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This should be fun to watch; an awesome number of shibboleths being broken there Mr M, I salute your intellectual honesty.

You make no mention of radio active waste and storage from the reused waste from old reactors. I can't believe it produces no waste at all.

What about the workers who are always exposed to radiation, do they enter into the equation or are they expendable ?

I suggest we take the radical step of using science, not superstition, as our guide.

Its not radical and cutting the other team's legs off with "superstition" isn't very scientific either. Fancy diminishing the dangers when we've just had one blow up. Or have we moved on already?

Thanks Saintslad. I don't expect to make any friends this way ...

Didn't you read the article? Far less waste at the end of the process than at the beginning, and shorter half-lives.

I love the bit where he says it will be far more dangerous for tens of years in passing. Can George tell us how many more would have died at Fukishima if they'd had one of these reactors? Or should we, you know, just take the risk building one of these reactors and hope that it works exactly as claimed (hah, we know the history of the nuclear industry with regard to claims its made)

You are judging an IFR by Fukushima? Are you even aware of the difference?

Astonishing... such a topic & assertion without a SINGLE reference to Japan's Fukushima ballsup.

I must admit a vested interest... resident in Ireland where our eastern shore is barely sixty miles from the north Welsh coast.. we live daily with the potential threat from decisions made in the UK in nuclear electrical generation.

But no reference to the mess in Japan. The incalculable cost.. lives destroyed.. land cooked.

Carelessness by Mr Monbiot at best.

Well, first it's not the nuclear industry making these claims. Neither Tom Blees nor I have any connection with it, but both of us are capable of seeing that physical laws can't be broken on your say-so. And precisely what mechanism do you propose by which an IFR could go up?

Would it not have been a good idea to check that the article was "without a SINGLE reference to Japan's Fukushima ballsup" before you made that claim? Not exactly hard to disprove, is it?

Good article George. Obviously you'll get an earful from the usual suspects with their zombie arguments but I'm sure you're not put off.

It has to make sense that even if we don't expand our use of nuclear power, if there is a way to deal with existing waste while also generating useful energy that it makes far more sense to do that than to bury a potential power source.

Last week in the New York Times, the anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott repeated a claim which already has been comprehensively discredited: that "close to 1 million people have died of causes linked to the Chernobyl disaster". The "study" on which it is based added up the excess deaths from a vast range of conditions, many of which have no known connection to radiation, in the countries affected by Chernobyl – and attributed them to the accident. Among these conditions was cirrhosis of the liver. Could it have any other possible cause in eastern Europe? Earlier this year, when I asked Caldicott to provide scientific sources for the main claims she was making, she was unable to do so. None of this has stopped her from repeating them, or has prevented greens from spreading them.

Sadly our American cousins seem to be fond of these cranks and chancers. I believe David Icke has been well received rather than laughed out of the country as he deserves.

Then what is the true story about the Sellafield Mox Plant being a money pit? Reading Michael Meacher's blog I'm even more confused as to whether it's feasible.

http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2011/04/2259/

What about the economics? How much do these plants cost? How long do they take to build? What is the output? Who is going to build them? Are they going to need a massive subsidy like conventional nuclear. Is this going to be energy too cheap to meter or another bonanza at our expense for the big corporations? Why is it going to take GEH 5 years to build a plant?

Just a few questions you need to answer

From what I've read Mox is exactly that: a waste of money. But even worse than that: a waste of waste.

"What about the economics? How much do these plants cost? How long do they take to build?" ... etc etc

What about reading the article first?

You also haven't explained the 'scarcely any carbon emissions' over the whole life cycle of the plant including construction.

Apologies... I discounted the trivia about flogging placebos. There was the place name Fukushima.

But I thought you wanted to be taken seriously positing a theory about the relative merits & safety of types of nuclear power & installation. Including ALL the experiences we have thus far.

A second mistake of mine..

Very low indeed. Modular construction. Less kit than conventional nuclear power. No mining required. Move waste from one side of the site to the other. Really tiny in other words. Given massive output, likely to be lower/MWh than wind, solar etc

If you want to explain how a Fukushima-type accident could happen at an IFR, the floor is yours ...

Thanks George :) I've been baffled as to why the SMP has been continued to be funded based on the lack of results. As for Tom, I think he's just sold another copy of his book!

