ignorance or stubborness, or just pure irony.

By anonphysicist - 21 October 2008 at 2:45am

i mean response by the way
peace and love and potato

By anonphysicist - 21 October 2008 at 2:47am

Thanks for your comments about the potential radiation threats from nuclear reactors. The debate about the hazardous nature of the various types of waste produced by reactors has been running for years - your simple assertion that the radiation they produce is indistinguishable from other, 'natural' radiation and is therefore not a problem is disingenuous - because the nature of nuclear power plants is to create artificial concentrations of radioactive materials which rarely (if ever) occur in the natural world, and we're all still grappling with the implications.

Dealing with both high and low level radioactive waste has been occupying a great deal of government and scientific attention for decades - decommissioning and clean-up costs for existing UK reactors alone are already running into the tens of billions - ample evidence that it is recognised as a serious issue. So your jibe about "Made-up-to-support-my-argument-radiation" is well wide of the mark, to put it politely.

But although undoubtedly important, waste is only one of the problems with nuclear power, as you can see from the list below:

1 nuclear reactors simply won't deliver the urgent emissions cuts needed to tackle climate change. Even the most optimistic estimates suggest that a new generation of nuclear powers stations will only reduce our emissions by 4% by 2024: far too little, far too late, to stop global warming or address the predicted energy gap.

2 a new generation of reactors will create thousands of tonnes of hazardous radioactive waste, which remains dangerous for up to a million years.

3 we'll all be liable for the clean-up costs; estimated at over £70 billion for existing waste.

4 new reactors will act as targets for terrorists, including nuclear waste trains carrying deadly cargoes along our public rail network.

5 they will lead to the proliferation of weapons-grade plutonium.

6 they will keep the threat of a nuclear reactor accident hanging over us. As recent studies show, the nuclear industries safety claims don't stand up to close examination, with 4,100 fatalities in total, and 29 accidents around the world since Chernobyl.

But the most imminent threat that a new nuclear age poses is to the real energy solutions to climate change. Investment in nuclear energy and its infrastructure is a dangerous and expensive distraction from the real solutions – energy efficiency, renewable technology and decentralised energy. By decentralising our energy system and producing energy locally using Combined Heat and Power (CHP) , the UK can meet its energy needs in a much cheaper, cleaner and safer way, slashing our climate change contributions.

Read the case against nuclear power for more details.

By jossc - 23 October 2008 at 11:29am

It is true that nuclear reactors create concentrations of radioactive material which would not be found in nature. This is a side effect of their operation.

However, the use of radioactive materials in medicine creates even more potent concentrations of material which produce significantly higher doses of radiation than high-level radioactive waste. In fact a great deal of trouble is expended on separating out highly radioactive isotopes for medical treatments. Per unit of volume they are a lot more hazardous than radioactive waste (which is generally a mixture of isotopes with various half lives and consequently various intensities of radiation). Medical sources are also protected with much lower security. What is Greenpeace’s position on nuclear medicine, radiography, etc?

You say “the debate about the hazardous nature of the various types of waste produced by reactors has been running for years” but it has been very quiet in the last decade or so. It would be one thing if Greenpeace actually still campaigned on environmental grounds against nuclear power. But that argument has gone very quiet because it is clear that nuclear power is environmentally more benign than fossil fuel, and in fact less harmful than some renewable options (such as biomass, which produces almost as much particulate air pollution as coal). Essentially there is no environmental argument against nuclear power. The very fact that nuclear waste is kept away from the biosphere so it causes no pollution makes nuclear power preferable to any other form of fuel-based energy.

Greenpeace’s preference for arguing on the economics of nuclear power, rather than its environmental impact, hints that there is no decent environmental case to make against it. It has been well established through the EU Commission’s ExterneE studies that in many cases nuclear power causes no more environmental impact than hydro – it is better than PV solar or biomass, and an order of magnitude less harmful than fossil fuel.

Jossc, your other arguments are simply mendacious. Nuclear power may “only” deliver 4% carbon savings by 2024, but 4% is worthwhile. No single technology will provide all the short-term savings required. A mix of solutions is needed. And in every case a mix that includes nuclear will make better savings than one that doesn’t. This is an unavoidable fact.

Perhaps the most important fact is that nuclear power can continue to scale-up and make further savings beyond 2024. By that time, if we are getting 40% of our electricity from wind, it is highly unlikely that further growth in intermittent renewables will be viable, and certainly not cost effective compared to nuclear. It makes sense to deploy a lot of wind power in the short term, but the growth of wind will peak at around the mid 2020s. We will need nuclear power in the medium term, especially if carbon-capture proves to be difficult. We will need a lot more electricity to replace gas and petrol for heating and transport. Nuclear is an obvious large-scale source for this.

The fact that it creates thousands of tonnes of potentially hazardous waste is irrelevant if the waste never harms anybody or anything. The basic philosophy of the UK nuclear power programme has been to make sure that all the waste is managed, and will be stored safely forever (i.e. until it decays to safe levels). Deep geological disposal fulfils this aim.

Hinting that “we” will be liable for the clean up costs is utterly misleading. The taxpayer is only liable for the clean-up costs of legacy powerstations and facilities (including many military and research facilities) that were run by the govt on behalf of the taxpayer. Obviously this is fair. Clean-up of new privately run powerstations will have to be covered by the operators (and ultimately by the consumers of electricity). The cost of managing the waste and decommissioning is added to the cost of the electricity. It amounts to around 10% of the cost (perhaps 0.1p per kWh) and is therefore obviously affordable. The new reactors are specifically designed to make waste management and decommissioning easier than the old stations. It is a commercial necessity.

Singling out nuclear facilities as possible terrorist targets is pure scaremongering. Nuclear powerstations are hardened targets more than capable of withstanding a terrorist attack. Nuclear waste in transit is unlikely to cause any significant public threat because it is always given time to cool before transporting it, therefore the most hazardous short-lived isotopes would have decayed. You are relying entirely upon public ignorance of radiation in order to terrorise them. You are doing the terrorists work for them.

