28 October 2002 06:35
Will Europe Go Nuclear?: As energy supplies and the time to replace them run short, the idea of nuclear power may make a comeback
Oct. 28 issue - Want to play british Energy minister, boys and girls? Go www.sparkingreaction.info. Click on the
games icon and then hit powering up. "Britain's nuclear power stations are getting old," you're
told. You need new power plants to replace them. You're environmentally aware and suspicious of anything nuclear,
so you hastily build some wind farms, maybe also a bio-fuel plant. You throw in a gas-powered plant for good measure.
Time's up. "OH, DEAR," NOT good enough, the game informs you. "The country is plunged into chaos,
with blackouts everywhere!" Go to your room and don't come out until you can be a little less shortsighted.
The Sparking Reaction Web site is sponsored by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., a major player in the nuclear-energy
business. No surprise here; the industry has been pushing its "go nuclear" message for decades. The surprise
is that real, grown-up Energy ministers in Britain-and elsewhere-are listening. In the next few months, the government
of Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to announce that it supports the construction of a new generation of nuclear
power generators. And while the British Energy minister, Brian Wilson, would not disclose the contents of a government
white paper due out early next year, he did tell NEWSWEEK: "It's not enough to say we're keeping the
nuclear option open, as we have in the past. We have to at least lay the groundwork for new build." There, buried
in cautious bureaucratese, is a step that could turn Britain-and maybe even Europe-on its ear. Like most of the
Continent, Britain has for decades been stolidly, even rabidly anti-nuclear. The doubts began with Britain's first
reactor accident, in 1957. They grew with Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. "No
nukes" protests became part of the social scenery. As a result, Britain hasn't built a nuclear power station
since 1995-and that came only after 15 years of contentious debate. When it comes to politics, as one power-industry
exec succinctly puts it, "there are no votes in nuclear." Which makes Tony Blair's U-turn all the more
remarkable. In a stroke, he will be reversing what has been the antinuclear dogma of British governments, regardless of
party, since 1994. So what explains the change? In a word, time. It's running out, according to the PM's chief
science adviser, David King, a convert to nuclear power. North Sea oil reserves are being depleted. Tensions in the
Middle East underscore Britain's vulnerability to oil and natural-gas shocks. The alternative fuels that were all
the rage a decade or two ago have proved inadequate. Like the gamers on the Sparking Reaction Web site, Blair has to
figure out a solution if he's to keep Britain humming. Between now and 2020, the 33 nuclear reactors up and running
today will close or be coming to the end of their lives. Given the five-year lead time, at a minimum, needed to build
new plants, the government is concluding that the moment to act is now, or else. The change should reverberate across
Europe, which shares Britain's doubts about nuclear energy despite having invested heavily in it in the 1960s and
'70s. (France, for instance, gets nearly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear plants.) Over the past two
decades, safety and environmental concerns have cast a cloud over the industry. As elsewhere in the industrial world,
there has been a rush to plentiful (and cheap) natural gas. In country after country, Europeans have put nuclear
programs on hold, in some cases phasing existing plants out of service, even as much of the rest of the
world-particularly Asia-has gone nuclear in a big way. Antinuclear government policy is deeply rooted in places like
Germany and Sweden, which have influential Green parties. But perceptible shifts in favor of nuclear are not limited to
Britain. What's more, they are cropping up despite post-9-11 concerns about terror attacks on nuclear plants or
having fissile material fall into the wrong hands. In May the Finnish Parliament gave the go-ahead for construction of a
new nuclear unit-the first European Union legislature to do so in more than a decade. Spain, which imports 77 percent of
its primary energy, is less solidly antinuclear than it has been at any time since 1984, when it imposed a moratorium on
nuclear-power-plant construction. Italy imports more electricity (most of it from nuclear France) than any other country
in the world. Having shut down all its nuclear plants after a 1987 referendum, Italy has begun to consider whether it
should restart its program. Even in Germany the antinuclear pall is not as thick as it once was. The country officially
began phasing out its nuclear program two years ago, but that decision could well have been overturned by Edmund
Stoiber, whose Christian Democrats last month nearly put Gerhard Schr.der and his "red-green" coalition out of
office. The nuclear teeter-totter in Germany reflects the precarious balancing act throughout Europe. "There is
still resistance to nuclear energy, but the situation is changing," says Loyola de Palacio, the European
commissioner for Energy and Transport. "The old taboo that kept people from even uttering the name
'nuclear' has clearly been broken." Why? Consider the new realities: Energy dependence: Traditional
fossil fuels are dwindling. The dash to gas left Europe dependent on the reserves of the former Soviet republics and the
Middle East. The prospects of war in Iraq-not to mention a series of oil-price shocks over the years-is just the latest
reminder. "Energy security is now very high on the agenda in Europe," says Paul Felten, senior vice president
at the nuclear power company Areva. "This makes sense when you see what is happening around the Caspian Sea and the
gulf." Indeed, security concerns were decisive to the Finnish vote in May. With a fast-growing economy, Finland has
