O debate sobre a energia nuclear (ver este artigo na Wikipedia) ainda não terminou, apesar de as apostas pelo regresso desta forma de “energia limpa” estarem a ficar sem recursos retóricos e, sobretudo, sem recursos financeiros!
A súmula de artigos recentes sobre este tema, que aqui compilamos, ajudam a compreender a complexidade, mas também a improbabilidade crescente de uma tal opção se tornar viável antes de 2040-2050.
Recomendo a leitura do estimulante ensaio de Bernard L. Cohen, escrito em 2002, sobre alguns dos mitos em volta da suposta perigosidade extrema da energia nuclear, antes de avaliar os argumentos mais recentes, e muito convincentes (ainda que por motivos diferentes da memória de Hiroshima, Nagasaky e Chernobyl) contra o nuclear. — CS.
Ignorance about Nuclear Power is Killing Us
The American public has been led to believe that nuclear power is extremely dangerous and that nuclear waste disposal is an unsolved problem. Those beliefs are based on preposterous distortions perpetrated by irrational environmentalists and an irresponsible mass media. In reality, a reactor meltdown would have to occur every two weeks to make nuclear power as deadly as the routine emissions from coal-fired power, from which we get about half of our electric power in the United States.
Contrary to the impression created by the media, every scientific study — more than 25 of them — has found that coal burning, now the source of most of our electricity, is many times more harmful to our health than nuclear power.
– Bernard L. Cohen (2002) | Ler texto integral aqui.
As altas temperaturas deste Verão instável obrigaram já a França, a Espanha e a Alemanha a parar, ainda que temporariamente, boa parte das respectivas centrais nucleares, seja por causa do sobre-aquecimento dos rios, seja por efeito das altas temperaturas que se têm feito sentir na Europa, mas ainda porque sobre estes organismos vivos desaguam inevitavelmente as águas sobreaquecidas pelos reactores nucleares!
Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants
The European heatwave has forced nuclear power plants to reduce or halt production. The weather, blamed for deaths and disruption across much of the continent, has caused dramatic rises in the temperature of rivers used to cool the reactors, raising fears of mass deaths for fish and other wildlife.
Spain shut down the Santa Maria de Garona reactor on the River Ebro, one of the country’s eight nuclear plants which generate a fifth of its national electricity. Reactors in Germany are reported to have cut output, and others in Germany and France have been given special permits to dump hot water into rivers to avoid power failures. France, where nuclear power provides more than three quarters of electricity, has also imported power to prevent shortages. — The Observer, Sunday 30 July 2006 .
Apesar do anúncio político do regresso da energia nuclear, nomeadamente na Europa, a verdade é que sobram os argumentos económicos, financeiros, ambientais e de segurança, contra uma tal alternativa à escassez irremediável do petróleo e ao pesadelo de um regresso precipitado à exploração intensiva do carvão. Aproximamos-nos rapidamente da ideia, há muito defendida, de que o principal não é encontrar novas fontes de energia barata para prosseguirmos o modo de via propagado pelo Ocidente ao longo dos últimos 50 anos, mas antes mudar de vida, começando por apostar enquanto é tempo numa nova economia — eficiente no uso da energia, amiga do planeta e sustentável.
Nuclear Industry’s Financial and Safety Nightmare
Voodoo economics dooms nuclear renaissance
Paul Brown, environmental correspondent of The Guardian newspaper in Britain, has produced a detailed report documenting why it is not possible to achieve what the UK Government says it will do, build a new generation of nuclear stations without public subsidy.
New build will not be possible without large sums of taxpayers’ money being pledged, and extending the unlimited guarantees to underwrite all the debts of the existing and future nuclear industry.”
One should point out here that it appears impossible to have new nuclear build in the United States even with extremely generous public subsidy. In the UK, there is already extensive hidden subsidy to the industry.
Brown’s report exposes how badly the nuclear industry has performed over the entire 50 years of unfulfilled promises, and the escalating bill to the taxpayer.
The UK nuclear industry, like that in the US, has never completed any project on time or on budget and has saddled the nation with a mammoth nuclear fuel reprocessing complex at Sellafield that’s a financial as well as safety nightmare.
British Energy, the commercial company privatised in 1996, soon ran into serious financial trouble, and had to be taken over by the government. That meant the taxpayer has essentially underwritten all its debts and liabilities so the company can never go bankrupt. Brown remarks: “This commitment dwarfs the risk to the taxpayer of the Northern Rock nationalisation.” It means paying for the maintenance and decommissioning of ageing nuclear power stations, and worst of all, the upkeep of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing complex. — in ISIS Press Release 22/09/08.
Nuclear Renaissance Runs Aground
World leaders sign up to “nuclear renaissance”
Leaders at the Group of 8 (G8) summit in Hokkaido, Japan, in early July 2008 reiterated their commitment to build new nuclear power stations. They see a “nuclear renaissance” in mitigating climate change and energy security that would reduce dependence on fossils fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. The G8 includes the industrial nations Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States of America. The European Union is represented but does not have the right to host or chair a meeting. Also invited to the summit were China and India.
… In late December 2007, Warren Buffett, “whose name is synonymous with sound money” turned his back on nuclear power. His MidAmerican Nuclear Energy Company scrapped plans to build a plant in Payette, Idaho, because no matter how many times the managers ran the numbers, and they have already spent $13 million doing so, they found they could not balance the books. South Carolina Electric and Gas too, has suspended its two planned reactors, citing costs as the key factor. If nuclear power breaks ground soon, it will likely be NRG Energy’s double-reactor plant to be built in South Texas. But that one has also been delayed. — ISIS.
Deconstructing the Nuclear Power Myths
… Today’s reactors, totalling 350 GW and providing about 3 per cent of the total energy used in the world, consume 60 000 tonnes of equivalent natural uranium, prior to enrichment. At that rate, economically recoverable reserves of uranium — about 10 million tonnes — would last less than 100 years. A worldwide nuclear programme of 1 000 nuclear reactors would consume the uranium within 50 years, and if all the world’s electricity, currently 60 exajoules (1018Joules) were generated by nuclear reactors, the uranium would last three years. The prospect that the amount of economically recoverable uranium would limit a worldwide nuclear power programme was certainly appreciated by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy in its advocacy for the fast breeder reactor, which theoretically could increase the quantity of energy to be derived from uranium by a factor of 70 through converting non-fissile uranium-238 into plutonium-239. — in ISIS.
Compilado por: AC-P