Nuclear must not be blindly advocated as the solution to the energy crisis
I sneaked out of the office to a massive party on the beach yesterday, filled with extremely attractive, half-naked Bollywood stars cavorting in a riot of Bacchanalian abandon.
That's a lie. I went to a lecture on Nuclear Energy and the Environment. Plus ça change, etc.
Bangalore Science Forum has been holding a lecture on some aspect of science, from medical to computer, on every Wednesday without fail since 1962. This was lecture two thousand four hundred and something, a room fashioned from a courtyard with cloth for walls, a humming projector and rows of plastic chairs. In one corner were the preppy students, hanging on the Professor’s every word. In the other, the environmentalists - straggly beards and natural fibres.
The lecture gave some interesting information:
- India has nearly 70 atomic energy institutions across the country, including R&D institutions, industrial organisations producing heavy water and nuclear fuel, ‘public sector undertakings’, ‘service organisations’, ‘aided institutions’…
- Two of the aided institutions under the Department of Atomic Energy belong to Tata, who have stated they are ready to add nuclear power to their market-spanning list of enterprises.
- Atomic energy applications are by no means confined to the two elephants of electricity generation and weaponry. In India they are also being used to breed mutated crop varieties valued for their high yields and resistance to certain diseases; a radio pharmaceutical lab in Bangalore is used to sterilise medical equipment.
- India has performed 4 explosive nuclear weapons tests; the US 1030; Russia 715; France 210; the UK 45.
- India currently has 3 nuclear power plants in operation, 4 under construction and a further 4 approved for construction.
- Although India has tiny CO2 emissions per capita, it is in fact the 5th largest in the world in terms of cumulative CO2 emissions between 1950 and 1995. [Greenpeace did an interesting report on this recently, called Hiding Behind the Poor]
-More than half of India’s energy production is from coal, with oil actually accounting for less than 1% of the thermal production, let alone total production. Hydroelectric power is a significant contributor. [I would be more specific about these figures, but a few quick internet searches suggests the data presented at the lecture was out of date].
- Nuclear energy has so far reduced global CO2 emissions by 10%.
The lecture then gave the case for why nuclear energy was needed:
- India’s booming economy and increasing household incomes all demand more energy, and fossil fuels are limited. [Quite true. India has also set a particularly ambitious target of ‘Power for All by 2012’, a giant undertaking in a country where some 400m people still have no access to electricity. Power demand frequently outstrips supply and there are regular power cuts, particularly if the rains are unreliable]. Climate change is a result of burning fossil fuels. As nuclear energy production does not generate greenhouse gases, it is therefore an environmentally friendly option.
- Energy production by nuclear methods, as opposed to from the combustion of coal, have so far prevented the release of 90,000 tonnes of toxic heavy metals into the atmosphere.
- Waste from radioactive waste may be dangerous for thousands of years, but it eventually becomes 'dead'. Waste from the burning of coal remains dangerous forever. Therefore nuclear is clearly the best path for future energy production.
And with this slightly staggering last point, the lecture was apparently done. The only mention of safety issues was a perfunctory run-through of IAEA regulations and plant emergency response plans. The only mention of solar energy was in the following quote, attributed to ‘American actor and writer Dan Castellaneta’ and presented to further cement the case for nuclear power.
“And Lord, we are especially thankful for nuclear power, the cleanest, safest energy source there is. Except for solar, which is just a pipe dream.”
Dan Castellaneta is the voice of Homer Simpson. This is a Homer Simpson quote.
After, there was a short period set aside at the end for questions. An environmentalist in the corner stood.
“If this is a lecture on nuclear energy and the environment, then why haven’t you included anything about the dangers of radiation?” he asked. “You sound to me like a salesman. If this whole process is so safe, why is there not more transparency? Why is so much of the information about these plants kept secret?”
“Shut up!” shouted a student disciple from the back. ”It is to protect it from the mafia!”
A big debate took off then, bespectacled environmentalists shouting from the one corner, bespectacled students from the other. The professor did himself no favours, waving away health concerns with repeated non sequiturs about waste disposal regulations. Looking amused and slightly embarrassed, the organizers of the lecture tried to hush the dissidents and decided time was up. Shame next week’s lecture is on computer science, or I’d go again.
As the former vice-chancellor of Bangalore University, Professor Siddappa is obviously a very clever man who knows a lot about nuclear science. In university, I studied just enough nuclear chemistry to know I understand nothing but that theoretically, the science is beautiful. As the heart of our sun and so source of life on our planet, it must be one of the closest things science has to divinity, and so it follows that its applications by man - for example, in weaponry - cannot come without some fear of a God complex. The potential applications of nuclear power are great, and surely the science is something to be explored and the debate about its utilisation held. But that debate is not something that should be dominated by one viewpoint alone, whether that be theoretical, political or social.
It is uncontested that we need an alternative energy source to fossil fuels, and that these alternatives must be able to meet our rising energy demands. But nuclear is not the only alternative, and technologies such as solar or wind have nothing like the dubious track record of nuclear applications. There are communities living next to a uranium mine in Jaduguda, Jharkhand displaying abnormally high rates of deformity; where nearly one in five women has suffered at least one miscarriage or stillbirth. Just this month a leak of radioactive material has been found in a nuclear waste storage site in Lower Saxony, Germany. Nuclear waste is highly carcinogenic, capable of causing genetic mutations that can pervade for generations, and, as pointed out in this lecture, can last for thousands of years. Accidents do, and will, happen. Worse is the blind eye turned to the improper disposal of waste in developing countries; people distorted and suffering for politics and money.
To give such a one-sided endorsement of as complex an issue as that of nuclear power generation when such social consequences as these exist in the world makes a mockery of your argument, and of those who would support it.