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Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer to Climate Chaos

Why We Took The Action

While many people throughout the world see climate change as a serious threat, others see it as a change to save them from falling profits.

Myth 1 - Nuclear Power Does Not Produce Greenhouse Gasses

While the actual process of turning uranium into power does not produce greenhouse gasses this is a very misleading, simplistic and unscientific way of looking at the question. To get a real picture we have to look at the full life cycle of the nuclear power plant and the fuel. This should include:

the building of the plant
mining of the uranium ore and the extraction of the uranium.
Enrichment of the uranium ore
Dismantling of the plant
Disposing of nuclear waste

We will not go into detail about this here but see the Nuclear power - the energy balance for more details. Although this paper includes the effects of decommissioning and storage even the World Nuclear Association quotes 6Kg CO2 per Mega Watt Hour.

It is important to note that the waste from nuclear power plants is only a small percentage of the waste from the nuclear industry. When Uranium is mined about 85% of the radioactivity is left at the site. This waste also has to be controlled.

Myth 2 - Nuclear Power Produces Limitless Energy

First of all we have to distinguish between two nuclear processes - nuclear fission (using Uranium) and nuclear fusion (using isotopes of Hydrogen). At the moment nuclear fusion cannot be used to produce energy in a controllable form despite many years of trying. All energy production at the moment requires Uranium as a fuel.

Although Uranium is quite widespread throughout the world there is limited availability of high grade ores. In fact there is less energy available from known uranium sources than there are from known oil supplies.

With lower grade ores it takes more energy to extract the uranium than you get from it in the reactor.

Even the supporters of nuclear power admit that at current rates of usage Uranium supplies would run out in about 70-80 years. So if we are going to move to nuclear this timescale would drop - a six fold increase would mean that the uranium would run out in about 12 years - much less than the 60 years of operation of the proposed power plants.

Some people believe that nuclear reactors can produce their own fuel. This has not been true of any 'fast breeder' reactors so far and the IAEA does not plan to have the next generation of fast breeders until after 2030.

MOX fuel from recycled spent fuel can only be run through the reactor once due to buildup of curium and various plutonium isotopes. It can only produce a maximum saving of 16%.

Myth 3 - Nuclear Energy is Reliable

Generating nuclear energy is a very complicated and dangerous task. This means that often nuclear power stations have to shut down temporarily. Once they do that then they cannot safely operate again for several days due to buildup of Xenon 135 in the reactor core (this is one of the causes of the Chernobyl accident).

This also means that nuclear power stations have to generate power even if it is not needed unlike other forms of energy production that can be increased or decreased in response to need.

British Energy has seen profits fall as two of it's power stations - Hinkley Point B and Hunterston B - suffered from problems. The power stations are back in service but can only operate at 60% due to temperature control problems.

The reactors are now being operated with cracks which could damage the reactor. There has not been a full assessment of how cracked the reactor is but it could cause a failure if coupled with another event - broken pipe earthquake etc. This could lead to difficulties in controlling and shutting down the reactor.

"While I do not believe that a large release [of radiation] is a likely scenario, some lesser event ... is, I believe, inevitable at some stage if a vigilant precautionary approach is not adopted. There is an an increased likelihood of increased risk should we agree to continued operation," says the inspector.
Documents reveal hidden fears over Britain's nuclear plants, Guardian 5 July 2006

Myth 4 - Nuclear Produces 20% of Our Energy

This 'fact' is often quoted (see The Times Aug 29 2007). In fact nuclear power supplies less than 20% of our electricity which is less than 8% of our energy needs. So even if we assume that nuclear power does not produce any carbon emissions (nobody with any sense actually argues this including the nuclear industry) then nuclear only results in an 8% cut in our emissions if we replace our reactors or 20% if all of our electricity was nuclear.

Myth 5 - There Is No Alternative

Unlike building new nuclear power plants the alternative is proven and is working. A good example is Woking which managed to make massive cuts in energy use and CO2 in the 1990s. http://www.takingstock.org/Downloads/Case_Study_2-Woking.pdf.

The british tax payer has spent over £13 billion on research and development into nuclear power and will spend over £70 billion to clean up the waste. Yet nuclear produces less than 20% or our electricity supply.

Renewable energy has only cost the tax payer £1 billion and already produces 4% of our electricity and is expected to produce 10% by 2010. So if we look at just the research costs and take the 4% value for renewables then we get over two and a half times the electricity from research into renewables than we do nuclear.

Proliferation Dangers

If we assume that all the above arguments are unfounded and that nuclear power is a way of combating global warming then we have another problem since greenhouse gasses need to be tackled on a global scale. This means that every country will have to go nuclear - Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Syria, Zimbabwe...

Thousands of nuclear reactors would be needed across the world. Even to replace electricity generation (which is only 20% of our power needs) would take over 2,500 reactors today and over 4,500 by 2025.

Once a country has nuclear power then it is not that difficult to reprocess some of the spent fuel to obtain plutonium to make a bomb as North Korea has recently done.

Timescale

To reach the figure of 4,500 nuclear power plants worldwide we have to start building over 4 power stations every week starting now.

Nuclear Energy Is Not Safe

We shall not go into this in detail here since it is discussed elsewhere on this site as well as the CND national site. It is worth looking at http://www.largeassociates.com/PapersReports.htm for more details on Sizewell in particular.

The Effects of a Chernobyl like accident at Sizewell nuclear power plant in Suffolk.

More Information

A good source of information is available from the sustainable development commission.

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/060306.html

Audio

Click here to here an audio report from us while locked-on at the site.

What We Did

Early Monday morning a number of people arrived at Sizewell and blocked the road just before the entrance to Sizewell A cutting off all routes to and from Sizewell A and B.

We chained ourselves together using various lock-on devices.

(for different size images see http://fme.sincerethought.org/gallery/v/2007/climate.

The police with help from security staff from Sizewell initially dragged people across to the side of the road which caused a lot of pain since the lock-on tubes were extremely heavy. We managed to get back to take more of the road shortly afterwards. However, one police office in particular, got angry and lifted one of the protesters up and dropped him on the road. Although we were suffered a few cuts and bruises we were not seriously injured.

Initially the press were not allowed onto the site but after negotiations with the police they were eventually allowed to interview us. This included both local and national TV, radio and newspapers.