Nuclear Power is a tried and failed energy system for the following reasons:-
- The mining of uranium has a terrible record of causing cancer amongst underprivileged peoples who have little protection by way of health & safety legislation or compensation. See the Uranium page on Wikipedia.
- We have never learned to deal with the waste. As long ago as 1976, the
Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution stated:-
"It would be morally indefensible to commit future generations to the consequences of fission power on a massive scale unless it had been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that at least one method exists for the safe isolation of these wastes for the indefinite future".
It is in the nature of spent fuel rods that they remain lethal for up to one million years. This means that we have no safe means of dealing with waste. No man-made structure has ever lasted as long as this, and even the very oldest go back less than 6000 years and these are now just piles of stone and not viable buildings. Some have suggested such methods as encasing the rods in glass and dropping them into the deepest oceanic trenches, but tectonic plate movements can easily breach such strutures and release the poisons back into the biosphere.
We do not even know how to dismantle obsolete reactors. In 1957, a serious fire damaged one of the reactors at Windscale (Sellafield). As yet, nearly 50 years later, no firm plan has been devised to dismantle even the undamaged reactor. It is too dangerous. (see http://www.bellona.no/en/energy/nuclear/sellafield/wp_5-2001/21662.html)
It stands to reason that, since a nuclear reactor's useful life is no more than 40 years, and no future date can be named for its safe dismantling, then the nuclear option condemns future generations to a landscape filled with dead nukes, each new one built on a different site from its predecessor.
"...decommissioning nuclear facilities and decontaminating nuclear sites is going to generate huge volumes of lower level nuclear waste, which is not even being considered in the CoRWM process, and Government policy on how to deal with this waste is in disarray." (Pete Roche, April 2005)
- Attempts at reprocessing have failed. The Sellafield plant, in Cumbria, has been controversial (at best) ever since it was opened, has spewed large quantities of radioactive material into the Irish Sea, and is so dangerous that the authorites there have a policy of shooting any birds that settle there. They are now stored in a huge refrigerator as low-level waste because the authorities don't know how to deal with them.
- The nuclear industry has been an appalling waste of public money. The THORP (Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant) at Sellafield cost £2.8bn (at least 3 times over budget) to build and BNFL expected a profit of £50m annually. That means that it will have paid for itself in 56 years. The monetary cost of waste storage and disposal is actually unknown because, firstly, the industry does not have an agreed, safe way to dispose of waste and secondly, whenever a method is suggested or a site identified, inevitable lawsuits delay the process interminably and increase the cost astronomically. In effect, no-one want the waste near their house. Waste is an inevitable part of the industry, so no one wants the nuclear industry.
- According to some sources, there is insufficient uranium in the world to support the current usage for more than 30 - 40 years. The World Nuclear Association http://www.world-nuclear.org/factsheets/uranium.htm gives the figure of about 50 years' reliably known supply. Many authorities consider that the true picture is for a much shorter period.
- The UK, in common with several western countries, has pursued some policies which have made enemies - people who will never forgive nor forget. An example will be the removal of the Taliban regime from Afghanistan. The problem with nuclear sites, whether active or in mothballs, is that they will need protection from terrorist threat for generations to come. And, as most military analysts will confirm, that security task is doomed to failure eventually.
- The nuclear generation industry has always been closely connected to the nuclear weapons industry. The Governments of countries currently using nuclear power have a habit of wanting to stop new, "untrusted" countries from developing their own nuclear industry because they are frightened that the nuclear bomb will become available to unfriendly governments. This attitude creates the "nuclear aparthied" referred to in 2005 by the President of Iran.
- If the UK, with its abundance of wind, wave and tidal potential, chooses to return to nuclear power to help combat climate change, this signal will have a profound impact upon other nations around the world. The entirely foreseeable consequence of a world in which most nations adopt nuclear power is: nuclear proliferation, greater ease of accesss to the materials to make dirty bombs and, when the wars of the future start, desperate people will use the nuclear power plants of their enemies as weapons against them. Nuclear fallout has, of course, no respect for national borders."
- The danger of a nuclear accident can never be ruled out. There have already been three major accidents, at Windscale in 1957, 3 mile island in 1979 and of course Chernobyl in 1986.
- Nuclear power is not a carbon-neutral energy system. The mining, extracting, transport, construction, manufacture of fuel rods and decommissioning all depend upon fossil fuels and this dependency will become greater as the uranium deposits become harder to mine. http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/reports/Nuclear_Power_April_05v2.pdf shows a well-researched document on the issue of nuclear power.