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The paradox : Gaian
system and nuclear process
In May 2004 James Lovelock,
originator of the Gaian (earth systems) hypothesis, stirred media interest when
he reiterated his support for nuclear power (NP) as part of the solution to the
overwhelming threat that humanity (and the planet) is facing from global warming.
Since then the nuclear industry has been lobbying hard to restart its failing
programme by presenting it as the answer to global warming.
James Lovelock knows better than any of us that the solution to global warming
will involve complex changes involving everything from finance to forestry and
gigawatts to goat management, interacting together in a huge system change. Above
all, it will involve a shift in our perception of the world. Literally hundreds
of new technologies will be rolled out, primarily in energy conservation, energy
efficiency, and many modes of renewable energy technology.
The
key to all this, as James taught us, is that Gaia moves in cycles that interact
in mutually complementary ways, sometimes facilitating each other and sometimes
inhibiting each other. We must leave behind our old ways of thinking in isolated,
linear, cause and effect modules, and learn to think in the way that nature moves,
in interrelated web-like systems. The paradox is
that nuclear power is an outstanding example of linear thinking. You dig out your
uranium, you burn it, and you bury it (or fire it off into the sun or something,
whatever). From a systems point of view, the main thing to bear in mind is that
you must try to cause as few cancers as you can reasonably get away with, which
means isolating the nuclear cycle as best you can from the rest of nature; (and
of course, you have make sure that nobody with brown skin gets hold of nuclear
power, because they might develop nuclear weapons from it, and give them to Osama
bin Laden.). When I put this systems argument to James
Lovelock, his only response was that nuclear fission reactions have occurred in
nature. This is true; but asteroid hits are also a part of nature, but this does
not mean that we should contemplating attracting asteroid hits in an effort to
extract energy from them. His response is not a valid defence of his position,
and the systems argument against nuclear power still stands. James
recognises that nuclear power is a risky business, but says that we must use it,
because if we continue to use coal oil and gas, it is certain that global warming
will cause immense damage to planet and people. We
must address the question raised by an environmentalist of the stature of James
Lovelock. Should we accept nuclear power, despite its dangers and drawbacks, as
a necessary instrument in the battle against global warming? The
anti-nuclear case rests on 10 points: - Electricity
Produced by NP is not CO2 free
- Conventional
NP offers an insignificant contribution to world energy needs
- Fast
Breeder technology means uncontrollable nuclear weapons proliferation
- NP
possession now implies Nuclear War later
- NP
is not economic - and is not insured
- Routine
discharges cause cancer
- Nuclear
Power Stations are vulnerable to terrorist attack
- The
waste problem is not solved
- Nuclear
power stations are vulnerable to flooding as sea levels rise
-
NP would suck funding away from the real longterm solutions which are energy efficiency
and renewable energy.
Electricity
Produced by NP is not CO2 free
Contrary
to popular belief, electricity produced by NP is not CO2 free. To get a NPS running
entails the burning of fossil fuels in mining and refining the ore, creating the
concrete and steel containment, of the station itself, and other costs, not least
reprocessing and storing waste. Jan-Willem Storm
van Leeuwen and Philip Smith have a report http://www.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/
(or try http://www.stormsmith.nl/ ) that
concludes "The use of nuclear power causes, at the end of the road and
under the most favourable conditions, approximately one-third as much CO2-emission
as gas-fired electricity production. The rich uranium ores required to achieve
this reduction are, however, so limited that if the entire present world electricity
demand were to be provided by nuclear power, these ores would be exhausted within
five years. Use of the remaining poorer ores in nuclear reactors would produce
more CO2 emission than burning fossil fuels directly." The
Limited Contribution of Conventional NP
The current world fleet of 438 nuclear power stations (NPS) produce 16% of the
world's electricity, but only about 2.5% of the 2004 world energy budget: a large
part of the world's fuel comes from biomass - firewood burned in simple huts where
the majority of the world's poorer population lives .
It is clear from this that nuclear power cannot possibly hope to meet 100% of
the world's energy needs. For it to meet 100% of the world's electricity
needs would require a six fold expansion of current capacity. This however is
not possible using the current technologies, since we have uranium
reserves sufficient for only 125-150 years at current consumption levels.
