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Nuclear delusions

Nuclear delusions keep mushrooming The Age BILL WILLIAMS October 15, 2009 “……….. on closer scrutiny, nuclear power’s real potential is disappointing. Despite over half a century of intensive subsidisation and promotion, it produces less than 15 per cent of the world’s electricity. This may seem hard to believe, given the fervour with which its promoters have been singing its praises of late, but the numbers speak for themselves.

In addition to 430 reactors operating worldwide, 52 reactors are listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency as ”under construction”. Thirteen have been on that list for over 20 years, and 24 still don’t have an official planned start-up date…………….the industry gestures excitedly at China (16 under construction), India (seven under construction) and Russia (nine under construction), which are unlikely even to compensate for lost global capacity as older reactors will have to close.

Predictions of huge expansion in Eastern Europe or North America – even in Australia – over the next two decades border on hysteria. Don’t be deceived by talk of ”planned reactors” or ”new generation solutions”: ask to see the poured concrete and the installed reactor core…………………….

Critical to a sustainable energy future is demand reduction, not by ”returning to the Dark Ages”, but by using available and emerging technologies in building, design and transport.

One conservative scenario, prepared by the Clean Energy Future Group, proposes an electricity supply model which comprises solar (5 per cent); hydro (7 per cent); coal/petroleum (10 per cent); wind (20 per cent); bio-energy (28 per cent); and gas (30 per cent). This model would reduce our electricity sector emissions by 78 per cent by 2040.

Even if the logic of the market were not choking the nuclear industry, its modest capacity to address climate change mitigation makes it a dangerous diversion of resources.

Bill Williams

October 15, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1