Chain Reaction #115, August 2012, www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction
Interesting times in the uranium sector. The mining companies have had a few wins since the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, but they’ve had more to commiserate.
Bill Repard, organiser of the Paydirt Uranium Conference held in Adelaide in February, put on a brave face with his claim that: “The sector’s hiccups in the wake of Fukushima are now over with, the global development of new nuclear power stations continues unabated and the Australian sector has literally commenced a U-turn in every sense,” Mr Repard said.
Yet for all the hype, uranium accounts for a lousy 0.03 percent of Australian export revenue and a negligible 0.02 percent of Australian jobs. The industry’s future depends on the nuclear power ‘renaissance’, but global nuclear power capacity has been stagnant for the past 20 years and if there is any growth at all in the next 20 years, it will be modest.
The uranium price tanked after the Fukushima disaster and so far there is no sign of a bounce. Current prices are too low to allow the smaller uranium wannabes to proceed with any confidence.
In South Australia, BHP Billiton’s plan for a massive expansion of the Olympic Dam copper/uranium mine has yet to be approved by the company board, with recent rumblings that the project may be put on the slow-track. Japanese company Mitsui recently pulled out the Honeymoon uranium mine as it “could not foresee sufficient economic return from the project”. Marathon Resources’ plan to mine uranium has been terminated by a state government decision to protect the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary − a decision made all the easier by the company’s licence breaches during exploration.
The industry also has problems in the Northern Territory. A Traditional Owner veto has put an end to plans to mine Koongarra, and plans are in train to incorporate the mining lease into Kakadu National Park. Energy Resources of Australia has abandoned plans to use heap leach mining at the Ranger mine, though an exploratory drilling program has recently commenced. Water management problems continue to plague the mining and milling of uranium at Ranger. At various times in recent years, both the NT Country Liberal Party and the Labor Party have opposed plans to build a mine at Angela Pamela, a short distance from Alice Springs and an even shorter distance from the town’s water supply.
In Queensland, the new Liberal National Party government has so far stuck to its pre-election promise to prohibit uranium mining. That may change, but in any case Queensland is home to no more than around three percent of Australia’s uranium reserves. The NSW Liberal Party government has recently passed legislation to permit uranium exploration − but exploration in earlier decades yielded little of interest.
Western Australia
Western Australia is now the key uranium battleground. The Liberal Party state government supports uranium mining. State Labor policy is to oppose uranium mining but party leader Mark McGowan says that any mines that have received state government approvals would not be stopped by an incoming Labor government.
As elsewhere, it has been a miserable year for the uranium mining wannabes in WA. At least two projects have been put on hold. The only company with any chance of receiving government approvals before the 2013 state election is Toro Energy, which is pursuing plans to mine about 12,000 tonnes of uranium at Wiluna in the Goldfields.
You’d think that Toro Energy might keep a low profile given the political sensitivities. Not so. The company has been loudly defending TEPCO, the notorious operator of the crippled Fukushima plant − even in the face of overwhelming evidence of TEPCO’s record of safety breaches and cover-ups.
Still more controversially, Toro Energy has paid for a number of speaking tours by fringe scientists who claim that exposure to low-level radiation is harmless or even beneficial to human health. Fourty-five Australian medical doctors recently signed a statement calling on Toro Energy to stop promoting junk science and noting that recent scientific research has heightened concern about exposure to radon, the main source of radiation exposure to uranium miners.
The WA Conservation Council is leading the battle to stop Toro Energy opening up the state’s first uranium mining, and has established a website to challenge the company’s claims. The Conservation Council has also produced a detailed ‘Alternative Annual Report’ raising a host of concerns about Toro Energy and its plan to mine at Wiluna. A ‘Toro Watch’ website has been established to hold the company to account for its jiggery pokery and shenanigans (www.toro.org.au).
The history of uranium exploration in the Goldfields is one of the obstacles facing Toro Energy. Uranium exploration in the 1980s left a legacy of pollution and contamination. Radiation levels more than 100 times normal background readings have been recorded despite the area being ‘cleaned’ a decade ago. Even after the ‘clean up’, the Wiluna exploration site was left with rusting drums containing uranium ore, and a sign reading ‘Danger − low level radiation ore exposed’ was found lying face down in bushes.
In August 2000, Steve Syred, coordinator of the Wiluna-based Marruwayura Aboriginal Corporation, said that until about 1993, 100−150 people were living at an old mission three kilometres from the spot where high radiation levels were recorded. Mr. Syred told the Kalgoorlie Miner that the Aboriginal community had unsuccessfully resisted uranium exploration in the area in the early 1980s. Since then many people had lived in the area while the Ngangganawili Aboriginal Corporation was based near the site. Elders still hunted in the area.
More than 5,000 tonnes of radioactive tailings from the Yeelirrie uranium deposit, near Wiluna, were buried just north of Kalgoorlie after BHP stopped processing ore there in the 1980s. Earlier this year, damage to a security gate allowed children to enter the site on dirt bikes. BHP Billiton said it would improve security.
There is also concern in Kalgoorlie about plans to establish a uranium transport hob in the suburb of Parkeston, a few hundred metres from the Ninga Mia Aboriginal Community. That concern may be premature − it remains to be seen if there will be any uranium to transport.
Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia.
EPA approval of Wiluna mine appealed
In June, nine appeals were lodged against the WA EPA’s approval of the Wiluna uranium mine proposal the previous month. The appeals will be heard by an appeals committee and considered by WA environment minister Bill Marmion.
Notwithstanding the EPA decision, further state government approvals are required before mining can proceed as well as Commonwealth approvals.
The Environmental Defenders Office lodged a detailed appeal on behalf of the Conservation Council of WA. CCWA director Piers Verstegen said: “We do not believe that the EPA assessment adequately deals with critical environmental risks including the management of radioactive mine tailings, contamination of groundwater and the transport of radioactive material through WA communities.”
Aboriginal elder and Wiluna resident Glen Cooke lodged a separate challenge. Mr Cooke’s video appeal is posted at wanfa.org.au and at youtube.com/user/BUMPcollective. Mr Cooke said: “Toro Energy they only talk to a few people, always the same people. It’s not right, the people from Bondini sometimes they don’t know about meetings, or their not invited to meetings or they can’t get to meetings. This is not right.” (Bondini is the community closest to the proposed mine.)
“Marmion and [federal environment minister] Burke they will be making a big decision that will affect our community our dreaming and our health. Before they make a decision on what happens in our community, before signing away our country from many thousands of kilometres away they should come and look us in the eyes.”
You can help Mr Cooke and his community stand up and say no to uranium mining by signing the online petition at ccwa.org.au/saynototoro
Chain Reaction #115, August 2012, www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction/
Travelling to Maralinga for the first time after hearing so much about the effects the British nuclear blasts had on Indigenous people and Australian and British personnel, I didn’t know what to expect. I think I expected some sort of overwhelming physical evidence of the blasts, but what appeared was a space full of much remnant history and memory.
I travelled with Australian nuclear veteran, Avon Hudson and Dr. Mick Broderick from Murdoch University. Avon’s name is synonymous with Maralinga − he worked there during the bomb tests and, from the 1970s onwards, has done more than anyone to lift the lid on the scandals that took place. His reward has been 40 years of abuse. Mick is an academic whose research interests include ‘nuclearism and apocalypse as a cultural phenomenon’.
We’d waited for six months to get permission to enter Maralinga-Tjarutja lands, in particular the Maralinga village and testing sites. The village and surrounding sites were handed back to the Maralinga-Tjarutja people in 2009, though many areas remain radioactive. The ‘clean up’ in the late 1990s − the fourth but probably not the last − was sharply criticised by scientists-turned-whistleblowers.
Upon arrival we were let in by one of the two caretakers, Robin Matthews, who with his partner Della manages the Maralinga Village and surrounding areas, looks after tour groups and visitors.
The next day we set about exploring the village area and Avon took us to the airfield, next to which is one of the many waste pits where plutonium and cobalt-60 are still buried. We had to wait another day to visit the Forward Area where the nuclear blasts took place.
Veterans were organising a reunion for Remembrance Day 11/11/11 in the village and they had invited Avon, who then invited me. The veterans came from all over the country to catch up and share stories. Most veterans have long since died. How many died as a result of their work on the nuclear blasts is the subject of endless controversy. A scientific study found clear evidence of increased cancer rates among veterans; but for governments and nuclear apologists, science is overrated.
I chatted with some vets who told me they weren’t impacted physically or psychologically from their time at Maralinga, and that they had a simple job of going to Watson (the closest rail-stop) and collecting supplies to bring back to the village. These veterans remember the benefits of living out at Maralinga, the cricket pitch, the football field, the swimming pool, cinema, bar and mess hall.
Later we were privileged to sit down with some of the old ladies from Oak Valley Community, Margaret May and Aida Hart, and also Leena Taylor from Ceduna. They talk about their memories of being removed from Ooldea soak during the nuclear blasts and taken to Yalata Mission.
“We heard the sounds: one, two, three …” they say, referring to the first bombs at Emu Field, including the blast that blinded Yami Lester at the age of 10 at Walatinna Station, where he still lives today. “People could feel it as far away as Yalata.”
They say they knew that something bad was happening because of all the whitefellas and trucks around.
Leena questions whether it’s really that safe for communities to live around here and go hunting; she prompts the government to explain. All around the forward area sites, as we see later, there are signs up that say “kuka palya, ngura wiya” –”the food is ok [to hunt/eat], no camping”.
Even after the hand-back of land to the Maralinga Tjarutja people, the area still isn’t being used − people think the land is poisoned and don’t want to be there. The land is still poisoned − that much we know from the scientists-turned-whistleblowers, and from Avon’s first-hand knowledge of the place. The Howard government claimed the latest ‘clean up’ was ‘world’s best practice’. The Menzies government claimed the bomb tests posed no risk to man nor beast. Governments lie. Then and now, paid hack scientists and so-called regulators parrot government lies; it’s just easier that way.
Avon reminisces: “The countdown was on … and then it went bang, and they had to have the wind blowing the right way, blowin’ it away from where we were working, they didn’t want to contaminate all the area, they’d have to abandon it otherwise.
“The area became highly toxic as well as highly radioactive, but no-one ever told us, the scientists knew, but no-one told us Australians, and some of the English personnel that worked along side us.”
Ground Zero
On day three we visit the Forward Area, to see ground zero of some of the seven Maralinga nuclear explosions − named One Tree, Marcoo, Kite, Breakaway, Tadje, Biak, and Taranaki.
Avon speaks alot about Taranaki; he was ordered to work here not long after a blast had taken place. Some military personnel were ordered to roll around in ground zero dust shortly after nuclear blasts; the British later claimed they were testing the effects of radiation on clothing. This place was also used for so-called ‘minor trials’ or ‘safety tests ‘ which left a greater legacy of local contamination than the atomic tests which spread their pollution across Australia and beyond.
A plinth sits in every space where a bomb was exploded:
WARNING
RADIATION HAZARD
RADIATION LEVELS FOR A FEW HUNDRED METRES AROUND THIS POINT MAY BE ABOVE THOSE CONSIDERED SAFE FOR PERMANENT OCCUPATION
And on the other side (depending on the bomb):
TEST SITE
TARANAKI
A BRITISH ATOMIC WEAPON WAS TEST EXPLODED HERE ON 9 OCT 1957
Lunch is prepared for the veterans in the shelter of a large shed. The shed was the site for trucks to get washed down after the latest clean up attempt at Maralinga. It isn’t the place to be preparing and eating food.
Avon talks as we walk down and around the plinth. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking, to look back 50 years and see yourself as a young man, participating in a dark episode of Empire history. He feels betrayed. He was betrayed. Talking is cathartic for Avon; it releases a little anger and frustration, if only momentarily. His anger is infectious.
The last day at Maralinga. The evening is purple and pink after a big rain that helps wash away the dust. I wander around the empty concrete slabs where buildings used to be. I listen to birds chirping madly. Radioactive birds, perhaps; just this week, swallow droppings around the Sellafield nuclear site in northern England have been found to be radioactive − apparently their mistake is to eat radioactive mosquitoes. Closer to home, birds drop dead after drinking from tailings ponds at the Olympic Dam uranium mine − oases in the desert.
It gets dark and I head back. Avon is there chatting away to Mick. I make a cup of tea on our camp stove and toast to getting the hell out of here.
Toro Energy is an Australian company involved in uranium exploration in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia and in Namibia, Africa. The company’s most advanced project is the proposed Wiluna uranium mine in the WA Goldfields.
Toro Energy has consistently promoted the fringe scientific view that exposure to low-level radiation is harmless. Toro Energy has sponsored at least three speaking visits to Australia by Canadian scientist Dr Doug Boreham, who argues that low-level radiation is actually beneficial to human health.
Those views are at odds with mainstream scientific evidence and expert assessment. For example:
A 2010 report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation states that “the current balance of available evidence tends to favour a non-threshold response for the mutational component of radiation-associated cancer induction at low doses and low dose rates.”
The 2006 report of the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) of the US National Academy of Sciences states that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.” The report also concludes that claims that low-level radiation exposure may be beneficial to human health are “unwarrranted”.
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US) in 2003 concluded that: “Given that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.”
It is irresponsible for Toro Energy to consistently promote fringe scientific views and to ignore mainstream scientific evidence and expert assessment.
Even more alarming is that Toro Energy has sponsored “employee radiation training” by Dr Boreham. Recent scientific research has heightened concern about exposure to radon, the main source of radiation doses to uranium industry workers. In 2009, the International Commission on Radiological Protection concluded that radon gas delivers almost twice the radiation dose to humans as originally thought and the Commission is in the process of reassessing permissible levels. Previous dose estimates to miners need to be approximately doubled to accurately reflect the lung cancer hazard.
We call on Toro Energy to stop promoting fringe scientific views to uranium industry workers and to the public at large.
Signatories (all medical doctors working in Australia, or retired from working in Australia):
1. Margaret Beavis MBBS FRACGP
2. Peter Karamoskos MBBS, FRANZCR
3. Hilary Tyler MBChB, FACEM
4. Tilman Ruff MBBS (Hons), FRACP
5. Jenny Grounds MBBS, DRANZCOG, Grad Dip Med Acup.
6. Bill Williams MBBS
7. Rosalie Schultz MBBS, FAFPHM
8. James Rossiter AM, DU Deakin Honoris Causa, FRACP, FRCP Ed, MRCS, LRCP, MMSA, DCH, DObstRCOG
9. Rachel Darken MBBS, DPM
10. Michael Fonda MBBS, B.Med.Sci, FRACGP
11. Sue Wareham OAM, MBBS
12. Peter Shannon, MBBS, DPM, FRANZCP
13. Jason Garrood MBBS, FACRRM
14. Simon Leslie MBBS
15. Ben Bartlett MBBS, MPH, FAFOEM, FAFPHM, MRACGP
16. Fiona Russell BMBS, FRACP, MPHTM, Grad Dip(Clin Epi), PhD
17. Megan Passey B.Med (Hons), MPH, MSc, DipFP
18. Ken Harvey MBBS, FRCPA
19. Sandra Thompson BSc(Med), MBBS, MPH, PhD, Grad Dipl Management
20. Marion Carey MBBS (Hons.), MPH, FAFPHM, FRSPH
21. George Crisp MBBS, MRCGP
22. Harry Cohen AM, MBBS, FRACOG
23. Heath Kelly MBBS, Bsc, MPH, FAFPHM
24. Catherine Silsbury MBBS, MHSc, FAChAM
25. Colin D. Butler BMedSci(Hons), BMed, DTM&H, MSc(epi), PhD
26. Peter Tait MBBS, DipRACOG, FRACGP, MClimChng, MPHAA
27. Stephen Connor MBBS, MPH, BPharm (Hons), MRPharmS, Dip.Clin. Pharm
28. Chris Wright MBBS, FRACP, FCICM
29. Bobby Sundaralingam MBBS, FRANZCR, ANZSPNM, BSc
30. Frederick Mendelsohn AO, MD, PhD, FRACP, FAA,
31. Sally Attrill MBBS, B.Med.Sci., FRACGP, DRANZCOG
32. Elizabeth Moore MBBS
33. Ruth A. Mitchell BMBS, BA, BSc
34. Janet Bodycomb BSc, MBBS, FRACGP
35. Adam Badenoch BSc BMBS
36. Kristen Pearson MBBS, FRACP
37. Jane Ralls MBBS MRCGP (UK)
38. Tom Keaney MBBS
39. Peter Markey BMBS, DA, DRCOG, DTM&H, MPH, FAFPHM
40. Alison Creagh MBBS, DRANZCOG
41. Linda Selvey MBBS(Hon), PhD
42. Lucy Owen MBBS
43. Kate Jackson MBBS, DTM+H, FRCA, FAChPM (RACP), FFPMANZCA
44. Lisa Bohlscheid MBBS, FRACGP
45. Miriam Brooks MBBS, FRACGP
46. Chris Say MBBS FACRRM
47. Raymun Ghumman MBBS, BSc, BA
48. Ray Mylius MBBS, DPH, FRACMA, FAFPHM
On March 11, 2012, the anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam released the fourth edition of Let the Facts Speak: An Indictment of the Industry.
The publication also includes − in a separate paper online at https://nuclear.foe.org.au/wp-content/uploads/LTFS-DD-published.pdf − an analysis of nuclear risks covering issues such as reactor ageing, the uncomfortable intersection between economics and nuclear safety, regulation, ‘Generation IV’ reactors, and the debate over the risks of exposure to low-level ionising radiation.
The publication also includes a ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of some of the most dangerous and infamous moments in the history of the nuclear industry. It includes some major reactor accidents − Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, and Windscale. Three entries address non-reactor accidents − the Chelyabinsk liquid nuclear waste explosion in the Soviet Union, the theft of a radiotherapy source in Brazil and subsequent fatalities, and the fatal accident at a fuel fabrication plant at Tokaimura, Japan.
One entry concerns the failure to account for 160 kgs of plutonium for a period of at least eight months at the Sellafield plant in the UK. That was just one of many incidents at the same site, including a 1957 reactor fire, a data falsification scandal and a serious sabotage incident in the late 1990s, and international controversy over the routine emissions from nuclear fuel reprocessing operations.
The Superphenix fast breeder reactor in France is included in the Dirty Dozen list as an example of a nuclear ‘white elephant’ − a plant that failed spectacularly to meet its promised performance levels with billions of dollars wasted in the process (other such examples include reprocessing and fuel fabrication plants at Sellafield). Superphenix also provides a reminder that some of the ‘next generation’ nuclear power technologies that are now being promoted as ‘new’ and ‘safe’ are in fact old and unsafe.
Several entries − including Three Mile Island, Fukushima and Tokaimura − demonstrate the industry’s failure to learn from past accidents.
The Dirty Dozen list includes an example of strikes on a nuclear plant directed by a national government (Israel’s destruction of the Osiraq research reactor in Iraq) and strikes against a nuclear power plant by a sub-national group (Basque ETA terrorists). Those two entries are reproduced here.
Bombing and destruction of reactor in Iraq
On 7 June 1981, Israeli fighter planes destroyed the French-supplied ‘Osiraq’ (or ‘Osirak’ or ‘Tammuz 1’) 40 MW research reactor located at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Centre, 17 kms from Baghdad.
Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian were killed in the attack, and three Israeli army personnel died during training for the mission. Other than those deaths, the attack was of little public health or environmental consequence as the reactor had not begun operating and had not been loaded with nuclear fuel.
The significance of the attack (and surrounding events) was that it so starkly demonstrated the realpolitik of nuclear weapons proliferation − Iraq’s pursuit of weapons under cover of a ‘peaceful’ nuclear program and Israel’s willingness to respond with a ‘pre-emptive’ military strike.
The safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency was put to the test and was found wanting. IAEA inspections failed to uncover Iraq’s weapons program and other research reactors were later found to have been used in various ways to advance Iraq’s weapons program. Israel clearly had no faith in the IAEA safeguards system as demonstrated by its attack on Osiraq (and more recently with its attack on a suspected reactor site in Syria in 2007).
In April 1979, Israeli agents in France allegedly planted a bomb that damaged the partially-built Osiraq reactor while it was awaiting shipment to Iraq. Israel is also alleged to have murdered a scientist working on Iraq’s nuclear program in June 1980 and to have bombed several of the French and Italian companies it suspected of working on the project.
The Iranian military also attacked and damaged the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Centre with air strikes on September 30, 1980, shortly after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War, and both Iran and Iraq attempted military strikes on nuclear plants on other occasions during the 1980-88 war. Al Tuwaitha was bombed during the 1991 Gulf war and yet again during the 2003 Gulf war. More recently, Israel destroyed a suspected reactor site in Syria in 2007.
The above examples have been motivated by attempts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. Nuclear plants might also be targeted with the aim of widely dispersing radioactive material or, in the case of power reactors, disrupting electricity supply.
Reprocessing plants and stores for spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste typically contain enormous quantities of highly radioactive materials in readily dispersible forms, and are more vulnerable to attacks than reactors as they are generally less well protected.
Terrorist attacks on Spanish power reactor
On 18 December 1977, Basque ETA separatists set off bombs damaging the reactor vessel and a steam generator at the Lemoniz nuclear power plant under construction in Spain. Two workers died and one of the terrorists sustained fatal injuries.
On 17 March 1978, ETA planted another bomb in the plant, again causing the death of two workers and inflicting substantial damage to the plant. The explosives were smuggled into the plant by site workers.
On 3 June 1979, an anti-nuclear activist was killed by police during a peaceful protest (the peaceful public movement against Lemoniz attracted as many as 150,000 people to protest rallies).
On 13 June 1979, ETA planted another bomb inside the plant and the explosion caused the death of one worker.
On 11 November 1979, ETA kidnapped guards and exploded bombs at another nuclear plant, causing extensive damage.
On 29 January 1981, ETA kidnapped the chief engineer of the Lemoniz nuclear plant and later killed him.
ETA also destroyed hundreds of electricity pylons connected to the site.
In 1983, the Spanish nuclear power expansion program was cancelled following a change of government and construction of the Lemoniz plant was never completed.
Dozens of incidents of nuclear terrorism have taken place around the world, with a bewildering variety of perpetrators and motives. To date there has not been an incident resulting in mass casualties. However then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned in 2005:
“Nuclear terrorism is still often treated as science fiction. I wish it were. But, unfortunately, we live in a world of excess hazardous materials and abundant technological know-how, in which some terrorists clearly state their intention to inflict catastrophic casualties. Were such an attack to occur, it would not only cause widespread death and destruction, but would stagger the world economy and thrust tens of millions of people into dire poverty.”
