By Dr Steve Boyer, Blackpool and Fylde Green Party
Join us for an engaging talk on modern energy production by Dr. Steve Boyer! The event will be held on Monday, October 21st, at the Bloomfield Club (128 Bloomfield Road, Blackpool, FY1 6JW).
Dr. Boyer’s talk will begin right after our AGM, which starts at 7:30 PM. We hope to see you there!
Discussion Notes: Arguments in support of Green Party Policy
Introduction
In 1957 the late Queen officially opened Calder Hall, the first British nuclear power station at Windscale and we were promised safe, limitless, and free electricity. Small amounts of electricity for the national grid were in fact generated, its primary purpose however was the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons and there has been and remains a deep connection between civil nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Nuclear power plants are dependent on highly complex science, engineering, and construction. Despite this, the basic principles are quite simple. Nuclear fuel, like burning wood, coal, gas, or oil, generates heat and this is typically used to make steam, which drives a turbine, which rotates a generator, which makes electricity.
Nuclear fuels are technically attractive because they contain huge amounts of energy. The amount of energy is often described by the term ‘energy density’ and nuclear fuel has a massive energy density advantage over conventional fuels: A 1-inch-tall uranium fuel pellet is equivalent to about 1 ton of coal, 120 gallons of crude oil, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.
Despite the energy advantage of nuclear, there are serious dangers and disadvantages that should preclude its use, especially when there are now better alternatives.
Green Party Policy
We have a clear policy on nuclear power:
“We want to see the phase-out of nuclear energy, which is unsafe and much more expensive than renewables. The development of nuclear power stations is too slow given the pace of action we need on climate. They also create unmanageable quantities of radioactive waste and are inextricably linked with the production of nuclear weapons.”
Whilst I wholeheartedly support the entire policy, making a face-to-face argument for or against almost anything is often more effective when you consider the psychology of your target audience, which may care more about cost that the environment, and stick to one or two key points. All the issues raised in the policy are important but my personal view is that focussing on cost and timing are likely to have the biggest impact on changing minds.
Nuclear energy is…
Too expensive:
Nuclear power is already more expensive than wind, especially on-shore wind, and solar PV (Photo Voltaic). The future trends for nuclear show rising costs whereas for wind and solar the costs continue to fall. In fact, new technology developments in solar PV, and which are already in production, will result in further dramatic falls in cost. (Combined Perovskite and Silicon.)
There are many sources of cost comparisons but typically nuclear is quoted as around twice the cost of renewables like wind and solar. The current, guaranteed ‘Strike Price’ for electricity generated from Hinkley C is £128.09 / MWh compared to the current, actual wholesale electricity price of £47.50 / MWh. The strike price is linked to inflation and will rise significantly over the next 45 years whereas the wholesale price may even fall as we come off the artificially high gas-based price and change to falling-cost renewables.
Construction, decommissioning and waste disposal costs for nuclear are also extremely high. The cost of building Hinkley C was originally forecast to be £35 Billion and that has already risen to £90 Billion and no doubt this forecast will rise further.
It is also important to recognise that whilst the cost of nuclear includes some amount for decommissioning and radioactive waste disposal, these figures are capped and will almost certainly be exceeded. Waste disposal is capped at £5 Billion and decommissioning costs are not disclosed.
Most of our existing radioactive waste is stored at Sellafield (Windscale as was). Costs for disposal were estimated at £25.2 Billion in 2009/10 and this figure rose to £96.5 Billion in 2019/20. The estimates are growing exponentially, doubling every 4 to 5 years, and so will probably now be around £200 Billion. These costs are not included in the cost of nuclear electricity but, as tax payers, we will have to pay and these costs should be considered as a hidden cost of nuclear electricity.
For comparison, £200 Billion more than the annual cost of the NHS.
Too slow:
We are already experiencing the effects of our climate emergency with more frequent and more severe weather events, forest fires, heat waves and floods. One consequence is poor harvests, both here and around the world, risking food security. Despite this, record amounts of CO2 and CH4 (methane) continue to be released into the atmosphere. Current IPCC projections for temperature rises are between 2.5oC and 3oC above pre-industrial levels. The Paris accord was to stay at or near 1.5oC and we now have no hope of achieving that.
We need to stop extracting and setting fire to fossil fuels now. Nuclear power plants take 20-25 years to start producing electricity. Hinkley C was originally planned to come online in 2017 and this has been pushed back to 2031 and we could expect further delays. Whilst we wait for nuclear electricity to help us de-carbonise, we will presumably just continue to pollute the atmosphere with CO2 and CH4. Alternatively, Solar and wind (especially on-shore) can be deployed in a fraction of the time, reducing CO2 and CH4 emissions almost immediately.
Whilst cost and time are, I suggest, the most compelling counter-arguments for supporters of nuclear, it is worth reviewing the other aspects of our Party’s concerns with nuclear:
Nuclear energy also…
Is unsafe:
This isn’t just a risk, it’s a reality. Notable nuclear disasters have been;
- Windscale in the UK in 1957 Fire
- Three Mile Island in the USA in 1979 Core Meltdown
- Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 Core Meltdown
- Fukushima in Japan in 2011 Core Meltdown
All except Three Mile Island have resulted in significant numbers of deaths and in extensive radioactive contamination. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, estimates of deaths from Chernobyl are 50,000 – 90,000. Fukushima is also estimated to have resulted in 2000 deaths and Windscale around 200. The core meltdown at Three Mile Island was held in the concrete containment vessel. The most common cause of disaster has been from cooling failures resulting in reactor core meltdown.
