Nuclear Energy And The Future

Arguments regarding nuclear power have to be considered against the protectionism mounted by the oil and gas industries and the loss of immense profits as the stake. The profit and associated share values are the relevant business words in any commercial enterprise and safety will appear (if at all) only somewhere in the shadowy background. Safety issues constitute an attack on profits. Benefits are (mostly) financial and this can point to the probable reasons for creating fear with respect to nuclear power. Certainly, the potential for hazard is real, but the reality may be somewhat different. Misconceptions arrived at through caution have consequences, yet it remains critically important to weigh up the potential risks against the very real downside of using fossil fuels. The case in some respects becomes stronger in favour of nuclear power, but carries increased complexity in its opposition.

The fossil-based substances can never be replaced. Once they have been used up then that’s it, certainly for the currently existing population and its future generations. But that cannot by definition be for very long. There can’t ever be more for minimally hundreds of thousands of years. This is similar in principle to enjoying a feast of all the remaining food and water, leaving the larder empty rather than conserving food while attempts are made at finding an alternative source. One is obviously sensible and the other is just plain stupid. Ironically, if the original oil is not abiogenic, but from organic living sources that have died, the organic waste of the existing human population when it expires will, in part, replace what it has consumed. Eventually the human parasite will put something back in a (forced) selfless act. Itself.

   The irony is that after use, fossil fuels cannot be replaced but nuclear waste cannot be destroyed.

Currently, there are well in excess of 400 nuclear power stations around the world and produce more than 17% of all electricity used, roughly the same as hydroelectricity. Renewable sources (wind, biofuels etc) produce only around 2%. Hardly a threat to the energy industry. The nuclear power carbon (dioxide) footprint is zero, since it's not possible to create this gas in any nuclear (power) energy process. The yield of CO2 in transportation of all the fossil fuel based sources (oil, diesel, gas and coal) is at least 750 times the amount relative to nuclear fuel delivery and maintenance of waste (g/kWh energy). The volume of solid CO2 ‘created’ annually has been described as a 1-mile high cone with a 12-mile circumference of its base (about 3.8 cubic miles).

The issue of nuclear waste is probably the most contentious, but in context the materials that are used are radioactive to begin with and so the waste does not add to the overall amount. Mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium and thallium, are toxic chemicals and always will be. The creation of these elemental materials would be measured in billions of years. But the purified metal would have come from an inorganic ore. The toxicity of a pure metal and an ore containing the metal is different, but should still be regarded as a highly toxic source. The original sources of radioactive materials like uranium would have been mined in different places before being combined for use in a nuclear power station. Each original source may have been at a lower concentration, but the combined effect from these multiple sources when ultimately processed (as waste), will be in a higher concentration from a single location.

Nevertheless, to suggest that in 600 or so years, the high-level waste will have simply faded away is a particularly simplistic and very weak argument. In terms of human survival, this period represents a very long way back from today in terms of human history to around the 15th century. It also implies that the original activity billions of years ago was zero and so raises the question of how the radioactive nature was initially acquired and its activity enhanced. The potential hazard is still real, however described. The annual physical amount of spent fuel from a 1000 MW nuclear power station may only be enough to fill a small car (allegedly), yet is still a (relatively small) source of a deadly cargo and in one place. Whether only one Albert Hall-sized vessel full of highly radioactive waste instead of the several apparently described by the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), over a 40 year period this is still an immense amount of waste. A future of nuclear power can only escalate this estimate of waste dramatically.

The amount of radon gas breathed in by the UK population is thought to be 500 times that from the nuclear radiation produced by the nuclear industry. The danger here is comparing radiation from the nuclear industry and natural radon. Uranium and radon are not the same thing. The source is again confused or just obfuscated. The concentration of radiation from just a few nuclear sites does not compare with the diluted natural spread over an entire country from its rocks and soil. The Three Mile Island 'incident' may have not caused any direct deaths, but a safe landing by an aircraft in distress does not downplay any potential for a disaster, but only describes the outcome. The Chernobyl and Windscale disasters may have been 'accidents' (Chernobyl: steam explosion in an unstable reactor and being used for improper experimentation), but especially the Windscale (Sellafield) affair is a stark reminder of the potential for (absolute) decimation.

Uranium may not be a rare element, but the mining, transportation and processing will all increase the commercial profiteering potential. Coal is an abundant source, yet coal-fired energy production will never be cheap. Justifications for keeping the price high will always be promulgated and the commercial impact must never be overlooked when considering the viability of alternatives. Blind-thinking (stupidity) is simply the vision of the man-made concept of profit as being on the path to survival. Defunct governments sycophantically pursuing the favours of the highly profitable oil and gas industries downplay and shun the less instant nuclear ‘fast buck’. Artificially massaging conventional fuel prices upwards encourages these sources to be less desirable in the consumers' collective mind, so easing the path towards the introduction of nuclear energy. When the threat of power depletion is judged more economically real and so financially advantageous to the suppliers than at present, the industry will be motivated into action, but at (and to) the higher cost to the consumer. The pressure from the consumer to actually demand nuclear power will increase.

