G8 to discuss sharing nuclear power with emerging nations

G8 leaders will be joined on Monday 17 July by the so-called “outreach countries” group of nations, which includes Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. They will be shown a draft statement which refers to the development of nuclear as “a shared energy system” between developed and developing nations.

A draft version of the G8 statement was leaked by the Sunday Herald on 9 July. It says nuclear power expansion “will promote prosperity and global energy security, while simultaneously offering a positive contribution to the climate change challenge.” It proposes to do so through a “network of international centres providing nuclear fuel services” such as enrichment, in order to prevent proliferation.
However, the value of nuclear as an economically viable energy source is questioned by researchers at the Foundation for the economics and sustainability (FEASTA), an Irish charity. “Every stage in the process of supporting nuclear fission uses energy, and most of this energy is derived from fossils fuels,” says FEASTA. “Nuclear power is therefore a massive user of energy and a very substantial source of greenhouse gases,” it writes.

Moreover, FEASTA says the calculation of the real energy cost of nuclear does not take other elements into consideration, such as waste management. “The nuclear power industry is living on borrowed time in the sense that it is has not yet had to find either the money or the energy to reinstate its mines, bury its wastes and decommission its reactors; if those commitments are simply left out of account, the quantity of fossil fuels needed by nuclear power to produce a unit of electricity would be, on average, only 16 percent of that needed by gas”.

EurActiv