Should Nationalists really support nuclear power? There is much evidence which indicates that nuclear energy plants are inherently unsafe, damage the environment beyond repair, do not provide the answer to our energy needs and leave radioactive waste which is dangerous to all life for tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of years.
Alongside is just one of a number of photographs by journalist Paul Fusco, who has worked on a long-term project documenting Belarussian children and adults sickened by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl explosion. Go here for some more of Mr Fusco’s pictures – but steel yourself for what you will see.
Society should be looking to alternative energy sources such as biofuels, hydrogen power plants and localised power generating plants as a viable alternative, instead of placing blind faith in a technology which has proven itself to be a danger to human life.
Most people know about the three most famous nuclear power plant “accidents” (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima), but these are not the only such incidents to have taken place.
There have in fact been 19 serious incidents involving nuclear power plants since 1961, including several in the US and at least two in Japan, separate from the more recent Fukushima disaster. Wikipedia has a useful list of these incidents here.
It is not only the plants and processes which are hazardous. If the public were made aware of the dangers posed by the waste products produced by nuclear power plants, there would likely be a mass uprising.
The time that radioactive waste is still dangerous is, for some reason, measured in what is known as “half life.” This is the period of time it takes for a substance undergoing decay to decrease by half.
A typical nuclear reactor generates up to thirty tonnes of waste every year. There is no “treatment” available to safely dispose of this waste, so it has to be buried or stored until it naturally decays.
The half-life of Plutonium-239, just one of the most deadly of all nuclear waste components, is 24,000 years. The length of time which must elapse before scientists believe that Plutonium-239 is considered safe is at least 10 half-lives. This means that some elements of nuclear power plant waste will be hazardous (and will have to be “safely” stored) for at least 240,000 years.
Bearing in mind that Western Civilization has only been in existence for around 10,000 years or so (and, given current demographic trends, seems set to be extinguished in the next 100 years), the enormity of the problem of handling nuclear waste is obvious.
The cost of nuclear power plant building is just a part of the overall implications for the consumer. According to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the cost of cleaning up the UK’s existing nuclear legacy is estimated to be £72 billion. The cost of building a “safe” waste dump is around £21 billion. This means that the taxpayer is already committed to paying up an astonishing £100 billion just to clean up existing nuclear waste.
So what are the alternatives? There can be no doubt that Britain, and all of the world, face an acute power shortage which promises to literally return us to the age of candles.
The alternative solutions to the energy crisis are already available, and only require a level of investment and enthusiasm equal say, to the vigour with which the Government pursues pointless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya (and, if they have their way, against Iran as well).
The answer to our power shortage can be found in energy efficiency, the cleaner use of fossil fuels, renewables (not wind farms, which have now proven to be unviable), hydrogen power plants and the breathtaking decentralised power stations which are already in use in Scandinavia.
Almost no-one knows, for example, that Italy has already brought into commission the world’s first consumer-supplying hydrogen power plant. Built by Italian power company Enel, it is completely hydrogen fuelled and has been online since August 2009.
The Italian Fusina hydrogen plant (alongside) has a capacity of 12 megawatts. The only by-products of the hydrogen fuel burning process are hot air and water vapour, which is of course, steam. This in turn is used by a coal-fired plant to produce another 4 megawatts of energy.
The plant already provides power to 20,000 households.
In 2007, the Finnish Chemicals company in Finland installed a hydrogen power plant to supply its Joutseno-based factory’s needs. The plant, which produces steam and electricity, is one of the cleanest power plants in the world. The power plant produces approximately 50 GWh of steam and 30 GWh of electricity.
The Scandinavian decentralised power stations are another example which could easily be followed. They are super-efficient power stations which are smaller and can use both fossil fuels and cleaner fuels like biomass.
Hydrogen is not the only alternative, although all indications are that it is the most successful.
Solar power is also ignored by the British government. The argument that there is not enough sunlight to justify it is nonsense – Germany has no better weather than Britain on average but has 300 times as much solar power generating capacity.
The many other methods of power generation lend themselves to quick and easy exploitation: wave power would be an obvious choice for island-nation Britain.
Most compellingly, nationalists are dedicated to preserving the environment and natural surroundings more than anyone else.
The dangers posed by nuclear power plants to the environment should, by itself, serve as a strong enough caution.
All of these facts and issues should be the subject of a proper policy debate and subcommittee of the BDP..
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The trouble with such a topic is an understandable lack of knowledge on the part of the general public (me included).
We rely on what we believe to be scientific experts who, in the main, tell us nuclear is the only option which will fulfil our energy needs. But Britain does not possess important raw materials necessary for nuclear energy. Just like oil they need to be imported and will also reach peak production. It is essential this country removes its dependency on external sources to meet its energy needs. We need to be going at full steam in progressing the efficiency of all practical renewables and to offer this as a policy in our manifesto. Perhaps the party under Andrew Brons could approach renewable experts, hydrogen in particular, to develop such a policy. In the meantime we sit on an abundance of coal. Thatcher threw the baby out with the bath water in her attack on the miners.
