While I do have praise for the former Chief Scientific Officer Sir David King for actually getting the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, to understand the real danger we all face from climate change, he is still part of the problem with regard to finding solutions. The British government has decided that the way to resolve climate change is to rely upon Nuclear Power. It was in fact Sir David King that persuaded the UK this was the route to take, and while it has just been announced (re-announced) this week, it was decided behind closed doors years ago.
The problem with Nuclear energy is simply that we have nowhere to safely store the waste. In the UK we have been generating electricity for over fifty years, yet we still have not found any way of dealing with the first kilo of highly radioactive waste that was produced. We now have over fifty tonnes of this material. This is where the equation for the carbon footprint for nuclear energy is obfuscated. While it looks as though Nuclear Fusion does eliminate greenhouse gases, even taking account of the carbon inputs into the manufacturing and building of the station(s). Concrete and cement have the fifth largest carbon footprint of any manufactured material.
It is when the energy inputs are added for the ways that we will likely to have to deal with the waste that it starts to look less of a reasonable option. Because much of the waste will have to be vitrified, locked away in glass, energy will be needed to manufacture the glass. Further, whatever form of depository is used, most likely something underground, vast amounts of concrete will be needed to build and maintain the depositories. When I say vast the nuclear industry has said that each tonne of waste will be encased in fifty tonnes of concrete. That means it will take 250,000,000 tonnes of concrete just to deal with the waste we have already produced.
Incidentally that will lead to over three trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. That is just to deal with the waste we already have.
Then there is the difficulty of where to locate these new power stations. Historically nuclear power stations have been located on coastal sites. This is because fusion electricity generation needs vast volumes of water. Predominantly this is to ensure safety so that water is available to cool the uranium or plutonium. As well water is needed nuclear power is actually a very simple technology as water is superheated to steam to drive turbines. At Sizewell B each turbine needs two tonnes of stream per second to generate electricity. That requires vast volumes of water; hence locating plants at the coast seems the logical choice. However, global warming is raising the sea level. While we have only seen a rise of 30cm (One Foot) in the previous century, even the most conservative estimates say that we need to be planning for a further meter rise. That places all of the new build nuclear plants at risk of flooding.
As our experience last year shows, flooding from seaward ingress is not the only risk. Flooding could occur from heavy rains and flash flooding. If this water were to enter a nuclear power station then it would contaminate the water supply with low-level radiation. While walls and barriers could be built to prevent this happening, it will add billions to the costs and further increase the carbon footprint of building the stations. Thus making any reduction in the climate gases these stations hope to create marginal at best. It may well be that the carbon footprint from building the stations is higher than the reductions in CO2 using them produce.
Then there is the question of safety, while Nuclear does raise causes for concerns; the safety record in the UK is actually very good. My only real concern on this is if economic pressures lead to short cuts being taken or maintenance being delayed. Then there is the problem from terrorism. While I have no doubt that every effort will be made to prevent an attack, unfortunately it only takes one person to succeed to cause serious damage and disruption.
Therefore to have Sir David King say that we the environmentalists are putting the climate at risk by opposing or even voicing doubts about the Nuclear Option is simply wrong. The difficulty is that people like Sir David King and much of the government still fail to realise that its not just about finding an alternative way of doing more of the same. In the UK thirty percent of the electricity generated is wasted. By educating and forcing people and businesses to conserve energy we could overnight meet and exceed our Kyoto targets as well as being half way to meeting any targets that emerge from the Bali road map.
What Sir David King, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, George W Bush, et all don’t understand is the only way we can survive the effects of our polluting the planet is to change attitudes on and about the way we all uses resources.
Sustainable energy production is possible using existing technologies; any concerted effort in developing this further could provide our whole planet with clean renewable energy for the next century or more. The barrier that we need to break through is the idea that we have to buy and burn any fuel at all. Solar is using the Suns energy, as wind is created by solar energy on the atmosphere… you get the picture. All we lack is the change in the mindset that says oil, gas or coal or an alternative is what we need to power the planet and the economies of the world.
Additionally none of us greens want to go back to a time when we lacked the advances that have provided us all with better health, sanitation and education. What we recognise is that much of the junk that we are sold as essential are a complete waste of the earths resources. Equally many of these items require us to buy more and more energy. While I am sure that a new television for example, will be able to do all sorts of clever things, but it does not provide any increase in the quality of the programmes. Further, new televisions frequently use more electricity, as do all the other junk we are told we need.
Also we “Greens” recognise that all of these gadgets and so called must have devices do very little to increasing the quality of life, in fact as we replace last months must have, we add to the waste we leave behind. Then there is the fact that we are all having to work harder to buy more and more of what we are being told we need, well us “Greens” have the intelligence to say no and reject an ever increasing spiral of consumerism.
What we do want to see is a rejection of polluting industries and an embracing of ethical and respectful ways of living that doesn’t require us to steal the resources from the deprived and following generations.
The Article that prompted this reply
The News story on Britain going Nuclear
Photo courtesy of Imperial College London
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