Japaa's plutonium glut A green view of the Sevem Barrage Electro­ poUution: The killing fields? Greenhouse conspiracy? Contaminated coast ~controversy Stand up for reaeWable energy Do1111reay's COMMENT The SCRAM Safe Energy Journal is produced bi-monthly for the British Anti­ nuclear and Safe Energy movements by the Scottish Campaign to Resist the OW-LEVEL nuclear waste may end up in a near surface repository Atomic Menace (SCRAM). Views expressed in articles appearing in this after all- not in the Tory shires as was previously proposed, but in journal are not necessarily those of L 'nuclear' Jack Cunningham's constituency at Drigg, where BNFL SCRAM. hope the local population will be a little more compliant. Costs, of course, will be dramatically reduced. Another cost saving measure is the CONTRIBUllONS We welcome contributions of articles, plan to build mounds over decommissioned nuclear power stations. In news, letters, graphics and photographs; their desperate attempt to reduce nuclear costs, the industry want to leave which should be sent to SCRAM at the us with a legacy of nuclear waste dumps scattered around our country­ address below. side. LETTERS SCRAM reserves the right to edit letters As if that wasn't bad enough: both Dounreay and Sellafield are touting for to fit the available space. All letters for business around the world. Nuclear waste imports into the UK are set to publication should be submitted by the increase dramatically, with increasing quantities arriving on scheduled cross­ news deadline given below. channel freight ferries. Opposition to nuclear waste disposal is not peculiar COPY DEADLINES to Britain, and governments around the world are quite happy to take up the The Copy Deadline for feature articles UK' s offer and send their waste here. By 1995, when the vitrified waste is due for the next issue (December '90/January to start going back to the client countries, opposition to transporting nuclear '91) is 6 November. (Feature articles are materials could have reached such a fever pitch that we have no alternative approximately 800 words per page.) but to keep it. Do we really want flasks of vitrified high-level waste travelling News copy should normally be around the world anyway? submitted no later than a fortnight after the features deadline. The case with which the nuclear industry could be revived in 1994 is shown by the Barnes report on the Hinkley C Inquiry. The blanket approval for the ADVERTISING power station came as a shock, even to cynical anti-nuclear objectors. Whilst The advertising rates for camera ready accepting that nuclear power is more expensive at the moment he says it artwork are: could make a useful contribution to combating global warming and add to Full page (190mm x 270mm) £100 the diversity of supply. The industry has 4 years to bring down their waste Half page (190mm x 130mm) £55 disposal costs, come up with a cheap decomrnissioning plan, massage the Quarter page (90mm x 130mm) £30 figures here and there and bingo- the new improved PWR to be followed by Eighth page (90mm x 60mm) £15 the Safe Integral Reactor. A s ... all charge will be made for non camera ready copy, according to the work But by the same token, the anti-nuclear movement also has 4 years. This once involved. impoverished section of the population with very few resources, now has Inserts can be mailed out with the journal support in some very unlikely circles. We mustn' t fall into the trap of thinking - details on request. we can sit back for a while. BACK ISSUES Back copies of the journal are available for most issues. Copies from the previous s we go to press, and the Government conduct a new review of the year cost £1.20 (inc. p&p) or £6 for the set of six. Issues more than a year old are 75p potential for wave power, the Energy Technology Support Unit, (Inc. p&p). A rather the wave energy project manager, Roger Price, has advised the European Community not to fund wave energy research. SUBSCRIPTIONS For details of subscription rates see the form on the back page. He said that the UK Government "would strongly oppose inclusion of any research and development on large scale, offshore wave energy PRODUCTION devices". Editors: News - Pate Roche Safe Energy- Mike Townsley Compounding the suspicion that the Units connection with the Atomic Layout - Graham Stein Energy Authority has seriously damaged its reasoning, he told the COVER DRAWING Community that, in 1982 prices, "the most likely cost of wave energy from Cover drawing by Dennis Martin the best offshore devices was estimated to be in the range of 8-14p/kWh". He added that this corresponds to 14-24p/kWh in 1990 rates.

However, earlier this year, a Government report on the Salter's Duck wave Published by SCRAM, 11 Forth Street, power device was withdrawn from scientific libraries, by the Government, Edinburgh EH1 3LE. because it contained a serious error, resulting in the doubling of the estimated cost of wave power (SCRAM 76). The unit cost was amended to 5.2p/kWh. 'ft 031-557 4283/4 Wave dower funding was cut because the DoEn said in 1982 that no device Fax: 031-557 5448 (no junk taxes) could break 8p/kWh. This latest revelation hardly engenders an optimistic attitude towards the new review. ISSN 0140 7340 Bi-monthly

2 SCRAM79 THE SCRAM SAFE ENERGY JOURNAL

No. 79 - October/November. '9~ FEATURES I 8 Japan's plutonium glut Large quantities of surplus plutonium are likely to be pro­ duced in the 1990's. This will cause political and security problems, particularly in Japan, argue Frans Berkhout and William Walker of Sussex University's Science Policy Re­ search Unit.

A green view of the Severn Barrage 10 Proposals for a Severn Barrage were the subject of a 2 year study by the Department of Energy, published last October. The author of the Severnside Green Party's response, Graham Dummett a chemical engineer, offers a 'green' approach to the issues involved.

12 The killing fields? Roger Coghill, author of a new book Electropollution: How to protect yourself against it, considers the possible harmful effects of electro-magnetic radiation, including cot-death, ME, multiple sclerosis and AIDS.

Greenhouse conspiracy? 14 Much publicity was given to Channel4's The Greenhouse Conspiracy which argued that global warming is not happening. Martin Ince, science correspondent of the Times Higher Education Supplement found the programme's approach fundamentally flawed.

Contaminated coa~t controversy 15 A Friends of the Earth (FoE) report Unjustifiable Exposures, featured in a Yorkshire TV documentary, has received much criticism. FoE Radiation Campaigner, Patrlck Green, defends the report which details radioactive contami­ nation from Sellafield of exteftsive areas of Lancashire farmland.

Stand up for renewable energy 16 It is time to face up to the conflicting local and global environmental interests of schemes such as a Severn or Mersey Barrage. Dave Toke, convener of the SERA energy group and author of Green Energy, puts the case for promoting a wide range of renewable energy systems.

Dounreay's deadly trade 18 With the fast reactor programme being shut down, Dounreay is attempting to generate income by'accepting' spent fuel form research reactors world-wide. Pete Roche examines the military, storage and nuclear waste itnplicatipns of this reprocessing trade.

20 Pollute Electric? The area electricity boards and the supply industry could be playing a key role in protecting the environment. Mike Harper, FoE's assistant energy campaigner, reports on FoE's plans to put pressure on the English and Welsh area boards, and suggests structural changes to allow the industry to make a full commitment to promoting energy efficiency.

OctoberjNovember '90 3 The HIFAR reactor has received fuel After many postponements the 450 Australian contract sought elements from both the UK and the US. spent fuel rods have still not been 150 spent fuel elements ofUK origin were shipped to the US. It was reported in OUNREAY have held ..prelimin­ sent back to the UK in 1963. Around February 1989 that they were packed up Dary discussions" with the Austra­ 1,400, ofboth UK and US origin, are in and ready to go, but had become victims lian Nuclear Science and Technology storage at Lucas Heights, and a further 50 of the US moratorium. The US Depart­ Organisation (ANSTO) with a view to or so accumulate with each year of oper­ ment of Energy (DOE) were forced to securing a contract to reprocess spent ation. call a temporary halt to the import of fuel from the High Flux Australian Re­ In December 1985 the Australian Gov­ foreign waste until an environmental as­ actor (HIFAR)... Commercial negotia­ ernment announced its intention to trans­ sessment was carried out, after Ameri­ tions", however, .. would require prior port some 450 of these spent fuel elements can anti-nuclear groups threatened to Australian Government approval." to the US for reprocessing. The Minister take court action; they had already Australia has only one nuclear installa­ for Resources and Energy at the time, stopped the import of Taiwanese nu­ tion - Lucas Heights - about 30km south­ Gareth Evans, said ..existing spent fuel clear waste. The environmental assess­ west of Sydney. There are two research storage capacity at Lucas Heights will be ment has yet to appear. reactors on the site: the HIFAR and the fully taken up during 1986 unless at least If ANSTO do decide to send the 450 smaller, low-powered, MOATA. Built in some fuel elements are removed or addi­ spent fuel rods - the tip of a very large the late 50s, it has, until recently, attracted tional storage capacity is provided. The iceberg - to Dounreay to solve their stor­ little attention from the anti-nuclear latter option is not desirable as it would age problem, it will be a much larger movement. merely defer a decision on eventual long quantity than would come from most of Out of the six DIDO-class reactors that term disposal." Dounreay's other potential customers. were built only three remain open, the For example, the only reactor known to HIFAR, one at Rise in Denmark and one have signed a contract with Dounreay is at Juhlich in West Germany. The two at the Physikalish Technische Bundesan­ Harwell and one at Dounreay are shut. stalt reactor in West Germany, which has Following the unexpected closure of asked Dounreay to reprocess 39 spent fuel the DIDO reactor at Harwell, in March elements. this year, FoE Australia called for the However, ANSTO may think twice be­ closure of the HIFAR reactor in the wake fore sending their spent fuel to the UK. of its first ever independent safety audit. Their contract with the US DOE meant the Although Harwell claim that DIDO was waste would .. be retained in the US and closed for economic reasons, Paul Mobbs isolated from the environment". Sending of the local Banbury Environmental Re­ spent fuel to the UK would merely defer search Group has accused them of "being the decision on long-term disposal. But, economical with the truth" (SCRAM 76). because of the success of environmental FoE's concerns have been confirmed by campaigns in the US, we may yet see some of the Lucas Heights staff, who nuclear waste travelling half-way round agree that the reactor should be closed the world from a country with vast deserts down because safety has deteriorated. to one stupid enough to take it. 0

generating capacity so that PFR can time this year, due to corrosion in its so­ Fast Breeder become a commercial generator. Curren­ dium filters. The French authorities are tly PFR sells power to the Scottish Grid, now seriously considering shutting the OUNREAY management are ex­ but because its supply has to be inter­ station permanently. Whatever decision is Dploring ways to keep the Prototype rupted to. allow research work to be car­ taken, Superphenix will not come back on Fast Reactor (PFR) running after 1994, ried out, it is paid less per kilowatt-hour line for several months. when it will lose its government fund­ than it would be if it were a reliable sup­ ing. If Dounreay want to continue oper­ plier. So Dounreay is investigating the • The German fast reactor at Kalkar will ating PFR without interruption they will possibility of building other generating not get an operating licence this year. First have to order new fuel by the end of this capacity, possibly non-nuclear, to supply several technical problems must be year. power when PFR is off-line. solved. The West German government One option is to expand PFR's role in and the companies and utilities involved the development of the European Fast • Superphenix, the French prototype fast will decide what to do with the £7bn reac­ Reactor. Another is to build companion reactor, has been shut down for the third tor next year. 0

Reprocessing Plant (THORP), which is ing. BNFL has refused to reveal whether German contracts expected to open in 1993. their contracts contain similar clauses. BNFL argues that it already has a full Cogema's contracts also allow the EST German utilities have order bookforTHORP's ftrst decade, and utilities to pay for an extension of the W signed reprocessing contracts the German business will help secure the waste storage period in France, raising with BNFL and their French competi­ plant's long-term future- it has a design fears that German vitrified high-level tors, Cogema. Of the country's 20 nuc­ life of 25 years. waste may be stored in France for a signi­ lear reactors, 6 will send all their spent Cogema has won contracts worth ficant period of time, pending the avail­ fuel to the UK and 13 will send it all to £900m to reprocess about 2,000 tonnes of ability of a German repository. France.. The Muelheim-Kaerlich reac­ spent fuel. Their UP3 reprocessing fa­ tor will send half to each. cility will begin reprocessing the German • BNFL has announced that its .£240m BNFL has won about 45% of the work spent fuel in the year 2000, when all their vitrification plant at Sellafield is now on offer from the utilities, worth £800m. current work is complete. Cogema's con­ operational. The plant has been built to They will reprocess almost 1,600 tonnes tracts with the German utilities contain pro­ converthigh-levelliquid waste, from both of spent fuel sometime in the second de­ visions for cancellation should the German the Magnox and THORP reprocessing cade of operation of their Thermal Oxide Govenunentreverseits policy on reprocess- plants, into glass blocks. 0

SCRAM79 Ship fttes are not exceptional events, and as high as 42 metres on one route. Ferry follies are characterised by high temperatures and Real ship f1res often bum for hours, if not long duration - often in excess of 20 hours - days, at temperatures in excess of 8000C. N June Greenpeace supporters chained whether the ship is berthed or at sea. John How a flask could be salvaged from a vessel I themselves to a Dover-bound Sealink Large concludes that if a spent fuel flask was sunk at 200 metres within one hour is not ferry at Dunkirk to highlight the increas­ caught in a ship ftre, it could fail after about considered by the IAEA. ing use of freight ferries to transport nuc­ 2 hours. In a fierce ftre, a significantly larger The nuclear industry will not accept the lear waste flasks from continental Europe proportion of the flask contents would be possibility of a serious flask accident, so on their way to Sellafield. On-board the released to the atmosphere than predicted by little data is available on the escape of ferry was a cargo of spent fuel from West nuclear industry models. Similar conclu­ radioactive materials from a ruptured flask. Germany. sions are reached for both plutonium nitrate Large believes an extended ship ftre could Current movements of spent fuel into the and the proposed vitrified HLW shipments. promote greater releases than normally as­ UK amount~ about 300 tonnes per annum, BNFL's purpose built ships include addi­ sumed, even by critical analysts, because the with the bulk arriving at BNFL's private tional collision bulkheads, segregated cargo fire could continue to rage once the fuel berth at Barrow docks, in a fleet of purpose­ holds, advanced ftre suppression systems, cladding has failed. Critical analysts often built ships. However, movements through and are staffed by superior certificate of­ only consider the initial thermal mechan­ Dover using scheduled cross-Channel ficers. Barrow has special handling facil­ isms which breach the flask and promote roll-on roll-off (ro ro) freight ferries have ities, regular emergency exercises, and local failure of the fuel cladding. Large con­ increased dramatically, rising from two emergency services are kept fully informed. cludes: "a serious fire incident on board a flasks in 1988 to 16 during 1989, and a By contrast, the same spent fuel flasks arrive ship carrying radioactive materials could, in scheduled 37 this year. Within the next few on scheduled freight ferries which have the extreme, result in severe consequences years spent fuel imports will rise to about neither special facilities nor specially trained for members of the public resident and 500 or 600 tonnes per year, and the imports crews, the flasks share the cargo space with working in the general area of the port." via Dover will increase to between 50 and other hazardous cargoes, and Dover doesn't Deaths could amount to several hundred, 100flasks. appear to have a flask accident emergency with more if the accident was in Dover dur­ "These flasks pose an unacceptable risk, plan. ing the summer months - the long-term no matter which vessel they come in on", Despite the superior arrangements at Bar­ effect on the local economy would be says Greenpeace's Jack Cade, but to have row, BNFL's risk estimates are questioned severe. them coming in on ro ro ferries "shows by Large. A recent American study con­ irresponsibility beyond belief". sidered a concept design for an 'unsinkable' • A train carrying nuclear flasks from On top of this, vitrified high-level waste ship for the transportation and emplacement Sellafield to Oldbury was derailed in Sep­ (HLW) exports are scheduled to start in the of nuclear waste into the sub-seabed. Des­ tember and spilled its load at Sharpness, middle of this decade, with an average of 10 pite all the protection measures this 'unsink­ Gloucestershire. Nuclear Electric said flask movements per year. able' and 'fireproor ship still ran a risk of there was "no danger" because the flasks Greenpeace commissioned independent fire on board of once in every 5,100 years. were empty and did not break open. consultant engineers, Large and Associates, In comparison with the 'unsinkable' ship, A second train carrying empty fuel to investigate the safety of the import and the BNFL Pacific class ships seem frail ma­ flasks had problems with an overheating export of radioactive materials. Their re­ ritime structures, so their risk estimate of 1 axle and was forced to stop at a marshall­ port* concludes that transporting spent fuel in 33,000 years is hard to believe. ing yard in Wigan. The fire brigade were and vitrified HLW carries an unacceptable The International Atomic Energy Agency called, but the axle cooled naturally within level of risk - an accident could result in (IAEA) require that flasks are designed to 30 minutes. Greater manchester Fire and intolerable consequences. survive the impact of a 9 metre fall (equival­ Civil Defence Authority have complained Lloyds register of shipping losses shows ent to an impact speed of about 30mph), about British Rail's failure to inform them that the risk of losing a ship by ftre or explo­ being engulfed by ftre for 30 minutes at a of the incident. 0 sion to be about once every 245 years of ship temperature of 8000C, and immersion at a depth of 200 metres for 1 hour. Large con­ operation. BNFL reckon that their spe­ lmportjExport of Irradiated Fuel artd cialised ships are exposed to a risk of 1 in tends that these tests are not particularly * Radioactive Waste to and from the U11ited 33,000 years. The UKAEA, who transport onerous and certainly not representative of plutonium nitrate from Dounreay to Sella­ the harsh physical abuse prevailing in real Ki11gdom by John Large; 365pp, £25. Ex­ field by sea, once or twice a year, reckon the accidents. Freight trains often exceed ecutive Summary free. Available from risk of losing a plutonium nitrate shipment 30mph, and trains pass over viaducts and Greenpeace 30/31 Islington Green, Lon­ by ftre is once every million years. bridges considerably in excess of 9 metres - don,N18XE.