There are frequent reports of inadequate security at nuclear plants. In November 2005, for example, a reporter and photographer were able to park a one-tonne van for more than 30 minutes outside the back gate of the Lucas Heights nuclear site without being challenged. The gate, 800 metres from the research reactor, was protected by a simple padlock. The Australian reported: “The back door to one of the nation’s prime terrorist targets is protected by a cheap padlock and a stern warning against trespassing or blocking the driveway.”
This is an excerpt from a March 2012 briefing paper by Friends of the Earth, ‘Japan’s nuclear scandals and the Fukushima disaster’, online at https://nuclear.foe.org.au/power/
Was TEPCO − operator of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan − responsible for the nuclear disaster which began on March 11 last year? Or was the disaster the result of unfortunate but unavoidable natural disasters which could not be anticipated − an ‘Act of God’?
Many nuclear advocates want to absolve TEPCO from responsibility for the March 2011. However there is an abundance of evidence that TEPCO did not adequately protect the Fukushima plant against earthquake and tsunami risks. In particular, the failure to adequately protect back-up power generators was a direct cause of the nuclear disaster that began unfolding shortly after the other two disasters on March 11 − the earthquake and the tsunami.
The greatest problem was the location of most of the water-cooled generators in the basement of a poorly-protected turbine building. Fukushima Dai-ichi was equipped with 13 emergency diesel generators, one of which was out of service for maintenance on March 11. TEPCO had three air-cooled backup generators located 10−13 metres above sea level. In addition there were the 10 water-cooled generators.
After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, only one of the air-cooled generators, which sat 13 metres above sea level, was still functional after the tsunami (it helped protect reactors #5 and #6). The other two air-cooled generators were rendered useless by the tsunami despite being 10 metres above sea level. All 10 of the plant’s water-cooled generators were inundated by the tsunami.
Without back-up generators, it was only a matter of time before the situation spiralled out of control as it so dramatically did with a succession of meltdowns, fires and explosions in the days after March 11.
Experts speak with one voice: this was a man-made disaster not an Act of God. The Investigation Committee established by the Japanese government last year said: “TEPCO did not implement measures against tsunami as part of its Accident Management strategy. Its preparedness for such accident as severe damage at the core of reactor as a result of natural disasters was quite insufficient.”
A June 2011 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency found that there were “insufficient defense-in-depth provisions” for tsunami hazards at Fukushima and that “severe accident management provisions were not adequate to cope with multiple plant failures.”
TEPCO lacked “common sense” and “absolutely should have known better,” said Dr Costas Synolakis, a US engineering professor with expertise in tsunami modelling.
Former TEPCO executive Masatoshi Toyota said: “Backup power generators are critical safety equipment, and it should’ve been a no-brainer to put them inside the reactor buildings. It’s a huge disappointment that nobody at TEPCO − including me − was sensitive enough to notice and do something about this discrepancy.”
Another former TEPCO executive said: “We took it for granted that the quake-resistant design of our Fukushima and other nuclear plants was fail-safe. But I now doubt how serious we were about preparing for a severe disaster. If only we’d put the backup generators on even higher ground away from the reactors, the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors might not have been damaged.”
Former TEPCO engineer Toshio Kimura said: “I asked my boss back in the late ’90s what would happen if a tsunami hit the Fukushima reactors. I said surely a meltdown will happen. He said ‘Kimura, you are right’. But it was made clear that the issue of a big tsunami was taboo. … If they’d moved the emergency diesel generators to a position above the expected tsunami level it would have cost the company a lot. So nobody proposed it. … A few years later I quit the company because of its culture of cover-ups.”
Another TEPCO engineer said that when he was preparing for a government inspection in 1987, the inconsistent placement of the generators “stood out like a sore thumb.”
For many years, TEPCO either denied the possibility of an earthquake and tsunami of March 11 proportions or argued that such events were so improbable that they could be ignored. In 2001, TEPCO submitted a document on tsunami preparedness to the Nuclear Safety Agency − a one-page document.
The signs that all is not as it should be start gently enough: weeds appear in fields, the roadside vegetation covers signs and structures, and there are few people about. The country looks peaceful, green and sleepy. Then the radiation monitor two seats away wakes up and starts clicking.
I am on a bus heading along a narrow and winding road towards the Fukushima exclusion zone. The trip has been organised by a Japanese medical group and my fellow travellers are doctors, academics and radiation health specialists from around the world. They have come to see and hear the story behind the headlines and to bring their considerable expertise to support the continuing relief and response efforts.
Fukushima is a name known around the world since the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex was shattered and radiation scattered following the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The world held its breath as images of emergency workers in radiation suits, bewildered and fearful locals sleeping at schools and grainy aerial footage of an increasingly vulnerable reactor filled our screens and press.
While the headlines might have faded, the radiation, dislocation and complexity has not and 18 months after the meltdown this trip is part of a widespread effort in Japan to ensure that the impacts and implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster are neither forgotten nor repeated.
Fukushima means ‘fortunate island’ but the region’s luck melted down alongside the reactor. Over 150,000 people cannot return to their homes and last September a United Nations special report detailed some of the massive impacts: “hundreds of billions of dollars of property damage”, “serious radioactive contamination of water, agriculture, fisheries” and “grave stress and mental trauma” to a swathe of people. Lives have been utterly disrupted and altered and the Fukushima nuclear accident was and remains a profound environmental and social tragedy.
A grandmother hosts us in her new home. The cluster of caravan park style cabins on tarmac are in every way a long way from her former life in a village. Her eyes light up and her years drop when she speaks of her three grandchildren and the three great-grandchildren due later this year. But then she is asked how often she sees them and the light fades. The interpreter stumbles, the room falls silent and we all look down and feel sad and strangely ashamed.
A doctor at a nearby medical centre tells how more than 6,000 doctors, nurses and patients were re-located there from the adjacent exclusion zone. People were sleeping everywhere he says before proudly showing the centre’s new post-evacuee carpet. As he talks a group of elderly people sit listlessly in chairs or lie in beds before a happy daytime TV game-show while the hill behind is criss-crossed with red tape that marks the areas of active decontamination work.
A farmer accepts that his current rice crop will be destroyed after harvest because it will be too contaminated. But he hopes next year’s might be better. I sit by a pond in his rice paddy as he explains his hope that if the ducks eat enough worms and grubs they might remove the radiation. No one has the heart to contradict him. Beside his house is a cedar tree that is 1,200 years old and his ancestors had the honour of supplying rice to the Shogun feudal lords. The rice from those same fields is now radioactive.
As we drive from site to site we pass skeletal abandoned greenhouses, the fields are increasingly wild, houses are empty, sheds are rotting, vehicles have grass in the wheel arches and the landscape is dotted with contaminated soil wrapped like round bale hay in blue plastic. The smaller side roads are blocked by traffic cones and stern signage both to deter looting and because many are damaged. Police and relocated residents share patrols to keep thieves away but the biggest thief is invisible: radiation has robbed this region of much of its past, present and future.
An earnest teacher is happy that the local school has re-opened but sad that while once around 250 kids used to attend, now there are 16. The local mayor picks up the theme stating, “we have very few young people or children”. Radiation hits hardest at growing cells and many concerned parents have understandably moved. The old remain and the in the absence of the young the old look older.
“We have a very serious issue with the exodus of young people,” says the mayor who is running an active campaign urging locals to return home while admitting “the accident isn’t completed”.
The manager of the local store shows us sophisticated point of sale radiation monitoring equipment and warns us against eating wild mushrooms. A doctor speaks of the lack of community confidence in the official radiation data and declares that another nuclear accident would be “the ruin of Japan”. Meanwhile, the monitor on the bus keeps clicking.
Australian uranium fuelled Fukushima
Each click counts the decay of a piece of rock dug up in Australia. In October 2011, Dr Robert Floyd, director-general of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade admitted “that Australian obligated nuclear material was at the Fukushima Daiichi site and in each of the reactors”. Australian uranium fuelled Fukushima.
Australian uranium is now radioactive fallout that is contaminating Japan and beyond and the response of the Australian government and the Australian uranium producers and their industry association has been profoundly and shamefully deficient. Prime Minister Gillard speaks of business as usual, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson talks of the “unfortunate incident” and the more bullish of the uranium miners have called the crisis a “sideshow”.
This denial and failure to respond to changed circumstances is in stark contrast to the views of Aboriginal landowners from where the uranium has been sourced. Yvonne Margarula, the Mirarr senior Traditional Owner of that part of Kakadu where Energy Resources of Australia’s Ranger mine is located wrote to UN Secretary General to convey her communities concerns and stated that the accident, “makes us very sad. We are all diminished by the awful events now unfolding at Fukushima”.
Arabunna man Peter Watts, whose water continues to be plundered to service BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine in South Australia, told a Japanese audience in Yokohama earlier this year how the company “use up the water that gives life to dig up the uranium that brings death”.
There can be no atomic business as usual in the shadow of Fukushima. The novelist Haruki Murakami has called Fukushima a massive nuclear disaster and stated “but this time no one dropped a bomb on us. We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives. While we are the victims, we are also the perpetrators. We must fix our eyes on this fact. If we fail to do so, we will inevitably repeat the same mistake again, somewhere else.”
There is intense political debate around all things nuclear in contemporary Japan and the potential restart of the countries suspended nuclear fleet has seen unprecedented political mobilisation and action in Japan. Another growing concern relates to the human, environmental and financial cost of the massive decontamination and clean-up program and the persistent stories of cut corners, substandard subcontracting and Yakuza or organised crime connections.
One of the doctors who organised our trip put the issue sharply and starkly: “The restart debate is about nuclear power plants but it is also about democracy and the future of the nation.” The debate is live in Japan and a similar debate now needs to come alive in Australia − our shared and fragile planet’s energy future is renewable not radioactive.
We need a genuine assessment of the costs and consequences of our uranium trade. To fail to change or to learn from this tragedy is deeply disrespectful and increases the chance of Australian uranium fuelling future nuclear accidents.
Dave Sweeney is the Nuclear Free campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation
Australia’s role in the Fukushima disaster
Jim Green / Friends of the Earth Australia
Sunday March 11 was the first anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in north-east Japan and the meltdowns, explosions and fires at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
The impacts of the nuclear disaster have been horrendous. Over 100,000 people are still homeless and some will never be able to return. Homeless, jobless, separated from friends and family, the toll on people’s health and mental well-being has been significant − one indication being a sharp increase in suicide rates. One farmer’s suicide note simply read: “I wish there wasn’t a nuclear plant.”
Preliminary scientific estimates of the long-term cancer death toll range from some hundreds to “around 1000”. The death toll could rise significantly if many people resettle in contaminated areas. Contamination with long-lived radionuclides will persist for many generations − caesium-137 will be a concern for around 300 years.
Direct and indirect economic costs of the disaster will amount to several hundred billions dollars. It will be decades before the ruined reactors are decommissioned. Decades before the legal battles have concluded.
Come in, spinner
The Fukushima anniversary was accompanied by extraordinary spin from the nuclear industry and its supporters. They claim that no-one will die from radiation exposure from the Fukushima disaster. That could only be true if low-level radiation exposure is risk-free − a proposition rejected by expert bodies such as the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and the US Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation.
The nuclear lobby generally accepts that there have been horrendous impacts from the evacuation of over 100,000 people (in additional to the large number of evacuees whose homes were destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami). They spin this issue by saying that evacuees should be allowed to return to their homes.
Sometimes government agencies are blamed for maintaining the 20 km evacuation zone. Sometimes environment groups are blamed − apparently the cruel, exploitative ‘radiophobia’ of green groups leads to governments setting unnecessarily cautious radiation protection standards. That argument is a stretch at the best of times, and completely ludicrous in Japan where nuclear ‘regulation’ has been marked by corruption, collusion, conflicts of interest, and complete indifference to the views and concerns of environment groups or the public at large.
If anything the Japanese government has been rather too keen for evacuees to return to their homes. The ‘permissible’ radiation dose has been raised from 1 millisievert per year to 20 mSv. To give a sense of the hazard involved, if 50,000 people are exposed to 20 mSv/year for five years, about 250 fatal cancers would result. For any individual receiving that radiation dose over five years, the risk of fatal cancer is about one in 200.
Evacuees
Evacuees want the option of returning to contaminated areas if they so choose or moving elsewhere if they choose. They want financial support to help them through the current period and to resettle in their old homes or to find new ones. They want to see a decent clean-up of contaminated areas to reduce future radiation exposure. And they want those responsible for the disaster to be held to account.
Environment groups and other NGOs have been supporting evacuees in their many battles to achieve the above outcomes. NGOs have been active in the clean-up operations. They have actively fundraised to support disaster relief efforts. NGOs such as the Tokyo-based Citizens Nuclear Information Centre (cnic.jp/english) have played a vital role in providing expert information in circumstances where, for good reasons, no-one trusts the government or Fukushima plant operator TEPCO or the so-called nuclear regulator.
The nuclear lobby is right that many Japanese are suffering from anxiety as a result of the Fukushima disaster. But that’s not a result of NGO ‘radiophobia’ − it is an understandable reaction to the circumstances people face. It’s difficult to know whether food or milk is contaminated. The radioactive fallout from the Fukushima disaster has been highly uneven − even within a small area the radiation readings can vary by orders of magnitude. Compensation has been too little, too late. The clean-up has been slow and contentious.
All that human misery as a result of an easily preventable disaster.
Whereas the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 were natural disasters, Fukushima was a man-made disaster. TEPCO failed to adequately prepare for and protect against earthquakes and tsunamis. The Japanese government’s Investigation Committee is blunt about the company’s culpability: “The nuclear disaster prevention program had serious shortfalls. It cannot be excused that the nuclear accidents could not be managed because of an extraordinary situation that the tsunamis exceeded the assumption.”
TEPCO’s greatest failure was that it did not properly protect back-up power generators from flooding. Without back-up generators to maintain reactor cooling, it was only a matter of time before the situation spiralled out of control as it so dramatically did with a succession of meltdowns, fires and explosions in the days after March 11.
Australia’s role
There is no dispute that Australian uranium was used in the Fukushima reactors. The mining companies won’t acknowledge that fact − instead they hide behind bogus claims of ‘commercial confidentiality’ and ‘security’. But the truth is out. The Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office acknowledged in October that: “We can confirm that Australian obligated nuclear material was at the Fukushima Daiichi site and in each of the reactors – maybe five out of six, or it could have been all of them”.
It is likely that TEPCO has been supplied with uranium from BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine, ERA’s Ranger mine, and Heathgate’s Beverley mine.
Yuki Tanaka from the Hiroshima Peace Institute noted: “Japan is not the sole nation responsible for the current nuclear disaster. From the manufacture of the reactors by GE to provision of uranium by Canada, Australia and others, many nations are implicated.”
Mirarr senior Traditional Owner Yvonne Margarula said she is “deeply saddened” that uranium from the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory has been exported to Japanese nuclear power companies including TEPCO.
No such humility from the uranium companies. They get tetchy at any suggestion of culpability, with the Australian Uranium Association describing it as “opportunism in the midst of human tragedy” and “utter nonsense”.
Moreover, the Association said: “The Australian uranium industry has led the global nuclear industry’s efforts to create a framework of stewardship for the safe and responsible management of uranium throughout the nuclear fuel cycle.”
Led the effort to create a framework of stewardship for meaningless rhetoric, more like it. Here’s an example of the sort of gibberish they come up with: “When the principle is actively applied, Stewardship becomes a driver for innovation in the ways we view our businesses and operate them. … Leading companies will see Stewardship not as a compliance issue but as a means to shape their future operational processes, products, services and relationships.”
To translate: uranium ‘stewardship’ means flogging off uranium, counting the money, flogging off more uranium, counting more money.
Scandals and accidents
Australia’s uranium industry did nothing as TEPCO lurched from scandal to scandal and accident to accident over the past decade. It did nothing in 2002 when it was revealed that TEPCO had systematically and routinely falsified safety data and breached safety regulations for 25 years or more.
The industry did nothing in 2007 when over 300 incidents of ‘malpractice’ at Japan’s nuclear plants were revealed (104 of them at nuclear power plants). It did nothing even as the ability of Japan’s nuclear plants to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis came under growing criticism from industry insiders and independent experts. It did nothing about the multiple conflicts of interest plaguing the Japanese nuclear ‘regulator’.
Australia could have played a role in breaking the vicious cycle of mismanagement in Japan’s nuclear industry by making uranium exports conditional on improved management of nuclear plants and tighter regulation. Even a strong public statement of concern would have been heard by the Japanese utilities (unless it was understood to be rhetoric for public consumption) and it would have registered in the Japanese media.
But the uranium industry did nothing. And since the industry is in denial about its role in fuelling the Fukushima disaster, there is no reason to believe that it will behave more responsibly in future.
Successive Australian governments have done nothing about the unacceptable standards in Japan’s nuclear industry. And since Prime Minister Gillard said the Fukushima disaster “doesn’t have any impact on my thinking about uranium exports”, there is no reason to believe that the government will behave more responsibly in future.
The Australian Uranium Associated issued a media release on March 8 titled: “Nuclear industry takes Fukushima opportunity to demonstrate transparency and responsibility”.
In fact the industry has lacked transparency − refusing even to acknowledge whether it supplied uranium to TEPCO. Nor has the industry been responsible − it has brought shame to all Australians by turning a blind eye to serious problems in customer countries and responding with mock indignation when anyone calls its bluff.
Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia and author of a detailed March 2012 briefing paper on the events leading up to the Fukushima disaster, online at https://nuclear.foe.org.au/power/
Ben Heard founded the South Australia-based ‘Bright New World’ nuclear advocacy group that accepted secret corporate donations from the nuclear industry but was closed down in 2021.
Like so many other nuclear advocates, Heard very rarely or never says or does anything about the problems of the nuclear industry such as its systemic racism (abundantly evident in his home state, South Australia) or the inadequate nuclear safeguards system and the associated WMD proliferation risks.
A big part of Heard’s schtick is his conversion from a nuclear critic to a supporter. It is a back-story built on slender foundations. A mining industry magazine article said Heard was “once a fervent anti-nuclear campaigner” but in fact he never had any involvement whatsoever in anti-nuclear campaigning. Heard made no effort to correct the error in the magazine article — indeed he put the article, uncorrected, on his own website and only corrected it after the falsehood was publicly exposed. Likewise, Heard made no effort to correct an ABC article which described him as a “former anti-nuclear advocate”.
Heard has a recurring disclosure problem. He rarely disclosed his consulting work for uranium company Heathgate when spruiking for the nuclear industry. He said the reason he rarely disclosed his consulting work with Heathgate was that it was mentioned on his website. So any time you hear anyone speaking about anything in the media, it’s your responsibility to do a web-search to see if they have a financial interest! More recently, he rarely discloses corporate funding — indeed his lobby group (closed in 2021) had a policy of accepting secret corporate donations. And Heard rarely if ever discloses his connection to nuclear power company Terrestrial Energy.
Table of Contents
Ben Heard’s SMR / Gen IV claims
Small nuclear reactors, huge costs
Small modular reactor rhetoric hits a hurdle
Ben Heard’s censorship
More SMR spin and misinformation from Ben Heard
More misinformation from Ben Heard re SMR costs
Ben Heard promoting floating nuclear power plants that will be used to exploit Arctic fossil fuel reserves!
New nuclear push digs deep into vault of alternative facts
Australia Institute critique of Ben Heard’s waste-to-fuel Generation IV nuclear fantasies
Ben Heard supports a nuclear waste dump in SA despite the unanimous opposition of Barngarla Traditional Owners
Aboriginal First Nations and Australia’s pro-nuclear ‘environmentalists’
Would you do consulting work for General Atomics?
Other issues
‘Pro-nuclear environmentalists’ in denial about power/weapons connections
Correcting Ben Heard’s claims regarding nuclear waste import business proposals
Small nuclear reactors, huge costs
The Minerals Council of Australia is notorious for its tireless efforts to oppose climate change mitigation policies. For example the MCA supplied the lump of coal that Prime Minister Scott Morrison waved around in Parliament. And the MCA made the GLOBAL top 10 list of climate policy opponents. You wouldn’t take money from climate criminals. It speaks volumes about Heard that he has repeatedly taken MCA money …
Jim Green, ‘Small nuclear reactors, huge costs’, RenewEconomy, 11 Oct 2021, https://reneweconomy.com.au/small-nuclear-reactors-huge-costs/
Even by the standards of the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA), the new report published by the country’s most influential coal lobby on the subject of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) is jiggery-pokery of the highest order.
Why would a mining industry body promote SMRs? After mining for some years — or at most decades — no company would want to take on the responsibility of decommissioning a nuclear reactor and managing high-level nuclear waste for millennia. No companies are cited in the report expressing interest in SMRs to power their mining operations.
Perhaps the MCA – which infamously provided the lump of coal for Scott Morrison to wave around in parliament – thinks that promoting nuclear power will slow the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, and believes that it is in the interests of some of its member companies to slow the transition.
If so, the timing of the report isn’t great, coming in the same week as the Business Council of Australia’s report which argues for a rapid, renewables-led decarbonisation, and Fortescue’s announcement that it plans to build the world’s largest green energy hydrogen manufacturing facility in Queensland.
Perhaps the MCA is doing the bidding of the (mostly foreign-owned) uranium mining companies operating in Australia? The MCA’s CEO Tania Constable said: “Australia should take advantage of growing international interest in nuclear energy and look to expand its already significant uranium sector.”
Perhaps … but there’s no evidence that the two companies mining uranium in Australia — BHP (Olympic Dam) and Heathgate Resources (Beverley Four Mile) — are lobbying for nuclear power. And Australia’s “already significant” uranium industry could hardly be more insignificant — it accounts for about 0.2 percent of Australia’s export revenue and about 0.01 percent of all jobs in Australia.
Bob Carr’s atomic bombshell
The MCA report also came in the same week as Bob Carr’s striking about-face on nuclear power. Having previously supported nuclear power, Carr wrote in The Australian: “In 2010 one enthusiast predicted within 10 years fourth-generation reactors and small modular reactors would be commonplace, including in Australia. None exists, here or abroad.”
The MCA report says SMRs are an “ideal fit” for Australia, citing their enhanced safety, lower cost than large-scale nuclear reactors or equivalent energy production methods, and lower waste production than current reactors.
It’s all nonsense. The safety claims don’t stack up. Nor do the claims about waste. Academic M.V. Ramana notes that “a smaller reactor, at least the water-cooled reactors that are most likely to be built earliest, will produce more, not less, nuclear waste per unit of electricity they generate because of lower efficiencies.” And a 2016 European Commission document states: “Due to the loss of economies of scale, the decommissioning and waste management unit costs of SMR will probably be higher than those of a large reactor (some analyses state that between two and three times higher).”