The proliferation argument is moot in the UK. The presence or absence of civil nuclear powerstations in the UK makes no difference to weapons proliferation. We already have a nuclear arsenal, and Greenpeace would be better occupied targeting their attention at that. Civilian reactors do not produce “weapons grade” plutonium under normal operation. And as a corollary, even if we did not have civil nuclear power, we would still have nuclear weapons and military reactors creating plutonium. The only sensible way of disposing of nuclear weapons is to burn the warheads as fuel in a nuclear powerstation.

Your final suggestions regarding a looming nuclear accident are particularly disingenous. Your alleged 4100 casualties “since Chernobyl” actual includes Chernobyl and in fact Chernobyl accounts for virtually all of them. There hasn’t been a radiation fatality at a civil nuclear powerstation since Chernobyl (nor before it).

To cap it all you deliberately omit to point out that the same statistical source indicates that over 90% of all energy-related fatalities in the past century have been from renewables i.e. hydro power. The single most deadly energy-related accident in history was not Chernobyl, but was in fact the Banqiao Dam failure in China 1975.

As I have stated many times, CHP is not cleaner or safer than nuclear power. It runs on gas. The air pollution from burning gas is significantly more harmful than nuclear power. It also creates significantly more CO2. It cannot provide enough electricity to address transport requirements. It ties us into using fossil fuel for decades. It is a desperate solution which Greenpeace finds necessary in order to contrive an energy plan without using nuclear power. Why on earth is Greenpeace promoting the use of fossil fuel in this day and age? This contortion above all betrays the fact that Greenpeace knows that nuclear power is really necessary.

By ColinG - 27 October 2008 at 10:59am
Enough please Colin, Greenpeace's reasons for opposing nuclear power are practical, not ideological. You may not like them but they are factually accurate, and we just don't have time to endlessly debate with you - I've made the bare bones of our case above - anyone who wants more detail can find it in abundance on our nuclear campaign pages. The only new point you raise which I want to take issue with is on CHP - you are fundamentally not understanding the huge advantage CHP gives in terms of energy efficiency (much more so than nuclear or any other centralised solution). CHP plants burn their energy (could be gas or biomass - most are dual-fuel ) at over 80% efficiency, compared with 35% or so in a conventional power station. This is of course because CHP plants re-use what would otherwise be waste heat to provide heating for local homes and industry, something giant centralised nuclear plants are not suited for. Add to that the fact that as Poyry's recent report pointed out, 9 new strategically placed industrial CHP plants can supply similar amounts of power to the UK as the proposed nuclear equivalent at a fraction of the cost (£1 billion per plant, as opposed to £3 billion) and in less than half the time, and the benefits should be blindingly obvious to anyone except the nuclear industry themselves. And even those who support and understand the nuclear industry well are not blind to its limitations. Only a few days ago Mohammed ElBaradei – Head of the UN Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel Prize laureate - drew a line in the sand on all the rhetoric and expectations on nuclear energy and said: "It (nuclear energy) is not a panacea by itself and many countries will have to understand that it will take 10 to 15 years before they can use nuclear (power)," he said. "They'll have to prove it's economically competitive, a good part of the energy mix." He also acknowledged that "they (nuclear plants) are expensive to build and require strict adherence to safety and security requirements" and admitted that "vulnerabilities remain. We can never be complacent about safety. A single nuclear accident anywhere in the world could undermine the future of nuclear energy everywhere." The nuclear power industry has had over 50 years to solve the problems of cost, waste and safety which have dogged it from the start, and yet it's still beset by these issues. There are safer, cheaper, faster and more environmentally friendly solutions to our future energy needs, and we will continue to push for their adoption because they represent the best chance we've got of heading off the climate change disaster which is staring us all in the face.
By jossc - 30 October 2008 at 12:07pm

Joss, I do appreciate the opportunity to debate the issues on this board. On other anti-nuclear blogs my comments have sometimes been moderated-out, so I do appreciate your tolerance.

I have addressed your point regarding the real efficiency of CHP elsewhere. The main point to note is that even if it is efficient, it is only cutting emissions relative to normal gas generation. But by burning gas it still produces a lot more CO2 than nuclear (or wind or hydro). Normal gas generation produces about 350-400g CO2 per kWh. With CHP this reduces to about 200g/kWh taking the “heat credit” into account in an optimistic way. However the lifecycle emissions from nuclear (or wind or hydro) are in the 3-30g/kWh range. So in CO2 terms we can afford to produce a lot more energy from nuclear than from gas-fired CHP.

You say Greenpeace’s arguments against nuclear power are practical, but they do not seem that way to me:

What is the practical problem with nuclear power delivering 4% cut in emissions by 2024 and more thereafter? Given that the same amount of electricity generated from any renewable source would only deliver the same cuts. Given that the government target is to make huge investment in renewables over the same period anyway, what is the problem with permitting private nuclear build in addition? Building renewables while phasing out nuclear would just mean that some of the renewable capacity would simply be replacing nuclear (with consequently no emission savings) rather than displacing fossil fuel.

What is the practical problem with nuclear waste if it never harms anybody or anything? The intention is to keep the waste sequestered away from the biosphere for as long as it takes to decay to safe levels. What is the problem with this approach? Furthermore, why do you think it is better to not dispose of the waste in this way?

What is the practical problem with the consumers of electricity paying for the cleanup costs of decommissioning and waste management? Surely this is appropriate. Given that the costs amount to a fraction of a penny per kWh; and given that even including these costs nuclear electricity is competitive with any other source, what is the problem?

What is the practical problem with nuclear facilities being possible terrorist targets? Given that they are better protected than any other non-military facility, and any attack is likely to fail, and any successful attack would have very limited impact. Do we stop building anything that might be a terrorist target, including tall buildings and hydro dams? How is that practical?

What is the practical reason for associating weapons proliferation with civil nuclear power generation when civil nuclear powerstations in the UK do not produce weapons grade material? Why does Greenpeace target civil nuclear power when the weapons material is not made in civil powerstations? Given that there is already a surplus of weapons-grade material in the UK and no desire to produce more.

What is the practical purpose of worrying about the theoretical possibility of a nuclear accident when no such accident has ever occurred in a UK powerstation, and the estimated odds of it occurring are 1 in 2.4 billion per reactor year. Given that the worst nuclear accident in history (Chernobyl) caused less health impact than the current air pollution in London.

