“I soon came to the conclusion that neither international cooperation nor technological advancements would guarantee human societies to build and safely run nuclear reactors in all possible conditions on Earth (earthquakes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, wars, terrorism, climate change, tsunamis, pandemics, etc.). I am sadly reminded of this turning point in my life as I listen to the news about the earthquake, tsunami and extremely worrying nuclear crisis in Japan.”

Silvi warns that “there will definitely be worse accidents” if we continue with nuclear power:

“Why not consider Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima as warnings of greater catastrophes to come and avoid the inevitable by shutting them down, much like changing your diet and/or lifestyle after finding out that your cholesterol or blood pressure is elevated, rather than continuing down the same path until a heart attack or stroke strikes?”

According to Silvi the world could easily replace nuclear power simply by reducing our energy usage and introducing energy efficiency programs:

“Nuclear today only generates about 12 percent of the developed world’s electricity. By instituting an energy efficiency program,” Silvi suggests, “we could fill the gap caused by shutting them all down and put this malevolent genie back into the bottle.”

And the public in Italy seems to agree with Silvi’s anti-nuclear sentiments as they voted against new investments in nuclear energy in a recent referendum in the country. In Japan only 19 of the 54 country’s nuclear reactors are now operating. The others are offline for various reasons since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. At the same time the country’s wind farms are fully operational and were actually unscathed by the massive earthquake disaster. And people claim that nuclear is a stable energy source…

Firstly, the UK government has announced that it will be excluding terrorism as among the things to consider in the stress test. They’ve also excluded Sellafield, much to the annoyance of the Irish government, using the lame excuse that it doesn’t generate any power (but does contain the bulk of the country’s dangerous nuclear waste!)…..of course the fact that “suspected” terrorists have already been caught creeping around Sellafield, suggests that terrorism at Sellafield is a major risk and concern. Granted anyone who looks foreign and has a foreign accent is probably a suspected terrorist to these xenophobes who guard the place, but they won’t be that jumpy if the place was making ice-cream cones now would they!

For those in the UK who don’t know, contrary to what his Gerriness the Baron of Northstead would have you believe, Sellafield is probably the major bone of contention in Anglo-Irish relations. The view from Dublin is that, London took its “ultra safe” nuclear rubbish bin and because it was so safe they pushed it as far away from London as they could…..right opposite our coastline! Hence Irish annoyance over this exclusion of Sellafield from this stress test.

The stress test will also apparently not include such factors as mega-Tsunami (potentially generated by the Cumbre Vieja) or future sea level rise due to climate change. While one can say that the risks from either of these two, the former in particular, are indeed a very low risk in any one given year, but you have to remember that most of the UK nuclear sites are coastal, most have had an active plant on site for 50 years, and that the decommissioning will lead to waste still being on site in a 100 years time. And of course the industry plans to add further reactors to said sites. Thus given the long period of time in which radioactive material will be on site (centuries), this sort of raises the probably of such a calamity affecting these sites at some point in the future from “unlikely” to “not that unlikely”. Now I’m not suggesting there’s any need to panic, these are long term problems, which needs long term solutions. A simple committent to moving the waste from existing reactors off site as soon as that’s possible (preferably into deep storage) post-decomissioning, and building future reactors a little further inland (10-20 km’s should do it) would solve both of these problems. But the industry seems aghast at even these measures. Indeed it’s unclear to what degree the issue of flooding will even be considered in the stress tests. This is particularly significant when you bear in mind the 1999 La Blayais flooding incident which almost led to a loss of diesel generators (much like at Fukushima) at a French nuclear plant.

At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious here, but isn’t the whole point of a stress test that it be stressful? If we exclude such factors as I’ve mentioned the end result will be a stress test that all plants will pass with flying colours. Greenpeace will naturally scream “STITCH UP!”, the public will not be assured, nor will the financial institutions (whom nuclear industry will be seeking loans off, if new reactors are to go ahead) and the nuclear industry will go back to puttering in its sandbox with its EPR and MOX toys….until the next accident or financial crisis! Nothing worthwhile will be achieved, and no doubt the nuclear cheerleaders will lap it up with glee and appear on this blog to remind us how only 2 men & a dog were killed at Chernobyl or how great the LFTR (Kool-aid fuelled reactor) is.