SMRs have a similar capacity to many existing coal and gas-fired power plants in Australia, the MCA report states, so would make an ideal replacement. Back to Bob Carr:
“Where is the shire council putting up its hand to host a nuclear power plant? Harder to find than a sponsor for a high-temperature toxic waste incinerator. Nobody in the Hunter Valley has urged nuclear for the Liddell site, even on the footprint of this coal-fired power plant scheduled to close. And not even invoking the prospect of a small modular reactor that 10 years back was the vanguard of the nuclear renaissance. About to be planted across the Indonesian archipelago and the rest of Asia, we were promised. Today they exist only on the Rolls-Royce drawing boards they have adorned since the 1970s.”
Economics
The MCA said in June 2020 that SMRs won’t find a market unless they can produce power at a cost of A$60-$80 per megawatt hour (MWh). That’s a big problem for enthusiasts because there’s no chance whatsoever that SMRs will produce power in that cost range.
An analysis by WSP / Parsons Brinckerhoff, prepared for the 2015/16 South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, estimated a cost of A$225 / MWh for a reactor based on the NuScale design, about three times higher than the MCA’s target range.
CSIRO estimates SMR power costs at A$258-338 / MWh in 2020 and A$129-336 / MWh in 2030.
Russia’s floating nuclear plant is said to be the only operational SMR in the world, although it doesn’t fit the ‘modular’ definition of serial factory production. A 2016 OECD Nuclear Energy Agency report said that electricity produced by the Russian floating plant is expected to cost about US$200 (A$273) / MWh, about four times higher than the target range cited by the MCA and more expensive than power from large reactors (US$129-198 / MWh). Completion of Russia’s floating plant was nine years behind schedule and construction costs increased six-fold.
Yet, despite a mountain of evidence that SMRs won’t come close to producing power in the A$60-80 / MWh range, the new MCA report asserts that “robust estimates” using “conservative assumptions” suggest that SMRs will produce power at a cost of A$64-77 / MWh by 2030.
One wonders who the MCA think they’re kidding.
The MCA report was written by Ben Heard, who recently closed his ‘Bright New World’ nuclear lobby website and now works with Frazer-Nash. Heard promotes Canadian SMR-wannabe Terrestrial Energy in the MCA report but does not disclose his role on the company’s advisory board. Heard also contributed two chapters on nuclear power to a 2020 book titled ‘An Australian nuclear industry: Starting with submarines’.
Heard has been repeatedly writing and talking about ‘the real cost of SMRs’ but insists that the real costs of SMRs — i.e. data on actual SMR construction projects, showing a familiar pattern of massive cost escalations — should be excluded from the discussion about the real cost of SMRs. Beyond ridiculous.
Obviously, the starting point for any serious discussion about SMR costs would be the cost of operational SMRs ‒ ignored by CSIRO/AEMO and by lobbyists such as BNW.
There is just one operational SMR, Russia’s floating plant. Its estimated cost is US$740 million for a 70 MW plant. That equates to A$15,200 per kW ‒ similar to the CSIRO/AEMO estimate of A$16,304 per kW. Over the course of construction, the cost quadrupled and a 2016 OECD Nuclear Energy Agency report said that electricity produced by the Russian floating plant is expected to cost about US$200 (A$288) per megawatt-hour (MWh) with the high cost due to large staffing requirements, high fuel costs, and resources required to maintain the barge and coastal infrastructure.
Figures on costs of SMRs under construction should also be considered ‒ they are far more useful than the estimates of vendors and lobbyists, which invariably prove to be highly optimistic.
The World Nuclear Association states that the cost of China’s high-temperature gas-cooled SMR (HTGR) is US$6,000 (A$8,600) per kW. Costs are reported to have nearly doubled, with increases arising from higher material and component costs, increases in labour costs, and increased costs associated with project delays.
The CAREM SMR under construction in Argentina illustrates the gap between SMR rhetoric and reality. In 2004, when the reactor was in the planning stage, Argentina’s Bariloche Atomic Center estimated an overnight cost of USS$1,000 per kW for an integrated 300-MW plant (while acknowledging that to achieve such a cost would be a “very difficult task”). When construction began in 2014, the cost estimate was US$15,400 per kW (US$446 million / 29 MW). By April 2017, the cost estimate had increased US$21,900 (A$31,500) per kW (US$700 million / 32 MW).
To the best of my knowledge, no other figures on SMR construction costs are publicly available. So the figures are:
A$15,200 per kW for Russia’s light-water floating SMR
A$8,600 per kW for China’s HTGR
A$31,500 per kW for Argentina’s light-water SMR
The average of those figures is A$18,400 per kW, which is higher than the CSIRO/AEMO figure of A$16,304 per kW and double BNW’s estimate of A$9,132 per kW.
The CSIRO/AEMO report says that while there are SMRs under construction or nearing completion, “public cost data has not emerged from these early stage developments.” That simply isn’t true.
BNW’s imaginary reactor
BNW objects to CSIRO/AEMO basing their SMR cost estimate on a “hypothetical reactor”. But BNW does exactly the same, ignoring real-world cost estimates for SMRs under construction or in operation. BNW starts with the estimate of US company NuScale Power, which hopes to build SMRs but hasn’t yet begun construction of a single prototype. BNW adds a 50% ‘loading’ in recognition of past examples of nuclear reactor cost overruns. Thus BNW’s estimate for SMR construction costs is A$9,132 per kW.
Two big problems: NuScale’s cost estimate is bollocks, and BNW’s proposed 50% loading doesn’t fit the recent pattern of nuclear costs increasing by far greater amounts.
NuScale’s construction cost estimate of US$4,200 per kW is implausible. It is far lower than Lazard’s latest estimate of US$6,900-12,200 per kW for large reactors and far lower than the lowest estimate (US$12,300 per kW) of the cost of the two Vogtle AP1000 reactors under construction in Georgia (the only reactors under construction in the US). NuScale’s estimate (per kW) is just one-third of the cost of the Vogtle plant ‒ despite the unavoidable diseconomies of scale with SMRs and despite the fact that independent assessments conclude that SMRs will be more expensive to build (per kW) than large reactors.
Further, modular factory-line production techniques were trialled with the twin AP1000 Westinghouse reactor project in South Carolina ‒ a project that was abandoned in 2017 after the expenditure of at least US$9 billion, bankrupting Westinghouse.
Lazard estimates a levelised cost of US$118-192 per MWh for electricity from large nuclear plants. NuScale estimates a cost of US$65 per MWh for power from its first plant. Thus NuScale claims that its electricity will be 2-3 times cheaper than that from large nuclear plants, which is implausible. And even if NuScale achieved its cost estimate, it would still be higher than Lazard’s figures for wind power (US$28-54) and utility-scale solar (US$32-44).
BNW claims that the CSIRO/AEMO levelised cost estimate of A$258-338 per MWh for SMRs is an “extreme overestimate”. But an analysis by WSP / Parsons Brinckerhoff, prepared for the SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, estimated a cost of A$225 per MWh for a reactor based on the NuScale design, which is far closer to the CSIRO/AEMO estimate than it is to BNW’s estimate of A$123-128 per MWh with the potential to fall as low as A$60.
Cost overruns
BNW proposes adding a 50% ‘loading’ to NuScale’s cost estimate in recognition of past examples of reactor cost overruns, and claims that it is basing its calculations on “a first-of-a-kind vendor estimate [NuScale’s] with the maximum uncertainly associated with the Class of the estimate.” Huh? The general pattern is that early vendor estimates underestimate true costs by an order of magnitude, while estimates around the time of initial construction underestimate true costs by a factor of 2-4.
Here are some recent examples of vastly greater cost increases than BNW allows for:
* The estimated cost of the HTGR under construction in China has nearly doubled.
* The estimated cost of Argentina’s SMR has increased 22-fold above early, speculative estimates and the cost increased by 66% from 2014, when construction began, to 2017.
* The cost estimate for the Vogtle project in the US state of Georgia (two AP1000 reactors) has doubled to more than US$13.5 billion per reactor and will increase further. In 2006, Westinghouse said it could build an AP1000 reactor for as little as US1.4 billion ‒ 10 times lower than the current estimate for Vogtle.
* The estimated combined cost of the two EPR reactors under construction in the UK, including finance costs, is £26.7 billion (the EU’s 2014 estimate of £24.5 billion plus a £2.2 billion increase announced in July 2017). In the mid-2000s, the estimated construction cost for one EPR reactor in the UK was £2 billion, almost seven times lower than the current estimate.
* The estimated cost of about €12.4billion for the only reactor under construction in France is 3.8 times greater than the original €3.3 billion estimate.
* The estimated cost of about €11 billion for the only reactor under construction in Finland is 3.7 times greater than the original €3 billion estimate.
Timelines
BNW notes that timelines for deployment and construction are “extremely material” in terms of the application of learning rates to capital expenditure. BNW objected to the previous CSIRO/AEMO estimate of five years for construction of an SMR and proposed a “more probable” three-year estimate as well as an assumption that NuScale’s first reactor will begin generating power in 2026 even though construction has not yet begun.
For reasons unexplained, CSIRO/AEMO also assume a three-year construction period in their latest report, and for reasons unexplained the operating life of an SMR is halved from 60 years to 30 years.
None of the real-world evidence supports the arguments about construction timelines:
* The construction period for the only operational SMR, Russia’s floating plant, was 12.5 years.
* Argentina’s CAREM SMR was conceived in the 1980s, construction began in 2014, the 2017 start-up date was missed and subsequent start-up dates were missed. If the current schedule for a 2023 start-up is met it will be a nine-year construction project rather than the three years proposed by CSIRO/AEMO and BNW for construction of an SMR. Last year, work on the CAREM SMR was suspended, with Techint Engineering & Construction asking Argentina’s National Atomic Energy Commission to take urgent measures to mitigate the project’s serious financial breakdown. In April 2020, Argentina’s energy minister announced that work on CAREM would resume.
* Construction of China’s HTGR SMR began in 2012, the 2017 start-up date was missed, and if the targeted late-2020 start-up is met it will be an eight-year construction project.
* NuScale Power has been trying to progress its SMR ambitions for over a decade and hasn’t yet begun construction of a single prototype reactor.
* The two large reactors under construction in the US are 5.5 years behind schedule and those under construction in France and Finland are 10 years behind schedule.
* In 2007, EDF boasted that Britons would be using electricity from an EPR reactor at Hinkley Point to cook their Christmas turkeys in December 2017 – but construction didn’t even begin until December 2018.
Learning rates
In response to relentless attacks from far-right politicians and lobby groups such as BNW, the latest CSIRO/AEMO GenCost report makes the heroic assumption that SMR costs will fall from A$16,304 per kW to as little as A$7,140 per kW in 2030, with the levelised cost anywhere between A$129 and A$336 per MWh. The report states that SMRs were assigned a “higher learning rate (more consistent with an emerging technology) rather than being included in a broad nuclear category, with a low learning rate consistent with more mature large scale nuclear.”
But there’s no empirical basis, nor any logical basis, for the learning rate assumed in the report. The cost reduction assumes that large numbers of SMRs will be built, and that costs will come down as efficiencies are found, production capacity is scaled up, etc.
Large numbers of SMRs being built? Not according to expert opinion. A 2017 Lloyd’s Register report was based on the insights of almost 600 professionals and experts from utilities, distributors, operators and equipment manufacturers, who predicted that SMRs have a “low likelihood of eventual take-up, and will have a minimal impact when they do arrive”. A 2014 report produced by Nuclear Energy Insider, drawing on interviews with more than 50 “leading specialists and decision makers”, noted a “pervasive sense of pessimism” about the future of SMRs. Last year, the North American Project Director for Nuclear Energy Insider said that there “is unprecedented growth in companies proposing design alternatives for the future of nuclear, but precious little progress in terms of market-ready solutions.”
Will costs come down in the unlikely event that SMRs are built in significant numbers? For large nuclear reactors, the experience has been either a very slow learning rate with modest cost decreases, or a negative learning rate.
If everything went astonishingly well for SMRs, it would take several rounds of learning to drastically cut costs to A$7,140 per kW. Several rounds of SMR construction by 2030, as assumed in the most optimistic scenario in the CSIRO/AEMO report? Obviously not. The report notes that it would take many years to achieve economies, but then ignores its own advice:
“Constructing first-of-a-kind plant includes additional unforeseen costs associated with lack of experience in completing such projects on budget. SMR will not only be subject to first-of-a-kind costs in Australia but also the general engineering principle that building plant smaller leads to higher costs. SMRs may be able to overcome the scale problem by keeping the design of reactors constant and producing them in a series. This potential to modularise the technology is likely another source of lower cost estimates. However, even in the scenario where the industry reaches a scale where small modular reactors can be produced in series, this will take many years to achieve and therefore is not relevant to estimates of current costs (using our definition).”
Even with heroic assumptions resulting in CSIRO/AEMO’s low-cost estimate of A$129 per MWh for SMRs in 2030, the cost is still far higher than the low-cost estimates for wind with two hours of battery storage (A$64), wind with six hours of pumped hydro storage (A$86), solar PV with two hours of battery storage (A$52) or solar PV with six hours of pumped hydro storage (A$84). And the CSIRO/AEMO high-cost estimate for SMRs in 2030 ($336 per MWh) is more than double the high estimates for solar PV or wind with 2-6 hours of storage (A$90-151).
Reality bats last
The economic claims of SMR enthusiasts are sharply contradicted by real-world data. And their propaganda campaign simply isn’t working ‒ government funding and private-sector funding is pitiful when measured against the investments required to build SMR prototypes let alone fleets of SMRs and the infrastructure that would allow for mass production of SMR components.
Wherever you look, there’s nothing to justify the hype of SMR enthusiasts. Argentina’s stalled SMR program is a joke. Plans for 18 additional HTGRs at the same site as the demonstration plant in China have been “dropped” according to the World Nuclear Association. Russia planned to have seven floating nuclear power plants by 2015, but only recently began operation of its first plant. South Korea won’t build any of its domestically-designed SMART SMRs in South Korea ‒ “this is not practical or economic” according to the World Nuclear Association ‒ and plans to establish an export market for SMART SMRs depend on a wing and a prayer … and on Saudi oil money which is currently in short supply.
‘Reality bats last’, nuclear advocate Barry Brook used to say a decade ago when a nuclear ‘renaissance’ was in full-swing. The reality is that the renaissance was short-lived, and global nuclear capacity fell by 0.6 gigawatts last year while renewable capacity increased by a record 201 gigawatts.
Update, August 2025: NuScale’s project in Idaho was abandoned in 2023 after cost estimates rose to an absurd A$31 billion / gigawatt.
Ben Heard’s censorship
June 2020 ‒ Long story short … RenewEconomy published a FoE article about small modular reactor economics. Ben Heard demanded a right of reply. RenewEconomy told him that anyone is welcome to submit a contribution and it would be reviewed. Heard falsely claimed he had been denied a reply. Heard’s response to the FoE article was published on his Bright New World website. He denied me (Jim Green) a right of reply so I replied in the comments section and my reply was deleted by Heard and my comment alerting readers to a substantive response on this FoE webpage was not published
Here are the comments censored by Heard.
Ben Heard: “Then find the cost estimates, add them up and divide it by three, and float that as the cost of SMR nuclear that will inform decision-making in Australia.”
Response: Yes, real-world SMR construction cost data is limited but it is a better guide than self-serving industry claims. Also relevant are real-world data about cost overruns including the huge overruns with SMR projects and the A$10+ billion-dollar overruns with large reactors in western Europe and the US.
Ben Heard: “If Friends of the Earth thinks +50% is too low, they could have stated their reasoning, made their case (succinctly, if at all possible) and proposed their loading.”
Response: The general recent pattern is that EARLY vendor estimates underestimate true costs by an order of magnitude (see my article – citing AP1000s, EPRs, and Argentina’s SMR as examples), while estimates around the time of initial construction underestimate true costs by a factor of 2-4 (numerous examples cited in my article).
So a 100% loading above NuScale’s estimate would be the minimum starting point.
Note that the WSP / Parsons Brinckerhoff LCOE estimate for a NuScale SMR (A$225 or ~US$150 per MWh) is 2.5 times greater than NuScale’s estimate, and it is roughly twice the BNW estimate.
Ben Heard: “We went with vendor first-of-a-kind estimate +50%, consistent with this being a Class 4 cost estimate, independently verified, based on well-known and understood technology …”
Response: None of that changes the fact that numerous recent real-world reactor projects have been subject to vastly greater cost overruns.
Ben Heard: “We look forward to the author securing employment with a major accounting firm and explaining this [that NuScale’s cost estimate is bollocks] the next time the estimates are verified.”
Response: Heard himself adds a 50% loading. WSP / Parsons Brinckerhoff’s LCOE estimate is 2.5 times greater than NuScale’s estimate. No-one believes NuScale’s estimate.
Ben Heard: “Friends of the Earth didn’t understand ‘Class 4 estimate’. It is a defined term, established for estimates of engineer/procure/construct in civil projects. This is clearly described in our submission. We doubt they read it.”
Response: Yes, I do understand the term and have read your various articles and submissions – and referenced three of them at the top of my article. The real-world evidence, for both small and large reactors, demonstrates that Class 4 estimates need a rethink, especially the demonstrably false assertion (or assumption) that a 50% loading will cover any conceivable overruns.
Ben Heard: “‘NuScale’s estimate (per kW) is just one-third of the cost of the Vogtle plant’. Drawing comparison with large nuclear units, the very paradigm SMR is devised to disrupt, while not entirely irrelevant, is pretty dubious.”
Response: The relevance is that there is a solid body of expert opinion that construction costs per kW and LCOE will be greater for SMRs compared to large reactors. For example a 2015 report by the IEA and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency predicts that costs per MWh for SMRs will typically be 50−100% higher than for current large reactors, and a UK report estimated a 30% cost increase per MWh.
Ben Heard: “‘BNW objected to the previous CSIRO/AEMO estimate of five years for construction of an SMR and proposed a “more probable” three-year estimate’. We neither objected, nor proposed a ‘more probable’ 3 years, nor even used the words ‘more probable’!”
Response: From the cited BNW paper: “No SMR developer is working on the basis of 5-year construction. This would also raise the LCOE considerably compared with a more probable 3 three years on the basis of what those bringing SMR to market are actually devising.”
As noted in my article, SMR projects typically take about a decade from start of construction to completion or near-completion (8 to 12.5 years).
Ben Heard: “‘100% agreed with Friends of the Earth [that there’s no empirical basis, nor any logical basis, for the learning rate assumed in the GenCost report]. There remains lack of transparency and replicability as regards the SMR learning rates applied in GenCost.”
Response: So do the maths … what is a reasonable learning rate based on the 12.5 year Russian floating plant?
What is a reasonable learning rate based on the Argentinian SMR, conceived in the 1980s, with construction of the first prototype currently stalled due to the project’s ‘serious financial breakdown’?
What is a reasonable learning rate based on mPower, abandoned after the expenditure of US$500 million and before construction of a first prototype began?
What is the learning rate for fast neutron reactors? That question could be answered based on 70 years of mostly-failed projects and would usefully inform current SMR / Gen 4 debates. My guess is that the FNR learning rate is negative.
What are the learning rates for large light water reactors? Well, we can answer that question, and I did so in my article: a very slow learning rate with modest cost decreases, or a negative learning rate.
Heard / Bright New World claims about SMR learning rates are 100% speculative.
Ben Heard: “‘Even with heroic assumptions resulting in CSIRO/AEMO’s low-cost estimate of A$129 per MWh…’. Friends of the Earth has studiously avoided all of the other necessary corrections identified by Bright New World, in particular operating costs and capacity factor, which bring this right down to more like $100/MWh.”
We have considered all the real-world data and plenty more besides. That research is synthesised in the RenewEconomy article and there’s loads more info in submissions such as this:
Our conclusions are shared by informed expert opinion (cited in the submission), e.g. the pro-nuclear US academic researchers who concluded that for SMRs to make a significant contribution to US energy supply, “several hundred billion dollars of direct and indirect subsidies would be needed to support their development and deployment over the next several decades”.
Ben Heard: “‘NuScale Power…hasn’t yet begun construction of a single prototype’. The reference case technology uses the most commercially established fuel cycle in the world, with standard fuel.”
Response: mPower was based on conventional light water technology, but still went bust after the expenditure of US$500 million. Rolls-Royce is proposing light water technology for SMRs in the UK but won’t proceed unless and until a long list of demands are met and hefty subsidies granted.
More SMR spin and misinformation from Ben Heard
In 2020, Ben Heard repeatedly wrote and talked about the ‘real costs of small modular reactors’ (SMRs), attacking anyone who thinks that the real costs of SMRs (predictably over-budget and behind-schedule SMR construction projects) ought to factor in a discussion about the real costs of SMRs. Instead, Heard bases his estimates on self-serving, absurdly low company estimates (which are several times lower than expert estimates presented in the report of the SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission).
Here’s the beginning of an Oct. 2020 article by Heard. Spoiler alert: Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is 100% government-owned.
Heard:
“Based on the events of 2020, we might now find ourselves at the dawn of the very fast change in the journey of advanced, small modular reactors to commercialisation. A veritable flurry of recent announcements can hearten everyone who cares about a clean energy future.
“A new force is coming that can greatly accelerate our energy transition. On October 6, Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation announced the long awaited outcomes of a comprehensive assessment of SMR technologies, declaring a commitment of support to advance the engineering and design work of three SMRs designs: the BWRX-300 from General Electric-Hitachi, the Integral Molten Salt Reactor from Terrestrial Energy, and the Xe-100 pebble bed reactor from X-energy. To settle on these three designs, vendors passed through a due diligence process described by X-energy as the most comprehensive it has ever been through. That statement highlights the significance of this announcement.
“One of the flippant barbs aimed at the SMR sector by commentators (normally of the ideologically entrenched kind) is that private money is not interested in mere paper reactors, and that the whole class of technology is a distant prospect. It is one of those lazy critiques that are easy to say, and safe from dispute all through the long lead time to falsification. OPG’s decision, along with its joint venture formation with Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation and Global First Power, goes a long way to putting this simplistic assertion to rest.”
So a 100% government-owned entity is supporting SMR ‘engineering and design work’ (far short of a commitment to invest billions in actually constructing reactors) and that “goes a long way” to dispelling abundant evidence that private funding is far short of getting reactor construction projects off the ground? Could Heard’s nuclear advocacy get any sillier?
Will OPG and some or all of the three above-mentioned companies get reactor construction projects off the ground? Here’s a downbeat Nov. 2020 assessment in World Nuclear News, an industry publication not known for downbeat assessments:
“Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has announced it is resuming planning activities for building new nuclear generating capacity at its Darlington site in Ontario. However, it is now considering the construction of a small modular reactor (SMR) rather than a large conventional reactor, as previously envisaged. …
“No decision on technology has been made yet, OPG said, but it has begun work aimed at identifying potential options. Last month, OPG announced advancement of engineering and design work with three grid-scale SMR developers: GE Hitachi, Terrestrial Energy and X-energy. It said work with the three developers continues and will help inform OPG on potential options for future deployment.”