Anti-nuclear campaigners have generated as much mumbo jumbo as creationists, anti-vaccine scaremongers, homeopaths and climate change deniers.

I quite agree George. We should be massively investing in an Nuclear UK Industry (not the French, in sheep's clothing power company version) & sell power to the soon to be energy poor Germans.

We need 2 a week to bring the developing up to half the power we use in the west in ten years.

Nuclear is an obvious choice to cut carbon emissions and this technology sounds great and somebody wants to build one for us without it costing anything. What are we waiting for?

So one of you has built a fast breeder reactor, tested it and come up with these conclusions? Or has in fact the nuclear industry built and tested it, written the reports and simply handed them to you?

"And precisely what mechanism do you propose by which an IFR could go up?"

Are you claiming that it is agains the laws of physics that a fast breeder reactor can have an accident? My goodness that is brave!

Oh I don't know, what about a bomb? Or a tsunami flooding the reactor? Maybe several plane deliberately crashing on top of the reactor building? Operator error maybe. Or maybe poor maintenance. Who can say?

And there is the problem for the nuclear industry, you are dealing with probabilities, and as has been shown, when some improbable thing (or several improbable things) happens you are dealing with a mess that can threaten millions.

So I ask again, you're claiming to be an expert on this, what would happen if an IFR was flooded by a tsunami?

Nuclear power plants are anti-life and anti-creation. As the Fukushima plant shows, if something goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong. As the Guardian just published, it's now leaking radioactive water into the ocean.

And yes, you can say it was old technology used in the plant and new technology is okay and fine, but it only takes one disaster for large areas of land to become inhabitable, food supplies to become affected and humans sickened.

I don't want a climate crash as much as the next person. Burning fossil fuels is incredibly irresponsible. But choosing one evil over another isn't right either.

Greens should look to science, rather than superstition

Good luck with that.

EG

This sounds really hopeful - thank you for the article George.

Presumably we can expect Chris Hune Energy Minister to speak up in the coming days, because here is an opportunity to do something to help the energy cartels become more green, more competitive thus helping the energy customer who is currently being exploited.

If the government plans and implements this properly could it beginning of a new state (i.e. people owned) power industry...

Perceptionpoint © Nov’ 2011

And there is the problem for the nuclear industry, you are dealing with probabilities, and as has been shown, when some improbable thing (or several improbable things) happens you are dealing with a mess that can threaten millions.

And yet, in its entire history, the civil nuclear power industry has killed fewer people than coal mining kills EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

Fewer, too, than are killed on the roads of Britain alone EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

It is statistically the safest of ALL forms of power generation known.

Clearly it should be banned for safety reasons.

EG

Personally I thought he was asking you what would happen if there was an accident.

Ok George, at this point you're in danger of falling into your own dismissive tactics of 'seeking ever more desperate excuses' to support your mistake of championing the nuclear power industry, by re-using already discredited argument against (Caldicott etc.) instead of trying a more convincing tack. Perhaps you don't have one, for although reprocessors may have some benefit over processors, it doesn't address the current concerns with development of more nuclear power plants, at the expense of concerted efforts to develop cleaner sources of power production.

And one other thing. Drop the hip language willya. 'Woo' is already nauseatingly overdone.

What about the economics? How much do these plants cost? How long do they take to build?" ... etc etc

What about reading the article first?

We must be looking at different articles. There isn't a '£' anywhere in the one I am looking at. Nor is there an adequate explanation of what the output of these plants are an how many we would need.

If you are serious about getting greens to accept these claims how about getting your butt over to the GP conference in February and actually trying to win people over.

Superstition is an unfounded belief. The superstition that Nuclear is the answer to all our prayers makes no more sense than the idea that every reactor will blow up and poison the lot of us.

Unless a lot of soft ore uranium at reasonable concentration is found very fast, if Nuclear is to be used to plug the energy gap, it will no longer be a low carbon energy source.

Every person in the UK uses more than double the amount of electricity compared to the people of the comparatively energy inefficient filament light bulb, valve TV set, immersion heater and electric fire 1970's.

Perhaps we should stop throwing it away before we keep finding new ways to make it.