A fourfold expansion would bring these reserves down to 31- 37 years, which is
about the same as the design life of a modern NPS. The projected fourfold expansion
of NPS would therefore be the last generation of this design. It would provide
the world with low-CO2 electricity at 2000 levels of consumption for approximately
20 years . Other estimates (see above) are that if we used up all the known high
grade reserves of uranium, we could satisfy the world's total electricity needs
for 3-6 years.
Furthermore the emissions of CO2
caused by the building of the projected 1,200 NPS would have their maximal impact
from 2010 to 2030. This is exactly the time when we need to be reducing CO2 output.
The fact that this 20 year window of uranium
based technology would leave behind a legacy of nuclear waste that would need
to be guarder for thousands of years is simply nor proportionate or acceptable.
Look at it like this: how much CO2 could NP save
over the next 100 years?
If it produced all the world's electricity for 5
years - which is the best it can do - and if we generously overlooked the CO2
costs of that production, it would save 16% of world CO2 output in those 5 years
(as electricity is 16% of the world's energy supply). Over 100 years that saving
is 16/20=0.8% of CO2 emissions. Insignificant. Over
that 100 years, the renewable contribution will be growing at an ever increasing
rate.
The only way that NP could contribute on
the longer term would be to go down the "breeder" pathway, and further
on, by using thorium as a fuel.
Breeder technology
means uncontrollable nuclear weapons proliferation
Since conventional nuclear fission can make only a short lived and minor contribution
to world energy supply, advocates of nuclear energy look to "breeder"
technology as the solution. Here uranium fuel is "burned" in such a
way as to produce plutonium which can itself be burned. It is claimed that this
could extend the contribution of NP by a factor of 50 (that is, satisfy 70% of
2000 electricity demand at current levels for 1000 -1500 years). In contrast to
conventional stations, this sounds as if it could be a significant contribution
to global energy needs.
Unfortunately, there
is a problem in that plutonium is the material for nuclear weapons. Some of the
vast amounts of plutonium which would be created in a breeder programme of the
scale contemplated would inevitably leak into the hands of terrorists and politicians
who, like our own leaders, would seek an illusory form of security in the possession
of nuclear weapons. In a breeder energy economy, the hope of curtailing the proliferation
of nuclear weapons would be gone forever.
In
the face of this prospect, nuclear apologists can only answer that a bomb made
out of reactor grade plutonium would be "inefficient". Nevertheless,
they cannot deny that it would be able to convert matter into energy - that is,
it would work. Its inefficiency would guarantee that the unburnt plutonium would
simply be spread as fallout, making it a dirtier bomb than average - which would
be very much to a terrorists' liking.
It is amazing
that one year after the disastrous war on Iraq, fought ostensibly because of a
perceived threat that Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain nuclear weapons, that
people should be seriously contemplating opening up a technology that would put
plutonium within the grasp not just of Iran and North Korea, but of any state
anywhere who has a perceived need for high-technology electricity. We should stop
for a moment and remember the deep (if mistaken) sincerity with which Tony Bliar
spoke of his fears that Saddam Hussein would get nuclear weapons and would lend
one to Osama Bin Laden. He was misled, or misleading, but the fact remains that
this was for him a major threat. A generalised plutonium economy would be even
more of a threat.
Faced with this challenge, pro-nuclear
apologists can only aver that the plutonium can be kept under surveillance. Unfortunately
we have to accept that surveillance even at present relatively low levels of material
fall far short of perfection. Leakage of plutonium from a large breeder programme
would be inevitable. A breeder programme would therefore
inevitably lead to widespread proliferation of nuclear weapons. We shall return
to the consequences of this later. It should also
be noted that the Breeder development programme of the late 20th century ended
in catastrophically expensive failure everywhere it was tried. It
should be noted that even without breeder technology, nuclear
energy can be used to produce nuclear weapons. In fact, all nuclear weapons
states have started with nuclear power programmes. NP
possession now implies nuclear war laterA
breeder programme would lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons. Is it possible
that this could actually be beneficial? Since it is claimed that nuclear weapons
prevented the Cold War breaking out into actual hostilities, could it be that
if every country had a nuclear deterrent, the result would be universal world
peace? While it is certain that the holding of nuclear
weapons by Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) raises the threshold at which they would
go to war, this threshold is relative, not absolute. Take a scenario where there
is bitter tension between two NWS. At a time that the war cabinets are meeting
on both sides, there is an ambiguity on an early warning screen caused by a computer
fault or an unusual electrochemical event affecting an early warning sensor; the
appearance is interpreted as an incoming attack - and the president gives the
order to respond with his nuclear weapons. |From this point, we have to assume
that there would be an escalation into all-out nuclear war. The
consequences of this are well studied. A nuclear winter caused by hemispheric
dust clouds would follow for a couple of years - and after the clouds disperse,
we would have enhanced global warming through the burned forests and towns. The
argument can be put as a syllogism: 1 If the consequences
of the failure of a system are infinite, then it is rational to use that system
if and only if the chances of its failure are zero.
