03/06/08

Yes to nuclear power but cautiously

Engineer Alessandro Ovi, editor of Technology Review, has his say

I am following the debate on the return of nuclear power with great interest, but at the same time I feel a bit sad and worried.

I feel sad because I think nuclear engineering is one of the most elaborate, crucial and fascinating. I got my degree in Nuclear Engineering in 1968 at the Polytechnic in Milan, a city where I carried out some research on the Enrico Fermi reactor at Città Studi, and I worked on the Essor reactor at Ispra and the Cirene one at Latina.

Then, I joined the MIT where I learnt that, without a thorough knowledge of a “country’s system”, deriving from being acquainted with military nuclear power, it is difficult to account for a safe and reasonably-priced production of huge amounts of nuclear power.

When I came back to Italy, I changed my job, but I voted in favour of nuclear power at the 1987 referendum and I kept on being interested in the sector by managing the Italian edition of Technology Review, the MIT journal.

I feel worried as I think all the information concerning a return to nuclear power is not in keeping with a relaxed and factual view, which is necessary to plan a correct energy policy, at a time when oil is worth 130 dollars a barrel and the greenhouse effect is a nightmare.

Here are three remarks:

First: I don’t know any impartial pro-nuclear power expert who can claim that a plant may be built and come on-stream in 8-10 years’ time, even with the adoption of the most advanced (third generation) technologies. Actually no one can think of a plant whose implementation may occur in five years, mainly because identifying the sites where it may stand and where to stockpile the radioactive waste, is no easy task.

Second: when we get people to believe that nuclear power may offset the grain ‘biofuel’ effect on wheat prices, that is not correct. Bio-fuels are not used to run nuclear plants but cars, which, at the moment (before the coming of hydrogen) cannot rely on nuclear power.

Third: the view that ‘poor’ countries may gain benefit from nuclear power without transferring them any technology, is outdated and against history. We hear of ‘sealed’ reactors, managed by French, American and Japanese producers, but no one is attracted by these ‘colonial scented’ systems.

People from the third world need energy but they want to produce it on their own, they want it available everywhere and they look for systems which are easy to be installed; actually most of them live in hot climates, so they can rely more on solar panels and think of the desert as a ‘solar farm’ and of the roofs of their grid-excluded huts when they need electricity for switch a light or to drive a water pump.
These are just some remarks which have to bring us to consider nuclear power only in a well organized energy strategy. I do insist on the long times necessary to build nuclear power stations since we live in a context where alternative energy sources, from solar systems to algal bio-fuels, are undergoing relevant innovations.

For example, solar photovoltaic systems will certainly have a grid parity in five years’ time, when they become competitive without the support of incentives; by then the prices of solar cells are estimated to be 1,000€ per kw. Of course, that also depends on the location (Catania will be better than Bologna but worse than Addis Abeba).

I know American companies that have gained hundreds of millions of dollars by supplying new technologies in California and Brandenburg. FirstSolar, the first ever listed on the Stock Exchange has grown by 700% in one year. The USA believe in that and, however, for some years they haven’t built any nuclear plants.
We need balanced investments on zero-emission sources and newer generation technologies, not on the ones that we are still using. This is valid also for fourth generation nuclear power stations that actually provide new solutions in terms of safety, waste disposal and supplies of uranium, which, however, is already running short.

If we start again building nuclear power stations adopting the present technologies it is as if we resumed making coaches (certainly more beautiful and comfortable) at a time when the first car factories are about to open.