Having said all that, there are points that I agree on. I am not proposing nuclear as the whole solution (which is the point ElBaradei was making). Efficiency measures, such as home insulation, are the quickest and cheapest way to cut emissions in the short term. Large scale wind-power is entirely appropriate for the UK, and should be able to supply 25%-30% of our electricity. However other renewables have limited application in the UK. You need to be realistic about this and set ideology aside. And burning gas, just because it is not nuclear, is not a good enough reason. It is not cleaner, safer or cheaper in the long run.

By ColinG - 6 November 2008 at 12:02pm

Your optimism is touching Colin, but forgive me if I don't share it.

In fact, to my mind your determination to make nuclear appear fit for purpose exposes its already obvious flaws quite spectacularly.

For example:

What is the practical problem with nuclear waste if it never harms anybody or anything?

Absolutely nothing - but who's in a position to give that guarantee? No one, so it's a bit of a silly thing to say, isn't it? Not to mention sounding a bit desperate - especially when there are numerous examples of harm caused by waste - one recent one for example occurred in France last year when an accident at the Tricastin treatment plant (run by EdF)
led to 75kg of untreated uranium seeping into the ground , causing local rivers and groundwater to be contaminated, and leading locals to rely for weeks on bottled water and tanks trucked in from other parts of France.

Only a minor example for sure, but indicative of the fallacy of your claim about "never harming anybody or anything". For a more exhaustive list of nuclear screw-ups, try here.

What is the practical problem with nuclear facilities being possible terrorist targets?

Er - blindingly obviously, terrorists could get a lot more 'bang for their buck' taking out Sizewell B than Drax in terms of making the surrounding area uninhabitable for a few years. If I was a terrorist who's aim was to inflict the maximum inconvenience and panic, I know where I'd be pointing my Jumbo jet...

What is the practical purpose of worrying about the theoretical possibility of a nuclear accident when no such accident has ever occurred in a UK powerstation?

Again, your staunch faith in British infallibility is touching, but really this comment borders on the unhinged - ignoring for a moment the 1957 Windscale disaster (which we have still never been told the full details of publicly, but which released an estimated 750 terabecquerels (20,000 Ci) of radioactive material into the surrounding environment, including Iodine-131, which is taken up in the human body by the thyroid. Consequently milk and other produce from the surrounding farming areas had to be destroyed) or the Dounreay waste store exploding in 1977 (the beach is, or was until recently, still off-limits to civilians), low-level accidents are reported at one UK nuclear facility or another almost every week.

I guess you won't be happy until we've had our own Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, and you can sit around telling us how it's really not that bad (sorry, I know that was in poor taste and probably uncalled for, but honestly, I find your gung-ho naivety about the relative risks involved pretty shocking).

What is the practical problem with nuclear power delivering 4% cut in emissions by 2024 and more thereafter?

Too little, too late to be much of a solution to climate change. In practical terms nuclear is vastly expensive, and will hoover up money that could be spent more profitably on interim CHP plants and longterm renewable development.

What is the practical problem with the consumers of electricity paying for the cleanup costs of decommissioning and waste management?

Exhorbitant costs over hundreds of years - why would we want to saddle ourselves with this level of debt and difficult storage issues when there are far cheaper and safer alternatives?

What is the practical reason for associating weapons proliferation with civil nuclear power generation when civil nuclear powerstations in the UK do not produce weapons grade material?

Reportedly, it was driving Pile I at Windscale too hard to produce plutonium for our military nuclear programme that resulted in the 1957 fire referred to above. You say civil reactors do not produce weapons grade plutonium - that may currently be true, but they can be converted to such production if ordered to - it's a matter of choice, not fundamental design.

And again, correct me if I'm wrong, your question implies that there is no overlap between the staff who work in civil reactors and those in military installations like Aldermaston and Porton Down. Now I know you've just got to be kidding. Are you really that naive?

Anyway, good to chew the fat with you as ever, and I expect we'll speak again soon...

By jossc - 6 November 2008 at 6:43pm

Joss, I don’t think I’m being naïve on this. It comes down to risk analysis.

Obviously near surface storage of waste is more risky than deep geological disposal. Situations like Tricastin are more likely to occur with near surface storage (not that the incident at Tricastin involved waste anyway - it was a solution of natural Uranium - and it didn’t harm anybody). Why does Greenpeace insist on near-surface storage, and reject geological disposal?

If you are looking for a guarantee of safety then you don’t understand risk. However my point is that the design for geological disposal is intended to ensure that the risk to individuals near the site is never significant - it is lower than the risk from background radiation for all time. On average the waste from a nuclear powerstation stored in a deep repository would be unlikely to cause 1 death in a million years. In contrast, waste from a typical coal plant (air pollution etc) would typically kill several dozen people per year of operation.

Regarding terrorist attacks - terrorists tend to attack soft targets. An aircraft impact on Sizewell would not render the surrounding area uninhabitable. It would take multiple hits from armour piercing artillery just to cause a breach in the containment. A very lucky hit from an aircraft engine might cause a breach, but would not result in a major release. It would be rather difficult (as an understatement) to contrive an attack that would simultaneously expose the reactor core; breach the containment; and send the contents out into the surrounding area in any significant quantity.

Even in the worst case, comparable to Chernobyl, the effect beyond the immediate explosion would be a moderate increase in cancer risk (1%-2% increase in mortality in the immediate vicinity) that would not manifest for decades. There are many softer targets that would cause more immediate carnage with a lot less effort and a lot greater probability of success. I am not going to make any suggestions.

A similar case can be made regarding nuclear accidents in general. Serious accidents are immensely rare. There really has only been one of note. But even if they occurred at a rate of one per week they would not match the damage to health caused by global air pollution from burning fossil fuel. Radiation from Chernobyl is projected to cause 30,000 premature deaths worldwide over the next 500 years. Pollution from coal powerstations kills 30,000 every year in the US alone.

Of course, Chernobyls don’t happen every week. In fact it has only happened once, and that was in a powerstation that would not meet IAEA safety requirements. I’ll stop short of saying that Chernobyl was “really not that bad”; it was a disaster and a tragedy for those affected; but considering the impact of the alternatives, nuclear power is lower risk by at least a factor of 10 if not 100.

The fact that minor safety lapses are reported frequently simply indicates a robust safety culture. Every incident above level 1 on the INES scale must be reported as a matter of course. Incidents below level 4 are typically not hazardous.

