5 reasons it’s nuts to dump nukes

Published Wednesday, 1st June 2011

Nuclear power has a funny effect on people, especially when something in the industry goes awry.

Guardian columnist George Monbiot was an anti-nukes kind of guy until the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan, after which he began beating the drum for nuclear energy.

On the other hand, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who this week announced plans to phase out the nation’s nuclear power plants by 2022, was “fer” it before she was “agin’” it. (And she holds a doctorate in physics, which indicates how tricky the yes-nukes/no-nukes debate is, even for those with an excellent grasp of the subject.)

So which is the more likely trend among countries that want to ensure energy security while also reducing carbon emissions: a Monbiot about-face or a Merkel move? While Italy has already turned its back on nuclear power (post-Chernobyl), France and Sweden are digging in and sticking with their nukes. The UK is also unlikely to ditch nuclear energy, given its desire for greater energy independence.

“(N)uclear has been acknowledged as a UK-controlled source of power which will reduce our reliance on others and help secure our supply,” says Tara McGeehan, utilities director at Logica UK. She called Germany’s decision one “based upon political motives, tied to the ongoing support for the ‘not in my backyard’ movement.”

The futility of NIMBYism aside, there are several other compelling reasons not to abandon further development of nuclear power:

It actually has quite a good safety record. No radiation-related illnesses or deaths have ever been attributed to the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the US. Even the health impacts from the far-more-serious Chernobyl disaster in 1986 have been small, according to studies by both the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and the World Health Organization. And when nuclear works as it’s supposed to, it’s even safer, producing the lowest number of deaths per terawatt-hour of any other energy source.
It’s the right choice for a low-carbon energy diet. Phasing out nuclear plants in favor of fossil fuel alternatives like coal- or gas-fired power would lead to an increase of carbon emissions, according to a report from the Keystone Center.
It’s available 24/7. While replacing nuclear power with wind and solar energy would eliminate the objection above, the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. For now, some more conventional energy source is usually needed to balance the ups and downs of renewables and smooth out the daily and seasonal peaks and troughs of electricity demand.
It’s a mature technology. Molten salt-based solar energy storage, sunlight-to-fuel technology and carbon capture and storage (CCS) all have the potential to make fossil fuel energy cleaner and renewables more dependable around the clock. None of these alternatives, though, is ready to deploy today at the scale needed to replace the nuclear power we now rely on.
It’s more economically viable than many believe. As these figures from the US Energy Information Administration show, the total annual operating costs for nuclear energy are nearly half those for fossil-fuel-powered steam energy. They’re also well less than half the cost for gas-fired power, wind energy and solar photovoltaics.