Разделение изотопов и применение их в ядерном реакторе

April 11, 1986 Plymouth, Massachusetts, US Recurring equipment problems force emergency shutdown of Boston Edison's Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant US$1,001

April 26, 1986 Chernobyl, near the town of Pripyat, Ukraine Steam explosion and meltdown with 4,057 deaths (see Chernobyl disaster) necessitating the evacuation of 300,000 people from the most severely contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, and dispersing radioactive material across Europe (see Chernobyl disaster effects) US$6,700

March 31, 1987 Delta, Pennsylvania, US Peach Bottom units 2 and 3 shutdown due to cooling malfunctions and unexplained equipment problems US$400

September 2, 1996 Crystal River, Florida, US Balance-of-plant equipment malfunction forces shutdown and extensive repairs at Crystal River Unit 3 US$384

Nuclear proliferation

Many technologies and materials associated with the creation of a nuclear power program have a dual-use capability, in that they can be used to make nuclear weapons if a country chooses to do so. When this happens a nuclear power program can become a route leading to the atomic bomb or a public annex to a secret bomb program. The crisis over Iran’s nuclear activities is a case in point.

A fundamental goal for American and global security is to minimize the nuclear proliferation risks associated with the expansion of nuclear power. If this development is "poorly managed or efforts to contain risks are unsuccessful, the nuclear future will be dangerous".

Environmental effects of nuclear power

A 2008 synthesis of 103 studies, published by Benjamin K. Sovacool, determined that the value of CO2 emissions for nuclear power over the lifecycle of a plant was 66.08 g/kWh, based on the mean value of all the 103 studies. Comparative results for wind power, hydroelectricity, solar thermal power, and solar photovoltaic were 9-10 g/kWh, 10-13 g/kWh, 13 g/kWh and 32 g/kWh respectively.

Main articles: Environmental effects of nuclear power and Comparisons of life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions

Comparisons of life cycle analysis (LCA) of carbon dioxide emissions show nuclear power as comparable to renewable energy sources. A conclusion that is disputed by others studies.

Debate on nuclear power

Main article: Nuclear power debate

See also: Nuclear energy policy and Anti-nuclear movement

The nuclear power debate is about the controversy which has surrounded the deployment and use of nuclear fission reactors to generate electricity from nuclear fuel for civilian purposes. The debate about nuclear power peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, when it "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies", in some countries.

Proponents of nuclear energy contend that nuclear power is a sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions and increases energy security by decreasing dependence on imported energy sources. Proponents claim that nuclear power produces virtually no conventional air pollution, such as greenhouse gases and smog, in contrast to the chief viable alternative of fossil fuel. Proponents also believe that nuclear power is the only viable course to achieve energy independence for most Western countries. M. King Hubbert saw oil as a resource which would soon run out, and believed uranium had much more promise as an energy source.Proponents claim that the risks of storing waste are small and can be further reduced by using the latest technology in newer reactors, and the operational safety record in the Western world is excellent when compared to the other major kinds of power plants.

Opponents believe that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment. These threats include the problems of processing, transport and storage of radioactive nuclear waste, the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation and terrorism, as well as health risks and environmental damage from uranium mining. They also contend that reactors themselves are enormously complex machines where many things can and do go wrong, and there have been serious nuclear accidents. Critics do not believe that the risks of using nuclear fission as a power source can be offset through the development of new technology. They also argue that when all the energy-intensive stages of the nuclear fuel chain are considered, from uranium mining to nuclear decommissioning, nuclear power is not a low-carbon electricity source.

Arguments of economics and safety are used by both sides of the debate.

Nuclear power organizations

Against

Main article: List of anti-nuclear power groups

Friends of the Earth International, a network of environmental organizations in 77 countries.

Greenpeace International, a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in 41 countries.

Nuclear Information and Resource Service (International)

Sortir du nucléaire (Canada)

Sortir du nucléaire (France)

Pembina Institute (Canada)

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (United States)

Supportive

Main article: List of nuclear power groups

World Nuclear Association, a confederation of companies connected with nuclear power production. (International)

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Nuclear Energy Institute (United States)

American Nuclear Society (United States)

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (United Kingdom)

EURATOM (Europe)

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (Canada)

Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (International)

Nuclear renaissance

Main article: Nuclear renaissance

Since about 2001 the term "nuclear renaissance" has been used to refer to a possible nuclear power industry revival, driven by rising fossil fuel prices and new concerns about meeting greenhouse gas emission limits. Being able to rely on an uninterrupted domestic supply of electricity is also a factor. In the words of the French, "We have no coal, we have no oil, we have no gas, we have no choice." Improvements in nuclear reactor safety, and the public's waning memory of past nuclear accidents (Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986), as well as of the plant construction cost overruns of the 1970s and 80s, are lowering public resistance to new nuclear construction.