How many people have ever been killed by radiation from a nuclear accident at a civilian powerstation? Apart from Chernobyl the answer is zero. Even if you include the fuel cycle the total is fairly low. Tokaimura caused 2 fatalities - and that was fuel for a research reactor. That’s about it for the past 20 years.

Medical radiation accidents cause far more deaths - usually at least one per year. Care to call a halt to radiography and nuclear medicine?

Barely a week goes by without somebody being killed in a horrendous gas explosion (which Greenpeace endorses in their battle against climate change, by the way). What would the uproar be like if just one of those deaths was caused by a nuclear powerstation?

If you took risk analysis seriously then you would not be advocating gas rather than nuclear.

Like much of the population and the media your perception of nuclear risk is incredibly skewed. It harms virtually nobody, ever, yet you think it is the worst hazard in the world.

I am glad you ignored the windscale fire because it saves me having to point out that it was not a nuclear powerstation. I am not going to defend military usage of nuclear reactors.

Dounreay was a research establishment not a commercial powerstation. Some of the activities there were unforgivable from a safety perspective, but even so they never caused any deaths. SEPA's assessment of the beach particles estimates the chances of ingesting/inhaling one of the particles when regularly digging on the beach is around 1 in a billion per year; and the subsequent risk of it causing death is similar to a annual risk from background radiation. Basically the whole population of the earth could spend their entire lives digging on the beach and even then it is unlikely that the particles would kill anybody.

In short, they aren’t a danger. But a warning sign has been erected anyway, just in case anybody started feeling safe.

Regarding the costs of waste disposal, the additional cost is not exorbitant. That is the whole point. If the cost is paid for in a advance by the consumer the additional cost is a fraction of a penny per kWh. That cash can be invested and will pay for all decommissioning and disposal costs whenever they occur. Legacy decommissioning costs are a red herring because
a) they cover research and military sites which are hard to decommission and did not provide electricity
b) new powerstations produce less waste and are specifically designed to be easier to decommission

Similarly your argument that nuclear power is too expensive to provide a low-carbon solution is also false. It is amongst the cheapest forms of electricity available as the International Energy Agency’s figures show. Sure, the cost of building the plant is two or three times more than a CHP plant. But the fuel is a fraction of the cost. Overall the levelised unit cost of electricity generation (including waste and decommissioning) is lower than CHP in most cases, and significantly lower than any renewables.

The fact that civil reactors could be forced to produce weapons grade plutonium is pretty irrelevant. Medical or research reactors could equally be used. My point is the UK already has ample supplies of weapons material. Even if we had no civil nuclear power (and no nuclear medicine etc) we would still have nuclear weapons and military facilities. And the opposite is also true - most countries that use nuclear powerstations do not have nuclear weapons, nor do they have any wish to own them. The two simply are not linked anymore. Admittedly there was a link back in the days of the Magnox reactors thirty years ago; but there is no way that you can credibly claim that civil nuclear powerstations in the UK would lead to weapons proliferation these days.

And suggesting skills transfer from civil powerstations to military applications is like saying wind-turbine designers could work for military aircraft manufacturers - it’s all aerodynamics. It is not an argument for abandoning low-carbon generating technology.

By ColinG - 7 November 2008 at 9:59am

A new atomic age may not be as dangerous as you may think. The levels of cosmic background radiation from that we experience on a day to day basis is far more than we expect. Even though nuclear deposits in the earth may sound like a horrific idea, it is no less dangerous than living near granite areas in Scotland. Radiation is natural. Having nuclear waste encased underground would almost certainly not threaten nearby areas unless (stupidly) it is near modes of watery (or otherwise) transport. In the 60's some people had even been treated for sinusitis with radium, and although its risks are apparant and highly possible, many people still chose to cling to an irrational fear of what may be a necessary intermediate step to providing the UK (eventually) with a fully renewable source of energy. The only justified concerns of nuclear should be that of a meltdown. But there is a critical ratio that is required for any nuclear substance which, if gone over, would risk a chain reaction beyond control. However, in nuclear power stations there is insufficient material undergoing fission at any stage for there to be such a risk (or at least, it has been engineered in this way since Chernoble). The blockade against nuclear power forces power companies elsewhere to create CCGT, or coal (God forbid!) power plants instead, which are less efficient, and more dangerous to working personnel. The renewable alternatives are slim. Ironically individual wind tubines very rarely produce enough energy to save the oil used to produce it in the first place. Furthermore, these turbines depreciate within only twenty five years. Its unpredictability too is mainly due to the fact that if wind speed were to drop by half, the energy produced (ignoring inefficiencies) would be scythed to an eighth! I wont bother even mentioning solar power in the Uk, although the solar projects in the US are very promising. I bumped into a Greenpeace member on the street one day and asked him why he did not support nuclear power. He changed the subject and told me that a decentralisation of power in the UK was necessary. However the expense of an operation on this scale is stratospheric. Whether the solution involves tearing up the national grid or not, I cannot forsee an inexpensive operation - epecially considering the costs of transporting energy, above or below ground If nuclear power is not a viable option, I would like to know what is? I know we should economise, and use such things as solar panels and the like, but unless we make the intermediate step of harnessing nuclear power, we are embracing ignorance and plunging ourselves into a dark age. I agree with 80% of the values of Greenpeace, but the stubborness to accept that nuclear power is an unavoidable neccessity, and to blindly believe that things that merely sound more environmentally friendly (like hybrid cars, which again ironically are by and large less efficient than those powered by petrol), are part of the backward mentality that threaten our campaign to reduce our detrimental impact on our world replies to seb_spiers@hotmail.com

By anonphysicist - 5 August 2008 at 11:46pm

There's a difference between the background radiation we're exposed to all the time (and have evolved to cope with) and the acute man-made variety which is highly dangerous. It's one thing to be exposed to certain types of radiation as part of medical treatment in highly controlled circumstances (there's a good reason radiographers stand behind shielding every time the x-ray machine fires), another entirely to have extremely toxic byproducts from the nuclear industry leeching into the environment. I'd be interested to see the information on which you base your assumptions about the generating capacity of wind turbines - can you provide more info? And yes, they have a life span - everything does, including nuclear power stations. At least with wind turbines they can be dismantled and replaced with no lethal waste to worry about or contaminated sites to monitor for decades or centuries. Equally, any new development is going to cost something but the costs of nuclear far outstrip those of renewable energy sources or combined heat and power installations. The bill for dealing with just the waste and decommissioning of just the existing plants is currently estimated at £73bn, although that is just an estimate and has recently been rising sharply. But to answer your question, we have plenty of viable, alternative options - here's the convenient solution to climate change. web editor gpuk

