TL: GREENPEACE/ES2 ISSUE: NUCLEAR POWER SO: GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL, (GP) DT: JUNE, 1997 SUMMARY: Commercial nuclear power was born out of the so called "atoms for peace" programme after World War II. Scientists and politicians made enthusiastic claims about the benefits that nuclear energy would bring to the world. It was claimed that nuclear electricity would become "too cheap to meter". At the end of 1996 there were 437 commercial nuclear reactors in operation around the world, and "officially" 39 under construction. There is more nuclear power capacity being lost through reactor closures than there is by reactors being built. PROBLEM STATEMENT: The consequences of a major nuclear power accident are truly catastrophic. No other electricity generating system creates such risks. The accident that "could never happen", happened at Chernobyl in 1986, caused radioactive contamination to spread across the European continent. Chernobyl has caused and continues to cause health, environmental, economic and social impacts thousands of miles away. In the countries most affected it is expected that the total cost of the accident will be over $300 billion. At the time of the accident over 400 000 people were evacuated from their homes. Nuclear waste is produced at every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle: uranium mining; enrichment; fuel fabrication; reactor operation; and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Most of the current proposed 'solutions' for dealing with nuclear waste envisage burying it underground with the hope that radioactivity does not escape. This "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy was born largely under the pressures of having to convince a worried public that nuclear industry knows how to dispose of its wastes rather than having been based on a proven safety case. While nuclear waste certainly will be a problem in the future, it is also a problem for today's society. In country after country, region after region, individuals and communities are rejecting nuclear waste disposal schemes. For example, in 1996 protests against the dumping of radioactive waste in the north of Germany caused the mobilisation of over 30,000 police and cost the taxpayer over 100 million DM (US$53m). The only "solution" to the problem is that nuclear waste should stop being produced anywhere in the world and that the existing waste be managed to the highest possible standard. The original use of separated plutonium was the manufacture of nuclear weapons. As well as producing a nuclear waste legacy, nuclear power plants produce plutonium, the primary material used in most nuclear weapons. The links between the civilian use of nuclear technology and military applications is one of the most disturbing aspects of the nuclear age. But it is hardly surprising. The very first crude nuclear reactors were specifically built in the 1940s and 1950s in order to produce plutonium for the United States, the former Soviet Union and British nuclear weapons. As nuclear power technology spreads around the globe so does the risk of nuclear proliferation. Nuclear weapons can be constructed using plutonium from military or civilian sources. Today, the growing stockpiles of "civilian" plutonium add greatly to the concern of nuclear proliferation. Ultimately, the only way to stop nuclear weapons production and proliferation is an international accord banning the production and use of plutonium and other weapons-usable fissile materials. SOME KEY FACTS: Reactors world-wide are ageing, creating new and unanticipated safety problems. These problems start to occur when the reactors have about 20 years of operation, sometimes less. By the turn of the century about 200 nuclear power plants will have been in operation world-wide for longer than 20 years. Half of these will be at least 25 years old. **** Some radioactive waste is so highly radioactive that it will have to be isolated from the environment for 250 000 thousand years. This entails building a containment which will last 50 times longer than the time that the first Egyptian pyramids have existed until today. **** Over 160,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel alone, had been produced by the end of 1995. Thousands of cubic metres of other types of radioactive waste already exist. **** Over 2000 nuclear weapons tests took place in the atmosphere, under the sea and underground, before a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1996. GREENPEACE'S INVOLVEMENT IN THE ISSUE: Greenpeace has been working against the development and use of nuclear weapons since the Organization started in 1971, with a protest against nuclear weapons testing by the U.S. In 1978 Greenpeace began its campaign against the expansion of nuclear power in the United States, a year before the Three Mile Island accident occurred. At the same time, in Europe, Greenpeace began a campaign against the dumping of radioactive waste at sea, which would continue until 1993 when the dumping was finally banned. The campaign against the transportation and reprocessing of nuclear waste began in 1979 and continues today against the reprocessing industries in France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, Greenpeace intensified its work on the safety of nuclear reactors by highlighting the dangers that nuclear power posed and the viability of alternative sources of energy. Greenpeace continues to campaign for a phase-out of nuclear power and an end to the separation of plutonium. SOLUTIONS: The essential solution is a phase-out of nuclear power and the end to nuclear fuel reprocessing. Nuclear power must be replaced by ecologically sustainable energy systems - such as solar, wind, bio- fuel plantations, energy efficiency and conservation. This will require: 1) an immediate halt to the construction of all new nuclear reactors; 2) all loans and grants for the completion and/or upgrading of nuclear reactors should be abandoned and redirected to renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies; 3) all countries with nuclear power must develop sustainable energy programmes based on the rapid phase-out of existing nuclear power plants; 4) transfer of all government subsidies from nuclear power to renewable and energy efficiency programmes; 5) all national and international funding for research and development on developing nuclear power should be redirected into renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes; 6) an immediate halt to the separation and use of all weapons- usable fissile materials; and 7) existing radioactive waste must be kept in a monitorable, retrievable condition. RELEVANT REPORTS: 1) International Nuclear Reactor Hazard Study, Greenpeace 1986. World Nuclear Industry Status Report, 1992, 1995, 1997; 2) Liquid Discharges from European Reprocessing Facilities, May 1997; 3) Energy Subsidies in Europe. How Governments use taxpayers' money to promote Climate change and nuclear risk, 1997.