THE latest nuclear accident in Japan has reawakened fears about the safety of atomic power in that country. Officials deny that the ruptured piping in the steam turbine room of the Mihama plant in Fukui prefecture which killed three men and injured at least ten others ever represented a danger to the general public. They said that the steam had not come into contact with any nuclear material and there was therefore no danger of any contamination. Unfortunately such is the nature of nuclear power that any accident is one too many.
In the generation since the disasters of Chernobyl in the Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the US, the building of new nuclear installations has decreased. The 1950s promises of cheap, clean and unlimited nuclear power has proved to be an illusion. Nuclear energy is only cheap if you strip out the high initial construction costs of the stations, the considerable bill for decommissioning them and the even greater expense of storing nuclear waste safely for at least two hundred years. In harsh accounting terms, it is the most expensive source of power.
Yet the world has a short memory. It looks as if the nuclear lobby may soon no longer find itself talking to deaf ears among politicians. One sign is the promise made by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry that he will end America’s dependence on foreign oil.
As world oil reserves currently stand, this is an absurd statement. The depletion of America’s oil reserves is not being matched by new discoveries. Natural gas is playing a growing part in the US energy mix but when LNG terminals open on the West Coast, it will be for the import of gas from the Asia-Pacific. That will mean further reliance for some of its energy on overseas suppliers. Alternatives such as the Colorado tar sands will only be an economic proposition if the price of oil stands high. As in the oil price shock of 1974, plans to exploit this resource will not survive a downward price correction.
Unless Kerry can perform the neat trick of persuading energy-hungry Americans to reform their gas guzzling lifestyle, the only way that he will keep his promise is by allowing the construction of a new generation of nuclear power stations which Americans will be assured are safer than ever.
There is however an argument that there is no such thing as a safe nuclear power station. The Japanese are as strict and methodical as anyone. Yet the accident at the Mihama plant is only the latest in a number of sometimes fatal faults with Japanese nuclear power plants upon which the country relies now for a quarter of its energy needs.
It is hard not to see in Kerry’s campaign promise about US energy self-sufficiency a misguided piece of chauvinism. It is foolish because without a return to the development of a significant number of new nuclear power stations, it is unachievable. Equally to the point, it is undesirable. America’s problem is indeed one of dependence.