By jamie - 12 August 2008 at 3:55pm

Jamie, there is no difference between man-made radiation and natural radiation. The radioactive materials might be chemically different, but the radiation emitted is qualitatively the same. The difference between an acute exposure (which causes radiation sickness etc) and a low level exposure (which poses a small cancer risk) simply depends upon the quantity of radiation. Acute effects (radiation sickness) require a large dose, upwards of 1000 mSv of exposure, delivered in a short space of time. This is equivalent to receiving 500 years-worth of average background radiation over a short period of time (minutes or possibly hours). Average exposure from the nuclear industry is 1000 times lower than background radiation and tens of millions of times lower than the level required for acute effects. Apart from Chernobyl, nobody has ever been killed by an acute radiation dose from a civilian nuclear powerstation. The only acute exposures at Chernobyl were for those workers on-site who tackled the reactor itself. In contrast fatal accidents due to the misuse of medical radiation sources are fairly commonplace. The only way to receive an acute dose from a radioactive waste repository would be to enter the repository and stay next to the waste for a period of time. (And after a few hundred years or so even this foolish action would not result in an acute dose, because the most highly active isotopes would have decayed). Any possible leeching from a nuclear repository would have the same character as background radiation (i.e. it would present a small cancer risk) and the repository is designed such that the risk around the site is a hundred times lower than background radiation for all time. Persistent reference to the cost of decommissioning the UK’s legacy nuclear sites still does not make it relevant to new nuclear build. Most of the legacy decommissioning cost is related to research and military facilities. Only about a fifth of that bill relates to powerstations, and those old Magnox stations bear no resemblance to modern plant (which is designed to be easy to decommission to keep costs low). The estimated bill for delivering 35% of our electricity from renewables by 2020 is £100billion. It will realistically cost another £5billion per year forever afterwards to incrementally replace those renewable generators. I am not saying that this should not be spent, but it is clearly wrong to state that equivalent nuclear powerstations would be more expensive.

By ColinG - 15 August 2008 at 2:25pm

in response to 'i am interested to see the information on which you base your assumptions about the generating capacity of wind turbines - can you provide more info?' I found this out while doing work experience as a financial modeller for a power company. if you wish to find out exactly the average lifetime of wind turbines, power output and oil used to create a wind turbine -> the easiest answer would probably be to go visit a site that has them, or just ask a power company that owns one. I also noticed a slight discrepency in your reply There is only a difference in radiation (in terms of alpha, beta and gamma) from so called 'man-made radiation'. unless you are thinking of "Made-up-to-support-my-argument-radiation". Honestly, as an obviously important member of this site, you shouldn't mislead people (which although I admit is for good intentions) with facts that are simply untrue, im sure I need not explain why. Why lie to me? How can I trust anything you write now? In fact, it just feels like Greenpeace is seeking to succeed in destroying the world through pure ignorance or stubborness, or just pure irony.

By anonphysicist - 21 October 2008 at 2:45am

i mean response by the way peace and love and potato

By anonphysicist - 21 October 2008 at 2:47am

Thanks for your comments about the potential radiation threats from nuclear reactors. The debate about the hazardous nature of the various types of waste produced by reactors has been running for years - your simple assertion that the radiation they produce is indistinguishable from other, 'natural' radiation and is therefore not a problem is disingenuous - because the nature of nuclear power plants is to create artificial concentrations of radioactive materials which rarely (if ever) occur in the natural world, and we're all still grappling with the implications. Dealing with both high and low level radioactive waste has been occupying a great deal of government and scientific attention for decades - decommissioning and clean-up costs for existing UK reactors alone are already running into the tens of billions - ample evidence that it is recognised as a serious issue. So your jibe about "Made-up-to-support-my-argument-radiation" is well wide of the mark, to put it politely. But although undoubtedly important, waste is only one of the problems with nuclear power, as you can see from the list below: 1 nuclear reactors simply won't deliver the urgent emissions cuts needed to tackle climate change. Even the most optimistic estimates suggest that a new generation of nuclear powers stations will only reduce our emissions by 4% by 2024: far too little, far too late, to stop global warming or address the predicted energy gap. 2 a new generation of reactors will create thousands of tonnes of hazardous radioactive waste, which remains dangerous for up to a million years. 3 we'll all be liable for the clean-up costs; estimated at over £70 billion for existing waste. 4 new reactors will act as targets for terrorists, including nuclear waste trains carrying deadly cargoes along our public rail network. 5 they will lead to the proliferation of weapons-grade plutonium. 6 they will keep the threat of a nuclear reactor accident hanging over us. As recent studies show, the nuclear industries safety claims don't stand up to close examination, with 4,100 fatalities in total, and 29 accidents around the world since Chernobyl. But the most imminent threat that a new nuclear age poses is to the real energy solutions to climate change. Investment in nuclear energy and its infrastructure is a dangerous and expensive distraction from the real solutions – energy efficiency, renewable technology and decentralised energy. By decentralising our energy system and producing energy locally using Combined Heat and Power (CHP) , the UK can meet its energy needs in a much cheaper, cleaner and safer way, slashing our climate change contributions. Read the case against nuclear power for more details.