Scottish Nuclear are also looking for a picnic-site approach fails completely to Scottish blow to THORP cheaper - "up to SO% cheaper" - method address the long-term safety of our of decommissioning, as are Nuclear Elec­ radioactive legacy". Once rainwater AMBS HANN, chair of Scottish tric. Billions could be saved if the nuclear eventually gets into the entombed reactor, J Nuclear Limited (SNL) wants to companies did not have to stick to current the industry would be relying on "chemi­ negotiate cheaper contracts with BNFL government policy of returning the site to cal containment" to prevent radioactivity for reprocessing spent fuel. SNL will a green field. seeping into the environment. What the also investigate whether it is necessary Instead of dismantling the station bit by nuclear industry are proposing is basically to reprocess spent fuel from its two Ad­ bit taking over 100 years, cutting up the a series of mini-Nirex dumps peppered vanced Gas-cooled reactor (AGR) bulky waste and sending it off to the Nirex around our coastline, rather than above stations. repository, the reactor core could be en­ ground, monitorable stores, which critics "There is a massive stock of uranium cased in concrete and simply covered by suggest. and plutonium, so we 're saying why not a mound of sand and earth, landscaped dispose of the fuel on-site in a dry or wet and left for ever. • Speaking at the launch of SNL's firSt store, avoiding transporting it. If necess­ Anti-nuclear campaigners have op­ annual report, chief executive Richard ary it could be reprocessed in later years", posed the plan (SCRAM 62), albeit in 100 Y eomans revealed the full extent of the says Hann. Anyone who wants the years time, to cut up the reactor cores, fuelling problems at Tomess (SCRAM uranium and plutonium in the spent fuel disperse radioactivity around the environ­ 75). While the refuelling machine is al­ can pay for the reprocessing. On-site stor­ ment, contaminate workers, and then tered and redesigned, which will take age costs "look very, very favourable" remove the core to some previously un­ until early 1992, the station will only be and could halve SNL's costs compared contaminated place. However, Simon Ro­ able to operate at SO to 60% of design with reprocessing. berts of Friends of the Earth says "this capacity. 0

OctoberjNovember '90 estimate that its average charge will work producers cannot afford BNF's charges? N!rex mghtmare out at about £1,000 per m3• BNF would also During the decontamination of the Laporte be able to charge other LLW producers a site in Dford, &sex (SCRAM 65 & 77), the RITISH Nuclear Fuels (BNF) have high price, because their only alternative low-level waste was originally destined for B announced plans to extend the life of would be to pay Nirex an even higher price. Drigg, but the site was unable to accept either their •near-surface' low-level waste If Drigg does become the national LLW the volume or the amount of radioactivity. 3 (lLW) disposal site at Drigg, a few miles disposal site, this could make Dounreay Eventually 2,000m of thorium waste was south of Sellafield, in Cumbria. BNF say more likely to be chosen as the site for deep sent to a landfdl site for controlled waste the waste site could accommodate all the disposal of n..W. The main factor favouring under a specific exemption order of the UK's LLW until at least 2050. Sellafield, at the moment, is that transport Radioactive Substances Act 1960 (RSA60). Drigg was criticised by the House of costs would be cheap. However, the geology The knock-on effect ofBNF's plans could Commons Select Committee on the Envir­ is known to be more complicated than at be more exemption orders, more waste onment in 1986, which concluded that it "is Dounreay, so the removal of the large vol­ being disposed of in local authority landfill not an acceptable model for any future dis­ umes of LLW from the equation could just sites and perhaps even illegal dumping. posal site". Since then improvements have tip the balance in favour of Dounreay. An This adds new urgency to the call made in been made. The trenches are now concrete~ n..W repository could, of course, be built SCRAM 77by Friends ofthe Earth's radiation lined and will be capped and earthed over much smaller and extended more slowly. campaigner, Patrick Green. that the use of when full. BNF are also building a plant to The BNF plan has one advantage for Nirex. landfill sites for non-nuclear radioactive waste compress and compact LLW which will start LLW contains organic material which pro­ should end immediately, and for the DoE to operating in 1993. BNF say the engineering duces explosive methane gas when it decom­ cany out a complete review of the waste man­ improvements, together with the super­ poses. Gas generation would be a major agement practices and disposal routes used by compactor, will help to extend the life of the problem for Nirex, because any system which the non-nuclear radioactive waste producers. area at Drigg which already has planning allowed gas to escape could also provide an escape route for radionuclides. • RWMAC's subgroup on safety assess­ permission, for another 60 years. ment modelling for deep disposal were If the BNF plan is accepted, Nirex will Nirex expects to start drilling the fll"St of surprised to find that the number of com­ lose most of its business. A deeper reposi­ two test boreholes at Dounreay in October, prehensive, site-specific assessments car­ tory will still be required. but only for the and BNF are expected to apply for per­ much smaller quantities of intermediate­ mission to drill three more test boreholes ried out in the UK "can be counted on one level waste (ILW). By 2050, Nirex had ex­ near Sellafield. Two boreholes have already hand". They say full assessments are pected that it would have to dis~ of 2 been sunk on the Sellafield site, and plan­ necessary to develop expertise, and con­ million m3 ofLLW and 600,000m ofn..W. ning permission has been obtained for a third fidence in the procedures. All their designs and planning assumptions on land adjacent to the site. A major reason for the small number of will have to be recalculated. The idea of extending the life ofDrigg for assessments, says the subgroup, ~is the Extending the life of Drigg offers several 60 years, appears to contradict statements paucity of the detailed, site-specific infor­ advantages to BNF. Sellafield currently pro­ made by the government's Radioactive mation needed to carry them out". They say duces two-thirds of the waste which goes to Waste Management Advisory Committee mathematical models "spanning such long Drigg, and continuing to dispose of it there (RWMAC) as recently as November 1989. time scales are inevitably subject to a high will be much cheaper than sending it to a RWMAC's tenth report talked of the "limited degree of uncertainty and the uncertainty Nirex deep repository. BNF is currently capacity" at Drigg and warned "that many will increase the further into the future the charging between £320 and £370 per m3 to non-nuclear industry users of radioactive ma­ models are predicting". dispose of LLW at Drigg, whereas Nirex terials are facing increasing difficulties in fmd­ Nevertheless, RWMAC are "reason­ ing disposal routes for their wastes ... Disposal ably confident that when the time comes at Drigg with its increasing costs is often the to assess the actual deep disposal site for only practical option available." low- and intermediate-level waste the SATURDAY270CTOBER According to Christopher Harding, BNF necessary assessment methodologies will chair, outside customers are now sending be available." D smaller volumes of waste to Drigg. This raises the question, if waste is not going to *Report ofthe RWMAC subgroup Ofl safety Drigg, where is it going? Are local authority assessment modelliflgjor deep disposal sites landfill sites being used for waste that should for low- and ifltermediate-level radioactive be going to Drigg, but cannot because the waste. HMSO; 1990. 84pp. £8.

ommendations, most of which have been PWRs are go accepted by the Government. These include the publication of regular reports decom­ ROSPECI'S for delays in plans to missioning costs, more detailed figures Pcomplete Sizewell B have come to should be produced on plutonium stock­ lPJDENT light following the publication of the Hin­ piles, and a series of improvements should 8am- ldey C inquiry report. The computerised be considered to the emergency planning NON-VIOLENT safety system (SCRAM 78) is still await­ arrangements. ing· safety clearance, six years after the Although Hinkley C has been given plan­ SIT DOWN Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (Nll) ning permission by Energy Secretary, John PROTEST AT first identified problems with it. Wakeham. there will be no cash for con­ Michael Barnes, the Inquiry Inspector, struction before the 1994 review of the pros­ RNAD COULPORT made it clear in his report that important pects for nuclear power. D questions about the safety system, planned FOLLOWED BY for both Sizewell Band Hinkley C, still have to be resolved. The Nil's main concern is RALLY AND MUSIC with the computer software. CARD from midday Meanwhile, Stop Hinldey Expansion have accused Barnes of being "an excellent UMBRIANS Against Radioactive For more details contact: mouthpiece for the Government's pro-nu­ C Dumping are in the process of setting Faslane Peace Camp. Helensburgh. clear policy". They say his 3,300 page report up a network of support groups in Cum­ Dunbartonshire comes down in favour of Nuclear Electric all bria. For more information contact Doug TeL: 0436 810901 along the line. Smith 13 Solway View, Sunny Hill, Barnes makes a number of specific rec- Whitehaven. Cumbria CA28 7HL. D

6 SCRAM79 A joint study team from Vattenfall and the The Social Democrats see natural gas Swedisi 1 uuclear p~,r...('-out University of Lund (see Reviews pages) as the prime source for new electricity estimate that 44TWh could be saved by generation in the immediate future. Ifthey HETHER Sweden will postpone 2010 in their •high-efficiency scenario', cannot persuade Parliament to relax the Wplans to begin phasing-out nuc­ which would require policies to stimulate rules on C{}z emissions, and the nuclear lear power in 1995 may be decided this the introduction of energy-efficient phase-out has to be postponed, most Autumn by the Swedish Parliament. equipment. Swedish MPs will remain committed to a Current indications are that, even if Sweden already has the world's first complete phase-out by 2010. there is a postponement, there will still offshore wind turbine, and if successful With sums of money being spent on be a complete phase-out by 2010, as 98 3MW turbines could be installed off energy-efficiency and non-nuclear en­ decided by the 1980 referendum. Sweden's south coast. If economically ergy sources, which make the UK's ef­ Besides the nuclear phase-out, Parlia­ feasible, wind turbines, both onshore and fort look like a drop in the ocean, the ment has committed Sweden to hold C02 offshore, could be installed by 2010 to Swedes should have little difficulty emissions at 1988 levels, and not to de­ generate STWh. achieving their objective. Swedish In­ velop any of the four remaining wild Sweden has a plentiful supply of dustry may continue to put around scare rivers in the north for hydro-electricity. forestry waste and straw which could be stories about higher electricity prices Many believe these three aims are irrecon­ used in biomass-fuelled district heating and job losses, but with electricity cilable. plants, and Vattenfall is investing prices already very low, Sweden looks There are six political parties in SKtlbn (£90m) in biomass energy set to remain resolute in its commitment Sweden's governing coalition, and all research. to a clean environment. 0 have different solutions to the problem. The largest party, the Social Democrats, appears to favour modifying Parliament's ban on increasing C02 emissions. They point out that Sweden has already cut emissions by 36% between 1970 and 1988. • BWR IfParliament does not allow an increase • PWR in C02 emissions, the start of the nuclear phase-out may have to be postponed. Prime Minister, lngvar Carlsson, is under Net output increasing pressure to abandon the current MW(e) Boiling Water timetable. Even within his own Party Reactors some members oppose the phase-out be­ Barseback - 1 600 cause of industry predictions of job losses Barseback - 2 600 caused by higher electricity prices. Forsmark - 1 967 Sweden generated 139.5TWh of elec­ Forsmark - 2 968 tricity in 1989, 71TWh from hydro and Forsmark - 3 1150 62.8TWh from nuclear. At an annual rate Oskarshamn - 1 440 of 16,000kWh per person, the Swedes are Oskarshamn - 2 610 Oskarshamn - 3 1070 the third largest consumers of electricity, Ringhals - 1 750 following Canada and Norway. Sweden also has the third lowest prices for indus­ Pressurised Water trial and commercial electricity, after Reactors Canada and Australia. In fact consumer Ringhals - 2 800 prices in Sweden are only just over half Ringhals • 3 915 the average price for OECD countries. Ringhals - 4 915 Vattenfall, the Swedish power boan! which produces half of Sweden's elec­ tricity, has launched a SKr370m (£33m) energy saving campaign. Outside of the electricity-intensive industries, Vattenfall estimate that 12-19TWh could be saved.

