By Ronald McCoy
Introduction
Since 11th March, Japan has been reeling from an unprecedented natural disaster of awesome proportions, followed by a man-made nuclear crisis. First, a record-breaking earthquake, 8.9 on the Richter scale, off the north-eastern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. Then, a towering ten-metre tsunami which killed tens of thousands of people and destroyed almost everything in its path. Finally, the release of radioactivity into the environment from a nuclear power plant, damaged by overheating and explosions.
The earthquake had automatically shut-down the six nuclear reactors of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). But it also knocked out the power grid, forcing operators to fall back on diesel generators to keep coolant flowing into hot reactor cores of radioactive uranium and plutonium fuel rods. Then the tsunami swept in, knocked out the generators and cut off power to the plant’s cooling systems. All at once, four out of its six nuclear reactors were in dire trouble from overheating. Explosions then damaged fuel rods and the integrity of the primary containment structure, and radioactivity was released into the environment.
There are few environmental dangers more lasting or more fearsome than radiation from a nuclear accident. We saw this in the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters, and now in Fukushima. The truth of Murphy’s Law is inescapable: “If something can go wrong, sooner or later it will go wrong.”
Public health
The public health implications of nuclear power should not be subordinate to the economic considerations of the nuclear industry and government energy policies. There is a need to review the scientific evidence for public health impacts of nuclear power, to assess occupational hazards faced by nuclear industry workers, and to assess evidence that challenges the legitimacy of the underlying assumptions of nuclear safety.
A common thread running through these health concerns is the risk posed by ionising radiation. There is no safe threshold. Over the past fifty years, the claims of the nuclear industry, that nuclear power is both safe and vital for our future, have proven false and contentious.
Ionising radiation can damage DNA, causing cancer and inherited mutations. However, whether an individual develops cancer following exposure to ionising radiation depends on whether the DNA is damaged, what part of the DNA is damaged, whether the cell line can reproduce, whether the damage is completely repaired, and whether the cell completes transformations that lead to malignancy.
The most important evidence regarding risks from exposure to radiation comes from epidemiologic studies that examine incidence of cancer in exposed populations, such as children exposed to radiation in utero, people exposed to background radiation, nuclear plant workers, patients exposed to diagnostic or therapeutic radiation, and people exposed to radiation from nuclear explosions.
The risk of mutation-related damage, including cancer, is proportional to the radiation dose. There is no threshold below which ionising radiation produces no damage. This means that background radiation from any source causes cancer and genetic mutations among exposed populations.
What happens in a nuclear accident
When a reactor is operating, fuel rods containing uranium and plutonium pellets produce heat through nuclear fission and get very hot. The fuel is immersed in water and the heat produces steam, which is used to drive a turbine to produce electricity. The water also serves to keep the fuel from overheating and is continuously circulated to carry away excess heat. Even if the reactor shuts down, the fuel will remain hot for a long time and so must still be cooled.
If the pumps that circulate the cooling water are not operating, the water will heat up and evaporate, and the fuel can be exposed to the environment. At this point, the zirconium cladding on the fuel rods will start to heat up, blister, and then rupture. If the fuel is not covered by water and is exposed for a few hours, it will start to melt. The molten fuel will collect at the bottom of the steel reactor vessel, and it will be a matter of hours before the fuel melts through the steel and settles on the concrete floor of the primary containment vessel. In an accident, the amount of radioactivity released into the environment will depend on the integrity of the primary and secondary containments. The radioactive isotopes of greatest concern in a nuclear accident are iodine-131 and caesium-137.
Uncertain geological knowledge
Nuclear power requires stability - political stability and geological stability. Countries considering the option of nuclear power need to soberly assess their plans, particularly if they are located in active volcanic regions.
But geological knowledge is incomplete and imperfect. And we rely on such knowledge too heavily when making policy decisions about locating hazardous technologies.
Designed and built to withstand what is termed “design basis accidents,” nuclear power plants are usually sited in geologically stable and physically secure environments, determined by geologists. The possibility of a “design basis accident” is based on “credible events,” which are determined by an analysis of probabilities. The Fukushima disaster was a “beyond design basis accident” because the analysis was wrong. It was calculated that the probable “credible event” expected to occur in Fukushima would be an earthquake no greater than a magnitude of 7.9 and a tsunami no higher than 6.7 metres. It was not in the analysis of probabilities that Fukushima would be struck by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake or a 10-metre high tsunami. But geologists and the nuclear industry, like all human beings, sometimes get it wrong.
It is noteworthy that there are a number of unknown geological faults and processes which make it more difficult to accurately predict a “credible event.” In other words, it is very much an intelligent guessing game, but guessing it is nevertheless. Incidentally, the recent earthquake in Christchurch occurred on an unknown and unexposed geological fault, and was therefore unpredictable. In fact, damaging earthquakes have been known to originate from unknown faults.
