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Nuclear Power : Environment and Health Impacts.
Read more about: Climate Change, Energy 
Labour recently came out with their new energy policy document . Now it had a few interesting bits and pieces and lots of generic waffle. But they do talk about Nuclear power.
We consider that nuclear power is not an option for Ireland at present on financial,environmental or technical grounds.
Now that really doesn’t tell us much. Lets have a proper look at Nuclear Power.
When most think of Nuclear power they think of the Chernobyl disaster. Now despite the fact that the reasons behind the Chernobyl disaster are not very likely to be repeated in a western Country with modern designs. Lets take a look at the deaths caused by this.
The 2005 report prepared by the Chernobyl Forum, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO), attributed 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer), and estimated that there may be 4,000 extra cancer deaths among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed people.
So 56 direct deaths linked to Chernobyl many people think this number has been low balled and the 4,000 is closer to the right number. Now lets put that in a bit of a context .
Every year in the USA coal fired power Plants account for around 30,000 deaths per year. (If you extrapolate that to the 23 years since Chernobyl that is 690,000 deaths since then due to coal power stations.)
Worldwide deaths due to shipping emissions 64,000.
Now the point is not that Nuclear power is without its dangers it is that we have for years being ignoring the dangers of the other power sources we use. Chernobyl was a TV event, etched into our minds. People in America developing respotory conditions and dying is less of a TV show.
The problem is people looked long ago at the environmental impact of Nuclear power but have been ignoring the environmental impact of other power sources for too long. Now with climate change we are beginning to realise these other power sources are not without their own environmental effects.
Moneypoint is the second largest Power station in the country and coal fired (no mention of being closed in Labours policy document). Is it worse then a Nuclear Power station in terms of environmental impact?
Discuss.
There will be a debate tonight in Galway asking is Nuclear Power part of the solution to Climate Change.
Organised by the Green Party, it will be at 8pm in Bar Number 8.
http://www.galway-greens.com/2009/11/17/late-debates-at-bar-number-8/
Hope you don’t mind the shameless plug above!
I’d like to see the economic rational for Nuclear. As far as I can tell there is none. The cost of strip mining uranium is horrendous, not to mention the carbon footprint. Unless we have tonnes of uranium lying around unused we’re going to end up importing the fuel, so how does that help us economically? Claiming nuclear is cheap energy is all well and good if you ignore the actual cost of waste management as spread over thousands of years. Everthing seems cheap now if you finance it with a thousand year mortgage, but look where that sort of thinking has gotten us in other spheres. Ed Walsh should be ashamed of himself pushing this lunacy.
Not at all Eoin. Plug away. Will the debate focus solely on Climate Change or also the financial aspects as well.
Unless we have tonnes of uranium lying around unused we’re going to end up importing the fuel, so how does that help us economically
I am planning to go into this in a post in the next few days. But one thing to note RE Uranium. Is that A. It is relatively cheap compared to say oil. As you don’t need much for a nuclear power plant. The cost of Nuclear being the construction. And B. The needs are relatively physically small. So a few years supply can be stored in a “warehouse” while a few months supply of Oil takes a massive oil depots.
I imagine the financial costs and not just the environmental costs will be debated.
Your quote refers to “financial, environmental or technical grounds” so I’m not sure why you then talk about safety instead.
Coal power is more environmentally damaging than nuclear, but it is not clear why you think that is the choice we are faced with.
In any case, financial and technical grounds alone should be enough to make any debate on nuclear power in Ireland very brief indeed.
Simon, have you concerns about Peak Uranium? http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24414/
Yes Eoin it is a concern. But remember that most of Uranium used in a nuclear reactor is not actually used. Only something like 10% thus leaving 90% usable fuel being dumped. Reprocessing can recover this (at great expense ). I am not really in favour of nuclear power. But Health and Safety concerns are not an issue for me. Other things are.
Lorcan My point of talking about safety is that it is the main point most people have against Nuclear. Also as you point out your self coal is more environmentally damaging yet Labour don’t rule it out on environmental grounds. The Labour document really was just what reminded me about the subject.
Simon,
I think we would probably agree that nuclear power makes sense in countries where it is well established as an energy technology; where a skills pool exists for operation and technology innovation purposes and where the scale of energy demand justifies such a long-term, largescale investment as part of the energy mix. Climatic conditions (Finland, Sweden), security of supply (UK, Germany, Japan, US) and resource conservation/ political considerations also influence that choice and its acceptability.
