We’re told to follow the science, except when it comes to nuclear power

The world I grew up in hummed with the fear of imminent nuclear disaster. I was 10 in April 1986. I remember the hushed conversations, the mounting dread that hung like a radioactive plume in the ether after news of Chernobyl leaked out, the instruction from my parents not to go out in the schoolyard if it was raining. For nine days, the fire that started in Reactor Number 4 burned on, and the world held its breath.

Ireland was gripped by what an editorial in this newspaper termed "terror [for it is nothing less]" about the fallout. Milk was delivered in churns to a lab in UCD for analysis and was found to have elevated levels of the feared radioactive iodine-131, which had a half-life of eight days.

The levels weren't "alarming, but it was concerning", recalls Dr Peter Mitchell, one of the scientists involved, who remains a member of a scientific and technical committee advising the European Commission.

Here we are again, faced with the threat of extinction – only the demise we now dread is slower, less dramatic, more certain

For a time after Windscale in 1957, and again after Chernobyl, it felt as though the end of humanity was just one nuclear engineer having a bad day at the office away. An Earthwatch spokesperson wrote to The Irish Times that “a nuclear accident on the scale of Chernobyl has a 70 per cent probability of occurring once in every 5.4 years and an 86 per cent probability of occurring once in every 10 years”.

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He went on: “Whereas nuclear power is inherently unsafe, the emissions from fossil-fuel burning power stations, which are a major factor in the acid rain problem, can be substantially reduced and at a reasonable cost using established pollution-control technology.”

Chernobyl gave the world an early lesson in the power of fake news: from the early attempts to cover it up, to the fearmongering and misinformation at anti-nuclear rallies in its aftermath. Earthwatch organisers told a Carnsore Point rally in 1986 that “even though Chernobyl was 1,500 miles away every person in Ireland had been contaminated by the fallout”.

Fear hangover

Thirty-six years later, the hangover of that fear still lingers. But the world is a very different place. Here we are again, faced with the threat of extinction – only the demise we now dread is slower, less dramatic, more certain. The reasonably priced “established pollution-control technology” to mop up carbon in the atmosphere never materialised. We need other solutions, and nuclear energy must be one of them.

The fury which greeted the European Commission’s inclusion of nuclear and gas in its taxonomy of green investment activities shows how much of the opposition to it is still grounded in emotion, fear and rhetoric, rather than science. Nuclear power is not “green”, no matter what the marketing claims – it contributes to thermal pollution of water, for one thing. But it does not directly produce carbon dioxide.

The commission’s Joint Research Centre assesses its total environmental impact equivalent – from mining through to waste disposal – as equivalent to hydropower and wind. Better regulation has made it far safer. These days, the fear of nuclear power looms much larger than the actual risks; greater even than alarm at the climate emergency.

A generation of decision makers who, like me, grew up watching Raymond Briggs's bleak and terrifying When The Wind Blows are plainly not ready to have a mature conversation about its role. A few countries are threatening legal action over the taxonomy. Germany will shut its last three nuclear plants by the end of this year, leaving it with a 12 percentage point energy shortfall. To bridge the gap until 2030, it will increase its reliance on gas and coal.

It is ironic how some of the same people who tell us to follow the science when it comes to vaccines would prefer we didn’t when it comes to nuclear.

Misconception

Many of the arguments against nuclear are rooted in misconception. They include the belief that exposure to any radiation is harmful, when “you and I were conceived and born and live in a world full of ionising radiation – not necessarily because of man’s activities, but because of nature,” says Dr Mitchell.

Another belief is that nuclear reactors are fundamentally dangerous. In fact, all forms of energy-production carry risks, but data shows that nuclear energy causes more than 99.5 per cent fewer deaths than coal and oil; 97.5 per cent fewer than gas.

It is true that the disposal of radioactive waste is challenging. Nuclear waste remains hazardous for tens of thousands of years, and even if the technology exists to store it safely deep underground, the political will does not. One country leading the way is Finland, which recently started excavating a 35km underground tunnel deep in granite bedrock to store nuclear waste.

These two major concerns – the storage of waste and the threat of an accident – both relate to nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion, which many scientists believe is the future, promises to largely alleviate both issues. A major hydrogen fusion project, funded by the EU, China, US, Russia and other countries, is under construction in southern France, with initial experiments due to begin in 2025. The question that hasn't been answered is whether it will be financially viable compared to other renewables, says Dr Mitchell.

However, “it could be very ill advised to rule out nuclear because of our prejudices, or unpleasant and disastrous experiences, in relation to nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion is coming down the road, and we may need it.”

In a burning world, these are the conversations we need to have. Many reasonable, intelligent people have deep-rooted and understandable fears about nuclear, but we need to do what we’ve been doing very effectively for two years, and follow the science.

If we choose to write off nuclear energy based on gut feeling or emotional rhetoric, we’re no more rational than anti-vaxxers.