The thing that puts me off nuclear power is the constant “helicopter parenting” we see from governments on the topic. If any other industry had made the same litany of monumental (and costly) screw-ups they’ve made it would have been killed off through government regulations ages ago. Fifty years after the first “commercial” reactors went online the nuclear industry is still living with its parents who have to sub it a few bob now and then. Isn’t it about time for nuclear power to flee the government nest and go get a proper job?

The nuclear industry, like the banks, is in desperate need of some “tough love” from regulators. This means a stressful stress test, that will see the shutdown of a few of our older power stations (which truth be told probably never should have been built in the first place) as well as getting the industry to ditch silly boondoggle ideas like MOX, Fast Reactors and fuel reprocessing, while forcing them to start cleaning up the waste issue and get things like deep geological storage moving a pace (with the exception of Sweden and Finland there has been practically no movement on this issue!). This would of course mean lay-offs in some sectors of the nuclear industry, some big contractors being stung badly, but of course it would also mean more jobs in other areas. In essence it might serve to scare the industry straight.

Even thought the “stress test” results haven’t been published yet, the fallout is already underway. My suspicion is that the German government’s decision to announce its phase out of nuclear power plants (again!) is probably an attempt by Merkel (in an election year) to head off the inevitable wave of bad publicity that the stress test will generate (some German plants will fail, but not enough to stop the Greens yelling FIX!, and the result will be to cause more public unease than reassurance).

Indeed Germany is perhaps a warning to the rest of the world nuclear industry of what’s in the future if they don’t mend their ways and start washing the dirty linen in public. While I reckon some countries (notably the UK, see my thoughts on UK energy here) can probably get by without nuclear, I’m not convinced this applies to all nations, and Germany is top of my list. I’m not sure Germany can meet its energy needs without being heavily dependant on imports of some sort (some of which will inevitably be Shale gas from Poland and French nuclear power) or fossil fuels (coal) without resorting to nuclear power. However, the nuclear industry in German has now made itself such a pariah that this is simply not an option any more. Regardless of the technical arguments, the German public simply will not support new nuclear construction – period!

And in fairness to the German nuclear industry, they aren’t that bad, indeed it’s often been the foul ups of Germany’s neighbours (the French and British) or those further afield (Japan and Russia) who’ve gotten them a bad name. But the point that Germany proves is that there is a tipping point to public patience on the nuclear issue. Push any public beyond that tipping point and that public support will just collapse. And at that point it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, or what industry says or promises, the public response will be a firm No Nukes! You can go on Newsnight, put on you’re best Boris Karloff voice and tell everyone that without nuclear “the lights will go out”, follow it up with an evil laugh, and the public still won’t care. You can give out about windfarms all you like and claim that coal kills a Gazillion people a year and it won’t matter, the point where such scare tactics, never mind logical debate, would have worked will be in the distant past.

All in all its possible that these “stress tests” will be about as useful as the ones offered by the Church of Scientology! And the only people who benefit from a tame nuclear stress test are a pile of vested interests and Kool-aid drunk nuclear cheerleaders. In the longer term even the nuclear industry itself will lose out.

Many people will recognise that description of George Monbiot in his role as one of Britain’s leading environmental journalists. Sadly, few of those descriptors apply to the George Monbiot who is now championing nuclear energy.

The George Monbiot We Knew

Until quite recently, Monbiot was unequivocal that nuclear energy was not worth the risks. Here he is in 2005:

“…nuclear power spreads radioactive pollution, presents a target for terrorists and leaves us with waste that no government wants to handle.”

He was also certain that nuclear was not the optimal solution for climate change mitigation. He approvingly quoted a paper from physicist, Amory Lovins:

“Expanding nuclear power would both reduce and retard the desired decrease in CO2 emissions.”

He rounds off that article with an attack on the UK’s chief scientific, Sir David King, for his support of nuclear energy: “I fear that the government’s chief scientist is mutating into its chief spin doctor.”

He pushes home his point in 2006:

“To start building a new generation of nuclear power stations before we know what to do with the waste produced by existing plants is grotesquely irresponsible. … If, as a result of slow leakage into the groundwater, radioactive materials from a burial site kill an average of only one person a year for one million years, those who made the decision to bury them will – through their infinitesimal and unrecorded impacts – be responsible for the deaths of a million people.”

