Energy Strategies in Global Warming: Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

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8 Jul 2005 13:52:32 -0000

Energy Strategies in Global Warming: Is Nuclear Energy the

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ISIS Press Release 08/07/05

 

Energy Strategies in Global Warming:

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Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

***********************

 

Nuclear energy makes economic nonsense and ecological

disaster and provides great opportunities for terrorists.

Peter Bunyard

 

Peter Bunyard will be speaking at Sustainable World

Conference, 14-15 July 2005, Details on ISIS website

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SWCFA.php

 

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Global warming is now and set to get much worse

 

Human-induced global warming is already upon us. The trends

in fossil fuel use and the release of greenhouse gases from

all human activities, including agriculture, indicate that

worldwide we will be hard pushed to achieve the 60 to 80 per

cent reduction in greenhouse gases necessary to stabilise

greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere at 550 parts per

million (ppm) before the century is out. That's the upper

limit before climate change events become extreme and

devastating, according to climatologists [1].

 

The carbon dioxide level is currently close to 380 ppm in

the atmosphere, more than 30 per cent up on the pre-

industrial level of 280 ppm. Even at 400 parts per million,

which will be reached within 10 years at the current rate of

increase of 2 ppm per year, average global temperatures will

rise by 2 deg.C [2].

 

In its scientific review, Climate Change 2001, the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts

that business-as-usual (BAU) activities across the planet

could lead to an average temperature rise of as much as 5.8

deg. C within the century. But such predictions, disturbing

as they are, do not take into account the impact of global

warming on terrestrial vegetation, including the world's

tropical rainforests. Peter Cox and his colleagues at the

Hadley Centre of UK Met Office have elaborated climate

models that incorporate a dynamic carbon cycle. They predict

that, within half a century, the BAU scenario will cause

soils and vegetation to switch abruptly from a sink for

atmospheric carbon to a source. That would mean not only the

loss of the current capacity to withhold and remove carbon

dioxide from the atmosphere, but in addition, the release of

carbon from soils and vegetation that has accumulated over

the past 150 years.

 

The net result could be a doubling of current concentrations

of greenhouse gases within a matter of years. Adding in the

fossil fuel emissions could take the levels of carbon

dioxide to four times pre-industrial levels, i.e 1 000 ppm.

The positive feedback from the loss of terrestrial carbon

further heats up the earth's surface, and the average

surface terrestrial temperature could rise by as much as 9

deg. C instead of the predicted 5.8 deg. C; temperatures as

high have not been experienced for more than 40 million

years [3].

 

The soil/vegetation feedback on global warming is not the

only one; we face other powerful positive feedbacks,

including the change in albedo (the fraction of solar energy

reflected back into space) as ice vanishes from the Arctic

Circle and from parts of Antarctica where grass is

establishing itself for the first time in millions of years

[4]. In addition, the potential release of methane from the

oceans overlying the vast sediments of the Amazon Fan, or in

the permafrost regions of the Northern Hemisphere, could

lead to the large changes in climate that were responsible

for the mass extinctions of the Permian more than two

hundred million years ago.

 

It has emerged that the Greenland ice sheet is less stable

than previously thought. Its rapid melting would raise sea

levels by several metres. Moreover, the Gulf Stream is

diminishing in strength because of the influx of fresh water

into the Arctic Circle [5].

 

In short, the climate system as we know it is poised on the

edge of a profound transition. Once past a point of no

return, terrestrial organisms including human beings will

have little or no time to adjust and their future on this

planet could well be jeopardized.

 

 

The UK position

 

The UK government, spearheaded by the Prime Minister Blair, has declared its intention to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions from Britain by as much as 20 per cent of the

baseline year of 1990 by the end of the First Commitment

Period of the Kyoto Protocol. That 20 per cent will

incorporate carbon trading, allowing industry to purchase

carbon credits from elsewhere to offset its emissions,

including reforestation projects in developing countries. It

will also take on board `clean development mechanism'

projects (CDMs) in developing countries, whereby a donor

industrialized country can share the equivalent of

greenhouse gas emissions foregone through investing in a

`cleaner' project than would have been deployed had the

additional investment and technical expertise not been

available.

