Hinkley- A cost effective solution?

Hello, after last week’s rather sombre blog about Chernobyl I thought this week I would start on a slightly lighter note, not an easy thing to do when your weighing up the twin threats of nuclear power and climate change, but I’ll try!

So what better place to start given its contemporary relevance, than last week’s news that the government has given the go-ahead for the UK’s first new nuclear power station in a generation, and the first in Europe since Fukushima;  welcomed in typically mixed fashion by the British press. Funnily enough very little of the debate even mentioned what it could mean for global warming, I heard the words ‘carbon free’ a couple of times, but most of the time the debate focused on the figure of £90, which is still ringing in my ears a week on.

Hinkley Point in Somerset-already the site of the disused Hinkley Point A and the still operational B power stations (Source: Guardian,2013)

So what is this £90 figure, well it is £92.50 to be precise and is the strike price of every megawatt hour of energy the new power station will generate; basically the fixed price, at which EDF (the French energy giant building the power station), has agreed to sell to the government, not the consumer!

Now many newspapers/analysts have lamented this figure and at face-value it can’t be denied it looks bad. It is three times more than the EDF’s original proposal and over £30 more expensive than the current wholesale price, which in the context of the recent price hikes by companies such as British Gas isn’t exactly music to the ears of consumers moving into winter (BBC, 2013).

However before we judge Hinkley C as an economic, consumer and environmental failure as John Sauven executive director of Greenpeace did  last week (Greenpeace, 2013). It should be remembered that the plant will not be in operation until 2023,when hopefully we will all be much richer and the cost will not differ so greatly from good old gas/coal generated energy. Also when compared with other carbon free alternatives it is around a similar price to wind and a staggering 3 times cheaper than tidal and wave.

Some of the high costs of renewables are due to lack of investment, in the future prices for tidal, wave and solar may well fall (Source:BBC, 2013)

It cannot be denied that cost is a huge issue in tackling climate change; if renewables and carbon-free energy were cheap I’m sure we would see a lot more wind turbines and solar panels around us, but as the infrastructure isn’t in place rising energy prices are perhaps an obstacle that cannot be avoided.

The deal at Hinkley does not look water tight, the loan guarantees given to EDF and the Chinese are ambiguous and if they amount to 70% of the debt raised to fund the 14 billion cost of the reactors, they could force George Osbourne to go back on his promise to British tax payers (Guardian, 2013).

"If it wasn't Chinese investment or French investment, it would have to be the British taxpayer. I would rather British taxpayers were spending their money on our schools and hospitals and those things, and let's get the rest of the world investing in our energy"

There is also uncertainty about how fixed the price of £90 will remain with inflation and changes in the uranium price.  Yet despite all this I tend to share the view of Simon Jenkins in the Guardian who referred to Hinkley as:

"a messy and bad deal for UK energy users, but it’s a decision. And it’s cheaper than wind".

It is a gamble but it is also a major switch to a ‘greener’ energy source albeit a non-renewable one. The station will generate 7% of Britain’s electricity and release no CO2, something that has been widely ignored in the media. It is also creating 25000 jobs, which surely can’t be a bad thing.

Hinkley C is a microcosm of course of a much larger debate, how we combat climate change and how we will generate energy with ever diminishing coal and natural gas reserves. Nuclear is obviously an option and I am pleased at least that the government is investing in a carbon free energy source. However how the UK and other countries choose to partition their energy usage in the future is the real burning issue (no pun intended!). With more nuclear power stations throughout Europe and the world  surely comes more environmental risk.

This video brings up some of the key issues surrounding Hinkley and nuclear power.

Thanks for reading!

The Health legacy of Chernobyl

Chernobyl’s reactor number 4 exploded in the early hours of 26^th April 1986, the ensuing blaze spewed 6.7 tonnes of radioactive material from the core high into the atmosphere, spreading radioactive isotopes over much of Europe (UN,2005). It is an event that had and continues to have a huge impact on the development of nuclear power especially in Europe; a go to word for anti-nuclear campaigners and an event that cannot be ignored when discussing the pros and cons of nuclear power.