Does the OPG collaboration with the three companies involve a significant commitment of resources from any of the parties? The relevant announcements don’t mention any financial commitment from any of the parties. An Oct. 2020 World Nuclear News article suggests low-level, low-commitment collaboration: “GEH said it will provide detailed information on the design process, licensing, scheduling and contracting that will help inform OPG on options for siting an SMR in Ontario.” Heard’s comments about the announcement amount to hyperbole.
As for the “flurry” of other announcements noted in Heard’s article which purportedly prove private-sector commitment to SMRs:
— Canadian GOVERNMENT funding for Terrestrial Energy design / pre-licensing work. (Evidently Terrestrial Energy can’t even find private capital for design / pre-licensing work let alone serious capital for reactor construction.)
— GOVERNMENT funding for the US Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. This “will bring two advanced reactor designs into full operation in the next 7 years”, Heard says, although he surely knows that statement to be implausible and he surely knows about the history of failure of such programs e.g. the US Next Generation Nuclear Plant Project which was abandoned in 2011 because of the unwillingness of the private sector to commit adequate funding.
— US GOVERNMENT funding for NuScale Power (without mentioning that expert evidence from economists, commissioned by the SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, estimated a hopelessly uneconomic cost of A$225/MWh … the Minerals Council of Australia says that there will be no market for SMRs above a cost of A$60‒80/MWh).
— Potential GOVERNMENT SMR funding by the US International Development Finance Corporation.
— GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy begins a licencing process in the US for BWRX-300 SMR (no mention of the government subsidies, or of the vast gulf between beginning a licensing process and completing reactor construction … or even beginning reactor construction for that matter).
— Russia’s GOVERNMENT-funded floating reactor (no mention of the fact that its purpose is to support fossil fuel mining operations, or that the capital cost increased four-fold, or that the power it produces costs a hopelessly uneconomic US$200/MWh (A$260/MWh) according to the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency).
— A consortium of British businesses submits proposals to build SMRs (no mention of the fact that they won’t move an inch without vast government funding).
Heard writes: “With so many critics insisting the nuclear sector must develop the flexibility to accommodate variable renewables, the sector is delivering in spades with nimble designs, and now directly embedded storage.” Except that nothing in the real world supports what Heard is saying … not one of the reactors Heard is describing is operating or under construction, and the only things the sector is “delivering in spades” are paper designs, press releases and proposals for government funding. Most (perhaps all) of the handful of actual SMR construction projects have exhibited a familiar pattern of massive cost overruns and multi-year / multi-decade delays.
Heard writes: “In a seeming blink of an eye, the SMR sector has evolved into the strong probability of six or more vendors delivering first power before 2030.” There is literally zero chance of six or more vendors delivering first power before 2030, and a strong probability of zero vendors delivering first power before 2030. For reference, the flurry of worldwide SMR propaganda in the 1990s led to the construction of zero SMRs.
Heard’s lobby group ‘Bright New World’ accepts secret corporate donations from the nuclear industry. It’s a safe bet that the secret corporate donors include companies with an interest in SMRs. Note also that Heard’s article fails to declare his interest in one of the companies mentioned — he is a member of a Terrestrial Energy advisory board. He believes that it’s your responsibility to do the research to ascertain whether or not he has any conflicts of interest!
Heard mentions “the improving development and prospects in large nuclear in many markets”. Really?
— NuScale’s project in Idaho was abandoned in 2023 after cost estimates rose to an absurd A$31 billion / gigawatt
— The Darlington / Canada project is at the very early stages of construction (or pre-construction. The Darlington cost estimate is used as the basis of SMR cost estimates in CSIRO’s July 2025 GenCost report, which finds that SMRs are by far the most expensive option for Australia.
— Worldwide, the only two operating SMRs are the HTGR in China, and Russia’s floating plant … and neither of them are SMRs in any meaningful sense,
In their Jan. 2021 submission, Heard / BNW promote the report by the Economic and Finance Working Group (EFWG) of the Canadian government-industry ‘SMR Roadmap’ initiative.
The Canadian EFWG report gives a wide range of SMR cost estimates ‒ all but the lowest of the cost estimates suggest that SMRs would be uneconomic in Australia (e.g. the Minerals Council of Australia has said that costs would need to be A$60/MWh or less to be competitive).
The lowest estimates in the Canadian EFWG report assume near-term deployment from a standing start (with no-one offering to risk billions of dollars to build demonstration reactors), plus extraordinary learning rates in an industry notorious for its negative learning rates.
Dr. Ziggy Switkowski noted in his evidence to the federal nuclear inquiry that “nuclear power has got more expensive, rather than less expensive”. Yet the EFWG paper takes a made-up, ridiculously-high learning rate and subjects SMR cost estimates to eight ‘cumulative doublings’ based on the learning rate.
That is creative accounting and one can only wonder why Ben Heard and Bright New World would present it as a credible estimate. One possible answer is nuclear industry funding of Bright New World, and Heard’s role as an adviser to wannabe SMR developer Terrestrial Energy. The Heard / BNW submission ought to declare those interests but fails to do so.
Here are the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) SMR cost estimates from the EFWG paper:
300-megawatt (MW) on-grid SMR: C$162.67 / MWh
125-MW off-grid heavy industry: C$178.01 / MWh
20-MW off-grid remote mining: C$344.62 / MWh
3-MW off-grid remote community: C$894.05 / MWh
In Australian dollars, the range is A$167 to A$914 / MWh. The Minerals Council of Australia says that SMRs would need to produce power at A$60/MWh to be competitive … almost three times lower than the lowest of the Canadian FOAK estimates.
The government and industry members on the Canadian EFWG are in no doubt that SMRs won’t be built without public subsidies:
“The federal and provincial governments should, in partnership with industry, investigate ways to best risk-share through policy mechanisms to reduce the cost of capital. This is especially true for the first units deployed, which would likely have a substantially higher cost of capital than a commercially mature SMR.”
The EFWG paper used a range of estimates from the literature and vendors. It notes problems with its inputs, such as the fact that many of the vendor estimates have not been independently vetted, and “the wide variation in costs provided by expert analysts”. Thus, the EFWG qualifies its findings by noting that “actual costs could be higher or lower depending on a number of eventualities”.
Ben Heard promoting floating nuclear power plants that will be used to exploit Arctic fossil fuel reserves!
2018 – Ben Heard is promoting Russian Rosatom’s floating nuclear power plant that will be used to exploit Arctic fossil fuel reserves.
State news agency Sputnik News, 2017: “Last week, officials from over a dozen countries gathered in Arkhangelsk, Russia for the international forum ‘The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue’. Among the forum’s senior participants was Russian nuclear energy giant Rosatom. Officials from the company and from the government previewed Rosatom’s role in the new wave of intensive Arctic development. Speaking at the forum, Rosatom CEO Aleksei Lihachev emphasized that the company has a wide array of projects and proposals in the areas of transport, energy, mining, and environmental protection, many of them taken into account by the government and by companies operating in the region. For example, Rosatom’s nuclear icebreakers are actively assisting in the creation of the so-called Northern Sea Route, the new northern shipping route running along the Russian Arctic coast from the Kara Sea to the Bering Strait. The Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant, meanwhile, provides power to the Arctic territories.”
New nuclear push digs deep into vault of alternative facts
In 2017, Heard facilitated an Australian speaking tour by the US Breakthrough Institute. RenewEconomy published a critique of the Breakthrough Institute’s Gen 4 / SMR silliness.
New nuclear push digs deep into vault of alternative facts
Australia’s nuclear energy debate reaches Peak Idiocy this week with the visit of Jessica Lovering from the U.S. Breakthrough Institute. Lovering has and will be speaking at public events alongside Australian university student Ben Heard.
Both the Breakthrough Institute and Heard’s ‘Bright New World’ present themselves as progressive environment groups but they are single-issue, pro-nuclear lobby groups with little interest in broader environmental issues. Australia’s environment groups ‒ i.e. real environment groups ‒ are united in our opposition to nuclear power.
Real environment groups celebrate the spectacular growth of renewables and the spectacular cost reductions whereas pro-nuclear lobby groups, including Lovering’s Breakthrough Institute and Heard’s Bright New World, are on a never-ending campaign against renewables. Global renewable energy capacity has doubled over the past decade and current renewable capacity of 2,006 gigawatts (GW) is 5.1 times greater than nuclear power capacity of 392 GW (including idle reactors in Japan). Actual electricity generation from renewables (23.5% of global generation) is more than double that from nuclear power (10.7%) and the gap is widening every day.
Lovering’s opinion piece in The Australian on Monday fails to note that her speaking trip is sponsored by the Minerals Council of Australia. Likewise, Heard has also been paid as a uranium industry consultant.
As discussed in RenewEconomy in April, the industry is definitely in crisis. US nuclear giant Westinghouse has filed for bankruptcy protection. Westinghouse’s parent company Toshiba states that there is “substantial doubt” about Toshiba’s “ability to continue as a going concern”. These industry giants have been brought to their knees by cost overruns ‒ estimated at US$13 billion ‒ building four power reactors in the U.S.
Likewise, French nuclear utilities EDF and Areva survive only because of repeated, multi-billion-dollar bailouts by the French government. The combined cost overruns for two French EPR reactors under construction in France and Finland amount to at least US$13.5 billion. South Korea is now looking to exit the industry.
As the Breakthrough Institute’s Michael Shellenberger wrote in February:
“Nuclear energy is, simply, in a rapidly accelerating crisis:
Demand for nuclear energy globally is low, and the new reactors being built may not keep up with the closure of nuclear plants around the world. Half of all U.S. nuclear plants are at risk of closure over the next 13 years.
Japan has only opened two of its 42 shuttered nuclear reactors, six years after Fukushima. Most experts estimated it would have two-thirds open by now. The reason is simple: low public acceptance.
While some still see India as a sure-thing for nuclear, the nation has not resolved key obstacles to building new plants, and is likely to add just 16 GW of nuclear by 2030, not the 63 GW that was anticipated.
Vietnam had worked patiently for 20 years to build public support for a major nuclear build-out before abruptly scrapping those plans in response to rising public fears and costs last year. Vietnam now intends to build coal plants.
Last month Entergy, a major nuclear operator, announced it was getting out of the nuclear generation business in states where electricity has been de-regulated, including New York where it operates the highly lucrative Indian Point.”
Lovering’s solution to the nuclear power crisis is to sell moonshine. From The Australian on Monday: “Advanced nuclear designs have the capability to be meltdown-proof, using a combination of coolants, fuels, and basic physics. Reactors that are intrinsically safe can also be radically cheaper, especially by making much smaller, modular reactors in factory settings.”
But the only ‘meltdown-proof’ reactors are those that come pre-melted, i.e. concepts based on liquid nuclear fuels. As for WMD proliferation, the UK Royal Society notes: “There is no proliferation proof nuclear fuel cycle. The dual use risk of nuclear materials and technology and in civil and military applications cannot be eliminated.”
As for small modular reactors (SMRs), only a few are under construction: one in Argentina, a twin-reactor floating nuclear power plant in Russia, and three SMRs in China (including two high-temperature gas-cooled reactors). The broad picture for SMRs is much the same as that for fast neutron reactors: lots of hot air, some R&D, but few concrete plans and even fewer concrete pours.
There isn’t the slightest chance that SMRs will fulfil the ambition of making nuclear power “radically cheaper” unless and until a manufacturing supply chain is mass producing SMRs for a mass market ‒ and even then, it’s doubtful whether the power would be cheaper and it is inconceivable that it would be “radically cheaper”. After all, economies-of-scale have driven the long-term drift towards larger reactors.
As things stand, no country, company or utility has any intention of betting billions on building an SMR supply chain. The prevailing scepticism is evident in a February 2017 Lloyd’s Register report based on “insights and opinions of leaders across the sector” and the views of almost 600 professionals and experts from utilities, distributors, operators and equipment manufacturers. Respondents predicted that SMRs have a “low likelihood of eventual take-up, and will have a minimal impact when they do arrive”.
In the absence of a mass supply chain, SMRs will be expensive curiosities. The construction cost of Argentina’s 25-megawatt CAREM reactor is estimated at US$446 million, which equates to a whopping US$17.8 billion/GW. Estimated construction costs for the Russian floating plant have increased more than four-fold and now equate to over US$10 billion / GW.
Ben Heard thinks Australia should take the lead building his preferred version of Generation IV fast neutron reactors. So Australia ‒ a country with virtually no relevant expertise and even less experience ‒ should take the lead developing Generation IV reactors despite the fact that global nuclear industry giants face crippling debts and possible bankruptcy due to cost overruns building a handful of conventional reactors?
That proposition is beyond stupid and it was even rejected by the (stridently pro-nuclear) SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission last year. The Royal Commission said: “[A]dvanced fast reactors and other innovative reactor designs are unlikely to be feasible or viable in the foreseeable future. The development of such a first-of-a-kind project in South Australia would have high commercial and technical risk. Although prototype and demonstration reactors are operating, there is no licensed, commercially proven design. Development to that point would require substantial capital investment. Moreover, electricity generated from such reactors has not been demonstrated to be cost competitive with current light water reactor designs.”
Lovering offers one more alternative fact ‒ the claim that South Australia could accrue A$6 billion in annual economic benefits by importing vast amounts of nuclear waste from around the world.
That claim was tested by the Nuclear Economics Consulting Group, commissioned by a Joint Select Committee of the SA Parliament. The NECG report notes that the $6 billion claim, presented in the SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission’s 2016 report, fails to consider some important issues which “have significant serious potential to adversely impact the project and its commercial outcomes”; that assumptions about price are “overly optimistic” in which case “project profitability is seriously at risk”; that the 25% cost contingency for delays and blowouts is likely to be a significant underestimate; and that the assumption the project would capture 50% of the available market had “little support or justification”.
Australia Institute critique of Ben Heard’s waste-to-fuel Generation IV nuclear fantasies
February 2016: An important new report from The Australia Institute shows that a proposal to establish a global nuclear waste industry in South Australia would fail to secure 90% of the imported waste, leaving an expensive and risky legacy for the state. Ben Heard responded by saying the Australia Institute “seeks to deliberately mislead, misrepresent and misdirect.”
In a nutshell, Heard wants South Australia to import 60,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste (spent fuel). 4,000 tonnes would be converted to fuel for Generation IV reactors. Or perhaps it won’t, since those Generation IV reactors are a figment of his imagination. He has no idea about the remaining 56,000 tonnes. He claims that this half-baked, hare-brained nonsense “offers a solution to the spent fuel problem”.
See also a separate Australia Institute report, ‘Digging for Answers’, on the economics of plans to import thousands of tonnes of spent fuel / high-level nuclear waste.
Pyroprocessing flops
The USA has infinitely more nuclear expertise and experience than Australia yet Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy due to crippling debts building CONVENTIONAL nuclear power plants. Two of the reactors were cancelled after A$13 BILLION had been spent on the project (V.C. Summer project, South Carolina).
Ben Heard’s bright idea: Australia – a country with infinitely less nuclear expertise and experience – should take the lead building RADICAL GENERATION-4 reactors. What could possibly go wrong?!
The stridently pro-nuclear SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission completely rejected Heard’s idea.
Another set of problems is discussed here: the Gen 4 reactors Heard wants you to pay for rely on pyroprocessing … a failed technology. Physicist Dr Ed Lyman states:
“Everyone with an interest in pyroprocessing should reassess their views given the real-world problems experienced in implementing the technology over the last 20 years at INL. They should also note that the variant of the process being used to treat the EBR-II spent fuel is less complex than the process that would be needed to extract plutonium and other actinides to produce fresh fuel for fast reactors. In other words, the technology is a long way from being demonstrated as a practical approach for electricity production.”)
Here’s a summary of Dr Lyman’s research plus links to short and long versions of his research:
Pyroprocessing: the integral fast reactor waste fiasco
In theory, integral fast reactors (IFRs) would gobble up nuclear waste and convert it into low-carbon electricity. In practice, the IFR R&D program in Idaho has left a legacy of troublesome waste. This saga is detailed in a recent article1 and a longer report2 by the Union of Concerned Scientists’ senior scientist Ed Lyman.
Lyman notes that the IFR concept “has attracted numerous staunch advocates” but their “interest has been driven largely by idealized studies on paper and not by facts derived from actual experience.”1 He discusses the IFR prototype built at Idaho ‒ the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II), which ceased operation in 1994 ‒ and subsequent efforts by the Department of Energy (DOE) to treat 26 metric tons of “sodium-bonded” metallic spent fuel from the EBR-II reactor with pyroprocessing, ostensibly to convert the waste to forms that would be safer for disposal in a geological repository. A secondary goal was to demonstrate the viability of pyroprocessing ‒ but the program has instead demonstrated the serious shortcomings of this technology.
Lyman writes:1
“Pyroprocessing is a form of spent fuel reprocessing that dissolves metal-based spent fuel in a molten salt bath (as distinguished from conventional reprocessing, which dissolves spent fuel in water-based acid solutions). Understandably, given all its problems, DOE has been reluctant to release public information on this program, which has largely operated under the radar since 2000.
“The FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] documents we obtained have revealed yet another DOE tale of vast sums of public money being wasted on an unproven technology that has fallen far short of the unrealistic projections that DOE used to sell the project to Congress, the state of Idaho and the public. However, it is not too late to pull the plug on this program, and potentially save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. …
“Pyroprocessing was billed as a simpler, cheaper and more compact alternative to the conventional aqueous reprocessing plants that have been operated in France, the United Kingdom, Japan and other countries.
“Although DOE shut down the EBR-II in 1994 (the reactor part of the IFR program), it allowed work at the pyroprocessing facility to proceed. It justified this by asserting that the leftover spent fuel from the EBR-II could not be directly disposed of in the planned Yucca Mountain repository because of the potential safety issues associated with presence of metallic sodium in the spent fuel elements, which was used to “bond” the fuel to the metallic cladding that encased it. (Metallic sodium reacts violently with water and air.)
“Pyroprocessing would separate the sodium from other spent fuel constituents and neutralize it. DOE decided in 2000 to use pyroprocessing for the entire inventory of leftover EBR-II spent fuel – both “driver” and “blanket” fuel – even though it acknowledged that there were simpler methods to remove the sodium from the lightly irradiated blanket fuel, which constituted nearly 90% of the inventory.
“However, as the FOIA documents reveal in detail, the pyroprocessing technology simply has not worked well and has fallen far short of initial predictions. Although DOE initially claimed that the entire inventory would be processed by 2007, as of the end of Fiscal Year 2016, only about 15% of the roughly 26 metric tons of spent fuel had been processed. Over $210 million has been spent, at an average cost of over $60,000 per kilogram of fuel treated. At this rate, it will take until the end of the century to complete pyroprocessing of the entire inventory, at an additional cost of over $1 billion.
“But even that assumes, unrealistically, that the equipment will continue to be usable for this extended time period. Moreover, there is a significant fraction of spent fuel in storage that has degraded and may not be a candidate for pyroprocessing in any event. …
“What exactly is the pyroprocessing of this fuel accomplishing? Instead of making management and disposal of the spent fuel simpler and safer, it has created an even bigger mess. …
“[P]yroprocessing has taken one potentially difficult form of nuclear waste and converted it into multiple challenging forms of nuclear waste. DOE has spent hundreds of millions of dollars only to magnify, rather than simplify, the waste problem. This is especially outrageous in light of other FOIA documents that indicate that DOE never definitively concluded that the sodium-bonded spent fuel was unsafe to directly dispose of in the first place. But it insisted on pursuing pyroprocessing rather than conducting studies that might have shown it was unnecessary.
“Everyone with an interest in pyroprocessing should reassess their views given the real-world problems experienced in implementing the technology over the last 20 years at INL. They should also note that the variant of the process being used to treat the EBR-II spent fuel is less complex than the process that would be needed to extract plutonium and other actinides to produce fresh fuel for fast reactors. In other words, the technology is a long way from being demonstrated as a practical approach for electricity production.”
References:
Ed Lyman / Union of Concerned Scientists, 12 Aug 2017, ‘The Pyroprocessing Files’, http://allthingsnuclear.org/elyman/the-pyroprocessing-files
Edwin Lyman, 2017, ‘External Assessment of the U.S. Sodium-Bonded Spent Fuel Treatment Program’, https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/nuclear-power/Pyroprocessing/IAEA-CN-245-492%2Blyman%2Bfinal.pdf
Ben Heard’s support for the coal industry
Here is an excerpt from this article: Jim Green, 13 June 2019, ‘Nuclear power exits Australia’s energy debate, enters culture wars’, https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-power-exits-australias-energy-debate-enters-culture-wars-47702/
Of course, support for nuclear power in Australia isn’t exclusively limited to the far-right, although it is heading that way. A tiny number of self-styled ‘pro-nuclear environmentalists’ or ‘ecomodernists’ continue to bang the drum. Ben Heard, for example, continues to voice his support for nuclear power ‒ his advocacy lubricated by secret corporate donations and amplified by the right-wing media and by invitations to nuclear-industry talk-fests.
Heard continues undeterred by the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission’s clear acknowledgement that nuclear power is not economically viable in Australia or by its complete rejection of his ‘next generation’ nuclear fantasies.
But what impact could Heard’s nuclear advocacy possibly have in the current context, with fossil fuel interests fighting to protect their patch and to curb the growth of renewables, and with nuclear power being so exorbitantly expensive that isn’t part of any serious debate about Australia’s energy options? Surely the only effect of nuclear advocacy in the current context is to muddy the debate about transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables and thus to shore up incumbent fossil fuel interests.
Australian economist John Quiggin discussed these issues last year (emphasis added):
“The problem is that nuclear fans like Ben Heard are, in effect, advocates for coal. Their line of argument runs as follows:
(1) A power source with the characteristics of coal-fired electricity (always on) is essential if we are to decarbonise the electricity supply
(2) Renewables can’t meet this need
(3) Nuclear power can
“Hence, we must find a way to support nuclear. The problem is that, on any realistic analysis, there’s no chance of getting a nuclear plant going in Australia before about 2040. So, the nuclear fans end up supporting the Abbott crew saying that we will have to rely on coal until then. And to make this case, it is necessary to ignore or denounce the many options for an all-renewable electricity supply, including concentrated solar power, large-scale battery storage and vehicle-to-grid options. As a result, would-be green advocates of nuclear power end up reinforcing the arguments of the coal lobby. … In practice, support for nuclear power in Australia is support for coal. Tony Abbott understands this. It’s a pity that Ben Heard and others don’t.”
(Also see elsewhere in this webpage: ‘Ben Heard promoting floating nuclear power plants that will be used to exploit Arctic fossil fuel reserves!’)
