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Why we shouldn’t have a nuclear power plant in
Hamilton or its environs (or anywhere else).
PGS arguments based on health and security.
Presentation
As a representative of Physicians for Global
Survival, I’ll raise several issues connected with
health.
Questions of the councillors:
• Given the possibility of accident or terrorist
attack, would you like your home to be within
20 km of a nuclear power plant?
• Why will insurance companies not cover
nuclear power plant accidents?
• Would you like to have trucks carrying
radioactive waste going down your road
frequently?
• Would you wish your taxes to cover increased
subsidies to nuclear power and security
provisions for a nuclear power plant?
• Do you readily accept the fact that a world of
proliferating nuclear power stations will be a
world of proliferating nuclear weapons nations
(even if our own nation refrains from that
option)?
• Is a nuclear power station in or near Hamilton
compatible with the idea of making Hamilton
the best place to rear a child?
Might you prefer to be situated within 20 km of a wind
farm or a field of solar collectors?
Might you prefer your taxes to be used to kickstart a
robust effort at further development of technology of
renewable energy sources?
Accident
Human error has been the cause of nuclear power plant
accidents, and human errors will always occur, as well as
materials and equipment malfunction.
Risk = probability X magnitude of effects
Probability may be small (smaller than with a Chernobyltype reactor) – we certainly hope so
Magnitude is catastrophic
The Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor has suffered bitterly bruising decades of
safety controversies. Tritium leaks, cracked fuel rods, spills etc. are not preventable especially, as
the CANDU reactors age beyond their 30 year life span. Extending them beyond this life span, as
the industry is currently promoting, increases the risk of significant accidents.
The nuclear industry claims that due to CANDU’s unique design, Chernobyl-like explosions
could not occur. However, no insurance company will cover the nuclear industry anywhere for
accident protection as the risks are too great, and the outcomes too catastrophic according to their
estimations.4
Terrorism
. 1.Risk of theft of fissile material for construction of NWs.
It can’t all be accounted for.
2. Direct attack on plant or materials in transit. Security
response to this would mean a no-fly zone and armed police
around the area, adding to the cost of nuclear power.
‘Terrorists need succeed only once, whereas security
services have to succeed all the time.’
Again the probability is unknowable; the magnitude is
catastrophic.
Nuclear waste
It either stays here or it gets trucked out.
Monbiot: The most fundamental environmental principle one that all children are taught as soon as they are old
enough to understand it - is that you don't make a new
mess until you have cleared up the old one. 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. And we don’t know.The government's
advisers have determined only that it should be buried. No one yet knows where,
how or at what cost.
With extraordinarily long isotope half-lives this is a problem
that will not go away for millions of years. The radioactive
wastes could potentially be catastrophic to our ecosystem
globally. The technical solution of repository of the wastes after years of research is still not
guaranteed safe or effective.
Monbiot:
And how does any system - political or technological - cope with the timescales
involved? If, as a result of slow leakage into the groundwater, radioactive
materials from a burial site were to 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.
Expense
$15 billion later, Canada’s government-supported publically subsidized nuclear reactor-building
program is proclaiming a renaissance at the expense of tax-payer subsidy dollars.
For example,
in Ontario, citizens are being saddled with a debt
retirement charge to cover a $38 billion investment hole
from the nuclear industry (.07 cents per kilowatt hour used
plus GST, approximately $81 a year, per person for 1,800
kilowatt month of use).3
Monbiot:This is just one of the factors that make a nonsense of the economic
projections. How on earth can we say what nuclear power stations will cost if we
don't even know what their decommissioning entails?
The exorbitant expense for current operations, despite huge subsidies for sustaining nuclear
reactors globally, has energy analysts and economists concerned. Predictive costs overruns for
waste management and ultimately decommissioning costs and security expenses will increase far
into the future. In fact, according to the American Academy of Sciences (Boston) (1985)
“Nuclear power will die an economic death” or until tax-payers refuse to continue to subsidize
the ailing industry.
Taxes spent on nuclear power stations are dollars not spent
on human needs like health and education. That affects all of
us.
Nuclear weapons proliferation
Monbiot: It has also become clear that we will never rid the world of nuclear
weapons if we do not also rid it of nuclear power. Every state that has sought to
develop a weapons programme over the past 30 years - Israel, South Africa,
India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iraq and Iran - has done so by manipulating its
nuclear power programme. We cannot deny other states the opportunity to use
atomic energy if we do not forswear it ourselves.
