Unsustainable power

Nnimmo Bassey argues for clean and renewable energy. “The truth is that Nigeria has been immersed in the murky waters of energy crisis for many years now and with current groping in the corridors of power it does not seem that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” writes Bassey.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, while inaugurating the board of Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC) which he chairs, declared among other things that although Nigeria was “unequivocally committed to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, the country cannot but embrace the global trend in the utilisation of nuclear energy for the generation of electricity."

Unless this trend is seen in the light of activities going on in Iran and South Korea, it is difficult to see new developments in the nuclear power generation sector as a popular move among nations. However, it is also thought that this commission will provide the answer to the “imminent energy crisis facing the country.”

The president must have been making a politician’s speech when he spoke about an imminent energy crisis facing the country. The truth is that Nigeria has been immersed in the murky waters of an energy crisis for many years now, and with the current groping in the corridors of power it does not seem that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

This writer fully agrees with the president that Nigeria should look for alternatives to existing oil and gas, hydro or thermal sources. But we think that looking at nuclear energy is a misstep and this thinking should be revisited and reversed.

When people think of nuclear power the pictures that come to mind are those of a cheap and clean energy option. Some analysts even suggest that nuclear energy is one of the solutions to climate change, as it would not lead to the release of greenhouse gases as fossil fuels do when they are used to generate energy. There is also the rather romantic view that the power plant would possibly be so small you could compare it to the size of an atom. In 1980, a presidential candidate in the United States of America was quoted as saying that the matter of nuclear waste ought not to worry anybody as “all the waste in a year from a nuclear plant can be stored under a desk.” (See the book, The Experts Speak, the Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky).

At present, Britain has an estimated 470,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste. This includes 2,000 cubic metres of high-level waste at Sellafield, stored in surface vaults across the country. But the lack of any long-term disposal strategy has alarmed experts, who fear an accident or terror attack, according to a recent report published in the Guardian newspaper. Three years ago, the government set up the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management to find a long-term solution to the nuclear waste problem. Their published report proposes that a concrete bunker, cut into solid rock at least 300 metres (1,000ft) underground, would be needed to store the waste. It is also reported that the ‘so-called "deep geological disposal" would require a repository that would take 35 years to build and 65 years to fill’. It sounds like this would not fit under a desk! And now the British government is currently planning to ask regions to compete to see who would provide the hole for this hazardous waste.

In return, the regions would have new projects provided as compensation. They would also be trained to act as monitors over the permanent hazard they would inevitably be exposed to. It reminds you of promises made to Niger Delta communities after their environment had been wrecked.

Cape Town’s chapter of Earthlife Africa, a South African environmental NGO, recently raised an alarm over alleged negligence by ESKOM at the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in that country. Reports indicate that certain maintenance works may have been neglected at the power station for over ten years. The organization lamented this laxity saying “Safety at a nuclear power station is of the highest concern. The potential for accidents at nuclear power stations and the consequences of such accidents have been well illustrated by historic events at Chernobyl and inthe USA and Japan. These accidents have resulted in numerous deaths and environmental destruction as well as a legacy of radioactivity that isresponsible for illnesses and deaths until today.” Would Nigeria do better?

Conceiving of nuclear energy as clean energy is only possible if one turns a blind eye to the entire production cycle of the energy. This may be true when considering only reactor operations, but if we consider the process by which uranium is mined, transported and processed it becomes quite clear that this is not a clean energy form.

What about the uranium enrichment process, fuel fabrication, and the unavoidable long-term radioactive waste storage? Nuclear power stations may generate little greenhouse gas but their radioactive by-products are among the most toxic substances imaginable, and remain so for thousands of years. We see the dilemma for the British. Nigeria can simply not handle it.

Perhaps the president needs to take another look at nuclear power generation in Nigeria. It is still early in the day and this is the right time to retrace our steps. We need to look critically at how much we have failed as a nation at efforts to provide electricity supply through the rather conventional hydro and thermal generation systems. President Obasanjo has failed spectacularly to deliver on his first term promise on this matter. Nuclear energy is not a solution to the abysmal infrastructural deficit confronting us as a nation.

