EUROPE: Gas Crisis Rekindles Nuclear Option

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Jan 10 2006 (IPS) - Environmentalists are warning against the new push towards nuclear energy in Europe following the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine.

Environmental activists are warning of the dangers from production of nuclear energy, particularly disposal of radioactive waste, security at reactors, and availability of uranium.

“Nuclear generators leave behind 95 percent of fissionable energy in their fuel,” Stephane Lhomme, spokesperson for the French environmental organisation Sortir du nucléaire (Get rid of nuclear power) told IPS.

“These voluminous wastes will be highly radioactive for thousands of years, representing an incalculable health and environmental risk, and nobody has yet found an adequate place for disposing of such extreme hazardous waste in total security,” Lhomme said.

Besides, developments in the uranium market are leading nuclear policy into a cul-de-sac, he said. Uranium availability will be unable to meet demand by 2020, he said.

But conservative leaders are calling for a renewal of nuclear reactors.

In Germany, Roland Koch, prime minister of the federal state of Hesse and a leading figure of the new ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, has demanded that the government reconsider the decision of the former government of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens to discontinue use of nuclear power by 2030.

The former SPD-Green government launched instead a big investment plan in wind and solar energy.

Koch told German media Monday that the nuclear phase-out would be “an economic disaster”. He said Germany “must answer the question (of how to meet its energy demands). This is a technological and an economic question, not an ideological one.” Nuclear power provides roughly a third of Germany’s energy needs.

According to the European Energy Agency, Germany is now the world leader in renewable energy, with more than 15,000 megawatts of wind energy. It also has the largest surface for collecting solar energy, with some six million square metres of solar cells in use.

But now with the Greens out of government and the SPD the junior partner in the ruling coalition, these achievements might be at risk.

The present government has agreed to stick to a phase-out of nuclear power stations as decided by the earlier government, but the gas crisis is leading influential leaders such as Koch to challenge this policy.

The SPD is resisting any moves to revive nuclear power. Minister for the environment, Sigmar Gabriel who is from the SPD is urging people to save energy by consuming less and by improving insulation in their houses.

“If all Germans would switch off all their domestic electrical equipment and not leave them in stand-by mode, we could shut down one nuclear power station,” Gabriel told journalists Jan. 7. “Environmentally, the most efficient kilowatt is the one which we did not consume.”

In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac announced last week that his government would approve a new generation of nuclear power stations which should be in use by 2020.

“France should preserve advance in nuclear power. Numerous countries are already working on the new generation of nuclear reactors that should be functional in 2030-2040, and which should produce less nuclear waste, and optimise the use of fissile materials,” he said.

Nuclear energy provides more than 80 percent of French energy needs. Use of renewable sources such as wind energy is negligible.

The state agency for the environment and the management of energy (ADEME, after its French name), says France has an installed capacity of 632 megawatts in wind turbines, representing barely 0.15 percent of the total energy production.

An official report released last December urged the government to launch a substantial wind energy programme, but Chirac prefers to increase investment in nuclear power.

The government commissioned a new third generation nuclear plant in October that is due to begin production in 2012. France also won the bid last year to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) by substantially increasing its financial contribution to the project.

The ITER is expected to reproduce fusion using more fissile materials to deliver enormous amounts of energy. The reactor is being built at a cost of 12 billion dollars, with France and the EU together paying half.

But many scientists consider this investment too risky, given the technological difficulties the ITER will have to surmount, especially over use of tritium, a highly radioactive, and unstable material.

As it is, French inspectors admitted last month that 34 of the 58 nuclear stations in France suffer from a design defect in the cooling pumps that are meant to be activated in case of an accident..

“We have asked the French nuclear security agency to shut down the 34 reactors,” Lhomme said. The demand has been ignored.