From Fission to Fusion

Wednesday, 30 November 2011

Given that the news has been dominated by the demise of Gaddafi, the Eurozone and the indiscretions of Liam Fox etc, it is perhaps understandable that the important speech to the Royal Society by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has been overshadowed.

Chris Huhne thanked the Royal Society for its stewardship of Fuel Cycling and stressed the importance of information related to this stewardship going public.  He went on to say that,  as a result of Britain's involvement in military and civil atomic programmes,  there is a residue of three Olympic Swimming Pools' worth of high-level waste and intermediate levels of waste -  enough to fill a supertanker.   Additionally, he made it known that Britain manages the largest stock of plutonium: in excess of 100 tonnes.  This stock will need to be guarded until used.  Subsequently, suitable deep-storage facilities will need to be installed.

With respect to the decommissioning of nuclear power stations, estimates for this work were: 1970 - £2m, 1980 - £472 m, 1990 - £9.5 b, 2000 - £22.5 b and currently £53.706 b:  clearly suspect estimating.  Chris Huhne concluded his speech by expressing the view that, although there were risks attached to the use of nuclear power, there was a greater risk from accelerating climate change. Not unexpectedly, his caveat to this was that new plant should not be subsidised by public funding.

It might well might be that,  in the interim, the use of atomic energy is necessary  however sucessful Britain and other countries are in bringing on stream acceptable souces of  'green power' and efficiency savings.  Next year could witness an 'Olympian quantum-leap-year-forward' in the quest to provide safer nuclear power via atomic fusion rather than atomic fission.

Let's hope that Governments will get their priorities right if saving the planet is to be taken seriously.

Bill Jordan