Lessons from Fukushima
Frank Boulton urges caution in the drive towards more nuclear power
Recent columns in the Friend understandably focus on the challenges to our faith and practice posed by Libya and Palestine. Friends in Medact and other peace groups are equally concerned with events in Japan.
While the magazine’s more limited coverage of the heart-rending Japanese calamities are appreciated, the messages from Fukushima’s irreparably damaged nuclear reactors, let alone the fate of the evacuees, deserve more attention – even though the UK does not sit on a tectonic fault.
Inevitably, Fukushima recalls Chernobyl twenty-five years ago. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Chernobyl will cause 9,000 ‘excess’ cancer deaths in the affected parts of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (over an expected non-Chernobyl-induced figure of 900,000 such deaths). Although independent observers claim that 9,000 is a big under-estimate, WHO’s figures represent 9,000 avoidable deaths. But unlike Chernobyl, the Fukushima plants, even though old (from the 1970s), had ‘containers’ over each reactor and their fuel rods were based on ceramic rather than graphite, so did not openly burn as did Chernobyl, where the radiation leak was much greater than that so far from Fukushima. However, although Chernobyl had mostly stopped within a week, Fukushima’s continuing leaks may take a year to control, and the quakes have not yet stopped. This makes neighbouring countries very anxious: radiation is a silent and slow killer for which there is no ‘safe lower dose’. But the true scale of the adverse effects on the people, flora and fauna over southeast Asia may only become clear with time and vigilance.
The history of TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), which issued false reassurances after the 11 March tsunami, gives warning of the power of unaccountable mega-industry. This is not the first time TEPCO has issued knowingly false reports, and TEPCO is not the only example of humankind’s susceptibility to the pressure of ‘progress’ and the drive for ‘growth’. The irony for Japan is that twenty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki it became addicted to nuclear power to which it now has fewer alternatives, and disentanglement will be very difficult.
Disturbingly, the plutonium leak around Fukushima reactor No. 3 indicates a melt-down from its ‘MOX’ fuel – a mixture of uranium and plutonium oxide (Julian Stargardt letter, 1 April). Plutonium in MOX comes from other reactors’ spent rods, from which it is chemically extracted (‘reprocessed’). Plutonium is very hazardous if inhaled or swallowed, but for nuclear power advocates – who in spite of Fukushima are still powerful – reprocessing has the virtue of consuming and removing hazardous waste. British advocates want reprocessing to become a major UK industry and argue that more MOX would help global energy supplies through a nuclear ‘renaissance’. But quantifying the plutonium yield from reprocessing accurately is impossible, and MOX is readily converted to weapons-grade materials. So a global renaissance would encourage unauthorised and uncheckable access to MOX making it much more difficult for the UN’s creaking ‘Non-proliferation Treaty’ to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.
A nuclear renaissance would produce vastly more waste. Hugely expensive proposals to encase this in glass (vitrification) and bury it deep underground seem unrealistic. Such massive ventures would cause major technical and ecological problems and still leave a poisoned legacy for hundreds of generations.
The costs of building stronger and more secure power stations, of dealing with nuclear waste and with the increased insecurity arising from much more MOX in the world all argue against a nuclear renaissance and for developing a safer, low-carbon, non-nuclear world.
This is humankind’s greatest challenge yet. It would be nice if a new non-nuclear Japan led the way.
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