The Australian Financial Review, 15 April 2005.
By Leslie Kemeny
In the early 1950s, Australia was set to become the first nation south of the equator to build and operate a nuclear power plant for electricity generation. That project and many other planned ventures connected with the technology and commercialisation of the global nuclear fuel cycle industry have not eventuated.
More than 50 years later, in September 2004, Australia hosted the World Energy Congress, with a centrepiece session entitled "Nuclear Energy Inevitable or Irrelevant?" For at least 30 of the participating countries the reliability, safety, economy and greenhouse gas free operation of 437 nuclear plants has made nuclear energy "inevitable". Unfortunately for Australia, which supplies 13 of these countries with uranium fuel, the technology has, so far, been "irrelevant".
The paradox of a nation endowed with more than 40 per cent of the world's economically recoverable uranium fuel but which strenuously resists its use in its domestic energy policies bemuses the global community. This is especially true of countries like France and Japan that manage to minimise their own greenhouse emissions through the use of Australian uranium.
This year may mark a new defining moment in Australian attitudes towards nuclear energy and cause the federal government and the Council of Australian Governments to sit up and take notice. A global resurgence in nuclear power station construction is driving uranium prices to new peaks and Australian uranium producers are the focus of the international market.
In February, Don Argus, the chairman of BHP Billiton, a major global producer of hydrocarbon fuel, confirmed at its annual general meeting that it was now interested in nuclear fuel. Within the month this interest emerged as a $9 billion takeover bid for WMC Resources, the owner of the world's largest uranium resource, the Olympic Dam project in South Australia.
Even Australia's anti-nuclear activists are beginning to change attitudes. They have little alternative, as one by one, the leaders of environmental movements throughout the world speak out in favour of the nuclear option. Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace in 1971, and subsequently its president, has recently berated those lobbying against "clean nuclear energy" . He said, "Activists have abandoned science in favour of sensationalism", observing that "nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand"<1>.
Australia's endeavours to harness nuclear energy for peaceful purposes began in 1953 and the purposeful "growth" phase lasted for about 30 years. But from the mid 1980s onwards, community perceptions of the technology have been shaped by green activism, poor education and a largely media-generated preoccupation with societal risks.
The Australian Atomic Energy Commission was established under the Atomic Energy Act No. 31 (1953) and was responsible to a minister of the Crown although which one was not specified in the act and it changed periodically (it was the minister for supply in 1953).The AAEC was assigned three main areas of responsibility:
The commission was required to co-operate with states that had exploration and development programs for uranium. The second and third areas led to the AAEC establishing a major research laboratory and bringing together a nucleus of expertise in nuclear physics, chemistry, engineering and administration. An important part of this research laboratory the High Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR) went critical on Australia Day, 1958. Prime minister Robert Menzies officially opened the AAEC's research establishment at Lucas Heights on April 18, 1958, attended by about 900 staff and guests.
In his opening speech Menzies said: "one of our great tasks is that we should keep ourselves abreast of developments in the world. We should keep ourselves abreast of scientific research and scientific discovery, and develop in Australia not only great plants, not only great buildings, machinery and technical equipment, but at all times produce more and more people highly trained scientifically for this purpose. This is first and foremost a research establishment and one of its results will be that we in Australia will be scientifically and technically equipped to take advantage of the best that there is in the world, whether that best comes from older and larger and richer countries or from our own."
The major components of the initial research program approved by the commission were:
During the 1960s and 1970s the AAEC was also involved in the technical assessment of a project to construct a small nuclear power station at Jervis Bay in NSW and it investigated uranium enrichment but neither project came to fruition. The synthetic rock process for the encapsulation of nuclear waste showed great early promise but so far its international marketing and commercialisation agendas have failed.
Nuclear policy in Australia changed radically in 1987 with the demise of the AAEC and the establishment of its successor, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. With a few minor exceptions, ANSTO was ordered to abandon research and development in most aspects of nuclear power technology and the uranium fuel cycle. Its brief was redirected to the operation of the HIFAR research reactor, environmental research and the production of radioisotopes for hospitals and industry.