Great article. Nuclear power was one of the few BNP policies I disagreed with..
Over on “The British Resistance” site a couple of days ago under an article headed “UK’s Nuclear Disasters” I posted the following:-
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We should just say sod the EU and its illegal rules. Forget all the nonsense of global warming and the myth of man made climate change.
Let us get back to mining the several hundred years** worth of coal that is buried under our home land and use that to produce our Gas and Electricity, provide warmth in our homes and power our railways.
** During the 1960’s, a geologist and mining engineer speaking at a seminar in Nottingham, told his audience that there was at the very least, enough high grade coal under Britain to keep the pits in the known coal fields, operating at full capacity for a minimum of 300 years.
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I have never and will never believe that Britain has a need for nuclear power plants. It is also one of the few BNP policies that I strongly disagree with.
As is said in the above article, there are several known, safe, clean and efficient alternatives to nuclear power generation.
We also already have the knowledge and technology to deep mine for coal and should use that resource to stave of the effects of oil shortages while we investigate, develop and invest in other cheap & safe power sources.
Those who have seen my CV will note I have had quite a career.
Amongst the many things I am proud to have done in the past thirty years is worked on the team that created the software testing regimen for the plant monitoring software at the heart of one of the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors in Dungeness. Like my father before me, I have stood and worked inside a nuclear power plant.
While the ink was still drying on my B.Sc degree certificate all those years ago I took a short term contract working for the University of Wales dept of Mechanical Engineering and energy Studies, measuring and calibrating the energy efficiency of the products of what were then some of this country’s finest minds in the field of water heating solar panels.
So I claim a certain amount of understanding of BOTH sides of this argument that goes way beyond that held by many in ANY political party, never mind just this one.
And some of the utter tripe I hear uttered on both sides of this debate drives me to distraction.
Renewable Energy is all very well but when the wind does not blow, when the sun goes behind a cloud, or at night, or the tide goes out we have no means to generate it. The problem we REALLY have here is we have no means to STORE it. This fact is conveniently ignored by all the salesmen of those “generate your own” scams and only now is that fact coming ot light as people who have been scammed into covering their rooftops with £30,000 “worth” of solar panels find it will be a hundred years before they get their money back because the equations assume they have “stored” excess energy in expensive battery stores that are not quoted for, and therefore do not need to draw on mains power for the night time.
The other inconvenient truth is that even if we implemented the most policies imaginable to reduce the number of people living in this country, well beyond even the most insane rantings of Trevor Phillips and the Gables combined, we would STILL freeze to death the following winter without nuclear power.
I could go on and on but this is not the place. If in ten days time Andrew is in a position to have this policy revisited, give me a call THEN as I would be pleased to provide input into a measured policy review of this subject.
However, unless we are thinking of going back to a lifestyle, life expectancy and population density on a par with britain in the Iron Age, those amongst us who think we can cheerfully turn our backs on the atom as a source of energy are in for a rude awakening.
[Thanks for the input. You have, we suggest, proven the point of the article, namely that party policy should in fact be drawn up by a panel of experts rather than, as is currently the case, simply invented by one person. – Ed.]
Very interesting John, thank you for the input.
I am not very well informed on the complexities of energy supplies and welcome your insight on these matters.
As a complete novice, I suspect we need a proper mixture of all methods in ways that are suited to their capacity. For example, you would not plan have a solar powered power station, and I doubt it would be a good idea to send power generated from the coastline all the way to the central parts of Britain…..
There is perhaps therefore a place for everything, and everything should be put in it’s place?
The things that worry most people about nuclear are obviously radiation (such as that found in wildlife and bird droppings etc around Sellafield), disasters, and as the article suggests, thousands of years before waste is deemed ‘safe’ – leaving a terrible legacy in our wake. What can be done about all this?
You raise an interesting point about storage being an obstacle to renewables. I did not know this was one of the major flaws – are there any promising ways emerging to rectify this?
I hope that somebody of your experience on these matters can become part of Andrews team/panel of advisers so that we can perfect (or balance out) our policy positions.
Brilliant article! I hope this attitude and ideas becomes the policy of the BNP in the near future, like the writer above, the Nuclear Power policy was one BNP policies I strongly disagreed with.
I am not an expert on nuclear power or the finer implied details of BNP policy on this issue, and I certainly support and appreciate Andrew Brons and the excellent articles on this website – but when I read the first few paragraphs of this article, something just did not seem to sit right.
The article states that:
“The BNP’s current energy policy, for example, embraces nuclear power as the only alternative to the energy crisis which faces Britain.”
