Roy Harrison OBE is Queen Elizabeth II Birmingham Centenary Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Birmingham. In 2004 he was appointed OBE for services to environmental science. Professor Harrison’s research interests lie in the field of environment and human health. His main specialism is in air pollution, from emissions through atmospheric chemical and physical transformations to exposure and effects on human health. Much of this work is designed to inform the development of policy.

Ron Hester is an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of York. In addition to his research work on a wide range of applications of vibrational spectroscopy, he has been actively involved in environmental chemistry and was a founder member of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Environment Group. His current activities are mainly as an editor and as an external examiner and assessor on courses, individual promotions, and departmental/subject area evaluations both in the UK and abroad.

Nuclear Power and the Environment

Issues in Environmental Science and Technology

By R.E. Hester, R.M. Harrison

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Copyright © 2011 Royal Society of Chemistry
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84973-194-2

Contents

Nuclear Power Generation – Past, Present and Future John Walls, 1,
Nuclear Fuel Cycles: Interfaces with the Environment Clint A. Sharrad, Laurence M. Harwood and Francis R. Livens, 40,
Nuclear Accidents J. T. Smith, 57,
Management of Land Contaminated by the Nuclear Legacy Richard Kimber, Francis R. Livens and Jonathan R. Lloyd, 82,
Decommissioning of Nuclear Sites Anthony W. Banford and Richard B. Jarvis, 116,
Geodisposal of Higher Activity Wastes Katherine Morris, Gareth T. W. Law and Nick D. Bryan, 129,
Pathways of Radioactive Substances in the Environment Joanna C. Renshaw, Stephanie Handley-Sidhu and Diana R. Brookshaw, 152,
Radiation Protection of the Environment: A Summary of Current Approaches for Assessment of Radionuclides in Terrestrial Ecosystems B. J. Howard and N. A. Beresford, 177,
Radiological Protection of Workers and the General Public Jan Pentreath, 199,
Subject Index, 223,

CHAPTER 1

Nuclear Power Generation – Past, Present and Future

JOHN WALLS

ABSTRACT

In this paper we outline the origins of the nuclear power industry in the nuclear weapons programme of the Second World War, and chart the growth of the nuclear industry through the 1950s and 1960s, and its subsequent decline during the 1970s and 1980s as a result of increasing costs and economic crisis, coupled with high profile accidents at nuclear plants at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. We then explore the claim that we are witnessing a “nuclear renaissance”, characterised by a growth in the construction of new nuclear plants in the West but particularly in Asia. Three main factors have led to arguments for nuclear energy gaining greater traction: concerns over climate change and the need to promote low carbon energy technologies; the need to enhance energy security; and the need to meet large increases in demand for electricity particularly in developing countries. We then outline six variables that have the potential to impose limits on any large scale expansion of nuclear energy. Finally we explore to what extent the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan is likely to negatively impact the “nuclear renaissance”.

1 Introduction

Up until a few years ago, it appeared that nuclear power no longer had a place in the energy future of the West. In the aftermath of the accident at Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl disaster, as well as the problem of significant cost overruns for new nuclear plants, and the continuing problem of nuclear waste disposal and spiralling decommissioning costs, nuclear appeared to be an industry with no viable future. However in recent years we have seen the return of nuclear power as an attractive option given the urgent need to meet the increased demand for electricity, especially in developing countries, as a potential mitigation strategy against climate change and to bolster energy security. With 55 nuclear reactors currently under construction and many more ordered we frequently hear talk of a “Nuclear Renaissance”. Enthusiasm for new nuclear build at present is concentrated in Asia and Russia with a much slower development in Europe and North America.

In this paper, we outline the origins of the nuclear energy industry in the nuclear weapons programme of the Second World War; discuss the expansion of nuclear energy into the post war period and its role in the modernisation and industrialisation process; then chart the declining fortunes of the industry and its contemporary resurgence as a potential means of mitigating climate change. We suggest that whilst new nuclear plants will come on line in increasing numbers over the next few decades, they will be built at a much smaller pace than desired and anticipated, due to a range of factor which we explore below. Nonetheless nuclear power will continue to play a role in the energy systems of many developed and developing countries, as they try and move toward more sustainable energy systems. The extent of this role will depend on the ability of nation states to navigate the challenges that face plans for new nuclear plants.

