nuclear power

1.This house believes that all states have a right to nuclear weapons.The sense of doom in us today is not a fear of nuclear power. It is a fear of war. Nuclear weapons have enlarged the mechanism of war by threatening to kill more people more secretly and more horribly than those of the past. The nightmare of Hiroshima is vivid memory. Since there is no way to outlaw a war, the only alternative is to go nuclear in the hope that nuclear weapons hidden in stock somewhere serve to maintain world peace by theory of counter-attack. Should anything wrong happen, it could mean mass destruction to human lives.Nuclear energy is cheap and clean. It is a solution to an energy crisis at a time when other forms of generating electricity are facing limits. Already power plants have been in operation in a number of countries. These are successful examples to be followed. And it comes as no surprise that more power plants are being built for peaceful use. In all appearances, the fear of war is overcome by the need for economc development.There are reasons to believe that the benefits of nuclear power will overweigh the disadvantages in the long run. Besides, there is no going back. The feeling of mutual trust on the international front must prevail in order to ensure lasting peace. It is generally agreed that nuclear weapons should be the last thing to be thought of as a means to win a war because there would be no winner in any nuclear conflict. The scale of destruction on human lives and civilization is beyond imagination.In spite of reasonable fear for a nuclear war, nuclear know-how is not warlike. Rather, it is a by-product of warlike society. The nuclear science and technology have provided the means, for good or for bad. And the world must seize it for good, for peaceful use forever.大亚湾核电站Nuclear power safety experts at the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station in Shenzhen assured the public on Thursday that two nuclear power plants at the station posed no safety threat to residents in Hong Kong and Guangdong province.Chen Tai, training department manager of the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Operations and Management Co Ltd, noted that Daya Bay has an important geographical advantage and boasts significantly advanced technology over the earthquake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan."The nuclear crisis in Japan is not likely to take place in our nuclear power station, and worries over the risk of nuclear explosion are unnecessary," said Chen, who had previously been a senior operator in the power station's central control room for more than a decade.He explained that, unlike the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, the one in Daya Bay was built on a stable crust, at least 100 kilometers away from the junction of the Eurasian Tectonic Plate and the Pacific Plate, where crustal movements are active and often result in earthquakes. Earthquakes over magnitude 5 have never been recorded within 20 kilometers of Daya Bay, he noted.Meanwhile, thanks to a wide neritic zone at the continental shelf, along with a series of islands scattered on the south-eastern sea of Daya Bay, impact of a tsunami, if any, would be reduced to a minimum."We closely study the experiences and lessons we learnt from the nuclear crisis in Japan, especially the improvements of accident reporting," said Qiao Enju, who is in charge of accident reporting mechanisms at the nuclear power station.Qiao said that the power station will carry out accident rehearsals in June and November and the latter will include scenarios like the one in Japan.Acknowledging the station's high safety standards, Professor Dennis Leung from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hong Kong added a note of caution."I believe that Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station has the best security measures, though most of the time accidents are unpredictable," he said."It may seem safe now, but when an accident happens, you don't know how they will react," said Leung, an expert in environmental engineering and energy conversion.He told China Daily that no matter what the percentage of uranium is, once the cooling system of a nuclear plant is broken or malfunctions, there is a chance of a core meltdown, which may lead to nuclear leakage and radiation."Natural disasters or human errors can all cause breakdowns of the cooling system. The worst case scenario would be that the temperature inside the nuclear reactor rises to 2,000 to 3,000 degrees Celsius. Under those circumstances, the surface of uranium will start to melt," he said."Even if there is no explosion, we still can't eliminate this possibility (of meltdown)."By the end of 2011, all levels of accidents will be reported to the CLP company, which owns 25 percent of the shares of the power station and acquires 70 percent of the power it produces. Those accidents are categoried from the lightest level 0 to the severest level 7.Accidents above level 2 shall be reported within 15 minutes, while rest harmless ones shall be reported to the public within two days, according to Chan Siu-hung, corporate development director of the CLP.Debate: Nuclear energyWestern forces are striking Libya on the pretext of fighting a "tyrant", once again underscoring that oil is the primary cause of much of the modern world's conflicts. Iraq was attacked by United States-led forces in 2003 for the same reason and because Saddam Hussein refused to follow the example of many other countries in the region and favor the US and the European UnionNot many people know that the US Department of Defense consumes close to 500,000 barrels of oil a day. Modern warfare is fuelled by oil, which is needed to keep aircraft, ships, tanks, trucks and other fighting vehicles moving, and to power missiles and rockets.Since