Greenpeace tells Philippines to ditch nuclear ambitions

Urges government to focus in developing renewable energy solutions instead

Manila, 28 September 2007–Greenpeace today denounced claims made by the
Department of Energy (DOE) that nuclear energy will reduce electricity
costs in the country as “pure and unmitigated fantasy with no factual
basis, and most likely orchestrated at the behest of the nuclear
industry to sell an unacceptable energy choice.” The group called upon
the Arroyo government to abandon its ill-advised nuclear ambitions and
instead focus on the development of tested and proven renewable energy
options including wind, solar and modern biomass energy systems

Citing from a Greenpeace report ‘Economics of Nuclear Power’, prepared
by independent energy analysts, the environmental group said that
nuclear power is neither a practical nor economically viable energy
choice. The construction and generating costs of nuclear power are
greater than most renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.
Plus, there are massive additional costs associated with nuclear
decommissioning and waste disposal. The report is supported by a recent
analysis undertaken by the World Energy Council, which showed that the
times taken to complete construction of nuclear reactors has increased
from 66 months in the mid 1970s, to 116 months (nearly 10 years) for
those constructed between 1995 and 2000. These massive construction
delays emphasize the fact that nuclear power will deliver too little,
too late.

“It is completely outrageous and baseless for the government to claim
that nuclear power will ensure energy security and bring down the price
of electricity. Nuclear power plants are extremely capital intensive and
their construction always suffer from budget overruns, reaching in some
cases up to 300% more than projected. They also take a long time to
build, on the average exceeding four years more than planned. Worse,
nuclear power leaves a dangerous waste legacy that is incredibly
expensive and difficult to deal with.” said Greenpeace Climate and
Energy Campaigner Jasper Inventor.

From the beginning, the nuclear power industry has strongly suffered
under the complexity of its economics. Where nuclear power was expected
to become “too cheap to meter”, in reality it proved to be one of the
more expensive sources for electricity. Hardly any of the currently 435
commercial nuclear reactors in operation worldwide was built within the
planned time frames or budgets.

In addition, competitive electricity prices could only be achieved by
price regulations, direct and indirect subsidies to the production of
nuclear power, an extreme limitation of liability in case of accidents
(the Paris and Vienna Conventions), externalizing most environmental
costs of uranium mining and fuel production, and heavily subsidizing a
large part of the back-end costs (decommissioning and nuclear waste
processing and storage). It is now 29 years since the last order for a
new nuclear power plant in the US has been made and 34 years since the
last order for a plant was actually completed.

Beyond cost considerations nuclear plants are also inefficient, using
around 5% to 7% of their own energy to contain and cool nuclear
reactors, and creating transmission losses estimated at between 12% and
40%. There are also the obvious problems associated with building a
nuclear plant in a region prone to earthquakes, not to mention the
significant environmental and safety concerns associated with the
dangerous technology. Nuclear plants release toxic pollutants and gases
harmful to people, such as carbon-14, iodine-131, krypton, and xenon.
They also produce vast amounts of waste that remain dangerously
radioactive for more than 100,000 years. Up to now, no solution exists
for dealing with radioactive waste.

“The DOE’s current fantasies about developing nuclear energy is
distracting the government from pursuing real and clean energy
alternatives in the country. Investing in nuclear power is uneconomic
and unwise. The government should get real and focus instead on
developing proven and available renewable energy technologies and
energy efficiency measures. Such a strategy is anchored on the
recognition that our country is blessed with vast renewable energy
resources. We need solutions, not illusions,” said Inventor.

The Economics of Nuclear Power is available for download at:
www.greenpeace.org/the-economics-of-nuclear

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