Why I turned against nuclear power

[intaglio]

You see, I was a reluctant supporter of nuclear power as a means to alleviate anthropogenic climate change. I viewed the danger of radioactive contamination as being small enough to allow the use of nuclear power for a brief span so allowing other technologies to mature and replace it. Despite knowing that high and intermediate level wastes would accumulate there being no practicable method of disposing of such waste at present, I believed nuclear generation would be a necessity in the short term.

But then Fukushima.

Even before we knew about the meltdowns and the melt-through(s) it was obvious that something extraordinary had happened; a nuclear plant was collapsing into chaos before our eyes. Reactor vessels were being vented into containment because the pressure was to high whereupon the hydrogen exploded breaching that containment. Contamination was widespread, despite the fact the fuel was still largely under the roof, unlike Chernobyl. Soon water bearing radioactivity was found to be leaking in large volumes into the Pacific, some was even released deliberately. What is more we now know that some contaminated material was in an plume and contaminated towns as far away as Iwate.

We found out that seawater was having to be used to cool the fuel and to recharge leaking fuel pools a in a near suicidal attempt to prevent worse. Then there was the discovery that thousands of tonnes of contaminated water was "missing". At first supposed to be in the drywell of the containment buildings, then some was found to have leaked into basements and trenches on site and eventually it was admitted that much must have gone into the aquifer (water table) of Miyagi prefecture.

Early, very early, the Japanese Government evacuated the area around Fukushima, some 290,000 people. No time was allowed for clean-up or the recovery of bodies from the earthquake and tsunami. To bring that into perspective there are over 1,000 confirmed dead and 8,000 missing from the original disaster in that area yet, still, no-one is allowed to stay within 20 km of the plant to conduct effective clean-up and searches.

This catalogue of chronic failure that shows how devastating nuclear power can be.

Consider the terrible pollution caused by coal fired generating plant, not just CO2 but also fly ash and fume containing heavy metals and organic contamination. Despite this there has never been a case where a malfunctioning coal, or gas or oil, fuelled power station has required an evacuation of the area; yet the nuclear industry has needed such compulsory evacuations twice and voluntarily once.

It is from this point that I began to see the massive costs that never reach the fiscal balance sheet of nuclear power. The personal loses from enforced absence from home and employment; the fear caused by the spectres of cancer, miscarriage, deformity and long term debility. Then there are the national costs such as the constant examination of foodstuffs and the loss of market because of contamination. For the Japanese these are almost unbearable burdens to add to the disaster that caused them.

Chernobyl, of course, had much the same effects and, like many who supported nuclear power, I comforted myself with the apparent difference between the Russian Federation's nuclear system and the (supposedly) more rigorous systems of the West. To put it another way, I bought into the propaganda but have since found out about the dubious extension of operating licenses and some of the other little loopholes that the regulators and the operating companies exploit.

It was from this point that I began a search to see what, if anything, the loss of nuclear power as an option would mean to the ending our dependency on coal, gas and oil. What I found out was that it would mean nothing.

Photovoltaic and on-shore wind are already cheaper than nuclear per installed gigawatt. Off-shore wind, even far off-shore, is competitive with nuclear if given the same tax breaks and subsidy. It is true wave and tidal power remains prohibitively expensive as anything more than experimental systems, but that has more to do with engineers lacking experience in how to construct such systems.

The biggest problem the new generating systems face is lack of a good storage system for the energy they produce but even here there are systems which can be used already, i.e. pumped and gyroscopic storage, whilst flow batteries in the megawatt range are already being made.

Fukushima changed everything. It changed my mind.

[LiberalEsto]

1. Well said!

K&R

[Gregorian]

2. Yes. And regarding storage, there have been arguments regarding whether it is needed or not.

It seems intuitive that storage is needed. But I have had replies with evidence showing that in combination, the various forms of renewable energy generation can overcome the shortcomings of any one of them.

So even storage may not be a significant issue, other than for specific uses like automobiles.

[diane in sf]

3. There is always less demand for electricity at night then during the prime sun hours, having a good

portion of solar in the mix may help balance power demand and supply.

[intaglio]

5. In a grid system wholly reliant on "renewables"

The storage problem can become significant and it is one point the nuclear apologist will raise again and again, I know - I used to! For the UK the argument goes that overnight when the country is under a large high pressure system wind, solar and probably wave power will not produce any power for those services, businesses and industries that require it.

The apologists for nuclear power, like biblical apologists, will quote mine and propose unrealistic or improbable situations and generally mislead. They will also jump on minor errors of grammar or insignificant misquotations. Do not think to persuade them! Most such people are just blind believers who see nuclear power in the same way as many bad science fiction writers and fen from the 1950s through the 1980s.The few remaining are either in the nuclear industry themselves or are "paid bloggers" hire by PR companies to spin a particular view.

The people who must be persuaded are the doubters who view the posts. You must immediately challenge woolly and dubious claims from the apologist, correct ad hom. attacks and put numbers and solutions out there. Practise your "Google-Fu"!

[intaglio]

4. Thanks for the comments about storage

There was not put much in about alternatives because the important thing was how the one event changed my view. I could also have noted how the wider distribution of generating sources would reduce the risk of power failure from other sources or how the logical use of far off-shore overproduction could produce hydrogen for use in aircraft and large vehicles.

It seems dreadful to me that we should risk so much by insisting upon the dubious benefits of nuclear. A great channel storm, like that of 1988, would again put 5 plant at risk (4 French, 1 British).

Another point I did not raise was the massive cost of decommissioning, something that troubled me long before the Fukushima disaster.