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Let’s start facing up to our need for nuclear debate
15 November 2009 By Tom McGurk
One of these days someone, somewhere, is going to have a serious discussion about our future energy needs.
Despite the growing crisis of global warming and the demands for low-carbon alternatives - plus the fact that some experts believe we have already passed the point of ‘peak-oil’ -we remain dependent on imported oil and electricity.
A tiny amount of wind power has been harnessed but the promised experiments with wave power have, so far, not delivered significantly. In Ireland we believe in tokenism, not strategic planning.
Even last week’s news that Britain had approved sites for ten new nuclear power stations - they have hitched their energy needs to the nuclear option into the foreseeable future - did not spark a conversation here about the possibility of a nuclear alternative. In Ireland, unlike elsewhere in Europe, nuclear is the energy source that dare not speak its name.
The principal argument against nuclear power in Ireland has been the fear of an accident. Mention nuclear power and you will get chapter and verse about Three Mile Island in the US, and Chernobyl.
The fact that some 165 nuclear reactors have been operating accident-free for two generations across Europe is never acknowledged; neither is the fact that in Europe (outside of Russia) there has never been a nuclear fatality caused directly by a nuclear accident.
The irony is that our nuclear fate is already sealed. Given the locations of the ten new nuclear sites planned in Britain, the fear that having our own nuclear plant would increase the risk we face is meaningless.
The reality - if you want to have the ‘‘dangerous nuclear’’ conversation - is that huge areas of the Irish Republic are already at maximum risk because of the nuclear locations in Britain. Of the proposed ten new sites, two are within 70 kilometres of the greater Dublin region (Wylfa and Trawsfynydd in Wales) with its two million population. Five more including Braystones, Kirksanton and Sellafield (in Cumbria, Hartlepool and Heysham in Lancashire) are all within 150 kilometres of Ireland. This means that were an accident to occur in our prevailing westerly wind conditions, radioactive fallout would not be extensive over Ireland.
However, an incident at Wylfa in north Wales would represent a far greater risk to the much closer Dublin than to cities such as London, Glasgow or Edinburgh, the more so if the wind were blowing from the east. We need to face up to the falacy that because we don’t have a nuclear plant on Irish soil, we are safer. Our geographical location has compromised us for many years.
Opponents of nuclear power need to think again. Given that during the Lisbon Treaty debate, the political classes were constantly reminding us that we needed to keep in step with the rest of Europe, any such comparison on a nuclear configuration makes for interesting reading.
Across Europe, as we have seen, there are 165 nuclear reactors in operation; six are under construction and a further 25 are planned. In another generation, the EU will be well ahead of the rest of the world in its dependence on nuclear energy. (The US has 104 reactors supplying 20 per cent of its electrical power).
While Germany (under the influence of the Greens), Spain and Austria are committed to phasing out nuclear power, the rest of Europe is committed to building new power plants. Uniquely, France supplies 77 per cent of its electricity from 59 reactors, and they are currently developing the new European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) as a prototype for up to 40 others. They are also designing a new fourth generation sodium-cooled fast reactor for industrial deployment after 2035. Sweden, with 47 per cent of its electric power from nuclear energy, is about to reverse its 1980 decision to abandon nuclear and build new plants for environmental reasons.
Having abandoned its nuclear programme following Chernobyl, Italy has reversed its policy and entered into a new agreement with France for ten new reactors. Some 64 per cent of Lithuania’s electrical power comes from its small single reactor (an ideal model for Ireland), Bulgaria has closed four old Soviet style reactors and is building new ones; the Czech Republich as six reactors and is building two more; Finland has four and has just decided to build another one; 54 per cent of Belgium’s electricity comes from its seven reactors (and is reconsidering a 2003 parliamentary decision to phase out nuclear); Hungary has four, supplying 37 per cent of its electricity and is considering building two more; Holland has recently planned a second reactor to helpmeet its targets for carbon emissions and Switzerland, Slovenia and Slovakia have all recently reversed decisions to phase out nuclear and are planning new reactors.
Each year, the use of nuclear power plants in 15 EU countries has saved the atmosphere about 400 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This almost amounts to the total annual carbon emissions of all private cars in these countries.
Apart from global demands on governments for carbon reduction, the increasingly unstable European relationship with the Russian gas companies (such as Gazprom) has also increased the importance of the nuclear option. A Eurobarometer survey in July revealed that 44 per cent of EU citizens support nuclear power as an energy option, up from a 2005 survey of 37 per cent.
The main reasons for the marked increase are heightened environmental and energy-security concerns. Concern about nuclear waste management remains high, but Eurobarometer found that nearly two-thirds of the population believe that nuclear power can curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce dependence on oil imports.
The new political and environmental reality across the EU reveals that the shadow of Chernobyl has gone, and increasingly Europeans see nuclear as the immediate and effective response to the energy and carbon crisis. There has been a sea-change we have failed to notice.
Across Europe and post-Kyoto, the environmental prerogative is impelling the nuclear option - but then, of course, everywhere else in the EU is out of step with clever little Ireland.
Like Don Quixote, we have lots more windmills at which to tilt. Or, if the lights go out further down the road, maybe we’ll run a wire across to Sellafield. Anything is better among our political classes than having a serious conversation.
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