Nuclear reactors are a massively complex way of boiling water. That’s all they do – boil water to create steam to turn turbines that generate electricity. They are huge, complicated kettles.
This complexity means that reactors can be temperamental beasts. The smallest of faults can stop electricity generation or prevent reactors running at full power. The history of nuclear energy is littered with examples and the every day news shows that things are not getting better.
Look at the technical problems Japan’s Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. Look at the country’s supposedly earthquake-proof Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, closed for nearly two years by an earthquake and a series of fires. Technical problems at the THORP reprocessing plant in the UK that may close it for years. South Africa’s Koeberg nuclear power station shut down after ‘an unspecified technical fault’. The US’s Prairie Island nuclear plant Unit 1 is offline after an electrical fault its coolant system. ‘Most of the UK’s reactors have performance figures in the lowest 25% of the world league table, with only two in the top 50%’. We could go on all day.
Can we expect an improved performance from the next generation of nuclear reactors? Judging by the long list of problems and setbacks seen at the construction sites of the new EPR reactors at like Olkiluoto and Flamanville, we wouldn’t bet on it.
Critics of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind say that they are unreliable. And yet these sources are built on tried, tested and above all, simple (meaning easily mass-produced and repairable) technologies. The history of nuclear energy shows its unreliability and shortcomings all too clearly.
– from greenpeace