Mixed reaction to nuclear rethink

Date: 12/01/06

German Chancellor Angela Merkel this month came under pressure from her government colleagues to rethink a previously agreed phase-out of nuclear power.

Germany currently gets 30% of its electricity from nuclear power. Pressure to keep it that way comes on the back of arguments over gas prices between Russia and Ukraine, which have left Europe worrying how secure its own energy supplies are.

And a German change of heart would probably be more in line with much high-level EU thinking than this month's European Commission advice that governments should increase national gas stocks to a two-month supply.

Perhaps wary of backing the politically contentious nuclear issue just weeks into her job, Merkel has so far refused to undo the phase-out. But if she is waiting to base her stance on that of other EU countries, nuclear investors can probably look forward to counting the profits sometime soon.

Even before recent events between Russia and Ukraine, political leaders seemed to be swinging behind the nuclear option. Finland last year got the all-clear to build the first nuclear reactor in Europe since the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl and is already talking about building yet another.

Last year Italy also opened government discussions on reversing national nuclear policy, after a phase-out was completed on the back of a 1987 referendum. Belgium and Sweden, which both rely on nuclear for well over half their electricity supply, have also in the last two years said they were reconsidering full phase-outs agreed in the 1980s.

However, even if the political mood is changing, public resistance remains. For the first time ever last summer, the European Commission polling system Eurobarometer asked citizens if they liked the idea of using nuclear power. 55% said no.

But even that opposition may not be insurmountable, since the same survey suggests it stems more from lack of information than from concrete arguments. Respondents who said they were in favour of nuclear power were also most likely to answer general nuclear questions correctly.

The ideological argument against nuclear power should not of course be underestimated. Many modern politicians - and even more 21st century voters - 40 years ago took to the streets in favour of complete nuclear disarmament.

But as the Beatles generation has already demonstrated its ability to drop support for other defining 1960s demands, from world peace to decriminalising recreational drugs, there may be no reason to think nuclear power can expect more loyalty. A former anti-nuclear protestor could perhaps shift his support to safe nuclear waste projects as easily as he replaced corduroy flares with a business suit.

Greater resistance to a nuclear renaissance is likely to come from the hippies' children. Support for environmentalism among young Europeans now seems nearly automatic, with recycling, organic food and non-nuclear renewable energy just three of the green campaign issues very widely accepted as good.

Support for environmentalism will probably rule out support for nuclear power, in Europe at least, for years to come.

However, to win long- term popular backing, the anti-nuclear lobby has to prove the existence of a non-nuclear energy source that also quietens fears of another environmental disaster: climate change. Early signs following the Russia-Ukraine spat are not promising for green energy advocates. Whilst everyone concedes that the unreliability of gas supplies reveals the need to invest in alternative sources, the high-level political money has so far almost all been on nuclear.

One important exception to this is nuclear-free Austria, which announced it will be pushing biomass during its current EU presidency. Agriculture minister Josef Pr�ll said that new nuclear power stations were not an alternative.

But the one recent development which may make it hard for EU leaders to go atomic lies well outside their borders, but not in Russia or Ukraine.

Iran on Tuesday (10 January) restarted its own uranium enrichment programme after a 14-month break, during which international leaders tried in vain to talk it out of the nuclear option.

EU arguments against nuclear development will sound more hollow this year, if reactors are going up in its own back yard.

Article on the current debate in European countries and at the EU level on the role of nuclear energy.