Create the problem and

provide the solution

The human race will certainly reach an abrupt end along this path. Human survival and the survival of national economies move in opposing directions away from each other. The one cannot be linked to the other as is still perceived. Gluttony kills everything human. Global economies are based on profit and whether the energy source is nuclear or non-nuclear, the end result will be the same. No future sufficiency of any kind will ever rescue humankind from itself. The only real prospect of any long-term future must be through changed attitudes. The stupid and greedy will turn to the scientists in the expectation of salvation that in all probability simply won't happen since it cannot.

An example of attitude change can be examined in the ‘wealthy’ (those who have a belief in the concept of virtual money that has no real value) apparently viewing excess driving speed as their right regardless of the law forbidding it. Buying an expensive and reasonably high performance car (almost the norm nowadays) also appears to provide the license to exploit the performance. It’s hedonism. Illusion and fantasy. Again commercialism married to technology produces corrupt and selfish thinking. Tragically, it appears that the only way to educate such people into the real world is when their own child is killed in a road traffic accident (RTA). It is only then that a new paradigm is adopted. But by then it's too late. In any case, a few deaths however regrettably caused, do pale into insignificance when the entire global population of billions is the real stake.

The Moon is responsible for the tides and these have been happening for billions of years. There is no reason to suppose the Moon will stop revolving around the Earth before the extinction of mankind. Eventual depletion of coal, oil and gas resources will force the not-too-distant next generations to face up to what is being ignored now. These failing sources are the least favourable and with wind and solar power insufficient to meet the demands of a still-growing population of consumers that feeds the profit hunger of commercialism, nuclear energy is raised to being the most favourable, even if not the most desirable. This does remain as potentially very hazardous, even on a more considered, but limited, appraisal. Tidal power must be examined. It is limitless in its potential. And if electrical (lightning) storm power could ever be harnessed, the energy is truly staggering. Attitudes are changing and the groundswell is increasing, but there are not enough of the visionary individuals who are not constrained by profiteering sponsors and the opposition of the stupid masses to any future that has real potential.

Whether a nuclear energy source or something else then becomes tragically irrelevant. The only way to prevent the global disaster created by that part of humankind that craves power and/or wealth is to remove the toys of destruction. Take away the reward and the problem evaporates. Replace it with pain and suddenly the greed factor will change.

But it won't disappear

The war-like nature of Man will rise. The nuclear weapons of war will almost certainly be deployed so paradoxically speeding up the inevitable end of humankind. The artificial (man-made concept) of financial gains will produce destruction. It becomes simply a different paradigm to the greed effect that produces selfishness. The greater the population the greater will be the polarisation of those supporting or opposing nuclear power. It would be interesting to speculate how views will change when push comes to shove and all the other non-renewable sources run out completely. But then, of course, it will be too late. Mankind is not capable of self-regulation. It’s not in the psyche of mankind’s nature. It will be the epitaph upon the world where there is no human life.


The manufacture of man-made (non-natural) CFCs costs money and so the cessation of production when the deleterious effects to atmospheric ozone were identified had little consequence when compared to the exploitation of a natural resource that has no manufacturing costs except its collection, transportation, refinement and distribution (sale). Even the ‘waste’ has its uses: the non-volatile fractions (asphalt). Other man-made disasters remain local affairs (Bhopal). These 'accidents' are more reminders of the potential for events going wrong. Or natural devastation: hurricanes and tsunamis. Inundation.

The artificial justification is by the creation of wars to so create the market place where the weapons of death are then sold. It’s the commercialism of death. A commercial business expects to get a return on its products. The facilitation of war and death. To develop and manufacture weapons that are primarily and only designed to maximise the yield of death and destruction. The cynical attitude is sickening, but doesn’t stop it happening. This exemplifies the distinction between natural or unnatural products being exploited for good or evil intent. Nuclear energy and nuclear weapons co-exist in a polarised marriage. Inextricably linked and so forever forming the trigger for an Armageddon. The shameful Hiroshima and Nagasaki  atrocities, but war produces war-like behaviour. In ‘peacetime’ there may be no current world conflicts, yet such events are today a feature of everyday life in many places around the world. Death and destruction are facts of human existence. Power and control and ultimately supremacy over the subservience of everything else.