The most obvious reason to disfavor nuclear power as an energy source for Physicians for Global
Survival energy policy is the connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and their
proliferation globally. The tritium trigger and plutonium base are essential elements required for
the thermonuclear reaction to occur in the hydrogen bomb. These radionucleotides are produced
only in nuclear power plants or research reactors which were created for this purpose during the
World War II era that led up to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The CANDU nuclear industry is not economically viable
without export of its reactors which are flogged assertively
throughout the world. This increases the risk of proliferation
of nuclear weapons in many countries and therefore the risk
of use of nuclear weapons. How does this affect us directly?
We would be in the plume area of radioactive fall-out from
US city targets. Our industrial base could make us a possible
target.
Reducing the expansion of nuclear power and ultimately phasing out its development would
reduce proliferation of nuclear weapons. Thus, 'vertical' proliferation within nuclear weapons
states and 'horizontal' proliferation of those countries wishing to expand their nuclear power
capability and potentially create their own nuclear weapons would be stopped. This would be in
keeping with the mission statement of PGS, namely, the prevention of nuclear war.
Finally, if we are serious about making Hamilton the best
place to rear a child, we will realize that the presence or
proximity of a nuclear power station and its associated
poisonous wastes would gravely sully Hamilton and its
image.
Energy Choices and Vulnerability of Nations*
Helmut Burkhardt
Adjunct Professor of Physics, Ryerson University
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5B 2K3
[email protected]
Abstract
The connection between energy choices and
the vulnerability of nations is established.
Distributed generation from local resources
is put forward as the desirable features of a
resilient national energy system.
Introduction
Vulnerability of nations has become a
priority issue since the September 11, 2001
terrorist attack on the United States of
America. The event showed, that even the
strongest nations have built-in
vulnerabilities, which cannot be defended by
the strength of an army. The loss of life, the
social, and economic cost to the victim of
the attack is disproportionately higher than
the cost to the malevolent attacker.
Without any weapons of their own, a few
suicidal terrorists have inflicted enormous
damage to the American economy, caused
wide spread fear, and severe disruption in
the life style of the people in America.
Defense is much harder, and more costly
than attack. Security measures taken by a
government are more than an economic
problem, and an inconvenience; they curtail
many cherished civil liberties, and cause
violations of the human rights and freedoms
of citizens. The fear of terror has spread
beyond the United States; it is now a global
phenomenon.
Nations should learn a lesson from observed
terrorist activities in recent years. In
addition to increased vigilance, nations must
avoid building vulnerability into their own
territory. The stability and resilience of a
nation’s infrastructure will reduce the cost of
defense not only against terrorist attacks, but
also in case of a war.
Energy and Vulnerability
Energy is of vital importance for a nation.
Any interruption of power represents a
severe handicap for daily life. In particular,
a failure of the electrical system makes a
nation immediately dysfunctional. Central
power stations, electrical transmission lines,
oil and gas pipelines, oil depots are
vulnerable spots within a nation.
It is said that WW2 would have ended a year
earlier, if the allied forces had focused their
air attacks on the destruction of the power
stations in Germany, instead of bombing the
cities.
After WW2, the German-speaking
population of the Italian Province of South
Tyrol wanted to achieve cultural
sovereignty. Lacking any other political
leverage, the activists placed explosives to
the masts of the electrical transmission lines.
There are thousands of masts high up in the
Alps, and the police were unable to control
the situation. The boycott ended only when
the people of South Tyrol were given the
right to run their own schools and
newspapers.
Fossil fuel scarcity creates volatile
international markets, and economic
vulnerability of nation who depend on
imports.
It is important to note that scarce resources
are not the only problem fossil fuel based
power. Collectively, those nations who burn
coal, oil, and gas hurt all nations around the
globe through greenhouse gas production.
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The US administration was up to now in
climate change denial mode. However, a
secret Pentagon report was recently leaked
to the public, and it warns the United States
government that weather catastrophes could
cause global chaos and international
violence, much more dangerous to the
United States security, than the threat of
terrorism. [1]
Nuclear power stations add several
additional vulnerabilities to a nation.
