WeeklyWorker

29.08.2024
Working on reactor interior at Atommash

Nuclear power’s useful idiots

Advocates claim that nuclear power is essential if humanity is to enjoy a life of abundance and nature is to have room to flourish. But, says Jack Conrad, that is falling for a big lie

Emil Jacobs’ article in the last issue of Weekly Worker reads like a puff piece commissioned by the nuclear industry’s hoodwinkers and bamboozlers association.1 Indeed, he writes about ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’, as if present-day society was not split, not cleaved, into antagonistic classes.

In that spirit of ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ - by which he appears to mean the Netherlands - the comrade indulges in liberalistic special pleading on behalf of Africa, as an undifferentiated continent, as an object of charitable pity. Crucially, he promises that the nuclear power industry - that is, BHP, EDF, Cameco, Westinghouse, TEPCO and other such capitalist transnationals - can deliver to ‘us’ “geopolitical energy independence”. In short, the nationalist’s dream of autarchy.

There is, true, a grander vision. The nuclear industry, not the class struggle, not global working class revolution, will liberate humanity from poverty and deliver a life of abundance to all … and, yes, of course, leave “room” for nature to flourish. In other words, we have yet another sorry example of the techno-worship hawked around by ‘left’ accelerationists such as Nick Land, Mark Fisher, Paul Mason, Nick Srnicek and Aaron Bastani.

However, as well as the Jacobs carrot there is the Jacobs stick. We are apocalyptically warned: reject the nuclear power industry, and not only do you leave Africa in poverty, there is the “peril” of failing to deal with climate change. So supporting the nuclear industry, urging it on technically, excusing its many failures, belittling the dangers and echoing its promise of delivering “thousands of highly paid and secure jobs for local communities” is presented as the duty of communists.

Yet ours is a party of extreme opposition. The role of communists is to actively encourage distrust, when it comes to the existing state, its constitution, its institutions, its ideology … and, not least when it comes to the UK, its strategically important industries, such as defence, banking and energy. The nuclear industry, of course, straddles and combines defence (ie, weapons of mass destruction) with energy. Hence, we are obliged to expose the truth about the nuclear industry, not peddle lies, provide excuses, let alone constitute ourselves as advocates (useful idiots).

To be frank - and when it comes to friends we must be frank - what we find in comrade Jacobs’ article amounts to a crime against communism and our whole approach to the class enemy.

What we want

Somewhat oddly, comrade Jacobs opens his article by saying that it is “unclear what it is that he [Jack Conrad] does want”. Leave aside my modestly successful pamphlet, The little red climate book (2023): the CPGB has its Draft programme and it contains two sections, which comrade Jacobs ought to know pretty well. Firstly, ‘1.4 Nature’, and secondly, ‘3.3 Environmental crisis’. The first is a statement of our basic principles. The second lists our immediate demands:

Perfectly clear, one would have thought.

He also says that my ‘Delusions of techno-fix’ article is “riddled with problems”, by which he presumably means that he disagrees with us programmatically. If that is the case, that is exactly what he should say. Specifically in this case, he proposes a transition to nuclear as rapidly as circumstances allow.

The comrade advances two main arguments: firstly, cutting carbon emissions; secondly - and flatly in contradiction with that urgent aim - he envisages humanity “as a whole” needing “clean energy, and lots [more?] of it”. Maybe not a doubling of energy usage, which is what will happen if current trends continue till 2060 (ie, a total of 366,000 terawatt-hours). But, either way, his reasoning is very conventional, very growth-orientated.

Thankfully, comrade Jacobs appears to reject the coal-based China model of development for Africa. He is unclear. After all, he says that not allowing Africa to copy China is “social imperialism in a new jacket”. Rationally, however, there are very good reasons for avoiding the China model. If it were to happen - unlikely, given that we have, not one centralised state, but over 50, each originally diced and sliced by the rival European colonial powers - the result would be climate disaster. The planet would crash through a whole series of tipping points and head inexorably towards 2°C, 2.5°C, 3°C above pre-industrial temperatures.

