Dark Footprint

Nuclear energy may not be the solution to climate change

SAMIR NAZARETH
Environmental activist

WITH CLIMATE change being recognised by the world as a crisis that needs to be tackled on a priority basis, a lot of new technologies and ideas are being developed in the interests of reducing mankind’s carbon footprint. This crisis has given the nuclear industry a second wind. The nuclear industry claims that nuclear energy is renewable, which means that it not only generates electricity without producing carbon and waste but that its source of energy, like the sun, is undiminishing.

Nuclear energy is now seen not just as a cheap source of energy but also as a weapon in the war against climate change. This nuclear renaissance has achieved such respectability that, in the USA, Senator McCain, the Republican Presidential candidate has said that his country should build 700 nuclear power plants.

As the word “renaissance” suggests, the nuclear industry was in deaths throes till recently. A Worldwatch Institute report states: “after growing more than 700 percent in the 1970s, and 140 percent in the 1980s, nuclear generating capacity has increased less than 5 percent during the 1990s so far.” This meltdown in the industry is attributed to the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters, and to the high costs of construction and operation of nuclear power units. Also, the industry still does not know what to do with the radioactive waste it generates.

Man, in his brilliance, has found the most expensive and dangerous way to boil water and generate steam: nuclear energy. It is touted as a renewable form of energy because a very little amount of uranium is required to produce large amounts of energy. For instance, the energy produced by 1 gram of uranium is equivalent to that produced by 3 tonnes of coal. As fission is not an oxidation process, there is no smoke or carbon waste. However, there is radioactive waste, which needs to be carefully isolated and treated.

Besides the generation of toxic waste, the process of power generation through nuclear reactors requires water as a coolant. It also needs constant back-up emergency power, which cannot be sourced from the nuclear plant itself. This would suggest that nuclear power generation actually depends on other sources, which are not renewable.

To say that nuclear energy does not have a carbon footprint is also not entirely true. The entire fuel cycle (from mining to waste disposal) gives the process a carbon footprint, though it is lower than that of fossil fuels.

It is also important to remember that the heat wave in Europe in 2006 had resulted in many nuclear power plants being shut down, due to a decreasing water supply. A recent Associated Press report says that nuclear power plants in the USA are now facing a similar predicament. It says, “Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate”. If the water levels fall below the level of the intake pipe or if the water becomes too hot to be used as a coolant then the plants have a problem. Another reason for nuclear plants being shut down in Europe was because the outflow from the nuclear plants would have raised temperatures in the surrounding water, which would have resulted in damage to the flora and fauna.

All Indian nuclear power plants are either situated along the coast or they are linked to rivers or large lakes. The 2004 tsunami brought into focus the vulnerability of nuclear power plants situated along the coast. In an interview with Rediff, in January 2007, LV Krishnan, a veteran of the Department of Atomic Energy, who retired from the Kalpakkam plants, said that a tsunami was not taken into consideration when designing the plant. The official line has remained that the tsunami did not cause any radiation leak. It is very possible that our nuclear scientists have not taken the impact of climate change into consideration while designing their nuclear power plants.

It stands to reason that a form of energy that is so dependent on water would be the first to be negated as a solution to climate change. In fact, it is quite likely that nuclear power will be one of the first casualties of climate change. Instead of promoting nuclear plants, efforts should be made to put them out of service. Some nations are already doing so. A 2007 report commissioned by the Greens-EFA Group in the European Parliament says: “20 of the 31 countries operating nuclear power plants decreased their share of nuclear power within the electricity mix if compared with 2003.”

Nuclear energy is not a panacea for climate change and the footprints it will leave are not likely to be green. We need to tackle climate change through improved energy efficiency and better demand and supply management, along with a greater emphasis on renewable solar and wind energy. •