Our irrational fear of nuclear power is undermining the search for a safe, clean source of energy, argues Paddy Regan.
Three places: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. And three more: Banqiao, Machhu II, Hiakud. Most people react with horror to the first trio, while the second three locations usually draw a blank look. In fact, the latter were the sites of three major hydroelectric dam failures: in China and India in 1975, 1979 and 1980, which were directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands. In contrast, the death toll directly associated with radiation exposure from the three best-known civil nuclear accidents is estimated by the World Health Organisation to be conservatively about 50, all associated with Chernobyl.
Nuclear power has had a pretty bad press recently. In the post-Fukushima world, major power companies such as the German-owned E.ON and RWE-npower have taken the decision not to invest in building new nuclear power stations in Britain, citing costs in the current economic climate.
Some activists argue that the economics of construction and operation of nuclear power stations are sufficiently prohibitive that increased investment in safe, renewable power supplies such as offshore wind projects are a more attractive option.
But why is nuclear power now so expensive? I suggest that it is at least partly due to an inflated analysis of the potential health risks associated with civilian nuclear waste in particular, and an exaggerated assessment of “nuclear risk” in general.
It is true that the management of waste reactor fuel is a significant fraction of the overall costs, but if nuclear waste disposal were calculated in proportion to the actual risk associated with the hazard, the prohibitive economics of nuclear power would be reduced significantly.
A TERRIFIC POST.
Somebody claimed 5 deaths from the Fukushima mishap. Even so, the Japanese reaction to Fukushima disrespects, in my opinion, the 19,000 human beings washed to sea by the tsunami.
Bill, the important note about the Fukushima deaths, as I’ve understood them, is that they were not radiation related. They were, as expected in a major disaster, related to somewhat expected hazards of a difficult and dangerous recovery operation. While I am not attempting to make light of any of the deaths in Japan, I’ve been to the affected area and found the tragedy personally horrible, five out of roughly 20,000 (It’s doubtful that they’ll ever get a count closer than the nearest 1,000.) is hardly a major event in comparison.
We may never know exactly how many died when the Yellow River dam burst in China, but it could be much higher than reported here; perhaps as high as 2 million. There is no absolutely safe technology. Humans are risk takers and rightly so, for we would still be living in caves if we weren’t.