Report of a seminar organised

jointly by the Institute

of Physics and the
Royal Society of Chemistry on
15 December 2005

Future of Nuclear Power Addressing the Barriers

By 2025 the
world demand
for electricity is
expected to rise to
23,000 terawatt
hours, around double
that in 2003

Nuclear generation
is almost carbonfree, and new
technologies have
emerged that
have improved its
efciency

There is an urgent need to re-evaluate the role of nuclear

power in maintaining adequate, stable and economic
energy supplies in a future carbon-sensitive economy.1
Previously, the UK Government had stated that it had no
plans to build any new nuclear plant;2 however, recently,
in the light of expert opinion on technical and economic
developments, the Government has decided to review
the nuclear option.3 Nevertheless, there are a number
of uncertainties about safety and security that trouble
the public, and clearly, acceptability of a new nuclear
programme will depend on reassurances about perceived
risks, real or imaginary. To consider these risks, and their
impact on public perception, the Institute of Physics and
the Royal Society of Chemistry held a joint seminar in
December 2005.
Graham Ward, past chair of the British
Energy Association and a Senior Partner
of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, chaired the
seminar. Professor Bryn Bridges of the
Centre for Genome Damage and Stability,
University of Sussex, who formerly chaired the
Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation
in the Environment (COMARE),* discussed the
health risks associated with nuclear energy
production to local communities. Professor Neil
Chapman of the Department of Engineering
Materials, University of Sheeld and ITC School,
Switzerland, looked at waste management
strategies for future nuclear power stations.
Professor Peter Zimmerman of the Centre for
Science and Security Studies, Kings College
London, who has advised the US Government
on nuclear security, explored nuclear terrorism,
its relevance to power generation, and methods
of thwarting attacks. Finally, Malcolm Grimston,
Research Fellow at Imperial College and
Associate Fellow at Chatham House, described
the changing public perception of nuclear
power.
Graham Ward set the scene for the seminar

by explaining how increasing worries about

global warming, combined with the declining
output from the North Sea gas elds and the
recent sharp rise in the price of crude oil, had
brought energy policy to the top of the political
agenda. By 2025, carbon emissions worldwide
are expected to be around 40 billion tonnes
per year - three times the level they were in
1970 - while the world demand for electricity
is expected to rise to 23,000 terawatt hours,
around double that in 2003; in the UK alone, the
energy demand will increase by one and a half
times.
While clean coal technology, plus carbon
capture and storage, may oer partial answers
to the global warming issue, they are as yet
unproven on a commercial scale, said Mr Ward.
Similarly, microgeneration of heat and power at
the domestic level (for example, by use of solar
panels) will make a carbon-free contribution but it is unclear on what scale. Many believe that
renewables are the answer but serious concerns
exist that they will not meet the capacity
required, and that grid and power-station
structures and management are not easily

*COMARE is an independent expert advisory committee and part of the UK Health Protection Agency whose remit is to protect the
health and well-being of the population.
Chatham House is one of the worlds leading organisations for the analysis of international issues. It is membership-based and aims to
help individuals and organizations to be at the forefront of developments in an ever-changing and increasingly complex world.

Future of Nuclear Power Addressing the Barriers

adaptable to the inherent variability of energy
supply from wind and wave power.
In order to meet agreed targets for carbon
dioxide emissions while satisfying increasing
demands for energy, Mr Ward pointed out that
we are going need both greater diversity of
supply and new power plants. For this reason,
investment in new nuclear build is now being
considered at a governmental level. There are,
indeed, good reasons. Nuclear generation is
almost carbon-free, and new technologies have
emerged that have improved its eciency. The
World Nuclear Association, which represents
the nuclear energy industry, reports that
nuclear energy is now more cost-eective
than coal or natural gas, even if the recent
rise in fossil fuel prices is ignored. New plant
development continues in the Far East and in
Finland, and previous uncertainties about costs
of construction, commissioning, operation
and eventual decommissioning are gradually
reducing.
As the UKs current ageing nuclear power
stations are decommissioned over the
next decade or so, there is likely to be an
unacceptable energy gap unless plans for
new nuclear plant are rapidly put in place. This
clearly requires support from the public who
must therefore be given a balanced picture of
the risks and uncertainties surrounding nuclear
power within the context of overall energy
generation.
The two most emotive aspects of nuclear
power are, of course, anxiety about the
biological eects of radiation released from
nuclear processes, both during generation and
from the waste products or during an accident,
and anxiety about the misappropriation of
nuclear material and technology for military and
terrorist aims. The seminar participants looked
at each of these issues.
Risks of nuclear generation to health
Over the years, there has been concern about
observed cancer clusters around some of
the UKs nuclear sites, possibly as a result of
low-level radiation discharges. Bryn Bridges
described recent research, in particular work
carried out on childhood cancer. Ionising
radiation is by far the best understood human
carcinogen in the environment, he pointed