Nuclear power and the far right
An article in an IPA publication … consulting work with the far-right MCA … consulting work for the appalling General Atomics … sympathetic coverage from the Murdoch press and from the AFR’s far-right anti-journalist Aaron Patrick. What to make of Ben Heard’s far-right connections? One explanation is offered by Australian economist Prof. John Quiggin:
I’ve been very surprised by the extent to which some commentators on the right have been willing to entertain the idea of a carbon price in return for lifting the ban on nuclear power. I mentioned Aaron Patrick in the Fin yesterday. And today, here’s Adam Creighton at the Oz
Reviving the carbon tax debate is probably anathema for many, but if one were set up correctly, with all the money being returned to taxpayers by way of an annual payment, it would make nuclear power stations more viable and provide a political springboard to abandon the massively inefficient clutter of state and federal renewable energy targets. Carbon dividends for all is a much better sell than a carbon tax on everything
The obvious example, for me at any rate, is Ben Heard. So, I was quite surprised when, in a lengthy Twitter discussion (here’s his feed), he would not endorse a carbon price, or any other specific measure to reduce emissions. Not only that, but he professed greater sympathy for rightwing science deniers than for anti-nuclear environmentalists.
It’s easy enough to guess what is going on here. I imagine Heard started out with genuine concern about the climate, and convinced himself that nuclear power was an essential part of the solution. That entailed arguing that renewables couldn’t do the job, even with storage. At this point, Heard would have got plenty of hostility from environmentalists, and plenty of support from denialists. So, when he’s faced with something like a carbon price (or, for that matter, any effective climate policy) that his new friends will hate (check out the old white male Oz commenters on Creighton’s post), he backs away. I’ve previously seen the same pattern with Barry Brook and (from a different starting point) Ted Trainer.
Ben Heard supports a nuclear waste dump in SA despite the unanimous opposition of Barngarla Traditional Owners
Shamefully, the federal government refused a request from Barngarla Traditional Owners, native title holders of the area, to be included in a community ballot regarding a proposed national nuclear waste ‘facility’ (dump and store) near Kimba in South Australia. So the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation (BDAC) engaged an independent agent to conduct a confidential postal ballot.
Not a single Barngarla Traditional Owner voted in favour of the dump. BDAC wrote to Mr. Canavan calling on him to abandon the nuclear dump in light of their unanimous opposition, and stating that BDAC will take whatever steps are necessary to stop the dump being imposed on Barngarla Country against their will.
The SA Labor Party argues that Traditional Owners ought to have a right of veto. Deputy Leader of the Opposition Susan Close says that SA Labor are “utterly opposed to the process”, which she described as “appalling”.
Compare that to the federal government, which wants to push ahead despite unanimous Aboriginal opposition. The government’s mind-set seems not to have advanced from the ‘Aboriginal natives shall not be counted’ clause in the Constitution Act 1900.
So where does ‘progressive ecomodernist’ Ben Heard stand on this? He supports the dump despite unanimous Aboriginal opposition.
Update, 2025: The dump plan was abandoned in 2023 after successful legal action by the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation.
Aboriginal First Nations and Australia’s pro-nuclear ‘environmentalists’
Jim Green, 3 July 2018, Online Opinion, http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19825&page=0
The plan to turn South Australia into the world’s nuclear waste dump has lost momentum since 2016 though it continues to be promoted by some politicians, the Business SA lobby group, and an assortment of individuals and lobbyists including self-styled ‘pro-nuclear environmentalists’ or ‘ecomodernists‘.
In its 2016 report, the SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission established by the state government promoted a plan to import 138,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste (about one-third of the world’s total) and 390,000 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste. The state Labor government then spent millions on a state-wide promotional campaign under the guide of consultation.
The government also initiated a Citizens’ Jury process. However two-thirds of the 350-member Citizens’ Jury rejected the waste import proposal “under any circumstances” in their November 2016 report. The Jury’s verdict was non-binding but it took the wind out of the dumpsters’ sails.
A key factor in the Jury’s rejection of the waste import plan was that Aboriginal people had spoken clearly in opposition. The Jury’s report said: “There is a lack of aboriginal consent. We believe that the government should accept that the Elders have said NO and stop ignoring their opinions. The aboriginal people of South Australia (and Australia) continue to be neglected and ignored by all levels of government instead of respected and treated as equals.”
The respect shown by the Citizens’ Jury to Aboriginal Traditional Owners had been conspicuously absent in the debate until then. The SA government’s handling of the Royal Commission process systematically disenfranchised Aboriginal people.
The Royal Commission
Royal Commissioner Kevin Scarce ‒ a retired Navy officer ‒ didn’t appoint a single Aboriginal person to the staff of the Royal Commission or to his Expert Advisory Committee. Aboriginal people repeatedly expressed frustration with the Royal Commission process.
The Royal Commission acknowledged the opposition of Aboriginal people to its nuclear waste import plan – but it treated that opposition not as a red light but as an obstacle to be circumvented. The Commission opted out of the debate regarding land rights and heritage protections for Aboriginal people, stating in its report: “Although a systematic analysis was beyond the scope of the Commission, it has heard criticisms of the heritage protection framework, particularly the consultative provisions.”
Despite its acknowledgement that it had not systematically analysed the matter, the Royal Commission nevertheless arrived at unequivocal, favourable conclusions, asserting that there “are frameworks for securing long-term agreements with rights holders in South Australia, including Aboriginal communities” and these “provide a sophisticated foundation for securing agreements with rights holders and host communities regarding the siting and establishment of facilities for the management of used fuel.”
Such statements were conspicuously absent in submissions from Aboriginal people and organisations. There is in fact an abundance of evidence that land rights and heritage protection frameworks in SA are anything but “sophisticated.”
Enter the ecomodernists
Ben Heard from the ‘Bright New World’ pro-nuclear lobby group said the Royal Commission’s findings were “robust”. Seriously? Failing to conduct an analysis and ignoring an abundance of contradictory evidence but nevertheless concluding that a “sophisticated foundation” exists for securing agreements with Aboriginal rights-holders … that’s “robust”? Likewise, academic Barry Brook, a member of the Commission’s Expert Advisory Committee, said he was “impressed with the systematic and ruthlessly evidence-based approach the [Royal Commission] team took to evaluating all issues.”
In a November 2016 article about the nuclear waste import plan, Ben Heard and Oscar Archer wrote: “We also note and respect the clear message from nearly all traditional owner groups in South Australia that there is no consent to proceed on their lands. We have been active from the beginning to shine a light on pathways that make no such imposition on remote lands.”
In Heard’s imagination, the imported spent nuclear fuel would not be dumped on the land of unwilling Aboriginal communities, it would be processed for use as fuel in non-existent Generation IV ‘integral fast reactors‘. Even the stridently pro-nuclear Royal Commission gave short shrift to Heard’s proposal, stating in its final report:
“[A]dvanced fast reactors and other innovative reactor designs are unlikely to be feasible or viable in the foreseeable future. The development of such a first-of-a-kind project in South Australia would have high commercial and technical risk.”
Heard claims his imaginary Generation IV reactor scenario “circumvents the substantial challenge of social consent for deep geological repositories, facilities that are likely to be best located, on a technical basis, on lands of importance to Aboriginal Australians”.
But even in Heard’s scenario, only a tiny fraction of the imported spent fuel would be converted to fuel for imaginary Generation IV reactors (in one of his configurations, 60,000 tonnes would be imported but only 4,000 tonnes converted to fuel). Most of it would be stored indefinitely, or dumped on the land of unwilling Aboriginal communities.
Despite his acknowledgement that there was “no consent” to proceed from “nearly all traditional owner groups in South Australia”, Heard nevertheless wrote an ‘open letter‘ promoting the waste import plan which was endorsed by ‘prominent’ South Australians, i.e. rich, non-Aboriginal people.
One of the reasons to pursue the waste import plan cited in Heard’s open letter is that it would provide an “opportunity to engage meaningfully and partner with Aboriginal communities in project planning and delivery”. There is no acknowledgement of the opposition of Aboriginal people to the waste import plan; evidently Heard believes that their opposition should be ignored or overridden but Aboriginal people might be given a say in project planning and delivery.
A second version of Heard’s open letter did not include the above wording but it cited the “successful community consultation program” with Aboriginal communities. However the report arising from the SA government’s community consultation program (successful or otherwise) stated: “Some Aboriginal people indicated that they are interested in learning more and continuing the conversation, but these were few in number.”
Geoff Russell, another self-styled pro-nuclear environmentalist, wrote in a November 2016 article in New Matilda:
“Have Aboriginals given any reasons for opposing a waste repository that are other than religious? If so, then they belong with other objections. If not, then they deserve the same treatment as any other religious objections. Listen politely and move on.
“Calling them spiritual rather than religious makes no difference. To give such objections standing in the debate over a repository is a fundamental violation of the separation of church and state, or as I prefer to put it, the separation of mumbo-jumbo and evidence based reasoning.
“Aboriginals have native title over various parts of Australia and their right to determine what happens on that land is and should be quite different from rights with regard to other land. This isn’t about their rights on that land.
“Suppose somebody wants to build a large intensive piggery. Should we consult Aboriginals in some other part of the country? Should those in the Kimberley perhaps be consulted? No.
“They may object to it in the same way I would, but they have no special rights in the matter. They have no right to spiritual veto.”
Where to begin? Russell’s description of Aboriginal spiritual beliefs as “mumbo-jumbo” is beyond offensive. He provides no evidence for his claim that Traditional Owners are speaking for other people’s country. Federal native title legislation provides limited rights and protections for some Traditional Owners ‒ and no rights and protections for many others (when the federal Coalition government was trying to impose a national nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land in SA in 2003, it abolished all native title rights and interests over the site).
National nuclear waste dump
The attitudes of the ecomodernists also extend to the debate over the siting of a proposed national nuclear waste dump. Silence from the ecomodernists when the federal government was passing laws allowing the imposition of a national nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory without consent from Traditional Owners. Echoing comments from the Liberal Party, Brook and Heard said the site in the Northern Territory was in the “middle of nowhere”. From their perspective, perhaps, but for Muckaty Traditional Owners the site is in the middle of their homelands.
Heard claims that one of the current proposed dump sites, in SA’s Flinders Ranges, is “excellent” in many respects and it “was volunteered by the landowner”. In fact, it was volunteered by absentee landlord and former Liberal Party politician Grant Chapman, who didn’t bother to consult Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners living on the neighbouring Indigenous Protected Area. The site is opposed by most Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners and by their representative body, the Adnyamathanha Traditional Lands Association (ATLA).
Heard claims there are “no known cultural heritage issues” affecting the Flinders Ranges site. Try telling that to the Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners who live on Yappala Station, in the Indigenous Protected Area adjacent to the proposed dump site. The area has many archaeological and culturally-significant sites that Traditional Owners have registered with the SA government over the past decade.
So where did Heard get this idea that there are “no known cultural heritage issues on the site”? Not from visiting the site, or speaking to Traditional Owners. He’s just repeating the federal government’s propaganda.
Silence from the ecomodernists about the National Radioactive Waste Management Act (NRWMA), which dispossesses and disempowers Traditional Owners in every way imaginable. The nomination of a site for a radioactive waste dump is valid even if Aboriginal owners were not consulted and did not give consent. The NRWMA has sections which nullify State or Territory laws that protect archaeological or heritage values, including those which relate to Indigenous traditions. The NRWMA curtails the application of Commonwealth laws including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 and the Native Title Act 1993 in the important site-selection stage. The Native Title Act 1993 is expressly overridden in relation to land acquisition for a radioactive waste dump.
Uranium mining
Silence from the ecomodernists about the Olympic Dam mine’s exemptions from provisions of the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act.
Silence from the ecomodernists about sub-section 40(6) of the Commonwealth’s Aboriginal Land Rights Act, which exempts the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory from the Act and thus removed the right of veto that Mirarr Traditional Owners would otherwise have enjoyed.
Silence from the ecomodernists about the divide-and-rule tactics used by General Atomics’ subsidiary Heathgate Resources against Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners in relation to the Beverley and Four Mile uranium mines in SA.
Adnyamathanha Traditional Owner Dr Jillian Marsh, who in 2010 completed a PhD thesis on the strongly contested approval of the Beverley mine, puts the nuclear debates in a broader context: “The First Nations people of Australia have been bullied and pushed around, forcibly removed from their families and their country, denied access and the right to care for their own land for over 200 years. Our health and wellbeing compares with third world countries, our people crowd the jails. Nobody wants toxic waste in their back yard, this is true the world over. We stand in solidarity with people across this country and across the globe who want sustainable futures for communities, we will not be moved.”
Now, Traditional Owners have to fight industry, government, and the ecomodernists as well.
Would you do consulting work for General Atomics?
Would you do consulting work for – or promote – a company that supported police brutality against a peaceful protest including the pepper-spraying of the 11-year old granddaughter of an Adnyamathana Elder? Ben Heard has.
As discussed in Nuclear Monitor #850, nuclear industry bodies (such as the US Nuclear Energy Institute) and supporters (such as former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz) are openly acknowledging the connections between nuclear power and weapons ‒ connections they have denied for decades.1 Those connections are evident in almost all of the weapons states, in numerous countries that have pursued but not built weapons, and in potential future weapons states such as Saudi Arabia.2
Ideally, acknowledgement of power/weapons connections would lead to redoubled efforts to build a firewall between civilian and military nuclear programs ‒ strengthened safeguards, curbs on enrichment and reprocessing, and so on. But that’s not how this debate in playing out. Industry insiders and supporters drawing attention to the connections are quite comfortable about them ‒ they just want increased subsidies and support for their domestic civilian nuclear industry lest ‘national security’ and ‘national defense’ be undermined.
Some continue to deny the power/weapons connections even though the connections are plain for all to see and are now being acknowledged by a growing number of nuclear insiders and supporters. The silliest of the deniers are those who self-describe as ‘pro-nuclear environmentalists’. One such person is Ben Heard ‒ a paid nuclear lobbyist in Australia whose so-called environment group ‘Bright New World’ accepts secret corporate donations.3,4
An article by Heard attacks the Australian Conservation Foundation for its failure to acknowledge the “obvious distinction” between nuclear power and weapons and for “co-opting disarmament … toward their ideological campaigns against peaceful science and technology”.5
The Australian Conservation Foundation has actively supported the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons since ICAN was formed in Australia in 2007. ACF’s nuclear-free campaigner Dave Sweeney was involved in the foundation of ICAN and has been on the ICAN Australia Board from 2007 to the present.
Heard’s response is to note that the Nobel Committee “is well aware of the role of technology in driving peace” and that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. But the Nobel Committee’s 2005 citation says nothing about nuclear power “driving peace” ‒ whatever that means ‒ and it doesn’t endorse or criticize nuclear power.6
The citation singled out then IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei ‒ the Peace Prize was awarded “in two equal parts” to the IAEA and ElBaradei. The citation noted that ElBaradei “has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen” the non-proliferation regime. During his tenure as IAEA Director General, ElBaradei was strikingly honest about the limitations of the so-called safeguards system. He noted that the IAEA’s basic rights of inspection are “fairly limited”, that the safeguards system suffers from “vulnerabilities” and “clearly needs reinforcement”, that efforts to improve the system have been “half-hearted”, and that the safeguards system operates on a “shoestring budget … comparable to that of a local police department “.7
In his Nobel Lecture, ElBaradei said: “We must … strengthen the verification system. IAEA inspections are the heart and soul of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. To be effective, it is essential that we are provided with the necessary authority, information, advanced technology, and resources. And our inspections must be backed by the UN Security Council, to be called on in cases of non-compliance.”6
There’s nothing about the limitations of safeguards in Heard’s article. He has never said anything about the limitations let alone made the slightest contribution towards resolving them.
Far from endorsing Heard’s claim about the “obvious” distinctions between nuclear power and weapons, ElBaradei noted in his Nobel Lecture that under the current system, any country has the right to develop operations for producing nuclear materials for civilian uses “but in doing so, it also masters the most difficult steps in making a nuclear bomb.”8
Consumption and production of fissile material
Heard says the anti-nuclear movement “simply ignore that the US nuclear power sector was integral in the destruction of no less than 16,000 former Soviet nuclear warheads under a program known as ‘Megatons to Megawatts’.”5 That’s another lie ‒ the anti-nuclear movement hasn’t ignored the program.
Heard ignores the production of fissile material in civilian nuclear programs:
The amount of civilian plutonium (almost all of it produced in power reactors) grows at a rate of about 70 tonnes per year.9 That amount of reactor-grade, weapons-usable plutonium10 would suffice to build about 7,000 weapons.
As of January 2017, the global stockpile of separated civilian plutonium (i.e. separated from spent fuel by reprocessing) was about 290 tonnes (enough for about 29,000 weapons).11
A May 2015 report written for the International Panel on Fissile Materials found that as of the end of 2013, civilian stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium amounted to over 50,000 weapons-equivalents.12 The weapons-equivalents figure jumps dramatically (to several hundred thousand) if plutonium in spent fuel is included.13
Nuclear power promotes peace?
Heard claims that nuclear power promotes peace and uses the two Koreas to illustrate his argument: “The South is a user and exporter of nuclear power, signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, and possesses zero nuclear warheads. The North has zero nuclear power reactors, is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, and is developing and testing nuclear weapons.”5
Likewise, Michael Shellenberger from the pro-nuclear lobby group ‘Environmental Progress’ claims that: “One of FOE-Greenpeace’s biggest lies about nuclear energy is that it leads to weapons. Korea demonstrates that the opposite is true: North Korea has a nuclear bomb and no nuclear energy, while South Korea has nuclear energy and no bomb.”14
Heard and Shellenberger ignore the fact that North Korea uses what is calls an ‘experimental power reactor’ (based on the UK Magnox power reactor design) to produce plutonium for weapons.15 They ignore the fact that North Korea acquired enrichment technology from Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan network, who stole the blueprints from URENCO, the consortium that provides enrichment services for the nuclear power industry.15 They ignore the fact that North Korea’s reprocessing plant is based on the design of the Eurochemic plant in Belgium, which provided reprocessing services for the nuclear power industry.15
Heard and Shellenberger also ignore South Korea’s history of covertly pursuing nuclear weapons, a history entwined with the country’s development of nuclear power. For example, the nuclear power program provided (and still provides) a rationale for South Korea’s pursuit of reprocessing technology.16
Nuclear Monitor #854, 4 Dec 2017, ‘Is Saudi Arabia going nuclear?’, www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/854/saudi-arabia-going-nuclear
Friends of the Earth, ‘Ben Heard and the fake environment group ‘Bright New World’ that accepts secret corporate donations’, https://nuclear.foe.org.au/ben-heard-secret-corporate-donations/
Ben Heard, 12 Dec 2017, ‘Australian Conservation Foundation leverages peace prize against peaceful technology’, www.brightnewworld.org/media/2017/12/12/acfnot4peace
IAEA, 2005, ‘2005 Nobel Peace Prize’, www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/nobel2005.pdf
The relevant articles and transcripts are no longer posted on the IAEA website but are available from monitor@wiseinternational.org
Mohamed ElBaradei, 10 Dec 2005, ‘Nobel Lecture’, https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/nobel2005.pdf
David Albright and Kimberly Kramer, 2005, ‘Plutonium Watch: Tracking Plutonium Inventories’, http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/plutonium_watch2005.pdf
International Panel on Fissile Materials, ‘Fissile material stocks’, http://fissilematerials.org/
Zia Mian and Alexander Glaser, 2015, ‘Global Fissile Material Report 2015: Nuclear Weapon and Fissile Material Stockpiles and Production’, International Panel on Fissile Materials, http://fissilematerials.org/library/ipfm15.pdf
Institute for Science and International Security, 1 Jan 2005, ‘Global Stocks of Nuclear Explosive Material – End 2003 (Updated 2005)’, Chapters I and II, http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/global-stocks-of-nuclear-explosive-materials/17
Michael Shellenberger, 16 Oct 2017, ‘Enemies of the Earth: Unmasking the Dirty War Against Clean Energy in South Korea by Friends of the Earth (FOE) and Greenpeace’, http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/10/16/enemies-of-the-earth-unmasking-dirty-war-friends-of-earth-greenpeace-south-korea-nuclear-energy
David Lowry, 26 July 2016, ‘What Theresa May forgot: North Korea used British technology to build its nuclear bombs’, www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2987935/what_theresa_may_forgot_north_korea_used_british_technology_to_build_its_nuclear_bombs.html
Correcting Ben Heard’s claims regarding nuclear waste import business proposals
Feb. 3, 2017
The Advertiser has today run an article including false claims from nuclear lobbyist / uranium industry consultant / PhD student Ben Heard that Jay Weatherill’s plan to turn SA into the world’s high-level nuclear waste dump could be pursued without the need to gamble hundreds of millions or billions of dollars with no guarantee of any return on the investment.
Mr Heard is quoted saying that the “notion of high upfront cost to South Australia is a persistent and deliberate lie first peddled by deceitful environmental groups and now, sadly, taken up by the Liberal Party.”
In fact, the necessity of gambling hundreds of millions or billions of dollars ‒ without the slightest guarantee of any return on the investment ‒ is clearly spelt out by Jacobs, the economics consulting firm commissioned by the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission.
Jacobs Project Manager / Consultant Tim Johnson told the SA Joint Select Committee that “total expenditure prior to the decision to proceed” is likely to be from around A$300 million to in excess of A$600 million, depending on the timing of the decision to proceed. (Letter to Joint Standing Committee, 5 July 2016.)
Dr Johnson told the Joint Select Committee that the project entails very significant economic risks: “It isn’t a risk-free process to go into this. There is a very significant risk.” Yet the nuclear waste dump lobby persist with the fabrication that the project can be pursued without economic risks.
Jacobs noted the potential for initial outlays in the billions in its report for the Royal Commission: “Under the cash-flow assumptions of the baseline, where no revenues ahead of delivery are assumed (a deliberately conservative assumption), there is an initial outlay of A$2.4 billion (real) in net terms.” (Jacobs, Paper 5, sec 4.4, Cash flow profile for the baseline, p.205.)
Any suggestion that the nuclear waste dump project could be a quick fix for the SA economy were dispelled by the Royal Commission’s report, which stated (emphasis added): “Careful characterisation over several decades is required to confirm the suitability of the geological conditions.”
The only way to avoid gambling hundreds of millions or billions of SA taxpayers’ dollars would be in the wildly improbable scenario that potential client countries would take that gamble. If anyone needs any convincing as to the improbability of that scenario, it came late last year in correspondence from the Taiwanese government’s energy and nuclear agencies. As Daniel Wills reported in The Advertiser: “Taiwan’s state-owned energy company has bluntly rejected Investment and Trade Minister Martin Hamilton-Smith’s claim the country would consider paying to help set up a nuclear waste dump in SA, saying in a letter that it “hereby declares this is a false information”.”
