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For a
clean, safe, reliable and competitive
energy source
Helsinki 18.10.2001
• Presentation of Bruno Comby
• Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy
• Our present and future challenges
• Environmental role of nuclear power
• Well designed, built, operated and
maintained nuclear power is safe
• CONCLUSIONS
www.ecolo.org
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• Bruno
Comby is a French physicist having a diploma from
Ecole Polytechnique and the National University of
Advanced Technical Sciences.
• He is a prolific writer and his books cover
a wide range of topics dealing with many aspects of
modern life in the pursuit of a more equilibrated
life, for a better and cleaner world.
• Mr Comby is a determined environmentalist
and he considers the reconciliation of technology
and environmental values as one of the main issues
of modern social thinking. Mr Comby has
participated to more than 400 TV and radio programs
on issues varying from nuclear policy to better
sleeping.
• Popular performer in television, radio and
environmental trade fairs .
• All his activities are thus characterized by
the search of a green way of life.
• He is the founder of the association
Environmentalists in favor of Nuclear Energy and
author of the book "Environmentalists For Nuclear
Energy".
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In favor of
:
A happy, prosperous and healthy civilization
Respect of the environment and future
generations
A clean beautiful planet
Intelligent marriage of technology and ecology
Civil use of nuclear power for the good of
mankind
Real and full information to the public
Against:
Use of nuclear power for military applications
Stupid accidents
Pollution of the planet
Irreversible environmental destruction
Misinformation and withholding of information
• EFN is an organization formed by average
citizens united by a common view on the
environmental advantages of nuclear energy in good
security conditions.
• The organization is open to all interested
people irrespective of age, profession or political
views. It is in fact an objective to the
organization to have a diversified community of
members from various origins. All members of the
association must naturally accept the petition in
favor of clean nuclear energy.
• EFN gets its resources essentially from
membership fees and donations. EFN has more than
5000 members and supporters presently , which is
far more than imagined when the association was
created in 1996. EFN received the communication
prize of the French nuclear society in 1999.
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A new
approach to the nuclear debate:
• Most environmentalists have been strongly
opposed to nuclear energy in the past. Our opinion
is that nuclear energy is the
GREENEST FORM OF ENERGY AVAILABLE.
• For environmental reasons, it should and
will be chosen as the main source of electricity in
the XXIst century, by developed countries.
• Would it not be possible to combine nature
and technology? An intelligent use of technological
progress is necessarily respectful of the
environment.
• When we think about it, after all, the
scientific and environmental approaches have
exactly the same goal: contributing to better
knowledge of our universe, the well-being of
mankind, and improvement of the environment and of
the living conditions on our planet.
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• We are as
environmentalists very strong supporters of
economies in energy consumption. In spite of that,
it appears evident that, because of our life habits
and development of the third world the world energy
consumption will continue to grow rapidly.
• We must face this fact and look for
solutions in order to achieve reasonable growth
respecting the principle of sustainable growth.
• Industrial development is acceptable so long
as natural equilibrium are respected both locally
and globally, and so long as the planet's natural
resources are used without causing major changes in
environmental parameters. Permissible modifications
should be limited in time and space.
• Any change in the value of an environmental
parameter induced by human intervention is, by
definition, considered to be significant if it
exceeds the natural variations of the same
parameter as a function of location or of time, in
the same location.
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• The
world energy consumption is very unevenly
distributed among the world population.
• Very great care must be taken in
industrialized countries while considering the
growth of energy consumption. Energy conservation
is our priority, and the energy that is considered
necessary should be produced in the cleanest
possible way, not only a for a few percent of the
production but for the entire base load
production.
• In developing countries the situation is
very different. The growth of energy consumption is
necessary to guarantee the population an acceptable
standard of living, health care, food production,
communication general security, and in the coming
decades, drinkable water production by
desalinization will become a major issue, requiring
massive amounts of energy.
• Developing countries do not yet have the
technical and social infrastructure necessary to
take benefit of nuclear power in a secure and
economical way.
• For this reason, advanced industrial nations
have a particular responsibility in producing
energy with minimum C02 emissions in order to allow
poor countries to use fossil energy.
• New ecological forms of energy production
are under development (wind, solar etc.). None of
them has the capacity to present a new solution to
the world energy equation.
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• The
increase in the level of CO2 released into the
atmosphere by our industrial society is considered
by most specialists as a major contribution to the
greenhouse effect, which is warming up the
planet.
• The atmospheric CO2 level is higher now than
it has ever been in more than 100 000 years.
• We can reasonably modify our environment for
what we consider at a given moment to be good or
better (which are highly relative notions) for
life, for our species, for our nutrition, for our
well-being, or for any other economic, ideological,
or other reason, but only provided that we respect
certain limits.