2 Origins of Nuclear Power: The Nuclear Weapons Programme

The first nuclear reactors in what were to become the world’s first nuclear powers, namely the United States, UK and the USSR, were all designed to produce plutonium for their respective nuclear weapons programmes. These initial reactors were of rudimentary design, graphite blocks into which uranium fuel was placed and plutonium chemically extracted from the spent fuel to be used in atomic bombs. The world’s first nuclear reactor, built as part of the Manhattan project), achieved criticality in December 1942. Following this, a number of reactors were subsequently constructed at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington State, in order to produce plutonium for the first atomic bombs. The Manhattan project mobilised over 100 000 people and in today’s money cost $22 billion.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the allure of “the bomb” was strong, appearing to be the ultimate trump card reflecting a nation’s prowess. Such geopolitical reasoning remains strong to the present day, witness a number of developing countries’ desire to acquire nuclear weapons in order to project regional and global influence.

As a result of the research conducted during the Manhattan project, scientists in the West and the USSR realised that the heat generated from nuclear fission could be harnessed to generate electricity for power hungry nations, as well as to provide propulsion for submarines and aircraft carriers. The first nuclear reactor to produce electricity (albeit a trivial amount, enough for four light bulbs) was the small Experimental Breeder Reactor (EBR-1) in Idaho, USA, which started up in December 1951. It was, like a number of reactors in the years following the end of the war, a prototype “fast breeder reactor” designed to run on plutonium, itself extracted from spent fuel from a standard reactor. The plants were designed to produce electricity whilst “breeding” more plutonium, thus, in theory at least, they would continually produce all the fuel they needed.

From the beginning, it was recognised that military and peaceful applications were intricately linked:

“The development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and the development of atomic energy for bombs are in much of their course interchangeable and interdependent”.

So reads a passage from a seminal report written by the then US Secretary of State, Dean Acheson in 1946, which became known as the Acheson–Lilienthal Report. It proposed transferring ownership and control of the nuclear fuel cycle from individual nation states into the hands of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. In principle both the USA and the USSR backed the idea, initially mooted in discussions between the allied powers during 1945. Niels Bohr, one of the leading researchers on the Manhattan project, became increasingly convinced during the war that atomic research should be shared between the USA and the USSR, primarily as a means of reconciling the two countries, even suggesting they share details of the Manhattan project be shared between the two countries.

The remarkable proposition was that the UN commission would in effect own and control the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mining through to reprocessing, and in effect release uranium to nations who wanted to build nuclear power plants for electricity production only. As part of this international control of nuclear technology, the US, the report suggested, should abandon its monopoly on nuclear weapons sharing knowledge with the Soviets in exchange for the Soviets not proceeding with weapons development. It seemed to be a win-win situation. Countries could take advantage of the promise of cheap base load electricity generated from nuclear power plants and the international community could nip proliferation risks in the bud.

However, the proposal taken forward in the Baruch Plan, failed. The small window of opportunity that existed for international cooperation on nuclear matters was firmly shut, ushering in the nuclear arms race and the cold war, the repercussions of which reverberate down to the present day. The US Congress in 1946 passed the McMahon Act, which firmly denied foreigners’ (even wartime allies) access to US nuclear data. Individual countries had to pursue their own nuclear weapons and nuclear energy programmes with all the attendant costs and risks of “going it alone”.

Wartime allies who had collaborated together on the Manhattan project began to develop their own weapons programme. For example, in the UK Clement Attlee created a cabinet sub committee, Gen 75, known informally as the “Atomic Bomb Committee” which met for the first time on 29 August, 1945. In December of that year, the committee agreed to the construction of nuclear reactors as part of the British nuclear power programme. As a result, the first nuclear reactor to come online in Western Europe, GLEEP (the Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile) situated in Harwell, Oxfordshire, became operational in 1947 and was used for research into reactor design and operation as part of the new weapons’ programme. Three years later in 1950, the “Windscale piles” in Cumbria achieved criticality. They were comprised of graphite blocks into which uranium was placed generating a chain reaction, with the spent fuel reprocessed to extract weapons grade plutonium on site, with reprocessing beginning in 1952. This enabled Operation Hurricane to take place, the first British detonation of an atomic bomb in the Monte Bello Islands on 2 October, 1952, which led to “Blue Danube”, the UK’s first free fall nuclear bomb, came into service in November 1953.

Unlike the plutonium-producing reactors in Hanford, Washington state, the Windscale piles were cooled by air being blown straight through the “piles” and discharged from tall stacks directly into the outside atmosphere. This initiated a period of massive investment in nuclear science R & D in the UK under the guidance of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment based at Harwell, which was tasked with undertaking R & D in nuclear fission for both military and civilian uses. From the late 1940s, Harwell was conducting research into reactor design for energy production.

It is clear that “without the nuclear weapons programme, and if normal commercial criteria had been applied, it is doubtful if a civil nuclear industry would ever have arisen”. It was realised that changing the design of these plutonium-producing piles could allow the heat to generate steam and the steam could be used to drive a turbine to produce electricity, it was these changes that formed the basis of the UK’s civilian nuclear reactors.

