Sellafield saved - for now
Many people fear the links between nuclear weapons and peaceful
uses of atomic power
By Alex Kirby, BBC News Online environment correspondent
The High Court in London has rejected an attempt by environmental campaigners
to prevent a UK nuclear reprocessing plant starting work.
The judgement sounds like good news for the nuclear industry. The plant, the
mixed oxide (Mox) fuel facility at Sellafield in north-west England, is to start
up soon.
Ironically, when it finally does, it could make it harder for the industry to
survive. The plant has been built by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which hopes
to commission it on 20 December.
The immediate argument over the Mox plant has centred on what its critics see
as its potential to help terrorists.
Fears dismissed
Mox fuel is made of oxides of both uranium and plutonium, and there are fears
that terrorists could intercept it to make crude nuclear devices.
BNFL and the UK Government both say that this is only a very remote possibility.
But the Royal Society - the UK's national science academy - and the US Government's
Office of Arms Control and Non-proliferation say it could be done relatively
easily.
In another scarcely-veiled criticism, British Energy, which owns and operates
eight nuclear power stations in the UK, has called in effect for the Mox plant
to remain mothballed.
In evidence to a Parliamentary select committee, the company said there should
be an immediate moratorium on the reprocessing of spent fuel at Sellafield from
its advanced gas-cooled (AGR) reactors.
It said the reprocessing was uneconomic, and also added to the UK's plutonium
stockpile. British Energy's evidence is damning for BNFL, which is trying to
drum up enough foreign business to keep the Mox plant busy.
One industry source told BBC News Online: "After the scandal over the falsification
of data, BNFL has got a hard job to win back its Japanese markets. "And
its other big potential customer, Germany, is fraught with political difficulties."
Nuclear advocates
But beyond the vital arguments over security lies the question of the nuclear
industry's future. Opposition to nuclear power remains strong across much of
Europe and North America.
Yet some respected voices now argue that it may have a role to play, at least
for a time.
Professor James Lovelock is known for the Gaia Hypothesis, his theory that that
the global ecosystem sustains and regulates itself like a biological organism.
Three months ago he said: "Nuclear is the only practical energy source
that we could apply in time to offset the threat from accumulating greenhouse
gases.
"Greens could look on the use of nuclear power as a temporary bandage to
be used until the harm from carbon burning has been remedied."
In 1999, the British environmental biologist Sir Frederick Holliday wrote: "My
belief is that all the people of the world need abundant energy at reasonable
costs.
"My science tells me that without nuclear power the long-term future of
global ecosystems is at risk."
One reason why many people distrust nuclear power is because they believe it
is impossible to separate civil reactors from weapons-grade fissile material.
If the industry could make that distinction transparent, it might win readier
acceptance.
But the High Court ruling will not distinguish atoms for peace from nuclear
deterrence. In many minds, it will blur the distinction more than ever.