These changes were partly driven by the growing socio-political success of the radical green movement, the strength of the hydrocarbon lobby and the lack of scientific education in the media and in the Australian community. Perceptions of peaceful nuclear energy in Australia in 2005 are still partly governed by pseudo-science, urban myths and political correctness.
A limited area of research in nuclear physics and environmental science and the support of a range of university research projects in applied nuclear physics and engineering have continued. The main instrumentality for the administration of these is the Australian Institute for Nuclear Science and Engineering co-located with ANSTO at Lucas Heights.
Then, in 1988, the School of Nuclear Engineering at the University of NSW, the only one of its type in Australia, was closed after a distinguished 24-year record of operation. In that time it had trained many of the senior staff of the AAEC, the Australian Safeguards Office and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear-Safety Agency. Its Australian and overseas graduates and its staff have produced an impressive list of internationally refereed publications and occupy many important positions in the nuclear energy field around the world. At the same time the Australian School of Nuclear Technology at Lucas Heights, run jointly by the University of NSW and the AAEC, was closed.
The Australia experience is in radical contrast to that of the United States, perhaps best illustrated by a visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Walk up the stairs from Memorial Drive, Cambridge, to the impressive Grecian portico that is the main entrance to the MIT; stroll through a long corridor thronged with students before exiting by the prestigious Department of Nuclear Engineering, the pride and joy of this world-famous American institution. Then take a short few steps along some back blocks to Albany Street and you will find yourself gazing at the MIT Research Reactor.
You are now in the very heart of a university campus accommodating more than 20,000 students at the centre of urban Cambridge, the twin city of Boston. Surrounded by warehouses, offices, a chocolate factory and parking lots, this vital research facility, in appearance and in design very much like Australia's HIFAR reactor at Lucas Heights, has been supporting university teaching and research for more than 45 years. Its opening by the Nobel Laureate Glen Seaborg would have taken place around the same time Menzies was invited to press a button to start up HIFAR at Lucas Heights in order "to bring Australia into the nuclear age".
Sadly for Australia, this early vision and initiative to use nuclear energy for the sustainable development of a great continent faded within a decade. By comparison, 45 years on, the US has more than 100 nuclear-power stations generating more than 20 per cent of the nation's electrical energy safely and economically. About 30 university research reactors, mostly staffed by well-trained students, are being used for fundamental research into crystallography and metallurgy, the production of radioisotopes, general industrial research, research and development into power-reactor technology and fundamental investigations in many areas of agriculture, biology, archaeology and medicine.
In Australia, however, issues such as uranium mining in Kakadu National Park, research reactor operation at Lucas Heights, establishment of an international nuclear waste repository in South Australia and the domestic use of nuclear electricity generation to minimise greenhouse emissions are still largely being debated at the intellectual level of talkback radio. Decision-making in such areas deserves the disciplines of appropriate tertiary education.
The Australian community has a right to know the relative risks and the environmental impacts of various fuel cycles, as well as the technical limitations, true costs and energy audits of the alternative energy technologies. Yet Australia is without a single school of nuclear engineering at university level, a situation viewed with incredulity by the academic, diplomatic and political communities of the developing countries of East Asia and the Pacific Basin.<2>
Many of these have a big investment in the growth of peaceful nuclear energy and nuclear science and technology within their borders. For Australia, which is about to displace Canada as the premier uranium exporter, to ignore the study of the uranium fuel cycle and its value-added technologies and industries indicates a pattern of intellectual and economic neglect possibly unparalleled in higher education policy and academic history.
Two hundred years of uncontrolled and uncontainable chemical combustion has taken a heavy toll on the earth's environment and ecology. Informed realism demands that the educational and research focus should turn to the uranium fuel cycle and nuclear energy.
Nuclear engineering together with bio-engineering and aeronautical engineering are disciplines at the leading edge of modern science and technology. Apart from important contributions to the field of energy supply and research, nuclear engineers have made fundamental contributions to society in medicine, agriculture, food technology, metallurgy, industrial control technology and non-destructive testing. They have also contributed to many basic research fields, including fluid flow, heat transfer, materials science, neural network theory, radiation health and safety and artificial intelligence.
