Anti-nuclear movement

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The "Smiling Sun" icon of the WISE (or NIRS) anti-nuclear organization. Text: Nuclear Power? No thanks.

The anti-nuclear movement arose out of a concern of the use of nuclear technologies. This movement manifests various concerns:

• opposition to nuclear weapons, weapons using depleted uranium, and in favour of nuclear disarmament
• opposition to nuclear power and generation of electricity with nuclear energy.
• opposition to the use of radioactivity and food irradiation
• opposition to radiation including microwave radiation

Many people who are anti-nuclear, are against the use of nuclear power for electricity generation, since they think nuclear power is inherently dangerous. They consider the risk of a nuclear accident unacceptable and generally believe that radioactive waste cannot be disposed of safely. Many also see uranium mining and nuclear reprocessing as unacceptable, because of perceived and real environmental consequences of these activities.

History

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Anti-nuclear poster

The anti-nuclear viewpoint, as distinct from the movement, stems mainly from three roots:

• First, within Western culture there is a thread of mistrust of science and technology which dates back to novels written in the early nineteenth century, in which ambitious and over-confident scientists unleashed uncontrollable forces. Beginning in the 1960s, the trend was escalated in the popular media by novels such as Fail-Safe, by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, and films such as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
• Second, radioactive materials were misused and carelessly handled in the early twentieth century (see Radioactive quackery), which led to a general belief that all forms of radiation were dangerous at any level.
• Third, nuclear energy was, and is, associated in the public mind with atomic weapons.

All three of these roots coalesced following the use of atomic weapons on Japan and the subsequent bomb tests, with resultant distribution of radioactive fallout. The anti-nuclear movement grew out of this convergence.

In the 1960's, the environmental movement grew mainly in reaction to obvious deterioration of the natural and urban environments. Although some environmentalists favoured nuclear energy as a way to reduce pollution, the majority came to the movement with already-formed anti-nuclear attitudes, and at present the anti-nuclear movement and the environmental movement have considerable overlap.

A common theme among environmentalists is the belief in the need to reduce consumerism. Early anti-nuclear advocates thought that nuclear energy would enable lifestyles which would strain the viability of the natural environment. This belief reinforced their generally anti-nuclear attitudes.

If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other.

— Amory Lovins, The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22

Giving society cheap, abundant energy ... would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.

— Paul Ehrlich, "An Ecologist's Perspective on Nuclear Power", May/June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report

We can and should seize upon the energy crisis as a good excuse and great opportunity for making some very fundamental changes that we should be making anyhow for other reasons.

— Russell Train (EPA Administrator at the time, and soon thereafter became head of the World Wildlife Fund), Science 184 p. 1050, 7 June 1974

Let's face it. We don't want safe nuclear power plants. We want NO nuclear power plants

— A spokesman for the Government Accountability Project, an offshoot of the Institute for Policy Studies, The American Spectator, Vol 18, No. 11, Nov. 1985

Opponents of nuclear energy used the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of 1968 to reinforce the connections between the international export and development of nuclear power technologies and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Finally, because nuclear power has always been a technology which requires and employs specialists, some individuals with little or no scientific training view it as an elitist technology. The public view of nuclear power is based on popular political and social perception rather than in-depth knowledge of the technology and scientific specifics of nuclear power.

Much early opposition to nuclear power was expressed in relation to environmental grounds: thermal pollution, known and postulated reactor accidents, potential release of radiation during shipments, and still-developing means for long term radioactive waste storage and disposal. The environmental movement made such concerns well-known, whereas opposition on issues such as concentration of capital in major engineering endeavours rather than decentralised and less productive energy sources, and proliferation of nuclear weapons, did not attract much attention.

By the time of the rise of New England's Clamshell Alliance, California's Abalone Alliance, and dozens of similar regional groups dedicated to stopping the growth of nuclear power through nonviolent civil disobedience based actions, points of opposition had expanded from concerns about pollution and proliferation to include concerns about economic viability and terrorist target threats.

The movement was popularised in part by artists. Popular performers such as Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne recorded songs about nuclear or alternative power sources. Along with numerous documentary film treatments, the Academy Award nominated The China Syndrome, 1979, and Silkwood movies dramatised the fears of anti-nuclear activists.

Impact on public policies

Main article: Nuclear energy policy

By the nations legislation under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, all territorial sea and land of New Zealand is declared a “nuclear free zone”.

In Italy the use of nuclear power has been barred by a referendum in 1987. Recently, however, Italy has agreed to export nuclear technology. Ireland also has no plans to change its non-nuclear stance and pursue nuclear power in the future.

