Grönarealisten

Mark Lynas

I  know I should be furious. The EDF takeover of British Energy means that four nuclear power stations could now be built around the UK, the first nuclear new build in a generation. As a long-standing Green party member, one who chops his own wood, grows his own leeks, keeps chickens and puts the kids in washable nappies, antinuclear indignation should spring easily to my lips.

After all, energy is something I care about. The last time I checked my carbon budget, I came in at a fifth of the national average. I rarely fly, even when booked to address faraway audiences about my personal obsession, climate change - a subject I've covered in three books. Whenever the word "nuclear" comes up at my talks, a shudder runs through the room. Because everyone knows that real environmentalists loathe nuclear power. It is just evil. Full stop.

Except, well, I don't believe that any more. Just a month ago I had a Damascene conversion: the Green case against nuclear power is based largely on myth and dogma. My tipping point came when I discovered just how much nuclear power has changed since I first set my mind against it. Prescription for the Planet, a new book by the American writer Tom Blees, opened my eyes to fourth-generation "fast-breeder" reactors, which use fuel much more efficiently than the old-style reactors, produce shorter-lived waste and can also be designed to be "walk-away safe".

Best of all, these new reactors - prototypes of which have already been tested - can produce power by burning up existing stocks of nuclear waste. As Blees puts it: "Thus we have a prodigious supply of free fuel that is actually even better than free, for it is material that we are quite desperate to get rid of." Who could object to that?
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And those dangers? They're still there but we need to discuss them truthfully. Take Chernobyl. We all know it was a disaster: the Greenpeace website states a death toll of 60,000 already and predicts another 140,000 deaths in the future. But these statistics fly in the face of mainstream science: according to the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, 28 people died in the initial phase and several thousand more have suffered from nonfatal thyroid cancer because of the accident. The UN report concludes that "there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure 20 years after the accident" - so the real death toll from the world's worst nuclear accident is tiny. On a deaths per gigawatt-year basis, nuclear is safer than coal and oil.

Curiosity whetted, I searched the scientific literature for evidence to support the other great green charge levelled at nuclear power: it kills its neighbours. I sifted through piles of rigorous epidemiological studies from all over the world, searching for proof that people who live near nuclear sites are more prone to cancer and leukaemia. None of the reputable journals turned up a link.
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When I e-mailed a senior ecological scientist with my conclusions, he agreed, but only privately. "Do not cite me as promoting nuclear," he begged. I am still shocked that people of his stature are too intimidated to speak out. The result of this fear is that the public is dangerously misinformed about nuclear power.

Artikeln är smockad med guldklimpar! Lynas är alltså ännu en i skaran av miljövänner som faktiskt kan omvärdera sina åsikter och har integiret, väldigt imponerande! Andra är tex James Lovelock, Hugh Montefiore, Stewart Brand och Patrick Moore. Undra om Lynas kommer mötas på samma sätt som Montefiore som blev utkickad ur friends of the earth, eller Patrick Moore som kallas eko judas av sina före detta greenpeacevänner. Av artikeln att döma har Lynas redan blivit utskälld. Det är nog inte konstigt att fler inom miljörörelsen inte vågar yppa stöd till kärnkraft, de blir genast smutskastade och attackerade som om de vore förrädare av högsta rang. Undra om det finns många inom ledningarna för svenska miljöföreningar som också sitter tysta? Att Lynas, Lovelock, Montefiore, Brand och More byter attityd till kärnkraft är ungefär lika stor som om Schlaug helt plötsligt skulle göra det här i Sverige, men det verkar synnerligen osannolikt minst sagt. Men vetenskapen talar sitt tydliga språk och alla som sätter sig in i den måste förr eller senare erkänna sanningen om kärnkraft, tyvär väljer de flesta heldre att förbli ignoranta.