By jossc - 23 October 2008 at 11:29am

It is true that nuclear reactors create concentrations of radioactive material which would not be found in nature. This is a side effect of their operation. However, the use of radioactive materials in medicine creates even more potent concentrations of material which produce significantly higher doses of radiation than high-level radioactive waste. In fact a great deal of trouble is expended on separating out highly radioactive isotopes for medical treatments. Per unit of volume they are a lot more hazardous than radioactive waste (which is generally a mixture of isotopes with various half lives and consequently various intensities of radiation). Medical sources are also protected with much lower security. What is Greenpeace’s position on nuclear medicine, radiography, etc? You say “the debate about the hazardous nature of the various types of waste produced by reactors has been running for years” but it has been very quiet in the last decade or so. It would be one thing if Greenpeace actually still campaigned on environmental grounds against nuclear power. But that argument has gone very quiet because it is clear that nuclear power is environmentally more benign than fossil fuel, and in fact less harmful than some renewable options (such as biomass, which produces almost as much particulate air pollution as coal). Essentially there is no environmental argument against nuclear power. The very fact that nuclear waste is kept away from the biosphere so it causes no pollution makes nuclear power preferable to any other form of fuel-based energy. Greenpeace’s preference for arguing on the economics of nuclear power, rather than its environmental impact, hints that there is no decent environmental case to make against it. It has been well established through the EU Commission’s ExterneE studies that in many cases nuclear power causes no more environmental impact than hydro – it is better than PV solar or biomass, and an order of magnitude less harmful than fossil fuel. Jossc, your other arguments are simply mendacious. Nuclear power may “only” deliver 4% carbon savings by 2024, but 4% is worthwhile. No single technology will provide all the short-term savings required. A mix of solutions is needed. And in every case a mix that includes nuclear will make better savings than one that doesn’t. This is an unavoidable fact. Perhaps the most important fact is that nuclear power can continue to scale-up and make further savings beyond 2024. By that time, if we are getting 40% of our electricity from wind, it is highly unlikely that further growth in intermittent renewables will be viable, and certainly not cost effective compared to nuclear. It makes sense to deploy a lot of wind power in the short term, but the growth of wind will peak at around the mid 2020s. We will need nuclear power in the medium term, especially if carbon-capture proves to be difficult. We will need a lot more electricity to replace gas and petrol for heating and transport. Nuclear is an obvious large-scale source for this. The fact that it creates thousands of tonnes of potentially hazardous waste is irrelevant if the waste never harms anybody or anything. The basic philosophy of the UK nuclear power programme has been to make sure that all the waste is managed, and will be stored safely forever (i.e. until it decays to safe levels). Deep geological disposal fulfils this aim. Hinting that “we” will be liable for the clean up costs is utterly misleading. The taxpayer is only liable for the clean-up costs of legacy powerstations and facilities (including many military and research facilities) that were run by the govt on behalf of the taxpayer. Obviously this is fair. Clean-up of new privately run powerstations will have to be covered by the operators (and ultimately by the consumers of electricity). The cost of managing the waste and decommissioning is added to the cost of the electricity. It amounts to around 10% of the cost (perhaps 0.1p per kWh) and is therefore obviously affordable. The new reactors are specifically designed to make waste management and decommissioning easier than the old stations. It is a commercial necessity. Singling out nuclear facilities as possible terrorist targets is pure scaremongering. Nuclear powerstations are hardened targets more than capable of withstanding a terrorist attack. Nuclear waste in transit is unlikely to cause any significant public threat because it is always given time to cool before transporting it, therefore the most hazardous short-lived isotopes would have decayed. You are relying entirely upon public ignorance of radiation in order to terrorise them. You are doing the terrorists work for them. The proliferation argument is moot in the UK. The presence or absence of civil nuclear powerstations in the UK makes no difference to weapons proliferation. We already have a nuclear arsenal, and Greenpeace would be better occupied targeting their attention at that. Civilian reactors do not produce “weapons grade” plutonium under normal operation. And as a corollary, even if we did not have civil nuclear power, we would still have nuclear weapons and military reactors creating plutonium. The only sensible way of disposing of nuclear weapons is to burn the warheads as fuel in a nuclear powerstation. Your final suggestions regarding a looming nuclear accident are particularly disingenous. Your alleged 4100 casualties “since Chernobyl” actual includes Chernobyl and in fact Chernobyl accounts for virtually all of them. There hasn’t been a radiation fatality at a civil nuclear powerstation since Chernobyl (nor before it). To cap it all you deliberately omit to point out that the same statistical source indicates that over 90% of all energy-related fatalities in the past century have been from renewables i.e. hydro power. The single most deadly energy-related accident in history was not Chernobyl, but was in fact the Banqiao Dam failure in China 1975. As I have stated many times, CHP is not cleaner or safer than nuclear power. It runs on gas. The air pollution from burning gas is significantly more harmful than nuclear power. It also creates significantly more CO2. It cannot provide enough electricity to address transport requirements. It ties us into using fossil fuel for decades. It is a desperate solution which Greenpeace finds necessary in order to contrive an energy plan without using nuclear power. Why on earth is Greenpeace promoting the use of fossil fuel in this day and age? This contortion above all betrays the fact that Greenpeace knows that nuclear power is really necessary.

By ColinG - 27 October 2008 at 10:59am
Enough please Colin, Greenpeace's reasons for opposing nuclear power are practical, not ideological. You may not like them but they are factually accurate, and we just don't have time to endlessly debate with you - I've made the bare bones of our case above - anyone who wants more detail can find it in abundance on our nuclear campaign pages. The only new point you raise which I want to take issue with is on CHP - you are fundamentally not understanding the huge advantage CHP gives in terms of energy efficiency (much more so than nuclear or any other centralised solution). CHP plants burn their energy (could be gas or biomass - most are dual-fuel ) at over 80% efficiency, compared with 35% or so in a conventional power station. This is of course because CHP plants re-use what would otherwise be waste heat to provide heating for local homes and industry, something giant centralised nuclear plants are not suited for. Add to that the fact that as Poyry's recent report pointed out, 9 new strategically placed industrial CHP plants can supply similar amounts of power to the UK as the proposed nuclear equivalent at a fraction of the cost (£1 billion per plant, as opposed to £3 billion) and in less than half the time, and the benefits should be blindingly obvious to anyone except the nuclear industry themselves. And even those who support and understand the nuclear industry well are not blind to its limitations. Only a few days ago Mohammed ElBaradei – Head of the UN Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel Prize laureate - drew a line in the sand on all the rhetoric and expectations on nuclear energy and said: "It (nuclear energy) is not a panacea by itself and many countries will have to understand that it will take 10 to 15 years before they can use nuclear (power)," he said. "They'll have to prove it's economically competitive, a good part of the energy mix." He also acknowledged that "they (nuclear plants) are expensive to build and require strict adherence to safety and security requirements" and admitted that "vulnerabilities remain. We can never be complacent about safety. A single nuclear accident anywhere in the world could undermine the future of nuclear energy everywhere." The nuclear power industry has had over 50 years to solve the problems of cost, waste and safety which have dogged it from the start, and yet it's still beset by these issues. There are safer, cheaper, faster and more environmentally friendly solutions to our future energy needs, and we will continue to push for their adoption because they represent the best chance we've got of heading off the climate change disaster which is staring us all in the face.
By jossc - 30 October 2008 at 12:07pm

