Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Barring the unexpected, nuclear energy will soon be recognized as climate-friendly investment in the European Union. It cannot be said that all observers are in agreement with the policy.
Nuclear power plants can produce large amounts of stable energy. The output of a single power plant in the United States can provide power to upwards of a million people. At present, about 72% of France’s energy is provided by nuclear.
Moreover, nuclear power produces seventy times less carbon dioxide than coal, and forty times less than gas. It releases a similar amount of carbon as wind energy, and four times less than solar. In many ways it is equal or even superior to other “green” energy sources.
On the other hand, nuclear power has long been a target of environmental organizations such as Greenpeace. Major disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi have associated this form of energy with radioactive contamination of the oceans and the natural landscape. This has badly damaged its reputation as environmentally responsible technology.
Lobby organizations such as the World Nuclear Association, however, are keen to stress that such disasters are extremely rare, and have resulted in considerably less grave outcomes than initially predicted.
Still–taking the case the of Fukushima–a huge area of land has undergone extensive radiation decontamination measures such as the total replacement of topsoil with crushed granite. Tens of thousands of local residents have been displaced, some of them for more than a decade. Lives have been lost through such disruption of normal activities.
Anti-nuclear campaigners also point out that power plants are vulnerable to military conflicts and acts of sabotage, including cyberattacks. This vulnerability was most recently demonstrated during the Russian invasion of Ukraine when heavy fighting took place at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station as well as at the site of the Chernobyl disaster.
Another argument against embracing nuclear power as green energy concerns the unresolved issue of the disposal of nuclear waste.
A standard nuclear power plant produces three cubic meters of waste per year. In the United States alone, two thousand cubic meters of waste is produced annually, most of which remains stored at the plants themselves. Presently, there is no universally agreed solution for the safest and most effective means for final disposal, storage, or reuse of radioactive waste.
This problem might be mitigated by recycling the waste into reusable fuel, as is commonly done in France and the United Kingdom. Uranium, for example, retains about 95% of its potential energy even after it is used a first time.
In respect to the climate crisis, some environmental campaigners argue that nuclear is simply too slow to effectively combat rising global temperatures and avoid catastrophe–it takes many years to design, approve, and build new nuclear plants.
The costs of building new power plants are also quite substantial. While it varies by country, the average price tag is about US$9 billion for a 1.1GW facility. In some cases, costs can more than double. Operating costs are also not cheap. For poorer countries, nuclear power may simply be out of reach from a financial perspective.
Finally, it should also be mentioned that nuclear weapons proliferation concerns have been used to stall the development of civilian nuclear power plants in countries such as Iran.