Nuclear wonderland

During the last decade, nuclear power has gradually regained its credibility in the eyes of the public but now one uncontrollable nuclear accident has reminded everyone of the risks associated with nuclear power. Should we continue to press ahead with nuclear power plants or take recent events as a warning sign? Leila Sattary investigates

The nuclear power sector has plans. Nearly 400 new plants have been proposed around the world, many in Asia but also eight in the UK and more across Europe. However, following the events at Fukushima, Japan, many of these new stations will be put on hold.

Nuclear power plants split apart uranium to create energy – the fission of one atom of uranium creates 1 million times more energy than burning one atom of coal. Nuclear fission creates enormous amounts of energy, is a relatively clean energy source and could be used to replace fossil fuels giving renewable technologies time to develop fully.

However, nuclear power catastrophes cannot be ignored - the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and more recently the failure of Fukushima following a severe earthquake and tsunami. The effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident were felt across the world and it is an incident I have a personal connection with. A substantial amount of radioactivity was deposited in Western Scotland, where sheep-farming was the primary use of land. In 1986 I was still in the womb but many doctors attribute a rare eye defect I have had since birth to the radiation that entered the food chain in Western Scotland while I was a developing foetus.

The other major nuclear failure was the meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island plant. It seems to me that people take these failures at nuclear plants as a warning that we should not be messing with nuclear power, when in fact Three Mile Island is an example of success in plant design. The concrete contamination structure did just what it was designed to do – prevent radioactivity escaping into the environment. The reactor was crippled but there was no loss of life or radiation leaked.

Nuclear power plants are designed very carefully so that in the event of a disaster they should shut down automatically. Obviously the systems are not completely foolproof as Fukushima showed but it took a fateful combination of earthquake and flooding to cause the problem.

The UK Government have commissioned a report to find out what we can learn from the disaster at Fukushima. It seems to me that the answer is fairly simple – don’t build nuclear reactors in places that are prone to natural disasters. In the UK of course we are safer than most from seismic risk but we need to think outside the box. What if a meteoroid hit near a nuclear plant? While this is highly unlikely, the consequences of a nuclear disaster have the potential to be so severe and widespread that it is important to think about the unlikely.

In the press, the facts are easily hidden in the fear that nuclear disasters breed. It took a precise chain of events to bring Fukushima to a stop and even though it is hard to figure out from the reporting the extent of the radiation leak it has a worldwide effect - investors stop putting money into nuclear energy and plans for new builds come to a standstill.

When building and maintaining nuclear plants, of course we should be thinking very carefully about their design and their ability to withstand a meltdown. My personal view is that energy from nuclear fission is essential if we are to address the CO₂ emission problem in my lifetime. Nuclear power is an ideal candidate to replace the big baseloads of coal and gas while intermittent and (currently) inefficient wind and solar power plug the gaps.

Of course, fusion power is the ultimate dream – creating energy from smashing hydrogen together where the only waste product is water. It sounds like some imagined science fiction energy source. Unfortunately, it is somewhat more science fiction than science fact despite having a running test station in Culham, Oxfordshire, it is yet to consistently produce more energy than it consumes. For as long as I can remember fusion power has been “only 30 years away”. It astonishes me that there has not been more progress, but that’s perhaps for another rant.

I keep my fingers crossed for fusion coming to the world’s rescue, but in the mean time we should absolutely learn what we need to from the events in Japan but by no means let it bring our nuclear industry to a grinding halt.