 

Despite a host of different projects, including wind-farms,

it is becoming clear that the UK will have difficulty

achieving that target. Energy demands in the UK are rising

and emission cuts are stagnating. Indeed, over the past 40

years, the mean rate of energy demand has been increasing at

0.5 percent a year, mostly provided through burning fossil

fuels. Moreover, recent figures supplied by the Department

of Trade and Industry (DTI) show that carbon dioxide

emissions from the UK, rather than falling as planned, are

rising rapidly, by 2.2 per cent in 2003 and 1.5 per cent in

2004. And that despite the UK's commitment to a legally

binding 12.5 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions

compared to 1990, let alone the 20 per cent called for.

Currently, the UK's emissions are no more than 4 per cent

below 1990 levels [6, 7].

 

The reality is that recent energy demand in the UK is

growing at almost double the rate of the past half century;

the DTI is predicting that the current per annum increase of

0.9 per cent will continue at least until 2010. Energy

demand is up in all sectors of the UK economy, in transport,

electricity and space-heating.

 

Blair's government is now reviewing a number of options for

reducing emissions [8], including wind power and the

renewables; investment in tidal, wave and solar systems; a

new nuclear power programme; subsidies for energy efficient

household appliances; new building regulations that will

incorporate energy efficient designs; carbon taxes including

a rise in fuel duties; and a reduction in the prices of

alternative fuels such as bio-diesel.

 

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that as much

as 1400 GW (gigawatts = 109 watts) of coal-fired plants will

be in operation by 2030 in the world, a considerable

proportion in India and China. At a meeting of the IEA and

World Coal Institute in Beijing (23 April, 2004), Wu Yin,

Deputy Director-General of Energy Department, National

Development & Reform Commission, China, stated that in 20

years' time, China anticipated that coal would feature as

the main fuel for a significantly enlarged electricity

supply system. Vijay Sethu, Executive Director, Project &

Structured Finance, Asia, ANZ Investment Bank, Singapore,

confirmed that a similar situation would prevail for India.

Both countries would also resort to nuclear power [9, 10]

 

During their lifetimes the coal-fired plants of China and

Indian could emit some 500 Gt (gigatonnes) of carbon

dioxide, equal to half of anthropogenic (human-source)

emissions in the last 250 years.

 

Forecasts of energy requirements

 

 

In their 22nd report on Environmental Pollution of 2000, the

Royal Commission set out four different scenarios for the UK

to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by mid century. How

such reductions were to be achieved was markedly different

in each case; however, all four scenarios anticipated that

fossil fuels would continue to be used for transport,

perhaps through fuel cells, but with the hydrogen

originating from fossil fuels [11].

 

Scenario 1 is based on the notion that the UK would have a

BAU economy, but with final energy demand kept down to 1998

levels. A 57 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions

would be obtained through the deployment of at least 52 GW

of nuclear power — four times today's capacity— or as

suggested, through using fossil fuel for electricity

generation in which the carbon dioxide is recovered and

buried in oil wells. Electricity would also be derived from

renewable energy sources, including 200 offshore wind farms,

each with 100 large turbines, as well as wave and tidal

machines. The Severn Estuary barrage would be up and running

and photovoltaic solar panels installed on the roofs of

buildings. In recent years, efficient solar water heating

systems have been developed that, even in the UK climate,

make an effective contribution in reducing fossil fuel

energy demands.

 

Scenarios 2 and 3 involve a reduction in energy use of more

than a third while Scenario 4 requires an energy reduction

of nearly one half compared to energy demands in 1998.

Through reductions in transport, in electricity and in low-

and high-grade heat, Scenarios 2 and 4 avoid the use both of

nuclear power and fossil fuel stations with carbon dioxide

recovery. Their demands for renewable energy resources are

also reduced compared to Scenario 1. Meanwhile, Scenario 3

makes up for a reduced use of renewable energy sources by

resorting to nuclear power although far less, at 19 GW, than

the requirement for 56 GW in Scenario 1.