Nonetheless, comrade Jacobs sets himself implacably against advocates of degrowth (some of its ideologues, apparently, crazily demand a 95% drop in consumption2). But there is, surely, degrowth and degrowth.

As socialism (the first stage of communism) develops, the associated producers will, surely, degrow whole industries and radically change how life is organised. Comrade Jacobs himself writes about how energy generation can be made massively more efficient. And I am sure we agree that arms production will go entirely, along with advertising, insurance, prisons, the courts and the police. So would banking, the car economy and urban sprawl. Individual consumption would surely undergo a fundamental alteration too. Expanding needs for high-quality housing, health, education and culture - though dismissed as “run-of the mill” by comrade Jacobs - can, with sufficient effort, be met globally.

Instead of endless novelties and the aping of kitsch celebrity culture, the emphasis shifts to enriching human relationships. Fundamentally, that is what we communists mean by abundance. Original communism, dating back 200,000 years and more, rested on material abundance, but was maintained by a militant egalitarianism. In other words, for us, social relationships, not technology, not energy output, are the main determinant.

System change

Comrade Jacobs claims, for some reason, that we advocate our own ‘techno-fix’ when it comes to the climate crisis. True, amongst our minimum demands there is, as listed above, the call for transitioning away from coal, oil, gas and nuclear power and going towards wind, tidal, solar, geothermal and other renewables.

Why? Coal is a killer, when it comes to both mining and air pollution - 32.72 deaths per terawatt-hour from brown coal. Equally oil, albeit a little less so - 18.43 deaths per TWh.3 Then there are the greenhouse emissions and the resulting global warming. Nuclear power is certainly a clean technology when it comes to generating electricity - there is no doubt about that. But it is hugely expensive, bound up with the arms industry and is potentially catastrophic in the event of accidents (which always happen). However, even if it were possible to fully transition to 100% wind, tidal, solar, geothermal and other renewables - not likely - there remains capitalism and its manic compulsion to accumulate.

In other words, M-C-M' and endlessly producing more and more stuff (commodities) and therefore more and more CO2. No, the fix for the climate crisis has to be social. To stop the rise in atmospheric CO2 requires a whole raft of draconian measures that run against the logic of capitalism. To reach and go beyond carbon neutral, as we must, means transitioning away from capitalism, first and foremost by winning the battle for democracy.

Comrade Jacobs devotes most of his article to trying to show that solar and wind power is expensive, almost as expensive as nuclear. He even manages to put nuclear into the “same ballpark” when it comes to MWh by including ‘firming costs’, which reflect the “additional capacity needed to supplement the net capacity of the renewable resource”.4 In other words, what do solar and wind cost when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing? Other sources such as coal, oil, gas and nuclear have to be included in the mix.

In that case, the consultancy firm Lazard puts solar “at between $126 and $141 per MWh, and wind at $115 to $132 per MWh”. Well, yes, when it comes to the California Independent System Operator. But why not cite Thailand’s SSP? Lazard does. Its costs are somewhat lower: solar between $42 and $60 and wind between $30 and $55.5 Meanwhile, again yes, Lazard puts the unsubsidised cost of nuclear at the $141 - quoted by the comrade. However, it also gives a high of $221 - which goes unquoted by him. So the most expensive renewable can be found in the same “ballpark” as the cheapest nuclear. But it is has to be admitted: there is something rather dodgy about the method employed by comrade Jacobs. The unkind would call it cooking the books.

He also makes much ado about infrastructure, firming and decommissioning costs being “externalised”. Yes, in Britain, the new pylons and cables needed to connect solar and wind farms with customers are owned by the national grid. But licences are granted only on the basis of “minimising” levelised costs.6 Firming - that is bringing in other power-generating sources - eg, gas, when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing - costs too. Batteries will probably bring things down in price, but the problem cannot be skirted.