the end of World War II, the US and the European powers have stitched together a network of alliances to ensure cheap and easy access to oil. In countries whose leaderships are not close to them, such as Venezuela, they support regime change, as they did in Iraq - and now want to do in Libya.And let us not forget the immense damage caused to the environment by fossil fuels, which emit pollutants that in turn cause many diseases and the deaths of millions of people. Yet despite such an abysmal record, the oil lobby in developed countries continues to ensure that the spotlight is trained on theonly energy that can become a substitute within a decade, that is, nuclear energy.After the man-made nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986, several theories were floated about the number of people who died because of radiation and radiation-related diseases. Some estimates put the death toll fromradiation-related diseases at more than 175,000, while even the lowest estimates spoke of 10,000.As US writer Gwyneth Cravens says, the group of 226,000 workers active in cleaning up the Chernobyl facility surroundings "received an average body dose of 1,000 millirems, less than they would have received from nature if they had moved to (the US) northeastern (state of) Washington for a year". She says that studies conducted on more than 500,000 workers involved in the cleanup "failed to find any correlation between the increased exposure to radiation and a rise in cancer or death rates". Ten years ago, a United Nations committee concluded that at Chernobyl, "there is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality".But thanks to the immense reach of the oil lobby, such facts are kept hidden from the public, which is given daily doses of stories on the "dangers of nuclear power".In India, foreign agencies which eager to ensure that the country does not develop into an economic superpower have been known to clandestinely fund protests and agitations against nuclear power and uranium mining. People living around nuclear power facilities - or a newly selected nuclear power plant site - are told that their lives are at risk, and that they should oppose nuclear power plants and uranium mining. India suffers from a serious shortage of uranium because powerful, hostile lobbies prevent the mining of this essential metallic element.Outside interests opposed to the nuclear industry in Asian countries are aware that without this technology no country can continue to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Sadly, many officials, too, believe in such falsehoods. In the Chernobyl region, for example, a longstanding practice has been to blame every death on the 1986 nuclear accident so that more foreign funds can be secured.Not all types of radiation are harmful, and precaution can be taken against even the most harmful ones. That's why an overwhelming majority of scientists favor nuclear energy to that generated by burning coal or oil.How many people are aware that in the US alone, more than 30,000 people die each year because of the ill-effects associated with coal-based powerplants. The figure must be even higher in developing countries such as China and India.In contrast, less than 10 people have died because of the radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, which has been the focus of media attention. Instead of viewing the Fukushima experience as a reason to avoid nuclear plants, we should realize that even in this purported horrific disaster the number of deaths were very few.Although many governments are aware that the actual risk is low, they have sought to become popular among their public by raising the Fukushima scare further. The governments of many developed countries have asked their citizens living in Japan to leave and/or advised people back home, or not to visit that country at least for the time being. In fact, the radiation caused by the X-ray machines at airports and flights is many times more than any possible risk from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant.The United Kingdom government has even distributed iodine tablets among its nationals in Tokyo, even though the Japanese capital is far away from Fukushima and iodine can protect only the thyroid gland, not other organs of the human body. In case there is a high-level radiation, the iodine tablets so generously given by the UK embassy in Tokyo will ensure that a radiation victim's thyroid gland remains healthy while the rest of his/her body suffers. It should be kept in mind that several top oil companies in the world are based in the UK.China, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa (BRICS countries) should use their upcoming summit in Hainan province, China, as a platform to start a program to inform their people about the importance of nuclear energy. The people of these important countries need to be warned not to fall prey to the panic created against nuclear energy and force their governments to abandon nuclear power, compelling them to remain dependent on the oil lobby.It's time BRICS countries established a "Nuclear Information and Safety Forum" to promote and develop this important form of energy, and spread harmony and prosperity through it.The author is vice-chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace chair and professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, India.By Benjamin K. SovacoolMany people are again presenting nuclear power as a solution to the world's energy demands because of the constraints associated with coal and the fearof oil prices shooting through the roof, and because the reality of global warming has started to hit home.But can nuclear power provide what we are all looking for: a reliable, affordable, sustainable, secure and now low-carbon source of electricity?When the full nuclear fuel cycle is