This is not, to my knowledge, correct – and even perhaps a little bit disingenuous and naughty to suggest, even though it is true that we do need to keep on our toes when it comes to policies tied to scientific research and development.
I am a member and supporter of the British National Party for many reasons, and I never recall seeing any of our representatives state (either in person or in the manifesto) that nuclear was the *only* option – otherwise I would have been a bit unhappy with such energy policy positions.
I don’t remember being too unhappy with it. I have therefore had to go back and have a quick look at the actual manifesto bullet points.
The British National Party 2010 manifesto states that:
“The BNP is committed to research into renewable and quasi-renewable energy sources and transmission systems, such as wave power, hydrogen fuel, and nuclear energy”.
“The BNP will stop the building of wind turbines which are inefficient and blight the landscape”.
“The BNP will investigate clean-burning coal-fired power plants as another method of dealing with increased energy demands”.
“*** The BNP is urgently committed to a policy of national energy independence, based,as far as possible, on renewable energy sources.” ***”
As such, it later states that:
“We shall fund research into renewable and quasi-renewable energy sources and transmission systems, such as wave power, hydrogen fuel, and nuclear energy.”
“We shall increase nuclear power generation with a view to providing 40 percent of the UK’s energy requirements.”
“Britain continues to possess significant reserves of coal, sufficient perhaps for several centuries depending upon the rate of consumption. We shall therefore support the construction and reconstruction of coal-based generation plants, with the most modern clean air technology.”
Perhaps I am missing something – as I say, I am not an expert on energy capacities – but that does not sound to me as though the current policy is suggesting “only” nuclear should be pursued to solve our energy troubles.
It sounds as though the policies are expecting a whole collection of measures to work in tandem – which is surely the sensible thing to be doing and what also seems to chime the best with most people in the country.
When it comes to the actual nuclear plants, I was led to believe (again, I may be wrong) that many of our nuclear plants are old, worn out, and are needing to be closed soon anyway.
Could future BNP nuclear policy be to drop the 40% figure and simply advocate the replacement and renewal of those existing plants?
I was also led to believe that modern ‘state of the art’ plants are somewhere in the region of three times more efficient than the first generation plants we have, and much safer.
If our existing plants are worn out, disintegrating, inefficient, getting dangerous – then surely it is arguable policy to just keep the same number of plants we already have but gradually replace them with new ones that we will own ourselves.
This is something which, if the thing about efficiency is true, would actually reduce our current nuclear waste problem and not increase it.
Perhaps all angles to interwoven policies have to be considered too, for any proposed solution…..ie, providing workers, the set up costs of various ventures, wages, keeping ownership, training people to build new facilities, discover new technologies, etc, so that we ensure we are in a good position to put policies into practice.
The British National Party manifesto does actually mention hydrogen – which is featured in this article too.
I am not familiar with this technology at all, and I suspect many people in general society have not heard of it (or understand it).
I think Andrew is absolutely right that we need to push these types of thing to the front much more than we are doing now.
Technology and trends change all the time, we cannot afford to be stale – and if hydrogen is a “winner” on multiple counts, then lets run with it!
‘Decentralised power plants’ is another thing….do people really know what it is? I assume it means having smaller power plants scattered closer to population densities, so that all that power is not lost travelling through hundreds of miles of cable and pipelines?
If it is a sensible and attractive solution, then yeah, lets hear more about it!
Wave power is also mentioned in both the manifesto and this article, and I certainly support that (even though that may also have some smaller scale environmental ramifications).
Solar power, yes, that has it’s place too and has my support. I also heard that Germany is much better geared up for it and that it makes more sense for the German public (perhaps subsidies or something?) for them to go with it.
It was on the radio last week though that it takes 11 panels on your roof on a normal day to boil a kettle…..so surely that is not too good at the moment, especially in terms of return cost for the buyer.
However, perhaps technology will advance with our proposed funding, costs will come down, and we can adjust the financial incentives for them to be installed like I suspect Germany does.
I think Andrew is right in that we need to keep on top of policy, keep things tidy, promote unique features, come out and sell them to the public as part of our package.
Maybe if the party is revamped and re-styled we can come out with much more of these ‘new’ ideas that integrate well with our desire for self sufficiency and self reliance as a nation.
It will not surprise those who know my views that I agree in the most part with the comment by John Voisey, particularly where he condemns the “utter tripe” uttered by many who strongly oppose or support nuclear power.
At least the majority of naitonalists appreciate that wind power is incpable of meeting more than two or three per cent of or energy requiremens – but only if the wind speed is right. It is nothing but a scam by the ‘green’ government to raise household energy costs by 40 per cent (another tax on us) in order to cover the ‘carbon footprint’ nonsense.
IN his/her second comment, British Activism rightly points out that BNP current energy policy does not embrace nuclear power as the ONLY choice.
