The news of damage to a Japanese nuclear
reactor and release of radio
active material brought a series of
newpaper articles. It
reminded me why I believe nuclear reactors
should be phased out as a
source of power. However, newspapers
supplied a few thoughts
wrapped up in a lot of reassurance to
offset the anticipated normal
reasonable human response.
For the Globe editors on March 15th, no
energy source is perfect. There
are explosions in coal mines and.global
warming from fossil
fuels. "So rather than forsake
nuclear power altogether nuclear
nations should re-evaluate risks
most germane to their facilities
... It is a necessary energy source,
though not without great risks
..." Comparing the risk to explosions in a
mine is an insult to
those who experienced the different nature
of the
Chernoble nuclear disaster in which
land became radioactive and
uninhabitable and in a wider radius food
and people
were subjected to higher levels of
radiation - as far as Sweden. The
fact that
there is no safe way to store the used
fuel safely for the necessary
period of thousands of years goes
unmentioned. Also not mentioned is
the Canadian self interest in the reactors
. Canada is an
important
supplier of the relatively scarce
uranium which is the fuel.
March 17th, Globe collumnist Margaret
Wente acknowledged "words like
'meltdown' and 'contamination' don't
exactly inspire confidence." She
added: "There's another risk ... cost
blowouts. The new reactors ...
are propped up with enormous public
subsidies." But she's not worried
about reactors in Ontario "except
for the sticker shock."
"Reactors that should make us
nervous are those in places where
regulations and engineering expertese may
be shaky ..."
In an Op. Ed. on the same day Homer Dixon
reinforced Wente's cost issue
and optimitically saw cost as the means of
forcing a transition to
sustainable energy. "In recent
years, the capital costs of
nuclear plants have skyrocketed,
...Twenty-five years from now,
Fukushima should be the label we use for
the moment when humankind
finally grasped the staggering severity of
its common energy problem –
and started investing the real resources
needed to solve it." He
sees the challenge of transforming to
sustainable energy critical.:
"... solving our energy problem will be a
defining challenge in the
evolution of our species. If we don’t face
this challenge aggressively
and now, it will be game over for anything
resembling modern
civilization."
In complete contrast with Wente's fear of
reactors in the less
developed world and Homer-Dixon's
assumption of the end of nuclear,
on March 18 staff writer Doug Sauders made
a pitch for keeping
nuclear.
"Though governments ... failed to
agree on a ... plan to get
carbon emissions under control, great
strides were being made ...most
notably among the emerging powers of Asia.
And those plans relied
heavily on building scores of
nuclear-power plants to displace coal, in
order to fuel the next wave of growth in
ways that wouldn't clot the
upper atmosphere." Presumable, if the
regulations are poor as Wente
fears, the cost factors are not as bad as
Homer Dixon assumes either
and we face scores of scary reactors.
Having radiation from used fuel around for
thousands of years does
not sound too environmentally friendly
either.
To cap it off, Antonia Zerbisias' March 25
article in the Toronto
Star
noted that the Thorium nuclear
reactor is smaller, safer,
has readily available fuel and the
waste remains radioactive for
a mere 300 years. Apparently
this approach was mothballed
in favour of the uranium reactors in the
cold war years because the
uranium reactor provides material for
nuclear weapons and was more
suitable for use in nuclear submarines.
According to the article the
only problem is nuclear industry
inertia. Perhaps the Candian
interest in selling the uranium fuel has
also something to do with
it. However, this amounts to the
same dismissive rapproach
to alternatives which authors apply
to wind and solar power.
While
there
has
been
documentation from Greenpeace showing that
solar panels and
wind can power Germany, the writers all
manage to state that only
20%-30% of power needs can be met tby
solar and wind. Sauders claims
that with wind
the power goes off if the wind
stops. This is not true if
storage is provided. Storage is not
rocket science. For example a
hydro-electric plant can pump water into
reservoirs upstream when
electricity is in surplus and drain
reservoirs when there is a
need to generate more. Only
Homer-Dixon thinks there is a
plausible
alternative to nuclear and fossil fuels -
he thinks geothermal .
But as other articles in this series show,
the real issue is not
just sustainable energy. The issue is a
sustainable economy which
responds to other threats to the
environment on which human life
depends.
Agriculture may not need fertilizers as
much as energy consuming
fertilizer companies need current
agriculture patterns.
In the end, the real lesson from Japan is
that we need to stop
pinning our hopes on nuclear power. The
Globe editors and Sauders are
wrong. There must be no more
nuclear power stations and
nuclear power should be phased out.
There can be life after nuclear power. It
is not certain life will
continue too long with it. Then, as
Homer-Dixon notes, the future
of
the species depends not only on no
nuclear, but also cutting use of
fossil fuels as well - a tall order, but
not yet impossible.