Climate change is a ‘johnny come lately’ to political choices on the role of nuclear in energy generation for the future. Clearly, it’s very important for the UK, for example, having realised a few years back that without replacing its existing nuclear capacity there was little or no prospect of meeting its carbon emissions’ targets. Similarly, with Italy’s renewed expression of interest in nuclear generation and decisions in other EU states to maintain nuclear capacity at existing levels rather than winding it down as previously planned.
I would also agree that the debate on environmental and health effects of nuclear plants is passé at this point. Certainly, living next door to a nuclear power station is likely to be a lot less injurious to your immediate health and long term well-being than close proximity to a wide range of other industrial installations. As an energy source, nuclear power is highly regulated and its health and safety impact on people and the environment has probably been more closely scrutinised, studied and investigated than any other.
When it comes to us, though, the fact is we do not have the skills base, unlike UK , Germany, Sweden, France etc., nor the capacity to create that skills base, which may take one or two generations to emerge. Nor do we have ‘nuclear communities’ to whom nuclear installations are non-controversial and in the main positively viewed as they deliver social and economic benefits in terms of well-paid employment, high quality regular health and environment monitoring and other infrastructural benefits in areas that might otherwise be deprived e.g. West Cumbria in north-west England and Anglesea in Wales.
We would also have a problem with reactor size – one of the new model nuclear power stations could supply all of this island’s energy demand, but it would be a surplus of riches in that sense and might create more problems than it would resolve. Peronally, I have reservations about the notion of smaller nuclear plants of a different design being selected to conform with Irish grid capacity, projected energy demand requirements etc. The pebble bed modular reactor looks attractive, but if it’s the only one of its kind in the EU, then you quickly run up against ‘spare parts’ and other technical problems.
Most important, until our politicians agree that the section in the 1999 Electricity Act prohibiting the construction of nuclear power plants in Irish national territory was a mistake that ought to be repealed, or until others in the EU decide that for us, a debate is futile anyway.
Finally, one of the problems I think we have in our general approach to energy policy options is that we don’t seem to be able to make up our minds whether we’re a market in its own right or if it might be more advantageous to our best interests if we viewed ourselves as a segment of a larger UK or EU energy market and cut our cloth to suit our measure accordingly.
Thanks for the link to the LP ‘Energy Revolution’ document. Maybe, though, I wish you hadn’t, because it is, without doubt, a richness of embarrassments and one of the most cringe-inducing policy statements in this area that I have ever come across.
Thanks Simon, I see the point you’re making now.
In addition to the technical barriers pointed out by Veronica, nuclear has the potential to bankrupt the country all over again. If countries like France and Finland struggle to deliver these massive projects on time and on budget, despite heavy government support, subsidies, guarantees, etc., what chance does Ireland stand?
lorcan,
‘Nuclear has the potential to benkrupt the country all over again’ – a curious remark and not in accord with the facts, I’m afraid.
The capital cost of energy infrastructure is not the problem; it’s whether the plant works to capacity over its projected lifetime that matters. Nuclear plants are capital intensive to build, but cheap to run. Get the plant right and you will have an excellent cost-competitive power source for decades to come. I guess that’s why electricity prices in France have been running at an average 20% lower than in the UK which (a) got its nuclear plants wrong by opting for the wrong design and (b) embarked on the ‘dash for gas’ in the 1980s/90s, which has left them wide open to ever increasing energy costs allied to diminishing energy security of supply in recent decades. And if you want to look for wasted subsidies, then ‘green energy’ financial supports, particularly wind power, might provide some fertile territory for examination. Watch out for the ‘Green Bubble’, well in the making already.
Veronica, capital costs and running costs are of course both key to any investment decision. I’m not sure why you think nuclear has any advantage in this respect. When choosing between two investments with the same average returns over a given period, wouldn’t you choose the one with the lower up-front costs?
If nuclear is an excellent cost-competitive power source, why has there been no new nuclear build for years? Why has nuclear always required government subsidies, both direct and indirect (loan guarantees, “streamlined” planning, etc.)? Why even with higher fossil fuel prices has the UK had such trouble getting any new nuclear power built – even on existing sites? Why is the new plant under construction in Finland already late and way over budget?
Given Ireland’s flair for delivering value for money when it comes to major infrastructure projects, I think the potential for nuclear to be an economic disaster is not that curious a remark.