Spain's energy plans Swiss referendum on nuclear power

PAIN'S Minister for Industry and WISS citizens have voted for a ten with 52.9% against. SEnergy has announced that, because Syear moratorium on the construc­ Proponents of the moratorium now of the Gulf Crisis, the long overdue tion of new nuclear power stations, des­ hope that Switzerland will have time to National Energy Plan will now be fur­ pite opposition from the Government improve energy efficiency, assess alterna­ ther delayed (SCRAM 78). and the power industry. tive energy sources, and reduce depend­ Inevitably, the crisis has revived calls Swiss anti-nuclear groups had to collect ency on nuclear power, which provides from Spain's pro-nuclear lobby to restart about 150,000 signawres in order to make 40% of the country's electricity. work and complete the Valdecabelleros 1 their demands the subject of a referen­ Voters also approved, with 71% sup­ and 2 nuclear plants. Meanwhile dum. The moratorium received 54% of port, a new law giving greater power to Hifrensa, the Franco-Spanish consortium the vote, and so now becomes part of the the federal government to determine en­ that owns the ill-fated Catalan nuclear Swiss constitution with no further action ergy policy. The government will now be power station Vandellos 1 -the fust of required by Parliament. able to set energy efficiency standards for Spain's ten nuclear power stations to be Another proposal calling for the closure industry, appliances and cars. It will be closed down - is considering converting of the five existing nuclear plants as easier therefore for the government to pro­ the plant to gas-faring. 0 quickly as possible was narrowly defeated mote energy conservation. 0

October/November '90 7 Nuclear plans in Japan, France and Britain are set to produce large quantities of plutonium in the 1990s. FRANS BERKHOUT and WILLIAM WALKER of Sussex University's Science Policy Research Unit, argue that this plutonium will be surplus to requirements, and very difficult to use. It will pose political and security problems, particularly for Japan. Japan's plutonium glut

N 1992 an unusual ship will ap­ by then. From around the turn of the radio or satellite, and that a suitable proach the shores of Britain and century a new plant at Rokkashomura response force is on hand should the I France. It will be heavily armed, is planned to separate about 6.5 tonnes shipment be attacked. and will fly a Japanese flag. Its of plutonium per year (see figure). mission: to escort a cargo of pluto­ Establishing this security infra­ nium across the high seas to Japan. Transporting plutonium in small structure has proved to be a headache This voyage marks the beginning of quantities is nothing new, even for the Japanese government. To the attempt to transport large quant­ between Europe and Japan. But deflect national and international ities of plutonium between Europe concerns about nuclear safety, the concerns about its intentions, it has and Japan. environment and terrorist threats decided to give the task of escorting have led to a gradual tightening of plutonium shipments to the Coast­ As a nuclear weapon material, any regulations. Public opinion has also guard, rather than the Navy. In doing movement of plutonium has implica­ become more nervous about the so, it has attracted strong criticism tions for international security. Pluto­ movement of nuclear materials. In from the growing nationalist tendency nium is also highly radio-toxic, and spite of this, the global scale of at home for having been too timid. thus a danger to health and the envir­ plutonium traffic is likely to increase Doubts have also been expressed in onment. The transfers have a further three or four-fold over the coming the US about Japanese competence to political significance since this may be decade. mount robust anti-terrorist measures the first time Japan dispatches an in view of their relative inexperience. armed force overseas since the second Shipments to Japan will probably go world war with an expressly military by sea. Initially plutonium was to have Providing satellite surveillance is well purpose. Japan's post-war constitu­ been flown back, but this plan was within Japanese capabilities, but the tion severely restricts the deployment scuppered after American objections. question of the response force is still of its militruy beyond territorial waters. The US government maintains a wide unanswered and will undoubtedly be degree of jurisdiction over Japanese politically difficult to handle. And for what purpose? To ship a nuclear activities through bilateral Although in the past France and the material for which there is a very agreements and diplomatic influence. US have helped out in these situations, limited commercial requirement. In 1988 a new agreement seeking to they have let it be known that they Much of the plutonium will probably ease the sometimes fraught nuclear now see plutonium transport as a end up being stored and eventually relations between the two countries Japanese responsibility. treated as a waste. was signed. This agreement allowed for plutonium returns from Europe by Having been forced into sea Plutonium arisings in Europe air. transports, Japan is finding difficulty in protecting what it sees as its Plutonium is contained in spent Almost immediately, however, an national interest by itself. It also risks nuclear fuel when it is extracted from amendment was proposed by oppo­ changing its standing in the world the reactor. The fuel can then be sent nents of the agreement and passed by order into a more aggressive one. This for chemical reprocessing where !he the US Congress which substantially is a serious dilemma for an infant plutonium, uranium and waste tightened the safety criteria applied to Superpower which thrives on good products are separated. In all, some 80 plutonium shipment casks. One effect relations with other countries. As the per cent of the spent fuel so far was that it became necessary to test the Japanese inhibition to send mine­ produced by Japanese commercial integrity of the cask in a real aircrash, sweepers to support the Gulf blockade reactors is set to be sent to Europe for by, for instance, deliberately crashing shows, there is still extreme sensitivity reprocessing in new plants at a Jumbo with one on board in the about sending troops overseas. Sellafield and La Hague in France, Canadian tundra. Such a test is not starting this year. Contracts for this seen as feasible, although develop­ Plutonium use in Japan work were signed in the late 1970s ment work continues. when the Japanese utilities realised What then is the plutonium needed that a domestic reprocessing capacity Physical security for? Are the benefits of plutonium use could not be provided soon enough. commensurate with the political However, sea transport raises all sorts problems its handling and transport By 2002 some 37 tonnes of Japanese of new questions about both safety throws up? plutonium are scheduled to have been and the protection of plutonium from extracted. Along with the nuclear sabotage and theft. Internationally­ There are two main civil uses of wastes and uranium, all of this agreed rules require that when plutonium- recycling as fuel in fast or material is contracted to be returned. plutonium is being moved it should be in thermal reactors. Japan has long Production of plutonium in Japan accompanied by armed guards, had a strong commitment to develop could amount to a further six tonnes tracked more or less continuously by more advanced and plutonium-

8 SCRAM79 consuming fast reactors. During the 1990s three research and demon­ TONNE$ stration reactors could consume a PLUTONIUM maximum of about nine tonnes of TOTAL 7~------~------~ plutonium. Therefore, out of a total FULL Pu RETURNS; production of 43 tonnes, over thirty ROKKASHO tonnes would, in principle, be 130 av.ailable for recycling as fuel in commercial thermal reactors 120 (mixed-oxide (MOX) recycle).

The utilities, who own the plutonium, 110 are chary about this. Using plutonium in commercial reactors is more costly than standarq enriched uranium, 100 there are new operational and safety problems which they must learn 90 about, and there is local opposition to plutonium use on grounds of safety. 1990 Since most of the European utilities with plutonium are also trying to get MOX programmes off the ground, there will be a world shortage of MOX fuel fabrication capacity during the 1990s. All in all, it looks highly unlikely that the Japanese will be able to absorb the large amounts of plutonium which the European reprocessors will return to them over the next fifteen years.

Instead, much of it will be stored, either at Sellafield and La Hague, or in Japan. If the Japanese choose to store the plutonium in the UK, this will add to the 30 tonnes already stockpiled at Sellafield. Due to the build-up of gamma-emitting americium-241, these stocks will very quickly become unusable for MOX fabrication.

International predicament 1990 92 94 96 98 2000 02 04 06 08 2010 The coming plutonium glut is not just --CONSUMPTION a Japanese problem. Several European · • • • • • • • • • • ... PRODUCTION countries, including Britain and France, will also face mounting stocks. Anticipated production and consumption of plutonium In Japan -1990-2010 By early next century about 100 tonnes of civil plutonium and a similar decade and the reprocessing contracts two French lines are already amount of military plutonium could with electric utilities are binding. In operating, THORP is nearly complete. be surplus to world requirement. Britain and France political support Having invested a total of over £5 for reprocessing also rests on its billion in building all three of the From both a security and environ­ military role. Second, the utilities do plants, there will be a strong argument mental perspective, separated pluto­ not have ready alternatives for storing for making them work. However, it is nium is just about the last material their spent fuel. Reprocessing is an irresponsible to ignore the enormous which should be accumulating in easy, albeit costly and not necessarily costs and uncertainties of operating at stockpiles around the world. The environmentally preferable, way of full tilt. This is in no-one's interest, bar economic costs of gearing up for getting rid of nuclear power's BNFL and Cogema. Instead, there plutonium handling and use will also principal waste management should be a phased reduction of be great when compared with the problem. The utilities are also fearful output and a thorough reappraisal of costs of simply storing the spent fuel. that if reprocessing were to end, this alternative fuel cycle strategies which It is therefore important that supply is would reduce the future viability of do not involve reprocessing. 0 brought in line with requirement. nuclear power and make it more difficult to operate existing reactors. • The authors of this article, together But this is difficult for two main with Tatsujiro Suzuki wrote an article reasons. First, the interests of the THORP and the French plants are entitled The approaching plutonium sur­ reprocessing companies remains coming on stream at a very plus: a Japanese/European predicament strong. Huge investments have been inopportune time, but it will be published in International Mfairs Mag­ made in new plant over the past difficult to cancel them altogether. The azine, 66, 3 Ouly 1990) pages 523-543.

October/November '90 9 Last October the Department of Energy (DoEn) published the results of a 2 year study into the proposed Sevem Barrage; they invited comments on the report. Here GRAHAM DUMMETT chemical engineer and author of Sevemside Green Party's response*, gives 11a green perspective" on the Barrage. A green view of the Severn Barrage

HE Severnside Green Party, output of electricity for each facility, the imports by 2028, was assumed. Against made up of the twenty local unit cost of electricity was calculated in this backdrop an estimate was made of T branches in Gloucestershire, tons of coal equivalent (tee) burnt over the potential to reduce this minimum Avon and Somerset, responded to the each facility's life: 'carry on as we are' demand over the Severn consultation in a thirty page next 30 years. report which gives cautious and • SevernBarrage (120yr life) 3,750 qualified support. It was a difficult tce/TWh Because the major energy savings are to decision: on the one hand the barrage be achieved in the way the Nation heats has the potential to produce 6% of the • SevernBarrage (240yr life) 2,950 its homes and factories, runs the UK's electricity without adding to tce/TWh transport system and operates the global warming, acid rain or drawing process industries in which electricity on the diminishing stock of fossil fuels, • On-shore Wind 4,700 tcejTWh plays only a small part, the potential for but on the other, a price has to be paid. reducing demand may seem modest. • Coal (operational fuel only) 400,000 Nevertheless a potential reduction of The Party had to face up to the sheer tcejTWh. 28.5% was identified. History has size of the barrage - the antithesis of the demonstrated, with past oil price hikes, corner-stone of much Green thinking In these terms, the barrage is marginally that demand is elastic to price, as may based on Schumacher's "Small is more attractive than land based wind be demonstrated again if the present Beautiful" philosophy - and also the turbines and, of course, over a hundred Middle East crisis persists. To achieve halving of the area of intertidal mud times more attractive than conventional the proposed conservation objectives a flats upstream of the barrage, changing coal-fired plant. significant tax on fossil fuels must be the ecological balance of the Estuary. applied. Longevity discounted The construction of the barrage will be On the supply side, only the massive by any standards. If built its The Official Report took a different commercially and practically proven output, at 171Wh pa, will be thirty times approach and used the discounted cash methods of generating electricity from larger than that of La Ranee Estuary flow technique to assess the project's renewable resources and the extended Barrage, in France - the largest so far viability. Such a computation has two use of CHP, either by burning selected built. Its generating capacity, 8640MW, weaknesses; it does not reflect the waste or fossil fuels, were considered. will be over twice the size of the UK' s environmental contribution nor does it The renewable resources were thus largest power station, the coal-fired take into account the longevity of the reduced to on-shore wind and tidal Drax. It ·will enclose a basin of water barrage. The second failure has led to power. This is a regrettable position to three times the size of Loch Lomond the high projected cost bf electricity, have to take, as undoubtedly and will cost more than the Channel 7.2p/KWh; a unit cost that would be Government neglect and removal of Tunnel to construct. virtually the same if the barrage had a support for research into wave, offshore life of 40 years rather than that of a wind and geothermal power has denied A barrage's main generating weakness facility that will probably last as long as the Nation these alternative resources at lies in the surge nature of its output. In man requires electricity. The City this critical time in the evolution of the the case of the Severn the electricity however is wedded to gaining a short world's industrial society. An evolution generation surge will, dependent on the term return on its investment. which presently exacts a high price height of the tide, last for 4-7 hours on from the Earth. a 12 hour 40 minute cycle. With a Attractive as it is in terms of fuel maximum generating rate of over savings, a barrage costing £9.7 billion is The paper assumed, in line with CEGB 8000MW, inefficiencies will be induced an expensive item and can only justify thinking, that 45TWh (15% of the into the grid as other power stations the expenditure of public money if the projected demand in 2028) could be have to be turned down. This problem future demand for electricity cannot be was not addressed fully by the project met from a combination of other ...... ,_..,.Contours ore ... _ managers and requires a complete renewable resources and the extension examination. of the use of combined heat and power --- (CHP) stations. In addition, to justify the The Party's report demonstrates that in expenditure, any projection of terms of fuel consumption per unit of electricity demand must be subject to an electricity produced, the barrage, with intensive programme of energy its generating facilities built into a conservation to reduce it to a minimum. permanent structure, is an attractive asset. Approximate comparative estim­ To test whether such resources could ates were made to ascertain the energy meet even a modest growth in demand, ·' required to construct, operate, maintain a tailing-off of economic growth and and replace components for the Severn consequent electricity demand growth I $­ Barrage, on-shore wind generators and to zero by 2008, together with the --== coal-fired plant. From the projected phasing out of nuclear energy and all Figure 1. The Severn Estuary

10 SCRAM79 supplied from on-shore wind and a further 23% from the extended use of CHP in the process industries, district heating and in providing energy to hospitals, swimming pools and hotels.

This simple analysis indicates that if :300 tidal power is not utilised, over 88TWh of electricity will still be generated from conventional fossil fuel plants, with their attendant inefficiencies and CONSERVATION- 2.9.5% hazardous emissions. The building of 250 d the barrage is therefore justified on the 0. grounds of reducing gaseous pollution ~ and the graph (Figure 2) shows the ) 1- contribution both the Mersey and 200 Severn barrages make to the projected 0 energy balance and the reduction of the ~ FOSSIL. FUEL.~ Country's dependence on fossil fuel ffi burning in conventional power stations 0 to the generation of 70TWh. 150 )" Unfortunately with continuing t:: economic growth, as experienced over I.) the past ten years, this figure would rise ii to an estimated 136TWh making lOO justification for the barrage even 1-u greater. uJ ..J uJ Caution needed so Nevertheless the size of the barrage also justifies a note of caution and the report recommends that the projected one mile NVC.LEAR long Mersey Barrage is completed before work starts on the ten mile long Severn facility. The turbine generators \988 1998 '2.008 2018 202.8 for the larger barrage are 20% bigger in swept area than any of that type so far built. Such an increase in size requires significant development work and an Figure 2. Combined supply demand scenario -zero growth In GDP by 2008 increase in manufacturing capability. In addition the construction environment which the sponsors wax enthusiasm. It shipping docks are located, could have in the Estuary with its prevailing SW is inevitable that the pressures will be severe commercial consequences. The winds, not infrequently at gale force, there and the Green party are very Party therefore advocates the and fast moving currents is at least concerned. They have asked for strict imposition of a national tax on the inhospitable and often dangerous. planning controls and that the proposed chemical fertilisers and pesticides that road across the barrage is not built. A are at the root of the problem and to use The resultant delay will put back the rail link would be a more acceptable the revenue to encourage organic start of the project some ten years; time alternative and would link up with the farming in the Severn catchment area. in which experience can be gained, a rail heads at Brean Down and civil engineering disaster avoided and the Lavernock Point. These branch lines, Pollution will also be a problem in the engineers can investigate and develop not in the official Report, are requested more static waters of the basin. The the report's proposal to incorporate in order to reduce road traffic during project managers were not specific on wind and wave power facilities into the the eight year construction period. who would finance the cleaning up of structure. The Party believe that the the existing discharges into the Severn former can be achieved without Silting problem or on the standards to be met. The damaging the aesthetics of the skyline submission asks for the former question and the latter would reduce the energy The deposition of silt is a natural to be answered and that all discharges of the sea and thus give some protection phenomenon in the Estuary but is from industry, radiation sources and to the barrage's structure. To achieve undoubtedly aggravated by the sewage meet Fresh Water Fishery the inclusion of these additional expansion of industrial farming and the standards. facilities, the report asks the consequent erosion and washing of Government to switch the £250 million sediment into the rivers that feed the Finally the wildlife must be protected currently spent on the non-safety basin. However with the existing large and the submission supports the aspects of nuclear research to the tidal range an equilibrium is established additional studies that the Official development of renewable energies. with the excess silt being washed away Report recommends, so that the peace, to sea by the fast moving currents. This solitude and beauty of many parts of the Because of the impact that the barrage will not be the case once the barrage is Estuary can be retained. 0 and the associated basin would have on built, when overall current velocities the ecology of the Estuary, the Party will be a fraction of what they are today. • The Severn Barrage: A Green Perspective, have rejected some proposals in the The siltation process must be reversed available from Graham Dummett, The Official Report and asked for other as the deposition of silt, especially in the Old Smithy, High Street, Spaxton, safeguards. A major issue is tourism, for estuaries of the smaller rivers where the Bridgwater, Somerset.