Malaysia has so far not been traumatised by a severe earthquake or tsunami, although located on the western margins of the Pacific Rim of Fire and close to earthquake-prone Indonesia and the Philippines. But with such incomplete and imperfect geological knowledge, we cannot rule out the possibility of a damaging earthquake in the future.
Human error
But earthquakes and tsunamis are not the only causes of a nuclear accident. Human error alone can lead to a nuclear accident. It happened in Windscale (later renamed Sellafield), Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. So, it could happen in Malaysia. Building two nuclear reactors in error-inclined Malaysia would carry the potential for an incalculable catastrophe. The chances of a nuclear accident in Malaysia are not negligible.
I have heard the facetious argument that plane crashes are not sufficient reason to abandon air travel. But the scale of a nuclear accident is incomparable. Radiation could kill and injure thousands, cause cancers, and contaminate and render uninhabitable a large part of Malaysia.
Nightmare at Fukushima
Japan, the only country to have experienced nuclear warfare, now faces another nuclear nightmare. Months may pass before we can fully understand what went wrong and learn from Fukushima. It is a high price to pay for using potentially dangerous and replaceable technology. It has rekindled fading memories of Chernobyl and shifted the balance in the debate on climate change and the risks and benefits of nuclear energy.
It is forcing many countries to review the safety of their nuclear facilities and their energy policies. Germany has responded to strong public anti-nuclear sentiment by reinstating and accelerating its nuclear phase-out policy, and temporarily shutting down the oldest seven of its seventeen reactors. Both India and China, with their expanding economies and energy needs, are reviewing nuclear safety measures, but have not shelved plans to build more reactors in the next ten years.
A number of studies conclude that nuclear power cannot meet energy needs; that it is excessively expensive; that it is not carbon neutral; that it creates additional environmental and security risks. Most importantly, new evidence indicates that environmentally safe and sustainable energy technologies can be developed to meet growing energy needs.
There is a growing conviction worldwide that nuclear power should be phased out and a serious commitment made to invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy conservation.
Malaysia’s nuclear energy plans
Apparently, the Malaysian government is continuing its plans to build two 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactors, in spite of a forty percent energy reserve. In responding to the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water covered his back politically when he said that the decision to build the reactors will only be made after his colleagues in cabinet have evaluated a paper to be submitted by the new Malaysian Nuclear Power Corporation, a creature of the Economic Transformation Programme.
Serious questions are in order:
• Does the green minister believe that nuclear energy is green?
• Does the government realise that nuclear energy is dirty, dangerous and expensive?
• What is the urgency in embarking on a nuclear energy project when Malaysia enjoys a forty percent energy reserve and does not need to rush into nuclear power?
• Has the government really considered the realities of nuclear power economics?
• How much of taxpayers’ money will be required as subsidies to make nuclear power economically feasible?
• Is it wise to invest billions in expensive nuclear energy when investments should be made in alternative renewable energy and energy efficient technologies?
• Is it not time for the government to join with other governments in a holistic approach to climate change by implementing ecologically sustainable economic development?
• Has the government considered the health, environmental and human security dangers of a reactor meltdown or a terrorist attack on nuclear facilities?
• Will it be possible in the long term to prevent diversion of nuclear materials to nuclear weapons proliferation or to a terrorist group?
• Where and how does the government plan to dispose of nuclear waste, that will remain radioactive for thousands of years, when the nuclear industry and advanced countries have not found a solution?
• Does the government not think that such a crucial issue as nuclear energy deserves a national debate and a referendum?
• Does the government really think that it can make a unilateral decision and then justify it by claiming that it has studied and accepted a report from the very company that will benefit from it?
• Does the government realise that the billions of ringgit invested in nuclear energy will divert scarce resources away from the imperative of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies?
• Is the government beginning to believe its own propaganda and misinformation about nuclear energy?
Public distrust
The nuclear industry has carried the stamp of secrecy like a birthmark. From its very beginning, the nuclear industry has had a long history of cover-ups and downright deception, with the occasional lapse into silence - the silence of guilt. Public trust in the promoters of nuclear power is almost non-existent. In Britain, America, Germany, Russia, Japan and other countries, people have not been told the truth about the real economic cost of nuclear energy and the health and environmental consequences of nuclear mishaps and near-misses.
The stricken Japanese population is well aware of the culture of nuclear cover-ups. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) owns and operates the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. In 2002, Tepco’s chairman and senior executives had to resign when the Japanese government discovered that they had covered up the existence of structural damage to reactors. In 2006, Tepco admitted that it had been falsifying data about reactor coolant materials.