The content of a nuclear engineering course is only marginally covered in departments of physics and schools of chemical, mechanical and electrical engineering. Features of the syllabus include every aspect of the uranium fuel cycle from mining to fuel enrichment and fabrication, use in reactors, and reprocessing and waste disposal. Detailed mathematical studies of criticality and neutron flux distribution, shielding design, reactor dynamics and control, and core cooling and safety are undertaken. The basic principles of earth's background radiation health and safety issues so misunderstood by Australian society are taught in theory and demonstrated by experimental measurement.
Projects comparing the reliability, safety, economics and environmental and societal impacts of nuclear, hydrocarbon and renewable energy systems can also be undertaken. Many overseas schools of nuclear engineering have excellent laboratory facilities and operate their own research reactors and accelerators.
At postgraduate level, students learn to design advanced nuclear power plants for electricity generation, desalination, hydrogen production, nuclear marine propulsion, energy systems in space and other industrial application. They can also study radioisotope production for use in medicine, archaeology, agriculture, coastal engineering and non-destructive testing. The design and engineering of fusion systems is also usually an option.
Australians do not relate well to centralised monolithic research laboratories surrounded by barbed-wire. Both fission and fusion physics were born in universities and every effort should now be made to repay this initiative through strong facilities and well equipped laboratories in one or more of Australia's universities.
Nuclear energy must be approached with informed realism and not on the basis or urban myth. The establishment of one or more schools of nuclear engineering, possibly in Sydney, Adelaide, Perth or Darwin, should be a top national priority as we enter the nuclear millennium.
In the absence of such education programs, opposition to the development and use of our nuclear options is easily manipulated. Most Australians can speculate on or dream about a "doomsday" scenario - surrealistic visions of death and destruction were Sydney Harbour Bridge to collapse during peak hour, or the devastating impact of a large comet striking and destroying Canberra, might create waves of fear and apprehension.
Behind such unlikely dramatic events are physical laws and mathematical probabilities. Those activists who wish to stir fear in an Australian community can ignore or manipulate these physical laws and mathematical probabilities and use pseudo-science to create an environment of terror and distrust of all legitimate authority.
For example, if you do not want a research/reactor at Lucas Heights (near Sydney) you write about meltdowns, radiation leakage, nuclear waste, unacceptable risk and cover-up. You make use of the emotive impact behind these words, throw in as much innuendo and as many "what ifs" as possible, abandon the laws of physics, radiation biology and mathematical probability, and the resulting climate of fear enables you to achieve your socio-political objectives.
For more than three decades, the Australian community has been assailed with false perceptions of danger or high risk emotively linked with such words as radiation, research reactor and uranium. In the absence of sound education and informed realism, some will react to this with fear and anger.
Despite popular misconceptions, nuclear power has an unmatched safety record relative to all base load fuels. It is far safer per megawatt hour generated than hydrocarbon fuels and globally, in 2005 it has achieved 12,500 reactor years of operation. Avoiding nuclear weapons proliferation has been a high priority from the inception of nuclear power. No uranium traded for electricity production has ever been diverted for weapons use. Civil plutonium is unsuitable for weapons but is also subject to rigorous accounting and auditing under the international safeguards system. When uranium is "burned" in a reactor, some plutonium is formed. Much of this is a valuable energy source, like the fissile form of uranium (U-235).
Reprocessing spent fuel with recycled plutonium into fresh mixed oxide (MOX) fuel extracts about 30 per cent more energy from the original fuel and 10 to 12 tonnes of plutonium is used in MOX fuel each year. Nuclear power is the only energy-producing industry to take full responsibility for all its wastes and fully cost them into the product. High level wastes such as spent fuel have been contained and managed safely for more than 50 years by which time the radioactivity has decayed to 0.1 per cent at the original level.
Fear of nuclear-risks is usually focused on accidental releases of nuclear radiation. Potentially, this can occur in incidents ranging from terrorist acts or geological instability to plant failure and human operator mistake. Nuclear plants are, however, incredibly robust: Japan's 54 nuclear power stations withstand earth tremors and will automatically shut down at the onset of a major quake.
