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Nuclear power: no room for safety
complacency
EXACTLY ONE month after the devastating March
earthquake and tsunami, a second quake hit the same area of Japan, this
time with a lower, but still very powerful, 7.1 intensity. Power was
temporarily disrupted at the Onagawa nuclear plant to the north of the
epicentre, resulting in spent fuel rods being exposed to air in their
containment ponds. Fortunately, there was no tsunami to follow, so the
back-up diesel power generators kicked in and prevented a new disaster.
Meanwhile, at the Fukushima atomic power station, wrecked by the first
earthquake, radiation continues to pour out.
Officials now say that more radiation could
eventually be released than at Chernobyl, the world’s worst nuclear
incident to date, and are now calling Fukushima a maximum scale seven
accident, the same as Chernobyl. Sixty thousand tonnes of radioactive
water have already been pumped into the sea and engineers have been
battling to prevent another explosion in the facility, caused by
hydrogen gas build-up. The Japanese government has admitted it could
take years to stop the radiation leaks from Fukushima.
Measurements by Japan’s ministry of science,
analysed by New Scientist, have shown that concentrations of radioactive
caesium 137 have reached levels similar to those after the Chernobyl
catastrophe. Up to 50km from the plant, well outside the original
exclusion zone, the figure was 6,400 kBq/m² – 6,400 times a thousand (k)
Becquerels (Bq) of radiation per square metre. At Chernobyl, the most
highly polluted areas had a concentration of 1,490 kBq/m² of caesium.
Caesium 137 has a half-life of 30 years, meaning it is significantly
radioactive for this period, and so is potentially dangerous for longer
than the other chief radioactive isotope released at Fukushima, iodine
131, which has a half-life of eight days. In some respects, however,
iodine 131 is a more serious threat as it presents a particular risk to
children, accumulating very rapidly in their thyroid glands.
Overall, Chernobyl may still prove to have been a
worse catastrophe because a broad cocktail of radioactive materials was
released that spread far further, due to an uncontrolled fire that raged
for weeks. At Fukushima, the radiation has come out more slowly because,
unlike at Chernobyl, there were containment structures around the
reactor cores. So far, most of the fallout has affected surrounding
areas, rather than being blown round the world in large quantities.
Nonetheless, if there were explosions near the ponds containing the
spent fuel rods, there would be a real danger of a radioactive cloud
forming because there are no containment vessels around the ponds.
Furthermore, even if contamination remains relatively local,
radioactivity on grass crops and water will pass into the food chain,
affecting fish, meat and dairy produce, and can be spread more widely in
this way.
Initially, the nuclear lobby claimed that the
release of a significant quantity of radiation was highly unlikely in
Japan due to the failsafe design of the reactors. They then retreated to
a second line of defence when this was shown not to be the case. Their
new position is that, even if large amounts of toxic material have been
given off, the dangers to health are acceptable, particularly when
compared to the risks associated with energy generation from fossil
fuels. Leading this defence is George Monbiot, who previously had
credibility among green activists as a campaigner against global
warming. He has called the claims about the number of deaths associated
with low-level radiation, such as that linked to caesium and iodine
isotopes, as grossly exaggerated and ‘a fairytale’ (Guardian 6 April).
It is true that the estimates of deaths resulting
from Chernobyl have varied wildly – from the UN report in 2008 which
estimated a final death toll of 4,000, to the claim made in an article
in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science that nearly a million
have already died. So far, 6,000 thyroid cancers have been recorded due
to Chernobyl, and a recently published peer reviewed article, based on
research funded by the US National Institute of Health, found that the
number of new thyroid cancer cases linked to the Ukrainian disaster is
not falling.
Elizabeth Cardis, from the Centre for Research in
Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona, estimates that there will be
25,000 cancer cases by 2065, although the UN report says there is no
persuasive evidence for this. Regarding the variability of the
predictions, Cardis makes the point that the evidence is fragmented and
contradictory, partly because research did not begin until many years
after the accident.
She is calling for a new definitive study to be
made, although it is unlikely that the true picture will ever be
established due to the chaos that engulfed the collapsing Soviet Union
in the years after Chernobyl. Many of the people affected dispersed over
the vast area of the USSR, and subsequently the world, and will never be
traced. This applies particularly to the tens of thousands of so-called
‘liquidators’, the army conscripts who were drafted in to fight the
accident and who were exposed to very high levels of radiation without
being told of the dangers.
Monbiot’s assertions of a relatively low death toll
are based on the absence of western peer reviewed articles in the
medical and scientific press confirming the higher figures, and
continuing scientific controversy about the dangers of low-level
radiation. Leaving to one side that research conducted in eastern
Europe, but not published in peer reviewed journals in the west, is not
necessarily wrong, the subsequent chaos in the region and the extremely
belated start of systematic research means that it is going to be very
difficult to satisfy the very stringent methodological criteria required
by most western publications. Set against the lack of western published
material, there have been a large number of local studies carried out in
the areas affected pointing to a high eventual death toll, plus
significant anecdotal evidence of the devastating effects on the health
of the population in Ukraine and Belarus.
In the context of the uncertainty surrounding the
eventual number of victims and the ongoing scientific controversy on the
effects of low-level radiation, at the very least, a precautionary
approach is required when assessing the dangers of a nuclear accident.
Monbiot accepted such an approach when the evidence on global warming
was still inconclusive and fragmentary, on the grounds that the
potential danger was so large. Surely the same logic applies?
Also, when assessing the dangers of nuclear, a power
station accident is only one factor. More serious in the long run is the
problem of safely storing toxic nuclear waste, which will remain
radioactive for more than 100,000 years. One reason Fukushima is so
serious is that large numbers of spent fuel rods were kept in ponds on
site, because no safe and acceptable method has been found to store them
elsewhere. Existing toxic waste will have to be dealt with, but it is
irresponsible to advocate creating even more in these circumstances.
Even if Monbiot’s unlikely claim is true about a
final Chernobyl death toll of ‘only’ 4,000, this does not justify his
support of nuclear energy. He invokes a balance of risk argument to
compare this figure to the likely devastation caused by global warming.
Coincidentally, nuclear power does not produce greenhouse gases and is,
therefore, a possible alternative to burning fossil fuels.
It is true that global warming could create more
victims than even the highest estimate of the death toll at Chernobyl.
But the implication of Monbiot’s position is that there are only two
options: nuclear power or fossil fuels. He knows perfectly well that
renewable energy can do the job, as he argued until recently. He has now
rejected it as ‘unrealistic’ because governments are not willing to pay
for it, preferring cheaper nuclear power. In his opinion, anyone who
still advocates renewables is posturing.
What Monbiot is really saying is that advocating
renewable energy challenges profit-driven capitalism, something he is
not willing to do. He regards the present system as unchangeable – and
preferable to the only real alternative, a democratically planned
socialist economy. A deep irony of Monbiot’s ‘realism’ is that, after
the 2008 economic crisis, many bourgeois governments are unlikely to be
willing to stump up the money for a switch to nuclear, certainly in the
short or medium term. Opportunistically, they will use the Japanese
disaster to back away from it.
Pete Dickenson
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