• But if we risk 3significantly2 modifying
natural parameters, we step over the limits of what
is reasonable, by transforming the environment to
which life on earth and human beings are adapted.
This can have serious consequences, some of them
wholly unpredictable.
• It is both very urgent and fundamental to
make our very best in order to safeguard the
athmosphere.. On this road the Kyoto treaty is a
first step. A much more important reduction would
in fact be necessary.
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Nuclear
energy represents (1998)
• A 30%
reduction in world coal consumption (or 17 %
reduction of oil consumption).
• 3 billion tons per year of CO2 not
emitted
• 0,1 % local increase in natural
radiation
• Nuclear power makes it possible for most
modern countries to be energy independent. This
strategic motivation strongly contributed to the
development of the nuclear power industry in Europe
at the time of the first oil shock, in 1973.
• Many nations' dependence on oil has
decreased since the 1970s, thanks to the
development of nuclear energy. The "energy war" has
thus been forestalled for the moment.
• Knowledge of the true ecological properties
of nuclear power can help to do much more in the
future.
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• The
production of 1 kWh of electricity by burning coal,
gas, or fuel oil, releases about one cubic meter of
CO2, that aggravates the greenhouse effect.
• The production of 1 kWh of electricity by a
nuclear power unit releases absolutely no CO2
whatsoever.
• Nuclear power plants release negligible
amounts of chemicals and very low doses of
radioactivity into the environment.
• Fossil plants release millions of metric
tons of toxic chemical wastes and billions of cubic
meters of toxic gases.
• It clearly shows that nuclear power is much
more environmentally friendly than coal, gas, or
oil for the production of the same amount of
energy.
• Thanks to nuclear power, in just 20 years,
from 1973 to 1993, the atmospheric pollution in
France per kWh of electricity produced (carbon
dioxide, sulfur dioxide; and nitrous oxides) has
decreased tenfold.
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•
Nuclear power and alternative sources of energy are
complementary and and not competing forms of
energy.
• The production of nuclear power can only be
centralized and distributed nationally and even
internationally, while solar and wind power
production is typically decentralized, irregular,
and destined to be consumed on site.
• Nuclear power plants and alternative
energies are therefore not competitors, but instead
are perfectly complementary, nuclear being the best
energy from both the standpoint of respect of the
environment and economics for supplying the base
load electricity consumed nationally.
• This does not exclude local development of
solar or other energy production systems, as a
function of the particularities of each site (sun,
wind, hydro, biomass sites, etc.).
• The comparison of French (56 nuclear units
from 900 to 1450 MW) and Danish (around 1000 wind
power units) CO2 emissions per produced amount of
electricity is a demonstration of the environmental
capacity of nuclear power.
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•
Available resources allow to continue nuclear
generation for a very long time, without any threat
of shortage of uranium, Nuclear energy is a
domestic form of energy.
• Proven resources are in the same range than
those of coal that is they correspond to the use of
several centuries at the present level.
• Uranium is widespread on the earth and its
availability is not depending on some specific
regions of the planet. Nuclear power allows to
avoid the risks of international crisis due to cost
and availability of energy (reason for the
implementation of the French nuclear program).
• Recycling and use of fast breeder reactors
can greatly extend the availability of uranium.
• Environmentalists should take a very strong
position in favor of recycling and fast neutron
reactors as they make it possible to produce 50 to
100 times more energy with the same amount of
natural uranium.
• The political decision to close the
SuperPhenix fast breeder reactor in France had no
economical, technical or environmental
justification.
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A
nuclear plant build for power generation cannnot
explode like an atomic bomb becaue it is physically
impossible
• The
uranium fuel is in form of pellets enriched to
around 3% of U235.
• The pellets are sealed inside zirconium
tubes that are grouped in bundles to form fuel
elements, (virgule) that together form the core of
the plant.
• The reactivity of the chain reaction is
controlled by means of control rods placed between
the fuel elements.
• In Finland and France water is used to slow
down the neutrons (moderator) and to transform the
energy into heat.
• The core of the reactor is enclosed in a
very strong steel pressure vessel.
• The reactor is placed in a very thick
reinforced concrete containment building, thus
there a three very strong successive barriers
between the fuel and the atmosphere.
• The continuous cooling of the plant is
insured by several independent cooling systems in
order insure the cooling in all conditions.
• The Three Mile island accident was a "stupid
accident" due to human error. The protection system
fulfilled their function in a good way thus
eliminating practically all pollution.
• Chernobyl was a Soviet political accident
due to irresponsible use of a by construction
insecure plant.