Vexing questions
Radiation is invisible and cannot be recalled. In a nuclear crisis, there will be many questions about radiation. As the Japanese people are now discovering, it is a nightmare trying to make sense of the uncertainties.
• How do you know when you are in danger?
• How long will this danger persist?
• How can you reduce the danger to yourself and your family?
• What level of exposure is safe?
• How do you get access to vital information in time to prevent or minimise exposure?
• What are the potential health risks and consequences of exposure?
• Whose information can you rely on or trust?
• How do you rebuild a healthy way of life in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster?
These questions are difficult to answer, and they become even more complicated when governments and the nuclear industry maintain tight
control of information, technological operations, scientific research, and the bio-medical lessons that shape public health response.
Transparency and accountability
Transparency and accountability do not sit well with an industry, addicted to filtering and censoring information. It explains why there is no clear consensus on the local and global health consequences of Fukushima.
There is no safe threshold for radiation. The claim that exposure to low-level radiation does not pose a risk to health is a myth, generated by governments and the nuclear industry. During the nuclear arms race of the Cold War, scientific findings on health risks from nuclear fallout that contradicted the official narrative were censored. Scientists with integrity were discredited, punished or blacklisted. In 1994, the US Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experimentation concluded that the literature on radiation and health during the Cold War was heavily sanitised and scripted to reassure and pacify public protests.
Decades of official censorship have reinforced the false core message: Human beings have evolved in a world where background radiation is present and is natural, and that any adverse health effect of radiation exposure is the occasional and accidental result of high levels of exposure.
There are other sources of conclusive data that allow a very different interpretation of the health hazards posed by a nuclear disaster. These include several declassified records of US and Soviet human radiation experiments, Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission records, long-term research on Chernobyl survivors, and proceedings of the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal.
From these records, some important facts have emerged. For example, nuclear fallout and radioactive contamination of ocean and land ultimately enter the food chain and the human body, and therefore represent significant health risks. Chronic exposure to radiation does more than increase the risk of cancers. It threatens the immune system, exacerbates pre-existing conditions, affects fertility, increases the rate of birth defects, and can retard physical and mental development.
Japan’s ongoing nuclear crisis demonstrates the degree to which the state prioritises security interests over the fundamental rights of people and their environment. Japan’s response to Fukushima mimics the responses of other governments to catastrophic events, such as Chernobyl and Katrina. It has been to control the content and flow of information to prevent panic and mitigate the inevitable loss of trust in the government, reduce legal liability, and protect nuclear and other industry agendas.
It is more than likely that the Malaysian government will behave in the same manner in a similar crisis. We still remember its disgraceful attempt to cover up the 1992 illegal and reprehensible dumping of radioactive thorium near Bukit Merah New Village by Mitsubishi’s Asian Rare Earth company.
There are many lessons to be learnt from Fukushima, not least of which is to recognise that nuclear energy is exceedingly dangerous and carries unacceptable, unnecessary risks to human health and the environment. In Malaysia, there must be strong public demand for transparency and accountability and an end to all plans to opt for nuclear energy.
Misleading information
Nuclear energy is not cheap, clean or safe. And yet, vested interests in the government and the nuclear industry are attempting to override common sense and reason. They continue to trumpet the imaginary virtues of nuclear power and play down the enormous cost of nuclear power, the problem of nuclear waste, and the risks of an accident. Nuclear reactors, like nuclear weapons, do not forgive mistakes of judgement, simple negligence, human error or mechanical failure. Malaysia’s poor record of industrial safety and its bad maintenance culture underlie concerns about public safety in the event of a nuclear accident.
The nuclear industry has a history of making misleading claims about nuclear safety that have often confused and misled the uninformed. Genuine debate and critical examination have been avoided, evidence ignored, opponents silenced or marginalised, and critical issues of public health and welfare have been answered with standard bland platitudes. Nuclear regulatory bodies have too often acted out of expediency and ignored the health and protection of the public.
Proliferation of nuclear weapons
Nuclear power is directly linked to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Member states of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty have the “inalienable right” to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. All civilian nuclear energy programmes provide a convenient cover, as well as the training, technology and plutonium necessary for the proliferation of nuclear weapons. That was the route taken by India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea to become nuclear weapon states. A typical 1000 megawatt reactor produces enough plutonium each year for 40 nuclear weapons.
The government of Malaysia has consistently opposed nuclear weaponry and supports the abolition of nuclear weapons. Unless circumstances change dramatically, I feel confident that policy will not change.
Radioactive nuclear waste
Nuclear power plants produce lethal radioactive waste that will remain radioactive for thousands of years. The half-life of plutonium-239 is 24,000 years and that of uranium-235 is 731 million years. We are talking about radiation forever.