Germany has set a date of 2020 for the permanent shutdown of the last nuclear power plant in the Nuclear Exit Law, although recently there has been some discussion to extend this date.

Stances

nuclear power is just a very sophisticated way to boil water ... and insanely dangerous too

— Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power is Not the Answer

Where we want only to create temperature differences of tens of

degrees, we should meet the need with sources whose potential is tens or hundreds of degrees, not with a flame temperature of thousands or a nuclear temperature of millions—-like cutting butter with a chainsaw.

— Amory Lovins, Energy Strategy:The Road Not Taken?

Safety and nuclear accidents

Nuclear accidents are often cited by anti-nuclear groups as evidence of the inherent danger of nuclear power (see list of nuclear accidents). Most commonly cited is the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which resulted in large amounts of radio-isotopes being released into the environment. Also cited is the Three Mile Island accident which happened in 1979 in the USA, ironically two weeks after the release of the film, The China Syndrome.

For many, this is a fundamental objection to the technology.

High level nuclear waste

According to anti-nuclear organisations, rendering nuclear waste harmless is not being done satisfactorily and it remains a hazard for anywhere between a few years to many thousands of years, depending on the particular isotopes. The length of time waste has to be stored is controversial because there is a question of whether one should use the original ore or surrounding rock as a reference for safe levels. Anti-nuclear organisations tend to favour using normal soil as a reference, in contrast to pro-nuclear organisations who tend to argue that geologically disposed waste can be considered safe once it is no more radioactive that the uranium ore it was produced from.

Monetary cost of nuclear power

Anti-nuclear organisations consider that the Economics of new nuclear power plants are unfavourable because of the initial costs of constructing a nuclear plant (see Darlington Nuclear Generating Station), the public subsidies and tax expenditures involved in research and security, the cost of decommissioning nuclear facilities, and the undetermined costs of storing nuclear waste.

Nuclear proliferation

Part of the radioactive material produced in some types of nuclear reactors has the potential to be used to make nuclear weapons by countries equipped with the capability of chemical and isotope separation. Anti-nuclear activists claim that this makes nuclear power undesirable out of concern for nuclear proliferation.

Nuclear-free alternatives

Anti-nuclear groups favour the development of distributed generation of renewable energy, such as biomass (wood fuel and biofuel), wind power and solar power, and efficiency-enhancing approaches including co-generation. Some favor geothermal power as well, though it isn't distributed and emits considerable amounts of air pollution and greenhouse gases.

Greenpeace advocates reduction of fossil fuels by 50% by 2050 as well as phasing out nuclear energy, contending that innovative technologies can increase energy efficiency, and suggests that by 2050 the majority of electricity will be generated from renewable sources.

In general, anti-nuclear groups tend to claim that reliance on nuclear energy can be reduced by adopting energy conservation policies. Some favour changing human lifestyles to allow lower energy consumption that can be supported by renewable energy sources, believing those lifestyles would generate less pollution.

Criticism of the anti-nuclear movement

Criticism comes mainly from three sources: nuclear experts with specialised technical knowledge, environmentalists, and businesses that conduct nuclear activities. The principal criticisms are that nuclear opponents overstate the impacts on human health and on the environment from nuclear energy and fail to consider the impacts of alternatives, that they make the same unbalanced comparisons with respect to economic cost, and that they ignore the practical limits of alternatives. Beyond that, critics charge that the more radical nuclear opponents argue points which are frightening but irrelevant, that they misrepresent the facts about nuclear energy and fail to substantiate their statements, and that they contradict independent analyses done by unbiased professionals.

Environmentalists criticise the anti-nuclear movement for under-stating the environmental costs of fossil-fuels and non-nuclear alternatives, and over-stating the environmental costs of nuclear energy.

Of the numerous nuclear experts who have offered their expertise in addressing controversies, Bernard Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh, is likely the most frequently cited. In his extensive writings he examines the safety issues in detail. He is best known for comparing nuclear safety to the relative safety of a wide range of other phenomena.

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) is the main lobby group for companies doing nuclear work in the USA, while most countries that employ nuclear energy have a national industry group. The World Nuclear Association is the only global trade body. In seeking to counteract the arguments of nuclear opponents, it points to independent studies that quantify the costs and benefits of nuclear energy and compares them to the costs and benefits of alternatives. NEI sponsors studies of its own, but it also references studies performed for the World Health Organisation, for the International Energy Agency , and by university researchers.