Taipower clearly states that it would not consider sending waste to another country unless and until that country has developed a repository. Yet the economic case developed by Jacobs and MCM collapses if revenue (and waste) is not received before construction of a repository. The Final Report of the Royal Commission states (p.300) (emphasis added): “Figure J.8 also demonstrates that a facility configuration scenario is viable only with the establishment of a surface interim storage facility capable of accepting used fuel prior to construction of geological disposal facilities. Configurations 3 and 4, which did not include interim storage facilities (see Table J.1), did not generate profits because of the delay in receiving waste and associated revenues.”
Taiwan’s Atomic Energy Council is clearly sensitive to SA public opinion, pointing to the Citizen Jury’s rejection of the proposal and noting that: “Without the understanding and support from Australian … nuclear waste storage cannot be developed.”
The nuclear waste dump lobbyists are hanging on to the ludicrous proposition that potential client countries will gamble hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on a waste dump plan that is:
* Opposed by three political parties in SA (Liberals, Greens, NXT) and by many within the ALP.
* Opposed by a majority of South Australians (e.g. 31% support vs. 53% opposition in the SA Government’s statewide consultation process; and a November 2016 poll commissioned by the Sunday Mail found just 35% support.)
* Opposed by a vast majority of Aboriginal Traditional Owners on whose land the high-level nuclear waste dump would necessarily be located. (The SA government’s Community Views Report said: “There was a significant lack of support for the government to continue pursuing any form of nuclear storage and disposal facilities. Some Aboriginal people indicated that they are interested in learning more and continuing the conversation, but these were few in number.”)
* Rejected by two-thirds of the 350-strong Citizens’ Jury “under any circumstances”.
Taiwan has clearly stated that it has no intention of gambling vast sums of money on a nuclear dump in SA and it is equally improbable that any other potential client country would do so. In which case South Australians would need to gamble hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on a project with no guarantee of any return on the investment.
Late last year, Mr Heard had to correct a statement falsely claiming that most South Australians support the high-level nuclear dump plan and he begins 2017 with another falsehood.
Interestingly, the statement falsely claiming that most South Australians support the high-level nuclear dump plan was endorsed by SA’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Leanna Read. Shamefully, the state’s chief fact-checker didn’t bother to check her facts.
Mr Heard also conveniently ignores real-world experience with nuclear waste projects:
* Estimates of the clean-up costs for a range of (civil and military) UK nuclear sites including Sellafield have nearly doubled from a 2005 estimate of £56 billion (A$91.6 billion) to over £100 billion (A$163.6 billion)
* In 2005, the French government’s nuclear waste agency Andra estimated the cost of a deep geological repository at between €13.5 and €16.5 billion (A$19.0‒23.2 billion). In 2016, Andra estimates the cost of the repository at between €20 billion to €30 billion (A$28.1‒42.2 billion). As with the UK, the latest French estimates are nearly double the earlier estimates.
* Between 2001 and 2008, the estimated cost of constructing the Yucca Mountain high level nuclear waste repository in the USA and operating it for 150 years increased by 67%, from US$57.5 billion to US$96.2 billion (A$75.1 billion ‒ $125.7 billion). Yucca Mountain was abandoned – so the USA wasted US$13.5 billion (A$17.6 billion) and still doesn’t have a repository.
The Nuclear Economics Consulting Group report commissioned by the SA Joint Select Committee concluded that the nuclear waste import project could be profitable under certain assumptions but the report then raises serious questions about most of those assumptions. The NECG report notes that the Royal Commission’s economic analysis didn’t even consider some important issues which “have significant serious potential to adversely impact the project and its commercial outcomes”; that assumptions about price are “overly optimistic” and if that is the case “project profitability is seriously at risk”; that the 25% cost contingency for delays and blowouts is likely to be a significant underestimate; and that the assumption the project would capture 50% of the available market had “little support or justification”.
Finally, Mr Heard’s promotion of fast breeder reactors is beyond stupid. For all the rhetoric about Generation IV fast breeder reactors, and the US$100+ billion invested worldwide, only five such reactors are operating worldwide (three of them experimental) and only one is under construction (in India). Most of the countries that invested in fast breeder reactors have given up, deciding not to throw good money after bad. Last year, Japan decided to give up on the Monju fast breeder reactor, a fiasco that will cost Japanese taxpayers A$17.3 billion in construction, operation and decommissioning costs despite the fact that the reactor rarely operated.
The Royal Commission completely rejected proposals advanced by Heard and others for ‘advanced fast reactors’, noting in its final report that such reactors are unlikely to be feasible or viable in the foreseeable future; that the development of such a first-of-a-kind project would have high commercial and technical risk; that there is no licensed, commercially proven design and development to that point would require substantial capital investment; and that electricity generated from such reactors has not been demonstrated to be cost competitive with current light water reactor designs.
Click here to download a March 2012 briefing paper, ‘Japan’s Nuclear Scandals and the Fukushima Disaster’.
Here is a brief summary of the paper:
1. Safety breaches and cover-ups
The Japanese nuclear industry has been plagued by safety breaches, scandals, cover-ups, inadequate regulation and a myriad of other failings over a long period of time.
2. Corruption and collusion in Japan’s ‘nuclear village’
Japan’s nuclear industry is run by a clique of public- and private-sector interests that have promoted personal and corporate gain at the expense of public safety.
3. Nuclear accidents in Japan
Managerial and regulatory failures have contributed to numerous nuclear accidents in Japan.
4. Earthquake and tsunami risks
TEPCO (operator of the Fukushima plant) did not adequately protect against earthquake and tsunami risks, nor was it forced to by the government regulator.
5. Responsibility for the Fukushima disaster
Primary responsibility for the disaster lies with TEPCO. Others are culpable including Japanese government agencies and regulators, and overseas suppliers who have turned a blind eye to serious problems in Japan’s nuclear industry over a long period of time.
6. Australia’s role in the Fukushima disaster
Australia’s uranium mining industry has done nothing to try to rectify the patterns of unsafe mismanagement in Japan’s nuclear industry, or the inadequate regulation. Successive Australian governments have been equally passive.
Appendix: Spinning Fukushima
Two ABC opinion articles (March 2011 and February 2012) on the ‘spinning’ of the Fukushima disaster by nuclear power advocates.
Jim Green, National nuclear campaigner − Friends of the Earth, Australia
jim.green@foe.org.au, 0417 318368
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Energy options
3. Nuclear power and WMD proliferation
4. Ionising radiation and Chernobyl
5. Safety and Fukushima
6. Terra Nullius
7. Radioactive waste
8. The responsible nuclear advocate
9. Conclusion
1. INTRODUCTION
This is a review of the nuclear power advocacy of Prof. Barry Brook, a conservation biology / climate change scientist/academic at Adelaide Uni who runs the Brave New Climate (BNC) website. Prof. Brook has over 170 peer-reviewed publications to his name and expertise across a range of scientific disciplines and sub-disciplines.[1] His interest in energy debates stems from his interest in and concern about climate change. He isn’t in any way connected to − or in the pay of − the nuclear industry.
2. ENERGY OPTIONS
Prof. Brook’s view is that “it’s nuclear power or it’s climate change”.
Here is a brief outline of how greenhouse emissions can be sharply reduced without recourse to nuclear power in Australia. One of the most practical Australian studies was produced by a group of scientists for the Clean Energy Future Group (CEFG).[2] It is practical in that it makes virtually no allowance for technical innovation, restricting itself to technologies that were commercially available in 2004. It factors in official projections of economic growth and population growth. It stands at the opposite end of the spectrum to studies which make heroic assumptions about technological developments and cost reductions, and those which assume heroic reductions in energy consumption through energy efficiency and conservation.
The CEFG proposes an electricity supply plan that would reduce greenhouse emissions from the electricity sector by 78% by 2040 compared to 2001 levels with small contributions (5−10%) from solar, hydro and coal and larger contributions (20−30%) from wind, bioenergy and gas (the research was done before concentrated solar thermal power (CST) with thermal storage became commercially available). Bioenergy and gas are used for co-generation of electricity and heat. Bioenergy comes primarily from crop wastes so it is not competing with alternative land uses.
The CEFG study can be thought of as a baseline or worst-case study because it makes no allowance for developments in important areas like solar-with-storage or geothermal power. University of NSW academic and former CSIRO scientist Mark Diesendorf, who contributed to the CEFG study, has proposed a more ambitious scenario (PDF) that replaces all coal and gas used in electricity generation with renewables. He and his colleagues at UNSW have performed computer simulations of 100% renewable electricity in the National Electricity Market, in which hourly demand is supplied reliably with mixes of CST, wind, solar PV, biofuelled gas turbines and existing hydro.
CSIRO scientist Dr John Wright has proposed a scenario in which renewables generate over three-quarters of Australia’s electricity by 2050: wind provides 19.4%; geothermal 19.0%; solar thermal 18.3%; solar PV 12.8%; bioenergy 5.1%; and ocean energy 0.7%. Dr Wright states: “Overall, increasing renewable energy technology will take out in the order of 200 million tons of CO2 by 2050 under this scenario. That is equal to about all of our major stationary energy CO2 emissions now. This is a major, major change.”
Siemens Ltd., a company with extensive involvement in the energy sector, has mapped out an energy plan for Australia in which the contribution of fossil fuels to electricity generation falls from 93% to around 10%, with the remainder generated by a mix of renewable technologies consisting mainly of solar (35%), wind (18%), and geothermal (17%). Large-scale energy storage is provided by a mix of solar thermal and hydrogen. In the Siemens plan, most large-scale transmission interconnectors are High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC), providing significant reduction in losses and thus allowing for efficient, long-distance transmission of renewable energy-generated electricity around the country. Siemens also proposes the development of HVDC links to South East Asia to export renewable electricity.
Australia’s energy problem is broader and more difficult than the electricity problem − and the global energy/climate problem is broader and more challenging than Australia’s problem. Suffice it here to note that there is a body of expert opinion more optimistic about the potential of renewables and energy efficiency (and more critical of nuclear power) than Prof. Brook’s expert opinion.
He doesn’t know much about the topic, for example claiming that North Korea never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty although Pyongyang’s accession to then withdrawal from the NPT is central to the story − a story which has been in the media constantly for the past two decades.
Prof. Brook claims to be concerned about nuclear weapons proliferation but the evidence suggests otherwise. For example, asked at a public forum what needs to be done to fix the flawed nuclear safeguards system and what role he sees for academics/scientists such as himself to help address the problem, Prof. Brook responded: “That’s a political and legal question and I have no further comment.”
Prof. Brook treats nuclear weapons proliferation as a joke:
this in response to a comment about the use of reactors to produce weapons material: “Nyah nyah, I can’t hear you!” (mercifully that ‘joke’ was removed from the BNC website).
‘joking’ at a public debate that he envisages me waking up in the middle of the night fretting about nuclear weapons proliferation.
Prof. Brook’s favourite argument to trivialise the proliferation problem is to claim that the weapons “genie is out of the bottle”. He argues that countries which already have the capacity to produce fissile (weapons) material account for a large majority of global greenhouse emissions (USA, China, Japan, Germany, France and others). That’s true, but it tells us little of significance. To get a handle on the proliferation risks of the nuclear ‘renaissance’, if it eventuates, here are some relevant figures:
of the 65 or so countries with a nuclear program of any significance (involving power and/or research reactors), about one-third have used their ‘peaceful’ programs to advance weapons ambitions.
of the 10 countries to have built nuclear weapons, six did so with support and political cover from their ‘peaceful’ programs (India, North Korea, South Africa, Pakistan, France and Israel).
about 45 countries have the capacity to produce significant quantities of fissile material (more or less depending on where you draw the line with small-medium research reactors), and a vast majority of those countries acquired their fissile material production capacity through peaceful (or ostensibly peaceful) nuclear research or power programs.
(Some other WMD myths promoted by nuclear advocates are debunked here.)
As former US Vice President Al Gore has argued, a major (horizontal) expansion of nuclear power will “run the proliferation risk off the reasonability scale”. In addition to the extraordinary destructive potential of nuclear weapons, another concern is the potential for a nuclear exchange involving the detonation of 50−100 nuclear weapons (targeted at cities) to cause catastrophic climate change.
Prof. Brook claims that the (non-existent) ‘integral fast reactors’ he champions “cannot be used to generate weapons-grade material.” That claim is false. George Stanford, who worked on an IFR research program in the US, states: “If not properly safeguarded, they could do [with IFRs] what they could do with any other reactor – operate it on a special cycle to produce good quality weapons material.” Likewise IFR advocate Tom Blees notes that: “IFRs are certainly not the panacea that removes all threat of proliferation, and extracting plutonium from it would require the same sort of techniques as extracting it from spent fuel from light water reactors.” Depending on the design it might be difficult to use IFRs to produce fissile material for weapons or it might be simple − and some IFR advocates promote designs that would (inadvertently) be ideal for weapons production.
Prof. Brook acknowledges that his advocacy of ‘Generation IV’ fast reactors is sometimes a smokescreen for the promotion of conventional reactors: “Although it’s not made abundantly clear in the article, I’m actually increasingly of the view that Gen III+ reactors will have a major role to play in large-scale nuclear deployment over the next two to three decades, to support the ramp up of the Gen IV fleet … But making this point credibly in a short Op Ed like this would have left room for nothing else, and also would have risked been seen as ‘same old, same old’ by the nuclear power fence sitters (or those who are ‘weak antis’). Hence an emphasis on Gen IV, to try to hook the fresh fish.”
Prof. Brook states (5AA radio, 7 July 2009): “In terms of turning a nuclear fuel rod into a bomb, that’s impossible … if you took a spent fuel rod from a reactor all you could do with it would be to irradiate a few worms in the dust, there’s no way you can make a nuclear bomb out of it.” That claim is false, as is this: “plutonium that comes out of reactors … is contaminated with different isotopes of plutonium which means that even if you had all of the facilities available to you that the Manhattan bomb designers had, you still wouldn’t be able to use it to create a nuclear bomb.”
Prof. Brook states: “I’m not aware of any plutonium that has actually gone missing apart from the hyperbole of anti-nuclear groups claiming that it has.”
However plutonium accounting discrepancies have been documented in the UK, Japan and elsewhere (although accounting discrepancies do not necessarily mean that diversion or theft has occurred). North Korea has diverted plutonium from an ‘experimental power reactor’ to produce weapons. India has diverted plutonium from research reactors (and probably also power reactors) for weapons. Israel has diverted plutonium from its French-supplied research reactor for weapons. A small number of incidents of theft/smuggling of plutonium have been detected and reported (and there are probably other incidents which have not been detected or reported).
4. IONISING RADIATION AND CHERNOBYL
Prof. Brook states: “Prior to the Fukushima Daiichi accident, caused when a 14 metre tsunami crashed into a 40-year old power station in Japan, no member of the public had ever been killed by nuclear power in an OECD country.”
However the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) has estimated the collective effective dose to the world population over a 50-year period of operation of nuclear power reactors and associated nuclear facilities to be two million person-Sieverts (it does not provide OECD figures separately). Applying a standard risk estimate (0.05 fatal cancers per Sievert of exposure to low-dose radiation) gives an estimated 100,000 fatalities. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gives a collective effective dose figure of 400,000 person-Sieverts for “nuclear power production”[3] − five times lower than the UNSCEAR estimate. Notwithstanding the considerable uncertainties with the dose and risk estimates, and whatever the OECD/non-OECD breakdown, Prof. Brook’s statement doesn’t hold up.
Prof. Brook states that the linear no-threshold theory of radiation exposure and cancer causation is “discredited” and has “no relevance to the real world”. However:
The 2005 report of the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) of the US National Academy of Sciences states that: “The Committee judges that the balance of evidence from epidemiologic, animal and mechanistic studies tend to favor a simple proportionate relationship at low doses between radiation dose and cancer risk.” The report further states that: “… the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US) in 2003 concluded that “the most reasonable assumption is that the cancer risks from low doses … decrease linearly with decreasing dose. … Given that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.”
And to give one other example (there are many), the most recent (2010) UNSCEAR report states that: “Radiation can simultaneously damage both strands of the DNA double helix, often resulting in breakage of the DNA molecule with associated complex chemical changes. This type of complex DNA damage is difficult to repair correctly, and even at low doses of radiation it is likely that there is a very small but non-zero chance of the production of DNA mutations that increase the risk of cancer developing. Thus, the current balance of available evidence tends to favour a non-threshold response for the mutational component of radiation-associated cancer induction at low doses and low dose rates.”
Prof. Brook states: “The credible literature (WHO, IAEA) puts the total Chernobyl death toll at less than 60. The ‘conspiracy theories’ drummed up against these authoritative organisations rings a disturbingly similar bell in my mind to the crank attacks on the IPCC, NASA and WMO in climate science.”
No study − by the World Health Organization, the IAEA or anyone else − estimates a Chernobyl death toll of less than 60. Indeed no study estimates a death toll of less than several thousand (although an UNSCEAR report, discussed below, declines to provide any estimate at all of the long-term cancer death toll). Prof. Brook is referring to studies by the UN Chernobyl Forum (PDF) and the World Health Organisation in 2005-06 which estimate up to 4,000 long-term cancer deaths among the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations and an additional 5,000 deaths among populations exposed to lower doses in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The Chernobyl Forum includes UN agencies such as the IAEA, UNSCEAR, and WHO.
A study published in the International Journal of Cancer in 2006 estimates 16,000 long-term cancer deaths from low-level radiation exposure from Chernobyl. Research published in 2006 by UK radiation scientists Ian Fairlie and David Sumner estimates 30,000 to 60,000 deaths. A 2006 scientific study commissioned by Greenpeace estimates a death toll of about 93,000.
Studies such as those listed above typically use a risk estimate derived from the linear no-threshold theory (LNT). There is uncertainty about the accuracy of the LNT-derived risk estimate in relation to low doses and low dose rates. However that does not mean − as many nuclear advocates state or imply − that the LNT-derived risk estimate overstates the true risk. It may be accurate or it may understate or overstate the true risk. Thus the BEIR report cited above states (p.6) that “combined analyses are compatible with a range of possibilities, from a reduction of risk at low doses to risks twice those upon which current radiation protection recommendations are based.” Epidemiologists / statisticians deal with the uncertainty by providing a range of estimates based on ‘confidence intervals’ − in simple terms, the wider the estimate, the greater the confidence.
Another report (PDF) by UNSCEAR argues that the long-term cancer death toll from Chernobyl cannot be meaningfully estimated because of “unacceptable uncertainties in the predictions”, i.e. the limitations of epidemiological studies, and the uncertainties of applying a risk estimate (e.g. based on the LNT theory) to the collective radiation dose estimate (e.g. the IAEA’s collective dose estimate of 600,000 person-Sieverts[4]).
That approach is of no use to anyone who wants an estimate of the Chernobyl death toll, however uncertain. It sits uneasily with UNSCEAR’s involvement in the Chernobyl Forum study which estimates a death toll of 4,000 among the higher-exposed populations. It sits uneasily with UNSCEAR’s view that “the current balance of available evidence tends to favour a non-threshold response for the mutational component of radiation-associated cancer induction at low doses and low dose rates.”Another problem is that many nuclear advocates (such as Prof. Brook’s colleague Ben Heard) repeatedly misrepresent UNSCEAR by conflating UNSCEAR’s unknown long-term cancer death toll with a long-term cancer death toll of zero − obviously they are two very different propositions.
5. SAFETY AND FUKUSHIMA
Prof. Brook states that “nuclear power is the safest energy option”. Nuclear power safer than wind and solar? He could only arrive at that unlikely conclusion by using the nuclear industry’s ‘methodology’:
only consider accidents at nuclear power plants rather than accidents across the nuclear fuel chain;
understate the death toll from accidents by several orders of magnitude (see the above discussion regarding Chernobyl);
only consider accidents rather than routine emissions (see the above discussion regarding the collective effective dose to the world population);
ignore the greatest hazard associated with nuclear power − its repeatedly-demonstrated connection to WMD proliferation (most recently with North Korea’s use of an ‘experimental power reactor’ to produce plutonium for weapons) and related problems such as conventional military strikes against nuclear plants (which has been a recurring problem in the Middle East since 1980 and may spread to other parts of the world, especially if a nuclear power renaissance eventuates), nuclear terrorism and sabotage, and nuclear theft and smuggling. Can anyone imagine Israel destroying wind turbines in Iran or Iraq, or the US inflicting long-lasting public health hazards in Iraq with depleted wind munitions, or terrorists stealing solar panels, or North Korea building secret solar water heating systems, or Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan network stealing and on-selling designs for energy-efficient buildings?
There is a compelling case for tighter regulation and greater public scrutiny of the nuclear power industry, yet Prof. Brook states: “The UK wisely plans to cut through this red tape by reducing planning permission times from seven to one year, and vetoing the right of local authorities to block construction.” Yet the US Atomic Energy Commission has noted that public participation in reactor licensing processes is of clear benefit: “Public participation in licensing proceedings not only can provide valuable assistance to the adjudicatory process, but on frequent occasions demonstrably has done so.” The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has endorsed that view and listed specific examples of improved outcomes as a result of public participation.[5]
Fukushima
As the Fukushima nuclear disaster unfolded in March 2011, Prof. Brook maintained a running commentary in the media and on his BNC website insisting that the situation was under control and that there was no reason for concern.
On March 12, Prof. Brook said: “There is no credible risk of a serious accident”.
That afternoon, as nuclear fuel meltdown was in full-swing, he said: “The risk of meltdown is extremely small, and the death toll from any such accident, even if it occurred, will be zero. There will be no breach of containment and no release of radioactivity beyond, at the very most, some venting of mildly radioactive steam to relieve pressure. Those spreading FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt] at the moment will be the ones left with egg on their faces. I am happy to be quoted forever after on the above if I am wrong… but I won’t be. The only reactor that has a small probability of being ‘finished’ is FD unit 1. And I doubt that, but it may be offline for a year or more.”
There was no correction from Prof. Brook until after he had been publicly held to account for those statements.
Later on March 12, after the explosion in the reactor #1 building, Prof. Brook said: “When the dust settles, people will realise how well the Japanese reactors − even the 40 year old one − stood up to this incredibly energetic earthquake event.”
On the morning of March 13, he said: “I don’t see the ramifications of this as damaging at all to nuclear power’s prospects” and that “it will provide a great conversation starter for talking intelligently to people about nuclear safety.” Yet the Japanese government’s Investigation Committee (PDF) found that TEPCO’s preparations for and protections against a disaster were “quite inadequate”. TEPCO failed to prevent an easily preventable disaster. Every step of TEPCO’s response to the disaster was “a day late and a dollar short” according to a former vice-chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission. The Fukushima disaster has further exposed long-standing patterns of corruption and collusion in Japan’s nuclear industry.
Then Prof. Brook was congratulating himself on his ‘just the facts’ approach in media interviews. He pondered: “What has this earthquake taught us? That it’s much, much riskier to choose to live next to the ocean than it is to live next to a nuclear power station.” However the impacts of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster have been cumulative and areas affected by the nuclear disaster stretch much further inland than areas reached by the tsunami.
