The nuclear energy throughout the world is nearing to its irrelevance, said Dr. John Byrne, Director of the Centre for Energy and Environmental Policy (CEEP) and a distinguished Professor of University of Delaware, U.S. on Wednesday. Dr. Byrne has contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1992 and shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the IPCC researchers.
Dr. Byrne, who is on a 12-day tour to India, held a meeting with the villagers of area in and around the proposed Jaitapur nuclear Power Plant (JNPP). “It seems the people have a number of unanswered questions. The answers provided to them and the risks or other implications of the project are not clear at all. People want to know the reason for bringing this project here,” he said, in a press conference organised by Greenpeace, after the meeting with villagers and anti-nuclear power activists.
Making his stand against nuclear energy clear, Dr. Byrne said, “This technology (nuclear) has a record of unanticipated accidents because of its complex nature. The economic investment required to build and operate the plant is huge and the ecological risks associated with the nuclear plant cannot be denied,” he said. In particular, he noted the repeated negative advisories from credit rating agencies regarding nuclear power. “Considering all the negative sides of the nuclear energy and the available options of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, the nuclear energy is nearing to its irrelevance,” he said.
According to Dr. Byrne, the evidence from scientific community in Japan shows that nuclear accident in Fukushima after the earthquake and tsunami has its roots in the technology and management related issues. “These were the problems which were not anticipated even by the well-learned technicians from Japanese nuclear industry,” he alleged.
Comparing the option of solar energy to nuclear, he said the former is more sustainable. “But right now the solar energy is restricted for individual uses. There has been no cost-effective model in case of solar energy to build a plant which will benefit larger population. We are working on such model, but I am sure that in future, such model will be developed,” he said.
Keywords: nuclear energy, nuclear accidents, John Byrne, Japanese nuclear industry, CEEP, Jaitapur nuclear plant
Instead of nuclear power plant - we should set up a thermal coal based
power plant in Jaitapur.
at which point in time this nobel laurate will come again to protest
against coal power plant. btw isnt IPCC the one who was found to have
fudged its data and reports??????
there is no clean alternative to nuclear power - having lived 30 years
next to one - will take a nuclear one over a coal any day.....
solar power wind power all are not reliable at all - try making 10000
MW from solar power.......few thousand hectares of solar cells with
20% plant load factor is what you will get.......
Very true,
Dr Bryne mentioned of using solar but what about the invariability of
availability of solar power. Also, risks are associated with many of the
other industries, does it makes sense to completely shut them without
addressing the substitute. Instead,we shall focus to address the
security concerns which i'm sure that IAEA do through strict monitoring
of the n-plants worldwide.
The scientist has made an important point. GDP is important. But so is the environment. Ecological consequences of economic growth have to be balanced against each other. Alternative sources of energy remain to be fully made use of. Nuclear technology is underdeveloped. Organizational problems are immense. Human costs of inadvertent accidents are incalculable. Think before you leap, sir.
It's funny to see people rooting for Nuclear Energy, with what they believe to be well-crafted arguments supporting the use of Nuclear energy. Other sources are comparable to nuclear energy in terms of pure "wattage" produced. The US state of Arizona, has solar plants that generate more than 200 Mega Watts of power. The capacity is still growing. Nuclear energy is not cheap. It is a classic lock down strategy, The "east Indian Companies" trying to bribe Indian Politicians into commissioning a Nuclear plant, quote cheap installation prices. However it's easy to figure out that the cost of maintaining it (as per safety norms prescribed by the "Company" ) will be solely decided by the foreigners. Imagine the repercurssions of having unskilled workers in a Nuclear plant. I have not yet mentioned the cost of storing the Nuclear waste in steel containers!
Look at Singapore, it is the most "Anti-Green" state, that makes Las Vegas looks like a green city. Singapore does NOT Use Nuclear Power!
Hemant is wrong. Nuclear power may be popular, but we have had at
least 3 major disasters in the past 3 decades - at the three mile
Island in Pennsylvania (USA, 1979) Chernobyl (in the USSR - 1986)and
recently in Fukushima in Japan. The long term effects of exposure to
radiation are well known, death, cancer, and birth deformities, just
to name a few.
First of all we need to examine if there are other alternate sources
of energy. We do have solar energy and wind energy, which are
renewable sources of energy, abundant in nature. Yes the initial
investment may be humongous, but the chances of a disaster like the
ones I mentioned, are far from remote in these.
Second of all we have to take into consideration the safety aspect,
supply of enriched uranium and how we dispose off spent fuel rods.
Last of all, we need to conserve energy, stop losses in transmission
(Which is nothing but theft). And yes, we don't have to light candles
- we have safe alternatives.
It makes very little sense to pronounce Nuclear energy as irrelevant without an successor energy source. What options does Dr. Byrne propose? Wait and use candles until his team produces affordable and scalable solar power plants?
No doubt nuclear energy has it share of problems but it a few things that no other energy source has - less impact on environment, cheap, has no greenhouse effect and its relatively safe history even considering Fukushima.
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