What of decommissioning? I do not know where the comrade gets the idea that this cost is “externalised”. The UK “requires owners of renewable assets to submit decommissioning plans in their financing bids, which are signed off by the government”.7 True, these plans are often vague, but, as far as I know, there has been no dumping decommissioning costs onto the government - only one solar farm in the UK has been decommissioned to date. My understanding is that the picture in the US is similar: “The costs of decommissioning do not fall upon the community or landowners: rather they are the responsibility of the project owner.”8

Comrade Jacobs loves France. Why? Because of the Messmer Plan it has lots and lots of nuclear power stations. In Germany, on the other hand, “renewables” are dominant and energy prices for households are “double” what they are in France.

Once again, however, some elementary research reveals a rather different set of facts. French energy prices are about a third of the level in Germany (Britain with its nuclear power stations has German prices, while the US is about a third cheaper than France).9 France certainly relies heavily on nuclear energy: 18 power plants and 63% electricity generation.10

However, the explanation for Germany “deindustrialising” and having higher energy prices than France lies not in nuclear power being phased out and an energy market dominated by renewables: actually they account for 19.6% of output and fossil fuels 77.6%!11 So the reason for Germany’s economic woes lies not with renewables … no, the explanation lies in Ukraine and Nato’s proxy war. Germany was forced to renege on its hugely beneficial long-term trade deal with Russia for the ample supply of cheap gas (to settle the matter, there were those four deep-sea explosions, which wrecked the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in September 2022).

Another trick

Apparently nuclear energy has “another trick up its sleeve: breeder reactors”. This has been the holy grail of devotees since the very dawn of the nuclear industry. Build a plutonium-fuelled fast reactor (‘fast’ because the neutrons released in the fission reaction are not slowed by a moderator) that produces more plutonium than it consumes. A virtuous loop, which allows continually refuelling the reactor and using the excess plutonium to start yet more reactors (hence the ‘breeder’ name). Ostensibly something for nothing and a gold-plated guarantee of national energy independence.

However, admits comrade Jacobs “these reactors are still a niche, since there is plenty of cheap uranium” (Kazakhstan accounting for 43% of mined global production … and I am sure that labour conditions there are wonderful). But comrade Jacobs waxes lyrical. Breeder reactors, if one after another was built, could use up all that nasty nuclear waste: not least that troublesome plutonium-239 with its 24,000 years half-life. All that is “fuel waiting to be used, which could provide Europe with all its energy for many centuries” to come.

There is a problem, though. The whole model is built on “false assumptions”. Breeder reactors are costly to build and costly to operate. Far more expensive than even water- and gas-cooled reactors. They are far more dangerous too: if the core of a breeder reactor heats up to the point of collapse and suffers a meltdown, “the fuel can assume a more critical configuration and blow itself apart in a small nuclear explosion”.12

A gloomy prognosis repeated a decade later, once again in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: “breeder and reprocessing technologies turned out to be much more challenging and expensive than expected. Altogether, they didn’t make economic sense.” Moreover, there is the real concern about the proliferation of nuclear weapons by “feeding plutonium, a fuel but also a nuclear explosive, into commercial channels … and ultimately the world”.13

Like nuclear fusion this is a technology that, since it was first mooted in the early 1960s, has always been 20 years away from realisation and looks like it always will be. That comrade Jacobs is such an enthusiast speaks volumes about his naivety.

Forty-love

Yet, strangely, having gone to such lengths to rubbish renewables and hype nuclear, comrade Jacobs collapses. You see, he cannot but concede that nuclear plants take a long time to build: five, ten, many more years. By contrast, wind and solar farms are quick to install. And, as I emphasised when opening my ‘Delusions of techno-fix’ article, we do not have time. This year, the next, the next and the next after that, are predicted to see global temperatures at or above the 1.5°C ceiling agreed in Paris 2015. The climate crisis is here - right now.