out. Epidemiological studies have shown that

the relation between concentrations of natural
radon found in homes and the corresponding
cancer risk is linear. They also show that
such low levels of radiation do not pose the
disproportionate dangers suggested in some
small-scale studies. Indeed, COMARE has looked
at these latter studies and found them all to be
awed because of poor methodology and faulty
arithmetic.
Nevertheless, the largest and most longlasting cancer cluster in children, at Seascale
near the Sellaeld re-processing plant in
Cumbria, is well established and has been
studied for nearly 20 years. Another leukaemia
cluster around the Dounreay test-reactor site in
Scotland was also conrmed in the 1990s. These
unexplained clusters led COMARE to carry out
a detailed project looking at the incidence of
childhood cancer around nuclear installations
within the context of overall distribution across
the country. The study probed the incidence
of childhood cancer (blood cancers and solid
tumours) within a 25-kilometre radius of all
major nuclear sites between 1969 and 1993.4
Analysis showed that there was no statistically
signicant increased risk of childhood cancer
associated with living near a nuclear power
station, said Professor Bridges. In the case of
other sites, Sellaeld and Dounreay showed
positive eects as previously observed;
however, neither can be directly attributed to
environmental radioactivity. For Dounreay, the
favoured explanation is population-mixing,
whereby the inow of people from dierent
backgrounds introduces infectious cancercausing agents that challenge the immune
systems of young children. For Sellaeld,
population mixing is also considered to be the
major factor - although radiologically based
synergic interactions cannot be ruled out,
pointed out Professor Bridges. Three other,
geographically overlapping sites, Aldermaston,
Burgheld and Harwell, also demonstrated
enhanced incidences of childhood leukaemia.
However, one of the risk factors for this disease
is auence, and these areas are among the
wealthiest in the country. Furthermore, the
coal-red power station at nearby Didcot
actually puts out more radioactivity than
the Aldermaston and Burgheld discharges

Ionising radiation
is by far the best
understood human
carcinogen in the
environment

As long as adequate
protection measures
are in force, nuclear
power stations do
not pose a threat to
health

Future of Nuclear Power Addressing the Barriers

The UK must
commit to a
programme for
managing these
wastes sooner or
later

combined, together with non-radioactive

pollution, thus making interpretation of data
even more dicult.
The current consensus is that as long as
adequate protection measures are in force,
nuclear power stations do not pose a threat
to health. Nevertheless, we should not be
complacent, said Professor Bridges. Over the
past 10 years, molecular techniques have
uncovered a whole new array of biological
responses to radiation in living cells, some of
which are indirect and can exist over several
generations; we know little about the secondary
eects of radiation exposure in pregnancy, he
said. Just recently, the Department of Health
decided to freeze spending on radiological
protection research. At a time when nuclear
power is again on the public agenda, this
decision seems singularly inappropriate, as
we still have much more to learn, commented
Professor Bridges.
Disposal of spent fuel

Waste disposal
should not be an
obstacle to new
nuclear build

The biggest objection to new nuclear build is

the problem of how to manage radioactivewaste disposal which some think presents an
unacceptable long-term risk. However, Neil
Chapman pointed out that we already have
wastes that must be disposed of in a geological
repository. As well as several hundred thousand
cubic metres of intermediate level waste there
will be: 1200 tonnes of spent fuel from Sizewell
B, 3500 tonnes from gas-cooled power stations,
plus another 3000 tonnes of reprocessed highlevel radioactive waste. The UK must commit
to a programme for managing these wastes
sooner or later, he said. A programme of 10
new reactors, each generating a gigawatt of
electricity over 60 years, would generate a
further 14,000 tonnes of spent fuel, which could
be easily incorporated into this programme.
The Committee on Radioactive Waste
Management (CoRWM)5 is in the process of
making recommendations to Government on
a management programme. What kinds of
solutions are being considered? The accepted
approach (supported by the European
Commission) is that spent fuel is emplaced
in suitable containers for disposal deep
underground. Several European countries are
already developing spent-fuel repositories.

