Nuclear Power: Stop Scaremongering

Suzanne Moore writes:

The catastrophe that Mother Nature has wrought on the people of Japan has been far more deadly than anything that the man-made disaster of Fukushima can bring. Mother Nature, if we must refer to it in this way, is merciless. The speed of the tsunami and the devastation it caused are impossible to compute emotionally. We can merely register individual tales of hope and fear and try to understand how split-second decisions saved lives. The grace and resilience of the Japanese people have been quite remarkable.Instead, our imagination has worked overtime in a peculiarly sci-fi way about what is happening inside the nuclear reactors.

I do not want to downplay the seriousness of this accident, but much of the debate – and the almost innate desire for the worst news possible – has revealed an astonishing level of ignorance. We may all use electricity generated by nuclear power stations but we seem to think they are generally a bad thing and we make little distinction between the consequences of an accident in a reactor and those of an actual nuclear bomb. We would prefer our energy to be generated by solar panels and wind turbines – ‘the nice bits’ of nature – but we make little political or personal effort to make this happen.

I have never lived in fear of nuclear reactors as some of my happiest childhood memories are of swimming in the North Sea in water heated up by cooling the reactor at Sizewell B. What a treat it was to clamber over those sand dunes and swim out through the cold into the balmy waves and gaze at the huge white dome of the plant. No, I don’t glow in the dark. The water itself is not radioactive. Indeed the idea that radioactivity comes in different forms and is itself produced naturally seems to be lost on most people.

Radiation is to be found in some rocks: there is, for example, more of it in the West Country than there is in other parts of the country. It is in our bodies, in foods containing potassium. We use it in microwaves and X-rays. If you have a pacemaker or false teeth, they will be emitting a low level of radiation. Yet this fear of all radiation as an invisible carcinogenic poison leaking out into the atmosphere is rampant.

Those at real risk now are the truly brave technicians inside the plant trying to cool it down: the Fukushima 50. They will almost certainly receive fatal doses of radiation as they work around the clock. There have been problems, of course, about how much information people in Japan are getting from their own media and government, and the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Fukushima’s operator. But this is not Chernobyl or Hiroshima. The radiation levels close to the plant are frightening but a huge amount of scaremongering is based on our alarmingly low level of science education.

This accident means we will necessarily review the regulation of nuclear plants. China is throwing them up as we speak. And yes, because of the amount of water reactors need, they are often built on coastlines. Huge business interests may lie about safety records, but European safety records are good. Anyone concerned about climate change knows that we cannot live by fossil fuel alone. Look at the recent BP oil spill, which has destroyed oceanic ecosystems for years to come. Renewables provide only a small percentage of our energy needs and if we in the West want to hog energy while telling the people of India they cannot have fridges as it is a drain on global energy, we are nothing but imperialists.

For these reasons some Greens are now starting to embrace the nuclear option and to feel that the way forward is to lobby for safe waste disposal and stricter regulation. I agree. In the face of raw nature – the terrifying tsunami – that has destroyed so many, we do not need to scare ourselves further. These anonymous invisible heroes inside that plant show us the best of human nature. The heartrending email one man sent to his wife, ‘Please continue to live well. I cannot be home for a while’, is a haiku of restraint and love and sacrifice. This is humbling. Our response should be one of understanding and restraint, too.