Don't Nuke the Climate!
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October 30, 2017 | No. 853 Dear readers of the WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, In this issue of the Monitor: • Kumar Sundaram writes about energy and climate debates in India. Monitored this issue: • Tim Judson writes about the Trump administration’s proposed bailout for nuclear and coal. Energy security, climate change 2 and nuclear power: India’s real problems • A summary of Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen’s new and false solutions ‒ Kumar Sundaram report on nuclear power’s greenhouse gas emissions. Trump administration rushing bailout 4 • A critique of the endless stream of misinformation for nuclear and coal ‒ Tim Judson from Michael Shellenberger and his pro-nuclear lobby group, ‘Environmental Progress’. An analysis of nuclear greenhouse 5 gas emissions ‒ Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen Feel free to contact us if you have feedback on this issue of the Monitor, or if there are topics you would Exposing the misinformation of 7 like to see covered in future issues. Michael Shellenberger and ‒ Jim Green Regards from the editorial team. ‘Environmental Progress’ Email: [email protected] Don’t nuke the climate! This November, anti-nuclear activists will converge on Among a myriad of other problems, nuclear power is: the UN’s COP23 climate conference in Bonn, Germany, • Rooted in human rights violations campaigning against proposals to subsidize nuclear and environmental racism. power under UN climate mechanisms. In Bonn, the Don’t Nuke the Climate contingent will march, advocate, and • Too Dirty: Nuclear reactors and the nuclear fuel chain rally to call for the transition to an energy system that no produce vast amounts of lethal radioactive waste. longer depends on polluting nuclear power and fossil • Too Dangerous: Continued use of nuclear power will fuels. Instead, we must rely on safe, clean, affordable, inevitably lead to more Fukushimas, Church Rocks, sustainable renewable energy, energy efficiency, and Chernobyls. The technology and materials needed conservation and 21st century grid technologies. to generate nuclear energy can be ‒ and have been ‒ Under the expiring Kyoto Protocol, nuclear energy is diverted to nuclear weapons programs. rightly excluded from UN climate mechanisms such • Too Expensive: Nuclear power is the costliest means as the Green Climate Fund. Yet the nuclear industry, possible of reducing carbon and methane emissions; in collaboration with certain nations, is lobbying for its use crowds out investment in clean energy sources. their dangerous and polluting technology to be seen as a climate-friendly option. This would obstruct real • Too Slow: Use of nuclear power to reduce fossil fuel progress in protecting the climate. emissions would require an unprecedented nuclear construction program, beyond the capability of the world’s manufacturers within an acceptable time frame. Please sign the petition: www.dont-nuke-the-climate.org/sign More information: www.dont-nuke-the-climate.org Energy security, climate change and nuclear power: India’s real problems and false solutions Author: Kumar Sundaram ‒ researcher with the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. NM853.4686 Dubbing nuclear energy as a solution to Reports for its installations. The Atomic Energy Act of climate change has been a key strategy of the Indian 1962 provides insulation to the nuclear sector here, government in recent years. The government has been providing it with a fig leaf of ‘national security’ to avoid using “clean energy” as a short-hand for nuclear power public scrutiny. Faced with such situation, we can adopt in international nuclear deals1, and offered nuclear an alternative method – study the impacts of climate power as part of its climate pledge submitted to the change on the surrounding environment of the sites UNFCCC ahead of the COP21 meeting. where new nuclear plants are proposed, and what would it imply for communities living there. India is one of the few countries in the post-Fukushima world to have massive nuclear expansion plans. The Chutka, in central India, and Gorakhpur, just 150 km Indian government has planned an expansion of the from the national capital, offer good case studies in total installed nuclear capacity to 63 gigawatts (GW) by this regard. Both these projects are inland, so they will the year 2032.2 At present, the total installed capacity is impact huge areas and large populations. Moreover, 6.8 GW, merely 1.8% of the total electricity production they are being built in ecologically sensitive regions. As capacity.3 In July 2017, Dr. R B Grover, senior nuclear such they offer important counterpoints as case studies. scientist who holds Homi Bhabha Chair in India’s Also, nuclear power plants in Chutka and Gorakhpur are Department of Atomic Energy, called for promoting being set up using the ‘indigenous’ Pressurised Heavy ‘Nuclear Variable Renewable Energy’ for achieving Water Reactor technology, so these plans are in fact 40% of electricity by 2030 from non-fossil sources.4 