Reinforced concrete reactor containment domes are designed to withstand the impact of crashing aircraft and nuclear submarine propulsion units have been recovered from deep ocean without any radiation release.
Fear of unseen, unsmelt and untouchable radiation should be tempered by the fact that our global community lives in a radiation field called "background radiation" which is inescapable and which is a natural variant of human existence just like temperature or humidity. The human body can safely accept large variations of background radiation dose which is a function of altitude, geology, occupation, building materials, sunspot activity, diet and many other factors. Background radiation doses in some buildings or limestone caves or even coal mines are often greater than that in a uranium mine or a nuclear power station. Around three-quarters of our radiation dose comes from natural sources such as cosmic radiation from the sun, radon gas in the air and radioactive materials in the ground and in waters and oceans of the world. The human body itself is a significant radiation source at close encounter, human beings irradiate each other day and night.
Approximately one quarter of our background radiation dose arises from some form of human activity, such as medical diagnostic and therapeutic sources, burning coal and the use of electronic appliances. Within this segment the contribution from the peaceful use of nuclear energy and from past fallout from nuclear tests is less than 1 per cent.
Exposure to radiation is measured by the Sievert or the milliSievert. This unit takes into account the particular biological effects of different types of radiation such as gamma (high energy beams similar to X-rays); beta (small charged particles which can be easily shielded against); alpha (particles which are intensely ionising but cannot penetrate the skin so dangerous only if inside the body) and neutrons (mostly released in nuclear fission). Because of containment these are not usually a problem elsewhere.
If one were to worry about receiving a background radiation dose of say two of the milliSievert units of radiation per annum by living in a Southern Hemisphere country, it is worth considering that inhabitants of Sweden and Finland receive about three times this amount. For frequent airline travellers and air crew the additional or incremental dose could be around one to two more units per annum. For those flying the Tokyo to New York polar route it could be as much as six to seven additional units per annum. And there is no evidence that the health of Swedes, Fins, frequent flyers or airline crew is impaired by such environmental variation.
In the new millennium there will be increasing use of nuclear science and technology in every field of human endeavour. The immense benefits far outweigh the risks. And the risks of radiation must be assessed on a scientific basis and with informed realism. The global community would be wise to make a significant educational investment in this area and encourage young people to grasp the many professional challenges of a nuclear future. It will be their educational task to eliminate unnecessary fear of radiation and to demonstrate that even very high levels of radiation can be managed with complete safety by appropriate design.
The neglect of such a task would rob humans of unique and important technologies in energy supply, fresh water production and space and marine propulsion. It would adversely affect the development and uses of powerful and vital nuclear techniques in medicine, industry and environmental science. The manipulative assessment of nuclear risk must not deprive humanity of these immense benefits.
The hydrocarbons that have not yet been exploited are a precious, diminishing and non-renewable resource for future generations that have an assured role to play in the future of the manufacturing, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries. Vision and informed realism dictates that the hydrocarbon producing giants should begin to invest in the uranium fuel cycle and all aspects of nuclear power generation. Indeed, Australia's uranium miners should start showing interests in all areas of value-adding technology in the production of commercial grade nuclear fuel and the reprocessing and disposal of nuclear waste. Only in this way can Australia play a significant role in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Within such a framework, the concept of nuclear fuel leasing, which I first presented to Canberra 30 years ago, would ensure that Australia played a dominant and ethical role in the energy supply industry of the next millennium.
In considering the opposition to nuclear power, it's worth reflecting on the early history of oil. When the first oil wells were sunk in Pennsylvania during the early 19th century, earnest, sincere and devout Christians were terrified that God's plan for the redemption of mankind would suffer because the fuel that so obviously fed the fires of hell would be prematurely exhausted and sinners would escape just retribution.
In the American Congressional Record of 1875 we read: "A new source of power, which burns a distillate of kerosene called gasoline, has been produced by a Boston engineer. Instead of burning the fuel under a boiler, it is exploded inside the cylinder of an engine. This so-called internal combustion engine may be used under certain conditions to supplement steam engines. Experiments are under way to use an engine to propel a vehicle.
