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Lady Barbara Judge, chairman emeritus, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, told ACE’s conference that Fukushima will not be “that big a deal” for the prospects of the nuclear industry.
Lady Judge explained that in countries where nuclear energy was already under pressure it would remain under pressure. But she suggested that China, the USA, the UK and other countries committed to nuclear energy would go unchanged.
The UK’s report on what happened in Japan concluded it was unlikely to happen in Britain. Meanwhile, although the EU plans to stress test the nuclear industry, Lady Judge suggested this would have little impact on nuclear energy in the UK.
For context on where the industry stands, Lady Barbara Judge noted there were 440 operating nuclear power stations in the world, 61 under development and 150 planned. She then suggested that three questions - energy security, energy dependence and the environment - were crucial to energy plans, and nuclear energy answered them all.
Lady Judge said that a nuclear power plant can produce a great deal of energy in your own country, and that there was a lot of fuel waiting to be dug out of the ground once it becomes profitable to do so. At the same time nuclear energy avoided the need to burn fossil fuels and pollute the air.
So she pondered why it was that nuclear had not been adopted as the answer for so long.
Part of the answer to that was Chernobyl. Old technology, badly maintained and not having a reactor pressure vessel meant Chernobyl was a disaster waiting to happen. Worse still, it was dealt with terribly and the Russians did very little right with the situation.
Three Mile Island, on the other hand, was a success. She explained that the shut down worked and no one was hurt. So Lady Judge noted that this should have been a good news story. It wasn’t, however, because a major film a few weeks before stoked fear of nuclear accidents among the public there.
In order to push nuclear forward, Lady Judge then suggested that the industry had to face p to a number of “Ps”
First, she said, was politics. In the UK it took time to convince Tony Blair that nuclear energy was a good base-load option for the UK’s energy needs. It offered a solution to climate change and the energy gap. Beyond that politics went further and gained support among the Conservatives too. They agreed this should not be a party political issue.
Next will be planning, and Lady Judge noted that plants would be built in remote areas with infrastructure to support them, rather than near to communities.
Then, Lady Judge suggested people remained a problem for the industry. Too many smart guys were being well educated and then sent to the money markets to become financial engineers rather than real engineers. The skills shortage would have to be overcome.
Next would be price. Lady Judge warned that nuclear energy remains expensive. A new power plant costs a lot of money and the UK government, uniquely around the world, is adamant that taxpayers will not foot any part of the bill.
Once plants were being built, Lady Judge warned that parts might become another concern. There remains only so much capacity for producing reactors and the parts of reactors that every new plant needs. This may result in queues and a slowing down of construction, though new production should start up to meet the demand for parts.
Finally Lady Judge highlighted concerns about processing waste. She stressed that there was a solution to nuclear waste in deep geological storage. In Finland a huge lined cavern is being built under ground. This will be good for 1,000 years of storage and the material remains retrievable if science offers a new alternative along the way.
In regards to what happens after 1,000 years, Lady Judge noted this was a remarkable question. Such a long period was hard to conceive even in 2010.
Concluding her speech, Lady Judge told delegates that nuclear energy got a great deal of attention following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Yet she added that no one died of radiation poisoning. Indeed she noted that forty year old technology in those plants survived a major earthquake well.
Meanwhile every year in America, she said, 24,000 people die from air pollution and the risk of dying in a car accident this year in America remained one in eighty-eight.
So perhaps people fear radiation that is less likely to kill them than a lightening strike because it appears “magical”. Lady Judge explained that radiation is invisible and hard to grasp. She also noted that the Simpsons have spent decades asserting the view that nuclear power is evil.
So she emphasised that while the delegates in front of her would understand the benefits of nuclear energy, the key message was to ensure that the context is not lost on politicians and the public in the wake of Fukushima.
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