Climate Red - News and Views on Climate Change Issues.

The odd and widely-ignored truth is that routine radioactive discharges from coal-burning are greater than those produced by nuclear plants. Coal contains trace amounts of uranium and thorium. Though these are present at much lower levels than in nuclear fuel, a lot more coal is burnt, which means that total emissions are greater. An article in Scientific American last year maintained that levels of ionising radiation in the bones of people living around coal plants are up to six times higher than the levels in people living around atomic power stations(2).


The people most at risk from the radioactivity associated with coal (not to mention far greater hazards such as dust, heavy metals and sulphur and nitrous oxide pollution) are the workers – both in the mines and in the power plants. Coal mining is associated with some of the most unpleasant industrial diseases ever recorded. Why would a trade unionist wish to expose working people to these dangers, when they could instead be employed, at minimal risk to their health, building and installing wind turbines, wave machines and solar power plants?

Scargill maintains that nuclear power is four times as expensive as coal-fired electricity. There’s a standard model for estimating future costs, of which he should be aware, produced by the International Energy Agency(3). This shows that it’s likely to be 10-50% more expensive to save a tonne of carbon through coal burning with carbon capture and storage than by means of nuclear energy. (Wind power, incidentally, is much cheaper than either)(4). The agency’s figures are not definitive (nothing in this field is), but the estimates it gives are for coal bought at anticipated market prices, not for the much more expensive fuel Arthur proposes: coal produced only from deep mines in the United Kingdom.


I feel I need to point out that I have not become an advocate for nuclear power. My position is that environmentalists should stop trying to pick technologies for electricity generation. Instead we should demand a maximum level for the carbon dioxide produced per megawatt-hour, impose a number of other public safety measures, then allow the energy companies to find the cheapest means of delivering it. Otherwise we are in danger of backing the solutions we find aesthetically appealing and delaying the massive carbon cuts that need to be made. If nuclear power meets the very tough conditions I proposed last week, we should no longer oppose it; though that remains a big if. This is too subtle a point for Arthur and other commentators, who are shrieking that Monbiot has gone nuclear.