6 REASONS AGAINST NUCLEAR ENERGY

Europe does not need nuclear power. As various scenarios show, Europe's future energy needs can be met from other srouces while still drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit climate change. Europe needs massive investments in renewable energies as well as in cutting back energy waste through increasing efficiency. The technology is available & affordable -- and creates many more jobs than any nuclear power scenario.

1. Nuclear power is dangerous, safety is a myth

Nuclear power remains the most dangerous form of energy. A disaster like the Chernobyl accident, now 20 years ago, can happen anytime anyplace. The history of the Nuclear Age is a history of accidents. 20 years after Chernobyl, people are still suffering from health problems caused by the accident. An accident can occur at any nuclear reactor, causing the release of large quantities of radioactivity into the environment. Even during normal operation, radioactive materials are regularly discharged into the air and water. Transports of large quantities of low and intermediate level wastes are also increasing the risks to populations.

Although nuclear power is a hazardous business, the nuclear industry hardly has any financial liability. In the case of a nuclear disaster, most of the damages will be paid by society and not the companies' insurances. None of the various international conventions on nuclear damage currently in force are designed to make operators, or owners, of nuclear facilities liable for damage they cause.

2. Nuclear power is a deadly legacy for our children

A solution for the long-term storage & treatment of radioactive waste has yet to be found. Highly radioactive spent fuels need to be isolated from the biosphere for hundreds and thousands years. Nuclear waste is produced at every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mining and reactors to the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Radioactive waste remains dangerous for hundreds and thousands of years and radiation can lead to cancer and birth defects.

There is not a single safe disposal option for the highly radioactive waste produced by nuclear power stations worldwide. In almost all countries waste is stored in bunkers, below surface or above ground, while the world desperately researches ways to safely store it for thousands of years to come. These 'intermediate' storages are expensive and require safety measures that are not comparable to any other waste or industrial process. As there is no safe way to store these wastes for the necessary periods of time, this alone should be enough reason to abandon nuclear power as a viable energy source.

3. Nuclear power is financially insane

If the European energy market was a level playing field, where energy pricing would reflect the true costs of producing energy from different sources, nuclear power would be economically insane. All countries using its technology have seriously underestimated the full costs of nuclear power. Not a single nuclear power plant was ever built without direct or indirect subsidies, paid by taxpayers and increasing the profits of the nuclear industry. Also, nuclear power will not be able to compete with renewable energies without huge amounts of state aid. That nuclear power today produces on third of Europe's electricity is due to political that created favourable market conditions: Over the last 30 years, the EU's governments spent more than €45 billion for nuclear research.

As already said, Most of the costs of a (however likely) serious nuclear accident will be borne by society and not by the plant operator's insurance. There is a huge gap between the expected costs of decommissioning and waste storage of the currently operating plants in the EU and the money set aside for that purpose by the operators. The hidden costs of waste disposal, decommissioning of plants at the end of their lifespan (the decommissiing costs alone could be as high as 500 billion Euro for the power stations currently operating within the EU) and provisioning for accidents have never been adequately accounted for, and will result in a massive burden on future economies and generations.

4. Nuclear power is no solution to climate change

In order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming, the world will have to cut back its emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by around 50% by 2050. Since by far the most of emissions happen in the energy sector, the nuclear industry hopes to use the climate crisis to stage a nuclear revival, arguing that nuclear power is cheap, emission-free and thus has a role to play in securing low-emissions supply of energy.

But nuclear power is not at all emissions free, if emissions in relation to uranium mining, transportation, plant construction and decommissioning and waste storage are included in the calculation. It has been calculated that for example in the UK with its 23 nuclear reactors, doubling capacity would cut emissions by no more than 8% . Globally, tripling nuclear capacity by 2050 might contribute 12.5%-20% to the necessary emission reductions. But such scenarios -- one plant every two weeks -- have no link to political reality, and the costs would be astronomic.

Compare this to the 20% reduction of energy consumption (and emissions) the European Union can achieve by 2020 (30 years earlier) at zero net costs, as the European Commission has pointed out in a "Green Paper" on energy efficiency. Also, nuclear power comes with high opportunity costs (since every Euro can be spent only once): Every Euro invested in new nuclear power could save ten times more emissions if it was invested in energy conservation measures instead -- thus also securing energy supply ten times cheaper.

5. Nuclear weapons are the flip side of nuclear power

Radioactive material from nuclear power generation can be used to build nuclear weapons. The global expansion of nuclear power could well contribute to an increase in the number of nuclear weapons states. So far India, Israel, South Africa, Pakistan, North Korea, and of course the five official nuclear weapons states (United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China), have developed arsenals of nuclear weapons using their "peaceful' nuclear facilities.

Nuclear power reactors have produced enough plutonium to build 160,000 nuclear weapons or an even wider range of radioactive materials for use in 'dirty bombs'. The spread of nuclear technology significantly increases the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. Smuggling of nuclear material, including from civil nuclear programs, also presents a significant challenge. The International Atomic Energy Association has recorded over 650 confirmed incidents of trafficking in nuclear or other radioactive materials since 1993. In 2004 alone almost a hundred such incidents occurred.

6. Nuclear power dependent on limited & dirty resources

Nuclear power plants run on uranium fuel. And uranium - like oil, gas and coal - is a finite resource that will only last a few more decades, at most 50 years (with the current level of use). A significant increase in the use of nuclear power will quickly result in a shortage of nuclear fuel. The reprocessing of spent fuels has already been proven to be no solution. Reprocessing is a complicated and hazardous chemical process that creates an enormous amount of radioactive waste. Besides that, reprocessing is a very uneconomical technology, as past examples have clearly demonstrated. Nevertheless there are two reprocessing units in Europe: Sellafield (UK) and La Hague (France). Both are known to be the biggest sources of radioactive pollution in the European environment through the release of huge quantities of radioactive liquid effluents into the sea and gaseous discharges into the air. And last but not least, the production of weapons from plutonium separated in reprocessing facilities is relatively simple, dramatically increasing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.