Time for change

Nuclear giant Areva threatens halt of Olkiluoto construction 

The dispute around enormous financial losses from the Finish Olkiluoto nuclear reactor project deepened yesterday, when the French nuclear giant Areva published its half-year results. Areva threatened to freeze construction if TVO does not submit to the company’s demands of shouldering a share of the cost. The latest estimate of construction costs reached €5.5 billion, which compares to the price of 2.5 billion originally presented to Finnish public and politicians.

Nuclear proliferation is used to describe the spread of fissile material, weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not (yet) in posession of nuclear weapons. It is feared that the likelyhood of a nuclear warfare does increase with the number of nations with nuclear weapons.

Nuclear proliferation is related to the civil application of nuclear power in the following ways:

Nuclear energy is a relatively small industry, but one with big problems. It covers just one-sixteenth of the world’s primary energy consumption, a share set to decline over the coming decades.

The average age of operating commercial nuclear reactors is 23 years. This means that more power stations are being shut down than built. In 2007, world nuclear production fell by 1.8 % and the number of operating reactors was 439, five less than the historical peak of 2002.

The main topic of this newsletter is the following question: Is nuclear power a global warming solution?

In addition, we summarize and link a number of texts about the potential and about the future of civil nuclear power applications.

There has been a lot of talking about the renaissance of nuclear power in the light of global warming and increasing oil prices. So let's have a look at the global situation: Who is building new nuclear power stations and who is just talking about?

Greenpeace has announced a new weblog about the downsides of the nuclear industry.The blog is called "Nuclear Reaction" - blogging the meltdown of the nuclear industry".

The About-Section says:

"Welcome to Nuclear Reaction, where we'll be recording for history the meltdown of that most over-rated, over-subsidised and over-confident of industries, the nuclear industry.

Finland's Olkiluoto nuclear power plant: The Olkiluoto construction project in Finland is rapidly becoming an example of all that can go wrong in economic terms with nuclear new build. It demonstrates the key problems of construction delays, cost overruns and hidden subsidies.

How much CO₂ is produced by atomic energy?

One of the few pros of nuclear power is the relatively low emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the major causes of global warming. For this reason, it has been proposed as "the" method to mitigate the effects of climate change. However a recent life cycle analysis showed that nuclear power produces 4 to 10 times higher CO2 emissions per kWh electricity than renewable energies.

Current discussions about possibilities to mitigate the effects of global warming have also opened discussions about a potential revival of nuclear power. In this context, it is often argued with very low cost of electricity from nuclear power plants. This seems to be one of the strongest arguments in favor of atomic energy. To determine the future cost of electricity from nuclear power, the cost from currently operating power stations is taken into account. This is not correct, however.

 

An official study from the German government shows the risk of getting cancer is significantly increasing for small children growing up in the neighborhood of a nuclear power station. This is in particular true for leukemia, a special case of cancer.