I do find the “Green Bubble” a very curious remark though. Presumably the drivers of such a bubble would be exaggerated claims over climate change and energy security – the same as for nuclear power? And if there is a bubble, we won’t want to be locked into any major investments will we?
Whether you agree with them or not, subsidies for renewables are to support new industries. The case for subsidising an industry that is decades old and still struggling is less clear.
Veronica. Thanks you highlighted a few points I was going to point out.
Lorcan. Just on the point why so many plants have not been built. 1. Oil was at low prices for much of the late 80s and 90s. Thus making them cheaper in comparison. This is not going to re occur. But 2. I would say the main reason that so few Nuclear plants have been built is due to Chernobyl. It is not politically prudent to say your going to build a nuclear plant. Because Nuclear POwer plants conjure up images of Chernobyl. Moneypoint does not conjure images of lung cancer. And as I think you agree Nuclear’s Health and Safety record is not that bad when compared to other forms of energy.
lorcan,
In case you hadn’t noticed I’m not in favour of Ireland going down the nuclear route, certainly not right now and probably not in the long term either for the reasons I’ve already stated, plus a few others I could mention. I’m open to have my mind changed, but I haven’t seen any arguments from the Irish pro-nuclear lobby as yet that I find convincing.
But I have no objection in principle or otherwise to the use of this technology. If nuclear is appropriate to the energy mix of the EU, China, the US or anywhere else, and if subject to the international safeguards regime for nuclear materials, then the only possible objection to it is on ideological grounds since the health and safety arguments don’t hold up. Objecting to any technology on ideological grounds is pretty spurious reasoning in my book. The added advantage of nuclear power, in the climate change context, relates to its low carbon emissions at the point of generation.
Nuclear was out of political fashion for more than two decades.Public mistrust was compounded by the 1979 Three Mile Island accident (which finished off Ireland’s plan to build a nuclear power station at Carnsore in Wexford) followed by the explosion of the reactor at Chernobyl in 1986. The era of cheap oil and gas further served to take nuclear power off the energy agenda, to the considerable relief of politicians who didn’t have to argue teh case for expansion of nuclear power to a largely hostile elctorate outside of ‘nuclear communities’. (Come to think of it, wind power wasn’t all that fashionable for much of that period either.) Right now, it’s no longer a question of competition between technologies; it’s about using whatever is available and is appropriate to the particular circumstances of a country/region’s energy mix profile, the economics of that choice and meeting related obligations on carbon emissions etc.
Energy policy involves long term decisions. I don’t know of any major infrastructural projects that are not heavily subsidised by governments in any case. I’m not aware that the UK are having any particular problem with their new generation nuclear plan, which seems to be unfolding as anticipated. The UK has a poor track record in this area though, so experience would suggest that only half of the power stations listed in their planned development may actually be built in the end.
Not so in Finland, where the government is considering building another reactor in addition to the one already under construction, bringing their total number of nuclear reactors to six. Sweden has reversed its 1989 decision to phase out nuclear and a decision has been made to retain its ten operating stations and to replace them with new build as they reach the end of their working lives. Holland plans to build a new reactor at the existing plant site at Borssele, which they had previously planned to shut down at teh end of its working life and Italy intends building four new nuclear power stations, havign abadnoned its nuclear project decades ago. Most of the switch, or partial switch, to nuclear in these western EU States is either about meeting climate change commitments or security of supply issues, or both. As for France, their view is straightforward; as the largest electricity exporter in Europe, they intend to replace their nuclear power stations with new ones, as required.
I’m not trying to be argumentative, lorcan. It’s just that governmetns and regions are entitled to make use of the technologies that are available to, and suitable for their purposes and that will assist them in meeting their international as well as national obligations to maintain energy supply and reduce carbon emissions.
If they choose nuclear, then that’s entirely up to them, in my opinion, and it’s none of our business to start telling them they should use something else because we have some kind of obscure ideological and cultural hang-up about that technology. I’m also quite sure that these fellow Eu member states are capable of arriving at rational decisions as to what is best for them in their individual circumstances.
Finally, I can assure you that there are several energy experts out there who share a genuine concern about creating a ‘Green Bubble’ here, which will inevitably be followed by a ‘green bust’, if we’re not careful about what we’re subsidising, to what extent we’re doing it and if a rigorous costs/ benefits analysis is not applied.