Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded in April 1986
Just say no to nuclear
by Roz Paterson - 02-02-2008
The SSP is opposed to the construction of any new nuclear power stations, not least because of the risks of a devastating, Chernobyl-like nuclear accident, the ongoing problem of radioactive contamination, spelled out in leukaemia clusters and dying marine life, and the million-year migraine of how to dispose of hazardous nuclear waste, still unresolved some 50 years after the nuclear industry was established in the UK.
However, some environmentalists – including James Lovelock, the scientist and founder of the Gaia theory of the earth as a self-regulating mechanism – argue that nuclear power, for all its dangers, is the lesser of two evils in that at least it’s carbon neutral and offers a steady source of energy that won’t contribute to global warming. But it’s a blind alley. Nuclear power is not the clean, green energy source it’s cracked up to be, and people like Lovelock should know better. For a start, nuclear power generates electricity, which accounts for only 16 per cent of total carbon emissions.
According to the Sustainable Development Commission Scotland, even if we doubled our nuclear capacity, we would only cut our carbon emissions by 8 per cent by 2035, and not at all by 2010. Secondly, nuclear power generation is by no means carbon neutral. In fact, the nuclear power industry consumes vast amounts of fossil fuel through mining and enriching uranium, and then transporting it halfway across the globe. On top of which are the CO2 emissions generated during construction and decommissioning of power plants.
According to a study by Germany’s Oko Institute in 1997, when you considered the full life cycle of various energy technologies, nuclear power had nearly twice the CO2 output of wind power. Since then, uranium has become much scarcer and harder to mine, and what is available is of poorer quality, requiring more energy to refine. All of which means that the CO2 cost of nuclear energy has increased fivefold on the Oko estimate.
There are further drawbacks to nuclear power. It’s notoriously expensive. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd has been bailed out to the tune of billions by the UK taxpayer, proving that it cannot compete in the marketplace without massive public subsidy. So it’s neither green nor cheap. Plus, if we build a new generation of nuclear power stations, as the government is proposing, it locks us into a centralised energy distribution system for decades to come. Yet micro-generation and local distribution could be key to energy security in the future.
There’s also the tiny problem of nuclear proliferation. If we don’t want Iran to have a nuclear power industry, for fear it could lead to Iran having a nuclear bomb industry, what on earth are we doing expanding our nuclear industry? Given how close we are, in global terms, to a nuclear conflict, surely this is not the time to start raising the stakes?
Lastly, nuclear enthusiasts are guilty of perpetuating the myth that we can carry on a normal, in terms of energy consumption, so long as we get the right technology in place. This is not so. We need to cut our energy use, and the nuclear lobby’s propaganda is just irresponsible time-wasting. We cannot afford nuclear power, on any level, and it’s time to move the debate on.