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Pulling apart George Monbiot’s pro nuclear statements

In all this prolific writing in support of nuclear power, Monbiot never quite answers the most difficult questions regarding cost, liability for accidents, nuclear waste disposal and link with nuclear bomb manufacturing. Instead, he chooses to attack his previous allies in the environmental NGOs and movements, ridiculing their struggles as resulting from delusions of ignorant people. No matter how cool he thinks he might look with his supposedly highly rational approach to environmentalism, I’d like to know what exactly is his stance on this critical issue. Is that asking too much?

Why George Monbiot is STILL wrong on nuclear power | Links, By Ricardo Sequeiros Coelho, 11 April 11, “……...Double standard 1: deaths and injuries. According to Monbiot, anti-nuclear campaigners cry in despair over the deaths and injuries caused by nuclear accidents, yet don’t say a word about the victims of the coal industry. …….The game goes on by playing with statistics from Chernobyl. Monbiot again quotes the highly disputed number of 43 deaths from the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, taken from the Chernobyl Forum report. Not only does he uncritically follow the statistics given by an international body that incorporates one of the strongest pro-nuclear lobbies in the world, he is dishonest enough not to quote it correctly, as Joe Giambrone neatly exposes (see Counterpunch).

The Chernobyl Forum estimated that about 9000 deaths were to be expected from the accident, explaining that the number was just an unreliable and disputable estimate. Other estimates have put the number of deaths at 100 times more. Yet, Monbiot clings on to his fantasy.

From this intensive cherry picking of data (a “sin” that he considers anti-nuclear activists guilty of), Monbiot concludes that coal mining kills as many people in a week as the Chernobyl meltdown has killed in 25 years. I guess we should make a petition for Ukrainian authorities to give permission for Monbiot to move to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, as he clearly thinks that it is perfectly safe to live there…..

Double standard 2: the science

Monbiot rightfully claims that, when debating climate change, we should focus on the scientific consensus and rely on solid, peer-reviewed studies. He then makes a rhetorical jump to the health dangers of low-level radiation, to argue that there is no scientific evidence that they exist. He makes this claim based on an article by Goodall and Lynas, his pro-nuclear allies (see link).

I won’t dispute the scientific data exposed in the quoted article, although I think it is clear that its implicit conclusion, that even very high levels of radioactivity can be safe, is highly misleading. But there is at least one flagrant omission, the authors chose to focus only on mortality from radiation.

Taking into account that exposure from radiation causes several illnesses, miscarriages and health problems like hypothyroidism, sterility and cognitive deficiencies, one would hope that these guys would take some time to explain to us ignorant fools how these impacts are non-important. But they just choose to ignore the issue.

Scientific evidence on health effects from exposure to radiation is highly disputed, namely for political reasons. I have no qualification to discuss this issue but it seems clear to me that categorising a side of the dispute as a “pseudo-scientific gibberish of a motley collection of cranks and quacks” is not a serious argument.

Double standard 3: radioactive pollution….

Double standard 4: mining impact

Double standard 5: costs…. He could have compared nuclear power with wind, solar, tidal, wave power or any other renewable energy, but instead chose a micro-generation scheme that, despite being very expensive per kilowatt, is peanuts compared to nuclear power in absolute terms…….no one is proposing to shift from nuclear power to microgeneration. By focusing on this choice
instead of the choice between nukes and fossils on the one side and renewables on the other, Monbiot chose to attack a strawman.

Double standard 6: research….. With solar panels, we’re talking about generating electricity with a technology that we have now and without any danger for human health (unless we consider the possibility of someone dying because a solar panel fell on her head, that is). With thorium reactors, we’re talking about generating electricity with a technology that we don’t have now and don’t know when we’ll have and that has health risks.

Double standard 7: timing

Conceding that nuclear power plants take a lot of time to build, Monbiot argues that “by the time it has gone through the planning process, a major new grid connection to support an offshore wind farm will take roughly as long to develop as a new nuclear power station”. Using as a reference the state-of-the-art reactor 3 in Olkiluoto, Finland, the first “third generation” reactor in the world, I don’t see how this is possible. This reactor will be operational, if all goes well, 13 years after the licence application was made and with a more than 50% cost overrun. Since Monbiot didn’t provide any source for his comparison, I can only guess that he’s making it up.

Questions unanswered

In all this prolific writing in support of nuclear power, Monbiot never quite answers the most difficult questions regarding cost, liability for accidents, nuclear waste disposal and link with nuclear bomb manufacturing. Instead, he chooses to attack his previous allies in the environmental NGOs and movements, ridiculing their struggles as resulting from delusions of ignorant people. No matter how cool he thinks he might look with his supposedly highly rational approach to environmentalism, I’d like to know what exactly is his stance on this critical issue. Is that asking too much?… Why George Monbiot is STILL wrong on nuclear power | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

April 12, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, spinbuster