At the same time, various barriers to a nuclear renaissance have been identified. These include: unfavourable economics compared to other sources of energy, slowness in addressing climate change, industrial bottlenecks and personnel shortages in nuclear sector, and the unresolved nuclear waste issue. There are also concerns about more accidents, security, and nuclear weapons proliferation.

New reactors under construction in Finland and France, which were meant to lead a nuclear renaissance, have been delayed and are running over-budget. China has 20 new reactors under construction, and there are also a considerable number of new reactors being built in South Korea, India, and Russia. At least 100 older and smaller reactors will "most probably be closed over the next 10-15 years".

Future of the industry

See also: List of prospective nuclear units in the United States, Nuclear power in the United States, Nuclear energy policy, and Mitigation of global warming

Brunswick Nuclear Plant discharge canal

As of 2007, Watts Bar 1 in Tennessee, which came on-line on February 7, 1996, was the last U.S. commercial nuclear reactor to go on-line. This is often quoted as evidence of a successful worldwide campaign for nuclear power phase-out. However, even in the U.S. and throughout Europe, investment in research and in the nuclear fuel cycle has continued, and some nuclear industry experts  predict electricity shortages, fossil fuel price increases, global warming and heavy metal emissions from fossil fuel use, new technology such as passively safe plants, and national energy security will renew the demand for nuclear power plants.

According to the World Nuclear Association, globally during the 1980s one new nuclear reactor started up every 17 days on average, and by the year 2015 this rate could increase to one every 5 days.

There is a possible impediment to production of nuclear power plants as only a few companies worldwide have the capacity to forge single-piece reactor pressure vessels, which are necessary in most reactor designs. Utilities across the world are submitting orders years in advance of any actual need for these vessels. Other manufacturers are examining various options, including making the component themselves, or finding ways to make a similar item using alternate methods. Other solutions include using designs that do not require single-piece forged pressure vessels such as Canada's Advanced CANDU Reactors or Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors.

The CANDU Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario, Canada is the second largest nuclear power plant in the world.

China has 25 reactors under construction, with plans to build more, while in the US the licenses of almost half its reactors have been extended to 60 years, and plans to build another dozen are under serious consideration. China may achieve its long-term plan of having 40,000 megawatts of nuclear power capacity four to five years ahead of schedule.[156] However, according to a government research unit, China must not build "too many nuclear power reactors too quickly", in order to avoid a shortfall of fuel, equipment and qualified plant workers.

 

The U.S. NRC and the U.S. Department of Energy have initiated research into Light water reactor sustainability which is hoped will lead to allowing extensions of reactor licenses beyond 60 years, in increments of 20 years, provided that safety can be maintained, as the loss in non-CO2-emitting generation capacity by retiring reactors "may serve to challenge U.S. energy security, potentially resulting in increased greenhouse gas emissions, and contributing to an imbalance between electric supply and demand." In 2008, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) predicted that nuclear power capacity could double by 2030, though that would not be enough to increase nuclear's share of electricity generation.  

 

The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes the use of nuclear technologies. Many direct action groups, environmental groups, and professional organizations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, and international level. Major anti-nuclear groups include Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. The initial objective of the movement was nuclear disarmament, though the focus has shifted to include opposition to the use of nuclear power.

There have been many large anti-nuclear demonstrations and protests. A protest against nuclear power occurred in July 1977 in Bilbao, Spain, with up to 200,000 people in attendance. Following the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, an anti-nuclear protest was held in New York City, involving 200,000 people. In 1981, Germany's largest anti-nuclear power demonstration took place to protest against the Brokdorf Nuclear Power Plant west of Hamburg; some 100,000 people came face to face with 10,000 police officers. The largest anti-nuclear protest was held on June 12, 1982, when one million people demonstrated in New York City against nuclear weapons. A 1983 nuclear weapons protest in West Berlin had about 600,000 participants. In May 1986, following the Chernobyl disaster, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people marched in Rome to protest against the Italian nuclear program.

For many years after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster nuclear power was off the policy agenda in most countries, and the anti-nuclear power movement seemed to have won its case. Some anti-nuclear groups disbanded. More recently, however, following public relations activities by the nuclear industry, advances in nuclear power technology, and concerns about climate change, nuclear power issues have come back into energy policy discussions in some countries. There have been reports of a revival of the anti-nuclear movement in Germany and protests in France during 2004 and 2007. In the United States, there have been protests about, and criticism of, several new nuclear reactor proposals and some objections to license renewals for existing nuclear plants.The 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents have "revived anti-nuclear passions worldwide, putting governments on the defensive and undermining the nuclear power industry's recent renaissance".

