Seven years of horse-trading, crisis talks, buy-off s and walkouts brought the Kyoto protocol into effect on February 16th. Yet, as plummeting ice caps flood the desks of politicians and journalists with scientific data, the debate about Kyoto has neglected this vital question here - are we to achieve an immediate, dramatic reduction in carbon emissions that will check global warming? At the root of this silence, one weird remains taboo - nuclear.
Greenpeace, friends of the earth, the green party and the liberal democrats all rigidly oppose the production of nuclear energy. At our disposal, in 2005, are the technological means to produce vast quantities of clean energy, economically, and without the burning of fossil fuels which has released 100 billion tonnes of carbon into [earth's atmosphere since the industrial revolution. It is no exaggeration, then, to say that the green lobby poses as significant threat to our planet's future as the nefarious oil companies that profit from environmental degradation.
Even before the 1980s, when campaigns against both nuclear energy and weaponry became staples of the popular opposition to Thatcherism, British public opinion was especially wary of the word 'nuclear.' the disastrous explosion in 1986 of a reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine, after every basic safety procedure had been disregarded, strengthened the identification of nuclear energy with the destructive capability of the bomb. The safety of Britain's own twelve aging nuclear plants, which currently provide 23% of our energy, remains the subject of much speculation.
Within 20 years, all but one of these nuclear plants will have reached the end of their productive lives. The government says it has no plans lo renew these facilities, and aims to meet carbon emission targets and compensate for the demise of nuclear energy through renewable sources such as wind, solar and tidal power. Our capacity to generate substantial power without carbon dioxide would be reduced almost to zero. Few energy sector experts believe that renewable sources will be sufficient to meet even the modest requirements that Kyoto demands of the UK.
The practical reality is that, even if nuclear production were to cease today, by 2100 Britain will still be committed to storing 250,000 tonnes of radioactive waste for several hundred thousand years. We know how to contain this waste safely in the medium-term, and it is incumbent on us to find a secure means of storage in the very long term. Given this unchangeable situation, increasing our nuclear energy production poses no qualitatively new scientific problem. Moreover, the demise of existing plants presents a vital opportunity to modernise technologies and safety systems. The most up-to-date nuclear methods produce just 10% of the volume of radioactive waste previously generated to yield an equal amount of energy.
Do we follow this route, or continue prevaricating over potential alternatives while injecting millions more tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere? Growing numbers of environmental scientists are breaking ranks with the green lobby's hitherto united anti-nuclear front. According to ecologist Patrick Moore, an original founder of Greenpeace.
"Nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse gas-emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy' global demand." Public scepticism ensures that pursuing the nuclear option will require considerable political courage. Nowhere was this courage evident in the government's 2003 white paper 'our energy future,' which claimed that "current economics" make nuclear "an unattractive option." this makes for an interesting contrast with the royal academy of engineers' conclusion that nuclear is the second most cost-effective energy option, after highly polluting gas, and is more than twice as economical as the government's preferred option of wind farms. The deficit, it seems, is political rather than financial.
Anyone who doubts that a nuclear power industry with high levels of investment can be viable and safe should look to France, where 78% of energy production is nuclear. However, the major increase in global energy consumption will not arise in Europe or America, but in the awakening giants of the developing world: china, India and Brazil. If a consensus for turning Britain nuclear will be hard to achieve, persuading western countries to allow the 'proliferation' of nuclear energy across the globe will certainly be harder. But the alternative - a massive increase in fossil fuel consumption -will be unbearable.
If the environmental lobby insists on trying to reduce emissions through renewable energy sources alone, it will bear its own share of responsibility for global warming.
Independent preview edition of - the liberal - issue iv
April / may 2005 : p10