2 The consequences
of failure of the system of nuclear deterrence for our world civilisation and
for Gaia are infinite. Life, including human life, would probably survive, but
our civilisation, with its abilities and its values, would not.
3 The
chances of failure of nuclear deterrence system are greater than zero.
4 Therefore
the nuclear deterrence system must be abandoned.
5 For deterrence to be abandoned,
it is necessary that the materials for making nuclear weapons should not be produced.
6 This precludes the use of breeder technology, and indeed, conventional NP. NP
is not economic - and is not insured
In the UK, USA and France, and in many other countries, nuclear power was developed
through massive state subsidies as part of the nuclear weapons development programme.These
R+D costs are not included in conventional nuclear power costings. In the UK,
these expenses were hidden from parliamentary inspection in the post-war public
accounts as "Repairs to Public Buildings".
NP
was a spin-off of the nuclear weapons effort. The
NP programme died off in the 90s, ironically not so much through the activities
of the green lobby as through the policies of Mrs Thatcher, who although a staunch
supporter of NP, insisted on privatising it. When the City took a look at the
books, they did not like what they saw, and decided not to buy into NP. This
was despite the fact that NP was on a cheap offer without third party insurance.
At present the UK industry carries about £140 million liabilities for a
Maximum Credible Accident (MCA), and the Government is ready with a similar amount.
This is estimated to be less than 1% of the full costs of an MCA. At the very
least, any new nuclear programme should be obliged to carry full insurance, including
cover for releases due to the known threat of terrorist action. The
astronomical costs of any new nuclear power programme would divert money away
from the real, long term solutions to global warming, which are energy efficiency
and global warming. Routine discharges
cause cancer
It should be
mentioned in passing that the cancer risk from NPS is greatly underestimated.
The industry has been able to erect a smokescreen of denial around this issue,
by using scholastic rather than scientific methodology. In essence their argument
is this: "From our standard reference tables, the amount of cancer produced
by our routine discharges would be expected to produce only x amount of cancer.
You have found 4x amount of cancer. Therefore the radioactivity is not responsible
for the cancer that you have found".
There is
a vast literature on this subject, but it is not necessary to develop it here,
since it could be argued that a few local cancers are a small price to pay if
nuclear power saves us from the catastrophe of global warming, and the relatives
of the cancer victims could be compensated. The low level Radiation Campaign is
a useful site for this information: http://www.llrc.org/index.html It
should be mentioned that there are some on the pro-nuclear side of the argument
who would offset the increased cancer incidence by pointing to evidence that small
amounts of radioactivity are in fact beneficial to health.
This is called "hormesis" and is generally regarded as a dubious notion. Here
is a list of places where man-made radioactivity is associated with cancers. In
every case, the nuclear industry will dispute the connection. Taken together,
it is hard to deny that a pattern has emerged. 1. Leiston - 14 leukaemia
cases near Sizewell A - workers - 8 times the expected level.
2. Lydney - 6
cases near Oldbury & Berkeley
3. Dorset - cases near Winfrith
4. Southport
near Springfields
5. Menai straits
6. Burnham - excess breast cancer cases
7.
Hunterston in West Scotland, leukaemia 1975-81 double the expected rate
8.
Chapel Cross
9. Chernobyl
10. Sellafield - four times more childhood leukaemias
than expected.
11. Dounreay : leukaemia 1979-84 among under-25s within a 7
mile radius of the plant 10 x the national average
12. Aldermaston
13. Winfrith
14.
Holy Loch
15. Rocky Flats
16. Nuclear workers prostate cancer BMJ
17.
Downwinders : Nevada, Hanford,
18. Marshall Islands - after nuclear bomb tests.
19.
Cap La Hague
20. Mainz study - double risk Leukaemia for children 5km from
Nuclear Power Stations.