 

On the assumption that people and businesses are not going

to pay silly prices for their energy, the Royal Commission

has suggested a cut-off price of 7p/kWh for renewable energy

supply, thereby imposing limits on the quantity of energy

from such sources that could be available by 2025.

 

What can the nuclear industry do for us?

 

The nuclear industry has always seen itself as the saviour

of industrialised society. The slogan of the 1960s,

especially in the United States, was that nuclear power

would deliver unlimited energy cheaply and safely, and that

it would step into the breech when fossil fuel supplies

became scarce. At the time, no one was thinking of the

problem of greenhouse gases [12].

 

In its 1981 report on nuclear costs, the Committee for the

Study of Nuclear Economics showed that a station such as

Sizewell B would cost some £2 billion more (1980's money)

over its lifetime than a comparable-sized conventional

thermal power station such as Drax B in Yorkshire [13],

which would put nuclear power beyond the reach of

privatization.

 

In 1996, for £1.5 billion, the newly created British Energy

acquired seven Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) stations and the

country's only commercial Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR).

The actual cost of construction had amounted to over £50

billion, of which more than £3 billion had recently been

spent on the Sizewell B PWR, newly commissioned in the mid

1990s.

 

The government sell-off in 1996 of what was to become the

UK's largest electricity producer might have seemed a give-

away at the time, but in 2002, on account of having to

compete for electricity sales against other non-nuclear

generators, British Energy found its losses piling up with

every unit of electricity sold. In less than a year, and in

the biggest write-off of capital in the UK, the company's

market value plummeted to little more than £100 million.

Basically, British Energy could not go on trading and had to

call on the government to salvage it.

 

Despite complaints of favouritism from non-nuclear

companies, the government agreed a loan of £410 million to

British Energy, and a month later, upped it to £650 million.

Meanwhile, as Energy Minister Brian Wilson reiterated in

parliament on 27 January 2002, the government would provide

the £200 million required to go into the fund for

decommissioning.

 

Dale Vince, the managing director of Ecotricity, regards

such support for the nuclear industry as economic nonsense.

He said in an interview published in The Guardian [14], " If

we were given £410 million instead of British Energy, we

could have built enough onshore wind energy to power 10 per

cent of the country's electricity needs. "

 

Unfortunately, you cannot just shut down nuclear stations

and walk away. You have to keep the safety systems,

including core-cooling, up and running for as long as the

fuel is in the core (see Box 1).

 

And then, when the spent fuel is extracted, you have to make

multi-billion dollar decisions what to do with it [15] (see

Box 2).

 

_

Box 1

 

How nuclear power is generated

 

Uranium-235, which comprises on average just 0.7 percent of

natural uranium, is a fissile (capable of atomic fission)

isotope that splits into more or less two radioactive halves

when struck by a neutron. The bulk of natural uranium is

made up of uranium-238, which, in contrast to the rarer

isotope, does not split on being struck by a neutron but

tends to absorb a neutron and, through a process of

radioactive transformation (with the emission of an

electron), jump up to the next element - plutonium.

Plutonium is also fissile, and can be `bred' from uranium

fuel when a reactor is up and running.

 

A reactor, as distinct from the uncontrolled fission that

makes an atomic bomb, needs the process of fission to be

kept at a steady operating level. That is achieved through

inserting or withdrawing control rods made of a material

that will absorb neutrons and so prevent them from causing a

runaway chain reaction (see Fig. 1).

 

With the exception of fast breeder reactors, which use

plutonium to `enrich' the fuel, the majority of reactor

systems use a `moderator' such as graphite or heavy water to

slow down the neutrons so that they will be more effective

in bringing about a chain reaction. The moderator therefore

allows the use of uranium with a relatively low content of

uranium-235. The majority of reactors in use today will use

uranium fuel that has been enriched to around 4 percent.

