Nuclear is Not the Solution : The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change by M.V. Ramana
Professor M.V. Ramana’s new book goes much further than a conventional accounting of the well-documented problems that plague the nuclear power industry. The huge cost overruns and multiyear delays in construction and the substantial subsidies channelled to the nuclear industry are well-documented. Ramana focuses on the profitable synergies that have flourished between the nuclear power industries and the governments that work with them.
The ‘nuclear renaissance’ is big business, as Ramana explains: “The primary purpose of the new reactor designs is not to produce energy safely or cheaply, but to make money for those investors in the short term.”
Ramana is particularly strong when analysing the way large engineering companies work together to build alliances that generate a broader pro-nuclear coalition that brings additional influence and dimensionality to industry lobbying. This emphasis on the political economy of nuclear power is one of the strengths of the book. For example, it seems that in America, even the decommissioning of shuttered nuclear plants can be a profitable enterprise. The accounting firm PwC has stated that decommissioning is potentially a multi-billion-dollar industry particularly for firms that claim to have developed novel forms of waste management.
One aspect that was new to me was that many of the large engineering firms that are involved as sub-contractors in the construction of nuclear generating stations are also closely tied in the fossil fuel industry. Gas extraction processing plants and petroleum refineries need boilers, heat exchangers, pumps, compressors, and other heavy engineering equipment. Ramana points out that these firms (for instance, Babcock and Wilcox and Bechtel) have little interest in seeing the demise of coal and the down-sizing of fossil gas extraction and processing. Nuclear power is therefore just another profit centre to add to the portfolio they already have. For these firms, nuclear power is not intended to replace fossil fuels; it is a substantial source of additional revenue.
Many private companies profit handsomely from both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons including Bechtel, Babcox and Wilcox (now BWX technologies), Fluor, and Rolls Royce. Bechtel in particular is heavily involved in the maintenance of the US’s nuclear arsenal as well as nuclear energy. It maintains its position close to the centres of political power by shuttling its top executives into government positions and welcoming them back later—a trend we have seen in Canada.
The overlap and synergies between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons is treated in detail. The industry and pro-nuclear position that there is no close relation and that a civilian nuclear program can be established without the risk of proliferation is not supported by the facts. The US Department of Energy has stated that “Virtually any combination of plutonium isotopes … can be used to make a nuclear weapon,” meaning that nuclear power plants can also be a source of plutonium for nuclear weapons. An operating nuclear power station provides the institutional and technical basis for a weapons program even if such a program is not yet under consideration. At least officially. Such thinking may explain why Saudi Arabia is interested in acquiring a nuclear power station when the availability of solar energy over huge swathes of desert land is enormous. But if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon Saudi Arabia will respond; as Prince Mohamed Bin Sulman has made clear: “Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we would follow suit as soon as possible.” The importance of a civilian nuclear program in establishing the foundational capacities to develop a weapons program could not be clearer. In fact, two-thirds of the operating nuclear reactors worldwide are in countries with nuclear weapons.
Ramana also recognises the reality that all energy systems require substantial material inputs that rely on the continuing extraction of massive amounts of materials, which is clearly unsustainable. He writes “Although climate change has been widely recognised as a major problem, few confront that problem by examining and critiquing the globalized capitalist system that is driving it, in an unending search for profit through extraction, production, and ever-increasing consumption.”
Finally, the much-touted claim that nuclear energy is essential to resolve the climate crisis is a cynical marketing ploy by an industry whose primary concern is to find new ways to bolster flagging profits. Only a swift and widespread transition to renewable sources of energy and the phasing out of fossil fuels will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the point where a condition of net zero emissions may be possible. The so-called ‘nuclear renaissance’ based on supposedly ‘advanced’ reactors is just a clever marketing strategy for a failing industry. It will divert billions of dollars away from the renewable energy technologies that could actually make a difference.
Nuclear is not the Solution should be read by all Canadians and especially by Ontarians. Doug Ford’s government is set to spend close to $100 billion on nuclear energy construction and refurbishing programs to generate electricity that renewable sources of energy backed up by modern energy storage systems could provide in a third of the time and at half the cost. But nuclear power is in many ways the perfect enterprise for 21st century capitalism. Ramana quotes Naom Chomsky: “What you have is a system of socialization of risk and privatisation of profit.” That’s a very attractive attribute and one which likely explains the provincial government’s comfortable and mutually-beneficial alliance with Canada’s nuclear industry and its obsessive determination to favour nuclear power over the renewable energy technologies that could more rapidly meet future electricity demand at a much lower cost.
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Martin Bush is a member of SCAN!’s Education Committee.
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