Switzerland moves to remove ban on new nuclear reactors

[NNadir]

Switzerland moves to remove ban on new reactors

Subtitle:

The Swiss government has said it will seek to lift the country's ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants, which has been in place since 1 January 2018. It said all clean energy sources will be needed to meet expected electricity demand while also meeting climate targets.

Some excerpts:

Switzerland currently has four nuclear reactors generating about one-third of its electricity. They all have an unlimited operating licence and can be operated as long as they are safe.

A new Swiss energy policy was sought in response to the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. Two months later, both the Swiss parliament and government decided to exit nuclear power production. The Energy Strategy 2050 initiative drawn up by the Federal Council came into force in 2018 and calls for a gradual withdrawal from nuclear energy. It also foresees expanded use of renewables and hydro power but anticipates increased reliance on fossil fuels and electricity imports as an interim measure.

The Federal Council notes that "in recent years, the situation on the electricity market and in energy policy has changed fundamentally" due to: climate targets and electricity demand; new gas-fired power plants no longer being an option; and geopolitical uncertainties...

..."The lifting of the ban on new construction is long overdue and a step towards greater technological openness," said Swiss Nuclear Forum President Hans-Ulrich Bigler. "It gives Switzerland more room for maneuver in terms of security of supply and climate protection."

However, the organisation said the lifting of the ban alone "is not enough". It said the licensing regime for nuclear power plants must also be simplified as the current multi-stage process creates legal uncertainty and high additional costs. "Simplifying the licensing regime would make nuclear power plants much more attractive in this country..."

The recognition that the claim that new gas plants are "transitional" - as we all wait for the grand renewable energy nirvana that did not come, is not here, and won't come - is bullshit is of course, welcome. People don't build "temporary" gas plants.

The disappearance of glaciers as a result of extreme global heating is going to have huge effects in Switzerland, and, of course, the water supplies beyond its borders.

Right now, Switzerland's electricity has relatively low carbon intensity for Europe, not quite as clean as France, but certainly cleaner than antinuclear Germany:



Electricity Map (Accessed 8/31/24) They obviously have a huge reliance on hydroelectricity, which produces almost as much energy as nuclear does. If the glaciers are gone or withered, Switzerland will either need to rely on dangerous fossil fuels - worsening their predicament and that of the rest of the world - or do what everyone should do, "go nuclear" against climate change.

This is a welcome development in a world that is finally waking up, too late, perhaps, but better late than never.

[DFW]

1. There is a place near Lauterbrunnen in the Berner Oberland in central Switzerland

It's called "Trummelbach." We used to go there (Mürren, actually) when our girls were little, and simpler pleasures were enough for a short vacation/long weekend. Trummelbach ("drum stream" ) is a special partially enclosed mountain gorge/tube where water from glacial melt comes rushing downward through a concentrated narrow passage. It is deafeningly loud and has such force, it seems that if you were to stick your hand in the water flow, the force would take your hand right off in a fraction of a second.

It is easy to understand why Switzerland concentrated so much on Hydro for their power, and why they would be in such a pickle if that were no longer an option. Retreating glaciers constitute a national catastrophe for them. Nuclear still scares the hell out of many who live in Europe (including me), but France has nuclear power plants near the Swiss border, so if one of them had a Chernobyl-type accident (not likely due to different construction style, but still....), the people in the French-speaking area of Switzerland might have to start learning Schwyzerdütch and Italian overnight.

[NNadir]

2. Nuclear power saves lives, period, and the degree to which it "scares" people is absurd.

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

All of the "if" statements are do not erase the fact that there is a vast death toll on this planet from air pollution, which is fossil fuel waste that is not restrained from release or containment in any way. It comes to, according to Lancet, about 7 million people a year, roughly, and that's not counting climate change.

The paper is here: Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249). This study is a huge undertaking and the list of authors from around the world is rather long. These studies are always open sourced; and I invite people who want to carry on about Fukushima to open it and search the word "radiation." It appears once. Radon, a side product brought to the surface by fracking while we all wait for the grand so called "renewable energy" nirvana that did not come, is not here and won't come, appears however: Household radon, from the decay of natural uranium, which has been cycling through the environment ever since oxygen appeared in the Earth's atmosphere.

Here is what it says about air pollution deaths in the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Survey.

