The public is alarmed at climate change, mistrusts nuclear power and will not choose between them, says Vanessa Houlder Published: January 10 2001 19:33GMT | Last Updated: January 10 2001 19:43GMT Late last year, Donald Johnston, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, threw down the gauntlet to anyone who professes to care for the planet. In a provocative speech, he challenged the industrial world to shake off its prejudices about nuclear energy. "Having examined the best evidence available to me, I have concluded that if we are to hand on to future generations a planet that will meet their needs as we have met ours, it can only be done by incorporating the nuclear energy option," he said. This is a view not widely shared in the industrialised world. Of the OECD countries, only Japan and South Korea have plans to build new nuclear reactors. Some, following Germany's lead, may opt to phase them out. Mr Johnston thinks this opposition to an energy source that emits no significant greenhouse gases could spell disaster. The trend in greenhouse gas emissions, coupled with the predicted growth in the world's population, is "putting the world on a fast track to catastrophic global consequences for future generations", he said. So why has the public rejected nuclear power? Most people would blame the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in Ukraine, coupled with the industry's secretive culture and expense. Mr Johnston adds a controversial reason of his own. When it comes to anything nuclear, many people are either unaware of the facts or determined to ignore them, he complains. The public, he says, is tending "to lump all controversial issues involving science into the same basket of suspicion and doubt". There should, he says, be a campaign to "to lay out facts and dispel myths and fears about nuclear energy". These assertions are guaranteed to infuriate many of those who are most committed to tackling climate change. The Climate Action Network, a consortium of pressure groups, emphatically disputes the notion that the public's rejection of nuclear energy is a matter of "myths and fears". Nuclear waste management has proved an intractable problem worldwide, according to the consortium. It says that the hundreds of millennia over which nuclear waste must be managed make it impossible to guarantee that any repository could be safe. Opponents of nuclear power also argue that it is prohibitively expensive. Its cost has escalated as a result of high construction expenses, problems with maintenance and ageing infrastructure and growing bills for waste and decommissioning. They assert that nuclear power programmes run the risk of a serious accident, that nuclear stations routinely discharge radioactivity into the environment and that civilian nuclear power programmes may help nuclear weapons to proliferate, because plutonium stocks are hard to monitor. To promote nuclear power would undermine the development of renewable energy technologies that might combat climate change. Bill Keepin, an analyst at the US's Rocky Mountain Institute, dismisses the idea that nuclear power - or any other programme of simply building new capacity - could be a "quick fix" for global warming. To displace coal by 2025 would require the construction of 5,000 large nuclear plants, equivalent to building a 1,000MW plant every 2= days from now until 2025, he says. He would rather conservation shouldered more of the burden. According to his calculations, each dollar invested in energy efficiency in the US displaces nearly seven times more carbon than a dollar invested in new nuclear power - though, to be fair, conservation is notoriously hard to promote. In short, say critics such as the Climate Action Network, nuclear power is expensive and dangerous. "It has nothing to do with responding to climate change." The argument between those in favour of nuclear power and those against shows no signs of resolution. Unsurprisingly, therefore, nuclear policy in most countries is a muddle that amounts to little more than living with the status quo. Yet that is to neglect an important point: nuclear power already supplies 17 per cent of the world's electricity and 7 per cent of its total energy. Many of the arguments levelled against nuclear power apply as much to power stations in operation as to those yet to be built: if society is content to live with existing power stations, why not build more? Furthermore, the status quo cannot endure. Today's stations will sooner or later have to be decommissioned and the gap they leave will on current trends be filled largely by fossil fuels. A recent study commissioned by the European Union concluded that: "If nuclear plants are retired after a lifetime of 40 years, the EU's nuclear capacity - which accounts for 23 per cent of the EU's generation - will decline to 9 per cent in 2025 and no more than 1 per cent in 2035. "The major problems of limiting carbon dioxide emissions in the EU are not in 2010 but in later years and it is in this later period that any decline of the nuclear industry will have its greatest impact," the study says. A growing number of politicians, officials and scientists are con cerned that policymakers in the industrialised countries are letting nuclear power fade away without putting sufficient thought into what will fill the gap. On current trends, policymakers argue, the promise offered by renewable resources is unlikely to be fulfilled in the near future. Over the next 20 years, the contribution from geothermal, solar, wind, tidal and wave energy and biomass (burning organic material) will increase from 2 per cent to just 3 per cent, according to the latest report by the International Energy Agency, part of the OECD. Even that is a huge increase in absolute terms, with, say, wind power forecast to grow 20-fold in the US and 25-fold in Europe. There are other, promising options for controlling greenhouse gases but these are still a long way from commercial development. With carbon sequestration, the disposal of carbon dioxide in deep geological strata allows electricity to be produced using fossil fuels without increasing greenhouse gas emissions. But much more research is needed to prove its safety and cost-effectiveness. Is it responsible to phase out nuclear power when there are so many doubts about the alterna tives? This question is pitting environmental activists against those who are prepared to contemplate a future for nuclear power. Recently, for example, Loyola de Palacio, the EU's energy commissioner, threw open the debate on nuclear power in a green paper on energy strategy. She came under attack from environmental groups when she argued that stopping nuclear power production might be short-sighted. In the UK, a study by the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering urged that: "The nuclear option should be kept open until it can be demonstrated that the renewables industry has developed to the extent that it can replace this carbon-free source of power." The advocates of nuclear power do not deny it has risks and disadvantages. They argue, however, that the drawbacks should be kept in perspective. The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering believe that the cost of nuclear electricity can be minimised if large numbers of reactors are built to a standard design, as in France. It asserts that waste could be disposed of safely for the long run in any of several ways - and that we do not need to settle on one for at least 50 years, during which time waste can continue to be stored near reactors. It also holds out the prospect of advances in safety, fuel usage, cost, reduced waste problems and reduced risks of proliferation. Supporters of nuclear power also recognise the immense task involved in winning public support. But in spite of the problems, they think politicians should face up to the issue. "While a major effort would be required to turn around public opinion and despite the current unfavourable case for new nuclear plant, the question as to eventual new nuclear build cannot and must not be ducked any longer." The UK's Trade and Industry select committee uttered those words in 1998. But the question the committee posed is still unanswered. And it is likely to remain so until the public heeds Mr Johnston's warning - if not his advice - and reconciles its alarm over global warming with its aversion for nuclear energy. _______________________________________________ Crashlist website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