OctoberjNovember '90 11 In 1900, when most houses were heated by gas or solid fuel, only 4% of mortalities were caused by cancer, but today, one in three die of the disease in developed countries. ROGER COGHILL, author of a new book Electropollution: How to protect yourself against it *, explains that a whole range of new mysterious diseases including cot-death, ME, multiple sclerosis and AIDS, all have distinct similarities to electro-magnetically engendered disorder. The killing fields?

UCLEAR energy supplies mangles and copper boilers of the conclusion is based on 'limited' only a small fraction of the forties, and the cordless telephones, evidence of carcinogenicity [in] N United Kingdom's electricity. satellite communications, microwave humans which is supported by It is rightly condemned as unecon­ ovens, and desktop computer screens laboratory research indicating that the omic and potentially hazardous. But which now contribute daily to an carcinogenic response observed in electricity itself is just another part of electromagnetic ocean in which we are humans has a biological basis, that same electromagnetic (EM) inevitably bathed. The question is, are although the mechanisms [are] only spectrum which embraces gamma we yet biologically adapted enough to vaguely understood." rays, X-rays, and the entire gamut of swim safely in this ocean? ionising and non-ionising radiation. Other substances given similar ratings The practical use of electricity, like include PCBs, DOT and Some have long argued that the X-rays, was itself discovered only formaldehyde. This terrifying non-ionising part of this spectrum is about a century ago, before which statement was deleted in mid-March harmless to organic life, unless mankind's only contact with these 1990 by the EPA' s director William applied in power densities strong energies were the sun on his or her Farland in what he subsequently enough to heat the body's tissues. back, the moon, planets and stars at called 11 a personal decision", and the Indeed, present exposure limits are night, and the usually gentle report has still not been officially based on that single unsubstantiated geomagnetic fields of Mother Earth. published. Its publication had been premise. planned for the annual Bioelectro­ "Nature hardly ever bestows a riskless magnetics Society (BEMS) meeting in Over the last few decades our benefit", to quote Baruch Modan, one June - a gathering of the world's consumption of EM energy has of the world's top radiation scientists, foremost professional researchers in proliferated, with our inventiveness who has been concerned about the the field - of which there are only a developing new forms of tele­ impact of non-ionising EM energy. To handful of UK members. communication, lighting, heating and judge from the evidence we may instrumentation. But at the same time, already be paying a biological price for Fortunately I happen to be one of these there has arisen an increasing, the benefits of electric blankets few, and have just released a book, unspoken awareness that EM energy - (threefold increase in the incidence of Electropollution, which puts into particularly the alternating kind at foetal abnormality, miscarriages, and ordinary language the evidence which power frequencies (50Hz in this cot death), radar, (spermopenia, the EPA had uncovered. Moreover at country) which illuminates and heats inhibited immune function, brain the recent Standing Conference on our homes, offices and factories, and tumours, Downs Syndrome children), Low Level Radiation at Bangor I drives our appliances, office equip­ and domestic electrical power succeeded in persuading delegates to ment, and most industrial machines - transmission (childhood leukaemia, add non-ionising EM radiation to their is having a slow, invisible, but deadly depression, suicide). remit. My small consultancy has effect on our brains, body cells and already been hired to monitor a tissues of which we are all composed. Carcinogenic risk number of planned EM emissive sites, from radar installations to power Artificially generated electricity is in The uncloyed sweetness of lines, and I am gaining a good deal of any case a very new phenomenon: the tomorrow's electric world was field experience of just how pernicious world's first commercial radio brought to a juddering halt a few these invisible radiations can be in the broadcast station opened only in 1920; weeks back. A new scientific review long term, particularly inside the radar was first deployed in 1938, thus whose authors, staff from the home, where electric fields can locally permitting our fighter pilots, though venerable US Environmental be many times the norm as a result of outnumbered ten to one, to 'see' Protection Agency (EPA), had spent unbalanced ground return currents. enemy bombers approaching our two years carefully assimilating These unbalanced fields can be shores; and television became a evidence, concluded: injurious to human life. broadcast reality only in the early fifties. 11 Concerning exposure to fields Though the computer database at my associated with 60Hz electrical power laboratory contains some 2,500 Those of us who remember such distribution, the conclusion reached in scientific references to the bio-effects marvels have since been further this document is that such exposure is of EM energy, I only selected about amazed by electromagnetic miracles a 'probable' carcinogen risk factor, 250 for inclusion in my book, and also like programmable electric washing corresponding to a 'B1' degree of added a number of case histories from machines which have replaced the evidence that it is a risk factor. This personal experience.

12 SCRAM79 The central question, behind which infection laid down by Robert Koch a sceptics of such effects like to shelter, is century ago, and since accepted by all just what is the mechanism by which today's microbiologists. At its worst cells are damaged from EM insult? then, electropollution may already be Without being able to explain this the damaging the immune systems of the proponents of electropollution are at a world. disadvantage. However, we still do not know how asbestos or smoking causes Global problems cancer, yet legislation has been introduced against such perils. I The problem is not confined to the therefore propose a clear biological human species: unprecedented whale mechanism to explain how EM fields beachings, pernicious avian mis­ interfere with the brain's own migrations, and serious marine transmissions (we know them crudely mammalian immune deficits are as EEG records) and the supporting appearing throughout the world, and evidence is quite prodigious. I am now even the deforestation of pine trees in seeking funds to test the hypothesis Europe is most pronounced near the (cerebral morphogenetic radiation) and radar surveillance systems at the if it proves correct it may have a east-west borders. Continual bom­ paradigmatic effect on medical theory. bardment of the lower ionosphere by satellite communications uplinks could Tests in the laboratory confirm that even also be having a deleterious effect on very weak alternating EM fields can our precious ozone layer: we do not significantly (up to 40%) diminish the know, for the research has never been to several government funding capability of the immune system, and done, often because governments do agencies and pseudoagencies, like the the same has been found from higher not wish to fund research with such Foundation for the Study of Infant (radio) frequencies. It is a chilling potential intrusions on our commercial Death (I had unearthed a high thought that, against a background electromagnetic life. correlation between cot death and the where even the discoverers of HN (the strength of electric field where the so-called AIDS virus) are now So for the moment the evidence of hapless infants had been sleeping and beginning to disbelieve its causal role, elevated incidence of Downs Syndrome want to carry out a proper case control two thirds of current U.S. AIDS patients children near radar stations, of epidemiological study). Despite the were born at precisely the same times childhood leukaemia clusters in matter even being debated in and locations where microwave proximity to power lines, and the high Parliament and voiced loud in the telephony and commercial TV numbers of brain tumours among those media I still haven' t yet managed to broadcasting stations were established whose occupational exposure to EM complete the project through Jack of in the late forties and early fifties. The energy is above average are all being finance. structure of the cerebral hemispheres in ignored or swept under the carpet by the human brain is such that the areas of the National Grid Company. The EPA Others have faced similar problems. motor and sensory activity concerning statement may change this, though a Stephen Perry, who found a the immune system appear to be very similar concern was voiced the year significant link between living near dose to those governing the genitalia, previous by the US Office of powerlines and suicides, had to fund which may throw light on the link Technology Assessment. his own research. So did Lennart between homosexuality and AIDS. This Tomenius who found elevated is important since despite incorrect For those battling to be heard on incidence of leukaemia among government propaganda, the HN virus electropollution the problem, as children living in higher than normal does not by any means satisfy the always, is getting funds to carry out electric and magnetic fields. So did postulates necessary to confirm viral the necessary research. I have applied Nancy Wertheimer, who above all others first drew attention to the hazards following her impeccable Minimum a. 01.-.nce from poww lfnH (metrM) research project on leukaemia in Denver, Colorado, in 1979. She told Type of line Sleeping Long-lerm wortdng me recently that she can no longer (over 4 hours) cope with the attendant publicity, and that her next project will take her away @kV 260 100 from the field.

27SkV 200 160 But "the truth will out" as the proverb goes, and it will be interesting to read 132W 150 75 the text of the directors' General Undertaking in the forthcoming 11 kV 60 26 flotation prospectus of various parts of the electricity industry when they r.. ~~~~a~ ... discuss the potential health hazard to (11kYIMOV) 25 the public from their product. 0

~ I • Electropollution: How to protect yourself 100 so llgllinst it; by Roger CoghilL Thorsons; 1990, 187pp, £5.99. From Electropollutlon

October/November '90 13 Channel4's programme The Greenhouse Conspiraqf, was billed as the 11first debunking on television" of global warming. It set out to smash the scientific consensus that global warming is a real and serious threat. Yet, it contained no mention of the International Panel on Climate Change, which concluded recently that the threat is indeed real. MARTIN INCE, science correspondent of the Times Higher Education Supplement, reviews the programme and finds it fundamentally flawed in its approach and methods. Greenhouse conspiracy?

N the last week of August, scient­ His attempt to prove all this could be Lawson is on equally shaky ground ists and politicians from over 70 analysed at vast length, but it rests when he examines the laboratory I countries gathered at Sundsvall, mainly on a look at temperature proof of the greenhouse effect. In one in Sweden, to agree about some­ records for the last decade. Records sequence, in which anyone doing thing. So far, so remarkable. Even from weather stations point to GCSEs could spot the mistakes, he more surprisingly, the thing they warming, but he claims that this is due shows he does not understand just how agreed on was not some simple mat­ more to their being mostly in cities, the greenhouse effect might cause ter like the Gulf or apartheid. In­ which trap heat. Instead he says, we global warming, and implies that the stead, they decided to sign a treaty should look at satellite temperature different gases might somehow which will, hopefully, lead to a measurements, which show no interfere with each other's greenhouse world-wide agreement on reducing warming. In fact, meteorologists do effects. In fact, the effects add up in a emissions of greenhouse gases by try to correct for the 'heat island' effect. simple and ominous fashion. over half during the next few de­ More importantly, the temperatures cades. If it all happens, the result will recorded on land and in space (and His apparent ignorance and lack of be wide-ranging economic change shown in the programme) are understanding are already being affecting every country in the world. uncannily similar, considering they exposed, for example at least one use quite different techniques to complaint of bias has been submitted The day after the agreement was signed, measure temperatures at different to the Independent Broadcasting I was talking about it on LBC, the local places. The data shows that there may Authority. There is also criticism of his London radio station. The interviewer's have been warming, and that the methods. At least twice in the first question was why the agreement average temperatures for the last programme he asks searching was needed. Hadn't scientists shown, decade were affected by a cold-spell in questions and then proceeds to show just a few weeks ago, that the the mid-1980s. the interviewee's cautious prelimin­ greenhouse effect was a complete ary remarks while cutting out the myth? He was referring not to some Long term view answers, making the subject look definitive piece of scientific research evasive instead of helpful. but to a TV programme, The Green­ The Earth is so large that it takes hottSe Conspiracy, made by Hilary decades for its weather to change The most telling moment in the Lawson for Channel 4's flagship appreciably. Which is why green­ programme is the last quote, from US science series, Equinox. house supporters base their evidence meteorologist and greenhouse sceptic not on a few years of warming but on Pat Michaels, who asks whether on the Lawson is a talented journalist and data collected over the last century. basis of the evidence to hand, we are Equinox is always superb television. Over that time the Earth's temperature really going to alter the world's Only a totalitarian could object to has risen by half a degree, while economic direction fundamentally. Lawson's right to make the greenhouse gas concentrations have The fear of altering the economic programme. The problem is that it has also increased. The connection status quo, is the main reason for US, entered public consciousness as between the two is regarded as pretty and other, Governmental reluctance proving that the greenhouse effect, definite by most meteorologists, to accept global warming. It is, global warming, is not as serious as the which explains why US opinion polls however, quite remarkable when environmental scaremongers make of the experts outvote the mavericks politicians like Matgret Thatcher see out, but is in fact based on a series of on whom Lawson relied. sense so fast about the greenhouse misunderstandings about the science effect. of the greenhouse effect, the way The real message for anyone science operates and - most interested in how science works is that It is in the nature of the greenhouse importantly - how society deals with Lawson has failed to grasp the problem that world-wide, decades­ uncomfortable scientific findings. difference between laboratory long programmes of action are sciences, based upon proof, like needed, and that the action needs to be Lawson' s programme sets out to show chemistry (add the blue liquid to the taken even before the final proof is in. that the greenhouse effect is backed green one, and every time a red solid The biggest mistake we can make is to not by evidence, but by scientists is produced) and subjects like human postpone any action until after the looking for grants and politicians intelligence, evolution, meteorology greenhouse effect has changed world seeking a cause. He claims that the and astronomy, where you can only climate and sea levels beyond the Earth is not getting warmer, that the look at the evidence that presents itself point where many countries - the so-called greenhouse gases do not and form an opinion. You cannot get a poorest - are able to cope. [J actually cause warming and that the dozen Earths and rerun them to see if computer models used to predict the greenhouse effect happens or • The Greenhouse Conspiracy, Equinox, future temperature rises do not work. human beings evolve. Channel4, 12 August 1990.

14 SCRA.M79 11Misleading"; "wrong''; "latest scare tactics"; "making horrifying results out of rather reassuring data"; these are just some of the comments levelled at the recently published Friends of the Earth (FoE) report, Unjustifiable Exposures•, on the radioactive contamination of two rivers in Lancashire. PATRICK GREEN, FoE's Radiation Campaigner explains. Contaminated coast controversy

FoE report*, featured in the logical Protection Board's (NRPB) Yorksh.ire TV documentary annual site specific limit for members of ASellafield - the Contaminated the public of SOO!lSv. The NRPB Coast, in April, and published in July, recommended this figure in 1987 and showed that the legally permitted dis­ stated at the time that it regarded a 1 in charges from Sellafield have contami­ 100,000 risk as the maximum nated extensive areas of Lancashire. "acceptable" for a member of the public. Farmland up to 60 km south of the Since that time the NRPB has increased discharge point and along a 22km in­ its estimates of radiation risk. At the land stretch of the River Wyre and Hinkley Inquiry it repeated its 14km of the River Lune is affected. The judgement that a 1 in 100,000 risk is the report concluded that people occu­ maximum acceptable. It has also pying areas around these rivers may commented, outside the Inquiry, that be exposed to radiation in excess of this level of risk would imply a dose levels commonly regarded as" accept­ limit of 2001-1Sv for the public. This figure able". was used as the basis of the assessment in the FoE report. RADMIL however All the contamination found On the used the current NRPB figure. MAFF, Lune was up-river of the single Ministry predictably, used an even higher figure of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of 10001-1Sv, arguing that this applies to (MAFF) monitoring point. On the River both pre-existing contamination and Wyre contamination was also found that arising from current discharges! further inland than is monitored by MAFF. This demonstrates a clear failure The FoE report estimated exposures for of MAFF to detect the extent of the two types of individual: (i) those contamination and inform the public of identified as spending time at specific the possible hazards. locations and (ii) those who could "no practice ... shall be adopted unless potentially spend time in contaminated its introduction produces net positive However, both MAFF and British areas in the future. benefit". This is known as the Nuclear Fuels (BNF) have ignored this justification principle, but it has fact. BNF commented: "The Lancashire This approach was criticised by MAFF. effectively been ignored in the County Council monitoring body If contamination exists, but they cannot regulation of Sellafield discharges. The (RADMIL), Government scientists and identify anyone as exposed to it, then the recent review of the liquid discharge BNF Health and Safety experts have all contamination is of no concern to them; authorisation for Sellafield made no condemned the anti-nuclear group's this is absurd. MAFF' s approach ignores reference to justification. BNF admitted latest scare tactics." the fact that habits change and any on Sellafield: The Contaminated Coast contamination of the environment is a that reprocessing is not necessary, and is Such comments are to be expected from source of potential exposure at present a purely commercial venture. BNF and MAFF. In fact, RADMIL or in the future. RADMIL also support welcomed the FoE report. Its own report FoE on this point:" Changes in habit will The occupants of the area surrounding supported the FoE data, but differed in alter exposure; contributions to the the Rivers Lune and Wyre, past, present its interpretation. The leader of radionuclide burden of the sediments or future, do not receive arty benefits Lancashire County Council from the nuclear industry, although from their exposures to Sellafield commented: "These two reports declining, still continue and there is contamination. Society does not receive highlight the importance of therefore a continued need for any environmental benefits. In fact, as continuously re-assessing the assessment of public exposure." BNF acknowledge, the only benefits interpretation of data in this critical area received by the occupants are the of public concern. MAFF, BNF and RADMIL all argue that economic benefits which stem from the actual exposures are within currently revenue BNF make out of reprocessing. "Both reports agree on the basic data. accepted limits. This, however, does not The difference comes in interpreting the automatically mean that they are The price society has to pay for this is data in relation to national standards." acceptable. The dose limits, or targets widespread contamination of the recommended by NRPB are but one part environment. Occupants of the area Along the two rivers the principle of an overall system of protection which surrounding the Rivers Lune and Wyre exposure pathway will be to gamma is ultimately based upon the could face an increased risk of cancer. radiation from the contamination. Doses recommendations of the International The price is unacceptable and the risks can be estimated by applying occupancy Commission on Radiological Protection are unjustified. 0 rates to the measured hourly dose-rate (ICRP). in an area. The resulting figures can be • Unjustifiable Exposures, published by compared with the National Radio- The first ICRP principle requires that: Friends of the Earth, July 1990.

