Rupert Read (Norwich, The Green Party): So the Cabinet has (yesterday) spinelessly given the unanimous go-ahead for our kingdom to ‘go nuclear' once again. The formal Parliamentary announcement that New Labour is taking the nuclear option will come tomorrow, but we have known for a few years now that this was a fait accompli, and that the consultation(s) would be and were a sham. It has been coming because nuclear power is seen as an easy, ‘low-carbon' option for energy, at a time when the government is desperately trying to present itself as serious about manmade climate change.
It is often said that nuclear energy has about one third the carbon emissions of standard gas-fired fossil fuel sources. But the 'one third' figure is garbage, because it excludes the long-term costs that come from decommissioning and monitoring of nuclear waste. We have to assume that even the very small amount of effort and oversight needed to keep that waste safe for thousands of human generations will cumulatively add up to a very large amount of money and a very large amount of CO2 emissions (for a back of the envelope calculation on this see my blogpost; for a more scientifically-solid and much fuller version of the same, see David Fleming's masterful report - opens pdf).
If these costs are included at all in cost-benefit analyses, they are generally 'discounted' to virtually zero within a generation or two. But this practice of 'discounting' assumes permanent economic growth - and permanent growth can only occur only if one believes that there are no ecological limits for the economy to reckon with.
When Labour announce tomorrow that they are going ahead with building a new generation of nuclear power plants, and start bribing local communities to mortgage their futures by taking in huge tranches of waste, they will not only be creating a dangerous legacy, but doing it in the name of stopping dangerous climate change - which nuclear, for the reasons outlined here, cannot do. Why?
The source of their decision, and the underlying problem, is that ‘mainstream' politics in this country is wedded to the neo-liberal paradigm of political economy. ‘Environmentalism' can be bolted onto this paradigm, but won't transform it. For a true transformation, we would need ‘ecologism': a full-scale, holistic reassessment of our way of life.
Environmentalism tries to protect the environment within the constraints of a system which despoils it. Ecologism plans holistically and long-term from the beginning to avoid such despoliation. Looking for a ‘big-science' technological solution to the problem of climate change (of which nuclear is a classic example) is potentially compatible with environmentalism, but not with ecologism. Thus the receptiveness of government ears to the siren song of the nuclearites - while pitifully small grants for renewable energy projects run out hours after they are launched.
Most of the negative effects of nuclear power will come in the dreadful and virtually-interminable legacy we risk leaving behind us of nuclear waste, and the waste of money and energy and lives that it will create. Our short-termist political system is ill-suited to the prevention of such waste. To become truly long-termist, genuinely sustainable, and furthermore ecological, our political system would require huge changes: beginning with the creation of democratic mechanisms to include the interests and needs of the untold generations of human beings who are as yet unborn.
Comments
Rupert is absolutely right about the carbon cost of Nuclear power generation. The digging out of the ground, transportation (with the risks this inflicts on hundreds of millions of people as it passes them), maintenance and of course the waste, how it is transported? where it goes? and what happens to the sites afterwards? It would nieve for me or anyone else to tell you the true environmental cost of nuclear, this because we are looking at effects that will be far past our grandchildren's lifetimes.
To add to this what about the way nuclear will effect us today. The waste has to go somewhere and it is both unlikely and excessively dangerous that it will go anywhere else. Those that will benefit from the few jobs nuclear will provide will be battling against neighbours that don't want the waste.
The waste and plants where the Uranium is burnt can tangible effects on the people and animals that already live in the vicinity of them, low level waste can course a plethora of health problems, cancer, child deformity and respiratory problems being just a few.
Meanwhile the system of running and financing these new reactors as with the old ones is a step into murky waters. The new reactors will be privately owned, yet there is no doubt that taxpayers money will soon be poured into nuclear. It is a simple fact that needs no explaining that nuclear is economic incompetence.
Uranium is as yet on this planet a finite resource, hence on the current burning of Uranium we will completely run out of it in the next 40 years. If you take into account the increased use of it worldwide it may be 10 years less. If we have new power stations in 10 years from now they may become white elephants after only half there expected lifespan.
The Government seems to want to avoid the debate that us against nuclear know we need to have, hence botching the second consultation. Is this because they think we might win?
We will have to keep working against the fat-cats and misinformed ministers to give the public an idea of the cost of nuclear.
[...] http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-on-air-destruction-of-nuclear.htmlhttp://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2008/01/09/our-short-termist-polity-was-always-going-to-go-nucle...http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2008/01/03/the-year-ahead-green-milestones-and-nuclear-millstones/ [...]
What sort of 'democratic mechanism' can 'include the interests and needs' of 'human beings who are as yet unborn'?
ukliberty; your question is a good one. i hope to answer it fully in a future post.
for now, i would direct you to some intriguing suggestions along these lines, on p.113-5 of Andrew Dobson's important book, 'Green Political Thought' (_4th_ edition).
rr
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