"This discovery begins a new era in the history of civilisation. It may some day prove to be more revolutionary in the development of human society than the invention of the wheel, the use of metals, or the steam engine. Never in history has society been confronted with a power so full of potential danger and at the same time so full of promise for the future of man and for the peace of the world.
"The dangers are obvious. Stores of gasoline in the hands of the people interested primarily in profit would constitute a fire and explosive hazard of the first rank. Horseless carriages propelled by gasoline engines might attain speeds of 14 or even 20 miles per hour. The menace to our people of vehicles of this type hurtling through our streets and along our roads and poisoning the atmosphere would call for prompt legislative action even if the military and economic implications were not so overwhelming. The Secretary of War has testified before us and has pointed out the destructive effects of the use of such vehicles in battle, Furthermore, the cost of producing it is far beyond the financial capacity of private industry, yet the safety of the nation demands than an adequate supply should be produced. In addition, the development of this new power may displace the use of horses, which would wreck our agriculture. The discovery with which we are dealing involves forces of a nature too dangerous to fit into any of our usual concepts."
Fear of the unknown and fear of change have always been part of the human psyche. The false perception that nuclear risks are greater than chemical risks is another component of Australia's fearful attitude towards nuclear energy.
From the first use of fire by primitive man to the middle of this century, the only fuels available to man for heat and work have been chemical. For a long time the primary fuel was wood and dung, then came peat and coal, and finally oil and natural gas. Burned with the oxygen in the air, these fuels have been man's primary source of energy apart from the direct solar heat and wind power. Through long use, they have seemed a natural and normal part of the world and a universal component of all creation. In contrast, the recent employment of nuclear energy in electric power plants seems to many an abnormal and unnatural intrusion by technological man a man-made addition to the created order. Seen in this way, nuclear energy and its products, such as radioactive wastes and plutonium, are looked upon by many as contrary to God's purpose and inherently and irredeemably evil.
This way of judging the status of energy in creation is the result of a limited perspective. In the universe as a whole the situation is just the reverse. An ordinary fire is the extraordinary and exceedingly rare and abnormal phenomenon. It can occur only on a planet with a long evolutionary history of living things having an atmosphere containing free oxygen. In our solar system it is possible only on Earth.
Nuclear energy is the universal, common and natural kind of energy in creation as a whole. Indeed, the other forms of energy are all derived from it. All the wood, coal, oil and gas man has ever burned came from our natural nuclear power plant, the sun, through photosynthesis so too with water power and wind power. Without realising it until this century, we have begun to generate electricity directly in nuclear power plants of our own design and construction, we are merely tapping directly the universal energy source for all of creation.
Australia is a country thirsty for water and hungry for energy. The nation's sustainable development, its value adding industries and its rural production are largely dependent on these two commodities. And now among the world's leading scientists and engineers there is a growing belief that a greenhouse gas free and cost-effective supply of energy, water and even hydrogen can best be sourced from judiciously sited "Generation Four" nuclear power plants.
Many of these experts are bemused by the continuing refusal of the Council of Australian Governments to recognise the vital role that nuclear energy could play in their energy and water policies. They would unreservedly commend a federal government energy policy that endorses a gradual switch from hydrocarbon to nuclear fuels.
Australia's flirtation with renewable energy sources makes little technical, economic or environmental sense as such "dilute" and "discontinuous" forms tend to increase energy prices and their credentials for environmental acceptability and sustainability need careful re-examination.
Typically, wind farms in Denmark have led to the highest energy prices in Europe. Their visual pollution in Wales and Sweden has aroused great societal concern and in California they have been a technical and significant contributor to huge price escalations and blackouts in a deregulated electricity market.
In Australia, the promotion of wind farms seems to be driven mainly by European manufacturers who possibly suspect their markets elsewhere might dry up within a few years. Such ventures are supported by state governments that wish to privatise the electricity industry quickly and do not wish to install new base load generating plant. Land-holders who desire to supplement their income by non-agricultural pursuits also tend to be wind-farm enthusiasts. The effect of such structures on the environment, and in particular on neighbouring properties is, as yet, an unresolved problem and promotes much tension in some rural communities.