Nuclear power is basically about energy generation. Nuclear power reaches users through a power-grid system. In other words, it is not a wireless system. And if truth be told, the distribution grid in Nigeria is rather substandard. This is because of weak controls and because home owners often extend power lines to their properties with very little official oversight. This has engendered a situation where cables of diverse qualities reign in the land, and electricity transformers are often camouflaged by weeds. Thus, even if sufficient electricity power were to be generated today, we lack the infrastructure to deliver such power to users. Even if we were to have the power plants up and running in a couple of years, we are decades away from having a good enough power distribution network.

Another draw back is that there is a worldwide shortage of skilled manpower in this field. We can add to this concern the fact that we have a poor record of environmental safety and our emergency response mechanisms are still suspect. Nuclear energy is a ticking bomb and needs extreme care.

Besides, nuclear plants need to be shut down for periods of maintenance. Thus where such plants are in use, the country would still need to maintain an elaborate system of alternate plants thus adding to the overall costs outlay.

Why is Nigeria contemplating this energy system in a time when the world is concerned with developing sustainable energy and is gradually shifting away from nuclear energy? It is reported that industrialized countries such as Germany are moving towards more friendly energy sources. Indeed , a June 2006 report commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety suggests that “Europe could cut carbon emissions from electricity generation by 70 per cent and phase out nuclear power by 2050 using 'concentrating solar power' (CSP) generated in the Middle East and North Africa.”

It appears that if Nigeria pursues the nuclear energy path, she will end up with an unnecessary liability when the system is finally ready. I say this because the world would have shifted away from this unsustainable mode of energy generation.

Another matter that may not have been inserted into the decision-making matrix may be the fact that nuclear power stations require huge amounts of water for cooling the reactor’s core. Experts say that nuclear plants do not work particularly well in warm climes. In a nation where fire trucks often run dry and water hydrants are left literally dehydrated, it takes very little imagination to reach the conclusion that setting huge quantities of water aside for this purpose will only compound the water problem of the nation.

We have a penchant of saying that issues like this are of no consequence because we do not lay much stock in analyzing scenarios that indicate how we unnecessarily, but rather continuously, box ourselves into tight corners. We have a penchant of superstitiously repeating to ourselves that everything will be okay even when we are taking wrong decisions and sliding down precipitous slopes.

In addition, the nuclear industry is yet to sufficiently address any of the negative aspects of this power generation system. It is a dirty industry, it is an expensive venture and it is extremely hazardous. There is nothing to recommend it except that it may confer some sense of “power” on the nation to say that we are on the nuclear league.

Honestly, rather than waste the resources of the nation on this wild enterprise, the Nigerian government should take steps to popularize solar energy systems in the nation. Solar and wind power systems may be expensive at the onset, but these costs are quite likely to fall as the world turns more to it in the face of rising cost of fossil fuels and the harmful potential of nuclear plants.

Moreover, solar systems are safe, the energy is clean and the system is amendable to discrete small scale whereby even remote communities can be easily serviced. In fact with the demise of crude oil that will happen in a few decades, the oil giants who hold vested interests in solar power development will see the need to allow popular access as this will be the next profit spinner.

In his speech to the NAEC board, President Obasanjo pointed out that "The new policy initiative of the US Government on nuclear energy, The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership" seeks to popularise and expand the generation and use of electricity from nuclear plants around the world. It does appear to us that the government is once more buying into offshore economic policy thrusts. The entire idea is rigged to shore up an American industry that is set to face decline. It may be argued that the dream of nuclear electricity plants has been on the shelves for three decades now, but common wisdom dictates that we should let sleeping dogs lie!

Again, I regret to say that I totally disagree with the president’s thinking that nuclear power would uplift the citizenry to a state of prosperity. It will rather expose our hapless citizenry to untold dangers apart from being another uneconomic sinkhole.

The World Bank, in its internal report on climate change, categorised nuclear energy as clean energy and announced plans to support it. The document, which was leaked to an environmental NGO, shows that the Bank lays a lot of emphasis on what poor countries could do to reduce greenhouse emissions, and says little about what the huge polluters should do. Although the bank keeps harping on the need for clean and renewable energy, it has not slowed down on its continual funding of oil and gas projects. Could Nigeria’s nuclear dream have been concocted by alchemists at the World Bank?

We have already squandered borrowed resources that rightly belong to future generations. Let us not make the problem worse.