come to rely on a single fuel (natural gas) and a single source (Russia) for most of its power. Prime Minister Paavo
Lipponen warns that all of Europe runs the risk of becoming a "fossil monster," every bit as vulnerable to
fuel disruptions as Finland. Energy disappointments: Wind and solar power, biomass and other alternative sources will
gradually gain importance, but in most countries they will never produce more than a small fraction of total energy
needs. Even with two more decades of subsidies and research, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, so-called renewables probably could not provide more than 3 per-cent of global electricity needs. Denmark
(which has no nuclear plants) leads the way in such programs, generating 20 percent of its electricity from wind-powered
turbines, the fastest-growing energy source in the world. But such environmentally friendly solutions are increasingly
coming under attack as noisy and unsightly. What's more, the development of wind power has virtually no chance of
keeping pace with rising energy demand, in Denmark or anywhere else in Europe. Environmentalism: The Kyoto accords
commit Europe to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by an average 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. Some countries
face particularly steep cuts. Britain, for example, has pledged a reduction of 12.5 percent. At present, 71 percent of
Britain's energy comes from carbon-dioxide-producing fossil fuels; 22 percent comes from nuclear. Many experts,
including the Royal Academy of Engineering in a report published in August, believe the country simply cannot meet this
goal without new nuclear plants. Construction costs: Building a nuclear power plant is expensive-about $2,000 per
kilowatt, compared with less than $600 for a gas-fired plant. But improvements in technology, better design and
economies of scale now promise to bring construction costs down to a more manageable $1,000 per kilowatt. Streamlining
the regulatory process will further reduce costs, according to Bruce Lacy, the nuclear-business manager for Alliant
Energy. Safety: Yes, there was Three Mile Island. But in the most serious accident in the history of American nuclear
power, no one was physically harmed. There was also Chernobyl, where 41 workers died of radiation sickness and childhood
thyroid cancer was detected in more than 2,000 people. But it's also true, advocates remind us, that over decades
nuclear power has proved remarkably safe. Coal-mining accidents and gas explosions kill thousands of people every year;
many are so routine as to go unreported. There is also the collateral damage from air and water pollution caused by
mining and burning fossil fuels-a death toll that will soon rise to nearly 3 million people a year, according to the
World Health Organization. Points such as these may help Tony Blair make his case. But it won't be easy.
Anti-nuclear sentiment is deeply entrenched in British society, long fertile ground for Greenpeace and other protest
movements. In 1957 a reactor fire at the world's first nuclear power plant, in Sellafield, England, burned out of
control for days. There were no apparent injuries, but even so, the event still resonates among Britons as the
world's worst nuclear accident until Chernobyl. Britain's record since then has not been entirely reassuring,
either. In 1999 British media reported that Sellafield workers had falsified quality-control data regarding the
reprocessing of used nuclear fuel. Power companies in Japan, Germany and Switzerland profoundly embarrassed Britain by
subsequently rejecting reprocessed fuel from the country. Most recently, just as word leaked that Blair was turning
pro-nuclear, the British government had to cough up .410 million to save the country's privatized nuclear power
company, British Energy, from insolvency. The causes for the financial meltdown were varied, ranging from the high cost
of recycling radioactive waste to the difficulty of competing with gas-fired plants. But it will no doubt cast a shadow
over any plan to resurrect the industry. Against this rather messy backdrop, Blair's anticipated green light for
nuclear power can be read in two ways. Some see it as a bold and farsighted initiative, taking account of the long-term
energy needs of the country. Others say it's dangerously overreaching-an example of the almost swaggering
self-assurance Blair has come to display after nearly six untouchable years in office with his determination to position
"New Labour" as the party of business. It also demonstrates yet again the extent to which Blair takes his cue
from the United States. In its 2001 energy plan, the Bush administration gave nuclear a seat at the head table once
more, a point that was noted by the advisers drafting Blair's energy white paper. According to some reports,
Blair's Department of Trade and Industry would even like to promote a "speed approval" scheme for new
nuclear plants in Britain, including fast-tracking designs previously approved in America. Meanwhile, lobbies are
mustering on both sides of the issue. "The important thing is to take the long view," says Norman Askew, who
replaced John Taylor as head of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels. "They've got to do that soon or it's
going to be too late." Meanwhile, protesters from Greenpeace occupied rooftops at British Energy's Sizewell B
nuclear power station last week to protest Blair's perceived apostasy. Their message: nuclear power is
"unsafe, uneconomic and unpopular." (It's opposed, they say, by 72 percent of Britons.) No matter where
you sit, come early next year Blair looks set to trigger a "significant event" of the nonradioactive sort. No
wonder the rest of Europe is watching warily. With Samia Marais in Paris, Barbie Nadeau in Rome, Charles Ferro in
Copenhagen and Richard McColl in London
[UKIR [UK & Ireland Intelligence Wire]] |
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