Nuclear energy is too expensive, too dangerous and has no place in our energy future, says a Greenpeace report The nuclear industry is using the issue of climate change and energy security as a means to win political and financial support for its dirty and dying industry, says a report by Greenpeace released on July 3.
Even a massive, four-fold expansion of nuclear power by 2050 would provide only marginal reductions (4 per cent) in greenhouse gas emissions, when we need global emissions to peak at 2015, cuts of 40 per cent by 2020 and to drop by at least 80 per cent by 2050.
Nuclear energy’s ‘contribution’ to fighting climate change would come too late (long after 2020), with huge costs (USD10 trillion), and would create a myriad of other serious hazards related to accidents, waste management and proliferation.
These large costs and negative impacts make nuclear energy an obstacle to the necessary development of effective, clean and affordable energy solutions.
Expensive, dirty and hazardous, nuclear power stands in the way of clean and sustainable solutions. It would take USD10 trillion or more to build enough reactors to produce 9,900 TWh of nuclear electricity as projected under the IEA’s 2008 Blue Map scenario. Building enough wind farms to produce the same amount of electricity, for example, would cost USD 6 trillion at current prices, with these costs decreasing over time.
Wind has no associated fuel costs and does not require expensive dismantling of the plant at the end of its life and long term disposal of radioactive waste. Other calculations show that, compared to nuclear, wind power at today’s costs replaces twice as much carbon per invested dollar and energy efficiency measures three to six times more.
Double-speak by G8 countries
The report says that during the last decade the nuclear debate has been based on rhetoric rather than implementation. G8 documents praise nuclear energy, but in reality the G8 countries are implementing a de facto nuclear phase-out.
Since the late 1980s G8 countries have almost stopped building nuclear reactors. During the last three years no nuclear reactors have come online in any G8 country.
While during the 1970s and 1980s these countries started an average of 14 reactors each year, the nuclear construction rate in G8 countries collapsed in the 1990s and has subsequently almost come to a complete halt.
Two G8 countries, Germany and Italy, have even had a nuclear phase-out policy, says the report. According to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) data only four reactors are under construction in G8 countries with a scheduled operational start: two reactors in Japan, one in France and one in the US.
The low level of new construction confirms the downward trend of the nuclear industry in G8 countries. The reason? Nuclear energy is too expensive, too dangerous and has no place in our energy future.
Nuclear energy in trouble on all sides
Even today, running at one-tenth of the hypothetically required construction speed, the nuclear industry is struggling with serious problems and has hit many obstacles:
*Massive technical problems and ever-rising costs have affected attempts to build new reactor units, for example both the French EPR units in Finland and France have already experienced years of delays and billions in cost overruns. Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 project heralded as the nuclear industry poster child is already three years behind schedule and 50 per cent over-budget.
*Capacity to produce reactor components is limited to a few pieces a year by half a dozen corporations in only a handful of countries.
*Shortages in uranium supplies to fuel the existing fleet of reactors, where the annual consumption reached 69,000 tonnes uranium in 2007, compared to production of just 41,300 tonnes in the same year. The world‘s proven and reasonably assured uranium resources would only be able to cover current consumption levels for a few decades.
*Negative health effects of ionising radiation. Recent research found statistically high incidences of childhood leukaemia in close vicinity of nuclear power plants in Germany and the US.
*Dangerous impacts of uranium mining and milling threatens the lands, communities and health of indigenous peoples, many of whom (in Canada, the US, Africa, India and Australia, inter alia) continue to protest the extraction of uranium on or near their homelands and territories.
*Long lead-times for projects. It takes 10 to 15 years, even in countries with related developed infrastructure, to plan, approve, build and start a new reactor. It would take even longer in countries that are just starting their nuclear programmes.
*No safe disposal method for radioactive waste that reactors have already produced, despite decades of research and money spent. In the past five years, the estimated costs of radioactive waste disposal grew by USD40 billion in the US and by GBP27 billion in the UK with no guarantees to deliver safe storage at the end.
*Growing proliferation problems. As stockpiles of separated plutonium increase, nuclear technologies and materials spread to new countries. International safeguards are under-resourced and structurally weak. It is only a question of time before they become accessible to terrorist groups. One large reactor can produce 200 kgs of plutonium every year, enough for two dozen nuclear weapons.
Photo: GreenpeaceThe cargo ship Happy Ranger made port in Finland today, carrying its cargo of steam generators from France, intended for a nuclear reactor under construction at Olkiluoto. In addition, it is also carrying a protest camp, complete with eight Greenpeace activists from Finland, France, Germany and Sweden. Greenpeace is calling for the plant’s construction to be halted. 
Carper, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, said that "over the last 30 years, the American public has dramatically shifted its views on nuclear power" and is now much more receptive to it as an option. But, he added, waste disposal is the "elephant in the room" in discussions of nuclear power.