Brazil says summit considers boosting nuclear power
Date: 03-Sep-02
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Author: William Maclean
They said a paragraph proposed for inclusion in the summit agreement originally intended to boost renewable energy such as solar and wind power had been amended to included an open-ended reference to "energy technologies".
The reference, in a passage calling for diversifying energy sources and transfering energy know-how to poor countries, would be seized on by the nuclear industry as an opportunity to promote the controversial technology, Brazilian government delegates and environmentalists argued.
"We do not believe this (paragraph) is the place to put nuclear," Brazilian Environment Minister Jose Carlos de Carvalho told Reuters.
"This is absolutely outrageous," said Greenpeace policy director Remi Parmentier. "It would open the way to increasing the world's share of nuclear power."
The clause is part of a sweeping United Nations plan for easing poverty while protecting the environment which negotiators are struggling to agree before world leaders gather in Johannesburg yesterday, hoping to sign off on the pact.
Delegates and environmentalists said the energy proposal had been made by the United States late on Saturday and had the backing of OPEC oil producers and a number of members of the G77 group of developing countries.
A U.S. delegate confirmed his team had put forward the proposal. Asked if the move meant Washington was advocating nuclear power, he replied: "It is fair to say that we advocate all forms of energy technologies."
PRESTIGE SUFFERED AFTER CHERNOBYL
Nuclear energy suffered a blow to its prestige when an blast took place at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the former Soviet Union in 1986, the world's worst civil nuclear accident.
Green groups say nuclear power is not only unsafe but also produces waste which will stay around for millennia.
But nuclear power still comprises about seven percent of world energy consumption, especially in the centrally planned energy systems of Russia, Taiwan, the Koreas, Japan, and France.
And partly because of its military applications, it still soaks up large amounts of taxpayer money in rich countries.
Between 1974 and 1998, 51 percent of government research and development spending on energy among the wealthy nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development went on nuclear power, although that proportion is now declining.
Brazilian delegate Suami Coelho said: "The problem with this paragraph is that it doesn't specifically exclude nuclear."
Green groups say the move threatens hopes of addressing climate change and pollution.
Advocates of renewable energy say nuclear power plants are not only expensive but also financially risky because of huge construction and repair costs and environmental liabilities.
Greens argue that while nuclear plants do not produce the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, the nuclear process is so expensive the same money invested in efficiency measures or natural gas-fired power plants would offset more climate change.
Parmentier said: "Ever since we have been confronted with nuclear power we have seen it was an fundamentally unsustainable technology. It creates very large quantities of radioactive waste for which there is no solution.
"The proposal, which could be seen as opening the door for more nukes, is making a farce of this entire summit."