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When New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ was launched in 1956 ‘for all those men and women
who are interested in scientific discovery and in its industrial, commercial
and social consequences’, the first issue contained a ‘sober appraisal’
of nuclear power. At the time, Calder Hall, the world’s first nuclear power
station, was ‘quietly working on the shores of Cumberland’, supplies of
oil from the Middle East oil were ‘threatened’ (in the aftermath of the
Suez crisis) and ‘coal, as we all know, is scarce and expensive’. The answer,
according to New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ, ‘should be a vast stepping-up of our atomic
energy programme’.

Thirty-seven years later, nuclear power does not excite such enthusiasm.
The nuclear industry is at a standstill everywhere in Europe, with the exception
of France, and in the US it is now twenty years since an order was placed
without subsequently being cancelled.

The nuclear industry is not dead, however. Japan continues to build
its energy programme round nuclear power, and many of the newly rich Asian
nations want to follow suit. Safer designs are on the horizon and nuclear
enthusiasts have a new ace up their sleeves–unlike coal or oil, nuclear
power produces no carbon dioxide and thus does nothing to speed global warming.

Once again, there is a need for a ‘sober appraisal’ of nuclear energy.
Fortunately, Britain’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is about to
announce the terms of a major nuclear policy review, intended to be completed
next year. And once again New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ is there to draw attention to the
key issues that must be addressed. This time, however, the answers are much
less clear.

Our feature, ‘Nuclear power on Britain’s back burner’, argues that nuclear
power still has a future and that if Britain backs out now it will simply
end up having to import foreign technology. Three other articles (see This
Week and Focus) provide new examples of some of the now depressingly familiar
problems of the nuclear industry: this week it is failures in the safety
software for Sizewell B, a continuing muddle over how to store nuclear waste,
and inexcusable government enthusiasm for dumping nuclear waste at sea.

How can a sensible policy be forged which reconciles the energy needs
of the future and the apparent failings of the industry? It will not be
easy for, as everyone knows, the debate is very polarised.

Opponents of nuclear power can quote a chapter of accidents: the Windscale
radiation leaks, the Idaho explosion whose victims were so radioactive they
had to be buried in lead coffins, the Three Mile Island incident when the
reactor core almost took off for China, and Chernobyl. They can also point
to a history of cover-ups and incompetence – the full facts about Windscale
were not known for over twenty years, and if it had not been for Greenpeace,
British Nuclear Fuels might never have noticed that it had accidentally
released radioactive solvents into the sea, an error that led to the nine-month
closure of 25 miles of Cumbrian coast.

Critics can also point out that there is plenty of coal and it gets
cheaper all the time. Oil supplies can be safeguarded – as the Gulf War
demonstrated. And there is a growing suite of renewable power sources.

End of story? Not at all. Proponents of nuclear power can argue persuasively
that it is by far the safest and cleanest form of power. The dangerous business
of coal mining and the respiratory diseases produced by burning coal cause
some fifty times more deaths per gigawatt of power than nuclear power. Environmental
damage is also far greater – besides acid rain, cheap coal increasingly
comes from strip mines which tear up square miles of land. Renewable energy
sources are not as harmful, but still cannot compare with nuclear power.
Hydroelectric generation, the world’s large renewable energy source, has
caused the destruction of traditional ways of life and unspoilt countryside.
Wind, wave, tidal and solar power all collect energy at low densities and
will disfigure massive areas of land or sea.

The views of those for and against nuclear power may seem utterly irreconcilable.
They should not be – most of the arguments are not about facts but about
which facts people choose to emphasise. So far, in the West, nuclear power
has not proved dangerous or polluting in comparison with other methods of
power generation. But that does not mean the public is irrational to oppose
nuclear power, as technocrats foolishly believe, because people quite rightly
do not judge nuclear power simply on past safety records, but on the possibility
of a catastrophic accident. And the way accidents have been dealt with does
not encourage the public to believe they are told the truth.

When the DTI carries out its review, it will undoubtedly be swamped
by the opinions of people from both sides of the divide. The great temptation
for government will be to harden its ‘policy’ of backing new nuclear power
stations, provided private industry picks up the tab. Fudging the issue
that way will kill the nuclear industry because the City can find far safer
projects to invest in. The government should either finance nuclear power
or decide that objections to nuclear power are overwhelming and vigorously
support the alternatives.