October/November '90 15 All forms of energy have some impact on the environment. DAVE TOKE, covener of the SERA energy group and author of Green Energy, published by Green Print, argues that the time has come for environmentalists to stop opposing renewable energy projects carte blanche and begin weighing local impact against global impact, even if that means accepting a Severn or Mersey Barrage. Stand up for renewable energy

F the anti-nuclear movement is inhabitants of third world river deltas less than that of fossil or nuclear to retain its credibility in a world and Pacific Islands that we cannot cut sources. Jonathon Porritt, writing in I that is taking urgent action to down our fossil fuel use further the July issue of World Magazine counter the awesome possibility of because we cannot stand the view in talked about the need to make such global warming, then it has to rural England to be marred by the comparisons, and commented: become a lot more enthusiastic sight of windmills? Or that we cannot about renewable energy sources possibly use some of the growing "How, for instance, does the potential than it is at the moment. amount of surplus farmland to grow threat to wildlife from a large tidal trees for energy because we want the barrage on the Severn estuary weigh The problem is that our attitudes are land to grow wild instead? against the proposal to build another still guided by the thought that our nuclear reactor further down the energy needs can be met, in the short Such attitudes are likely to be angrily estuary at Hinkley Point? to medium term, by conservation of dismissed as being extremely selfish, fossil fuels, with renewable energy and deservedly so. "I can't help thinking that some only to be researched as a long term environmentalists just don't want to term option. Economic growth engage in such uncomfortable comparisons, preferring the easier This attitude has, in the last couple of Of course, some might reply that there (but possibly rather dishonest) route years, been entrenched by the is another alternative, rejecting the of opposing anything that seems to growing realisation that renewable economic growth associated with the have any impact on the environment. energy, coming as it does from natural sort of industrialism that has been Such self-indulgence is unlikely to win sources, itself impinges on nature and accepted as virtually the definition of much support from an understand­ has sometimes quite noticeable progress itself. Now if we are to come ably concerned public, who now environmental impacts. These days, in close to achieving the most optimistic expect environmentalists to be at least some fundamentalist quarters, you energy efficiency scenarios we as good at coming up with the will be regarded as backward if you certainly need to alter the way we answers as at highlighting the insist that we need to encourage improve our living standards. We problems." windfarms. You will be regarded as need to favour services and lighter being beyond the pale if you support types of industry, that use resources Nightmare large-scale tidal schemes. most efficiently, rather than the more traditional heavier, smokestack, The anti-nuclear case is an extremely Such attitudes are extremely industries that have produced most powerful one. Conventional nuclear short-sighted, and need to be pollution. But we will still need lots of power is bad enough, yet to make a challenged. Energy conservation must energy from non-fossil sources. continuing large impact on global be the foundation stone of our warming through nuclear power we policies. Yet ev.en if the most Beyond this, we need practical would need fast breeder reactors to optimistic, technically achievable, proposals, not merely lofty moralistic make limited uranium resources go energy efficiency scenarios pronouncements about making further. Such a strategy would materialise in the next three or more sacrifices that impress the faithful but produce the sort of hellish nightmare decades we are still going to be using do nothing to address the hopes and that has been so eloquently described at least forty, or more likely fifty per fears of the mass of ordinary people. by Wait Patterson<1>. cent, of the energy we use now. If we are to be practical, and not If we want a rapid phase-out of Barring an extremely rapid consign ourselves to some purist nuclear power, in the next 10-15 years, deployment of non-fossil energy 'greener than thou' ideological ghetto then we are going to be at a sources, this country is still going to be we must confront the need to decide disadvantage unless we can argue for using very large quantities of coal, oil our own list of priorities. Everything a rapid build-up of renewable energy and gas. As energy efficient as we may we do has environmental impact. sources. become, we shall still be producing Absolute green purity resides only in much more carbon dioxide (C02) than the graveyard. If we do not make a There are bountiful, and ultimately many other parts of the world do now, choice between conflicting local and limitless, possibilities of doing this in and the world will not come anywhere global priorities then the decisions the medium and long term through near achieving the C02 reductions will be made according to a different offshore wind, solar power, wave demanded by climatologists and agenda altogether. power, mini-hydro, geothermal scientists. power and so on. But we also need to We cannot, for instance, declare that do as much as we can now. We really So what are we going to do? Are we we do not 'need' a particular cannot afford to be too choosy. We seriously going to tell the drowning renewable source when its impact is need to encourage the rapid

16 SCRAM79 deployment of sources like onshore ______._5.!1~!!1,______, wind, biomass waste, power from r--Shil>ping burning specially grown trees and T~!!!!!:!!.j t--L;:~• t--eo s~ I 168 Turbines 48~& 1 ,74 Sluices tidal power.

Biomass sources are plentiful and very ~ITDiaDI~rna~rrrr~~~ important; they can be used in conjunction with combined heat and power. They are also storable and can ELEVATION" thus be used to complement other intermittent natural energy sources.

We must make every effort to do all these things by being as environmentally sensitive as possible, favouring decentralised, co-operative, and small-scale projects above others. But can we really afford to rule out projects like the Mersey, and Severn 0 3 4km tidal barrages? PLAN Proposed Severn Barrage layout I do not think we can as long as we are still deriving energy from fossil fuel at least 20% by 2005, in accordance government has been very slow to and nuclear sources. with the 1988 Toronto Conference make decisions about the programme. decleration on global warming. In the medium term we are going to However, to achieve really high levels Bizarrely, a ruling by the European have to use renewable electricity for of C~ abatement and energy Commission that nuclear power transport purposes. This illustrates efficiency in areas that are difficult to should. not receive support from the the need to maximise rather than influence with energy efficiency levy on fossil fuel for more than eight minimise the output of renewable standards we will need to phase-in years, has also been applied to energy sources. high levels of carbon taxes. Such tax renewables with the result that levels will not damage our living prospective wind and biomass Promoting renewables standards provided we redistribute projects have had to face the daunting the tax revenue in an egalitarian way. task of repaying their private There are lots of practical ways we can investors in less than eight years. Of encourage renewables in the UK. High carbon taxes will benefit course the ruling hardly matters to Intervention like tax incentives, renewables tremendously. I calculate nuclear power which is now in the efficiency standards and other forms that, with carbon taxes and given public sector. of regulation can produce consider­ access to cheap sources of finance, able cuts in carbon emissions, as well renewables should be· providing the Despite the good work done by as saving consumers money. Surely bulk of electricity in as little as 30 years various organisations, there is no we can claw back some of these time. By contrast, nuclear power is so well-financed, high profile, savings through, for example, energy expensive that it will be uncompetit­ organisation like the Association for taxes to finance energy conservation ive even without a 'nuclear tax' to the Conservation of Energy that can (particularly to counter fuel poverty), account for nuclear power's champion the cause of renewable and of course, renewable energy. environmental consequences<2>. energy in the effective manner that the cause deserves. We can set up regional investment Help needed boards to lend money to decentralised We seem to spend a lot of time saying renewable energy projects at a low For all this to happen there has to be a that renewables are good in theory, rate of return taking account of the fact renewable energy industry in the first while in practice giving other things that they are more capital intensive place. Renewables desperately need priority. If we are to show that we than fossil fuel power stations. We can help now. The newly privatised have solutions then we must devote set up a Renewable Energy Agency to electricity distribution companies more time to pressing the case for research and to deploy large scale seem positively opposed to helping renewables, and think twice before projects such as offshore wind and renewables, regarding them as crossing them off the list because they wavepower schemes. inconveniences, and the government conflict with some other priority. 0 seems to lack the will to force them to At the moment it is nuclear power that take a more positive attitude. receives a number of different types of Notes benefit from the state, including the The government claims it is helping (1) Going Critical, Paladin, 1985, and fact that it is now, as a state run renewables by setting up a renewable other publications by Wait Patterson. industry, assessed at a much lower electricity quota in England and Wales (2) See D Toke, Carbon taxes and renew­ rate of return than renewables which calling for 600MW of renewable able energy sources, Open University En­ have to raise their investment on the energy by the year 2000. There are market. ergy and Environment Research Unit, proposals for renewable projects that 1990. would fill the quota several times over We should be aiming for cuts in in the next couple of years, never mind • SCRAM invites comments on this present levels of carbon emissions of over the next decade. But the and other articles in the Journal.

October/November '90 17 West Berlin's Environment Minister, Senator Michaele Schreyer, has refused to license the research reactor at the Hahn-Meitner Institute (HMI), which was planning to send its spent fuel to Dounreay. PETE ROCHE examines Dounreay's attempt to boost its income by offering to 1accept' spent fuel from research reactors around the world. Dounreay's deadly trade

NTI-NUCLEAR groups are reactors could have been sent to the is produced from the reprocessed spent claiming victory, following the United States. However, increasing fuel itself, "the fuel is consumed during A West Berlin Senate's rejection opposition in the US to imports of spent the fission process that irradiates other of a no confidence vote in their HEU fuel forced the Department of materials to produce defense-related Environment Minister. The HMI Energy to declare a 'moratorium', in products". reactor, BER-2, was one of three December 1988, until an environ­ reactors on the verge of signing a mental impact assessment can be Countries exercising their option to contract with the UK Atomic Energy carried out. This has created problems return spent fuel for reprocessing and Authority (AEA) to send its spent fuel for a number of the research reactor disposal were "given a credit, equal to to Dounreay in Caithness for storage operators, around the world, who are the value of the uranium extracted from and possible reprocessing. running out of storage space for their the returned spent fuel during spent fuel. Dounreay is "quite happy to reprocessing, on their next purchase of Brian Wilson, Labour's Scottish Transport take the work from the USA". highly enriched uranium". Spokesperson, described the decision as "a victory for international co-operation Since the mid-1950s, the US has been When the GAO report was published, on environmental matters", following exporting HEU fuel to foreign countries several MPs from European non­ an extensive lobbying campaign by the for use in research reactors. The US had nuclear weapons states objected to the Scottish Nuclear Free Local Authorities nuclear co-operation agr~ments with use of their HEU in the US military and anti-nuclear groups to persuade the 43 countries between 1954 and programme. For example, Alman Senate to support Schreyer's stance. mid-1984, and had exported about Metten, a Dutch MEP asked the However, victory may be short-lived. 16,700kg of HEU. Because of HEU's European Commission on 17 April1985 The West German Federal Government importance as a bomb making material if it was "aware that spent nuclear fuel are now expected to try to over-rule these agreements included proliferation from the Euratom high-flux reactor in Schreyer' s decision. When Allied rights clauses. The agreements also gave the Petten is being used at the Savannah over Berlin end in October, the German research reactors the option of returning River plant in the United States as a Atomic Act will become law and the their spent fuel to the US for driver fuel in the production of material Federal Minister of Environment and reprocessing and disposal. However, by for atomic weapons?" In response, the Nuclear Safety can order a licence for the end of 1983 only about 1,500kg of Commission issued a bland assurance BER-2. The Director of the Physikalish spent fuel, from 14 countries, had been that the reprocessing "does not result in Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) re­ returned. any net increase of defence-related search reactor in Braunschweig, Lower material. Of course, the Community is Saxony, has confirmed that he has Weapons connection in no way involved in the United States signed a contract with Dounreay. weapons programme". The returned spent fuel was Dounreay announced in May this year reprocessed to extract the unused 1 Swedish' bombs that they were hoping to sign contracts enriched uranium at either the Idaho worth £6m with the }EN reactor near National Engineering Laboratory or the Despite the HEU extracted from foreign Madrid and the Euratom high-flux Savannah River Plant in South Carolina, research reactor spent fuel making up reactor in Petten, the Netherlands, as both US Department of Energy (DOE) "less than 1% of the driver fuel", Miles well as the HMI reactor. However, the military facilities. The resultant Goldstick(2) has calculated that the UKAEA' s fuel services division hope high-level waste was put into large Swedish Research Reactor at Studsvik their foreign business will eventually storage tanks at the plants, and the has contributed several bombs to the US build up to around £25m per year. Any recovered uranium was then sent to nuclear arsenal: "However small, the new reprocessing work Dounreay can another DOE military facility at Oak trade represents a direct Swedish attract "will go some way to securing Ridge, Tennessee, where it was mixed connection to the US nuclear weapons approximately 500 jobs within the fuel with similar material and converted industry, the only number of nuclear services business", say the AEA. into a metal form. "The metal is then bombs that is insignificant is zero." shipped to the Savannah River Plant There is clearly a moral dilemma here, The closure of the DIOO and PLUTO where it is fabricated into nuclear fuel. particularly for a neutral country like reactors at Harwell in March (SCRAM This fuel, called driver fuel, is used in Sweden. 76) ended the Dounreay Materials Savannah River's production reactors to Testing Reactor (MTR) reprocessing irradiate other materials that are According to the GAO "the only use plant's contract to reprocess 250 spent converted into defense-related DOE had for the driver fuel produced fuel elements a year. Although the MTR products, including plutonium and from previously burned highly reprocessing plant has the capacity to tritium", according to a 1984 report enriched uranium fuels was in the handle 900 fuel elements per year, 758 from the US General Accounting Office Savannah River Plant's reactors". is the most it has ever received. (GA0)<1>. Why should this be the case? If the Formerly, spent Highly Enriched Thus, although no plutonium or tritium recovered uranium cannot be fabricated Uranium (HEU) fuel from research - vital ingredients in nuclear weapons - into fresh fuel for the research reactors,

