Letters to this morning's Guardian, London - mainly negative
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/mar/29/the-cost-of-nuclear-power Weighing up the cost of nuclear power
Share9 The Guardian, Tuesday 29 March 2011 Article historyNuclear power is unsafe because the consequences of any accident are so dire. Despite George Monbiot's perverse conclusion (Why Fukushima made me stop worrying about nuclear power and love it, 22 March), the disaster at Fukushima has so far caused the evacuation of over 100,000 people, the suspension of fisheries and agriculture over a large area and a ban on the consumption of drinking water by babies in a city of 12 million.
The reactors are not yet under control, four out of six of them are so badly damaged that they can never be used again and the whole site will probably have to be abandoned and cordoned off for decades, at astronomic expense. Nuclear power is also more accident-prone, because fission reactors are so hard to control and the complexity of the containment structures and control systems makes them highly susceptible to design, construction and operator error. The worst aspect, however, is that nuclear power generates waste and decommissioning products, which cannot be safely disposed of, are a major security threat and must be guarded, monitored and cooled for decades.
Every time we commission a nuclear power plant we are taking out a massive mortgage that future generations will have to pay for. Yet we cannot know that they will have the will, the capacity, the skills and the resources to do so.
Mike Gatehouse
Brecon, Powys
? Monbiot's assumption ignores all that is known about the health effects of previous nuclear accidents, particularly Chernobyl. Leaving aside the deaths of workers killed either by the initial explosion or through exposure to dangerous levels of radiation during the clean-up, the impact on health from nuclear accidents continues ? 25 years and more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer later, the effects of Chernobyl are still being felt in the UK. Today, more than 300 farms remain contaminated and are still under food restriction orders.
Supporters of nuclear power often fail to address the threat to the health of future generations by the unsolved problem of nuclear waste. Buried in the ground, it remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years, and is vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters. What right do we have to dump this lethal legacy on future generations?
Monbiot worries about the impact of wind farms, pylons, power lines and reservoirs on the landscape. Can we really balance the altered appearance of the landscape with the impact that drinking water contaminated by radiation would have on children's health? Given the potentially devastating impact on the health of future generations, the cost of nuclear power is just too high.
Marion Birch
Director, Medact
? I agree with George Monbiot's support of nuclear power but was surprised he did not quote James Hansen of Nasa in his book Storms of My Grandchildren: "Fast (modern) reactors produce nuclear waste but in volumes much less than slow reactors. More important, radioactivity becomes inconsequential in a few hundred years rather than ten thousand" and "we already have enough fuel stockpiled in nuclear waste and byproducts of nuclear weapons to supply all our fuel needs for about a thousand years". Surely the answer to nuclear waste is to reprocess it. Carbon capture of coal generators produces liquid CO2 that is stored in oil seams and can leak. Surely burning coal with carbon capture is more dangerous, and the waste more toxic and longer lasting, than fourth generation nuclear reactors. Nuclear supporting conservation and the development of renewables, including tidal barrages such as Severn, Solway and Islay, are safer and the answer to our energy needs.
John Smith
Walton, Cumbria
? To those like George Monbiot who state "there is no alternative" to the great God atom, I always say you could consider how it is that Germany has the confidence to go down an entirely non-nuclear route, even with the same 2050 objective of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases. The difference between where we believe our electricity consumption will be by then ? twice, even three times, present levels ? and where the German government thinks electricity demand can be via a purposeful and consistent efficiency programme (25% below present levels) is so vast that it does beg one obvious question.
And that is, naturally, why have the Germans got it all so economically wrong yet again?
Andrew Warren
Director, Association for the Conservation of Energy
? Monbiot's concern about global warming is sincere, so perhaps his nuclear affair should end. A landmark study published recently in Scientific American found: "Nuclear power results in up to 25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, when reactor construction and uranium-refining and transport are considered." Atomic energy is no friend of climate.
Gideon Forman
Executive director, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
? George Monbiot blithely cites a graphic from xkcd.com which claims that 100 mSv is the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to increased cancer risk.
This is just not true. For example, Steve Wing and David Richardson (Radiation and Mortality of Workers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1999) found significant increased cancer risks associated with exposure to 10 mSv in workers at the Oak Ridge plant in Tennessee.
Japanese A-bomb survivors' cancer risks are also linked to their radiation dose, even for those who received less than 20 mSv in 1945. Monbiot's polemic does not fit all the facts.
Greg Dropkin
Liverpool
? I have every sympathy with George Monbiot, and his wish to abandon fossil fuels, but embracing nuclear power may not be the best solution. He claims that only 43 people died as a result of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. In fact, in 2006, the BEIR VII committee of the US National Academy of Science estimated that Chernobyl was responsible for an extra 4,000 cancer deaths among evacuees and workers involved in the clean-up, and 5,000 extra cancer deaths among the population of Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation. Furthermore, if one accepts the linear no-threshold model of ionising radiation, then, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) , there will be a total of 16,000 excess cancer deaths worldwide as a result of this nuclear disaster.
Of course, these figures are dwarfed by the likely deaths resulting from climate change which will threaten millions through drought, famine and disease. So the current paradigm for the world community is to continue burning fossil fuels with the certainty of widespread environmental destruction, or to rely on nuclear power and risk the possibility of widespread radioactive contamination. Personally, I cannot think of a stronger argument in favour of renewable energy.
Dr Robin Russell-Jones
Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire
? The assumption implicit in Monbiot's essay is that the human population can continue to grow and consume more energy without limit.
But just as there is "peak oil" there is "peak uranium" also. The entry on this subject in Wikipedia offers a good introduction to the topic. Some analysts estimate that we have already passed the point of maximum uranium production; while others leave about 25 years.
If we put all our efforts into a massive transformation from fossil fuel to nuclear energy, as Monbiot advocated, what does he propose after the point of peak uranium? During his shortlived nuclear renaissance, the human population will continue to grow; and be that much more vulnerable when peak uranium compels another transformation to a truly sustainable lifestyle.
I would prefer Monbiot to put his mind to estimating the size of the human population that is sustainable on Spaceship Earth in perpetuity; and how to make the earliest possible transition to that size.
Derek Wilson
Port Moody, Canada
? Caroline Lucas and George Monbiot have missed the elephant in the room in their head-to-head (Is nuclear power still the answer to our energy problems, 26 March). It is that Europe's urban areas can become the power stations of the future. The EU building standards directive seeks to reduce the energy use in buildings to 120kw/h m?. Most of Europe's urban buildings use two to three times this. So, as both Caroline and George acknowledge, the first step to decarbonisation must be to lower consumption through waste reduction.
However, it is the next step that has not yet been recognised. Europe's larger urban areas have the potential to meet such reduced energy demand from the renewable energy-generating potential of their land and buildings. Metropolitan energy self-sufficiency is conceivable and achievable, with all the benefits for energy security, stable energy prices and competitiveness that this could bring. Energy saving can fund the required renewable energy investment. We could have a decarbonised urban Europe in 20 to 30 years and greenhouse gas emissions would not then be an issue. A major European project is coming to its conclusion shortly and the evidence will be made public.
Roger Read
Secretary general, METREX ? The Network of European Metropolitan Regions and Areas
(20min delay)