With the cost of oil soaring and supply dwindling, is nuclear power the way to secure energy supplies and stall climate change? Jamie Smyth examines the arguments
The plumes of steam stretching into the sky are visible from about 20 miles away. Eight huge chimney stacks, each as tall as a 30-storey skyscraper, gradually emerge from below the vapour cloud. A few minutes later our car ploughs through a forest of electricity pylons and strange green pipes begin snaking their way through the barren snowcovered fields that surround the Bohunice nuclear power plant in Slovakia.
An effigy of Jesus looks on mournfully from a roadside shrine as we turn into the plant. Several derelict buildings on the site, all peeling paint and broken windows, do little to calm the nerves amid vivid memories of Chernobyl, which killed scores of people and spread radioactivity throughout Europe almost 20 years ago.
Indeed, Bohunice is no stranger to accidents. In 1977 there was a near meltdown of the reactor core when one of the fuel rods carrying coolant became blocked during refuelling, causing large amounts of radioactive gas to leak into the atmosphere.
The incident forced the closure of one of Bohunice's five reactors, which is still being decommissioned - a process that will not finish until 2040 and probably beyond.
Almost 30 years after this accident, Bohunice is now gearing up to decommission its V1 plant, which contains two of the four remaining reactors on the site.
The European Union is insisting that Slovakia shuts down the reactors, which where built using Russian technology and are considered a threat to the nearby cities of Trnava in Slovakia and the Austrian capital Vienna, which lies less than 100 miles to the west of the plant.
Not surprisingly the management and 2,800 staff of Slovenske Elektrarne, who work at Bohinice, don't share the concerns expressed by the EU.
"This plant is not being decommissioned on safety grounds, it is purely a political decision. Safety is our top priority," says Dobak Dobroslav, a manager at the plant.
Dobroslav highlights the strategic importance of the Bohunice plant, which supplies Slovakia with more than 40 per cent of its energy requirements.
The two nuclear reactors up for decommissioning together produce 880 megawatts of electricity per year - equivalent to a quarter of Ireland's entire energy stock. In the context of the recent gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine it makes no sense to reduce energy generation, according to Dobroslav, who hopes the Slovak government will perform a U-turn on its pledge to the EU to decommission the two reactors in 2006 and 2008.
A few thousand miles away in Lithuania the government is faced with a similar conundrum over its Soviet-era Ignalina nuclear plant, which has the same type of reactor as the one which suffered an uncontrolled power surge that led to the Chernobyl disaster.
Half of the plant has already been closed and the remaining unit is due to be shut in 2009 under the terms of an agreement struck with the EU as part of Lithuania's accession treaty.
But Lithuanian economy minister Kestutis Dauksys said this month he wants to delay the closure until an alternative was found.
Lithuania is one of five EU countries that rely on nuclear power plants to produce more than 50 per cent of their electricity requirements and is understandably nervous at increasing its reliance on Russian gas.
Environmentalists now fear that growing concerns over security of energy supply will be used to delay the decommissioning of Soviet reactors in Europe and herald the construction of a new generation of plants.
"The chance of a nuclear accident of the same scale as Chernobyl occurring in Europe today is 100 times more than it was back in 1986 because of the much greater number of old nuclear reactors in operation," says Jan Haverkamp, an energy consultant who works for lobby group Greenpeace in the Czech Republic.
"Firms have also cut back on maintenance to save costs, thereby increasing the risks," alleges Haverkamp, who also cites increased threats posed by terrorism in Europe.
For example, the Bohunice nuclear reactors and control room have no concrete containment shell to protect against assaults from the air or from rocket-propelled grenades fired, according to a safety assessment he conducted for Greenpeace.
These concerns are dismissed by Bohunice's management, who point to an expensive safety upgrade undertaken in the 1990s that has resulted in more than 1,000 technical improvements. Similar upgrades to the 14 operational reactors in Europe still based on Soviet technology have also introduced faster automatic shut-down mechanisms for reactors and new procedures to improve human reactions.
The EU, which has earmarked more than €1 billion in aid to help decommission the reactors in Slovakia and Lithuania, is opposed to extending both plants' lifespans despite concerns over security of gas supply. But there are signs that the EU is now warming to nuclear energy and the construction of new reactors after years of doubt.
Last week energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs said the EU would look at the nuclear option in its energy green paper due for publication in March as a way of reducing Europe's dependency on gas imports for its energy. Analysts also forecast the rebirth of nuclear power after a very tough 20 years since the Chernobyl disaster.
"EU countries import significant amounts of Russian gas, about 27 per cent of their total energy demand. But following the recent gas wars the EU may speed efforts to diversify its energy sources," says Elena Herold, analyst with the US energy consultancy PFC Energy, who notes even Germany is reconsidering nuclear power.