His positioned softened in 2009, stating that he would not oppose nuclear provided it met four conditions:

1. Its total emissions – from mine to dump – are taken into account.

2. We know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried.

3. We know how much this will cost and who will pay.

4. There is a legal guarantee that no civil nuclear materials will be diverted for military purposes.

His second condition was not met in 2009, it is not met today and there is no sign of it being met at any time in the foreseeable future. We do not know where to put our nuclear fission waste, which needs storing somewhere securely for at least 100,000 years. This means his first condition is also not met – if we don’t know where to put it we certainly do not know its total emissions. Similarly, we cannot know the cost so his third condition cannot be met. In theory, in a perfect world, his fourth condition can be met – but in reality there is no chance of guaranteeing it. We can never be certain what happens in democratic governments, let alone in the less stable regions of the world where theocracies and dictatorships exist on a political precipice.

So, in reality, none of Monbiot’s conditions for not opposing nuclear can be met. He lectures us on why this is such a fundamental problem:

“The most fundamental environmental principle, taught to every child before their third birthday, is that you don’t make a new mess until you have cleared up the old one. It seems astonishing to me that we could contemplate building a new generation of nuclear power stations when we still have no idea where the waste from existing nukes will be buried.”

Fukushima Meltdown Brings Nuclear Epiphany

Following the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan on March 11 and the subsequent growing catastrophe that engulfed the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, Monbiot published an article just 5 days later, stating “The Fukushima crisis should not spell the end of nuclear power.“At this stage, TEPCO (the Japanese power company who own and manage the nuclear reactors) were issuing calm reassurances that there was little to worry about – “All 6 units of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station have been shut down.” (March 13) – as we simultaneously watched videos of nuclear containment buildings exploding and multiple experts warning that the situation was far worse than official reports suggested. Very clearly, TEPCO’s claim that all the reactors were “shut down” was at best ‘misleading’.

With each passing day it became clear that Fukushima was a growing disaster. A few, short weeks later it was elevated to International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) level 7 – the highest level, only matched previously by Chernobyl. To say that Monbiot’s assertion was premature is a colossal understatement. TEPCO subsequently admitted that “The radiation leak has not stopped completely and our concern is that it could eventually exceed Chernobyl.”

Monbiot reiterated his four conditions for not opposing nuclear and added a fifth in his March 16 article:

“To these I’ll belatedly add a fifth, which should have been there all along: no plants should be built in fault zones, on tsunami-prone coasts, on eroding seashores or those likely to be inundated before the plant has been decommissioned or any other places which are geologically unsafe.”

Note that he has seemingly forgotten about the threat of terrorism even though there seems little evidence that the world has become a more stable, secure place in the past six years. He also seems unaware that the same chief scientific adviser to the UK that he pilloried in 2005 as being nuclear’s “chief spin doctor” warned that ““a mass of rock” off the Canary Islands was “waiting to collapse into the Atlantic” causing “giant tsunamis””, adding “Britain would have a six hour warning before a 30ft wave hit us”.

So, Monbiot’s growing list of conditions all fail – but this does not dampen his growing affection for nuclear. Although, deciphering Monbiot’s position is quite difficult when he makes statements such as:

“I despise and fear the nuclear industry as much as any other green: all experience hath shown that, in most countries, the companies running it are a corner-cutting bunch of scumbags, whose business originated as a by-product of nuclear weapons manufacture.”

Who does he think will build and manage nuclear reactors in the UK – or anywhere else – except the “corner-cutting bunch of scumbags“?! At this point a person who makes decisions based on evidence and reason might start backing away from nuclear. Not the new George Monbiot. He is now more convinced than ever:

“As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.”

After his March 16 article, he no longer mentions his four five conditions. They have simply vanished.

Chernobyl? General ‘Buck’ Turgidson Assesses the Impact

Monbiot is now aggressively advocating nuclear and going on the attack against a growing chorus of criticism directed at him:

Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution.

He even uses the strap line “How the Fukushima disaster taught me to stop worrying and embrace nuclear power” which is a play on Kubrick’s classic movie, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb“. Just like General ‘Buck’ Turgidson from the movie, Monbiot’s assessment of mass death and suffering is akin to “having our hair mussed.”

In order to dismiss the impact of Chernobyl as being relatively insignificant Monbiot offers up his readers a single number for total deaths: 43.

