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Published on September 21, 2007

The standard objections are:

1. Danger of a nuclear accident.

Accidents have occurred, but they are few and far between. The most serious, at Chernobyl, by a UN estimate, will probably cause up to 4,000 deaths from radiation poisoning. This is less than the annual official death rate in Chinese coal mines. The Chernobyl reactor was an older type with a design flaw. France has been using nuclear technology to provide most of its electricity for decades, without incident. Today's reactors are, it is claimed, much safer, with hardly any chance of a meltdown.

More road deaths occur every day than the number of fatalities caused by one plane crash in Phuket, but the media coverage of an airline disaster is greater because of the shock factor and the simultaneous number of deaths. Similarly, the coverage of a nuclear disaster would shelve many nuclear projects, even though the statistics may not warrant it.

2. Nuclear waste is dangerous for thousands of years.

True, but the danger is overplayed. Fuel rods are removed from the reactor when they contain too little fissionable material. They are placed in "swimming pools" and with time they become less radioactive and easier to handle. After reprocessing, there is very little waste (1.5 cubic metres per year for a 1,000-megawatt reactor). The French encase waste in glass and store it in granite.

There are American plans to isolate the most radioactive portion of the waste and burn it in a new type of reactor. Then there are breeder type reactors in which the old fuel rods need not be removed so frequently. There is also a new reactor in development that will generate electricity from nuclear waste.

It is unlikely that scientists will not have discovered a way of using spent nuclear fuel within the next century, so nuclear waste will be not be lying around for thousands of years.

3. Manufacture of "dirty bombs".

True, but if it was that easy, terrorists would surely have made one by now. Before a terrorist could set off a dirty bomb, he would have died from the effects of radiation. Nuclear containment vessels are designed to withstand the impact of an aircraft crash, so blowing up a nuclear facility is not that easy.

4. Uranium resources are finite.

There is no shortage of nuclear material. Moreover, breeder reactors could extend the energy obtained from uranium by a factor of 50 to 100. Then there is thorium, which is more abundant than uranium, and also uranium in seawater. The US stock of depleted uranium could generate $20 trillion worth of electricity.

5. Carbon dioxide emissions are mainly from vehicles, so more nuclear plants will not reduce global warming.

Burning more fossil fuels will increase global warming. Nuclear power can provide large quantities of electricity. It is more secure than gas and more reliable than wind. When electric vehicles replace gasoline vehicles, the benefits of nuclear power will be leveraged.

6. Thailand will not benefit from nuclear power. Everything will be imported: the equipment, the fuel and the technicians. We don't have the scientists and we are not ready for nuclear technology.

I don't buy that. Thailand is perfectly capable of developing the scientists and technicians and of operating nuclear facilities.

7. The investment is far too high.

The investment is not beyond Thailand's capacity to absorb. What is more important is the cost of energy produced. Nuclear power stations are expensive to build but cheap to run. Gas-fired power stations are the reverse. Since gas provides the extra power needed when demand rises, gas prices tend to set the electricity rate high enough to make nuclear plants profitable.

The cost of nuclear power is primarily capital cost (as with solar and wind power), hence interest-rate dependent. The fuel cost is small. The marginal cost of producing wind power is negligible, so on a windy day, the cheapest power comes from wind turbines. However, nuclear power should cost the least (even after costs of decommissioning plants and waste storage are considered). In some places, coal may be cheaper, if you discount the environmental costs.

That is why there is a huge demand for nuclear plants in the US, China, Japan, Korea, India, Finland and Australia. All have done the same calculations. The demand is greatest from those who have nuclear experience and understand the advantage of plants with the latest technology.

8. So, with all the advantages of nuclear energy, why do I applaud the Democrat Party for rejecting it?

Simply put, we are not politically ready. Nuclear projects are too politically and environmentally sensitive for Thailand to ram through at this stage of our political development. There would be so much controversy, they would not see the light of day for years. Without high carbon taxes or steep carbon credits, businesses will not be prepared for the political risk in pushing for a nuclear project.

Only a strong undemocratic administration (like Thaksin's) or an unelected one (like Surayud's) could handle this hot potato, but neither could win an argument with the NGOs or Greenpeace.

So, should we consider the nuclear option as dead for Thailand? Absolutely not. Now is the time to start debating it, to get our scientists ready, and possibly to set up a nuclear technology institute so that in ten year's time we can at least be halfway there. The other half will only materialise when we are really in the nuclear business.

It will require many administrations to debate the nuclear option before we are ready. Ten years from now there will either be enough successful examples the world over for us to emulate with more confidence - or the choice of some better technology will have dawned. But we wouldn't have lost a thing.

Suthep Kittikulsingh

Special to The Nation

Suthep Kittikulsingh is an industrialist with no connections to the nuclear power industry.