Balancing The Nuclear Power Debate
By Alastair Ford
February 08, 2008

Winging its way around the world in electronic form is a selection of quotations from a book called “Power to Save the World – The Truth About Nuclear Power”. The book is by Gwyneth Cravens, but it’s not her or her publishers on a promote that are causing selected extracts to land in the inboxes of journalists and other industry watchers. Rather it’s the enthusiasm of Australian analyst Warwick Grigor of Far East Capital that’s causing the increasing dissemination of Gwyneth Cravens’s views

It seems fairly clear what Mr Grigor’s own views are by the title he gives to his selection of extracts: “Time to Debunk All Those Lies About Nuclear Power That Have Been Spread By The Ferals and Pseudo-Greenies”. For those in any doubt as to what this means, a quick glance at the Concise Oxford Dictionary reveals that “feral” is in fact an adjective meaning “wild”, or “untamed”, but we like its use as a noun here. The wild and untamed “pseudo-greenies” certainly do get a hearing plenty often, though it must be conceded that here in the UK at least, the nuclear debate is often conducted on a fairly sensible and rational basis.

Still, it’s salutary to remind ourselves of some of the key points in favour of nuclear, and through Mr Grigor, Gwyneth Cravens clearly points the way. The anti-nuclear lobby tends to cite two concerns. The first is operational safety. The second is radiation and waste disposal. To deal with the first, Gwyneth Cravens goes straight to the main event – Chernobyl. Chernobyl, she says, had a graphite moderated reactor, the worst design for a power plant. There was no containment building. It was a combination of the worst design, the worst engineering, the worst shielding, the worst safety management practices, and the worst weather conditions. The main concern with modern plants, however, she says, is the possibility of steam, rather than nuclear, explosions. But all containment buildings are built to withstand such explosions, and they can also withstand core meltdowns.

As far as radiation and waste disposal is concerned, Gwyneth Cravens cites some interesting comparative statistics. For instance, she says, heavy smokers are exposed to more than 80 times the amount of radiation a nuclear power plant worker is exposed to. Those with a less self-destructive bent than a two-pack a day habit, will be equally interested to learn that the radiation exposure of a nuclear power plant worker is only around two thirds of the national average in the USA. Gwyneth Cravens also provides some interesting comparative vignettes. She reckons, for example, as quoted by Mr Grigor, that “the dispersal of chlorine from a water-purification plant would kill more people than the worst event at a nuclear plant”. More pertinently she points out that even high level exposure to natural uranium “has never caused a case of cancer in humans”, and interestingly for those talking up the green credentials of coal, that “if you went and sat on the fence of a coal-fired plant you’d… get a much bigger radiation dose than you would if it was a nuclear power plant”. In a further comparison between coal and nuclear, she finds that the waste from a lifetime’s nuclear-derived electricity would fit into a coke can, whereas the waste from a lifetime’s coal-derived electricity would amount to 68.5 tonnes worth of solid waste. While it’s no-one’s idea of fun sitting on fences next to power stations, picturing the difference between a coke can and 68.5 tonnes of solid waste is something anyone can do from behind the comfort of their own computer. Illuminating, isn’t it?

This whole argument isn’t over yet, but it’s nice to hear some something tangible from the pro-nuclear side for a change.

Gwyneth Cravens: Power To Save The World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2007