If we can’t afford oil...

Andrew Kenny debunks the myth that nuclear power is inherently dangerous or bad for the environment – and hails a surge of new nuclear construction around the world

Climate change looms over the whole energy debate. Even if ‘anthropomorphic global warming’ is eventually proven to be a scientific fiction, it is a political fact, and countries that release a lot of carbon dioxide are likely to face penalties. This is a reason for them to turn to nuclear power, which over the full energy cycle releases among the least, if not the least, carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. Nuclear power is by far the best technology for reducing greenhouse emissions (see graph, right, on page 23).

Perhaps the most curious of all the objections to nuclear power is to do with waste. By any rational assessment, the disposal of waste is an overwhelming advantage for nuclear over all other sources of energy. Nuclear waste (from spent fuel) is tiny in volume, solid, stable and easy to store so that it poses no threat to man or the environment. It becomes less and less radioactive as time goes by. By definition, a radioactive element is one that does not last forever: it has a finite half-life. Non-radioactive elements or stable elements do last forever; their half-lives are infinite. The lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium and other toxic heavy metals in coal waste all last forever, yet they are spewed into the air we breathe or dumped on to open ash tips with scarcely any protest. Coal waste is vastly bigger in mass per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced than nuclear waste. Solar photovoltaic power units use ‘deadly’ materials such as cadmium and lead that remain dangerous forever. I have never heard of any plan for storing ‘deadly’ solar waste until the end of time. I’m not saying it’s a serious problem. It is not. But still less is nuclear waste.

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Herbert Thornton

September 24th, 2008 1:24am Report this comment

What a pleasure it is to read common sense about nuclear power. The faster this resource is expanded the better and the sooner we will be rid both of the pollution caused by petrol powered vehicles and other burners of oil products - not to mention our consumption of oil being the source of huge funding for people like Osama bin Laden and their bloodthirsty, medieval ambitions.

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