The top five risks for attributable deaths for females were high SBP (5·25 million [95% UI 4·49–6·00] deaths, or 20·3% [17·5–22·9] of all female deaths in 2019), dietary risks (3·48 million [2·78–4·37] deaths, or 13·5% [10·8–16·7] of all female deaths in 2019), high FPG (3·09 million [2·40–3·98] deaths, or 11·9% [9·4–15·3] of all female deaths in 2019), air pollution (2·92 million [2·53–3·33] deaths or 11·3% [10·0–12·6] of all female deaths in 2019), and high BMI (2·54 million [1·68–3·56] deaths or 9·8% [6·5–13·7] of all female deaths in 2019). For males, the top five risks differed slightly. In 2019, the leading Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths globally in males was tobacco (smoked, second-hand, and chewing), which accounted for 6·56 million (95% UI 6·02–7·10) deaths (21·4% [20·5–22·3] of all male deaths in 2019), followed by high SBP, which accounted for 5·60 million (4·90–6·29) deaths (18·2% [16·2–20·1] of all male deaths in 2019). The third largest Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths among males in 2019 was dietary risks (4·47 million [3·65–5·45] deaths, or 14·6% [12·0–17·6] of all male deaths in 2019) followed by air pollution (ambient particulate matter and ambient ozone pollution, accounting for 3·75 million [3·31–4·24] deaths (12·2% [11·0–13·4] of all male deaths in 2019), and then high FPG (3·14 million [2·70–4·34] deaths, or 11·1% [8·9–14·1] of all male deaths in 2019).

This works out to about 18,000 to 19,000 deaths per day. I always invite people who are "scared" by nuclear power to demonstrate that in 70 year history of commercial nuclear power, it has been responsible for as many deaths over that period as fossil fuels will kill today.

In my view, opposing nuclear power is the exact and precise equivalent of opposing vaccines. Vaccines do have risks, but their benefits dwarf those risks.

Nuclear power does not to be risk free to be better than all other options; it only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.

The numbers above do not include the deaths from extreme weather induced by extreme global heating, which are clearly rising, including but hardly limited to deaths from direct exposure to extreme heat.

The world is waking up, perhaps too little, too late, to the consequences of selective attention. I note that Ukraine, the site of the big bogeyman at Chernobyl, under attack with fossil fuels weapons of mass destruction that were paid for by fossil fuel sales made by Putin to Germany, plans to build nuclear power plants when the war is over.

They, the Ukrainians, know the score, the extreme political, economic, environmental, and moral danger of fossil fuels.

Energoatom moves ahead with plans for new four-unit AP1000 plant

For the record, I raised my sons in New Jersey. Often when I took my boys to the beach at Island Beach Park, I pointed out the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant across Barnegat Bay, which has regrettably now shut. (I would be in favor of restarting it.) My youngest son, now a man, has dedicated his life to saving lives by working on a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering. I couldn't be prouder of his dedication to humanity.

[DFW]

3. We have a slightly different perpspective here

When Chernobyl blew, we were right in the path of the cloud, got seriously elevated readings for a year, couldn't eat local vegetables for that time, and had Geiger counters clicking away for that same year, and increased incidences of typically radiation-induced cancers (thyroid, e.g.) go way up in the years subsequent. No western nuclear power plants did that, but it leaves a lasting impression if you're actually affected by it.

[NNadir]

4. My perspective is very, very, very, very different, mostly because I rely on the scientific literature, not innuedo.

The reason you "couldn't" eat vegetables in Germany has very little to do with actual risk, and infinitely more to do with unreasonable fear or radiation hyped by a scientifically illiterate "but her emails" media, all around the world. Again, it strikes me as antivax type rhetoric, inflating a minor risk with the vast and overwhelming risks of burning coal, gas, and oil while pretending that so called "renewable energy" is an alternative to fossil fuels, which it isn't. ¹³¹I has a half-life of roughly 8 days, mercury emitted from coal plants does not have a half-life at all. It sticks around forever. (Uranium, which is also a component of coal fly ash, does have a half-life, but of course, it is so long as to make it present on this planet throughout its history.)

For the record, I personally worked for three years with radioiodide, the synthetic ¹²⁵I isotope, that was historically utilized in certain kinds of bioanalytical tests, displaced by mass spectrometry (in which I now work). I could and did - it was required - hold a Geiger counter to my throat to measure the radioactivity in my thyroid, which was always elevated above background. This was almost 40 years ago. I did this because radioimmunoassay kits at that time were involved in saving lives but more importantly, I am highly educated about risk. I am still alive, I believe, and in fact, taking a drug that has a (slightly) increased risk of thyroid cancer, Ozempic, because my risk from being obese is higher than my risk of thyroid cancer.