considered - not only reactors but also uranium mines and mills, enrichment facilities, spent fuel repositories and decommissioning sites - nuclear power proves to be one of the costliest sources of energy. Nuclear plants are capital intensive and the high capital costs result in higher charges by electricity generators. This either ends up with high costs for customers, or significant government funds being expended on subsidies, or both.A study of construction costs of nuclear power facilities across five countries has found that quotes by industry were unreliable, conservative and that construction was subject to costly project overruns which sometimes doubled the cost of building the plant.Since most Asian nuclear programs are new, decommissioning costs for Asian governments are largely unknown. Historical data from the United States and the United Kingdom indicate huge decommissioning costs of $300 million to $5.6 billion per nuclear power facility. Assessment of decommissioning by the US General Accounting Office show that decommissioning costs have exceeded plant revenue by more than $4 billion.Moreover, nuclear power is reliant on uranium availability and uranium prices, like oil and natural gas, and highly volatile. This means uncertain uranium prices can have a grave impact on plant operating costs. Such price movement is hard to anticipate when some of the countries, responsible for more than 30 percent of the world's uranium production, are politically unstable.To plan for long-term energy solutions, fuel availability needs to be assessed beyond 2020, when future plants in Asia will be operational. The International Atomic Energy Agency expects that primary supply of uranium (all newly mined and processed uranium) will meet only 4 to 6 percent of total demand in 2025, and secondary supply (highly enriched uranium, enriched uranium inventories, mixed oxide fuel, reprocessed uranium and depleted uranium tails) will meet 8 to 11 percent of the world demand.The implication is clear: a huge shortfall is likely to exist between uranium supply and demand. Even on optimistic assumptions of fuel availability, global reserves of uranium will only support a growth in nuclear power of 2 percent and be available for 70 years.Furthermore, the nuclear fuel cycle involves some of the most dangerous elements known to humankind. These elements include more than 100 dangerous radionuclides and carcinogens such as strontium-90, iodine-131 and cesium-137, which are the same toxins found in the fallout of nuclear weapons.In addition to questions about the safe handling of such elements, the nuclear fuel cycle presents numerous other environmental risks.Nuclear energy is highly water intensive. Nuclear plants use 25 to 50 percent more water per unit of electricity generated than fossil fuel plants with equivalent cooling systems. That's why during periods of drought many nuclear facilities either cannot operate or induce water shortages. The average US plant operating on an open-loop cooling system withdraws 216 million liters of water and consumes 125 millio n liters every day.Nuclear plants and uranium mining contaminate water, too, and the methods used to draw water and exclude debris through screens kill marine and riparian life, setting in place a destructive chain of events for ocean/river systems.About 10,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel is discharged each year from existing nuclear facilities, because nuclear plants convert most of their fuel to waste (only 15 percent can be reprocessed).On average, a plant produces 30 tons of waste a year and this waste can be radioactive for up to 250,000 years. The lowest available estimate for the storage of 1 ton of nuclear waste is $35,000 a year, so that's a minimum cost per facility of over $1 million a year for the conceivable future.The main problem caused by nuclear waste however is where to store it, since even nuclear waste processed in storage casts will take at least 10,000 years to reach levels of radiation considered safe for human exposure. With five waste streams that can contaminate and degrade land, suitable sites for storage are hard to find.It is true that the carbon footprint of electricity generated by nuclear energy is less than that of coal, natural gas and oil fired facilities.But when emissions from uranium mining, milling and spent fuel conditioning are added to the emissions associated with plant construction, operation and decommissioning, a typical reactor emits about 66 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent for every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced.This figure, which is more than any single source of renewable electricity, is likely to increase significantly as more energy intensive uranium enrichment isrequired once high quality uranium ores are exhausted. The Oxford Research Group has estimated that by 2050, nuclear electricity will have the same carbon footprint as natural gas.In addition to the catastrophes at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, there has been at least one nuclear incident and on average $332 million awarded in damages every year for the past three decades.Although the nuclear industry says it has learned from its mistakes and that new technology and strict supervision have made plants much safer, 57 accidents have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, with two-thirds of them taking place in the US.Planning our energy future is difficult. Nuclear, renewable and fossil fuel-based energy sources all have trade-offs - security versus reliability, affordability versus carbon emissions, and capital intensity versus environmental impact, to name a few. And policymakers everywhere can never be too cautious in building nuclear power plants.The author is an assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.。