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The nuclear danger
ON 11 SEPTEMBER, the day of the terrorist attacks in the US,
the Financial Times coincidentally carried an editorial arguing that Tony Blair
should approve the opening of a long-disputed mixed-oxide (Mox) nuclear
processing plant at Sellafield. The Mox plant, built as an attachment to the
Thorp reprocessing plant, will take plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear
fuel and make it into new fuel pellets for reactors.
A former nuclear weapons specialist at Aldermaston, Dr Frank
Barnaby, stated last May that running the new plant would ‘make it virtually
inevitable that terrorists will acquire the plutonium they want from the fuel,
and make nuclear weapons with it’. They could intercept it while it is being
shipped around the world, and it would not be ‘technically demanding’ to
convert it into nuclear bombs which could be used with devastating effect. He
declared that ‘a second-year undergraduate’ would be able to do it. Other
reports – including those by the Royal Society (a British scientific body) and
the US government’s Office of Arms Control and Non-proliferation – have
pointed out the ease with which terrorists could make plutonium-based bombs.
Blair, in whipping up support for British involvement in the
US military retaliation following 11 September, also warned that terrorists
would make nuclear bombs ‘if they could’. Despite his own warning, as well
as those of others, he proceeded to follow the advice of the top financiers and
took the decision, on 3 October, to allow the Mox plant to go ahead. This
decision follows five ‘consultations’ over the licensing of the plant since
it was built in 1996. The government justified the decision by saying that the
Office for Civilian Nuclear Security has declared there to be no risk attached
to the new plant. But this ‘security’ body is financed by the government’s
Department of Trade and Industry, the same department that owns and controls
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) which, in turn, runs the Sellafield nuclear
complex.
In Ireland there is great anger about the radioactive
material that is pumped from Sellafield into the Irish Sea and fear of the
consequences of a nuclear accident or terrorist attack on Sellafield. Reflecting
this, Irish energy minister, Joe Jacob, described Blair’s decision as ‘incomprehensible’.
He said that his government will exploit ‘every legal avenue’ to try to stop
it. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are also considering legal action, using
European Union or United Nations laws or conventions. Under European law, the
plant has to be economically viable to justify its radioactive discharges.
Challenges are being made on this issue because BNFL has only managed to obtain
orders from Germany and Switzerland for Mox fuel, orders that would require just
40% of the plant’s capacity.
The biggest generator of nuclear energy in Britain,
privatised British Energy, has refused to use Mox fuel. Japan had been lined up
as a key buyer, but pulled out in 1999 when it was revealed that BNFL had forged
quality control records for early versions of the fuel.
BNFL has been accused of using ‘voodoo economics’,
because in forecasting that the Mox plant would make a profit of £216 million
over ten years, it disregarded the £470 million spent on building the plant!
Even the above quoted Financial Times editorial pointed out that reprocessing is
expensive, risky to the environment, unpopular, and that plentiful supplies of
uranium make reprocessed fuel unattractive (mined uranium is cheaper than
reprocessed uranium). But it ended up by concluding that more money would be
lost by mothballing the plant than by operating it.
The government argues that the nuclear industry as a whole
is important for environmental reasons, as no greenhouse gases are produced. But
no safe means of disposing of nuclear waste has ever been developed, so future
generations are being handed the burden of radioactive waste which will last for
over 100,000 years. A government document, Managing Radioactive Waste Safely,
which was held back for over a year, was finally released on 12 September, the
day after the US terrorist attacks! This was a desperate attempt to hide the
devastating nature of the waste problem, along with government incompetence and
vested interests. The document says that there is so much plutonium and uranium
in storage that it is not possible to safely and economically adapt enough
reactors to burn it. Despite the scale of the problem, BNFL is continually
producing more uranium and plutonium, and insists on calling these highly
dangerous wastes ‘assets’ rather than liabilities.
In addition to the risk of terrorists grabbing plutonium,
there is the new realisation that if an aeroplane was flown into a nuclear
plant, the resulting disaster would be at least on the scale of the Chernobyl
nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine in 1986. The reprocessing plants at Sellafield
and Cap de la Hague would be particular targets, because they are the only
reprocessing plants in Europe outside of Russia, and contain huge tanks of
highly radioactive material that is not even partially protected by concrete
shields as it is in reactors. Since 11 September, attention has also been drawn
to the danger of nuclear waste being transported from nuclear power stations
around Britain to Sellafield. Up to 200 trains each year carry nuclear waste
through central London!
The government was planning to privatise 49% of BNFL.
However, this has been postponed due to BNFL’s severe financial problems (a
loss of £210 million last year) and concerns over the Mox plant. In addition,
the government will face increased public alarm over this privatisation due both
to fear of terrorism and experience of safety standards in the privatised rail
industry.
British Energy is currently trying to off-load a £3 billion
bill for nuclear waste disposal onto the tax payer, leaving working-class people
to face the bill for the corporation’s long-term liabilities and investments.
BNFL is trying to off-load these costs before part-privatisation has even
occurred by requesting that £60 billion of its liabilities are split off into a
separate company which would remain in the public sector!
Nuclear energy is not cheap. Natural gas is presently the
cheapest form of energy and coal is forecast to be cheaper than nuclear energy.
The government’s own energy review team estimated that by 2020, nuclear power
will remain more expensive than even wind generation. However, with the
knowledge that all but one of Britain’s nuclear power stations are due to
close by 2023, BNFL wants the government to agree to the construction of 20 new
nuclear stations during the next 20 years. As well as claiming that nuclear
energy is environmentally friendly, BNFL has resorted to arguing that uranium
comes from ‘stable’ countries such as Australia and Canada, whereas gas is
supplied by ‘unstable’ areas of the world, such as Russia and North Africa.
New Labour declared in its 1997 election manifesto that there was no case for
new reactors. This was withdrawn in the 2001 manifesto and, unannounced, the
government is now participating in a US-led global project on the building of
new nuclear power stations. Blair appointed a pro-nuclear energy minister and,
although Blair told parliament that an expansion of nuclear power is not on his
agenda, he said nothing about the replacement of old stations by new ones.
The part-privatisation of BNFL and the building of new
nuclear reactors must be vigorously opposed. Aside from the threat of terrorism,
the constant risk of a catastrophic accident and the short- and long-term
dangers posed by nuclear waste make nuclear power an unacceptable energy source
in its present form. Socialists must also argue for immediate decommissioning of
existing plants. This would not mean the loss of workers' jobs in the industry
as they would be needed for many years in work associated with decommissioning,
and could then be transferred to much safer means of energy production.
Judy Beishon
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