On March 14, when the second explosion at Fukushima occurred, Prof. Brook was still insisting that “the nuclear reactors have come through remarkably well”.
One contributor to the discussion on the BNC website said: “Unfortunately, Prof. Brook has really abdicated a neutral position on this event. His clear support of nuclear power seems to have impacted his critical thinking skills. … Every time he states something in this crisis is ‘impossible’, it seems to happen the next day.”
Prof. Brook wrote an ABC opinion piece in December 2011 which states that “no-one was killed by radioactivity from the event” but is silent on the problem of long-term cancer deaths from exposure to radioactive fallout from Fukushima. One preliminary estimate is that Fukushima will result in “around 1000” fatal cancers, another preliminary estimate is “~100s cases“. The long-term cancer death toll may rise significantly if large numbers of people resettle in contaminated areas (which is not to say that people should not have that option). Tens of thousands of Japanese people are grappling with a dilemma that never should have been forced upon them − whether to (eventually) return to live in contaminated areas or to permanently abandon their old homes.
6. TERRA NULLIUS
Near-complete silence from Prof. Brook about the racism that is common in the nuclear industry and he has provided no constructive, concerted action − or any action at all − to help redress the problems.
Coalition and Labor governments have targeted Muckaty in the NT for a national radioactive waste dump for low- and intermediate-level waste despite the clear opposition of most Traditional Owners. Key legislation has been overridden (the Aboriginal Heritage Act) or side-stepped (the Aboriginal Land Rights Act). Democratic rights of all Australians are being tossed aside with legislation (PDF) allowing the Minister to override any state/territory laws (and a raft of Commonwealth laws) in order to push ahead with the dump.
Resources minister Martin Ferguson has refused countless requests to meet with Traditional Owners opposed to the dump. They are challenging the dump plan in the Federal Court. Muckaty Traditional Owner Dianne Stokes says: “All along we have said we don’t want this dump on our land but we have been ignored. Martin Ferguson has avoided us and ignored our letters but he knows very well how we feel. He has been arrogant and secretive and he thinks he has gotten away with his plan but in fact he has a big fight on his hands.”
The silence from nuclear advocates is not only disappointing in and of itself, it is also counter-productive from their pro-nuclear-power standpoint. It is highly unlikely that nuclear power will be developed in Australia for so long as there are compelling reasons to believe that racism and undemocratic thuggery will be the ‘principles’ informing nuclear waste management, as is the case with the Muckaty plan, the previous plan to dump on Aboriginal land in SA, and the ‘clean up‘ of radioactive waste at Maralinga in the 1990s.
Prof. Brook side-steps the problem by promoting ‘next generation’ reactors that could potentially leave a much smaller waste legacy − but he himself has acknowledged that he aims to “hook the fresh fish” with his promotion of ‘next generation’ reactors and that he supports the construction of a fleet of conventional reactors.
The uranium mining industry is another case in point. In the mid-1990s, Olympic Dam mine owner WMC Resources used divide-and-rule tactics against Traditional Owners leading to one person being accidentally shot dead, extensive violence and several people being imprisoned. Some of the company executives responsible for that atrocity are still involved in the industry. The 1982 SA Roxby Downs Indenture Act, which sets the legal framework for the operation of the Olympic Dam mine, was amended in 2011 but it retains exemptions from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act (and from environmental protection laws as well). Traditional Owners were not even consulted. The SA government’s spokesperson in Parliament said: “BHP were satisfied with the current arrangements and insisted on the continuation of these arrangements, and the government did not consult further than that.” Silence from Prof. Brook despite the fact that he is well placed to be raising these concerns, for example during his presentations at uranium industry conferences.
On the treatment of the Mirarr Traditional Owners in the NT (Ranger mine and Jabiluka deposit), see: http://mirarr.net/duress1.htm.
On the treatment of Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners (Beverley and Beverley Four Mile mines), see: http://yurabila.wordpress.com
7. RADIOACTIVE WASTE
Some comments from an article by Ben Heard and Barry Brook (BH/BB) and my responses.
BH/BB: “The best start for responsible management of any hazardous waste is to capture and contain it at the source. Nuclear power does this.”
About one-third of the spent fuel produced in power reactors has been reprocessed and this results in considerable releases of radioactive materials (it is “environmentally dirty” according to the Deputy Director General of the World Nuclear Association). Then there are accidents and leaks − for example in April 2005 it was revealed that 83,000 litres of highly-radioactive liquid containing dissolved spent nuclear fuel (and 160 kgs of plutonium) had leaked from the THORP reprocessing plant in the UK, and the leak went undetected for at least eight months.
Uranium mine tailings waste isn’t captured and contained, nor is the liquid waste from in-situ leach mining.
Hanford, Dounreay, Sellafield, Chelyabinsk/Mayak − these are synonymous with environmental pollution as a result of serious, protracted nuclear waste management problems.
BH/BB: “[R]adioactive waste is perceived as complex. This is far from the truth. Radioactive material is one of the most predictable, easily monitored and best understood forms of waste. We know what it does, and how it does it, forever, and we manage it accordingly.”
Obviously there is no experience with the management of high-level nuclear waste over periods of centuries or millenia let alone “forever”. Research continues to throw up surprises, e.g. colloidal migration of plutonium, and studies from the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in Sweden suggesting that copper-encapsulated canisters will corrode much faster than previously expected.
BH/BB: “The material in Dry Cask Storage at Fukushima bore the full brunt of the tsunamis, with no damage.”
True, but the spent fuel in the reactor buildings was responsible for a significant fraction of the radioactive releases.
BH/BB: “The image of the leaky, rusty barrel being stuffed into a tree by Mr Burns is, quite appropriately, a joke.”
Here’s a photo of the Asse radioactive waste dump in north-western Germany − 126,000 barrels of radioactive waste are being exhumed.
BH/BB: “[T]he quantities in question are relatively very small. … A large-scale 25 GW nuclear power industry would add a mere 50 tons, taking up just 250 m3 (six-and-a-half standard shipping containers).”
BH/BB ignore waste streams across the nuclear fuel cycle − mine tailings waste, depleted uranium, etc. Over a 50-year lifespan, a 25 GW nuclear power industry would be responsible for:
900 million tonnes of low-level radioactive tailings waste − assuming the uranium came from the Olympic Dam mine in SA. (If the uranium came from in-situ leach mines, there would be no tailings waste but there would be many aquifers polluted with radionuclides, heavy metals and acid.)
215,000 tonnes of depleted uranium waste, a by-product of the uranium enrichment process.
37,500 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste (spent fuel).
375,000 cubic metres of low-level and intermediate-level waste.
(The Switkowski report is the basis for most of the above calculations. The figure on tailings waste comes from BHP Billiton’s literature regarding the Olympic Dam open-cut mine plan.)
The figures for one reactor (1 GW) for one year are: 720,000 tonnes of radioactive tailings waste (Olympic Dam), 170 tonnes of depleted uranium waste, 30 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste (spent fuel) and 300 cubic metres of low-level and intermediate-level waste.
Volume and mass are not the only parameters to consider. High-level nuclear waste (spent fuel) produced in power reactors around the world contains enough plutonium to build about 200,000 nuclear weapons. Heat generated by high-level nuclear waste is another concern.
The interesting part of the BH/BB article (and of Prof. Brook’s nuclear advocacy generally) concerns fast reactor technology. In theory fast reactor technology is attractive (potentially consuming more waste and weapons-useable material than the reactors produce) but in practice it has been highly problematic − fast reactor programs have contributed to several nuclear weapons programs; they have been leak-prone, fire-prone, and accident-prone; and there are multi-billion-dollar white elephants such as the French Superphenix fast reactor. (On fast reactor technology see this report (PDF) by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, and on the WMD proliferation risks associated with the ‘integral fast reactors’ championed by Prof. Brook see here.)
Likewise the theory of conventional reprocessing is attractive but in practice it has been highly problematic.
Keeping in mind the distinction between theory and practice is essential to understanding Prof. Brook’s nuclear advocacy. He conflates theory and practice, for example claiming that Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace “ignore technological developments that solve the long-lived nuclear waste problem (it is burned as energy in fast spectrum reactors).” And much of his nuclear advocacy involves making questionable and untestable claims about non-existent reactor types, in particular ‘integral fast reactors’, while at the same time ignoring and trivialising the highly problematic track record of fast reactor technology.
BH/BB conclude their fast reactor promo: “So nuclear waste stops being a major headache, and turns into an asset. An incredibly valuable asset, as it turns out. In the US alone, there is 10 times more energy in already-mined depleted uranium (about 700,000 tonnes) and spent nuclear fuel, just sitting there in stockpiles, than there is coal in the ground. This is a multi-trillion dollar, zero-carbon energy resource, waiting to be harnessed.”
Nuclear utilities around the world disagree − they are keen to dump their nuclear waste in Australia or anywhere else that will take it and they are prepared to pay billions of dollars to get rid of it. In theory, nuclear waste is a multi-trillion dollar asset; in reality it is a multi-billion dollar liability.
8. THE RESPONSIBLE NUCLEAR ADVOCATE
Perhaps a new species will evolve over time − the responsible nuclear power advocate. For the time being we’re stuck with nuclear advocates who − with few exceptions − do nothing to try to improve the inadequate nuclear safeguards system, who do nothing about the racism of the industry they support, who do nothing about inadequate regulation, and so on. They do however spend an inordinate amount of time attacking NGOs who are working constructively to address those problems.
To give one specific example, a number of NGOs made detailed, constructive contributions to the 2009 parliamentary ‘Inquiry into Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament‘ (e.g. Friends of the Earth, Australian Conservation Foundation, Medical Association for Prevention of War and others). You’d struggle to find a single constructive contribution from nuclear advocates. The Australian Uranium Association set the tone by spending the first part of its submission trying to convince the parliamentary committee to ignore the issue of safeguards altogether, and the so-called Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office was peddling its usual misinformation about ‘strict’ safeguards ‘ensuring’ peaceful use of Australian uranium.
The problems are touched upon in this letter published in The Advertiser on 18 November 2009:
Old-style spin
Barry Brook promotes what he optimistically labels “next generation” reactors with old-style spin (“Follow Britain’s lead on nuclear power”, The Advertiser, 10/11/09).
For example, he repeatedly has claimed the non-existent “integral fast reactors” he champions “cannot be used to generate weapons-grade material”. Unfortunately, that simply is not true. Worse still, Brook persists with that claim although he knows it has been contradicted by, among others, a scientist with hands-on experience working on a prototype integral fast reactor in the US.
Brook and other promoters of “next generation” reactors have another credibility problem. They acknowledge the need for a rigorous safeguards system to prevent the use of peaceful nuclear facilities to produce weapons of mass destruction, and they acknowledge the existing safeguards fall well short of being rigorous.
None of them, however, is willing to get off his backside to support important, ongoing efforts to strengthen safeguards. This simply is irresponsible. Moreover, it is hypocritical for Brook to criticise Friends of the Earth and other groups which have worked long and hard to strengthen safeguards − with absolutely no help from such people as him.
Brook also berates Friends of the Earth for failing to acknowledge “technological developments that solve the long-lived nuclear waste problem”. Those developments, however, involve another non-existent technology, called pyroprocessing.
South Korea recently announced its intention to embark on a research and development program which aims to provide a “demonstration” of the viability of operating reactors in conjunction with pyroprocessing by the year 2028. That is almost 20 years − just to demonstrate the concept.
Brook offers nothing but false and extravagant claims based on non-existent technology. We deserve better.
− Jim Green, Friends of the Earth, Melbourne, Victoria.
9. CONCLUSION
Many people concerned about climate and energy are wrestling with some enormous dilemmas:
Coal burning is a major cause of climate change, and efforts to develop ‘clean coal’ technology have been half-hearted and progress has been glacial.
Widespread nuclear power proliferation will run the WMD proliferation risks “off the reasonability scale” as Al Gore puts it. There is no reason to believe that the industry will seriously improve its performance on this front − it refuses even to address relatively simple problems such as stopping the stockpiling of separated plutonium. There is no reason to believe that fast reactor technology will come to the rescue − attractive theories notwithstanding − given that fast reactor programs have to date contributed to several WMD proliferation programs (e.g. India, France, Yugoslavia) without contributing in any way to the resolution of any WMD proliferation problems anywhere.
Renewables are generally benign but there are limitations to consider (and hopefully overcome through concerted R&D) and interrelated cost issues.
Some people live in a parallel universe where global warming is a myth, or clean coal technology is just around the corner.
Some people live in a parallel universe where a global transition to renewables is simple, cheap, and potentially quick.
Prof. Brook lives in a parallel universe where nuclear power is benign − the WMD connection is trivialised, nuclear waste is a multi-trillion-dollar asset, nuclear power is the safest energy source, low-level ionising radiation is harmless, Chernobyl killed less than 60 people, ‘integral fast reactors’ can’t produce fissile material for weapons, reactor-grade plutonium can’t be used in weapons, and problems such as inadequate safeguards and the (further) disempowerment of Aboriginal people are ignored.
[1] By contrast, the reviewer has a few unremarkable peer-reviewed publications and no scientific qualifications (a PhD in the humanities/science bridging discipline of Science and Technology Studies).
If you want to follow any of the bravenewclimate links in this webpage, you may need to use a web.archive.org link such as this one.
Looking back, looking forward
Just skimming this webpage in September 2024 and noticed this:
A [2015] guest post on Brook’s website claims that Generation IV fast neutron reactors will be mass produced and “dominating the market by about 2030.”
Well, it’s 2024, there has been near-zero progress with fast neutron reactors since 2015 and the likelihood that fast neutron reactors will be mass produced and dominating that market by 2030 is, literally, zero.
This begs the question: Did Barry Brook really believe that fast neutron reactors might be mass produced and dominating that market by 2030? Or was he being, in his own words, less than “abundantly clear? In 2009 Brook wrote a puff-piece about Generation IV fast rea I ctors for the Murdoch press. On the same day he said on his website that “although it’s not made abundantly clear in the article”, he expects conventional reactors to play the major role for the next two to three decades but chose to emphasise Generation IV reactors “to try to hook the fresh fish”.
Brook was particularly keen to promote ‘integral fast reactors’. To learn more about the miserable history and miserable prospects for IFRs, see Appendix 3 (p.79-95) in this submission to an Australian parliamentary inquiry.
The South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission wasn’t buying Brook’s BS about fast reactors, stating in its 2016 final report: “Advanced fast reactors and other innovative reactor designs are unlikely to be feasible or viable in the foreseeable future. The development of such a first-of-a-kind project in South Australia would have high commercial and technical risk. Although prototype and demonstration reactors are operating, there is no licensed, commercially proven design. Development to that point would require substantial capital investment.”
As for Brook’s claim that conventional reactors will play the major role for the next two to three decades … in 2023, renewables enjoyed record growth for the 22nd consecutive year (507 GW) and passed 30% of global electricity generation. Nuclear power went BACKWARDS in 2023 (-1.7 GW) and now accounts for 9% of global electricity generation, barely half its historic peak of 17.5%.
Barry Brook’s nuclear misinformation
To read a detailed, referenced critique of Barry Brook’s nuclear misinformation online click here.
A shorter version of this material was published in New Matilda on 12 March 2012 and a similar version from Indymedia is copied below.
The detailed paper covers these topics: Introduction – Energy options – Nuclear power and WMD proliferation – Ionising radiation and Chernobyl – Safety and Fukushima- Terra Nullius – Radioactive waste – The responsible nuclear advocate – Conclusion
Conclusion to the detailed paper:
Many people concerned about climate and energy are wrestling with some enormous dilemmas:
Coal burning is a major cause of climate change, and efforts to develop ‘clean coal’ technology have been half-hearted and progress has been glacial.
Widespread nuclear power proliferation will run the WMD proliferation risks “off the reasonability scale” as Al Gore puts it. There is no reason to believe that the industry will seriously improve its performance on this front − it refuses even to address relatively simple problems such as stopping the stockpiling of separated plutonium. There is no reason to believe that fast reactor technology will come to the rescue − attractive theories notwithstanding − given that fast reactor programs have to date contributed to several WMD proliferation programs (e.g. India, France, Yugoslavia) without contributing in any way to the resolution of any WMD proliferation problems anywhere.
Renewables are generally benign but there are limitations to consider (and hopefully overcome through concerted R&D) and interrelated cost issues.
Some people live in a parallel universe where global warming is a myth, or clean coal technology is just around the corner. Some people live in a parallel universe where a global transition to renewables is simple, cheap, and potentially quick. Prof. Brook lives in a parallel universe where nuclear power is benign − the WMD connection is trivialised, nuclear waste is a multi-trillion-dollar asset, nuclear power is the safest energy source, low-level ionising radiation is harmless, Chernobyl killed less than 60 people, ‘integral fast reactors’ can’t produce fissile material for weapons, reactor-grade plutonium can’t be used in weapons, and problems such as inadequate safeguards and the (further) disempowerment of Aboriginal people are ignored.
Australian ‘ecomodernist‘ academic Barry Brook says that before 2009 he hadn’t given much thought to nuclear power because of the ‘peak uranium’ argument. By 2010, Brook was in full flight, asserting that the linear no-threshold (LNT) model is “discredited” and has “no relevance to the real world”.
In fact, LNT enjoys heavy-hitting scientific support. For example the US National Academy of Sciences’ BEIR report states that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.” Likewise, a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences states: “Given that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.”
On Chernobyl, Brook said: “The credible literature (WHO, IAEA) puts the total Chernobyl death toll at less than 60. The ‘conspiracy theories’ drummed up against these authoritative organisations rings a disturbingly similar bell in my mind to the crank attacks on the IPCC, NASA and WMO in climate science.”
But the WHO, IAEA and other UN agencies estimated 9,000 deaths in ex-Soviet states in their 2005/06 reports, and more recently UNSCEAR has adopted the position that the long-term death toll is uncertain.
Brook repeatedly promotes the work of Ted Rockwell from ‘Radiation, Science, and Health’, an organisation that peddles dangerous conspiracy theories such as this: “Government agencies suppress data, including radiation hormesis, and foster radiation fear. They support extreme, costly, radiation protection policies; and preclude using low-dose radiation for health and medical benefits that apply hormesis, in favor of using (more profitable) drug therapies.”
Brook promotes the discredited ‘hormesis’ theory that low doses of radiation are beneficial to human health (for a scientific assessment see Appendix D in the BEIR report).
Spinning Fukushima
Jim Green, Spinning Fukushima, New Matilda, 16 March 2011, http://newmatilda.com/2011/03/16/spinning-fukushima
When will they call it a disaster? Jim Green looks at just how wrong Australia’s leading advocates of nuclear power got it on Fukushima this week
How have Australian scientists handled the difficult task of keeping us informed about the unfolding nuclear disaster in Japan? Well, precious few Australian scientists have actually featured in the media. The most prominent have been Professor Aidan Byrne from the Australian National University, RMIT Chancellor Dr Ziggy Switkowski, and Professor Barry Brook from Adelaide University.
A clear pattern is evident: those with the greatest ideological attachment to nuclear power have provided the most inaccurate commentary.
The best of the bunch has been Byrne. He has presented the facts as he understands them — and has willingly acknowledged major information gaps.
Switkowski has been gently spinning the issue, repeatedly reassuring us that lessons will be learned, improvements will be made. However, history clearly shows that nuclear lessons are not properly learned. The OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency notes that lessons may be learned but too often they are subsequently forgotten. Or they are learned but by the wrong people. Or they are learned but not acted upon. The Nuclear Energy Agency says the pattern of the same type of accident recurring time and time again at different nuclear plants needs to be “much improved”.
The situation in Japan illustrates the point — it has become increasingly obvious over the past decade that greater protection against seismic risks is necessary, but the nuclear utilities haven’t wanted to spend the money and the Japanese nuclear regulator and the government haven’t forced the utilities to act.
Barry Brook is a strident nuclear power advocate and host of the bravenewclimate.com blog, which has received an astonishing half a million web hits since the crisis in Japan began. Right now, Brook has egg on his face. Make that an omelette. He has maintained a running commentary in the media and on his website insisting that the situation in Japan is under control and that there is no reason for concern.
His message has not changed, even after efforts to cool the nuclear reactor cores met with mixed success, even as deliberate and uncontrolled radiation releases occurred, even as the outer containment buildings exploded, even as 200,000 people were being evacuated, even as a fire led to spent nuclear fuel releasing radiation directly to the environment — and even as radiation monitors detected alarming jumps in radioactivity near the reactor and low levels of radiation as far away as Tokyo.
On Saturday, Brook came out swinging, insisting that “There is no credible risk of a serious accident.” Phew.
That afternoon, after the first explosion at Fukushima, Brook kept going, making numerous assertions in the comments section of his website, most of which turned out to be wrong. Try this one:
“The risk of meltdown is extremely small, and the death toll from any such accident, even if it occurred, will be zero. There will be no breach of containment and no release of radioactivity beyond, at the very most, some venting of mildly radioactive steam to relieve pressure. Those spreading FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt] at the moment will be the ones left with egg on their faces. I am happy to be quoted forever after on the above if I am wrong … but I won’t be. The only reactor that has a small probability of being ‘finished’ is unit 1. And I doubt that, but it may be offline for a year or more.”
On Saturday night, Brook continued, responding to a commenter on his website with the following words: “When the dust settles, people will realise how well the Japanese reactors — even the 40 year old one — stood up to this incredibly energetic earthquake event.” The dust is (hopefully) settling and it seems likely that four reactors will be write-offs.
It didn’t stop all weekend. On Sunday morning, Brook reflected on the unfolding disaster: “I don’t see the ramifications of this as damaging at all to nuclear power’s prospects” and that “it will provide a great conversation starter for talking intelligently to people about nuclear safety.” Actually Fukushima will likely prove a great conversation starter for talking intelligently to people about nuclear hazards. Not recommended at parties.
On Sunday afternoon, Brook was congratulating himself on his “just the facts” approach in media interviews. He pondered on the comments thread: “What has this earthquake taught us? That it’s much, much riskier to choose to live next to the ocean than it is to live next to a nuclear power station.” Well, the lesson for people in Fukushima is that if you live next to the ocean and next to a nuclear power station, then you’re really stuffed.
On Monday, when the second explosion at Fukushima occurred, Prof. Brook was still insisting that “the nuclear reactors have come through remarkably well”. On Monday evening, half a dozen people were banned from posting comments directly on the website. True, some of their comments were silly and unhelpful, but by that criterion Brook ought to have banned himself. And on Tuesday, with a fire at Fukushima spewing long-lived radioisotopes directly into the environment, Brook was rallying the pro-nuclear lobby, arguing that “now, more than ever, we must stand up for what we believe is right”.
