Press release, 13 January 2000
NUCLEAR WASTE AND ETHICS ARE INCONSISTENT
Production and storage of nuclear waste is ethically unjustifiable and not consistent with sustainable development. That pleads for a phase-out of nuclear energy. Aboveground retrievable storage of already produced nuclear waste is the less unfavourable option. The distrust in government plans may be solved through a dialogue, where the different parties are equal, also from a financial point of view. These are the most important conclusions of the report "Nuclear Waste and Nuclear Ethics", that was written by Herman Damveld (independent researcher and publicist) and Robert Jan van den Berg (Laka Foundation) on request of the by Dutch government set up Commission for Radioactive Waste Disposal (CORA). The CORA studies the storage of nuclear waste either underground (salt domes and clay formations) or aboveground during f.i. 300 years. Within half a year, CORA will make a proposal for further developments.
With the storage of nuclear waste,
we deal with choices for the future, i.e. ethical considerations. We deal
with these with what we call the ethics of justice. It considers 'core
ethics', a bundle of elementary ethical standards, values that can apply
to the whole of humanity in any place and at any moment. The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights is one of the best examples of this. Given
this ethics of justice, people of the future should have the same possibilities
and should carry as much weight as the people of today and we should not
endanger their possibilities to choose.
Given this ethical assumption, it
is the question whether the production and storage of nuclear waste can
be justified. We think it can not. The worldwide problem of nuclear waste
has not been solved. The models for the prediction of future consequences
are surrounded by uncertainties, thus the storage is a burden that can
harm.
Sometimes, people call nuclear energy
justifiable because it would prevent the greenhouse effect. Instead of
the greenhouse effect, future generations inherit nuclear waste. But also
in the vision of international organisations like the International Atomic
Energy Agency in Vienna, the CO2 emissions do not decrease, even not with
a huge increase of the number of nuclear power plants. Therefore, nuclear
energy is no remedy to the greenhouse effect.
The production of nuclear waste is
said to be in harmony with sustainability since the amounts of waste would
be small in volume. Though we have to consider that a small amount as such
does mean little. Due to the accident at the Chernobly nuclear power plant
in 1986, a total of 50 kilograms of cesium, strontium and plutonium was
released. Though this 'small amount' was responsible for the fact that
an extensive area was contaminated up to Western Europe.
We have derived fourteen factors that
influence people's judgements about the risks of nuclear waste. The most
important are: the possibility to avoid a risk, controllability and trust
in government. The possibility to avoid a risk is a plea for a phase-out
of nuclear energy, i.e. at that moment it is known what inevitable amounts
have to be stored. Controllability can be worked out in an aboveground
retrievable storage, which is always accesible. Distrust in government
strongly influences the discussion about the nuclear waste problem. A dialogue
can lead to an outcome.
A discussion about the storage
of inevitable amounts of nuclear waste has to meet at least two conditions:
ethical and social aspects should play a full role in the discussion and
those who are critical about the storage should be given funds to develop
their arguments. Until now, technical issues like test drillings and the
construction of a storage mine in salt or clay have been too much emphasized.
Also from a financial point of view, there had been no equivalence.
Herman Damveld
Laka Foundation (Robert Jan van den Berg)
Selwerderdwarsstraat
18 Ketelhuisplein 43
9717 GN Groningen
1054 RD Amsterdam
Netherlands
Netherlands
Tel/fax: +31-50-3125612
Tel: +31-20-6168294; fax: +31-20-6892179
E-mail: h.damveld@hetnet.nl
E-mail: laka@laka.antenna.nl