This is a highly-charged political question in Germany, where the SPD party favours sticking to a previous commitment to phase out the 18 nuclear plants in Germany while conservatives in the SPD-CDU coalition Government are urging a rethink.
Britain is also predicted to put nuclear energy back at the heart of its future energy strategy when it announces the results of a major policy review later this year. British prime minister Tony Blair is thought to privately favour nuclear power and in a recent policy speech on the topic said the review would "include specifically the issue of whether we facilitate the development of a new generation of nuclear power stations".
France, the EU's biggest proponent of nuclear energy, this month unveiled its fourth generation of nuclear reactor, the European pressurised water reactor (EPR). It is also the host of the international thermonuclear experimental reactor, a sevencountry project aimed at developing an experimental, long-term nuclear plant that would begin providing power during the second half of this century.
But it is not simply security of supply that is reigniting the interest in nuclear power. Increasingly it is environmental factors, and principally climate change.
Even a few anti-nuclear activists, such as Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore - who broke away from the movement in the 1980s - and the late Friends of the Earth board member Bishop Hugh Montefiore, recently jumped on the bandwagon. Moore recently described nuclear energy as "the only non-greenhouse gas-emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand".
Some environmentalists are being persuaded about the merits of nuclear power by a growing number of scientists who argue that nuclear energy is the cleanest and safest option available.
"There are other big benefits provided by nuclear energy, not least that nuclear energy eliminates the problems caused by generating electricity by burning fossil fuels," says Bernard Cohen, an US physics professor and author of The Nuclear Energy Option.
"Nuclear eliminates problems with air pollution, global warming, fuel shortages in the future," says Cohen, who argues that thenew generation of nuclear reactors being built now are much safer than the old-style Soviet reactors.
"Averaged over time, nuclear accidents in the US may kill two people per year whereas air pollution from coal-burning electricity kills about 10,000 people per year," adds Cohen, who says there is still huge public misunderstanding of the dangers and risks posed by radiation, reactor accidents and nuclear waste.
There are also signs that public hostility to nuclear energy is waning as climate change becomes evident.
For example, a report published last week by the Centre for Environmental Risk and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia found that 54 per cent of people surveyed said they would be prepared to accept new nuclear power stations if it would tackle climate change.
Yet proposing nuclear energy as a magic solution to climate change is simplistic and skews the debate on energy supplies, according to some experts, such as the Tyndall Centre's Kevin Anderson.
His research shows that the electricity generated by nuclear power plants accounts for just 3.6 per cent of the total energy used in Britain because of the huge transport and heating sectors.
It is these sectors of the economy, which are reliant on fossil fuels, that need to be addressed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas, says Anderson.
Advances in reactor technology are also making nuclear energy a much more economical option, according to Luis Echávarri, director general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency.
"The cost issue is very important for politicians because they need to ensure that the industries in their states have an efficient source of electricity," says Echávarri, who notes that policy makers within the OECD started showing a renewed interest in nuclear power about two years ago.
The recent gas dispute intensified this interest, by introducing supply issues alongside cost and climate change to the debate, he says.
An OECD study comparing the cost of producing electricity from gas, oil, nuclear, and renewable sources published last year (but based on 2003 oil prices of $27 per barrel) show that nuclear energy is no more expensive than fossil fuel sources.
"Nuclear energy in the US and France proved to be very efficient and competitive, and the oil and gas prices significantly higher than the $27 figure used in the study is attractive," says Echávarri, who notes the study included the high cost of commissioning and decommissioning nuclear power stations and dealing with waste.
With oil prices now hovering above $60, nuclear energy looks even cheaper.
Yet the question of what to do with the radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors remains a highly controversial subject. The high-level radioactive waste contained within the core of a nuclear reactor contains uranium and plutonium that remains dangerous for thousands of years and must be stored for very long periods.
No EU countries, with the exception of Finland, have built the type of long-term storage facilities required to deal with waste over these time periods. Public opposition to the facilities is considerable and may prove a barrier to nuclear energy.
Nevertheless, the combination of low operating costs, anxieties over security of fossil fuel supplies and global warming are creating a resurgence in orders for nuclear plants. Analysis by the World Nuclear Association shows there are 24 nuclear reactors under construction worldwide and plans by states to build a further 113 reactors.
China and India are proposing to build 43 of these planned nuclear reactors alone.
So while the old generation of Soviet-style nuclear reactor - such as the one in Bohunice, Slovakia - are gradually decommissioned over the next five years, member states across Europe look set to start building a new generation.