Relating it to this blog the event serves as a useful case study with which to assess the true impacts and risks associated with nuclear power.  Here I will look mostly at the health impacts of the event, an overview of the economic and environmental consequences of nuclear power will be discussed later.

A runaway reaction due to mismanagement and poor design led to the overheating of reactor 4 Source:BBC,2006

Typical thoughts that come to mind when thinking of Chernobyl: empty buildings, deserted playgrounds, rises in cancer rates, survivors bearing congenital deformities, and of course the threatening concrete sarcophagus that entombs the reactor. All of which have contributed to a sense of fear, immorality and unease; a mistrust of all things nuclear amongst many who were affected or lived through the event. 

Yet it should be remembered that time is the best healer and green shoots are surfacing in the 30km exclusion zone-surrounding reactor 4. I was surprised to find that today over 3,500 workers now enter Chernobyl’s exclusion zone each day to monitor, clean and guard the site, with a 5300 ton confinement structure the centre piece to an impressive remediation effort (Peplow,2011).

The protective structure set to replace the temporary structure put into place shortly after the disaster at a cost of 1.54 billion euros Source:RT,2013

People are less concerned about remediation where Chernobyl is concerned; even 27 years on much discussion falls upon the health and environmental legacy of the event. Nuclear accidents like Chernobyl whilst often dramatic and explosive in nature are somewhat hidden killers with the majority of deaths coming from contamination in the years and decades afterwards.

As a result the overall damage is somewhat ambiguous, like many issues related to nuclear power, opinions are polarised and it is often difficult to see the wood for the trees, estimates for the current death toll vary from under 50 (guardian,2006), to close to a million in a study by Yablokov et al, 2010. 

Firstly there are the facts, 47 workers died from acute radiation sickness.There were in excess of 4000 cases of Thyroid cancer in highly contaminated areas, a more than ten-fold increase from normal levels, widely accepted to be the result of Chernobyl (UN,2005).

Source:BBC,2006

Yet the further we move away from the event both in time and space, the greater the disparities become. A popular question often asked relates to whether Chernobyl caused a significant rise in cancer risk across Europe and can be made responsible for many more deaths across the continent. The problem here is that one quarter of all deaths in Europe are the result of cancer so teasing out Chernobyl’s impact is challenging if not impossible (Peplow, 2011).   

A similar problem is encountered when trying to find a causal link to congenital mutations which have been so readily associated with the accident. There were many studies which suggested an increase in the rate of deformities. Yet on larger, longer term scale a link is harder to establish. It is argued that the lack of hereditary defects seen in children of Japan’s atomic bomb survivors would suggest that Chernobyl is merely a scapegoat in many cases (Peplow,2011). 

Milk products were taken out of circulation and iodine tablets given out following Fukushima, absorption of radio-iodine was believed to be the main cause of thyroid cancer following Chernobyl, Greenpeace argue that there could be 60000 cases of the disease unaccounted for in official figures Source: BBC,2006

Complicating matters even further, when trying to assess the magnitude of the impact on health,is the question of the inclusion of actions taken in fear following the event.  In response to Chernobyl there was deemed to be a rise in the number of abortions in countries as far a field, as Italy and Austria (Renn, 1990). Some studies have also linked the event to an increase in smoking, alcoholism and suicide in surrounding areas (Yablokov et al, 2010).

‘There’s tremendous uncertainty for these people…some think they are doomed because of radiation exposure’ Elisabeth Cardis epidemiologist (Peplow 2011)

This uncertainty remains because studies on Chernobyl and long-term radiation exposure have been isolated to small regions and ill funded in recent times (Peplow, 2011). What is needed is a coordinated European study, and I hope that in light of the more recent Fukushima disaster in Japan, more money will be channeled into research programmes assessing the impact of nuclear accidents. Chernobyl gives us an ideal opportunity to study the effects of low level long term radiation exposure, and in light of the cross roads that we have arrived at in terns of energy resources, any findings could prove influential to future energy policy. Also better knowledge and education could reduce the panic following nuclear accidents, which can exacerbate the situation.  

