Opinion

When nuclear power goes wrong it really is lights out

It takes a strangely twisted logic to be able to say that nuclear energy is better for the environment than wind power, yet a tory minister managed to do that last week. According to Britain's energy minister Michael Fallon a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset will prevent the British landscape from being "blighted" by wind turbines.

It is true that one nuclear reactor will be able to produce the same amount of energy as 6,000 wind turbines.

However, the fatal flaw with that logic is that while a wind turbine may be a bit unsightly it will have no lasting impact on the landscape or the environment. The waste produced by a nuclear power station will be deadly for tens of thousands of years. The "blight on the landscape" line is part of an emerging narrative from those who support nuclear power, trying to convince us that it is actually good for us.

You will also hear supporters argue that it is environmentally friendly because of low carbon emissions and will therefore help combat global warming. So suddenly something which produces a waste so deadly that it would kill anyone who came in contact with it is actually eco-friendly and good for the planet. Exposure to a spent nuclear fuel rod would deliver a fatal dose of radiation in about three minutes and the rods will remain toxic for tens of thousands of years. So ensure humans are not exposed to them they are stored in dry casks which at present have a life span of about 100 years. Maths is my weak subject but I can see a major flaw in the argument here. There are an estimated 430 commercial nuclear power plants around the world, 16 of them in Britain, and they produce both high-level and low-level waste in terrifying quantities. According to the World Nuclear association: "there are about 270,000 tonnes of [high-level waste] in storage, much of it at reactor sites. "About 90 per cent of this is in storage ponds, the balance in dry storage. Much of the world's used fuel is stored thus, and some of it has been there for decades. "Annual arisings of used fuel are about 12,000 tonnes, and 3,000 tonnes of this goes for reprocessing. Final disposal is not urgent in any logistical sense."

In other words the global nuclear industry is in a holding pattern, hoping that someone will come up with an idea in the future for dealing with its waste. There are no nuclear power stations in Ireland but radioactive fallout has no regard for seas or international borders.

When the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in 1986 it was neighbouring Belarus which bore the brunt, with radioactive material spewed across Europe and traces coming down in the Sperrin Mountains. There were around 30 deaths at Chernobyl but the long-term impact on people exposed o radiation has never been fully quantified. Seven years before that there was a nuclear meltdown at three Mile Island in the Us. the most recent nuclear disaster was in 2011 at Fukushima in Japan when an earthquake and tsunami triggered multiple meltdowns at the Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant.

Just this weekend there were fears of further radiation leaks following another earthquake in the region. Fortunately none have so far been reported. The Fukushima disaster has brought about a total rethink by Japan about its nuclear energy programme and all 50 of its nuclear reactors have been taken offline while a safety audit is undertaken. The country's prime minister has said he wants to cut Japan's reliance on nuclear energy and to generate 70 per cent of its energy from green energy sources by 2030. The disaster brought about an even more radical policy change in Germany where around 20 per cent of the country's energy is generated by nuclear power. In the wake of Fukushima the government took the decision to shut down its nuclear capacity within the next 10 years.

Germany is embracing a green-energy agenda. It has set itself a target of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent over the next seven years and believes that 80 per cent of its energy can be generated by renewables by 2050.

Meanwhile, British prime minister David Cameron comes out with glib comments about how essential it is to invest in nuclear energy otherwise we will see "the lights going out".

When nuclear goes wrong it is more than just the lights which go out and without a long-term solution for dealing with its lethal by-products we are storing up a nightmare scenario for future generations. t.bailie@irishnews.com