That number is cherry-picked from the IAEA – International Atomic Energy Agency – whose stated purpose is to “seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy“. Those 43 are the poor souls who were immediately affected by radiation that came pouring out of Chernobyl, mostly firemen, engineers and other first responders. They received massive doses of radiation and died quickly, in days or weeks. However, the 43 that Monbiot claims (subsequently increased to 47 in a later article) is most certainly not the full extent of the excess deaths that resulted from Chernobyl. Here are a selection of estimates:

• World Health Organisation (WHO) / IAEA = 9000 “…there may be up to 9,000 excess cancer deaths due to Chernobyl among the people who worked on the clean-up operations, evacuees and residents of the highly and lower-contaminated regions in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.” http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr20/en/index.html
• International Agency for Research on Cancer = 16,000 “…about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident and that about 16,000 deaths from these cancers may occur.” http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2006/pr168.html
• TORCH (independent scientists, commissioned by the German Green Party) = 60,000 “…the worldwide collective dose of 600,000 person sieverts will result in 30,000 to 60,000 excess cancer deaths.” http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary
• Greenpeace = 93,000+ “…approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl. The report also concludes that on the basis of demographic data, during the last 15 years, 60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000.” http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/chernobylhealthreport.pdf
• New York Academy of Sciences = 985,000 deaths as a result of the radioactivity released. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster_effects#New_York_Academy_of_Sciences_publication + http://www.napf.org/articles/db_article.php?print&article_id=141

There is clearly a very wide range of estimates of total mortality as a result of Chernobyl and it is impossible to ever know the true number. But one thing is clear: the true death toll resulting from Chernobyl far exceeds the handful that George Monbiot wants us to believe.

Also, note that the WHO are effectively muzzled by the IAEA following an agreement in 1959 whereby the WHO cannot publish anything regarding radiation or nuclear technology without the approval of the IAEA. So, even the nuclear industry’s marketing department admits there may be up to 9000 excess deaths due to Chernobyl. And this says nothing about the tens of thousands of excess cancers, the miscarriages, birth defects, people displaced from their homes, all the lives wrecked by each of these things and the crippling economic costs – all of which continue today.

Monbiot’s claim of 43 47 excess deaths due to Chernobyl is not simply wrong. It is an obscene lie. He must know about the wide-ranging credible estimates that put total fatalities in the thousands or tens of thousands. He must know that the IAEA is the marketing department for the nuclear industry – the same industry that he describes as “liars” and “scumbags“. And yet, for the purpose of assessing the impact of Chernobyl, a cherry-picked number from the nuclear industry that not even the nuclear industry quotes is the gospel truth for General ‘Buck’ Turgidson George Monbiot.

Radiation dangerous? Bananas!

Now George moves on to the thorny problem of radiation toxicity. He ‘cites’ a nifty graphic from a well-known web-based comic: XKCD, Radiation Dose Chart. It offers a guide to radiation based on relative doses, starting with ‘sleeping next to someone’ and ‘eating one banana’. Monbiot found this quite convincing. Perhaps because he chose to in preference for doing the least amount of research on the subject?

Radiation comes in different forms and can be delivered by different mechanisms. The key fact not shown in Monbiot’s preferred comic is that external emitters of radiation (e.g. getting an x-ray at the dentist) are not the same as internal emitters (e.g. drinking milk contaminated by caesium). Once radioactive products have entered the body (via water, food or from the air) they are emitting radiation directly into cells and their deleterious effect is multiplied massively. So background radiation is not at all the same as having radioactive plutonium in your lungs or radioactive caesium in your bones or radioactive iodine in your thyroid.

Bananas? Bananas contain potassium. Your body contains potassium. When you eat a banana, your body ejects the same amount of potassium that you just consumed, thereby making bananas radiation-neutral. Also, as you would expect, the radiation delivered by bananas is very different to that delivered by fissile materials that come out of a nuclear reactor that is in meltdown. For some reason, this has not occurred to George Monbiot.

Note the warning at the foot of the XKCD graphic – which Monbiot clearly did not: “If you’re basing radiation safety procedures on an internet image and things go wrong, you have no one to blame but yourself.” Indeed.

The False Dichotomy: Nuclear or Coal

The key argument that Monbiot appears to be pushing (as best one can discern from the multiple, frantic articles published over the last few weeks) to defend his nuclear crusade is that our energy choice is “nuclear or coal” and therefore “nuclear or unmitigated climate change“. This is a false dichotomy.

The choice for our energy future – and therefore climate change mitigation – is nuclear energy or renewable energy.