One aspect that comes up time
and again is the argument that there is no "scientific proof" that the
radiation caused the leukaemia. In fact, "proof" is only possible in
mathematics, not science. The best that any scientific hypothesis or theory can
attain is "not yet disproven". In the case of Seascale (and again, in
another context, in Camelford) the "scientific" evaluators used the
scholastic method, not the scientific method, to decide whether the environmental
agent had caused the diseases. They argued, "The books say it coul not have
happened, therefore it did not happen". NPS
vulnerable to terrorist attack
9/11 demonstrated the acute vulnerability of the structures of western civilisation
to attack from terrorists motivated by suicidal religious convictions. We cannot
hope that humane and rational considerations would inhibit terrorists from using
the same technique on one or more NPS. It would be consistent with the modus operandi
of Al-Qaeda to do this kind of high profile action. It is a moot point whether
a jumbo jet would breach containment, but it would certainly disrupt the coolant
circuits sufficiently to cause releases, and a critical incident (major meltdown)
cannot be ruled out.
The Government response to this
form of attack is shrouded in secrecy, but the indications are that rather than
advising passengers to overpower any would-be hijacker, and ruling that any NPS
within striking distance of a hijacked aircraft should be scrammed (i.e. have
the control rods inserted so as to minimise the dangers of release of radioactivity),
they are adopting the strategy of shooting down the hijacked aircraft, along with
all its passengers. To have thousands of nuclear power
stations vulnerable to this kind of attack for 1500 years is simply unconscionable.
The Nuclear waste problem is insolubleThis
is so well recognised that it will not be reiterated here. Nuclear
power stations are vulnerable to flooding as sea levels riseNPS
need to be sited near water for cooling. This usually means that they are by the
sea. Sea levels are due to rise as a result of global warming. This means that
either a) decomissioning costs will rise hugely as
engineers rescue the core contents of spent nuclear power stations and relocate
them further inland, or b) the sea will engulf them,
leading to unacceptable radioactive environmental pollution for our grandchildren's
generation. Conclusion: The costs of Nuclear
Power outweigh its benefits
The conclusion is
that conventional nuclear power can only offer a trivial and short lived contribution
to the need for CO2 free energy. The alternative, breeder technology could in
theory produce significant amounts of electricity, but at a cost of making a generalised
nuclear war at some time in the future almost inevitable - and a nuclear war of
that magnitude would produce enhanced global warming - which is what we are trying
to avoid.
The Alternative to Nuclear Power
A massive expansion of NP would divert financial and human resources away from
far more cost effective CO2 saving measures such as energy efficient lighting
and insulation measures (see table 1)
The arguments
in favour of renewable energy are set out briefly below. - In
using renewables we are living off income, not capital.
- Renewables
imply diversity and decentralisation of power. Instead of a few huge power stations
vulnerable to attack, we have thousands of micro powerstations. Every rooftop
can become a power station producing hot water and electricity. This is an inbuilt
safety and protection feature, avoiding mass outages.
-
Detractors emphasise the intermittent nature of wind power:
but this is only one modality. When all the different modalities - wind, sun,
wave, tide, biomass - are summated, there is a good match between solar energy
supply and our diurnal use of energy. -
The
key point about renewables are that they are ready for deployment now, unlike
breeder technology which is still at the R&D stage. - Renewables
are a technology ready to go, unlike fission, thorium and fast breeders, which
are but a gleam in their designers' eye.
- One
pound spent on energy conservation saves 7 (seven) times as much CO2 as NP.
- One kWh of nuclear electricity produces approximately
twice as much CO2 as one kWh of wind turbine electricity.
-
Renewables have been held back by hostile decision makers
- For example the Salter Duck wavepower system was scuppered
after government assessors falsified the calculations of its costs.
- The
old Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) spent more money advertising nuclear
power than developing renewables
- Micro Combined
Heat and power was specifically excluded from UK official calculations despite
the DTI's own estimates that it could contribute 45Gw to our electricity generating
capacity within 50 years. The economies of scale once achieved by building bigger
and bigger power plants are now being eclipsed by other sorts of economies- through
reliability and efficiency as well as mass production- offered by micropower.
Progress has only come in fits and starts, but the trend is clear: the era of
monopolization, centralization, and overregulation has started to give way to
market forces in electricity. That, in a nutshell, explains why micropower has
once again been given the chance to blossom."
Conclusion
James Lovelock may be an intellectual
Samson of our time, but he should be careful not to spend too long in bed with
the Delilah of nuclear power.
See also: FoE
link AEA
link Green
Party link (c) Richard Lawson 2004 | 