NUCLEAIRES !ACTUALITE INTERNATIONALE
juin 2006
Tried, tested and failed
Nuclear power is now so discredited that even the World Bank won't lend money to build reactors
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1801396,00.html
NUCLEAIRES !| The prime minister
is normally proud of pursuing evidence-based policy, but that is hardly
how you would describe his approach to nuclear power. His decision to have
another energy review - merely three years after the last one rejected
nuclear - and his repeated pre-emption of its results by backing nuclear
do not augur well for a fair appraisal. The latest example is the new nuclear
forum with France's pro-nuclear Jacques Chirac.
The reality is that nuclear is a tried, tested and failed technology. There is nothing to stop private investors from building nuclear reactors today, but not a single private consortium has done so anywhere in the world without lashings of taxpayers' largesse since the accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. The government's claim that it will not subsidise new reactors falls apart in the face of potential investors announcing - as E.ON UK did yesterday - that they cannot cover decommissioning costs. Investors have taken a shrewd view of the risk, and have decided not to build. The operating and running costs of nuclear power are far from attractive and these costs do not include the unknown future costs of decommissioning reactors and storing waste that remains radioactive for thousands of years. Nor are the potential costs of accidents included: there are still 200,000 radioactive British sheep because of soil contaminated by Chernobyl. The latest estimate of the clean-up costs of retiring our existing reactors has soared to £70bn, and will not stop there. There is still no long-term solution to nuclear waste. And nuclear reactors are uninsurable. Why write another blank cheque? The group building the new Finnish reactor has a guaranteed price for its output. If the decommissioning fund proves too small, the government will make up the difference. It will also be responsible for all waste after 60 years. With a deal like that, your profits are as safe as government bonds. |
Even worse for nuclear - and
for any taxpayers foolish enough to subsidise it - the technology has an
unblemished record of budgetary incontinence. Not one reactor in this country
has been built on time or to budget. Nor is this testimony to the tribulations
of British planning. The Finnish reactor is already running more than six
months late. Nuclear has failed worldwide to such an extent that the World
Bank refuses to lend on nuclear projects. As Al Gore recently pointed out,
Iran once again shows the close association between nuclear energy projects
and
serious worries about the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
So what is the alternative to a new generation of UK nuclear reactors? Combined heat and power - whereby your home boiler generates electricity - is already economical for large houses, and smaller boilers will be on the market next year. Local generation eliminates the enormous losses of wasted heat and long transmission that consume more than half the energy used in electricity generation by fossil fuels or nuclear. Wind turbines and solar cells on the roof can also provide home solutions, and will become economical if homeowners are given a reasonable price for any surplus sold back to the grid and as costs come down with mass production. Subsidy is better directed at nurturing these new technologies - with their potential for export success - than at nuclear. Big solutions - the magic wands of public policy - appeal to the prime minister's millenarian urge for a legacy. But if we opt for a new generation of nuclear reactors, future generations may rue the day. We will be encumbering them with high costs and enormous and unknowable liabilities. We will miss a key opportunity to pioneer a green future. Chris Huhne is shadow environment secretary for
the Liberal Democrats
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