Sweden has a plan to store waste in copper

containers suitable for disposal in a granite
repository to be operational by 2020. Finland
is also building a repository also to be ready
by 2020. The Swiss have a design that employs
thick walled steel containers for disposal in
clay. Twenty years of geological studies have
conrmed that the UK has a diversity of rock
types that are suitable, so that we are in a
position to take up any one of the European
designs or develop one of our own.
One possible route forward is that adopted
by Canada, which is a exible staged approach
called Adaptive Phased Management.6 The fuel
is stored at the reactor site for a period and then
being transferred to an underground storage
facility 40 or 50 metres below the surface for
several decades before being moved to a
permanent deep geological repository. Another
concept being considered in Japan is Cavern
Retrievable Storage (CARE),7 whereby the waste
is placed in containers in deep underground
caverns which are not lled and sealed for
several centuries. In this way, the waste can be
monitored and retrieved if required.
One of the most important issues in waste
management is public acceptability, so it is
important to have complete transparency when
choosing a location for the repository. One
approach is ask communities to volunteer to
host a site while oering clear nancial benets
for taking on the national responsibility.
The next question is can we aord it? The cost
of building a repository for the existing waste
is likely to be 3 or 4 billion pounds, and the
incremental eect of adding in further waste
from new power plants would be considerably
lower. The further 60 years of additional nuclear
power from much more ecient reactors will
generate 480 gigawatt years of electricity
compared with only 346 gigawatt years for
both past and future generation from current
nuclear plants. Professor Chapman explained
that one method of paying for disposal is to put
a levy on the new nuclear electricity generated.
One-tenth of a penny per kilowatt hour accrued
at a modest interest rate of 2.5 per cent would
accumulate enough funds in 30 years to dispose
of new spent fuel in a stand-alone repository,
and in 50 years the levy would pay for the
disposal of all UK radioactive wastes including

Future of Nuclear Power Addressing the Barriers

those we already have, suggested Professor
Chapman. To do this, of course, requires a
transparent and protected funding mechanism
so that money can be set aside over many years
into the future.
Professor Chapman concluded that waste
disposal should thus not be an obstacle to new
nuclear build. Because implementing a waste
management strategy will take many years, it is
important that we start working on it now, he
said. Such a programme will also require longterm political commitment.
Nuclear terrorism: the miscalculated problem
Another emotive issue concerning nuclear
power has more recently come to the fore
- that of nuclear terrorism: the mounting of an
attack on a nuclear installation so as to release
radioactive products into the environment, or
the misappropriation of nuclear materials to
make an explosive device.
Over the past few years, terrorist strategies
have changed. They no longer simply seek to
highlight a cause through small-scale brutal acts
- extremist groups now try to further their aims
by causing mass casualties in horric ways. A
nuclear or radiological assault clearly becomes a
credible threat.
One scenario is that nuclear power
stations might be vulnerable to attack. Peter
Zimmerman described a recent study by the
US National Academy of Sciences and National
Research Council which looked at whether
stores of spent nuclear fuel were safe. While
reactors themselves are protected in massive
containment structures, spent fuel is stored in
large water-lled basins, which are less secure.
If the water were drained out of a cooling pond,
the hot radioactive fuel rods would heat up and
self-ignite, resulting in a re that would quickly
spread to other ponds and eventually strew
large quantities of radioactive material over the
surrounding land.
Professor Zimmerman believes that there
are, however, simple ways to mitigate that
vulnerability. The study showed that by
changing the way that the fuel rods are stored
in the waste ponds, the possibility of re can be
reduced by well over an order of magnitude.The
ideal strategy is to store the hot spent-fuel rods
for 3 to 5 years in secure underground ponds.

