Nuclear persuasion - 27 May

The cloud of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster dissipated fairly quickly, but the cloud of public mistrust that hangs over the nuclear industry has yet to disappear. The British government wants to build new nuclear power stations. That is the right choice but, unless public policy goes hand in hand with some public persuasion, it will not get very far.

Nuclear power was the centrepiece of the energy policy paper the government published last week. Nuclear technology helps address the twin concerns of energy independence and climate change. Uranium is mined abroad and the process produces some carbon dioxide, but the quantities involved are small relative to importing and burning fossil fuels.

Nuclear plants currently supply about 18 per cent of the UK’s electricity and a third of that capacity will have to be replaced by 2020. Without new reactors the country will need a huge expansion of renewables or huge cuts in industrial emissions just to stand still in its fight against climate change.

Splitting atoms does have risks. While operational safety standards are much higher than in years past, Britain still has no permanent solution to the problem of storing radioactive waste. There are also economic problems. Each new nuclear plant may cost as much as £1bn to build, though that would be manageable were it not for the uncertain future costs of decommissioning and waste.

If new reactors are to be built they must pay those costs themselves and, given that their operators might be tempted to declare bankruptcy when the clean-up bill comes due, the UK may want to establish a mandatory trust fund into which nuclear plants must pay a percentage of their cash flows.

If no company is willing to build nuclear power stations on those terms, they should not be built. In order that the judgment be fairly made, however, there must be a price on carbon as well as on nuclear waste that reflects their relative environmental costs.

One of the biggest challenges will be finding communities willing to accept a new reactor in town. Placing the first new plants on existing nuclear sites is probably the only way to avoid long delays.

Nuclear is not a perfect solution: it is, after all, the ultimate non-renewable resource. But it could provide a steady flow of low-carbon electricity. The UK still has much work to do to inform the public of its merits. In the end, however, nuclear power should be a source of energy the public hates to love rather than loves to hate.