Influental men and women (and hopefully not just Ms. Merkel alone) in the Munich Security Conference are worried about nuclear power, and what it can do in wrong hands. Whose hands are the right hands, and whose hands are the wrong hands, is of cours a matter of opinion. "The general opinion" is that an issue so dangerous should be agreed together with everyone involved. Easy to say...

Before the official talks at Hotel Bayerischer Hof began, there has been speculations over a possible announcement made by Iran in the discourse on the country’s nuclear program. Delegates and observers had been hoping to get more detailed information of the program, assurance that it is for peaceful purposes only, and even an announcement of de-escalation. Süddeutsche Zeitung had already claimed that Iran had developed a nuclear warhead for their intermediate-range ballistic missle. "A nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable for us"  said the German foreign minister outright. 

Iran's keynote was a disappointment in this regard. Irans foreign minister Mr. Mottaki said, that despite the fact that in principle there was agreement on the exchange of fuel rods with subsequent uranium enrichment abroad, his country felt that there was still some need for negotiation as to quantities and timeframes. Mr. Mottaki underlined that Iran only wanted to exercise her rights under the Nonproliferation Treaty and that his country harbored no further ambitions.


Rights vs. responsibilites

Exercising rights is ok, but as Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt noticed, rights come with obligations. It's not ok to just claim rights but not follow the rules with corresponding obligations. Iran is not fulfilling their commitment to IAEA and the UN Security Council, and is keeping the whole world on its toes.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the reality with nuclear power, and the relation of states today. It's like a group of kids playing football with a hand grenade, knowing that the whole game should be called off, but no one is brave enough to step aside and stop the game. We all want to be part of the gang.

What would it take for the politicians to act? 32 Nobel laureats, 53 parliamentarians, and 237 organizations published a plea in 2005 to put an end to this madness. Their point was exactly what we are seeing today: while the old nuclear states are slowly learning to  play by the rules, there are new entrants coming along who don't give a toss about rules. And I don't mean Iran, they don't follow all the rules but at least they come to the negotiation table. I mean, and the Nobel laureats mean hidden terrorist groups.

At the same time, some of us think that nuclear power is a silver bullet for global warming. That. by building more nuclear power plants, we can continue our lifestyles like nothing happened. That would mean more uranium, more nuclear rods, more nuclear waste being transferred around the world (raw material from poor countries to the plants in rich countries who then dump the waste to poor countires again). The risk of accidents already is huge, not to mention a direct access to terrorists and other rogue groups to hijack and sell these transports.


Is this what we really want?

I was happy to read this article titled "Nuclear renaissance could stall". A Canadian Think Tank has concluded that new reactor construction can be held back due to the economy, issues with waste and security. In their report, they say that nuclear energy as a percentage of global energy production has actually declined since 2001. The World Nuclear Association has estimated capacity to rise 50% by 2030, but the Canadian report, based on 3,5 year study says:

"Standing in the way of new construction are costs that can run up to $10 billion per new reactor, competition from other, cheaper, energy sources, the problem of safely disposing of nuclear waste, and concern about the spread of nuclear weapons".

I am very inclided to believe the Canadians. Our home-grown Finnish disaster with Olkiluoto 3 construction is getting worse by month. Anything you can possibly imagine going wrong, has gone wrong. It is delayed by several years, costing around 50% over budget, introducing horrible security flaws, and not providig any jobs for the Finns as all workers are brough from cheaper countries.

Some of the East-European construction workers who had left the site gave an interview at Helsingin Sanomat, citing that it was the worst construction site they've ever worked at. Security flaws were covered up, there were not always proper documentation, concrete was poured in before steel constructions were made, and command chain didn't work because the Portuguese managers couldn't speak English. There had even been a manager who could not write.

The plant is sold by the French Areva, and bought by the Finnish TVO. I have written about it earlier here and here. A nice coverage on issues also here (but lacking the latest updates).


The opportunities

The only opportunity I see is the opportunity to gradually start replacing nuclear power with energy forms that are really sustainable, not greenwashed to look that way.