By contrast, nuclear energy is both "concentrated" and "continuous". It is the logical complement to hydrocarbon fuels but with the great advantage of having a high energy density and a very low volume of tail-end waste. Typically, the energy content of the hydrocarbon fuels begins with about 10 megajoules per kilogram for brown coal to a peak of 45 megajoules per litre for petroleum. Uranium used in light water reactors has an energy content of about 400,000 megajoules per kilogram.
Consider the immense contribution to greenhouse gas emission minimisation made by nuclear energy in 2001<3>. The global electricity produced by the world's 435 nuclear power stations that year was 2398 terawatt-hours, or 16 per cent of total electricity generation or 5 per cent of total primary energy production. The amount of avoided carbon dioxide emission because of the use of nuclear energy was 2.4 billion tonnes 10 per cent of total emissions. Japan's 54 nuclear power stations alone save the equivalent of Australia's total greenhouse emissions. And the secret of this success is uranium fuel imported from Australia.
In the US last year, its 103 nuclear power stations maintained their position as lowest-cost producers of electricity, at US1.71 cents per kilowatt-hour for fuel, operation and maintenance. This includes US0.45 cent fuel cost, of which about US0.1 c would be the ex-mine uranium before manufacture into fuel. Coal came in at US1.85 c/kWh (US1.36 c for fuel), and gas was US4.06 c/kWh (US3.44 c fuel). The implications of increased fossil fuel costs stand out. Reactor capacity factors reached an average of 91.5 per cent a record. Compare this with an average capacity factor of 20 per cent for "wind farms". All nuclear costs include waste management and plant decommissioning.
A conference held in Marrakech, Morocco, in October 2002 came to the conclusion that nuclear co-generation presents the technical, economical and environmental optimum for potable water production, confirmed by the pioneering work of Japan, Russia, India and China. These countries have already operated nuclear desalination plant producing from 6000 cubic metres to 80,000 cubic metres of potable water per day at costs below $US1 per cubic metre. In Australia, a number of such plants could make a huge difference to the nation's water and salinity problems.<4>
Over the past decade the growth in global installed nuclear generating capacity has been led by China and India <5>. But now informed realism concerning the versatility, safety and environmental advantages of nuclear power plant is attracting renewed interest in the European Union, the US, Japan and elsewhere.
In December 2004, the chief executives of more than 20 EU energy companies called upon their governments to make nuclear power a central part of their energy policies on the basis of the energy security and environmental protection. They pointed out that all low-carbon and zero-carbon sources will need to be mobilised notably nuclear and renewables and hence all should be able to compete equitably.
This statement was presented as the opening shot in a new offensive to change policy settings in EU countries to give due credit to the virtues of nuclear power and to remove measures that discriminate against it. In Britain, the head of the Confederation of British Industry earlier called for the immediate construction of six new nuclear plants over the next 10 years because the government's reliance on wind would achieve little. The Swedish forests products industry has made a similar call on its government.
Few countries have as much to gain from the introduction of nuclear power technology and the commercialisation of the nuclear fuel cycle as Australia. Ease of access to energy and water supplies will be the key to geopolitical stability in a potentially turbulent 21st century and nuclear power could help to ensure this. It is incumbent upon the federal government to revise its energy and water policies immediately.
The full approval of the Council of Australian Governments and their expert advisers should be sought to facilitate the introduction of nuclear power plants for the cogeneration of electricity and the production of fresh water and hydrogen. For at least the next 100 years Australia's sustainable development and economic health will depend substantially on this greenhouse friendly technology.
NOTES:
1: Miami Herald, January 1, 2005.
2: LG Kemeny: "Global Trends in Nuclear Education at the Tertiary Level", Fourth Conference on Nuclear Science and Engineering in Australia, October 2001.
3: LG Kemeny: "Nuclear Energy and the Greenhouse Problem", Fourth Conference on Nuclear Science and Engineering in Australia, October 2001.
4:LG Kemeny: "The Modular Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor: The Preferred Base Load Energy Option for the 21st Century?", September, 2002, Energy News, Vol. 20 No. 3.
5: LG Kemeny: "Energy in Asia Pacific", Asia Pacific Economic Literature, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Management; The Australian National University. Blackwell Publishers, Vol. 13 No. 1 May 2001.