They can then be transferred to dry casks for

interim above-ground and eventually long-term
geological storage (preferably monitored and
retrievable), as described earlier.
The spent-fuel casks, themselves, are
designed to be extremely safe. Tests carried out
- for example, dropping them from helicopters,
ring extremely heavy infantry weapons at
them (up and beyond anything a terrorist is
likely to have) or burning them in petrol res
- have barely been able to open a hole in a
container. Not one has been perforated, and
estimates for a worst-case scenario suggest that
the very small amount of radioactive material
released would remain localised.
Unfortunately, there is another aspect to
the safety of nuclear reactors, and the nuclear
fuel cycle in general. A terrorist group with
appropriate hardware might obtain enough
nuclear material to build a bomb - at least in
principle.8 The simplest device, as used on
Hiroshima, is a gun assembly using highly
enriched uranium (HEU). The bomb dropped on
Nagasaki was a more complicated plutonium
implosion device. Both designs would involve
extreme risk for a terrorist bomb-maker; the
plutonium device, in particular, would be
dicult to construct and would require noisy
testing. Nevertheless, low-yield nuclear devices
could be made using mixed uranium and
plutonium oxides, and these and other options
pose a serious security problem to which there
is no simple solution.
Professor Zimmerman emphasised, however,
that HEU and plutonium are not part of current
civil nuclear fuel cycles but are a legacy of
nuclear weapons. But they could become part
of the fuel cycle if fast-breeder and mixed-oxide
reactors are developed commercially. For this
reason, he felt that future strategies involving
the use of HEU and plutonium to generate
nuclear power should be discouraged.
So-called dirty bombs, in which radioactive
material produced for industrial or medical
purposes is dispersed using a conventional
chemical explosive, would be far simpler to
make than a nuclear device. But they would
kill far fewer people and the disruption would
largely be economic. Damage to the local
environment could be reduced by appropriate
regulatory management.

A terrorist group
with appropriate
hardware might
obtain enough
nuclear material
to build a bomb - at
least in principle

To defeat nuclear
terrorism, none of
our defences need
be perfect

Future of Nuclear Power Addressing the Barriers

Overselling of the
economic benets
in the early days has
also led to a degree
of disillusionment
and distrust

How do we prevent terrorists from obtaining

nuclear material? HEU and plutonium are
commercially traded, and it has been suggested
that a strategy could be implemented to lock
up the worlds supply of ssile material in
secure facilities, much as gold is kept under
lock and key in Fort Knox.9 However, Professor
Zimmerman pointed out that we dont know
how much has been made and where it all is,
and that we have no way ascertaining that it
was all secured anyway.
The best approach is to improve methods
of detecting ssile materials remotely, and
to devise multiple layers of security so that a
bomb-making project takes longer, resulting
in forced errors. These defences should be
combined with internationally coordinated
intelligence gathering and diligent watchfulness
on suspicious international nancial
transactions and money-laundering activities.
On an optimistic note, Professor Zimmerman
noted that to defeat nuclear terrorism, none of
our defences need be perfect. While the terrorist
has to beat our defences at every step of a
complicated chain - from obtaining the material
to turning it into a weapon, delivering it to its
target and detonating it - we need get lucky
only once, he said.
Nuclear power and public opinion

Considerably more
people now support
than oppose the
replacing of old
nuclear plant with
new build

While the above discussions suggest that there

need not be any serious safety or economic
obstacles to planning a new nuclear build
programme, clearly public acceptance is
important. Malcolm Grimston described how
over the past 50 years, opinion has see-sawed
from a positive outlook in the 1950s and 60s,
when the nuclear industry enthusiastically
promoted nuclear power as being clean and
cheap, to a negative view in the 1970s and
beyond, as a result of the rising environmental
movement which denounced nuclear power as
dirty and expensive.
The result has been that since 1978, 16
gigawatts-worth of nuclear power plants and
one mixed Oxide fuel production plant have
been closed or halted during the advanced
stages of construction for non economic
reasons in six OECD countries (Austria, Germany,
Italy, Spain Sweden and the US), some as a
direct result of referenda. Italy has phased