18 SCRAM79 what will Dounreay do with the As with all foreign reprocessing the GAO report "the waste ... contains recovered uranium if the reprocessing contracts signed by the UK nuclear high-level radioactive products and is goes ahead? industry since 1976, the UKAEA claim stored in large tanks by DOE." the Dounreay contracts will have Reprocessing increases the volume of According to independent nuclear 'return to sender' clauses for the waste by about 160 times. physicist, Wait Patterson, fuel waste. Yet no waste has been returned fabricators may not be prepared to use to clients from Sellafield. A letter from Even if the high-level waste does get the recovered uranium because it could the British Embassy in Bonn to the returned to the country of origin, this be ~'unacceptably dangerous for their staff West German Foreign Minister states could still leave Dounreay lumbered to handle [and] will contaminate their that "the UKAEA shall have the with large quantities of low and facilities", especially when there is such option to deliver to the Federal intermediate-level waste. Government a glut of fresh uranium on the world Republic of Germany the radioactive policy "in respect of some of the less market, and it "is certainly a possibility" waste which will arise from the radioactive wastes" is to study that the recovered uranium will end up reprocessing of the irradiated fuel in "whether it would be sensible to in the UK military programme: "it question (or the equivalent of such substitute an equivalent quantity in would be perfectly acceptable for use in waste), provided it has been put in a radiological terms, of higher level [nuclear powered] subs". form in which it can be transported wastes" (Hansard 2 May 1986 cmns safely to the point of storage and 502-503). Indeed, as the Northern Nuclear waste stored in accordance with all relevant European Nuclear Information Group regulations". point out, "they can never return the Dounreay has offered to store the spent waste they will pump into our environ­ fuel from research reactors until 30 But what happens if the client countries ment". September 1994. If the client decides do not have the facilities to accept the they don't want it reprocessed it must waste when the 29 years is up? West Political opposition. be removed from Dounreay by 30 Germany, for example, with six September 1996. If the reprocessing research reactors, is experiencing All the opposition parties in Scotland goes ahead, waste, conditioned for problems with its nuclear waste have spoken out against these contracts. transport and subsequent storage, will disposal policies, just like everyone else. Brian Wilson comments: "the Labour be removed from the UK not later than The red-green coalition which runs the Party in Scotland is opposed to Scotland 25 years after reprocessing. So the Niedersachsen State Government has being turned into the European research institutes could have 'solved' now decided to block the completion reprocessing centre for research reactor their waste problem for up to 29 years. and operation of Germany's radioactive fuel ... we believe on-site storage options waste disposal site at Gorleben. Coming that avoid high risk transportation Patterson's opinion is that the research on top of the abandonment of the operations are the best solution to institutes don't care what happens to Wackersdorf reprocessing plant in nuclear waste." their spent fuel as long as they get it off Bavaria last autumn, this means that the their premises: "The only reason why it German waste disposal policy is in Jim Wallace, Liberal Democrat MP for has to go through this reprocessing tatters. Orkney and Shetland, has called for a route is because that is the only thing UK moratorium on the storage and that is on offer to them. Nobody is Dounreay claim that reprocessing reprocessing of spent HEU fuel, and the prepared to take the stuff off their hands research reactor spent fuel does not Scottish National Party has called on the and just store it for final disposal ... it produce high-level waste. This was European Community to ban the certainly has nothing to do with any certainly not the case when spent fuel movement of nuclear waste between economic resource recovery." was returned to the US. According to states.

Reprocessing contracts signed with BNFL, worth £800m, with seven West Kilograms of Highly Enriched Uranium returned German nuclear stations, dwarf the Dounreay contracts, valued at Country Prior to 1982 1982 1983 Total somewhere between £6 and £25m. Austria 2.3 0 3.6 5.9 However the ongoing political storm Belgium 63.2 19.1 0 82.3 which the Dounreay contracts have Canada 268.9 34.0 0 302.9 stirred up, from Iceland to Berlin, could Denmark 25.9 3.3 3.3 32.5 have repercussions well beyond France 324.6 101.8 25.1 451.5 Scotland, with implications for Italy 9.6 12.7 0 22.3 Sellafield and the trans-frontier Japan 61.8 29.8 17.9 109.5 movement of spent fuel and nuclear Mexico 0.4 0 0 0.4 waste across Europe. 0 Netherlands 80.4 24.6 32.2 137.2 South Africa 14.3 11.9 0 26.2 References Sweden 153.8 13.6 12.5 179.9 Switzerland 0 6.8 0 6.8 1. Letter from Peach Dexter at US General United Kingdom 0.3 0 0 0.3 Accounting Office to Richard Ottinger, West Germany 93.5 31.1 14.2 138.8 Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Commerce, TOTAL 1,099.0 288.7 108.8 1,496.5 House of Representatives. 13 Dec 1984. (GAO/RCED-85-47). Available free from GAO, Washington DC 20548.

Source: Compiled from US Department of Energy records and information col· 2. Studsvik, US Nuclear Bombs and US lected at the Savannah River Plant and the Idaho National Engineering Labora­ Nuclear Waste by Miles Goldstick.ll Sept tory during a review by the US General Accounting Office 1989. Available from WISE Stockholm qo FMK, PO Box 8083, S-10420 Stockholm, Sweden.

October/November '90 19 Friends of the Earth are launching a national initiative to 'take the heat off the planet' and to put it on the English and Welsh area electricity boards who have so far failed to recognise their key role in the defence against global warming. This situation could be different, explains MIKE HARPER, FoE's assistant energy campaigner; area electricity boards, and the supply industry in general, could play their parts in protecting the environment, through a full commitment to promoting energy efficiency, if the structure of electricity privatisation allowed it. Pollute Electric?

T the end of October, the financial interests of the electricity interested in, greater energy efficiency. world's Governments will boards, in England and Wales(2l, to A meet in Geneva for the 'World initiate demand-reducing energy The opportunity for' turning the heat on Conference on Climate Change' to efficiency programmes in the domestic the electricity boards' has arrived. agree a response to the environmental .sector as a means of satisfying consumer crisis of global warming. At the same requirements for electricity services. There are many and diverse examples time, the UI< Government will begin The financial framework under which of where electricity companies have privatising Britain's prime contributor the electricity boards are obliged to learnt to meet demand for electrical to global warming - the electricity operate is structured so that they are services through integrating demand industry - but, in so doing, will bring only able to recoup the costs of side measures with supply side about a structure that will help to electricity supply and not of electricity measures ("integrated resource increase global warming. saving programmes. planning"). American and Australian utilities are often quoted as the best It has now become 'conventional wis­ The pricing formula (RPI - x + y) will examples for such activities, though dom' that energy efficiency is the most induce the electricity boards to sell more models closer to home in Scandinavia cost effective way to reduce the environ­ electricity each year as a means of and Denmark are available and mental implications of electricity gen­ maintaining high profits. This is programmes in Spain and Germany are eration. This message has been echoed because the y-factor, which relates to now also being developed. by politicians and experts of every hue costs which can be passed on to the and is paid lip-service in the recent Gov­ consumer, only covers costs arising Swedish efficiency ernment White Paper on the Environ­ from electricity supply. In addition, the ment. In short, reducing electricity con­ x-factor, which relates to operational For example, Vattenfall, the Swedish sumption is essential for the future efficiency, will work as an annually power board, has recently launched a protection of the environment. In addi­ increasing incentive on the electlicity £35 million campaign to reduce the tion, energy efficiency can play a key boards to improve system efficiency electricity consumption in the domestic role in enhancing the stability and se­ (NB not energy efficiency). The and commercial sectors. It estimates curity of an electricity system in the face combination of these two factors creates that the potential for saving electricity of fuel price volatility arising from un­ a powerful stimulus for electricity is 12-19TWh per year- 4-STWh from predictable political upheavals. boards to increase sales of electricity. introducing state-of-the-art equipment Therefore, without a sharp and and 8-14TWh from more effective However, UI< electricity boards have profound structural reorganisation, the electricity use. The full saving not yet learnt to embrace the concept of electricity boards themselves will be represents about one fifth of Vattenfall' s meeting electrical service requirements condemned to a course of maintaining total load. They are using low-energy in the domestic sector (lighting, pollution levels to maintain profit levels. lightbulb promotions and newspaper refrigeration, etc) through the direct articles in an attempt to heighten public promotion of electricity efficiency Stony disinterest awareness of energy efficiency. measures. "Meeting demand" is still perceived only in terms of supplying As the Electricity Bill was passing In Australia, the other MrJim Smith, the more units of electricity. through Parliament in 1989, FoE and Chair of the State Electricity other environmental groups tried to Commission of Victoria (SECV), has Worse still, the UK electricity boards see inject the legislation with tough also set down what his plans are for the privatisation only .as an opportunity for requirements for promoting energy future - they differ somewhat from expanding electricity sales in the efficiency. Though an amendment those of his British namesake: "Our domestic energy market. Mr Jim Smith, passed in the House of Lords was studies show that better efficiency in the Chair of Eastern Electricity, reflecting rejected when the Bill returned to the use of energy saves the community the profit-based commercial environ­ Commons, the episode did force a money and is by far the most effective ment post privatisation, delivered a concession, albeit minor, from the response in meeting the greenhouse paper to an Institute of Electrical Government Cln how to promote energy challenge ... Our responsibility is to Engineers Council meeting in March efficiency. Other attempts at revising balance supply and demand in the State." attempting to "show how major a the licence conditions for the electricity contribution in reduction of energy boards(3l met with stony disinterest The SECV is investing $(AUS)55 million consumption and C~ emissions can be from the Department of Energy. in conjunction with the State made by switching demand from other Government in 29 different energy fuels to electricity". This, despite the fact The electricity boards themselves now efficiency programmes. The expected that electricity used for domestic recite the customary excuses; that it was saving will avoid the construction of a heating produces 3 to 4 times more C~ the Government who created the 2000 MW power station. than using gas directly!ll. structure not them; that their business is to meet demand through supply; and, Boston Edison, in the USA, the largest Post privatisation, it will not be in the that the public is not ready for, or New England electricity utility, earlier

20 SCRAM79 this year announced that it would invest $215 million in energy efficiency programmes to remove the need for C) .7A ... more generating capacity. Over the next five years the programmes are expected to save about 11Wh (roughly equivalent to the amount generated by a 120MW power station). It hopes to save two dollars for every dollar invested, on account of "an innovative economic incentive system"<4>, which allows the utility to recoup the costs of the pro­ gramme and a portion of the $400 million saving as profit. The rest of the saving will be passed on to the customers.

The EC DG XVII (the energy directorate of the European Commission) is finalising arrangements for pro­ grammes in 'integrated resource planning' for the electricity sectors in both Spain and West Germany. These programmes are expected to yield preliminary results at the end of 1991 and should provide precedents which can be replicated in other EC countries.

There will no doubt be sceptical electricity boards and Government gas is more energy-efficient in some 12 electricity boards in England and Ministers who insist tJtat such energy applications. Instead, the draft codes of Wales identifying a reduction in efficiency programmes are appropriate conduct read like sales-brochures for electricity sales through consumer only for excessively regulated systems Economy 7 heating. Economy 7 can lead purchasing fluctuations as one of the and not therefore suitable for the UK. Is to a reduction in costly peak generation, major commercial risks for the soon to it indeed surprising, that a Government but, unless associated with a genuine be privatised companies. which is trying to bring about the reduction in demand, by and large, does largest privatisation to date, should not reduce electricity consumption or Secondly, the electricity boards need to resist major structural adjustments? associated pollution. know that there is a way out. Specific And in any case, won't the Electricity changes to the structure are identified Act guarantee greater energy This first attempt by the electricity in a forthcoming report to be published efficiency? boards at drafting codes of conduct on by FoE(?). energy efficiency demonstrates that The reality programmes for energy efficiency and Before real improvements can take attempts to diminish the impact of place, however, the electricity boards Section 3.2b of the Electricity Act, 1989, global warming will be as doomed to must feel the heat and must learn to places an obligation the Director of failure post privatisation as they have respond. 0 Electricity Supply (Professor Littlechild) been prior to privatisation. to promote the efficient use of electricity NOTES sold to the public. This obligation Next steps manifests itself in terms of the degree to 1. Warm Homes, Cool Planet, by Neighbour­ which electricity boards provide The electricity boards need to be sent hood Energy Action, Friends of the Earth, information on the efficient use of two messages. Right to Fuel and Glasgow Heatwise, 1990. electricity. At this elementary level 2. The Scottish boards, "who do things alone, the electricity boards have fallen Firstly, they need to know that the differently"; have a vertically-integrated desperately short of the mark. public is aware of what is happening to structure which enables 'integrated the environment, is aware of the need resource planning' to take place with less Codes of conduct were submitted by for change and is anxious to help. For structural adjustment and therefore this purpose FoE is asking individuals each electricity board to the Office of should be treated separately. Electricity Regulation (OFFER) for to set themselves a target of 20% consideration. OFFER has declared that reduction in their persQnal electricity 3. The Ucences set down exactly what "it is highly unlikely that any will be consumption. One of the golden aims of each electricity board can and cannot do approved as they currently stand"!Sl. privatisation is "to put the customer in respect of its business and related The draft codes of conduct themselves firmly in the driving seat"<6> - this activities. They contain the pricing were a collection of 'hints' on how best campaign is intended, therefore, to test formula discussed above. that assertion by putting the heat on the to use electricity (cooking with lids on, 4. Nature, Vol344, 2Wf990. etc); no mention that nobody wants electricity boards. By informing your electricity per se, but merely the services electricity board that you have set a 20% 5. This was declared in a letter, to FoE from it provides; no mention that different target and by asking your board for the head of Consumer Affairs at OFFER. makes and models of appliances use financial support to help meet the 6. John Harris, Chair of East Midlands target, you will help to force them to different amounts of electricity; no Electricity Board, 22/'7/1990. mention that passive solar architecture recognise the fragile commercial future can reduce the need for artificial they face. On 28 August, 1990, UBS 7. Pollute Electrjc, by FoE, 1990. From FoE, lighting and heating; no mention that Phillips Drew published a report on the 26-28 Underwood Street, London N17JQ.