Contents

1 History and issues

1.1 Roots of the movement

1.2 Anti-nuclear concerns

1.2.1 Concerns about nuclear weapons

1.2.2 Concerns about nuclear power

1.3 Nuclear-free alternatives

2 Anti-nuclear organizations

2.1 International organizations

2.2 Selected other groups

2.3 Symbols

3 Activities

3.1 Large protests

3.2 Protests in the United States

3.3 Deaths and injuries

3.4 Recent developments

4 Impact

4.1 Impact on popular culture

4.2 Impact on policy

4.3 Public opinion surveys on nuclear issues

5 Criticism

6 See also

7 References

8 Bibliography

 

History and issues

Roots of the movement

Main article: History of the anti-nuclear movement

Worldwide nuclear testing totals, 1945-1998.

The application of nuclear technology, both as a source of energy and as an instrument of war, has been controversial.

Scientists and diplomats have debated nuclear weapons policy since before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The public became concerned about nuclear weapons testing from about 1954, following extensive nuclear testing in the Pacific. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, about 50,000 women brought together by Women Strike for Peace marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons.In 1963, many countries ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty which prohibited atmospheric nuclear testing.

Some local opposition to nuclear power emerged in the early 1960s, and in the late 1960s some members of the scientific community began to express their concerns. In the early 1970s, there were large protests about a proposed nuclear power plant in Wyhl, Germany. The project was cancelled in 1975 and anti-nuclear success at Wyhl inspired opposition to nuclear power in other parts of Europe and North America.[29][30] Nuclear power became an issue of major public protest in the 1970s.

Early anti-nuclear advocates expressed the view that affluent lifestyles on a global scale strain the viability of the natural environment and that nuclear energy would enable those lifestyles. Examples of such expressions are:

If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other."

—Amory Lovins, The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22

Giving society cheap, abundant energy ... would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun

—Paul Ehrlich, "An Ecologist's Perspective on Nuclear Power", May/June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report

We can and should seize upon the energy crisis as a good excuse and great opportunity for making some very fundamental changes that we should be making anyhow for other reasons.

—Russell Train (EPA Administrator at the time, and soon thereafter became head of the World Wildlife Fund), Science 184 p. 1050, 7 June 1974

Let's face it. We don't want safe nuclear power plants. We want NO nuclear power plants.

—A spokesman for the Government Accountability Project, an offshoot of the Institute for Policy Studies, The American Spectator, Vol 18, No. 11, Nov. 1985

Anti-nuclear concerns

Concerns about nuclear weapons

See also: Nuclear weapons debate and Uranium mining debate

The existential threat of nuclear war by accidental or deliberate nuclear strike is a pressing concern.[32] Also, many local communities are affected by nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining, and the disposal of radioactive waste.

 

However, the threat of global nuclear annihalation has been reduced since the end of the Cold War and as a result of on-going arms control efforts by the U.S., Russia, and some other countries. Yet concerns about an exchange of nuclear firepower remain. Some scientists estimate that a war between two countries that resulted in 100 Hiroshima-size atomic explosions would cause significant loss of life, in the tens of millions. There would also be much soot thrown up into the atmosphere which would blanket the earth, causing the disruption of food chains.

Concerns about nuclear power

See also: Nuclear power debate, Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents, and Nuclear safety

President Jimmy Carter leaving the Three Mile Island accident for Middletown, Pennsylvania, April 1, 1979.

The abandoned city of Prypiat, Ukraine, following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is in the background.

Anti-nuclear critics see nuclear power as a dangerous, expensive way to boil water to generate electricity. Opponents of nuclear power have raised a number of related concerns:

Nuclear accidents: a concern that the core of a nuclear power plant could overheat and melt down, releasing radioactivity.

Radioactive waste disposal: a concern that nuclear power results in large amounts of radioactive waste, some of which remains dangerous for very long periods.

Nuclear proliferation: a concern that the facilities and expertise to produce nuclear power can be readily adapted to produce nuclear weapons.

High cost: a concern that nuclear power plants are very expensive.

Nuclear terrorism: a concern that nuclear facilities could be targeted by terrorists or criminals.

Curtailed Civil liberties: a concern that the risk of nuclear accidents, proliferation and terrorism may be used to justify restraints on citizen rights.

Of these concerns, nuclear accidents and disposal of long-lived radioactive waste have probably had the greatest public impact worldwide. Anti-nuclear campaigners point to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear emergency as proof that nuclear power can never be 100% safe.

