Right: Three Mile Island nuclear power station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA; in 1979, a partial melt-down accident sparked panic and mass evacuations. Although there were no known injuries or deaths, the potential for disaster played a big part in the decline of America's nuclear industry.
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Arguments against Australia developing a nuclear power industry
1. ;The consequences of nuclear reactor accidents can be catastrophic
It is generally acknowledged that the accident rate at nuclear power plants is relatively low; however, critics note that when a serious accident occurs it can have catastrophic consequences.
Friends of the Earth Australia have claimed, 'There have been more than a dozen serious accidents at nuclear power plants since 1952. There have been at least eight accidents involving damage to or malfunction of a reactor core. There have been many other serious accidents elsewhere in nuclear plants (fires, explosions, and leaks of radioactive material).'
The best-known of these are Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and now the earthquake and tsunami damage that has occurred to reactors at Fukushima, Japan. ;
Professor Ian Lowe, former president of the Australian Conservation Foundation has stated that 'nuclear power is too dangerous. There is the risk of accidents like Chernobyl. Twenty years after the accident, 350,000 people remain displaced, three-quarters of a million hectares of productive land remain off limits, and experts argue about whether the final death toll will be 4000 or 24,000. One accident like Chernobyl is too many, but building more reactors increases the risk of another.'
There are sources which claim that the consequences of Chernobyl were even worse than those suggested by Professor Lowe. ;Friends of the Earth Australia have claimed, 'According to a Soviet estimate half of Chernobyl's fallout fell within 35 km of the reactor. One hundred and thirty five thousand people were evacuated from a 30 km diameter zone centred on the reactor. The other half of the fallout fell on more than twenty countries world wide stretching as far as North America - resulting in limitations on food. The US DOE - a pro nuclear body who would be expected to give estimates at the lower end of the range - calculated that world wide there would be around 40,000 deaths from Chernobyl-induced cancers.'
Further, it has been argued that despite the claims of those who build and manage nuclear reactors that they have guarded against all possible sources of accident, this can never be the case. ;Critics claim that the disaster currently occurring at Fukushima, in Japan, a country internationally renowned for its nuclear safety record, indicates that disasters can always occur even though significant efforts have been made to guard against them.
2. ;Nuclear power generation creates major waste problems
Nuclear power creates radioactive by-products that can take hundreds of thousands of years to degenerate to the point where they are regarded as safe. ;It has been argued that this is a dangerous and irresponsible legacy to leave generations to come. ;
This point has been made by Professor Ian Lowe, former president of the Australian Conservation Foundation. ;Professor Lowe has stated, 'Nuclear power ... inevitably produces radioactive waste that will have to be stored safely for hundreds of thousands of years. After nearly fifty years of the nuclear power experiment, nobody has yet demonstrated a solution to this problem...
In the absence of a proven viable solution, expanding the rate of waste production is just irresponsible. This is not just a huge technical challenge to develop systems that will isolate high-level waste for over 200,000 years. It is also a huge challenge to our social institutions. We are talking about a time scale around a hundred times longer than any human societies have endured, of the same order of magnitude as our entire existence as a species.'
It has repeatedly been claimed that none of the technologies currently being promoted as a means of safely storing nuclear waste can be relied upon, particularly over the timeframes under consideration. Opened in 1999, the United States Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico is the first "deep geologic repository" in the world for radioactive wastes, specifically for disposing of plutonium-contaminated nuclear weapons complex wastes. Despite assurances by WIPP's chief scientist that it could never happen, carbon tetrachloride leaks to the air outside the facility located 2,150 feet below ground have now reached a 'level of concern'.
3. Other forms of low-carbon-producing power generation are safer than nuclear power
It has been claimed that wind power is a safer alternative energy source than nuclear power generation.
In 2004, a World Health Organisation report categorically stated that wind power was one of the most benign forms of electrical generation in terms of direct and indirect health effects. Claims have been disputed that wind farm noise has harmful effects on human beings. Some of the scientists whose work has been used to support this conclusion have denied it. ;
Dr Neil Todd, of Manchester University, has stated of his study of wind farms, 'Our work does not provide the direct evidence suggested .... I do not believe that there is any direct evidence to show that any of the above acoustico-physiological mechanisms are activated by the radiations from wind turbines.'
Similarly in 2010 the Wisconsin Division of Public Health has reviewed more than 150 scientific and medical reports related to wind turbines and public health. ;It concluded that current scientific evidence does not support claims that at distances in accord with relevant regulations there is any adverse health outcomes caused by living near wind turbines.