Cracks were starting to appear on Tuesday night, with Brook finally acknowledging an “ongoing crisis situation”, banning another 40-50 “random nobodies” from posting comments directly on his website, and quoting Rudyard Kipling:
“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools”
Make of that what you will.
One contributor to Brave New Climate summed it up nicely: “Unfortunately, Prof. Brook has really abdicated a neutral position on this event. His clear support of nuclear power seems to have impacted his critical thinking skills. … Every time he states something in this crisis is ‘impossible’, it seems to happen the next day.”
Andrew Bolt has been urging people to read the “marvellously sane and cool explanation” from “our friend Professor Barry Brook”. Both Bolt and Brook claim that no more than 50 people died from the Chernobyl catastrophe. More on that next month — the 25th anniversary falls on 26 April 2011. The scientific estimates of the Chernobyl death toll vary. The World Health Organisation puts the figure at 9000. A 2006 report based on Belarus national cancer statistics, paints a much gloomier picture: approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl.
One of the loudest nuclear advocates in Australia is Professor Barry Brook, a climate change scientist at the University of Adelaide who runs the Brave New Climate website.
The Brook mantra is this: “it’s nuclear power or it’s climate change”. However numerous studies exist that map out the options to sharply reduce emissions without recourse to nuclear power. See for example the UNSW study a more ambitious scenario that replaces all coal and gas with renewables.
Brook has shown himself willing to trivialise the repeatedly demonstrated connections between nuclear power and weapons. He has slipped up on this, claiming for example that North Korea never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty although Pyongyang’s ac yeah cession to — then withdrawal from — the NPT is central to the unfolding story of North Korea’s nuclear program.
Brook claims to be concerned about nuclear weapons proliferation but the evidence suggests otherwise. Here is an example of his indifference: asked at a public forum what needs to be done to fix the safeguards system and what role he sees for scientists such as himself to help address the problems, Brook responded: “That’s a political and legal question and I have no further comment.”
To get a handle on the proliferation risks of the nuclear “renaissance”, if it eventuates, here are some figures:
Of the 65-odd countries with a nuclear program of any significance (involving power and/or research reactors), over one-third have used their ‘peaceful’ programs to advance weapons ambitions.
Of the 10 countries to have built nuclear weapons, six did so with support and political cover from their “peaceful” programs (India, North Korea, South Africa, Pakistan, France and Israel).
About 45 countries have the capacity to produce significant quantities of fissile material (more or less depending on where you draw the line with small-medium research reactors), and a vast majority of those countries acquired their fissile material production capacity through peaceful nuclear research or power programs.
As former US Vice President Al Gore has argued, a major horizontal expansion of nuclear power will “run the proliferation risk off the reasonability scale”.
Brook claims that the integral fast reactors (IFRs) he champions “cannot be used to generate weapons-grade material.” The claim isn’t true. To quote George Stanford, who worked on an IFR research program in the US: “If not properly safeguarded, they could do [with IFRs] what they could do with any other reactor — operate it on a special cycle to produce good quality weapons material.”
The misconceptions pile up. Brook states: “Prior to the Fukushima Daiichi accident, caused when a 14 metre tsunami crashed into a 40-year old power station in Japan, no member of the public had ever been killed by nuclear power in an OECD country.” However the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) has estimated the collective effective dose to the world population over a 50-year period of operation of nuclear power reactors and associated nuclear facilities to be two million person-Sieverts (it does not provide OECD figures separately). Applying a risk estimate (0.05 fatal cancers per Sievert of exposure to low-dose radiation) gives an estimated 100,000 fatalities. Whatever the uncertainties with the dose and risk estimates, and whatever the OECD/non-OECD breakdown, Brook’s statement clearly doesn’t hold up.
Brook states that the linear no-threshold (LNT) theory of radiation exposure and cancer causation is “discredited” and has “no relevance to the real world”. However, the 2005 report of the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation of the US National Academy of Sciences states that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.” And one further example of many, a study published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2003 concluded that: “Given that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.”
Brook gets it wrong on Chernobyl, too. He states: “The credible literature (WHO, IAEA) puts the total Chernobyl death toll at less than 60.” However the studies he is referring to do not estimate a death toll of less than 60. He is referring to reports by the UN Chernobyl Forum and the World Health Organisation in 2005-06 which estimate up to 4000 eventual deaths among the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations and an additional 5000 deaths among populations exposed to lower doses in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. (The Chernobyl Forum includes UN agencies such as the IAEA, UNSCEAR, and WHO.)
Still Brook is adamant that “nuclear power is the safest energy option”. Safer than wind and solar? He could only arrive at that conclusion by using the nuclear industry’s methodology: only consider accidents at nuclear power plants rather than accidents across the energy chain; understate the death toll from accidents by several orders of magnitude; only consider accidents rather than routine emissions; and ignore the greatest hazard associated with nuclear power — its repeatedly demonstrated connection to WMD proliferation (most recently with North Korea’s use of an “experimental power reactor” to produce plutonium for weapons).
As the Fukushima nuclear disaster unfolded in March 2011, Brook maintained a running commentary in the media and on his website insisting that the situation was under control and that there was no reason for concern. There was no correction until Brook had been publicly held to account for spreading misinformation. Andrew Bolt from the Herald Sun was urging people to read the “marvellously sane and cool explanation” from “our friend Professor Barry Brook”. Both Bolt and Brook subscribe to conspiracy theories about environmentalists with a hidden, authoritarian “political manifesto” to return to a pre-industrial society.
Brook wrote an ABC opinion piece in December 2011 which states that “no-one was killed by radioactivity” from Fukushima and is silent on the problem of long-term cancer deaths from exposure to radioactive fallout [see here for a recent estimate of the long-term cancer death toll, ~5,000].
Many people concerned about climate and energy are wrestling with some enormous dilemmas about how to move to a less emissions intensive energy economy. Some people live in a parallel universe where global warming is a myth, or clean coal technology is just around the corner. Some people live in a parallel universe where the global transition to renewables is simple, cheap, and potentially quick. Barry Brook lives in a parallel universe where nuclear power is benign, the WMD problem is trivial, nuclear waste is a multi-trillion-dollar asset, nuclear power is as safe as wind and solar power, ionising radiation is harmless, Chernobyl killed less than 60 people, and problems such as inadequate safeguards will magically fix themselves.
Finally, a few examples of Prof. Brook’s attacks against environmentalists − a problem that his employer, Adelaide University, needs to address:
accusing a Friends of the Earth campaigner of “intellectual dishonesty” with no attempt to justify that defamatory accusation.
another defamatory accusation of dishonesty (“anti-intellectual sleight-of-hand”) directed at Friends of the Earth in relation to a World Water Day statement.
falsely accusing anti-nuclear and climate action groups of vote-rigging at a public debate in Melbourne (“frankly pathetic, but not unexpected”).
claiming that “all they [Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace] care about is being anti-nuclear” and that Friends of the Earth “doesn’t care about climate change” − despite an abundance of readily-av I ailable evidence to the contrary.
[Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia.]
Tas Uni academic less than “abundantly clear” about Generation IV nuclear reactors
Academic Barry Brook began working at the University of Tasmania last year. He is a strident nuclear power supporter and is particularly enthusiastic about non-existent ‘Generation IV’ reactor types.
The enthusiasm is understandable. Theoretically, Generation IV fast neutron reactors could gobble up waste and weapons material and convert them into low-carbon power, solving several problems at once. Unfortunately, these fast neutron reactors aren’t actually new and they have failed spectacularly to live up to their potential. The history of fast reactors has largely been one of extremely expensive, underperforming and accident-prone reactors.
For example, Japan’s Monju fast reactor operated for 205 days after it was connected to the grid in August 1995, and a further 45 days in 2010; apart from that it has been shut-down because of a sodium leak and fire in 1996, and a 2010 accident when a 3.3 tonne refuelling machine fell into the reactor vessel. The lifetime load factor of the French Superphenix fast reactor − the ratio of electricity generated compared to the amount that would have been generated if operated continually at full capacity − was a paltry 7%, making it one of the worst-performing reactors in history.
Fast reactors haven’t helped to resolve weapons proliferation problems; on the contrary, France has used a fast reactor to produce plutonium for weapons and India plans to do the same in the coming years.
Not easily deterred, Brook and other nuclear lobbyists promise a new generation of fast neutron reactors. A recent guest post on Brook’s website claims that Generation IV fast neutron reactors will be mass produced and “dominating the market by about 2030.”
Compare that claim with the following:
1. The intergovernmental Generation IV International Forum states: “Depending on their respective degree of technical maturity, the first Generation IV systems are expected to be deployed commercially around 2030-2040.” (emphasis added)
2. The International Atomic Energy Agency states: “Experts expect that the first Generation IV fast reactor demonstration plants and prototypes will be in operation by 2030 to 2040.” (emphases added)
3. A 2015 report by the French government’s Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) states: “There is still much R&D to be done to develop the Generation IV nuclear reactors, as well as for the fuel cycle and the associated waste management which depends on the system chosen.”
IRSN is also sceptical about safety claims: “At the present stage of development, IRSN does not notice evidence that leads to conclude that the systems under review are likely to offer a significantly improved level of safety compared with Generation III reactors, except perhaps for the VHTR …” Moreover the VHTR (very high temperature reactor) system could bring about significant safety improvements “but only by significantly limiting unit power”.
4. The World Nuclear Association noted in 2009 that “progress is seen as slow, and several potential [Generation IV] designs have been undergoing evaluation on paper for many years.”
In 2009 Brook wrote a puff-piece about Generation IV fast reactors for the Murdoch press. On the same day he said on his website that “although it’s not made abundantly clear in the article”, he expects conventional reactors to play the major role for the next two to three decades but chose to emphasise Generation IV reactors “to try to hook the fresh fish”.
So that’s the game plan − making absurd claims about Generation IV reactors, pretending that they are near-term prospects, and being less than “abundantly clear” about the truth.
The guest post on Brook’s website was written by conspiracy theorist Geoff Russell (who holds me personally responsible for all the death and suffering from the Fukushima disaster … go figure).
Russell cites the World Nuclear Association (WNA) in support of his claim that “The Chinese expect these [fast reactors] to be dominating the market by about 2030 and they’ll be mass produced.”
Does the WNA reference support the claim? Not at all. Russell is making stuff up. According to the WNA, China has one very small experimental fast reactor and plans for a larger ‘Demonstration Fast Reactor’ by 2023 and plans its first fast reactor “for commercial operation from 2030”.
So China doesn’t expect fast reactors to be dominating the market by 2030. China may have one commercial fast reactor by 2030 … but almost certainly won’t. One of the reasons China’s fast reactor program is going nowhere fast is that China is collaborating with Russia, and Russia’s fast reactor program is going nowhere fast.
Rosatom subsidiary Rosenergoatom recently indefinitely postponed construction of the BN-1200 sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor, citing the need to improve fuel for the reactor and amid speculation about the cost-effectiveness of the project. The decision to indefinitely postpone the project might be reviewed in 2020. The reactor had been scheduled to start commercial operation in 2025, depending on experience operating a pilot BN-800 fast-neutron reactor which achieved first criticality in June 2014 but has not yet started commercial operation.
As recently as July 2014, Rosenergoatom’s director general said that Russia planned to begin construction of three BN-1200 reactors before 2030. OKBM − the Rosatom subsidiary that designed the BN-1200 reactor − previously anticipated that the first BN-1200 reactor would be commissioned in 2020, followed by eight more by 2030.
Rosenergoatom spokesperson Andrey Timonov the BN-800 reactor “must answer questions about the economic viability of potential fast reactors because at the moment ‘fast’ technology essentially loses this indicator [when compared with] commercial VVER units.”
Another fast neutron reactor project − the BREST-OD-300 − is stretching Rosatom’s funds. Bellona’s Alexander Nikitin said that Rosatom’s “Breakthrough” program to develop the BREST-OD-300 reactor was only breaking Rosatom’s piggy-bank.
Nuclear lobbyists claim that the next generation of fast neutron reactors are near-term prospects and they will be the best thing since sliced bread. In reality, fast neutron reactors have a long and troubled history, and most of the countries that invested in fast reactor technology have abandoned those efforts; they decided not to throw good money after bad.
Small modular reactors
The federal government’s 2014 Energy Green Paper promotes ‘small modular reactors’. Here’s a sample of the government’s rhetoric: “The main development in technology since 2006 has been further work on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). SMRs have the potential to be flexibly deployed, as they are a simpler ‘plug-in’ technology that does not require the same level of operating skills and access to water as traditional, large reactors.”
Perhaps SMRs would be an ideal fit for Tasmania? Some nuclear lobbyists certainly think so. But as with fast neutron reactors, the rhetoric doesn’t match reality. Interest in SMRs is on the wane. Thus Thomas W. Overton, associate editor of POWER magazine, states: “At the graveyard wherein resides the “nuclear renaissance” of the 2000s, a new occupant appears to be moving in: the small modular reactor (SMR). … Over the past year, the SMR industry has been bumping up against an uncomfortable and not-entirely-unpredictable problem: It appears that no one actually wants to buy one.”
Overton explains the chicken-and-egg problem: “The problem has really been lurking in the idea behind SMRs all along. The reason conventional nuclear plants are built so large is the economies of scale: Big plants can produce power less expensively per kilowatt-hour than smaller ones. The SMR concept disdains those economies of scale in favor of others: large-scale standardized manufacturing that will churn out dozens, if not hundreds, of identical plants, each of which would ultimately produce cheaper kilowatt-hours than large one-off designs. It’s an attractive idea. But it’s also one that depends on someone building that massive supply chain, since none of it currently exists. … That money would presumably come from customer orders − if there were any.”
Dr Mark Cooper, Senior Fellow for Economic Analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, notes that two US corporations are pulling out of SMR development because they cannot find customers (Westinghouse) or major investors (Babcock and Wilcox). Cooper points to some economic constraints: “SMR technology will suffer disproportionately from material cost increases because they use more material per MW of capacity. Higher costs will result from: lost economies of scale; higher operating costs; and higher decommissioning costs. Cost estimates that assume quick design approval and deployment are certain to prove to be wildly optimistic.”
Westinghouse CEO Danny Roderick said in January 2014: “The problem I have with SMRs is not the technology, it’s not the deployment − it’s that there’s no customers.” Westinghouse is looking to triple its decommissioning business. “We see this as a $1 billion-per-year business for us,” Roderick said. With the world’s fleet of mostly middle-aged reactors inexorably becoming a fleet of mostly ageing, decrepit reactors, Westinghouse is getting ahead of the game.
Some SMR work continues. Argentina is ahead of the rest, with construction underway on a 27 megawatt reactor − but the cost equates to an astronomical US$15.2 billion per 1000 megawatts. And that cost would be greater still if not for Argentina’s expertise and experience with reactor construction − a legacy of its covert weapons program from the 1960s to the early 1980s.
The myth of the peaceful atom − debunking the misinformation peddled by the nuclear industry and its supporters
Click here for a detailed article responding to misinformation peddled by Barry Brook, Corey Bradshaw and others.
Henle K et al. Promoting nuclear energy to sustain biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change: Response to Brook and Bradshaw 2015. Conservation Biology 2016;30:663–5. doi:10.1111/cobi.12691, https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.12691
Nuclear energy is essential to preserve the world’s biodiversity, according to 69 conservation scientists. But there’s a mysterious omission in their analysis, writes Jim Green: nuclear weapons proliferation. And after a major exchange of nuclear bombs, and the ‘nuclear winter’ that would follow, exactly how much biodiversity would survive?
A group of conservation scientists has published an open letter urging environmentalists to reconsider their opposition to nuclear power. The letter is an initiative of Australian academics Barry Brook and Corey Bradshaw. The co-signatories from 14 countries “support the broad conclusions drawn in the article ‘Key role for nuclear energy in global biodiversity conservation’, published in Conservation Biology.”
The open letter states: “Brook and Bradshaw argue that the full gamut of electricity-generation sources – including nuclear power – must be deployed to replace the burning of fossil fuels, if we are to have any chance of mitigating severe climate change.”
So, here’s my open letter in response to the open letter initiated by Brook and Bradshaw:
Dear conservation scientists …
If you want environmentalists to support nuclear power, get off your backsides and do something about the all-too-obvious problems associated with the technology. Start with the proliferation problem since the multifaceted and repeatedly-demonstrated links between the ‘peaceful atom’ and nuclear weapons proliferation pose profound risks and greatly trouble environmentalists and many others besides.
The Brook / Bradshaw journal article emphasises the importance of biodiversity – but even a relatively modest exchange of some dozens of nuclear weapons could profoundly effect biodiversity, and large-scale nuclear warfare undoubtedly would.
The Brook / Bradshaw article ranks power sources according to seven criteria: greenhouse gas emissions, cost, dispatchability, land use, safety (fatalities), solid waste, and radiotoxic waste. WMD proliferation is excluded. By all means ignore lesser concerns to avoid a book-length analysis, but to ignore the link between nuclear power and weapons is disingenuous and the comparative analysis of power sources is a case of rubbish in, rubbish out.
Integral fast reactors
While Brook and Bradshaw exclude WMD proliferation from their comparative assessment of power sources, their journal article does address the topic. They promote the ‘integral fast reactor‘ (IFR) that was the subject of R&D in the US until was abandoned in the 1990s. If they existed, IFRs would be metal-fuelled, sodium-cooled, fast neutron reactors.
Brook and Bradshaw write: “The IFR technology in particular also counters one of the principal concerns regarding nuclear expansion – the proliferation of nuclear weapons – because its electrorefining-based fuel-recycling system cannot separate weapons-grade fissile material.”
However Brook’s claim that IFRs “cannot be used to generate weapons-grade material” is false. George Stanford, who worked on an IFR research program in the US, states: “If not properly safeguarded, [countries] could do [with IFRs] what they could do with any other reactor – operate it on a special cycle to produce good quality weapons material.” IFR advocate Tom Blees notes that: “IFRs are certainly not the panacea that removes all threat of proliferation, and extracting plutonium from it would require the same sort of techniques as extracting it from spent fuel from light water reactors.”
Brook and Bradshaw argue that “the large-scale deployment of fast reactor technology would result in all of the nuclear waste and depleted uranium stockpiles generated over the last 50 years being consumed as fuel.” Seriously? An infinitely more likely outcome would be some fast reactors consuming waste and weapons-useable material, while other fast reactors and conventional uranium reactors continue to produce such materials.
The reality of fast reactor technology
The Brook/Bradshaw article ignores the sad reality of fast reactor technology: over US$50 billion invested, unreliable reactors, numerous fires and other accidents, and one after another country abandoning the technology.
Moreover, fast reactors have worsened, not lessened, proliferation problems. John Carlson, former Director-General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office, discusses a topical example: “India has a plan to produce such [weapon grade] plutonium in fast breeder reactors for use as driver fuel in thorium reactors. This is problematic on non-proliferation and nuclear security grounds. Pakistan believes the real purpose of the fast breeder program is to produce plutonium for weapons (so this plan raises tensions between the two countries); and transport and use of weapons-grade plutonium in civil reactors presents a serious terrorism risk (weapons-grade material would be a priority target for seizure by terrorists).”
The fast reactor techno-utopia presented by Brook and Bradshaw is theoretically attractive. Back in the real world, there’s much more about fast reactors to oppose than to support.
Creative accounting
Brook and Bradshaw also counter proliferation concerns with the following argument: “Nuclear power is deployed commercially in countries whose joint energy intensity is such that they collectively constitute 80% of global greenhouse-gas emissions. If one adds to this tally those nations that are actively planning nuclear deployment or already have scientific or medical research reactors, this figure rises to over 90%. As a consequence, displacement of fossil fuels by an expanding nuclear-energy sector would not lead to a large increase in the number of countries with access to nuclear resources and expertise.”
The premise is correct − countries operating reactors account for a large majority of greenhouse emissions. But even by the most expansive estimate − Brook’s − less than one-third of all countries have some sort of weapons capability, either through the operation of reactors or an alliance with a nuclear weapons state. So the conclusion − that nuclear power expansion “would not lead to a large increase in the number of countries with access to nuclear resources and expertise” − is nonsense and one wonders how such jiggery-pokery could find its way into a peer-reviewed journal.
The power-weapons conundrum is neatly summarised by former US Vice-President Al Gore: “For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal … then we’d have to put them in so many places we’d run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale.”
Safeguards
The Brook / Bradshaw article adds one further comment about proliferation: “Nuclear weapons proliferation is a complex political issue, with or without commercial nuclear power plants, and is under strong international oversight.”
They cite a book by the committed IFR advocate Tom Blees in support of that statement. But Blees argues for the establishment of an international strike force on full standby to attend promptly to any detected attempts to misuse or to divert nuclear materials. That is a far cry from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards system. In articles and speeches during his tenure as the Director General of the IAEA from 1997-2009, Dr Mohamed ElBaradei said that the Agency’s basic rights of inspection are “fairly limited”. The safeguards system suffers from “vulnerabilities” and “clearly needs reinforcement”, he went on, while efforts to improve the system had been “half-hearted”, and the safeguards system operated on a “shoestring budget … comparable to that of a local police department”.
Blees doesn’t argue that the nuclear industry is subject to strong international oversight – he argues that “fissile material should all be subject to rigorous international oversight” (emphasis added). This conflation between reality and wishful thinking is a recurring feature of Barry Brook’s nuclear advocacy.
Strengthening safeguards
Of course, the flaws in the nuclear safeguards system are not set in stone. And this gets me back to my original point: if nuclear lobbyists want environmentalists to support nuclear power, they need to get off their backsides and do something about the all-too-obvious problems such as the inadequate safeguards system.
Environmentalists have a long record of working on these problems and the lack of support from nuclear lobbyists has not gone unnoticed.
To give an example of a topical point of intervention, Canada has agreed to supply uranium and nuclear technology to India with greatly reduced safeguards and non-proliferation standards, and Australia seems likely to follow suit. Those precedents will likely lead to a broader weakening of international safeguards – and make it that much more difficult for nuclear lobbyists to win support from environmentalists and others. The seriousness of the problem has been acknowledged by, among others, a former Chair of the IAEA Board of Governors and a former Director-General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office. It is a live debate in numerous nuclear exporting countries and there isn’t a moment to lose.
To mention just one more point of intervention, the separation and stockpiling of plutonium from power reactor spent fuel increases proliferation risks. There is virtually no demand for the uranium or plutonium separated at reprocessing plants, and no repositories for the high-level waste stream. Yet reprocessing continues, the global stockpile of separated plutonium increases year after year and now stands at around 260 tons. It’s a problem that needs to be solved; it’s a problem that can be solved.
Endorsing the wishful thinking and misinformation presented in the Brook / Bradshaw journal article is no substitute for an honest acknowledgement of the proliferation problems associated with nuclear power, coupled with serious, sustained efforts to solve those problems.