There are continuing risks from currently operating reactors;
Most are of older, less safe, designs and many are running or will run beyond their design life. Most are built on the coast and it is estimated that around 100 reactors will be at risk from rising sea levels. It should be remembered that a sea level breach due to a tsunami was the cause of the Fukushima disaster and this may not be a unique event.
The world is also less safe politically and militarily and nuclear facilities are at risk from both hostile states, such as Russia in Ukraine, and from terrorist groups. We, and other countries, are also at risk from cyber-attacks from e.g. Russia and China and this poses particular problems where, for example, a country may have made the ill-advised decision to have engaged with China as a partner.
CGNPC (China General Nuclear Power Corporation) has a 29.5% stake in Hinkley C.
Creates unmanageable quantities of radioactive waste:
Most of the radioactive waste in this country is stored above ground at Sellafield and there are currently 81,000m3 in storage of which 1,990m3 are high-level waste and 75,700m3 are intermediate level waste. The lifetime total at Sellefield, including low-level waste, is forecast to rise to 3,300,000m3 as existing reactors are decommissioned.
High-level waste is, unsurprisingly, the most difficult to deal with and, as the name implies, is highly radioactive, toxic, and dangerous. This waste contains radioactive isotopes with very long half-lives and these will remain highly radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Longer than we have existed as a species on this planet.
The ‘favoured solution’ for disposal is vitrification in large glass blocks and deep storage in a geologically stable location. This ‘solution’ was proposed over 50 years ago, there have been no better proposals since. Vitrification is underway but no deep storage has yet been attempted. An interesting question is; what signage and safety measures can we leave in place now for inhabitants of our planet 200,000 years in the future?
Is inextricably linked to the production of nuclear weapons:
In the 1950’s, when nuclear power was being developed, there were two candidate fuels under evaluation. These were Uranium and Thorium. Both were viable but Uranium produces Plutonium which could be used in nuclear weapons. Uranium was universally adopted as the fuel of choice and we now have around 12,100 nuclear warheads in the world of which 3,880 are considered ‘active’. It would only take around 100 to cause a nuclear winter sufficient to result in the deaths of billions of people. We probably have enough already.
Using “Is inextricably linked to the production of nuclear weapons” as a negative only works of course if people see this as a bad thing and many do not. This leads us to a discussion on “nuclear weapons – good or bad” which I am not going to cover here.
Common pro-nuclear statements
One of the most common arguments for retaining nuclear is; What happens when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow? Nuclear is often proposed as the solution to the ‘problem’ of how to provide reliable baseload power. There are however grid-scale storage solutions for renewables that are already in place at large scale in, for example, the USA and China. Most commonly, batteries are used and the additional cost of storage is included in the overall renewable electricity cost, which is still cheaper than nuclear. Grid-scale battery storage also offers an opportunity to re-use batteries from EVs as they fall in capacity or the rest of the EV becomes too old.
Other, demonstrated storage solutions include; pumped hydro, heat storage using sand, liquid air and hydrogen. There are many others and the choice will come down to factors such as energy efficiency, geography and overall cost.
There is also a project underway for generation of electricity from a combination of wind, solar and battery storage in Morrocco. This will be delivered to the UK via an undersea interconnect cable and will provide additional constant, stable baseload power. This type of solution is being widely considered by many countries and technical issue such as energy loss over distance has been overcome by changing from AC to DC for long-distance transmission using cables.
Is there a credible future for nuclear power?
The nuclear industry is promoting several possible options for a future for nuclear power:
- Small Modular Reactors SMRs are proposed for local power generation and are about the size of a 40’ shipping container. Several countries are actively pursuing this approach including Rolls Royce Aero in the UK. These reactors will still require infrastructure and security and local community acceptance. They are not yet commercially available.
- Thorium Reactors Thorium changes into uranium under bombardment by neutrons and the uranium then undergoes fission reaction in a similar way to existing reactors. The designs utilise Thorium dissolved in molten salts as fuel and are intrinsically safer than existing uranium reactors. They also produce significantly less radioactive waste. It has been proposed that thorium could be used as the fuel in SMRs.
- Nuclear Fusion The common saying for fusion reactors over the last 50 or so years is that they are only 20 years away from realisation. That is still the forecast today. Fusion reactors work in the same way as the sun, which fuses atoms of hydrogen together under tremendous temperature and pressure to make helium, releasing huge amounts of energy. The hydrogen bomb works on this principle
All these options represent improvements over existing nuclear fission reactors. None of them is ready yet and we need solutions now. Where projected costs are available, they are still higher than renewables.
By the time any of them is ready then they will have to compete with cheap, established renewables with grid-scale storage solutions already in place.
Dr Steve Boyer, Blackpool and Fylde Green Party October 2024
Promoted by Alexandria Dean on behalf of Blackpool & Fylde Green Party, 5 Troutbeck Crescent, Blackpool FY4 4SU.