October/November '90 21 tions which originally determined the Energy research funding 1990-91 %of present allocation of the Department's Estimates total R&D budget remain valid. £m R&D UCLEAR power's domination of •we believe this makes a fun

SCRAM79 deserves for being ~e cheapest and quic­ blocked the formation of the European Paper tiger kest way to combat global warming", and Large Combustion Plant Directive on acid being .. in the economic interests of energy emissions for years, and consistently re­ .. STRIVE"; .. Promote"; .. Encour- consumers - from individuals in their fused to join the '30% Club'. The paper age"; .. Stimulate"; .. Inform" and; homes to large companies". However, claims that the Government .. has a sub­ .. Press", after .. Government", are the .. many of the Government's initiatives stantial programme of action in hand", most over-used words in the Govern­ aim to inform the consumers of these this is difficult to swallow (see p25), as ment's long awaited white paper on the benefits and encourage them to take ac­ they are in the process of backtracking on environment*. Notably lacking from tion". Once again an indefmite wording commitments made during the late '80s. the paper are .. Legislate" and "Dead- creeps in-.. encourage". This seems to run Again another department has tri­ tine" . contrary to the recently published Depart­ umphed over the Department of Environ­ There is nothing particularly new con­ ment of Energy report on energy effi­ ment. The lure of the •great car economy' cerning energy in this white paper, it is no ciency in the home (see p25). is clearly stronger in the Government than more than a collection of previously A new ministerial committee, headed the desire to curb acid rain: commenting stated policies. by the Energy Secretary, will be set up to on the commitment made in 1984 to cut Carbon dioxide emissions will be promote energy efficiency and monitor nitrogen oxide emissions by 30% of their brought back down to their 1990 levels by developments. It will work with govern­ 1980 levels by 2000, it argues: .. Since 2005, .. if other countries take similar ac­ ment departments and local authorities to then there has been substantial growth in tion", it says. This, in combination with ..stimulate" improvements. road traffic which will make achieving .. challenging" measures to tackle other Renewable energies are non-polluting, this aim more difficult, but it remains an greenhouse gasses, will result in cutting and therefore useful in combating global aim for which to strive." Britain's contribution to global warming warming. Following many caveats the Nuclear power gets little attention and to 80% of 1990 levels by 2005. paper says that "renewables may contrib­ only mild promotion as a means to combat New approaches to pollution control ute up to the equivalent of nearly a quarter the greenhouse effect. The Government is that increase reliance on the operation of of current electricity supply by 2025". keen to maintain the nuclear option, but the market will be promoted, rather than Although the paper says that the Govern­ only if it .. becomes more economic and the more traditional technique of setting ment will set a 1,000MW target for renew­ the industry demonstrates that it can standards in laws and regulations. In con­ able generating capacity by 2000, it is maintain high standards of safety and en­ trast: .. the Government will also press for difficult to see how on current levels of vironmental protection". Adding: ~e agreement in the European community on funding and only a 1,000MW platform relative econoniics of nuclear power (and a common energy labelling scheme for that the renewable contribution could also renewable energy) could improve if electrical appliances, and minimum effi­ jump to this level. A question that will, the environmental costs of fossil fuels are ciency standards for equipment such as perhaps, be answered following the taken into account on a comparable basis: central heating boilers, fridges, washing promised review of .. their alternatives more work is needed to explore this." machines and industrial heating." strategy in 1991, to assess the extent to However, again, they don't say if this An energy tax .. has been ruled out for which renewables could help to further work is planned. One wonders what hap­ the next few years", the white paper ex­ restrain the greenhouse effect". Then pened to the 'Pearce Report'? plains that "in the immediate future the again perhaps not (see NFFO set, below). This most positive thing in the report is reduction of inflation is of overriding im­ Combined Heat and Power will be commitment to publish at .. regular inter­ portance". This, amongst other statements, "promoted" under the Energy Efficiency vals" detailed statistical bulletins on the gives credence to the feeling that this is not Office's Best Practice Programme and .. if state of the environment. Regular inter­ quite the white paper that Environment Sec­ possible" it will identify and promote a vals has not been defined. 0 retacy, Chris Patten, would have liked to doubling of Britain's present capacity to publish, but a compromise to other, 2,000MW by the year 2000. * This Common Inheritance - Britain's En­ stronger, Govemment Departments. The Government is responding .. de­ vironment Strategy. HMSO. 1990, 300pp, Energy efficiency gets the credit it cisively to the threat of acid rain", yet it £24.50.

NFFO which forces companies to con­ NFFO set tinue with the projects even if some un­ Ethical investment foreseen hitch pushes the return on ONTRACTS for 102MW of re. in.vestment to as low as 1-2%. £1 million share issue has been laun­ Cnewable energy generating capac­ Peter Musgrove, the managing director Ached by the Centre for Alternative ity have been awarded under the Gov­ of the Wind Energy Group, said: ~is Technology, to fund an ambitious devel­ ernment's Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation [the clause] is not a normal commercial opment of the site at Machynlleth. (NFFO) amidst claims that the figure practice. We are being told we should After 11 years of presenting alternative tech­ could have been significantly higher if throw dice over delays which are outside nology in action the centre is anticipating a it wasn't for draconian fmancial con­ our control." large rise in the nwnber of visitors each year, straints. The 8 year limit was imposed by a from 1s,cm this year to tso,cm in 1994. Of the 75 schemes, chosen from over350 European Community ruling designed Four large •interactive" video displays projects put forward, equal to 2GW of to protect British tax-payers from hav­ will provide infonnation on various aspects power, 25 will burn gas from landfill sites, ing to support the costs of nuclear power of the green home, countryside and fanning, 26 are hydro projects, nine wind schemes - which accounts for some 8,000MW of transport and mobility, and energy. The countryside display will incorporate an and seven waste burning designs. They will the NFFO. However, in August, a underground walk through a giant model be guaranteed a market for their power for spokesperson for Leon Brittan, the com­ wonnwhole, showing a mass of microscopic the next 8 years at a price of 6p per unit of petition commissioner in Brussels, said creatures. Twin mountain railway carriages, electricity produced. that it was not too late for Britain to ask driven by gravity, will make passage up the Many of the companies seeking entry in the BC to consider nuclear power and 300ft slope from the car park much easier. the Obligation say that there are two main renewables separately. The Department New shops and cafes are also planned. 0 reasons why their projects were unsuc­ of Energy says it does not intend to cessful: the levy will only operate for 8 reconsider the NFFO until 1994, when • Shares at £1 each (minimum 100) from years, while many of the proposals have a they will review Britain•s commitment Centre for Alternative Technology, Ma­ longer payback period, and a clause in the to nuclear power. 0 ehynlleth, Powys, SY20 9AZ.

October/November '90 tricity consumption by 2025. Adding, that Wind farm dropped events in the Gulf had .. again demon­ Con-fusion strated that experimental developments of NE of the three, Government this kind are likely to take on a growing VER £30 billion will need to be spent Obacked, experimental windfarms importance both to this country and the Oby the European Community during planned for England and Wales has world's long term energy provision." the next 50 years if nuclear fusion is to been dropped by National Power be­ The British Wind Energy Association become a commercial reality, according to cause of the expense involved in laying (BWEA) welcomed the new turbine, but Charles Maisonnier, the Director of the access roads on the deep peat deposits said it was .. an isolated achievement Community's fusion research programme. of the Pennines, where the farm was to amidst very slow progress being made to Speaking at the 16th International Sym­ have been built. harness wind energy resources in the posium, which attracted over 500 delegates, held in London at the beginning of Septem­ The announcement was made on 23 UK". Indeed, a prominent member of the ber, he said the fust commercial electricity A,ugust at the inauguration of Europe's BWEA, former chair Professor Norman nuclear producing fusion reactor would not largest vertical axis wind turbine, at Na­ Lipman, now head of energy research at begin operating until2040 at the earliest. tional Power's Cannarthen Bay test site in the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, told He also told the Conference that an expert Wales. Costing about£2 million the turbine, the British Association earlier in the scientific review panel, convened by the built by V AWT a subsidiary of the civil month that wind power could provide up Community, had recommended that fusion engineering company McAipine, will to 30% of Britain's electricity needs by should remain as a top priority. Their report, produce enough power for 500 homes. 2020, and 40% of Europe's. Admitting which concludes .. the problem of energy Colin Moynihan, the new Minister re­ that at the moment wind power would cost supply and the need to preserve ... global sponsible for alternative energy sources, around 6p a unit, more than the 4.5p climate mean it is one of the few remaining who presided over the opening ceremony, claimed for conventional power stations, practical options", will soon go to a meeting said that wind power was one of the most he argued that if the Government invested of the European Council of Ministers, which promising of the renewables and could. in a serious programme then costs would will have to make a decision on the future account for 10% of the UK'scurrentelec- fall by over a third. 0 direction of Community fusion research. Currently the Community expends £250 million a year on fusion, mainly on the Joint planning permission and construction, we European Torus (JEI) fusion device in Cui­ Private wind should start generating electricity by the ham. JET, it is claimed, is close to the break end of next year." even point- when as much energy is got out as N the day National Power an­ Planning permission is not, however, a is put in. It is, however, only a research device nounced the abandoning of the Pen­ foregone conclusion. Several proposed and two further devices will have to be built to O prove the technology according to Maisonnier. nines proposal, Yorkshire Water and windfarms have already fallen foul of The review also warns that potentially Yorkshire Electricity revealed their plans local authority planning committees. An­ serious environmental problems must be to build an entirely private wind farm on other smaller windfarm proposal from overcome before the research proceeds any Ovenden Moor -land owned by Yorkshire Yorkshire Water came to a grinding halt, further. The main fears are: there is no ex­ Water. earlier this year, after objections that the pertise in dealing with fusion ftres and; large At an estimated cost of £10 million, the turbines would spoil the local landscape. amounts of radioactive waste could be cre­ farm will consist of around 35 medium Reid is aware of the problem and has ated, however, Dr Sebastian Pease·, aUK sized machines producing enough power consulted a landscape expert, who will fusion pioneer, hopes that a suitable material for 4,500 homes. The planning manager advise the company on where to place the can be found that could virtually eliminate for the project, Stewart Reid, of Yorkshire turbines to minimise visual intrusion radioactive wastes, "but as the basic fusion Windpower Ltd, a new company set up to whilst still taking best advantage of the process hasn't yet been demonstrated you build and run the farm, says .. Subject to wind resource. 0 can't be sure." 0

annual wind speed of 8-12m/s, high by generation. Renewables and Dounreay any standard and, in addition, .. the terrain Dounreay also boasts a power trans­ is relatively flat so access roads will not mission line which will be made redun­ AITHNESS would be an ideal area be a problem". dant in 1994, when the PFR closes. Cin which to establish a centre for The northern coast of Scotland, with its In the longer term the Centre could developing alternative energy sources, vicious Atlantic rollers, presents an excel­ expand into work on energy conservation, according to a report* produced by Otk­ lent opportunity to test many different kinds energy efficient electrical appliance de­ ney CADE (Campaign Against Dounreay of wave power device. Indeed, it was with sign and work on alleviating the problem Expansion). Written by two local engin­ the north ofScotland in mind that Edinburgh of radon gas build up in the home. eers, it argues Caithness has an excellent University's Professor Stephen Salter de­ However, the proposal could meet with climate for developing wind, wave and signed his eponymous 'Duck' wave power opposition from some alternative energy solar energy, and that the technical exper­ device-where high wave power availability researchers who have in the past had their tise and hardware amassed at Dounreay in the winter and high energy demand are fmgers burnt by the close connection be­ would be well suited to the task. particularly well matched. tween the Department of Energy's Energy To date, a mere £16Q million has been Borrowing an argument from Kerr Technology Support Unit (ETSU) - the spent on the development of all the renew­ MacGregor, chair of the Scottish Solar body responsible for both energy effi­ abies, .. the same amount is to be spent on Energy Society, himself a campaigner for ciency and renewable energy develop­ the Prototype Fast Breeder reactor (PFR) developing renewables in Caithness, they ment - and the United Kingdom Atomic at Dounreay before its closure 1994". It argue that .. ten months of Shetland sun­ Energy Authority (UKAEA). ETSU is observes: .. Imagine what could have been shine is worth more gallons of oil or kilo­ based in a couple of portacabins at Har­ achieved if the £4 billion consumed by the watt hours of electricity than two months well, the headquarters of the UKAEA. 0 fast reactor programme, not to mention of Sicilian sunshine". This is because the the countless billions spent on the nuclear longer period when space heating is re­ * Centre for Alternative Developmetlt ;,. industry. had been spent on renewables." quired in Shetland, or Caithness for that Energy by Edward KelsaU & Keoneth Caithness .. arguably" boasts one. of the matter, means that although less heat is Low. CADE, 1990, 6pp, £1. Avallable best wind climates in Europe for the ex­ produced per hour it is more valuable - it from: Richard Levens, Berriedale Cot· ploitation of wind power, with a mean does not necessarily refer to electricity tages, St Margrets, Orkney.

SCRAM79 logy in the UK, and 45% using the best higher fuel prices would. Efficiency begins at home available in the world. The report also The report argues that an .. energy cost.. notes that current research promises to approach would meet with some hostility OMESTIC electricity consumers boost the saving to 60%. from consumers but if efficiency was pro­ Dcould cut their fuel bills by 40% if While energy efficient appliances are moted as part of an environment pro­ they switched to using currently avail­ usually more expensive, the average pay gramme it would be more likely to fmd able energy efficient appliances, cutting back period is only 4 years. Despite the favour. Ray Gluckman, director of UK emissions of carbon dioxide by al­ huge saving to be made, the authors found March's energy division, said: .. Retailers, most a tenth, according to a Department little or no interest in the energy efficient we felt, didn't really understand the is­ of Energy (DoEn) report* published at appliances currently in the shops by either sues, and a lot of manufacturers didn't the beginning of September. consumers or retailers. seem to have any policy on what level of Compiled by the March Consulting ..Major .. government initiatives will be efficiency they might accept... The market Group for the Energy Efficiency Office, required if this situation is to change. works largely on ..energy points.. - a it shows how peak energy demand could .. Minor.. acts such as energy labelling, fridge at £299 is much more acceptable be reduced by 10% and the nations an­ they comment, are unlikely to have much than one priced £305, and the retailer nual fuel bill by £1.5 billion, negating effect in isolation. Initiatives could in­ wants as many goodies packed into the the need for 5,000MW of generating clude subsidising efficient products, price as possible... Attractive controls and capacity. higher electricity prices or setting tough design are far more likely to sell than Refrigeration and lighting offer the hig­ efficiency standards which manufactures energy-saving.. , say March. 0 hest potential savings, up to 70%, while would have to meet. Setting standards has across the board the average saving would an advantage in that it would not victimise * Energy efficiency in domestic electrical be 40% using the best available techno- the poor in the same way an energy tax or appliat~ces; HMSO, 1990, £24.

recent meeting of the British Association Both National Power and Power Gen - Acid comments for the Advancement of Sciences, Dr John who are committed to fitting 4GW of coal Innes, of the Forestry Commission. de­ plant with flue gas desulphurisation HILE 700 delegates from 24 nied that there was any link between acid equipment each - dispute the cost of the Wcountries met in Glasgow, at the rain and damage to British trees. This was programme, £6 billion, given by the DoE, International Conference on Acid De­ fiercely contested by Dr David Fowler, of are obviously worried about the effect of position, to discuss advancements in Edinburgh's Institute for Terrestrial Eco­ such a financial commitment on their pri­ scientific understanding of ..acid rain", logy, who has shown definite links be­ vatisation portfolios. Scottish Power said three major reports have been published tween acid deposition and damage to it had no commitment to reducing acid outlining the severity of the problem. young trees, under experimental condi­ pollution. A report by the llASA, an influential tions. The DoE have also missed the June Austrian research group, said that acid Professor Fred Last, of Edinburgh and deadline for informing the European rain will destroy 118 million m3 of wood Newcastle Universities, chair of the con­ Commission how it will meet the direc­ -worth £16 billion- every year for the ference, echoed the fears of many acid tive. In addition, they were supposed to next century. It concludes that massive rain scientists, warning that their funding produce a final, detailed, report on the emission reductions, greater than those must not be cut and called on Govern­ Government's plans by July 31. Andy agreed by the European Community, are ments worldwide to resist the temptation Tickle, Greenpeace's acid rain cam­ required to stem the .. huge economic to cut research into acid rain. He said: paigner, comments: .. The Government losses... .. Problems of acid deposition are related announced its Fgd programme in 1986 A restricted United Nations (UN) re­ to the standard of living associated with and so far not one power station has been port, which was circulating at the con­ industrialisation and the possession of the fitted. West Germany announced its pro­ ference, warned that .. millions of car. If you have a small increase in the gramme in 1983 and has now fitted every Europeans live in areas with air pollution, standard of living in parts of Asia there power station. Since 1980 they have cut levels severe enough to cause each year will be a major expansion in pollution sulphur emissions by 85%." thousands of premature deaths and [leave] emissions. The problem is becoming The most poignant speech given to the many more chronically ill and disabled ... worldwide, but we are hardly thinking conference was made by a Czechoslova­ Children and old people who are already about it in these countries... kian scientist, Dr Tomas Paces, who suffering respiratory problems are most at While the scientists discussed the pointed out that in his country, and other risk. It, like the llASA report recommends minute intricacies of the problem. a little Eastern European states, reducing acid emission reductions in excess of those publicised consultation document was is­ emissions was way down the public's list already agreed. sued by the Department of the Environ­ of priorities- after a new car, a video and A second UN study said that over one ment (DoE) on how Britain plans to meet a microwave oven... You have 22 coun­ quarter of Britain's trees have been badly its commitment to the European Directive tries here but the countries with the most damaged, and that overall they are more on reducing acid emission to 40% of their pollution and which produce the most pol­ severely affected than in any other West­ 1982 levels by 2003. The document was lution are not here,.. he said, .. I think it is em European country. However, at the quickly disowned by the power boards. a pity... In his country the problem is very com­ plicated. It is short of money and relies on high sulphur coal burnt in outdated coal Safe Energy and Environment plant for most its powe.-. What can we do, A new Indian magazine to fight nuclear power asks Paces? '"The Hungarians don't want and explore alternative sources of energy. us to build hydro electric power stations. The Austrians don't want us to build nu­ Quarterly; £8 per annum clear power stations. Sweden doesn't want us to bum coal, and the Russians are Your subscription will help the anti-nuclear campaign In India. not sending us enough oil... He is, how­ Contact: Manan Gangull, 31 Caxton End, Bourn, Cambs. C83 7SS ever, confident that Czechoslovakia's problems can be over come, but .. it will taketime... 0