Whilst the precise health impacts are widely disputed, from research I did get some idea of the huge psychological, and socio-economic toll nuclear disasters can enact. Other energy sources come with there risks, dam failures, oil spills etc but the damage they cause is not so enduring or insidious in nature. That said I'm not ready to give up on nuclear energy yet, it should be also remembered that climate change also threatens environmental destruction,the displacement of millions and will undoubtedly prove costly, and it would be biased to judge the present safety of nuclear power solely on an antiquated reactor which was poorly managed.

Thanks for reading!

References

(BBC,2006)@http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/guides/456900/456957/html/nn4page1.

(UN, 2005)@http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/chernobyl/pdfs/pr.pdf

(Guardian,2006)@http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/sep/06/energy.ukraine

(Peplow,2011)@http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110328/full/471562a.html

(Renn,1990)@http://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/opus/volltexte/2010/5308/pdf/ren28.pdf

(RT,2013)@http://rt.com/in-motion/chernobyl-new-shell-structure-512/

(Yablokov et al, 2010)@http://www.scribd.com/doc/61517283/Yablokov-Chernobyl-Book

Introduction

Nuclear power is one of the most contentious contemporary issue’s in our current time.  Perform a simple web search and you will be met by a wave of polarized opinion covering political, socio-economic and environmental spheres. In support there are those who see it as a carbon free alternative producing more energy and jobs per sq acre than any other energy source (NEI, 2013), rescuing the planet from climate change and forging the way for industrialisation in parts of Africa and Asia. In stark contrast those against argue that it is unsafe, expensive and a non-renewable store damaging the environment.

For Nuclear: John Kerry talking to Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung at the East Asia Summit, this week the US and Vietnam signed a pact allowing the transfer of nuclear technology, allowing US investment in the Asian country growing  nuclear industry Source: Guardian (2013)

Permeating through much of the debate is the questionable safety of nuclear energy weighed against the threat posed by future climate change. This blog will seek to measure and forecast the dangers of both should we choose to adopt nuclear power with open arms or reject it completely. 

 

Greenpeace Protesters on the reactor dome of the Unterweser Nuclear
 plant, in this case exposing the lack of security in the event of a
plane crash or terrorist attack Source:Greenpeace (2009)

This is my first blogging ‘experience’ and whilst I am familiar with global weather phenomena, recent climate projections, and have some idea about how a nuclear reactor works; I have rarely put two and two together and considered the implications of nuclear energy in the context of climate change. I therefore sit on the fence as far as nuclear power is concerned. 

To make a critical assessment I hope to take a journey through the past, present and future of nuclear energy. I will discuss how far we have come since the events of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island in terms of safety and legislation; and look at the effect these incidents have had on any long-term nuclear ambition. 

A Swimming pool in the city of Pripyat which lies

 within the 30km exclusion zone following the 

Chernobyl disaster in 1984 Source: wikimedia(2009)

I will examine the current state of affairs in the wake of Fukushima and the latest findings of the fifth IPCC report.  I will evaluate what the future holds: the new nuclear technologies for reducing waste and limiting hazards, and the implications of possible nuclear development in the third world.

Comparison will also be made between the merits of nuclear power and renewables (e.g. wind power) as a mitigation against dwindling fossil fuel supplies and warming into the late 21^st century; asking the question is a nuclear world inevitable?

Thank you for reading! 

References

Greenpeace, 22.06.09, Greenpeace exposes lack of security on top of the reactor dome of Unterweser nuclear power station, greenpeace.cc/cop15/ Accessed Date 11/10/13

Guardian, 10.10.13, US signs nuclear technology deal with Vietnam, www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/  Accessed Date:11/10/13 

Nuclear Energy Institute, 05.08.13, Economic Benefits of New Nuclear Facilities, ww.nci.org/Issues-policy/ Accessed Date: 11/10/13

Wikimedia, 26.03.2009, Swimming Pool Hall Pripyat, commons.wikimedia.com Accessed Date:11/10/13