Nuclear installations may be considered
enemy-weapons amplifiers. The
radioactivity stored in a reactor or, in spent
fuel storage places is equivalent to the
radioactivity of hundreds of nuclear fission
bombs. Dispersal into the atmosphere and
the environment can paralyze a whole
continent for many years. The human
suffering, the environmental, social, and
economic cost of a cleanup operation can be
anticipated by comparison with data
available from the Chernobyl accident in
1986. Estimates for health cost alone of the
Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine are around
60 billion US$ [2]. Total cost estimates for
cleaning up the Chernobyl accident range up
to 600 billion US$. Considering the high
cost of damages resulting from the
destruction of nuclear installations, it is clear
that even superpowers, which rely on
nuclear energy, are vulnerable.
There are a variety of ways the accumulated
radioactive material in a nuclear power
station can be dispersed into the atmosphere.
A small nuclear weapon exploded at a
nuclear power station can lead to the
paralysis of a continent. It is suspected, that
Al-Qaeda terrorists have access to tactical
nuclear weapons [3]. Even conventional
explosives can interrupt the cooling of spent
fuel storage and cause a fire, which will
disperse the contents into the environment
[4].
I have presented similar ideas on the risks of
nuclear energy to the Royal Commission on
Electrical Power Planning for Ontario 34
years ago [5]. That presentation has been
gathering dust in the Archives. We
suggested at that time, that nuclear power
stations should be build deep under ground
into mountains, which would reduce their
vulnerability to outside attack, but increase
the cost by some 20 %. After the Chernobyl
accident, Andrei Sakharov in Russia has
made such a suggestion as well [6]. The
authority of Sakharov lends credibility to the
idea of building all nuclear power stations
under ground. Unfortunately, Sakharov’s
genius failed to recognize the abundance of
solar energy, and the potential of solar
technology, which makes nuclear power
unnecessary altogether.
The spread of nuclear power technology has
an additional risk factor for the security of
nations. The proliferation of nuclear
weapons is closely correlated with the
peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Unfortunately, some think that the
globalization of nuclear energy technology
is necessary for preventing climate change,
in spite of the associated risk of nuclear
weapons proliferation [7].
Reducing the Vulnerability
Distributed power generation systems are
less vulnerable than centralized power
stations. The damage per terrorist act is
reduced. For a terrorist fighting 1000
windmills is much more difficult, than
destroying a single target in form of a
central power station.
The distributed generation shortens the
distance between the producer and the
consumer electric power, and thus reduces
the vulnerability of the system. An
electrical network based on distributed
generation is much more resilient, than one
based on central power generation. Failure
of one or several generators need not disrupt
the electricity supply for the consumers
integrated in the grid.
Co-generation in industry, and other places
where heat is required, makes for a more
resilient less vulnerable energy system.
Renewable energy resources are distributed,
2
and therefore, renewable resources based
energy systems are naturally decentralized.
Furthermore, using renewable resources of
energy make a nation independent of
imports, and the volatile world market for
coal, oil, gas, or nuclear fission material.
Hence, nations with economies based on
renewable energy resources will be less
vulnerable.
Conclusion
Nations must avoid building vulnerability
into their own territory. In a world plagued
by terrorism, climate change, wide spread
poverty, scarcity of food, water, and other
resources the likelihood for chaotic conflicts
will increase in the future. Therefore,
vulnerability must be an essential factor in
energy planning. A resilient energy system
based on distributed generation and local
resources serves the independence, defense
and security interests of a nation well.
References
[1] Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, An
Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its
Implications for United States National
Security, October 2003
http://www.gristmagazine.com/pdf/AbruptC
limateChange2003.pdf
This secret report was leaked to the public
by Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New
York, Sunday February 22, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/st
ory/0,12374,1153530,00.html
[2] Health care cost estimate of the
Chernobyl Nuclear Accident:
http://www.chernobyl.com/info.htm
[3] Al-Hayat, pan-Arab newspaper reported
on 8 February 2004 that al-Qaeda had
bought tactical nuclear weapons from
Ukraine in 1998. Source: Reuters, 8
February 2004.
[4] Science for Democratic Action,
Newsletter of the Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research, Nuclear Targeting
(to be posted in February or March 2004) at
http://www.ieer.org/sdafiles/
[5] Helmut Burkhardt and Roman Szmidt,
Peaceful Use of Nuclear Power and National
Security in Case of War, Royal Commission
on Electrical Power Planning for Ontario,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 27, 1977.
[6] Andrei Sakharov ''Mankind Cannot Do
Without Nuclear Power ''TIME
MAGAZINE, May 21, 1990
[7] Establishment of a World Nuclear
University
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/30
83382.stm
* Presentation at the 5th International
Conference on a World Energy System
Oradea, Romania, May 16-19, 2004.
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