nuclear-news

nuClear News 15 Jan “………Conservation, Proliferation and Responsible Science A group of academics have argued that nuclear power is essential to save the planet from climate change, and preserve the world’s biodiversity. But there’s a mysterious omission in their analysis, writes Jim Green of Friends of the Earth Australia: nuclear weapons proliferation. And after a major exchange of nuclear bombs, and the ‘nuclear winter’ that would follow, exactly how much biodiversity would survive? (1)

Dr Green also attacks the paper for endorsing fast breeder reactor technology as the solution to climate change. He says that the “fast reactor techno-utopia presented by Brook and Bradshaw is theoretically attractive”, but has already been tried unsuccessfully, and cannot be made to work in the real world. (2)

Greenpeace UK chief scientist Dr Doug Parr commenting on the plea from the academics for environmentalists to support nuclear power said: “The ‘next generation’ of nuclear reactors are always clean, safe, cheap and just over the horizon. But, mysteriously, the reactors that get built are always the exact opposite. By contrast, photovoltaics are clean, safe, getting cheaper by the day and available now. They can be installed in heavily populated cities, on dual-use agricultural land

and even in shallow water. And no-one will lie awake at night worrying about terrorists getting

access to a solar panels or wind farms.” (3)

Put very simply, says David Elliott is Emeritus Professor of Technology Policy at the Open University, the academics argue that nuclear has lower land-use per unit of energy produced than renewables and so will leave more space for biodiversity. This assessment, like some of the other analysis in the paper, is debatable. It’s true that some renewables are land-hungry, biomass especially, but that is not the case for offshore wind, wave and tidal stream or roof-top solar. And although onshore wind farm sites may be relatively large, the land around the wind turbines can be farmed or left wild. It has also been claimed that solar farm arrays on land can actually increase local biodiversity – protecting the area from other uses.

By contrast with nuclear, it is not just the area of the plants and their security zones that has to be considered, but also the impact of uranium mining and fuel production and waste disposal activities. These activities and the operation of nuclear plants also have impacts beyond just land-use. The release of radioactive materials has a significant potential for long term damage to cellular and possibly genetic material and to the health of ecosystems. That is not the case with

renewables. (4)

Norwich Green Party point out (5) that according to recent research published by Stanford University greenhouse gas emissions from the nuclear cycle can be up to 25 times higher per unit than wind power. (6) While Ian Ralls of Cambridge FoE says 70 per cent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is not produced by electricity so nuclear power wouldn’t make much difference. How about universal free household insulation for example, or proper integrated public transport? Both much cheaper, more effective and would have a greater positive impact on people’s lives.