“This is why I think,” says the heavy-hearted comrade, “we ought to deploy many solar and wind farms - despite the enormous costs, resources needed and impact on the environment - to lower our carbon emissions as fast as possible. In the longer term, beyond 2050, we can focus on steadily building more nuclear power plants, gradually replacing old solar and wind farms, when their time comes.”

So, while he has not given up on his nuclear obsession, he reluctantly agrees with our immediate demand: rapidly transition to “wind, tidal, solar, geothermal and other renewables”.

I call that forty-love.

Let us move on to the next set by dealing with this argument: building a nuclear power plant produces a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, but they can run for 80 years or more. Therefore, the comrade says, look at nuclear power plants in the round, over the course of their lifecycle.

I am not at all convinced about nuclear power plants running for 80 years … safely. Heavens, the technology itself is only 70 years old (dated from Obninsk first supplying the grid on June 27 1954). Back then, remember, the gold-plated guarantee was that the nuclear power industry was about to deliver electricity “too cheap to meter” (Lewis Strauss, chair of the US Atomic Energy Commission). The Emils of the day fell for the lie hook, line and sinker. I came across them as a young communist even in the late 1960s. The truth was slow to dawn.

Yes, in the US, licences have been granted to Florida Power and Light, and to Turkey Point Units 3 and 4, allowing them to operate reactors for a lifetime of 80 years - a first. More such licences will surely follow.14 However, instead of celebrating this as some marvellous technological achievement, we should, on the contrary, urge extreme caution and demand a regime of vigorous democratic inspection. Our blunt message is: don’t trust the bastards. With that in mind, looking at the site of the International Atomic Energy Agency, we are authoritatively told that nuclear power plants have operating lifetimes of between 20 and 40 years.15

Nonetheless, the comrade is right about one thing here: while building nuclear power plants produces a lot of greenhouse emissions, when it comes to generating power, they come bottom of the Our World in Data chart. Six tonnes of emissions: that compared to wind, 11 tonnes; natural gas, 440 tonnes; oil, 720 tonnes; and coal, 970 tonnes. Solar comes in with between eight and 53 tonnes, depending on the technology and location. That impressive record for nuclear power is also true, when it comes to deaths per TWh: 0.03 (it is 0.02 with solar and 0.04 with wind).16

However, as the fleet of nuclear reactors increases and ages over time, the chances of something really bad happening grows. Despite rigorous government regulations, tight operating systems and numerous fail-safe mechanisms, there have already been plenty of accidents - most notably Kyshtym, Windscale/Sellafield, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Undoubtedly, in spite of that, in terms of TWh generated, the number of deaths have been miniscule, certainly compared with coal, oil and gas.

But then we have to factor in terrorism and war. Imagine a 9/11-type series of jumbo jets slamming into Sizewell B. The number killed would be small to begin with … but the winds would carry deadly radiation to who knows where. Millions could die prematurely.

At the moment both Zaporizhzhia and Kursk rightly feature in headline news stories. Ominously, neither the Zaporizhzhia nor Kursk nuclear power plants have protective coverings, making them particularly vulnerable to incoming artillery shells, drones, missiles and bombs. A military strike on either site “could initiate a very serious release of radioactive material, creating a Europe-wide nuclear disaster”, we are warned.17 Believe it.

And, quite conceivably, either a losing Russia or a losing Ukraine could decide, like Samson, to bring down the temple about them. Blow Zaporizhzhia or Kursk sky-high as the troops scuttle. Anything remotely like that could easily take nuclear deaths per TWh from the bottom of the chart straight to the top. Undeterred, comrade Jacobs wants to build more Sizewell Bs, more Zaporizhzhias and more Kursks.

He is clearly besotted with the nuclear power industry, even when it comes to dealing with decommissioning and waste. Eg, he denies that decommissioning is a “hidden cost”. No, no, no … he says, by law this cost is accounted for as part of the agreed kWh price. It amounts to nothing more than “a fraction of a penny”, he breezily announces. Hence, it is supposedly the “owner of the plant” who thereby saves up for the eventual decommissioning.