Joss, I do appreciate the opportunity to debate the issues on this board. On other anti-nuclear blogs my comments have sometimes been moderated-out, so I do appreciate your tolerance. I have addressed your point regarding the real efficiency of CHP elsewhere. The main point to note is that even if it is efficient, it is only cutting emissions relative to normal gas generation. But by burning gas it still produces a lot more CO2 than nuclear (or wind or hydro). Normal gas generation produces about 350-400g CO2 per kWh. With CHP this reduces to about 200g/kWh taking the “heat credit” into account in an optimistic way. However the lifecycle emissions from nuclear (or wind or hydro) are in the 3-30g/kWh range. So in CO2 terms we can afford to produce a lot more energy from nuclear than from gas-fired CHP. You say Greenpeace’s arguments against nuclear power are practical, but they do not seem that way to me: What is the practical problem with nuclear power delivering 4% cut in emissions by 2024 and more thereafter? Given that the same amount of electricity generated from any renewable source would only deliver the same cuts. Given that the government target is to make huge investment in renewables over the same period anyway, what is the problem with permitting private nuclear build in addition? Building renewables while phasing out nuclear would just mean that some of the renewable capacity would simply be replacing nuclear (with consequently no emission savings) rather than displacing fossil fuel. What is the practical problem with nuclear waste if it never harms anybody or anything? The intention is to keep the waste sequestered away from the biosphere for as long as it takes to decay to safe levels. What is the problem with this approach? Furthermore, why do you think it is better to not dispose of the waste in this way? What is the practical problem with the consumers of electricity paying for the cleanup costs of decommissioning and waste management? Surely this is appropriate. Given that the costs amount to a fraction of a penny per kWh; and given that even including these costs nuclear electricity is competitive with any other source, what is the problem? What is the practical problem with nuclear facilities being possible terrorist targets? Given that they are better protected than any other non-military facility, and any attack is likely to fail, and any successful attack would have very limited impact. Do we stop building anything that might be a terrorist target, including tall buildings and hydro dams? How is that practical? What is the practical reason for associating weapons proliferation with civil nuclear power generation when civil nuclear powerstations in the UK do not produce weapons grade material? Why does Greenpeace target civil nuclear power when the weapons material is not made in civil powerstations? Given that there is already a surplus of weapons-grade material in the UK and no desire to produce more. What is the practical purpose of worrying about the theoretical possibility of a nuclear accident when no such accident has ever occurred in a UK powerstation, and the estimated odds of it occurring are 1 in 2.4 billion per reactor year. Given that the worst nuclear accident in history (Chernobyl) caused less health impact than the current air pollution in London. Having said all that, there are points that I agree on. I am not proposing nuclear as the whole solution (which is the point ElBaradei was making). Efficiency measures, such as home insulation, are the quickest and cheapest way to cut emissions in the short term. Large scale wind-power is entirely appropriate for the UK, and should be able to supply 25%-30% of our electricity. However other renewables have limited application in the UK. You need to be realistic about this and set ideology aside. And burning gas, just because it is not nuclear, is not a good enough reason. It is not cleaner, safer or cheaper in the long run.

By ColinG - 6 November 2008 at 12:02pm

Your optimism is touching Colin, but forgive me if I don't share it.

In fact, to my mind your determination to make nuclear appear fit for purpose exposes its already obvious flaws quite spectacularly.

For example:

What is the practical problem with nuclear waste if it never harms anybody or anything?

Absolutely nothing - but who's in a position to give that guarantee? No one, so it's a bit of a silly thing to say, isn't it? Not to mention sounding a bit desperate - especially when there are numerous examples of harm caused by waste - one recent one for example occurred in France last year when an accident at the Tricastin treatment plant (run by EdF) led to 75kg of untreated uranium seeping into the ground , causing local rivers and groundwater to be contaminated, and leading locals to rely for weeks on bottled water and tanks trucked in from other parts of France.

Only a minor example for sure, but indicative of the fallacy of your claim about "never harming anybody or anything". For a more exhaustive list of nuclear screw-ups, try here.

What is the practical problem with nuclear facilities being possible terrorist targets?

Er - blindingly obviously, terrorists could get a lot more 'bang for their buck' taking out Sizewell B than Drax in terms of making the surrounding area uninhabitable for a few years. If I was a terrorist who's aim was to inflict the maximum inconvenience and panic, I know where I'd be pointing my Jumbo jet...

What is the practical purpose of worrying about the theoretical possibility of a nuclear accident when no such accident has ever occurred in a UK powerstation?

Again, your staunch faith in British infallibility is touching, but really this comment borders on the unhinged - ignoring for a moment the 1957 Windscale disaster (which we have still never been told the full details of publicly, but which released an estimated 750 terabecquerels (20,000 Ci) of radioactive material into the surrounding environment, including Iodine-131, which is taken up in the human body by the thyroid. Consequently milk and other produce from the surrounding farming areas had to be destroyed) or the Dounreay waste store exploding in 1977 (the beach is, or was until recently, still off-limits to civilians), low-level accidents are reported at one UK nuclear facility or another almost every week.

I guess you won't be happy until we've had our own Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, and you can sit around telling us how it's really not that bad (sorry, I know that was in poor taste and probably uncalled for, but honestly, I find your gung-ho naivety about the relative risks involved pretty shocking).

What is the practical problem with nuclear power delivering 4% cut in emissions by 2024 and more thereafter?

Too little, too late to be much of a solution to climate change. In practical terms nuclear is vastly expensive, and will hoover up money that could be spent more profitably on interim CHP plants and longterm renewable development.

What is the practical problem with the consumers of electricity paying for the cleanup costs of decommissioning and waste management?

Exhorbitant costs over hundreds of years - why would we want to saddle ourselves with this level of debt and difficult storage issues when there are far cheaper and safer alternatives?

What is the practical reason for associating weapons proliferation with civil nuclear power generation when civil nuclear powerstations in the UK do not produce weapons grade material?