Even if it were true that thyroid cancers were elevated from the big bogey man at Chernobyl - the most recent UN UNSCEAR Report indicates that they were slightly elevated among young people in Belarus and Ukraine - this does not excuse burning fossil fuels, as the Lancet data indicates kills people at a rate of roughly 19,000 people per day.

According to this scientific publication, Wang Qian , Zeng Zhen , Nan Junjie , Zheng Yongqiang , Liu Huanbing, Cause of Death Among Patients With Thyroid Cancer: A Population-Based Study, Frontiers in Oncology, 12, 2022, there were, in 2020, 22,386 deaths, worldwide, from thyroid cancer. According to the article, most people diagnosed with thyroid cancer, did not die from it but from other causes, as the disease is highly treatable. As for the deaths, at a rate of 19,000 people per day, about 800 an hour, from dangerous fossil fuel waste, assuming that all of the deaths from thyroid cancer were the result of nuclear power bogeymen, Chernobyl, Fukushima, blah, blah, blah, a statement that is nonsense, as thyroid cancer existed well before the invention of nuclear power, the death toll would amount to 28 hours of the people killed because we do not use nuclear power to its fullest extent but burn fossil fuels instead.

The recent UNSCEAR report linked above indicates that in the period since 1986 there has been an elevated risk of thyroid cancers in Belarus and Ukraine, resulting, apparently in 15 fatal cases, about 1.2 minutes worth of fossil fuel related deaths from air pollution.

I find these numbers morally incomprehensible.

I am intimately familiar with nuclear issues, as many of writings here, many, most even, referring to the primary scientific literature.

In my opinion, a decision to close a nuclear plant by appeal to fear and, frankly, ignorance, is, irrefutably, a decision to kill people.

I am well aware of all the scare stories about Chernobyl and Europe's food supply and have been mocking them for many years.
Post-Chernobyl Radionuclide Distributions in an Austrian Cow.

I would have found them, did find them, and still find them, rather absurd. If I lived in Germany right now I'd be far more concerned about mercury on the spinach from aerosol coal ash than radioisotopes in the weeks after the big radioactive cloud from Chernobyl wafted over Europe generating lots of hype, but few actual health consequences.

We have a very different set of concerns apparently.

What really concerns me is the German contribution, one of the worst in Europe, to extreme global heating which is observable across the planet and which is destroying human lives and ecosystems across the planet. (Yes, I know, Poland is far worse, but Poland is exercising moral authority by choosing to end, rather than embrace, its reliance on coal by "going nuclear" against climate gases: Approval sought for preparatory works for Polish plant, an ethical decision, in my view, of the highest order.)

People lie, to themselves and to each other, but numbers don't lie.

Here, from the Electricity Map is a measure of the annual (as of this morning in the US, EST, 9/1/2024) climate gas intensity of two countries in Europe, France and Germany, one that embraced nuclear power and the other which shut its nuclear power plants to replace them with coal, 53 grams CO₂/kWh in the former, and 400 grams CO₂/kWh for the latter.





(Switzerland, with 4 nuclear plants, has an annualized climate gas intensity of 83 grams of CO₂/kWh; Nuclear powered South Central Sweden, 23 grams of CO₂/kWh.)

I'm sorry, but concerns about trace radioactivity on lettuce in Germany does not outweigh, in my view, the threat to all humanity, and indeed all life forms on Earth, of extreme global heating.

There is a cure - which admittedly does not always work - for thyroid cancer; ironically it involves dosing patients with radioactive ¹³¹I. Thus far there is no cure for extreme global heating, especially without embracing the only truly sustainable form of energy there is in my view, nuclear energy.

By the way, the administration of the current President of the United States, the incomparable Joe Biden, gets it. White House holds summit on US nuclear energy deployment 30 May, 2024.

"...Taken together, these actions represent the largest sustained push to accelerate civil nuclear deployment in the United States in nearly five decades," the White House said.

I fully hope and fully expect that a future President Harris will get it as well, as do people like Gretchen Whitmer, who has called for the reopening of a nuclear plant in Michigan. VP Harris is highly intelligent and I fully expect will build on a great legacy with respect to nuclear energy issues.

We've come a long way since Michael Dukakis in our party.

Have a nice afternoon and evening.