 

Figure 1. Controlled chain reaction in a nuclear plant as

opposed to divergent chain reaction that makes an atom bomb

_

 

 

 

_

Box 2

 

The nuclear fuel cycle

 

The nuclear fuel cycle begins with the mining of uranium,

followed by extracting it from the ore. The uranium is then

enriched by centrifuging gaseous uranium hexafluoride, so

that the heavier uranium-238 leaves behind an increasing

concentration of uranium-235, the fissile material. The

enriched uranium is then manufactured into ceramic fuel and

encased in `cladding', usually of zirconium alloy or

stainless steel, as used in Britain's Advanced Gas Reactors

(graphite moderator and carbon dioxide gas for transporting

heat to a steam generator).

 

Spent fuel from the power plant is highly radioactive and

must be handled remotely. Initially, it is placed in cooling

ponds to allow short-lived radioactive isotopes to decay.

Then, there are two options: one to dispose of the intact,

radioactive fuel, with its cladding, in long term

repositories, where continual cooling can be provided; two

to reprocess the fuel so as to extract any unused uranium as

well as plutonium. Reprocessing leads to the production of

various waste streams of virulently radioactive material.

Various attempts have been made to vitrify (turning to

glass) high level radioactive waste, so that it can

deposited as a glass block. The UK still has to decide how

and where to dispose of that waste.

 

Meanwhile, the extracted plutonium can be made into fresh

fuel, such as Mixed Oxide Fuel, which also contains uranium.

Reactors need to be adapted to take MOX fuel because its

fission characteristics are different from using enriched

uranium fuel.

 

Essentially, fossil fuels underpin the use of nuclear power,

especially in the mining, extraction and manufacture of

uranium fuel. To date fossil fuels have provided the energy

and materials for the construction of nuclear installations,

quite aside from providing electricity to maintain safety

systems.

 

Figure 2. The nuclear fuel cycle including fossil fuels used

in extracting uranium, constructing the nuclear plant,

turning the power generated into electricity and

decommissioning and reprocessing to get rid of hazardous

nuclear wastes.

_

 

Do you send it to loss-making British Nuclear Fuels (BNF)

for reprocessing, with all that entails in terms of

discharges of radioactive waste into the Irish Sea and the

atmosphere? That being the case, do you continue sanctioning

the production of Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX), which makes

economic nonsense, as well as a dubious saving on uranium

and is a security nightmare (see below)? Or do you reduce

costs by storing the spent fuel intact?

 

As to the use of MOX, many critics within and outside the

industry have repeatedly pointed out that the gains are far

outweighed by economic and environmental problems. In

France, reprocessing spent fuel to extract plutonium for MOX

fuel manufacture will save no more than 5 to 8 per cent on

the need for fresh uranium. Meanwhile, as experience in both

France and Britain has shown, reprocessing spent reactor

fuel leads to a hundredfold or more increase in the volume

of radioactive wastes. In the end, all the materials used,

including tools, equipment and even the buildings become

radioactive and have to be treated as a radioactive hazard.

 

It is also highly questionable whether the use of MOX fuel

will actually reduce the amount of plutonium that has been

generated after half a century of operating reactors, both

military and civil. Worldwide, more than 1 500 tonnes of

plutonium have been generated, of which some 250 tonnes have

been extracted for making bombs and another 250 tonnes

extracted as a result of reprocessing the spent fuel from

`civilian' reactors. Apart from its military-grade plutonium

- plutonium relatively pure in the 239 isotope - Britain now

has some 50 tonnes of lower quality reactor-grade plutonium

contaminated with other, less readily-fissionable isotopes

such as 241 [16].

 

Because of the continued reprocessing of spent reactor fuel

in commercial reprocessing plants in Britain, France, Russia

and Japan, the world will have some 550 tonnes of separated

civil plutonium by the year 2010, enough to produce 110 000

nuclear weapons.