OctoberjNovember '90 I REVIEWS I this. It is not a specialised important. Nuclear Disasters And The Built Environment, document written princi­ Firstly, although these wri­ A Report to the Royal Institute pally for architects but is also ters are meticulous in avoid­ "directed towards the ing overstatement, no power of British Architects; general public" (page 4). on earth can resist the impact by Philip Stead.man and Simon Hodgkinson. What a pity, then, that very of accurate and detailed Butterworth Architecture; 1990, £40. few members of the general scholarship. Their analysis of public will ever see it; for this civil defence makes it quite A4 paperback a centimetre clear that British policy has The title does not do justice to and highly pertinent diag­ thick sells at £40. This is pure always been that, in nuclear the work. Certainly these rams are another matter and White Knight: war, the civil populations authors, assisted by a most need looking at carefully. I shall be destroyed in propor­ distinguished team, deal give only one instance: on "For I had hit upon a plan tion as the facilities on which with the built environment; page 81 there is a map show­ To dye one's whiskers green­ they formerly depended coming from RIBA it is this ing possible targets for nu­ And always use so large a fan have been destroyed. They section which is uniquely clear attack. Although nu­ That they could not be seen." do not say so, but they do not authoritative. But rural Bri­ dear submarine bases are need to: no other conclusion tain also receives attention. provided for in the key they In fact this outcome is sim­ can follow from the data Reactor accidents and nuc­ have been unaccountably ply one small instance of presented. Take a deep lear war are covered; also omitted from the map itself, many that decisions made in breath: this is the least inhu­ emergency planning, or thus creating the illusion that Britain should not be as­ mane solution for a country what passes for that. The Faslane and Coulport would sumed to be rational or even too small for bombs too most chilling topic is that of be the ideal funk-holes to sane. large. reconstruction after nuclear make for if you can get there I conclude, therefore, by Their second conclusion is war. There is an adequate ac­ in time. referring to a few issues that rebuilding of cities after count of reactor technology, But trivial faults such as which are wholly authoritat­ heavy nuclear attack may also of the principles of radi­ this do not really matter ive and partly new: the effect well be never attempted. ological safety and of nuclear when compared with the ex­ of nuclear war on the Built Others have suspected this science - the lot in fact. cellent and well-ordered text; Environment (the similar before; the RIBA team give in How well does it succeed the fact that every vital state­ section on nuclear power detail the reasons why (page with such a huge coverage? ment receives an authorita­ disasters are also authorita­ 124). In my view brilliantly. No­ tive reference; and that there tive but they are not new). But only a long review could body covers such an enor­ is a fine analytical index. In Guard them well, for they are do Justice to this document. So mous span without errors, fact, except in regard to spe­ all you are ever likely to see try to get it into your library - usually of judgement, I de­ cialised issues such as nuc­ of a splendid document mur­ if they have £40 to spare. tected very few questionable lear waste, a nuclear critic dered by 'economics'. Two statements. The splendid needs no other guide than seem to me especially DONARNOIT

of the Hydrogen Economy profit early from decen­ Electricity: efficient end-use and new (SCRAM 71) has been tralized solar energy plants generation technologies anc:f their planning around for a considerable employing hydrogen as en­ time, but this book is the ergy storage medium."; and implications; TB Johansson, B Bodlund and most comprehensive and re­ they believe that such devel­ RH Williams (Eds). alistic I have seen on the sub­ opment could brirtg about "a Lund University Press; 1989, 947pp. ject. fundamental equalization of Both books cover a wide ... trade balances". Hydrogen as an energy carrier: range, and on their own ad­ Electricity is packed full of technologies, systems, economy; mission cannot therefore ideas on energy efficiency, deal completely with any everything from low energy . C-J Winter, J Nitsch (Eds). one area, but they are more lighting to Combined Cycle Springer-Verlag; 1988, 377pp, DM158.00. than detailed enough for Pressurised Fluidised Bed most purposes and both are Combustion of coal. fully referenced (almost One area which the Swed­ Sweden, committed to phas­ The book covers a wide 2,000 references between ish book, to my surprise, ing out its nuclear capacity range of electricity techno­ them) to allow further in­ made only passing reference (currently around 50% - see logies-with emphasis put on depth study, if required. was wind power, despite off­ SCRAM Nuclear News this reducing demand through A system considered in shore wind being an area of issue), limiting expansion of energy efficiency. Combin­ both books is the possibility active research in Sweden hydro-electric and reducing ing, as it does, technology of using photovoltaic solar (SCRAM 78). That said, I can carbon dioxide emissions, and economics, the reader is cells to produce hydrogen by find very little on which to will need to do some very offered a very useful refer­ electolysis, with the hy­ fault either book; the high careful energy planning. ence book of practical energy drogen then producing elec­ technical content inevitably Commissioned with the sup­ options. tricity as required by means reduces readability, but as port of Vattenfall, the Swed­ A similar approach is of a fuel cell (SCRAM 76). sources of information for ish State Power Board, as the adopted by Hydrogen as an The editors of Hydrogen as those concerned with energy basis for a Congress held last energy carrier, which con­ an energy carrier suggests choices for the future, they year, Electricity is an ambi­ siders the possible future use that the poorer "sun rich are both excellent. tious but realistic attempt to of hydrogen on technical and countries with [limited] en­ present the choices available. economic grounds. The idea ergy infrastructure, can GRAHAM STEIN

26 SCRAM79 I REVIEWS less impact on the environ­ global warming is to be Coal-Use Technology in a Changing ment. Fluidised bed combus­ tackled it will be improve­ tion (FBq, to mention but ments in coal-combustion Environment- the advance continues; one, operates at a tempera­ technology exported to de­ by Wait Patterson. ture below 900"C - typical veloping countries - or even Financial Times Business Information; coal-combustion systems donated - that will prevent 1990, 118pp, £215. operate at over 1,000°C - their necessary industrialisa­ which significantly reduces tion from undermining any the evolution of nitrogen ox­ attempts to stabilise carbon Coal, contrary to the predic­ ier volume, Advanced Coal­ ides. By adding limestone to dioxide levels. tions of energy analysts in Use Technology, he charts the the bed, sulphur dioxide In this country clean-coal the 1970's, is not in short sup­ considerable advances made emissions can be cut by upto also has a role to play. It is ply, nor is it expensive. It has, in the design of coal-fired 95%. Patterson notes that the widely accepted that invest­ however, been cast as the power stations, since 1987. resultant calcium sulphate is ment in energy conservation main villain in global warm­ "Reducing carbon dioxide at least as useful as the waste is about 7 times more effec­ ing. The Government are emissions", admits Patter­ from a flue gas desulphurisa­ tive in reducing C{h emis­ using global warming, and son, "means burning less fos­ tion (Fgd) unit. Reducing sions than nuclear power, coal's role, as a platform from sil fuel". Henceforth, he says, emissions from FBC does therefore if we invest in which to promote nuclear ex­ the battle for the global fuel not, however, involve the clean-coal, which is consid­ pansion-despite the morato­ market will not only be massive capital investment erably cheaper than nuclear rium on ordering new nuc­ waged on price, reliability necessary for Fgd nor does it power, we will free money lear plant brought about by and convenience but on"en­ reduce the operating effi­ that would be more effectively privatisation. vironmental impact and effi­ ciency of the plant. FBC boi­ spent on conserving energy. Patterson believes that it is cient end-use of the energy lers are also typically 10% To be sure, this is an ex­ not coal that the finger of produced". Coal, he believes, cheaper than conventional tremely useful and timely blame should be pointing at, can meet the challenge. plant. volume, boasting Patterson's but at the generators who New designs, developed The developing world will customary readability and bum it in antique power sta­ over the last 20 years or so, turn to coal to fuel indus­ accuracy. tions. can not only bum coal more trialisation, as the developed Following on from his earl- efficiently but can do it with world did before them. If the MIKE TOWNSLEY

Deadly Deceit: Low-Level Radiation, When the bough breaks ... High-Level Cover-Up; Our children, Our Environment; by Jay Gould and Benjamin Goldman. by Lloyd Timberlake & Laura Thomas. Four Walls Eight Windows (distributed by Earthscan; 1990, 262pp, £6.95. Turnaround in UK); 1990, 222pp, £12.95.

"We do not own the earth, human and environmental. This book relies heavily on vorous birds." we have merely borrowed it "A world in which poverty work by Emest Stemglass, The authors claim "US Gov­ from our children", or words is endemic will always be who has a reputation for ernment publications system­ to that effect are oft heard prone to ecological and other going way over the top in atically covered up increased trickling off the tongues of catastrophes", warns the claims about effects of low­ death rates after reactor acci­ politicians, airing their green Bruntland Report. This book level radiation. But then it's dents". It's difficult to say credentials, this book brings demonstrates the strong con­ easier for the nuclear boffins whether the authors are para­ them into perspective. nections between poverty to smear him, than to investi­ noid, but if they are only half­ It opens: "Every year, 14 and environmental destruc­ gate his claims thoroughly. right there should be urgent million children under the tion. The fuelwood crisis in Rather than concentrating investigations into the con­ age of five die in the devel­ many developing countries, on cancer statistics, this book nections between hormonal oping world, not in a for example, is leading to the looks at excess deaths in the and immune deficiency dis­ drought and famine year, but wholesale clearing of vast US after Chemobyl, Three eases (including AIDS) and in an 'ordinary' year." areas, then once bereft of Mile Island and other acci­ radiation. Does the sudden In writing it to accompany their trees the land dries up dents. Asmanyasninemillion appearance of Lyme disease the TV series of the same and dies. "excess deaths" may have (juvenile arthritis caused by a name, the authors have pro­ It is often difficult to decide been caused by radioactive tick which previously only af­ vided a savage indictment which books to read from the pollution. TheChemobyl data fected deer) in 1975 have any against the short-sighted ex­ plethora of environmental "offer strong evidence for a re­ connection to a radiation re­ ploitation of resources, both tomes flooding into· book lationship between the meas­ lease from the Millstone plant shops, but if you don't read wed radioactivity in milk and same in Connecticut the year, 1. State Parties recognise that any other this year, rea4 this the changes in monthly mor­ or is that just a coincidence? every child has the right to life. one. It is not just about child­ tality for adults and infants The facts in this book point 2. State Parties shall ensure to ren, it is about all of us, we across the country." to radiation having much the maximum extent possibie were all once children. Tim­ Bird surveys confirm these larger effects than previously the survival and development berlake is a name to look out findings with"a strong corre­ thought, and are crying out of the child. for, a mark of quality and lation between ... iodine-131 in for further investigation. readability. Alticle Six of the 1989 UN Conven· milk and decreases ..• in num­ tion on the Rights of the Child. bers of small, arboreal insecti- PETEROCHE MIKE TOWNSLEY

OctoberjNovember '90 27 LITTLE BLACK RABBIT

Idly browsing through back copies of I A recent issue of LBR's been hoping for, and to their further Atom, the magazine of the UK Atomic favourite magazine Nuclear embarrassment Dr Billings went on to Energy Authority, Little Black Rabbit came r' 1. Fo,..m, '""'" a cepoct on forecast doubling of c~ emissions would across a book review in the September 1979 how nuclear power can save increase global temperatures by 2- '\"C. issue. Is nuclear power necessary? by children. The piece is based Perhaps BC should seek advice on Amory Lovins, published by Friends of the C:P on the thoughts of Nuclear 'expert' selection from MrsThatcheror the Earth, received unfavourable comment. Electric's Dr John Wright, who claims nuclear industry. Amongst the criticisms was Lovins use nuclear power could alleviate an energy of lGW as the typical size for US nuclear shortfall in the third world and reduce I Ll3R has discovered that the stations up to the year 2000; the reviewer infant mortality by up to half a million each ~ first ever Nerv Sciet~tist, 22 predicted "modest continuing progress year. The article s tates "Dr Wrig ht ~ 1. November 1956, carried an toward larger station sizes - say typically emphasises that this is a very simple and article by Scientific Editor, TA 2GW in the mid 80s and 3GW i.n the early in no way rigorous calculation". Margerison, titled "Where do 90s". In reality, there have been no nuclear A simple calculation by LBR came up C: • we go frorn Calder Hall?". The power stations built in the US since then, with the facts that in Britain, Scotland has introduction states "Middle East oil supplies and in Britain Sizewell B, and Hinkley C (if the largest per capita nuclear capacity; it are thrt?atened. Coal is scarce and dear. The ever built) are planned to be justl.2GW. It also has the highest infant mortality rate. answer should be a vast stepping-up of our looks like Lovins was a lot nearer the mark atomk energy programme." than Atom's contributor. "There is increasing The threat to oil supplies in 1956 was of Our reviewer's insight continues "the scepticism about the fu!ure course the Suez crisis. The faith in nuclear impetus for nuclear power construction is greenhouse effect and power was touching if unjustified. Much [based on] straightforward cost policies unnecessarily tied to the same arguments are being used by considerations", and that Lovins offers "a it may lose popular support supporters of nuclear power now, but the bewildering mass of supporting references as confidence declines in the nuclear image is more tarnished. ... as proof that the 'market' does not want whole greenhouse issue." So ran a quote In conclusion Margerison says "it will nuclear energy (when all the evidence is from- US energy expert Dr Bob Billings in require something not far short of military that il does)"! To round things off, our a.n advance press release from the Watt planning if the atomic energy programme reviewer tells us "nuclear power does not Committee on Energy. British Coal, acting is to be expanded significantly (and] make have to be necessary. It only needs to be as hosts for Or Billings, must have been any significant improvement to the present safer, cleaner and cheaper lhan other ways well pleased with their choice of speaker critical fuel situation." of producing electricity. That is just what as they sat down to listen to his "Military planning" is a particularly it is and Lovins has done nothing to show presentation to the Committee. apposite phrase, because fuel crises come that it is .not." Amongst the comments made by BC's ar.d fuel crises go, but the link between the So who was our perceptive reviewer guest was: "J would be heartbroken if in military and nuclear power go on and on; {rom 1979? Well just between you, me and five yearts time my work were used as as does T A Margerison, who went on to Little Black Rabbit it was one LG Brookes, justification not to take action on the work for the Nuclear Electricity Information UKAEA Economic Adviser! g reenhouse effect." Not quite what BC had Group- now British Nuclear Forum! Three ways to promote safe energy Three ways to help SCRAM: fill in the appropriate section(s) together with your name and address and return lhe form to the address below.

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