out nuclear power, Germany and Sweden

have adopted phase-out policies, as Belgium,
Switzerland adopted a 10-year moratorium
on new construction in 1990 (although later
abandoned). Several countries that do not
have operating nuclear power plants, such as
Australia, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland,
Norway and Poland, have put in place legal or
policy obstacles to nuclear power.
Today, though, as concerns increase over
climate change, amplied by major increases
in fossil fuel prices and the failure of largescale renewable schemes (as in Germany), Mr
Grimston said that we seem to be returning
to the message of the early days that nuclear
energy can be both clean and economic. The
recent dispute and Russias temporary decision
to cut o natural gas supplies to the Ukraine has
also heightened concerns about the security of
our own energy supply.
What does the public think? Much of the
debate between the proponents and opponents
of nuclear power has been passionate and
highly polarised, with the same degree of
certainty shown on both sides. In reality for
most of the population, nuclear energy is a
back-of-the-mind issue. Gauging public opinion
depends on how questions are phrased and in
what context. Most people who do consider the
issue are, in fact, realistic about the pros and
cons, though some feel a dicult-to express
unease, explained Mr Grimston.
Reasons for this are that the nuclear industry
is seen as secretive with links to the military,
and the proponents are regarded as arrogant,
often responding dismissively to commonsense concerns about waste management, for
example. Overselling of the economic benets
(it was once claimed that nuclear energy would
be too cheap to metre!) in the early days has
also led to a degree of disillusionment and
distrust. This is against a background of rising
dissatisfaction with science and technology,
and a decline of deference to establishment
organisations and experts.
Further, the apparent invested interests of
many nuclear advocates has been contrasted
with the apparent altruism of opponents who
have who employed a vigorous public relations
strategy to good eect. They have stressed,
often with considerable melodrama, the

Future of Nuclear Power Addressing the Barriers

potential for catastrophic accidents and other
environmental eects, as well as habitually
referring to the economic miscalculations of the
industrys early days.
Nevertheless, recent polls suggest that
the tide of public opinion is turning, said Mr
Grimston. Considerably more people now
support than oppose the replacing of old
nuclear plant with new build. And 60 per cent
think that nuclear power should be part of
the future energy mix alongside renewables.
The reason is that the potential down-sides of
nuclear energy are being reappraised in the
light of the need to meet expanding demands.
Crude oil prices have risen dramatically recently,
aecting household electricity bills. The
credibility of environmental groups is falling
as it becomes clear that power generation
cannot rely exclusively on renewables without
backup from a more stable energy source.
Furthermore, renewables also incur a nancial
penalty: connecting up the renewable projects
in Scotland to the national grid is going to add
1p per kilowatt hour.
The outlook for nuclear energy - driven by a
rational debate on the needs of the country in
terms of the diversity of supplies, environmental
eects and economics - has never been brighter.
Nevertheless, there are issues that must be
addressed.
While most people claim to think that
environmental eects are more important than
cost, less than two in three people understand
what global warming is and believe that nuclear
energy also produces greenhouse gases, noted
Mr Grimston. Some degree of education is
needed to move the debate on.
Trust also needs to be built up between the
public and government, the regulatory bodies
and industry, which means explaining the pros
and cons in an honest way. The public would
probably nd new build on existing sites the
most acceptable approach. Investment in new
build requires a consistent long-term policy
independent of changes of government. A
degree of cross-party political support based
on a realistic assessment of public opinion is
thus essential. A recent poll showed that MPs
mistakenly believed that the vast majority of
people were against nuclear power, whereas,
in fact, public opinion reected that of the MPs

themselves - a roughly equal balance between

favourable and unfavourable views.
Nuclear energy is now perceived as much
less frightening, and we can look forward to a
more rational debate on its contribution than
in previous years. If all the issues are discussed
honestly and openly, then it seems that there
are no real barriers to a new nuclear power
programme in the UK.

The outlook for

nuclear energy driven by a rational
debate on the need
of the country - has
never been brighter

References
1. Nuclear power: keeping the option open,
Institute of Physics Seminar June 2003
2. Government White Paper: Our energy future
- creating a low carbon economy, February
2003
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_
tech/2005/nuclear/default.stm
4. Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation
in the Environment (COMARE) 10th Report:
The incidence of childhood cancer around
nuclear installations in Great Britain, (2005)
- www.comare.org.uk
5. www.corwm.org.uk
6. www.nwmo.ca
7. www.world-nuclear.org/info/printable_
information_papers/inf79print.htm
8. www.cdi.org/terrorism/nuclear.cfm
9. Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable
Catastrophe, Graham T. Allison, Owl Books,
(2005) New York
Further reading
Do we need nuclear power?
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/14/6/2
The nuclear solution
www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2005/
February/Thenuclearsolution.asp
Chemical science priorities for sustainable energy
solutions
www.rsc.org/ScienceAndTechnology/Policy/
SustainableEnergySolutions.asp
Challenges and solutions: UK energy to 2050
www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name
=Solutions

Trust needs to be
built up between
the public and
government, the
regulatory bodies
and industry

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