The anti-nuclear movement and global warming

Main article: Global warming

While the anti-nuclear movement has consistently opposed expanding nuclear energy to displace fossil fuels (petroleum, coal, natural gas), in recent years, a number of individuals formerly from the environmentalist movement have reversed their positions on nuclear energy, and begun to argue on its behalf, on the grounds that it does not produce significant carbon dioxide. These individuals include James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis, Patrick Moore, and Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog. Lovelock regards nuclear energy as essential to minimizing global warming due to greenhouse gases. In his writings he refutes claims about the danger of nuclear energy and its waste products.

The anti-nuclear movement has contended that capital resources would be spent more productively on renewable energy sources than nuclear plants, arguing further that the problem of intermittancy can be overcome through storage, biofuels, and oversizing the electrical-distribution grid.

Nuclear proponents point to independent studies that show the opposite: that the capital resources required for renewable energy sources are higher. They also point out that storage and long-distance redistribution of electricity, assuming they could be accomplished, would add to the cost and that the inefficiencies of both mitigation methods would raise the costs even more. They also argue that biofuels can't even replace a major part of petroleum-based fuel for vehicles, much less generate electricity. Some have gone as far to claim that incorporating renewable technologies such as wind may increase fuel consumption and carbon emissions, in places such Denmark.

Former US Vice-President Al Gore and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize recipient is presently a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm that invests in non-nuclear alternative energy sources. He has stated about the use of nuclear power to mitigate global warming:

Nuclear energy is not the panacea for tackling global warming.

Public perception of nuclear power

2007 opinion survey in Spain regarding energy sources. Nuclear obtained a low rating (3.1 on a scale of 10)

Feb 2005 opinion poll regarding nuclear power in the USA.

  Respondents opposed to nuclear, many of whom would consider themselves "anti-nuclear"

  undecided

  In favour of nuclear power

Approval ratings of nuclear energy, which are a reflection of the anti-nuclear movement's position prevalence in the general public, vary from poll to poll. These variations can be due to news coverage of events concerning e.g. nuclear reactors, energy supplies, global warming. Some polls show that the approval of nuclear power rises with the education level of the respondents.

The results of the polls tend to be variable, depending on the question asked: a CBS News/New York Times poll in 2007 showed that a majority of Americans would not like to have a nuclear plant built in their community, although an increasing percentage would like to see more nuclear power.

A poll in the European Union for Feb-Mar 2005 showed 37% in favour of nuclear energy and 55% opposed, leaving 8% undecided. The same agency ran another poll in Oct-Nov 2006 that showed 14% favoured building new nuclear plants, 34% favoured maintaining the same number, and 39% favoured reducing the number of operating plants, leaving 13% undecided.

In the United States, the Nuclear Energy Institute has run polls since the 1980s which had shown a general trend toward favourable attitudes on nuclear energy. A poll in conducted March 30 to April 1, 2007 chose solar as the most likely largest source for electricity in the US in 15 years (27% of those polled) followed by nuclear, 24% and coal, 14%. Those who were favourable of nuclear being used dropped to 63% from a historic high of 70% in 2005 and 68% in September, 2006.

In Spain in 2007, nuclear energy received a low poll rating at 3.1 on a scale of 10. Solar and wind received the highest rating, at 8.6 and 8.3, respectively.

Anti-Nuclear, watchdogs, and nuclear awareness organisations

International organisations

• International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
• International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
• Friends of the Earth
• Greenpeace
• Ploughshares Fund
• Nuclear Information and Resource Service - World Information Service on Energy

Local organisations

• Anti-nuclear movement in Africa
  • Earthlife Africa
  • Koeberg Alert
• Anti-nuclear movement in Australia
  • Anti-Nuclear Alliance of Western Australia
  • Nuclear Free Australia
• Anti-nuclear movement in Canada
  • Sortir du nucléaire
• Anti-nuclear movement in the European Union
  • Sortir du nucléaire in France
  • Anti-nuclear movement in Germany
  • No New Nukes! in the United Kingdom
• Anti-nuclear movement in Japan
  • Citizens' Nuclear Information Centre
• Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
  • Anti-nuclear movement in California

See also

• Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
• External cost
• Global warming
• Nuclear-Free Future Award
• Nuclear-free zone
• Nuclear Power
• Renewable energy commercialization
• Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC)

External links

• The History of the Clamshell Alliance and why it matters today.
• European NGOs aim to collect one million signatures against nuclear power in Europe
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Three Mile Island Alert
• Nuclear Files
• Template:PDFlink
• Anti-nuclear websites and related resources

Bibliography

• Lawrence S. Wittner The Struggle Against the Bomb Stanford, CA: Stanford University 3 vol. ed I 1993 II 1997 III 2003