While the attempt to regain control of earthquake-damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plants continues, debate has already shifted to the implications for the future nuclear power industry in western countries, with the suggestion the recent revival of interest in nuclear power may about to be extinguished.
But even if a worst-case scenario unfolds in Japan, it will tell us nothing new about nuclear power plants: we know that when they fail, which is rarely, they can fail catastrophically, despite extensive back-up systems.
Debate around the safety of nuclear power will thus produce considerable heat but little light. Advocates of nuclear power will maintain that failure is very rare, that new reactors are safer, that the benefits outweigh the costs. Opponents will point to the grim drama unfolding in Fukushima now and insist “we told you so”.
This adds nothing to the key issue around nuclear power, which is its massive cost. As Crikey has repeatedly shown, nuclear power is extraordinarily expensive, especially for a country like Australia that has no extant industry. The construction of nuclear power plants is notoriously prone to delays, and the industry depends heavily on cheap, long-term loans, which usually need government guarantees. In comparison, several renewable energy technologies are established and cheaper to build and operate. They also do not entail the additional and massive cost of decommissioning reactors and storing radioactive waste, which is so great the cost burden must be borne by governments, not industry.
We all hope for a safe resolution to the problems in Japan. But they shouldn’t detract from the real issues around nuclear power.
The choice seems between the devil and the deep blue sea, if we go nuke, which apparently doesn’t cause greenhouse gas, or we use fossil, which does cause greenhouse, the option for renewable seems very limited at the moment.
What do we do, go back to wood stoves, and kerosine lights?, which was what I had for my first 12 years.
Agreed that most of the world’s media are in meltdown trying to get the name Chernobyl into the same sentence with Japan, and this is hysterical and unhelpful. That a colossal earthquake and subsequent tsunami hasn’t caused catastrophic failure, as in a huge release of radioactive material, seems to be conveniently overlooked by those ‘reporting’ the story.
As for the assertion that: “In comparison, several renewable energy technologies are established and cheaper to build and operate”, could you please provide the data? The notion that wind turbines, for example, could be built to replace coal fired power stations is laughable once you factor in the scale of such an enterprise, plus the footprint that thousands of these machines would plant on the ground (which people happen to live on).
I’ve no doubt that both renewables and nuclear will contribute to our ‘de-carbonising’, but to use the recent events in Japan to demonise nuclear power is falling into the same type of hyperbolic nonsense as using the name “Chernobyl” out of context.
The first power station did not “fail catastrophically”. Sure, like a car with its engine just seized up, it’s an expensive breakdown, but it does not hurt the passengers or neighbours.
There were no evacuations necessary at Sellafield or Three Mile Island, they just took their iodine tablets. Failure to notify the emergency authorities in time to distribute iodine tablets left them making the empty gesture of wide-area evacuations at Chernobyl. The absence of casualties from chronic radiation in all those cases shows that permanent evacuation is unnecessary.
Notice too, that all of the levels exceeded in this case have been legal levels, not medical levels. Even notification of the vapour release was a legal necessity, exposing the power station and its neighbours to the political grandstanding of their beleaguered Prime Minister.
For all of the amazing stories in the background earthquake and tsunami, of structures surviving or failing, of heroic adventures, and survival and pathos, journalists on the scene resorted to a tired old bogey for a knee-jerk audience. Are we?
Wikipaedia provides a list of “Nuclear power plant accidents with multiple fatalities and/or more than US$100 million in property damage, 1952-2011”. Twenty such incidents are listed. There are scores of lesser accidents and incidents. So accidents are rare? Reactors are safe?
RICHARD BRINKMAN
@Richard spoke of a list of twenty nuclear accidents with multiple fatalities and damage claims, here is the link …
Grand total of three fatalities in 50 years.