In his book Global Fission: The Battle Over Nuclear Power, Jim Falk explores connections between technological concerns and political concerns. Falk suggests that concerns of citizen groups or individuals who oppose nuclear power have often focused initially on the "range of physical hazards which accompany the technology". Concern often starts with a single issue, such as radioactive waste, but over time concerns usually spread and the focus broadens. Falk suggests that with a richer and more sophisticated understanding of issues comes more concerns and eventually, almost inevitably says Falk, this leads to a "concern over the political relations of the nuclear industry".[38] Falk argues that if all the different concerns over the physical hazards of nuclear power were distilled into one succinct statement, it might be this: "that it is a technology whose safety people deeply distrust". Falk says that that distrust also applies more widely, to the whole nuclear enterprise:

People must have come not only to distrust the safety of the technology but also the authority of those who have assured them so confidently that nuclear power is safe. In this sense people distrust the entire nuclear enterprise -- not only its technology, but the public and private organizations, the political parties, and those often prestigious scientists who advocate and assist in the development of nuclear power.

In 2010, Baruch Fischhoff, a social science professor said that many people really do not trust the nuclear industry. He stated that "although it hasn’t done anything recently to lose the general public’s trust, it hasn’t done anything to gain people’s trust".

Since 2000 the nuclear industry has undertaken an international media and lobbying campaign to promote nuclear power as a solution to the enhanced greenhouse effect and climate change. Nuclear power, the industry claims, emits no or negligible amounts of carbon dioxide. Anti-nuclear groups respond by saying that only reactor operation is free of carbon dioxide emissions. All other stages of the nuclear fuel chain – mining, milling, transport, fuel fabrication, enrichment, reactor construction, decommissioning and waste management – use fossil fuels and hence emit carbon dioxide.

Nuclear-free alternatives

See also: Soft energy path, Renewable energy commercialisation, Non-nuclear future, and The Clean Tech Revolution

Three renewable energy sources: solar energy, wind power, and biomass.

Anti-nuclear groups generally claim that reliance on nuclear energy can be reduced by adopting energy conservation and energy efficiency measures. Energy efficiency can reduce the consumption of energy while providing the same level of energy "services".

Anti-nuclear groups also favour the use of renewable energy, such as wind power, solar power, geothermal energy and biofuel.[44] According to the International Energy Agency, renewable energy technologies are essential contributors to the energy supply portfolio, as they contribute to world energy security and provide opportunities for mitigating greenhouse gases. Fossil fuels are being replaced by clean, climate-stabilizing, non-depletable sources of energy:

...the transition from coal, oil, and gas to wind, solar, and geothermal energy is well under way. In the old economy, energy was produced by burning something — oil, coal, or natural gas — leading to the carbon emissions that have come to define our economy. The new energy economy harnesses the energy in wind, the energy coming from the sun, and heat from within the earth itself.

Greenpeace advocates reduction of fossil fuels by 50% by 2050 as well as phasing out nuclear energy, contending that innovative technologies can increase energy efficiency, and suggests that by 2050 the majority of electricity will be generated from renewable sources.The International Energy Agency estimates that nearly 50% of global electricity supplies will need to come from renewable energy sources in order to halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and minimise significant, irreversible climate change impacts.

Anti-nuclear organizations

See also: List of anti-nuclear groups, List of anti-nuclear power groups, and List of anti-nuclear groups in the United States

Logo of Nuclear Information and Resource Service

The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement which operates at the local, national, and international level. Various types of groups have identified themselves with the movement:

direct action groups, such as the Clamshell Alliance and Shad Alliance;

environmental groups, such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace;

consumer protection groups, such as Ralph Nader's Critical Mass;

professional organisations, such as Union of Concerned Scientists and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; and

political parties such as European Free Alliance.

Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public protests and acts of civil disobedience which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Other salient strategies have included lobbying, petitioning government authorities, influencing public policy through referendum campaigns and involvement in elections. Anti-nuclear groups have also tried to influence policy implementation through litigation and by participating in licencing proceedings.

Anti-nuclear power organisations have emerged in every country that has had a nuclear power programme. Protest movements against nuclear power first emerged in the USA, at the local level, and spread quickly to Europe and the rest of the world. National nuclear campaigns emerged in the late 1970s. Fuelled by the Three Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl disaster, the anti-nuclear power movement mobilised political and economic forces which for some years "made nuclear energy untenable in many countries".

Some of these anti-nuclear power organisations are reported to have developed considerable expertise on nuclear power and energy issues. In 1992, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that "his agency had been pushed in the right direction on safety issues because of the pleas and protests of nuclear watchdog groups".