As he/she says, the BNP is committed to research into renewable energy sources and transmission systems such as wave power, hydrogen fuel and nuclear energy. We will also investigate clean-burning coal-fired power plants.
Because of the lack of decision making by past and present governments in building new non-nuclear or modern, safe design nuclear plants we have to face the lights going out at greater frequency by 2015.
Finally, I find it encouraging to see a genuine debate on an important issue. All participants must remember that a party of 100 per cent agreement is a party of one.
At last this issue is raised by nationalists and allowed to be questioned. I do not want Nuclear power and I am in full accordance with your excellent article (16 July). As you say there are other renewable alternatives to be developed. Just because China may be forging ahead with its Nuclear program does not mean we have to do likewise.
I have emailed Nick Griffin twice with my concerns that the BNP should not support Nuclear power production but as he seems to just want the BNP to be the ‘Ideas Of Nick Griffin Party’ I had no reply. Although these left liberal idiots are trying to destroy Europe, It should also not be assumed by the BNP that man made climate change is a left liberal guardian readers conspiracy. I could be wrong and maybe i’ve been duped by the world order internationalists but as things stand I agree with the concept of man made climate change. In my opinion the BNP should at least allow for such opinions. If for nothing else I feel the BNP would benefit from an at least neutral position on man made climate change due to the fact that the BNP affects itself by appearing to be a party which opposes all ideas. Nationalist ideas which are in concurrence with the concept of man made climate change are not juxtaposed in my opinion. It is globalisation which is causing man made climate change in my opinion.
Nuclear power is the future, there are no alternatives that can possible provide the lifestyle we have now. The current nuclear power stations today produce energy using nuclear fission, which produces many harmful waste products.
Why have we not heard more about nuclear fusion?
There is another, cleaner and much cheaper alternative to fission and that is nuclear fusion. With so many benefits to nuclear fusion, you would expect the government to spend billions to get it into operation, yet in Britain, more money is spent each year on mobile phone ring tones than on nuclear fusion research. Like the electric car, nuclear fusion is a dirty word to the government’s tax-making machine.
I hope to see a fusion power station in my lifetime. Once the new fusion stations go into operation, we will see limitless supplies of cheap energy. This would do-away with the need for oil but just like that other dirty tax raiser cigarettes; it will probably take decades for the government to find alternative tax revenues before any action is taken.
Wind machines as an efficient source of alternative energy is total nonsense. We now know that last winter wind machines provided less than 20% of the power promised by the subsidised wind machine industry.
A simple fact is, that in a constant wind, and there is no such thing as a constant wind, a wind machine takes 4 hours to provide 1 Mw of energy. A nuclear station provides 1mw of energy in 4 seconds, every 4 seconds.
The false promises of wind machines is now well known and should be publicised in order that no more of these useless, subsidised monsters polluting our country will be allowed.
The nuclear industry has had 60 years to make this stuff safe. Post Fukushima it has no credibility. It has failed and due to its negligence we are all being exposed to its potentially lethal radionuclides.
The future is conservation, renewables, biomass, the eking out remaining fossil fuels, and a radical reordering or our economy and living arrangements. Our energy binge is at an end; it is now time to sober up.
However, on the upside I am confident British scientists and engineers are up to the challenge confronting us.
Finally, here’s a neat animation of kite wind power:
http://www.makanipower.com/concept/fundamentals/
No mention of Thorium Reactors so far, so for completeness:
http://energyfromthorium.com/
One of the reasons Uranium technology was chosen decades ago by governments was because of its military usefulness (by product used to make nuclear bombs).
Thorium poses far smaller risks to world safety and is proven technology (decades ago). It is very abundant. An article recently on RT highlighted that China is exploring the possibility of Thorium Energy as it is growing its industry rapidly and currently relies mainly on coal so ‘needs to go nuclear’ to be able to expand.
Hope this post is a starting point for some research.
See also: The Telegraph, Finance, Comments, Sunday 24 July 2011.
Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html
Correction: Above Telegraph article date should read Sunday 20 March 2011.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention Kevin.
I had not even heard of thorium before it was mentioned on this site, never mind it’s use as an energy resource.
The article you link to sounds very promising – especially when used hand in hand with other renewable technologies.
John Voisey: “we would STILL freeze to death the following winter without nuclear power.”
I take it you haven’t heard of superinsulated houses? Which require no heat at all? These are easy to build, and would save the lives of thousands of our elderly, yet what is the party policy on this?
The housing industry is at present dedicated to building the smallest houses possible, on the smallest plots of land, for the highest possible price. We are slaves to mortgages for most of our working lives, and we don’t even own the land that our ancestors have lived on for thousands of years – most of it is owned by a tiny percentage of the population. What is the party going to do to end this?
We managed before nuclear power, and even before electricity, and that was before we knew how to build superinsulated houses which, I repeat, require NO heating.