Remember that Monbiot circa 2005 said, “Expanding nuclear power would both reduce and retard the desired decrease in CO2 emissions.” This was confirmed by the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission: “doubling nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing carbon emissions by 2035” and “the risks of nuclear energy outweighed its advantages.” That advisory panel has since been closed by the pro-nuclear Tory government – which is one way to get rid of inconvenient facts when you have an ideology to push ahead with.

Monbiot is backing the wrong horse in the climate change mitigation race. Reality shows that renewables are being deployed at a phenomenal rate and global renewable energy generation now exceeds nuclear. Remember, nuclear has been subsidised, developed and deployed for almost 60 years; renewables have only received serious investment in perhaps the last decade.

New nuclear reactors are barely being deployed quickly enough to match old reactors going offline. The disaster at Fukushima is unlikely to improve that. Indeed, Germany have since announced rapid closure of their nuclear reactors and to accelerate their plan for 100% renewable energy.

The other tactic that Monbiot has employed to justify a rush to nuclear energy is that nuclear will become cheaper in the future. He made the following bizarre statement while debating Caroline Lucas of the Green Party:

“So while you can say wind at the moment costs less than nuclear … My guess, because I haven’t yet seen a comparative study, and I don’t believe one exists, is that when we get up to those sorts of levels, nuclear is likely to be quite a lot cheaper.”

That beggars belief. He is making “guesses” based on non-existent studies about the costs of nuclear and renewables decades in to the future while admitting that right now nuclear is the more expensive option. And contrary to Monbiot’s “guessing”, the evidence suggests the very opposite. Nuclear continues to climb in costs while renewables continue to fall:

• Does nuclear power have a negative learning curve? Real escalation in reactor investment costs while solar and wind falls. “New nukes have gone from too cheap to meter to too expensive to matter for the foreseeable future.”

The George Monbiot of Today

There is no coherence to Monbiot’s arguments. He demonstrates all the traits of the climate change deniers he has fought for many years. He cherry picks numbers, ignores all credible evidence that undermines his position and abandons his arguments as soon as they prevent him pushing forward with his new-found love of nuclear. He is making statements which he must know to be untrue. He is “guessing” about costs of technology decades in to the future in order to justify his beliefs.

George Monbiot is in denial of reality in order to protect an emotional attachment to what he erroneously believes is a solution to global warming. He is advocating a technology that brings catastrophic risks, highly toxic waste, is too expensive, too slow and unreliable to build. Nuclear energy will starve the renewable sector of the funds and resources it needs and which offers the best chance of preventing catastrophic climate change.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time Monbiot has succumbed to superficial arguments from vested interests. He was fooled by the lies of the climate change deniers regarding the stolen CRU emails. He was fooled by a single paper from a rightwing think tank, RWI Essen, to the extent that he called Feed In Tariffs and solar energy “The German Disease”? He has now been fooled by the lies of the nuclear lobby.

For many, this inconsistency and lack of coherent, evidence-based reasoning is now too much. George Monbiot can no longer be considered a credible commentator.

George Made Some New Friends

To finish on a positive note for George, he has made some new friends and allies with his nuclear epiphany. Among them are the billionaire brothers who own Koch Industries, and who are possibly more responsible than any others for funding climate change denial. They also strongly support nuclear energy. Why? Because they know that nuclear offers no realistic threat to their fossil fuel golden goose. The George Monbiot that we knew would have gained a clue from that fact….

Since the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant unfolded there have been raging a heated debate over the future of nuclear energy. Such as the debate between George Monbiot and Helen Caldicott over at the Guardian.

In this presentation (below) from 2008 Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the Kyoto-based NGO Green Action, talks about how nuclear power can’t fight global warming. Over the next decade there will be ZERO additional contribution from nuclear power in the fight to combat global warming, she says. Other flaws with nuclear energy is the fact that the construction takes too long, and that the costs are rising. She says that nuclear power is unreliable for fighting global warming due to accidents, mismanagement and earthquakes. Watch it:

Other news from Japan: 17,500 gather for Tokyo rallies against nuclear plants, Kyodo news agency report.

”We’ve learned that nuclear plants cannot be controlled by human power,” said photographer Gentaro Todaka, 34, among the participants. ”We hope to halt the Hamaoka plant which is said to be the most dangerous, and the campaign to halt nuclear plants will spread elsewhere.”