more feasible and more likely to be built than sites like Jaitapur and Kovvada where imported nuclear projects However, an intriguing display of extreme opposites face hurdles such as financial cost, liability and the can be seen when it comes to the Indian government’s declining financial health of foreign suppliers. policy on climate change under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His brazen denial of climate change, during Chutka: Nuking Narmada a patronising address to young students in 2014 ‒ where he claimed “it’s not the climate, but we who The proposed Chutka nuclear plant in the tribal- are changing”’ ‒ came under heavy criticism.5 dominated Mandla district in central India will displace hundreds of people for the second time and dangerously However, at the Paris Summit in 2015, Modi adopted compound climate change impacts.10 The scars of a strongly assertive posture against the West from a displacement and fear of being uprooted again is visible developing world perspective, which understandably on the faces of all inhabitants of the village – most of resonated with some sections of international civil whom are Gond adivasi tribes. For the Bargi dam, built society, but actually meant garnering more concessions between 1974 and 1990, they had to leave their villages for the home-grown industries.6 In his most recent trip in the valley and flee uphill. They were driven out of to France this June, Modi was seen expressing concern their ancestral villages, where they had been living for about Trump’s exit from the Paris climate accord and centuries, for as little as 500 Rupees (less than US$10 reassuring the new French President of reinforced dollars) for an acre of land. support from India.7 Faced with such injustice and threats to their safety In terms of actual policies back home, the Modi government and livelihoods, villagers have started a two-month has been hugely scaling up the renewable sector8, but long intensive campaign which started on Mahatma has also made an unwavering support for nuclear power, Gandhi’s anniversary and will culminate on International purportedly as a solution for climate change.9 Human Rights Day, December 10.11 Memories of being To understand the co-relation between climate change uprooted are still fresh in their minds. They were among and nuclear power generation, experts the world the inhabitants of 162 villages displaced for the Rani over have conducted comprehensive research on the Avantibai Bargi Dam built on River Narmada. carbon-footprints of the entire nuclear fuel-cycles and However, the real red-herring might be the cumulative compared them to other energy sources, in the specific climate change impacts in the region when seen in the context of their countries. long-term perspective. Undemocratic and irresponsible In India, such research on the nuclear fuel cycle is changes in water-usage at Bargi Dam, coupled with rendered effectively impossible by the non-transparency the general decrease in water levels in Narmada owing of the country’s nuclear establishment, which does not to massive deforestation upstream, spell catastrophe share with its citizens even basic information like radiation especially with the siting of the Chutka nuclear plant readings, Safety Assessment Reports and Site Selection on the same dam. When seen on a time-scale of the next 60‒70 years, there are ominous indicators that Nuclear Monitor 853 2 People against the proposed Chutka nuclear plant in Mandala district. indiawaterportal.org communities and industries will compete for the fast- the entire project will depend for water on a small canal, decreasing water reserves of Narmada, and a massively Fatehabad branch of the Bhakhra Branch Canal, which is water-guzzling nuclear plant on the bank of Bargi Dam the main source of water for irrigation in the region.13 This will make the scenario much worse. is perhaps the only nuclear power project in the world to have such a limited and unreliable source of water supply. The problem of decreasing water availability in Bargi Dam will lead to two serious challenges – nuclear Water will pose three huge problems in Gorakhpur: the reactors in Chutka will scramble for water, along with water will be inadequate even for the cooling of reactors other industries rapidly coming up in the region, and in their normal operation; in case of an accident, the compete with the local communities including the situation could be worse than even Fukushima due to Jabalpur city, with a population of 1.56 million, that non-availability of water; and the high temperature of the sources its drinking water from Bargi Dam. Water discharge water from the reactor will destroy agriculture shortages would also pose an insurmountable safety downstream of the canal, which dozens of villages risk in case of a serious nuclear accident. depend on for irrigation. Here too, like Chutka, the water was initially meant only for irrigation but now the Gorakhpur: Nuclear plant over a canal government is undemocratically diverting it for a nuclear Four Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors are being plant.