Well, yes, on paper. But what has really happened, at least in the UK, is that the owner - in this case EDF - eventually transfers retired nuclear power plants to the National Decommissioning Authority. And, you guessed it, decommissioning costs have already doubled, to £23.5 billion, and continue to rise … the extra being born by the state. Rightly a scandal.18

Nor does waste present any problem for comrade Jacobs. Storing plutonium-239 with its 24,000-year half-life - easy-peasy. Highly radioactive “fission products” and its 300 years - mere child’s play. “We can do this, Jack”, says the cocksure comrade. I presume that by ‘we’ he means himself and the capitalist nuclear industry.

Finally

Finally, there is the question of why: why do “various governments relentlessly pursue nuclear power?” A rhetorical question posed by myself, to which comrade Jacobs gives this wide-eyed answer:

Because, Jack, nuclear energy is the only scalable clean-power source that can deliver energy as we need it, is highly reliable, gives the option for geopolitical energy independence, as you can store uranium for many years, has a tiny footprint, and delivers thousands of highly paid and secure jobs for local communities.

Straight from the playbook of the nuclear industry’s ‘hoodwinkers and bamboozlers association’.

My own answer, given the litany of failed gold-plated guarantees, the huge costs involved and the evident dangers, is altogether different: “Maintaining nuclear weapon status, or having the option of going for nuclear weapons status, provides the most likely explanation.” The testimony of Phil Johnstone and Andy Stirling - both of Sussex University - are cited as expert opinion.19

Nuclear power requires a talent pool of physicists, engineers and technicians, along with a chain of companies capable of supplying the necessary components. The nuclear weapons industry rests on that talent pool and that supply chain. Peaceful nuclear power is, therefore, I maintain, an oxymoron. Those leftwingers who have thrown in their lot with the nuclear power industry have also thrown in their lot with the military-industrial complex. Sadly, comrade Jacobs being a case in point.

  1. E Jacobs, ‘Nature’s gift to humanity?’ Weekly Worker August 22 2024 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1503/natures-gift-to-humanity), which was itself a reply to my article from the previous week: J Conrad, ‘Delusions of techno-fix’ Weekly Worker August 1 2024 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1502/delusions-of-techno-fix).↩︎

  2. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307512.↩︎

  3. ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy.↩︎

  4. www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost-of-energyplus.↩︎

  5. www.lazard.com/media/nltb551p/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf.↩︎

  6. www.thecrownestate.co.uk/media/2860/guide-to-offshore-wind-farm-2019.pdf.↩︎

  7. www.capitalmonitor.ai/analysis/decommissioning-the-dark-heart-of-renewable-energy-finance/?cf-view.↩︎

  8. cleanpower.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Final_What-happens-when-a-solar-project-is-decommissioned_Fact-Sheet.pdf.↩︎

  9. www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries.↩︎

  10. world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.↩︎

  11. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany.↩︎

  12. TB Cochran et al ‘It’s time to give up on breeder reactors’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists May 1 2010.↩︎

  13. V Gilinsky and H Sokolski, ‘Why Congress should say no to yet another fast reactor dream’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists June 4 2019.↩︎

  14. www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think.↩︎

  15. www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/29402043133.pdf.↩︎

  16. ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy.↩︎

  17. www.sgr.org.uk/resources/nuclear-power-risks-rising-russia-ukraine-war.↩︎

  18. The Guardian May 20 2022.↩︎

  19. theconversation.com/all-at-sea-making-sense-of-the-uks-muddled-nuclearpolicy-48553; and braveneweurope.com/andrew-stirling-phil-johnstone-why-is-support-for-nuclear-power-noisiest-just-as-its-failures-become-most-clear; and www.sgr.org.uk/resources/hidden-military-implications-building-back-new-nuclear-uk.↩︎