17 phony objections against nuclear power - Counterpoints
The views expressed in opinion pieces are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff.Published February 17, 2015-A+
By Michel Gay.1
Nuclear power has long held a prominent place in the “energy and environment” theme. However, the possibility of increased use of nuclear power to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to replace fossil fuels in a few decades has given new impetus to this debate.
For anti-nuclears, it is generally the negative side of this technique that is emphasized. The rhetoric most frequently relayed by the media is to consider that nuclear power generation potentially brings dangers even worse than those of climate change, gas and even coal. It would therefore be necessary to do without it in favor of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels in particular.
However, things are far from being so obvious. Many disadvantages cited are either based on inaccurate facts or applicable to other areas for which it would not occur to us to reason in this way.
The text is presented as a discussion in the form of “objections-answers” between two interlocutors.
1. Having 75% of the electricity produced by nuclear is a French exception (so, by implication, we are wrong and everyone else is right)
It is true that French electricity production uses nuclear power in proportions that are not found anywhere else. But our country has many other singularities. For example, it has more kinds of cheese than days in the year, or it heavily funds auteur cinema. Is any “French exception” reprehensible, and should it be removed in the name of some principle of uniformity? It is amusing to note that the adversaries of “globalization”, a population which has a high rate of overlap with those committed against nuclear power, also claim the “right to be different”, a difference which serves as a foil here!
In fact, contenting oneself with invoking the high proportion of nuclear power in French electricity production as a reason for wanting to reduce it is essentially convenient for not examining the substantive arguments. Being out of the norm doesn't mean being right or wrong about that fact alone. It all depends on the circumstances...
2. Nuclear is not democratic
This energy production does not have the privilege of being the only one in this case: no other has ever been the subject of a democratic consultation:
It should be noted that entities operating in the nuclear sector are, in France, public entities and are, therefore, much more subject to "democratic control" than oil companies.
Finally, as much as anti-nuclear activists are quick to denounce the "lack of democracy" that surrounded the start of nuclear power programs, they also adapt very well to situations where a decision to phase out nuclear power has not gone through the “referendum” box! The way in which the exit from nuclear power was managed in Germany or Belgium remains difficult to qualify as a model of civic expression, and yet the anti-nuclear groups were not saddened by it.
3. Nuclear can be replaced by renewable energies and energy savings
In France, and generally in all major countries with a modern developed economy, this statement is false.
Why allocate any energy savings as a priority to “exiting nuclear power” and not to “exiting fossil fuels”? Assuming that phasing out nuclear power is a priority implies that climate change and dependence on imported fossil fuels (65 billion euros in 2013) are less important. Is it so obvious?
Replacing a nuclear power plant with (renewable) hydroelectricity means drowning several large valleys (the potential for so-called "micro-power plants" is very low). Is it desirable? The construction of the Three Gorges Dam (China) required the evacuation of a million people who were guaranteed never to return to their homes. The Three Gorges has plannedly destroyed all terrestrial life at the location of the future dam lake, as is the case with any new dam lake.
Finally, replacing nuclear power plants with renewables with random and intermittent production and energy savings means, in practice, a rapid reduction of 50% to 75% in electricity consumption in France. Is this what we want?
4. Nuclear produces waste that no one knows what to do with
This claim is false. The geological disposal of ultimate waste is today the solution recognized internationally as the safest. A political decision must be taken in France in 2025. There is no urgency, the containers of vitrified waste must first cool on the surface for a hundred years to reduce the volume of underground storage, which will less expensive and will add more value to rare sites.
All human activity generates waste, and many of them are produced in such quantities (carbon dioxide, fine particles, toxic gases, etc.) that they pose many more problems than those of civil nuclear power, which are confined and in small quantities.
5. Waste is active for hundreds of thousands of years
Active does not necessarily mean dangerous. Their activity decreases over time, so that they do not present the same level of danger throughout this period. After 1000 years, the reprocessed waste (from which the Plutonium has been removed) is no more radioactive than the uranium initially put in the reactor, which can be handled with bare hands without danger.
6. Reprocessing nuclear waste is expensive nonsense
There are many other recycling and recovery channels that are not immediately economically profitable when they are implemented. Applying this argument without discernment would therefore lead to discrediting many other “recovery” operations, which are also endowed with all the virtues by the same people who refuse to recover the elements still usable in the “spent” fuel. In short, should all waste be recycled except for this? Understand who can...
7. According to private criteria, nuclear cannot survive; you need subsidies to make it survive
The operating accounts of commercial nuclear companies, such as EDF or Areva, are generally profitable. On the other hand, public organizations that do not sell anything, such as the CEA, do not have to be any more than those of the CNRS or the police!
The current produced by a nuclear power plant, over its lifetime, is the most economical with hydroelectricity, coal and… shale gas in the United States.
8. Nuclear is a very dangerous activity
Many activities are dangerous! Cars cause approximately one million deaths a year worldwide (and the risk is not chosen for the pedestrian who is run over, contrary to an argument often used), smoking is one of the first causes of premature death in many countries, drinking alcohol is dangerous, having chemical factories is dangerous. In France, cycling and swimming pools each kill 100 people a year.
The right question would be: is nuclear power more dangerous than the rest of our industrial activities, and above all, are the risks it causes us to run disproportionate to the benefits? The answer is no: it is less dangerous than chemicals and other methods of producing electricity.
9. Chernobyl would have killed tens of thousands of people…
The most recent publications (UN and World Health Organization, 2006) indicate that the accident caused a few dozen deaths in a relatively short time, mainly among the first liquidators, who were mostly firefighters. It has undoubtedly caused a surplus of thyroid cancers of about 4,000 cases, which have caused about 10 deaths to date. It is a cancer which, detected in time, can be treated well. For the rest, it is not possible to characterize a surplus of pathologies (leukemias, solid cancers, birth defects, etc.) linked to the Chernobyl accident except, perhaps, a slight surplus of leukemias for the liquidators the most exposed. Chernobyl was therefore the cause of a hundred deaths at most. Since 1986, the date of the accident, hiking and skiing in the Alps have caused more than 2,500 deaths (100 deaths per year).
The information disseminated by the media does not generally come from live doctors or biologists but from anti-nuclear activists. This mode of operation authorizes all manipulations, for example by showing sick people on television who are linked to this accident without any other form of trial.
10. Chernobyl contaminated the environment for centuries
The local land became unavailable for agricultural use for a few decades. When a fire burns centuries-old trees, the recovery time is counted in centuries. The plants grow very well because they are not bothered by the excess radioactivity. However, they sometimes have a randomly high concentration of radioactive isotopes (particularly cesium) which makes them unsuitable for human consumption with the standards we have set ourselves. Incidentally, there is much to debate about whether the standard is justified from a health or environmental point of view... Sometimes the remedy is worse than the supposed evil.
The elimination of almost all human presence has favored the development of fauna. Counts carried out indicate, for example, that many healthy animals now thrive in the prohibited zone much more than before the accident.
Admittedly, around 130,000 people had to be moved. But China's Three Gorges Dam, intended to use utterly clean, renewable energy, displaced more than a million people and will wipe out all previous life at the location of the dam lake, which covers around 1,000 km2, and the largest dam lakes in the world cover nearly 10,000 km2 (compared to about 2,800 km2 of evacuated area at Chernobyl). It should be remembered that there are currently more than 30,000 dams in service in the world whose drop height is greater than 15 meters, compared to 440 nuclear reactors, and that the latter produce roughly the same quantity of electricity as the former.
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