Reportedly, it was driving Pile I at Windscale too hard to produce plutonium for our military nuclear programme that resulted in the 1957 fire referred to above. You say civil reactors do not produce weapons grade plutonium - that may currently be true, but they can be converted to such production if ordered to - it's a matter of choice, not fundamental design.

And again, correct me if I'm wrong, your question implies that there is no overlap between the staff who work in civil reactors and those in military installations like Aldermaston and Porton Down. Now I know you've just got to be kidding. Are you really that naive?

Anyway, good to chew the fat with you as ever, and I expect we'll speak again soon...

By jossc - 6 November 2008 at 6:43pm

Joss, I don’t think I’m being naïve on this. It comes down to risk analysis. Obviously near surface storage of waste is more risky than deep geological disposal. Situations like Tricastin are more likely to occur with near surface storage (not that the incident at Tricastin involved waste anyway - it was a solution of natural Uranium - and it didn’t harm anybody). Why does Greenpeace insist on near-surface storage, and reject geological disposal? If you are looking for a guarantee of safety then you don’t understand risk. However my point is that the design for geological disposal is intended to ensure that the risk to individuals near the site is never significant - it is lower than the risk from background radiation for all time. On average the waste from a nuclear powerstation stored in a deep repository would be unlikely to cause 1 death in a million years. In contrast, waste from a typical coal plant (air pollution etc) would typically kill several dozen people per year of operation. Regarding terrorist attacks - terrorists tend to attack soft targets. An aircraft impact on Sizewell would not render the surrounding area uninhabitable. It would take multiple hits from armour piercing artillery just to cause a breach in the containment. A very lucky hit from an aircraft engine might cause a breach, but would not result in a major release. It would be rather difficult (as an understatement) to contrive an attack that would simultaneously expose the reactor core; breach the containment; and send the contents out into the surrounding area in any significant quantity. Even in the worst case, comparable to Chernobyl, the effect beyond the immediate explosion would be a moderate increase in cancer risk (1%-2% increase in mortality in the immediate vicinity) that would not manifest for decades. There are many softer targets that would cause more immediate carnage with a lot less effort and a lot greater probability of success. I am not going to make any suggestions. A similar case can be made regarding nuclear accidents in general. Serious accidents are immensely rare. There really has only been one of note. But even if they occurred at a rate of one per week they would not match the damage to health caused by global air pollution from burning fossil fuel. Radiation from Chernobyl is projected to cause 30,000 premature deaths worldwide over the next 500 years. Pollution from coal powerstations kills 30,000 every year in the US alone. Of course, Chernobyls don’t happen every week. In fact it has only happened once, and that was in a powerstation that would not meet IAEA safety requirements. I’ll stop short of saying that Chernobyl was “really not that bad”; it was a disaster and a tragedy for those affected; but considering the impact of the alternatives, nuclear power is lower risk by at least a factor of 10 if not 100. The fact that minor safety lapses are reported frequently simply indicates a robust safety culture. Every incident above level 1 on the INES scale must be reported as a matter of course. Incidents below level 4 are typically not hazardous. How many people have ever been killed by radiation from a nuclear accident at a civilian powerstation? Apart from Chernobyl the answer is zero. Even if you include the fuel cycle the total is fairly low. Tokaimura caused 2 fatalities - and that was fuel for a research reactor. That’s about it for the past 20 years. Medical radiation accidents cause far more deaths - usually at least one per year. Care to call a halt to radiography and nuclear medicine? Barely a week goes by without somebody being killed in a horrendous gas explosion (which Greenpeace endorses in their battle against climate change, by the way). What would the uproar be like if just one of those deaths was caused by a nuclear powerstation? If you took risk analysis seriously then you would not be advocating gas rather than nuclear. Like much of the population and the media your perception of nuclear risk is incredibly skewed. It harms virtually nobody, ever, yet you think it is the worst hazard in the world. I am glad you ignored the windscale fire because it saves me having to point out that it was not a nuclear powerstation. I am not going to defend military usage of nuclear reactors. Dounreay was a research establishment not a commercial powerstation. Some of the activities there were unforgivable from a safety perspective, but even so they never caused any deaths. SEPA's assessment of the beach particles estimates the chances of ingesting/inhaling one of the particles when regularly digging on the beach is around 1 in a billion per year; and the subsequent risk of it causing death is similar to a annual risk from background radiation. Basically the whole population of the earth could spend their entire lives digging on the beach and even then it is unlikely that the particles would kill anybody. In short, they aren’t a danger. But a warning sign has been erected anyway, just in case anybody started feeling safe. Regarding the costs of waste disposal, the additional cost is not exorbitant. That is the whole point. If the cost is paid for in a advance by the consumer the additional cost is a fraction of a penny per kWh. That cash can be invested and will pay for all decommissioning and disposal costs whenever they occur. Legacy decommissioning costs are a red herring because a) they cover research and military sites which are hard to decommission and did not provide electricity b) new powerstations produce less waste and are specifically designed to be easier to decommission Similarly your argument that nuclear power is too expensive to provide a low-carbon solution is also false. It is amongst the cheapest forms of electricity available as the International Energy Agency’s figures show. Sure, the cost of building the plant is two or three times more than a CHP plant. But the fuel is a fraction of the cost. Overall the levelised unit cost of electricity generation (including waste and decommissioning) is lower than CHP in most cases, and significantly lower than any renewables. The fact that civil reactors could be forced to produce weapons grade plutonium is pretty irrelevant. Medical or research reactors could equally be used. My point is the UK already has ample supplies of weapons material. Even if we had no civil nuclear power (and no nuclear medicine etc) we would still have nuclear weapons and military facilities. And the opposite is also true - most countries that use nuclear powerstations do not have nuclear weapons, nor do they have any wish to own them. The two simply are not linked anymore. Admittedly there was a link back in the days of the Magnox reactors thirty years ago; but there is no way that you can credibly claim that civil nuclear powerstations in the UK would lead to weapons proliferation these days. And suggesting skills transfer from civil powerstations to military applications is like saying wind-turbine designers could work for military aircraft manufacturers - it’s all aerodynamics. It is not an argument for abandoning low-carbon generating technology.

By ColinG - 7 November 2008 at 9:59am

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