No country in the world has been able to safely dispose of its nuclear waste, which is accumulating in pools or casks alongside nuclear reactors in forty-four countries, waiting for a solution. Finding satisfactory underground geologic repositories has proved to be an intractable problem. After twenty years and US$9 billion of investment, the Obama administration has declared that the proposed repository site in Yucca Mountain is “not an option.”
When questioned about nuclear waste, the nuclear industry argues that spent nuclear fuel should be reprocessed or ‘recycled’ into fresh fuel. Only the French experience with reprocessing has been technically successful, but economically it has been a failure.
If medieval man had ventured into nuclear energy, we today would still be managing his waste, assuming we had survived. Nuclear waste is not a legacy we should bequeath future generations.
Cost of nuclear energy
Cheap nuclear power is a myth. ”Too cheap to meter” was the false slogan in 1954. Forbes business magazine has described the failure of the US nuclear industry as “the largest managerial disaster in business history.”
After fifty years of substantial government subsidies, nuclear power remains prohibitively expensive. Even among business and financial communities, it is widely acknowledged that nuclear power would not be economically viable without government subsidies.
In the United States, the most important subsidy comes in the form of loan guarantees, which promise that taxpayers will bail out nuclear utility companies by paying back their loans if and when their projects fail.
The nuclear industry’s opaque methods of accounting make it difficult to determine the full economic costs of nuclear energy. Costs are often buried in generous government subsidies or conjured into debt legacies for future generations.
Tenaga Nasional Berhad claims that it could build a 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor for RM1 billion, but there is no mention of other costs. Real costs, such as operating costs, accident insurance, maintenance of reactor security, nuclear waste management and decommissioning costs, are buried in the nuclear industry’s creative, opaque methods of accounting
Capital costs remain a critical problem. Objective data on nuclear economics do not exist. Examination of the limited number of published capital cost estimates shows that the estimated capital cost of a new nuclear power plant has escalated rapidly since 2005 and that estimates are largely derived from manufacturers of reactor systems. It follows that it is extremely risky to accept a manufacturer’s estimates and to sign a contract that does not specify a fixed cost, and yet some purchasers do exactly that.
The only relatively reliable data on the costs of nuclear power come from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Finland. Within this limited data base, we know that cost overruns and construction delays are customary and that no nuclear power plant has been built within budget or a contractual time-frame.
As recent as 29 May 2009, two financial reports in the business section of the New York Times exposed the risky economics of nuclear power by highlighting two fiascos: the virtual collapse of Canada’s global flagship, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and the problems facing the French company, Areva, over the construction of a new third generation pressurised water reactor in Olkiluoto, which is four years behind schedule and more than US$2 billion over budget. Both companies were overtaken by cost overruns, amounting to billions of dollars, and long delays in completion schedules extending into decades.
A recent study in the United States, which focussed on business risks and the cost of building new nuclear power plants, identified several significant risks. The cost of capital for building new nuclear power plants has been rising much faster than inflation. Major construction delays result in cost overruns of billions of dollars. Long lead times for construction also result in a “premium risk” which increases the cost of capital. In the end, to keep afloat, new nuclear plants will have to impose high electricity rates which will make consumers very unhappy and the economy less competitive.
After more than fifty years in the business, the nuclear industry cannot attract private funding or liability insurance, cannot demonstrate an ability to build new reactors within a contractual time-frame and budget, and cannot deal with its radioactive waste.
Instead of investing billions in nuclear power, it would be far wiser and more justifiable to commit Malaysia’s limited resources to research and development of renewable sources of energy, energy conservation and energy efficiency.
Conclusion
The Malaysian government has approached the crucially important issue of nuclear energy in its customary authoritarian manner and its embrace of the private business sector. It smacks of a domineering, arrogant, undemocratic, corrupt government that has been in power for too long.
There has been no attempt to engage the people of this country in a balanced, rational, informed dialogue on a form of energy that is dirty, dangerous and expensive.
Contrary to what the government may believe, going to the polls periodically is not democracy, when freedom of speech and freedom of the press are constrained and people are intimidated by arbitrary laws, such as the Printing Press Act and the Internal Security Act, and by the large number of custodial deaths.
In the same way, funding of vested commercial and political interests in the local nuclear industry to disseminate misinformation about nuclear energy to captive audiences cannot be equated with public education about one of the most dangerous forms of energy. Everything is being done to persuade the public that nuclear energy is good for the economy, the climate and the country.
Malaysians must wake up, cast aside apathy, stand up and insist on their democratic right to have an honest, comprehensive national debate and a national referendum on nuclear energy, with independent oversight.
I call on the people of Malaysia to form a people’s coalition to mount a national campaign against the introduction of nuclear energy.
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