For more updates on the Fukushima crisis you can also follow us on Twitter.

The photo shows the second hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 3 reactor in Japan.

The ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan has sparked new life in the nuclear energy debate in many countries. And the fear for possible nuclear accidents in other countries forces politicians to reconsider and review their current energy policy stance.

The continued protests against nuclear energy in Germany has seen an upswing during these past days. About 60,000 people formed a chain around a nuclear power station in Germany this weekend to protest its continued operation. And chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to announce the suspension of the country’s plans to extend the life of its nuclear power stations later today, the Guardian reports.

In USA people and politicians are starting to question President Barack Obama’s plans to expand and build new nuclear power plants to meet growing energy demands in the country. The independent and strongly pro-nuclear Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, have said that the USA should “put the brakes on nuclear power plants“:

“I don’t want to stop the building of nuclear power plants. But I think we’ve got to kind of quietly put, quickly put, the brakes on until we can absorb what has happened in Japan as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami and then see what more, if anything, we can demand of the new power plants that are coming on line.”

In Britain the Green lawmaker Caroline Lucas have said that the Japanese nuclear crisis strengthens the case against new nuclear construction. “You will never be able to completely design out human error, design failure or natural disaster,” she said. Walt Patterson, associate fellow at London’s Chatham House thinktank, said that, the financial damages of a potential nuclear accident also played a big role in shaping the energy debate in Brian and Europe.

“That is undoubtedly going to filter back to the debate in Europe as a further factor in the very dubious economics of these plants,” he told Reuters.

The plans to expand nuclear energy in India for around $175 billion might, in light of the current situation in Japan, see a strong public backlash, analysts and experts say:

“The Japan accident has created a very, very tough situation for India, actual implementation of nuclear power projects will now certainly take a backseat,” said Debasish Mishra, Mumbai-based senior director at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. “It will be very difficult to sell the idea of nuclear power to people for any political party after the Japan disaster.”

While the nuclear crisis in Japan might not change the Chinese government’s plans to develop more nuclear power it could force China to review their energy policies. The current situation in Japan “may become a factor in the drafting of China’s energy plans, Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in Beijing.”

“The accident in Japan may trigger increased public concerns over building atomic plants,” said Dave Dai, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Daiwa Securities Capital Markets Co. “China will become more cautious while developing nuclear-power plants but is unlikely to alter its long-term nuclear development plans.”

Ludvig Tillman, energy campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic said that:

“The Swedish parliament is risking the country’s reputation and position as a progressive leader in clean and safe energy development. All the evidence shows that nuclear power is a dangerous, expensive and dead-end distraction from the real solutions to climate protection and energy security. Reactors are standing in the way of energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.”

“The reality in many countries is that reactors are hugely expensive, construction is often delayed massively due to safety concerns and technical complications, and there is still no solution to deadly nuclear waste,” added Jan Beránek, nuclear campaigner at Greenpeace International.

It was in 2009 that the current right-wing government announced their plans to scrap the Settlement Act and the ban on new nuclear power in Sweden. The new pro-nuclear agreement will get voted on in the parliament on the 17th of June. Sweden is already far behind other European countries such as Spain, Germany and Denmark in the renewable energy sector. And if the agreement gets a yes from the parliament, sane progress towards a sustainable energy system based on energy efficiency and renewable technologies will likely be blocked and pushed back even further.

“The world is watching. Swedish parliamentarians must let reason guide their choice rather than propaganda from the nuclear industry and vote NO to nuclear power on June 17”, Tillman said.

Also read: Nuclear Energy is Expensive, Dangerous, Not Cost-Effective and Will Worsen Climate Change

“In Berlin an estimated 50,000 people have joined a demonstration against nuclear power in the run-up to the German general elections.

The rally was headed by a convoy of 350 tractors, which drove past the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports.

Back in 2001 the former Social Democratic chancellor, backed up by the Greens, pushed through a new legislation in 2001 that would phase out nuclear energy from Germany within two decades. But the Social Democratic and Green government lost the election in 2005 to a right-wing coalition consisting of the current Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and the liberal Free Democrats.

Angela Merkel, who successfully blocked a strong climate deal for the European Union last year, now wants to scrap the nuclear phase-out legislation that the SPD pushed through in 2001. This is similar to what is happening in Sweden after a coalition of right-wing parties won the recent election there. According to Merkel, Germany “cannot phase out nuclear energy as quickly as some imagine.”