 

Mixed oxide fuel ideal for terrorists

 

Mixed oxide fuel, containing up to 5 per cent plutonium, is

ideal material for terrorists, being no more than mildly

radioactive compared with spent reactor fuel, and in a form

from which the plutonium can be easily extracted. Just one

MOX fuel assembly contains some 25 kilograms of plutonium,

enough for two weapons. A reactor, modified to take the

plutonium-enriched fuel for up to 30 per cent of the reactor

core, has some 48 MOX fuel assemblies.

 

Currently, 23 light water (ordinary water) reactors - 5 in

Germany, 3 in Switzerland, 13 in France and 2 in Belgium -

have been converted to use MOX fuel. Five countries,

Britain, Belgium, France, Japan and Russia, are

manufacturing the fuel. With BNFL's new MOX plant up and

running, supply will exceed demand by a factor of two, at

least until 2015.

 

BNFL claims that the use of MOX fuel will help burn up

stocks of plutonium, including those from dismantled

weapons. But the very operation of civilian reactors, with

their load of the plutonium-generating uranium isotope, the

238 isotope, makes it inevitable that more plutonium is

generated than is consumed. A 0.9GW pressurized water

reactor which has been modified to take MOX fuel will burn a

little less than one tonne of plutonium every ten years,

whereas plutonium production will be about 1.17 tonnes,

hence about 120 kilograms more.

 

Global warming and nuclear power

 

The new myth is that nuclear power is the only source of

energy that can replace fossil fuels in the quantities

required to fuel the industrial society, whether in the

developed or developing world, while eliminating the

emissions of greenhouse gases.

 

Economies of scale demand that nuclear power stations are

large, at least one GW (electrical) in size. Their sudden

shutdown can put a considerable strain on the overall

electricity supply system. And if their shutdown is the

result of a generic problem, that will have major

consequences, including the necessity of bringing on stream

a large tranche of spare capacity. Furthermore, that

capacity is likely to be fossil-fuel based and relatively

inefficient.

 

As reported recently in New Scientist [17], the UK's

advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) are showing signs of

unexpected deterioration in the graphite blocks. These

blocks serve the double function of moderating the nuclear

fission process and of providing structural channels for

nuclear fuel and control rods. The potential failure of the

graphite compromises safety and in all likelihood the UK's

14 AGRs, currently supplying nearly one-fifth of the UK's

electricity, will have to be shutdown prematurely, rather

than lasting through to 2020 and beyond. Bringing reserve

capacity to replace the AGRs will inevitably lead to a surge

in greenhouse gas emissions. But that's not the only problem

the UK nuclear industry faces.

 

Devastating leak

 

On Sunday 12 June, 2005, the BBC reported that a leak of

highly radioactive waste containing enough uranium and

plutonium to make several atomic weapons had gone unnoticed

for more than 8 months [18]. It appears that a pipe in

British Nuclear Fuels' thermal oxide reprocessing plant at

Sellafield in Cumbria had fractured as long ago as last

August, spewing nitric acid with its deadly load of

radionuclides onto the floor. The leak, containing as much

as 20 tonnes of uranium and 160kg of plutonium, was

discovered only in April of this year.

 

British Nuclear Fuels has justified the use of the

reprocessing plant as being essential for the production of

mixed oxide fuel from the spent fuel taken from the UK's

Advanced Gas Reactors. As a result of the leak, the nuclear

inspectorate has ordered British Nuclear Fuels to shut down

THORP, the thermal oxide reprocessing plant. Just how the

spilt waste can be removed remains to be seen, but once

again the accident reinforces concerns that the nuclear

industry, quite aside from its poor economic showing, can

never be made safe enough.

 

In addition, the Environment Agency inspectors told BNF that

it had to improve the way it discharged low level

radioactive waste into the Irish Sea, now probably one of

the most contaminated waters in the world. Some commentators

estimate it will take considerably more than a century to

clean up the radioactive waste that the industry has already

discharged into the environment, at a cost of well over £50

000 million.

 

 

 

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