Global Warming Triggers Renewed Interest in Nuclear Power

In the corridors and meeting halls of the great debate over global warming, one faction is offering a straightforward plan for saving Earth’s atmosphere.

Their technology would power the world through the 21st century without adding an ounce of heat-trapping gas to the skies. It doesn’t rely on pipelines or supertankers. It’s clean and dependable.

It has just one problem. But it’s a big one. It’s nuclear.

Wherever he can, the U.N. nuclear agency chief, Hans Blix, is spreading the message that governments will soon realize they must embark on “the era of expanded nuclear power.” And in Washington, at least, the debate over climate change is spurring some to take another look.

Science advisors to President Clinton have recommended tripling the budget for nuclear-energy research. The White House, meanwhile, has moved to help the U.S. nuclear industry abroad, and Congress is trying to help it at home.

In Japan, too, powerful interests are rallying to make “nuclear” the main source of energy for the world’s No. 2 economy.

Some anti-nuclear activists are convinced the industry will never overcome its image as uneconomical and risky. But others worry that global warming may be opening a window of opportunity.

“Nuclear Death Is No Answer to the Climate Disaster,” declared a banner unfurled by protesters outside the general conference of Blix’s International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

Nuclear advocates hope the global warming conference beginning Monday in Japan will boost the industry’s fortunes.

“The world’s need for nuclear energy will essentially be the subtext of what goes on in Kyoto in December,” said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the U.S. industry’s Nuclear Energy Institute.

In Kyoto, some 150 nations will try to negotiate reductions in such “greenhouse gases” as carbon dioxide, a byproduct of the burning of coal, oil and natural gas in power plants worldwide. Scientists believe the gas buildup, trapping heat in the atmosphere, will disrupt Earth’s climate.

Proposed solutions focus on improving energy efficiency and turning to solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. But Blix calls this a “dreamland” compared with nuclear energy’s proven capacity.

France, for example, which uses atomic energy for almost three-quarters of its electricity, led Europe in reducing carbon dioxide emissions between 1980 and 1990, cutting them 26% on a per-capita basis.

Nuclear plants--442 in 30 countries, supplying 17% of the world’s electricity--already keep man-made carbon dioxide emissions at least 8% below what they otherwise would be, says Blix’s agency, which both guards against proliferation of nuclear weapons and promotes peaceful uses of the atom.

European and U.S. nuclear industry executives, appearing at pre-Kyoto talks last month in Germany, told delegates theirs was the “ready solution” for global warming.

The industry has been on a long losing streak, dogged by safety questions, an inability to dispose of its dangerous wastes and huge cost overruns. A U.S. plant would cost at least $4 billion to build; one that Turkey is planning is estimated at $2.4 billion or more.

Despite these troubles, construction started in 1996 on nine new power reactors, the most since 1985. All are in Asia, nuclear’s new frontier.

China alone may spend $50 billion on nuclear power technology in the coming years, industry analysts say. A U.S.-Chinese agreement last month cleared the way for manufacturers in America, where no reactor has been sold since 1978, to cash in on Beijing’s plans.

In another move to help the industry, the U.S. House and Senate have voted to create a storage facility for nuclear waste in Nevada.

Although U.S. global warming proposals do not envision expanding nuclear power’s role, a White House experts’ panel on energy, citing the risk of global warming, has recommended that the Energy Department’s annual budget for nuclear fission research and development be tripled to $120 million by 2003.

It’s “prudent insurance,” said panel member Robert W. Conn, engineering dean at UC San Diego.

“If global warming is a major environmental issue . . . then one can hardly not consider the possibility that you may have to deploy some nuclear power as part of an overall strategy to reduce greenhouse gases,” Conn said.

In Japan, which relies on fission for a third of its electricity, pro- and anti-nuclear voices grow louder as the Kyoto talks approach.

The influential Keidanren business federation has called for Japan to “position atomic energy as the central source among the various sources of basic energy.”

The government, which says it is considering adding 20 plants to the 52 Japan already has, estimates that doubling the country’s nuclear power output would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7% from 1990 levels.

But a series of accidents at atomic power plants this year undercut public support for nuclear power, and an accelerated buildup doesn’t seem economically feasible. “This is absurd and unrealistic,” anti-nuclear activist Jinzaburo Takagi said in Tokyo.

Takagi fears, nevertheless, that pro-nuclear forces will make inroads at Kyoto.

“The Japanese government wants to take advantage of international pressure on carbon emissions to advocate nuclear energy,” he said.

As carbon dioxide spews heavenward, the industry bides its time.

“We’ve been treated with some disdain,” said the nuclear institute’s Kerekes. “But I think we’re going to be something of a Cinderella.”

Michael Oppenheimer, on the other hand, believes the industry will be more pumpkin than princess when midnight strikes in Kyoto.

“Nuclear has a big economic monkey on its back. It’s too expensive,” said the atmospheric expert for the Environmental Defense Fund. “They can say whatever they want. It can’t overcome that economic problem.”