“But in the long term, that’s to say in the second half of the century, we will experience a large amount of renewable energy sources. We are convinced that we will be able to stop using nuclear energy at some point”, Merkel said.

The Social Democratic chancellor candidate, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is accusing Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and the liberal Free Democrats “of leading the country into an energy policy dead-end and endangering domestic security.”

On the same day as the anti-nuclear protest in Germany were taking place Greenpeace released a survey which found that 59% of Germans are against Merkel’s proposal to extend the deadline for the country’s already aging nuclear reactors.

“Our responsibility is to phase out power plants that endanger the health and livelihoods of future generations, said Greenpeace Finland’s nuclear campaigner, Lauri Myllyvirta at a speech the Brandenburg Gate.

“Each year nuclear power plants are kept running means more nuclear waste, more uranium mining, higher risk of accidents. There is no excuse: Climate change can be best tackled without nuclear plants. The nuclear phase-out in Germany is one of the reasons for the success of wind and solar energy all over the world. A relapse into nuclear power in Germany would send a very bad signal to other countries.”

Nils Diedrich, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, says that if Merkel and her right wing coalition manage to push through this pro-nuclear legislation “we’ll see a real battle”. He warns that “then there will be massive demonstrations.”

Although Germany is one of the leading countries in renewable wind energy it still has a dirty and toxic energy portfolio. 42% of the country’s energy comes from coal and 23% from nuclear energy. Only about 15% of the energy comes from clean renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

Images from the Gruene.de

Photo credit: christian.senger

The Times Online are reporting that France have been forced to close down a third of its nuclear power stations this summer due to heatwaves:

“France is being forced to import electricity from Britain to cope with a summer heatwave that has helped to put a third of its nuclear power stations out of action.

With temperatures across much of France surging above 30C this week, EDF’s reactors are generating the lowest level of electricity in six years, forcing the state-owned utility to turn to Britain for additional capacity.

Fourteen of France’s 19 nuclear power stations are located inland and use river water rather than seawater for cooling. When water temperatures rise, EDF is forced to shut down the reactors to prevent their casings from exceeding 50C.”

It seems thirsty nukes can’t take the heat and that climate change puts nuclear energy into hot water. A question we must all ask our self: as the planet is warming up, is nuclear really a smart move?

photo credit: James Bird

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration renewable energy now accounts for more than 10% of the domestically-produced energy in USA during the first half of 2008. Most of the energy comes from renewable energy sources such as biomass/biofuels, geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind.

This number can be compared to the 11.98% of energy that nuclear energy contributes to in USA. According to the SUN DAY Campaign the total consumption of nuclear power dropped by 1% during the first half of 2008 while the renewable energy increased by 5%.

“The significant contribution being made by renewable energy sources to the nation’s energy supply documented by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is far greater than most Americans realize,” said Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. “Repeated statements by nuclear and fossil fuel interests that renewables contribute only a tiny fraction of the nation’s energy supply are not only misleading but flatly wrong.”

In these 10% biomass and biofuels accounts for the largest amounts of renewable energy shortly followed by hydropower. Wind power increased by almost 49% from the first half of 2007 compared to the first half of 2008. Solar and geothermal energy were at roughly the same levels in 2008 as they were in 2007. Although many predict that their share of the market will significantly increase in the near future.

“A widely heralded view holds that nuclear power is experiencing a dramatic worldwide revival and vibrant growth, because it’s competitive, necessary, reliable, secure, and vital for fuel security and climate protection.

That’s all false. In fact, nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the global marketplace because it’s grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsolete—so hopelessly uneconomic that one needn’t debate whether it’s clean and safe; it weakens electric reliability and national security; and it worsens climate change compared with devoting the same money and time to more effective options.”

Nuclear energy is a waste of money because it creates a pollution problem that lasts for thousands of years, money that would be better and more productively spent on renewable energy, the report says.

The report will also depress the free market supporters as it says that “nuclear power plants are unfinanceable in the private capital market because of their excessive costs and financial risks and the high uncertainty of both.”

“During the nuclear revival now allegedly underway, no new nuclear project on earth has been financed by private risk capital, chosen by an open decision process, nor bid into the world’s innumerable power markets and auctions. No old nuclear plant has been resold at a value consistent with a market case for building a new one.”

Via DeSmogBlog