In the post war era as Britain still had to import relatively expensive oil and, to an extent coal, policy makers thought that nuclear energy could be a cheap alternative. Given its origin in the weapons’ programme, the free exchange of information was curtailed. The absence of informed debate in this climate of secrecy meant that the positive aspects of nuclear energy were emphasised with negative issues rarely discussed in the public sphere. This was beneficial to governments who were keen to develop their nuclear weapons programme away from the glare of public scrutiny and to the multinational companies who, given their involvement in military applications of nuclear technology, saw profitable opportunities in new areas such as developing and selling nuclear reactors.

If secrecy and elite decision-making surrounded the development of nuclear technology in the West, this was taken to a different level in the USSR, where a number of “closed cities” were created such as Ozyorsk (known as Chelyabinsk-65) which housed a plutonium-production plant. Soviet citizens had to have special permission to visit these cities. It was in one of such cities, Obninsk, 100 km southwest of Moscow, that the world’s first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a national grid came online. The AM-1 (“Atom Mirny” – “peaceful atom”) reactor was a prototype water-cooled and graphite-moderated, with a design capacity of 30 MWt or 5 MWe. It produced just 5 megawatts of electric power. For 10 years it remained the only nuclear power plant in the USSR.

During the Manhattan project, a naval officer, Hyman Rickoverxi (later to become Admiral), realised the potential application of nuclear energy to submarine propulsion, so he initiated R & D which led to the development of what was to become known as the pressurised water reactor (PWR) used to power the first nuclear submarine USS Nautilus. The PWR used enriched uranium oxide fuel and was moderated and cooled by ordinary (light) water. USS Nautilus was launched in 1954, three years ahead of the first commercial nuclear power station, which was also overseen by Hyman Rickover. These compact reactors which used uranium as fuel and pressurised water as both coolant and moderator evolved into the Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) which dominated the American and other international markets. The PWR and the Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) – known collectively as “Light Water Reactors” – dominated the US and international market in reactor design and still do so today. However, a number of observers have concluded that LWRs, rather than necessarily being the best reactor design chosen after careful consideration of alternatives, were rushed forward after the concern that was generated by the first Soviet atomic bomb test.

The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), created in January 1947, effectively transferred control over nuclear energy from the military to civilian institutions. Whilst in its early years the AEC’s main job was to produce nuclear warheads for the military, now it was also tasked with developing and regulating civilian nuclear power, which created a conflict of interest.

This focus on military applications changed in 1953 when President Eisenhower proposed his “Atoms for Peace” programme, which reoriented research effort towards electricity generation and set the course for civil nuclear energy development. Eisenhower suggested nuclear materials be used to provide “abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world”. This set in train a number of international efforts at pushing this vision forward, from the Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Uses of the Atom in 1955 to the formation of the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), whose mandate was to “accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health, and prosperity throughout the world”.

The optimism and almost euphoria about the possible manifold peaceful uses of the atom captured the imagination of writers and scientists, with claims that we would, aside from benefiting from cheap electricity, see “nuclear powered planes, ships, trains … nuclear energy would genetically modify crops and preserve grains and fish”. This “nuclear utopianism” was rarely challenged, receiving widespread support from the public and policymakers.

The cold war enabled nuclear power to be constructed as vital for national security, and the political climate generated by McCarthyism during the 1950s in the US meant that research into potential safety problems and hazards from nuclear power were discouraged. Legitimate concerns over the effects of atomic testing were seen as subversive and un-American. The Atoms for Peace programme was in part designed to dissuade foreign states from developing nuclear weapons. To this end the US government supplied highly enriched uranium (HEU) to countries who promised not to construct atomic bombs. Suffice to say that not all of the HEU is accounted for today. This new atomic age of abundance and prosperity was also an opportunity for business to take advantage of the commercialization of the atom. The US Atomic Act (1946) was modified in 1954 to allow private sector firms to build and operate nuclear plants.

3 Expansion of Nuclear Power

The large scale use of nuclear power during the 1950s and 1960s was concentrated in the USA, UK, Russia and Canada. Whilst some Western European countries began developing research programmes (often with experimental reactors), many full scale nuclear plants did not start producing electricity until the later 1960s and 1970s (Sweden, Japan, West Germany). West Germany was the first non-weapons nation to start up a nuclear power station in November 1960. However, a commitment to nuclear power is at the heart of the European Union. The Euratom Treaty signed in 1957 is one of the founding treaties of the European Union. The treaty recognised the need for an expansion in the supply of electricity for European economic growth, stating that “nuclear energy represents an essential resource for the development and invigoration of industry”. It was also touted as a solution to the urban pollution caused primarily by coal-fired power stations located close to urban areas that plagued many of Europe’s cities in the immediate post war period. Whist the state took control of planning and construction of nuclear plants

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