Michael Meacher

Labour Party | Oldham West and Royton

ARTICLE FOR THE BIG ISSUE (10 JULY 2006 EDITION) NUCLEAR: THE INDEFENSIBLE OPTION

     In their Energy White Paper of February 2003the Government concluded that the looming energy gap – as the old nuclear power plants are closed down, reducing nuclear-generated electricity from 19% now to 7% by 2020 – should be met by a combination of a major expansion of renewables (windpower, biomass, wave and tidal power, solar power) plus much enhanced energy conservation.   Tony Blair has now clearly resiled on this.   But he is wrong.

       First, nuclear is more expensive.   The Government’s own expert Performance and Innovation Unit calculated that by 2020 offshore and onshore wind could generate electricity at 1.5-2.5p/kWh and 2-3p/kWh respectively, but nuclear would be significantly more expensive at 3-4p/kWh.   And taxpayers are already saddled with the costs of decommissioning existing nuclear plant which the Government itself has estimated at a staggering £70,000 millions, equivalent to some 6% of our entire GDP.   Given that the nuclear industry has thus generated the biggest losses of any industry in history, is it sane or rational to re-invest in it further?

     The nuclear industry’s answer to all this is that the new AP1000 series reactor would be cheaper.   But not a single prototype has been built or operated anywhere in the world.   So how do they know?   But the reason they say it will be cheaper is that they propose to build new nuclear power stations without a containment shield (as at Chernobyl) and to build them close to population centres, to save transmission costs.   But is it rational to try to cut costs at the expense of safety?    

     Second, nuclear generates colossal amounts of highly toxic waste which nobody knows how to dispose of safely.   We already have 10,000 tonnes of intermediate and high-level waste stored around the country, and even with no new nuclear build DTI has estimated that as a result of necessary future decommissioning and waste management this will rise 50-fold to half a million tonnes by 2100.   Is it really sensible to generate huge additional heaps of extremely dangerous waste, which remains lethal for tens of thousands of years, until we have found a safe method of long-term disposal of the giant piles we already have?

     Third, after 9/11, nuclear plants represent the biggest risk of terrorist attack, and the consequences of any such action could be dire.   A recent US study estimated that an attack on a nuclear reactor could cause 44,000 immediate deaths, with 500,000 afflicted by long-term illnesses including cancers.

     Fourth, more generally, the health effects of nuclear energy are disturbing.   As Environment Minister I set up an advisory Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE) to look into the large amount of evidence that releasing radioactivity into the environment may be far more dangerous than was previously thought.   In the 20 years since the Chernobyl disaster spread fallout round the globe, hundreds of studies have shown increased rates of many diseases.   These range from cancer and leukaemia, through congenital deformity to general life-shortening.   They are particularly apparent in areas near Chernobyl, but are also seen in northern Sweden, where cancer increased by at least 30% in the years up to 1996.   Within months of the accident, leukaemia diagnosed in infants less than a year old increased sharply in several European countries and even in the USA.   The nuclear industry’s favourite explanation for this is that leukaemia is caused by (however absurd it may seem) population mixing!   But population mixing cannot affect unborn children.   Obviously it was caused by radioactivity.  

     But even if there are these enormous downsides to nuclear, is nuclear energy nevertheless still necessary to keep the lights on?    It clearly isn’t.   Even the DTI, traditionally very pro-nuclear, has predicted that renewable energy technologies could cost-effectively provide one-third of our electricity requirements by 2025, far more than is necessary to fill the gap left by nuclear.   We need nuclear like a hole in the head.