Solar power is a clean and safe form of energy with no discernible negative health effects; however, the safe manufacture and subsequent disposal of solar panels has been raised as an area of concern. Silicon tetrachloride, for example, is a by-product that makes land unsuitable for growing crops. For each ton of polysilicon produced by the solar industry for its solar panels, four tons of silicon tetrachloride is generated.
Even given these waste management problems, however, the risks associated with nuclear power are generally judged to be far greater and longer lasting than those associated with the manufacture of solar panels.
4. ;Nuclear power is a very expensive means of power generation
It has been noted that nuclear reactors are a highly expensive means of generating power. Nuclear power plants are expensive both to build and maintain. It has been claimed that the new third and fourth generation power plants will reduce costs; however, it has been estimated that the first wave of new plants to operate in the United States will generate electricity at a cost of over $3,500(US) per kilowatt.
Those nations that use nuclear power plants to produce power usually support the plants via significant government subsidies or loans. By June 2009 the United States Congress had awarded the nuclear industry $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees for new reactor construction. Within the United States, nuclear power has been subsidised hundreds of billions of dollars over the past 50 years.
It has further been claimed that even with subsidies and loans nuclear power facilities are often not economically viable because they remain too expensive to establish and maintain. Of the 253 reactor units ordered by United States electric utilities by 1978, 71 units were cancelled before construction began. Between the United States Atomic Energy Commission and its successor, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal regulator received 182 construction permits of which 50 units were abandoned in construction, losing billions of dollars in investment.
Only 132 units were licensed, built and operated. Of that number, 28 units have permanently closed in the United States before their 40-year license expired including two partial core meltdown accidents at Fermi 1 and Three Mile Island Unit 2. Only 104 units were operational nationwide by July 2009.
Critics claim that return on investment rates such as those indicated above do not make nuclear power an economically viable form of power generation.
It also needs to be noted that it can cost billions of dollars to decommission a nuclear power plant. ;
Other costs to be factored in include the underwriting of the massive risks associated with nuclear power plant construction and operation. World-wide private insurance companies are not willing to assume these risks and public funds (taxes) are used to underwrite them. ;In addition to government subsidies and loans, this taxpayer-funded insurance is an additional public cost associated with nuclear power.
5. ;Nuclear power production results in by-products that can be used by terrorists and/or to feed the nuclear arms industry
Nuclear power production is linked to the technologies that produce nuclear weapons and supplies the raw materials that fuel these weapons. ;Countries such as India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea clandestinely developed nuclear weapons using the infrastructure, technology and know-how of their 'civilian' nuclear programs.
It has been claimed that the continued expansion of nuclear power across the globe would only increase the chances of nuclear weapons development and is counterproductive to disarmament.
Dr Mark Diesendorf has stated, 'On top of the perennial challenges of global poverty and injustice, the two biggest threats facing human civilisation in the 21st century are climate change and nuclear war. It would be absurd to respond to one by increasing the risks of the other. Yet that is what nuclear power does.'
Further, in addition to the enormous loss of human life and the destruction that results from atomic weapons, their use is also a major threat to the environment. ;
Western Australian Greens Senator, Scott Ludlam, has claimed, 'Recent scientific research details the climatic impacts of nuclear warfare. The use of 100 weapons in nuclear warfare - just 0.03 per cent of the explosive power of the world's nuclear arsenal - would result directly in catastrophic climate change with many millions of tonnes of black, sooty smoke lofted high into the stratosphere. Needless to say the social and environmental impacts would be horrendous.'
The increased incidence of international terrorism only increases the risks associated with nuclear power generation. ;Firstly there is the risk that terrorists might attack a nuclear power plant in an enemy state. Secondly there is the risk that terrorists might steal nuclear waste material either to create weapons or merely to contaminate the air, water supply or agricultural land of an enemy.
6. ;Focusing on nuclear power is likely to divert investment and research away from safer renewable alternatives
It has been claimed that if an Australian government were to sanction nuclear power as an energy source for Australia this would seriously undermine the development of solar, wind and other forms of renewable power.
Nuclear power production is very expensive and if it were to go ahead in Australia would be likely to swallow up investment capital that could otherwise be used for renewables.
Nuclear power generation also relies heavily on government subsidies and so the Australian government would probably not be in the position to either fund research into renewables or subsidise companies involved in their production.
In May 2006, Greenpeace commented, in relation to the impact of nuclear investment trends around the world, 'In diverting resources from sustainable and renewable energy, investment in nuclear energy and associated subsidies would erect obstacles to sustainable energy.'