• New generations of plants take benefit of
the huge experience of operators in order to
continually improve all aspects of nuclear safety.
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Environmentalists
have chosen a wrong goal
when attacking nuclear power
Natural
Radioactivity:
• About 67 to 68% of the radiation that we are
exposed to (on average) is natural and comes from
space (cosmic and solar rays at sea level: 0.5 mSv
per year), from the radio-activity of the soil
called "tellurian" radioactivity (from 0.5 to 400
mSv depending on the nature of the ground,
averaging 1 mSv per year in most regions), and from
the human body itself (an average of about 1 mSv
per year, depending on the food we eat and the
quantity of natural radon in the air that we
breathe).
Medical Radioactivity:
• About 32% of the radiation that we receive
(on average) in the industrialized countries
results from the use of medical imaging techniques
(medical radiology: chest X-rays, dental X-rays,
scanner examinations, etc.) and from the injection
of radioactive products into the body for medical
purposes (for scintigraphy or radiotherapy, for
example).
Artificial Radioactivity:
• Less than 1% of the total radioactivity to
which we are exposed is of artificial origin,
non-medical, and due to the military or civilian
nuclear industry.
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Radioactivity
at doses we usually receive is not dangerous to our
health
In case we
wanted to avoid radioactivity we should do the
following:
- Fight
against the natural radioactivity of the ground
(which is of course impossible to eliminate) and
avoid to live in areas where the soil contains
important amounts of granit or uranium.
- We should
also stop sleeping alongside our boy- or
girl-friend, because the human body is naturally
radioactive.
- Avoid
flying in airplanes. (ajouter le point)
- Avoid
exposure to the sun's rays (solar light is nothing
but nuclear radiation emitted by the sun's nuclear
reactions).
- We should
oppose medical radiology. (ajouter le point)
- Oppose to
all military use of nuclear science which for as is
an aberration, international stability can
certainly be obtained with other means than by
mutual threat of total destruction.
• Civil nuclear energy used to fabricate
electricity plays such a small role in overall
radioactivity (historical accidents included) that
limiting it has no real effect to our exposure to
radioactivity.
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Nucler
energy in France produces 1 kg waste per
capita/year. 90 % of it is low or medium
active waste.
High
activity waste represents 100 g. 9 % of it
can be recycled and only 10 g must be put
into a repository.
The
total production of high activity waste by
an average French family durng its life
time is about the size of an ice hockey
puck.
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• The
nuclear industry is the only one that releases
practically no toxic chemical waste into the
environment, unlike the oil, gas, and coal
industries, agriculture, the chemical industry, and
the industries that produce and transform consumer
goods.
• The vitrified, high-level radioactive
nuclear wastes corresponding to a whole lifetime's
consumption of electricity for an average modern
family in France represents a very small volume, in
the form of a cylinder only about three centimeters
in diameter and eight centimeters long.
• The low level radioactive waste and short
lived waste have found a definitive solution in
France.
• Development of the final repository or other
technologies concerning the high level waste is on
going.
• Thanks to the slow accumulation of the waste
the final solution can be implemented in good time
in order to respect the ecological principle of the
responsibility of our generation which is operating
the plants.
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1 Radioactive
wastes are confined, whereas chemical wastes are
rejected into the environment.
2 The radioactivity of radioactive wastes decreases
spontaneously with time (at various rates,
depending on the radioactive elements), whereas a
stable toxic chemical substance retains its toxic
and harmful properties with respect to the
environment indefinitely.
3 The volumes of toxic chemical substances that are
currently discharged each year by industry and
agriculture into the environment are thousands of
times greater than the volume of radioactive wastes
(which are stored and monitored).
• The principle of installing final
repositories underground at great depth is fully
satisfactory.
• In this area Finland is at the forefront of
the development
Spent fuel can also be reprocessed allowing to
recycle the remaining unburnt energetically
valuable material.
• This solution is viable in countries where
the amount of produced and used fuel is sufficient
to allow an economical operation.
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• For
EFN, nuclear energy is therefore the cleanest
energy massively available.
• More efficient uses of energy and self
sustainable life styles should be promoted, and
nuclear energy should replace fossil energy
wherever possible.
THE REAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES LIE ELSEWHERE:
• Overpopulation , starvation, malnutrition,
political unrest in third world countries, drugs,
alcohol and cigarette addictions, destruction of
tropical forests, chemical pollution of the
environment, urban wastes.
• Many environmentalists are still, even
today, fiercely hostile to nuclear power, but
wrongly, in my opinion.
• A better and more humane world will never be
the fruit of a new political system or economic
system: these are just consequences. Real changes
can only be made by every one of us acting
responsibly, within our own sphere of
responsibility.
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