COP6 -infosheet.
The nuclear industry seams to stumble into its grave. After the Chernobyl disaster hardly anybody is investing in this type of energy. Something the nuclear industry obviously wants to change. One way of doing that is to get nuclear power recognized as a legitimate way to combat the greenhouse effect. The nuclear industry is promoting nuclear reactors as Carbon Free Energy.
They should be stopped and WISE will be planning actions to see to it that nukes will not become a legitimate means to a cleaner environment
Why this is important?
- To the nuclear lobby new export possibilities to non-western countries are the last chance to ensure the survival and even reinforcement of their otherwise dying industry: Nuclear programmes in western countries have been at a standstill for years, and countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden are 'phasing out' their nuclear programmes. Eastern european countries are hardly investing in nuclear energy anymore either.
- At the climate summit COP6 possibilities to decrease emissions of greenhouse gasses such as CO2 (carbon dioxine) will be discussed. One of the more controversial proposals is about emissions trading and the so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). In short the CDM implies that western countries will be allowed to invest in CO2-reducing projects in other countries. Next they can count the thereby (elsewhere) gained reduction as a contribution to the reduction they are supposed to realize at home in order to meet their targets (as determined in the Kyoto protocol). The idea is that a guilder (or euro or dollar for that matter) invested in a developing country yields more effect than a guilder invested in CO2 reduction here. Most investments under the CDM will probably be in the areas of generating energy , filters and and forestry.
- Nuclear industry lobbyists pretend that nuclear energy comes with hardly any CO2 and would therefore contribute to a cleaner environment. Their stance is comparable to arguing that a fuel station comes with no CO2 exhausts. In reality the mining of uranium, transports, extraction of usable uranium, transports, enrichment, transports, fabrication of fuel rods, transports, building a nuclear plant, transports, reprocessing, transports, waste storage, transports, certainly does result in greenhouse gasses. Not as much as is the case with coal, but still more than with solar power and wind energy). Another thing are the huge financial costs of nuclear energy, which are even higher than those of solar energy. And then there's the not so inexhaustible source nuclear energy depends on: known sources of usable uranium will be finished in about two decades once we turn to nukes to provide electricity.
- Unless we take action, the COP6 cummit will result in nuclear energy being officially recognized as an environmentally friendly source of energy. As a result, western countries will start exporting nuclear power plants to developing countries, gaining credits. The more credits they gain, the less they will need to reduce their greenhouse gasses at home…. and the nuclear industry will be saved from extinction…
- Besides the controversy over the level of CO2 related to nukes and the dubious Clean Development Mechanism, the well-known facts about nuclear energy are still there: so far nobody has come up with a real solution to nuclear waste, incidents in the power plants with disastrous results cannot be ruled out, and 'peaceful' nuclear energy involves technologies that can be used to produce nuclear arms.
So far for this brief introduction.
See below for suggestions to further reading and more info.
WISE is and will be working together with numerous groups planning to do things around the COP6 climate summit, including A Seed Europe, Oilwatch (UK), Ozone Action (USA), Eurodusnie (NL) and groups from Sudan, Central America, Korea and Japan.
More information;
- A nice introduction on relevant issues can be found at:
www.squat.net/climate/issues.htm- Or more information on nukes and climate can be found here
www.antenna.nl/wise/cop6/related/index.html
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