Nuclear fear-mongering is not science

Nuclear energy opponents frequently cite cost and safety as reasons for Australia not to include nuclear plants in our future energy mix.

But such arguments tend to be based on flawed modelling or — in the case of fear-mongering claims about radiation risk — no evidence at all.

Monday’s ABC Q+A had several examples of such flawed, or downright false, arguments.

The most egregious statement followed a question about the risks of nuclear plants in earthquake-prone areas.

However, nuclear plants in seismically active areas such as California and Japan have experienced earthquakes orders of magnitude larger than those experienced in Australia and have continued operating safely.

This is hardly surprising, given the sophisticated engineering underpinning their resilient structures. An earthquake damaging a nuclear plant is simply not a problem Australia would ever need to worry about.

Dee Madigan’s contribution to the discussion on nuclear plant safety was to claim there have been 36 nuclear accidents worldwide and that even the “slightest” raise in radiation increases miscarriages, stillbirths and childhood cancers. This is false.

There have been only three nuclear accidents in the history of nuclear power plants, and only Chernobyl — a plant poorly designed and run by Soviets — resulted in any increase in childhood cancers.

The radiation release from Three Mile Island in the USA was so minor the maximum exposure for residents would have been about the same as a resident moving to Denver, Colorado.

Likewise for Fukushima. No ill health or deaths in the community have been linked to radiation from the accident, with just one worker —  responsible for measuring radiation following the meltdown — dying from cancer seven years later.

There are no ill health effects associated with radiation exposures of 100 mSv or less according to the Department of Health and Aged Care.

To put this in perspective, the highest radiation exposure a resident living near a nuclear plant could get in a year is 0.01 mSv, based on data from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

This is 10,000 times lower than the dose of radiation that would be needed to present any increased risks to the health of foetuses. So the “slightest” raise in radiation does not increase the health problems claimed on Q&A.

When discussion turned to costs, Ms Madigan claimed a nuclear plant rollout would cost $600 billion and supply only 3.7% of the grid.

This claim is based on a flawed report from the Smart Energy Council, a renewable industry body. As explained in my July article with colleague Alex Bainton, the report makes the two basic mistakes of treating energy storage the same as generation, and using the wrong energy units — gigawatts (GW) instead of gigawatt-hours (GWh).

In reality, the report’s assumption of an 11 GW nuclear capacity would provide a substantial 20% of our grid’s 450,000 GWh of energy needs in 2050 — five times what the Smart Energy Council claimed.

As for the cost, the CSIRO’s GenCost report gives a capital cost estimate of $8.7 billion for a 1 GW nuclear reactor. For 11 GW, this would be less than $100 billion.

Even if costs were to double, this is a far cry from the Smart Energy Council’s upper estimate of $600 billion, which anti-nuclear advocates — including Energy Minister Chris Bowen — are fond of citing.

When it comes to the debate over nuclear energy, it’s worth double-checking the numbers; and whether fear-mongering is being passed off as science.

Zoe Hilton is a Senior Policy Analyst in the energy research program at the Centre for Independent Studies.