"Oh I don't know, what about a bomb? Or a tsunami flooding the reactor? Maybe several plane deliberately crashing on top of the reactor building? Operator error maybe. Or maybe poor maintenance. Who can say?"

And what would happen in those cases? It can't melt down, any more than, say, your dishwasher can melt down: the mechanism does not exist. There's no pressure in the system, so it can't blow up either. You might be able to blow the containment structure to bits with a nuclear bomb, but what's the point?

George - can we have a bit of common sense in some of this nuclear conversion.

In any argument or position there are outriders, and you do a good job of picking them off. I am glad you do because they don't help debate or understanding. But to present them as "the voice of greens" is nonsense - are mainstream environmental thinkers and organisations wandering around selling magic atomic pills?

I appreciate its hardly an exhaustive serach (I don't get paid to do that like you do) but I can't find Chris Busby mentioned anywhere on FOE's site, and once (in a 2006 report) on Greenpeace's. And although I have read about the Green Party links (though they seem to be distancing fast) and have a lot of respect for Caroline Lucas, if you are telling me it was the Green Party who have stopped nuclear power stations being built, I am really going to give up on you.

In fact, you might have noticed that there was remarkably little opposition from UK environmental groups to recent life extensions for existing nuclear power stations (I confess to not seeing any...but again, you do the exhaustive stuff not me).

But you ignore that, as you do the industry's uncomfortably close working relationship witih Government (exposed again today in the Guardian). Instead it is just you that has to be right - not just a bit right but so right that everyone else has to be utterly deluded not to realise.

It is surely worth looking at the history of the nuclear industry - the long litany of broken promises, missed deadlines, overspent budgets, the deception, the spying, the hand-in-hand cosy deals with Government. None of that proves this technology won't work, but it does make it worth asking whether it is wise to be quite so vehemently certain.

This is interesting technology you are drawing attention to, I would be delighted if it worked. But I'm not so gullible as to leap around denouncing anyone who has doubts - and think the worst possible thing would be to take the nuclear industries word for it without it being tested rigorously by others (something you called for in different circumstances in ClimateGate I remember).

But perhaps that's too sensible and boring for a column, which is why you write one and I don't.

"Unless a lot of soft ore uranium at reasonable concentration is found very fast, if Nuclear is to be used to plug the energy gap, it will no longer be a low carbon energy source. ... Perhaps we should stop throwing it away before we keep finding new ways to make it."

Blimey: you haven't read a single word of the article, have you? Why, pray, do you need uranium ore for an integral fast reactor?

And not throwing it away is precisely what I propose.

yay for SCIENCE!

"And yet, in its entire history, the civil nuclear power industry has killed fewer people than coal mining kills EVERY SINGLE YEAR."

I'll answer your "point " by asking you this.

Which was the most expensive accident in the coal industry in terms of deaths and monetary value, and which was the most expensive accident in the nuclear industry in terms of deaths and monetary value?

And btw, I never stated we should use coal fired plants, but nice strawman

Does that mean that eventually it will eat up it's own waste then or just reduce it's half life, and realistically how long will the waste remain active.

Are you really suggesting that the Green Party had no role in getting Germany's nuclear programme shut down? What do you think the German Greens have been up to all this time?

And I've got no trouble with people's doubts. It's their ill-founded certainties I object to.

There's a tendency to look for silver bullets in the energy business - wind will solve everything, solar will solve everything, nuclear will solve everything. Admirable confidence, but foolish to rely on for something as important as energy and solving climate change.

The PRISM may well be an effective way of disposing of the excess plutonium - but none have been built, so we can't be entirely confident in its performance. Unlike PWRs like the AP1000 or the EPR, it isn't just a variation of a widely deployed, reliable technology.

If GE are confident enough in its performance to build one and use it to dispose of the plutonium for a fixed fee which is less than the other options, then let them, assuming it can get through licensing. But let's not have a repeat of the MOX plant fiasco.

Ok George I could take what you say on trust but we need an article about the neglect by this government of the many other green technologies. It may have been discussed before but how about the failings of the green bank?

All the big industrial hi tech aspects which most of us have learnt to fear in the past are often too complicated for us to understand even when made easy. Yes a nuclear power station is essentially a kettle but it's a bit more than that.

Nuclear has let us down in the past renewables won't be given a chance you can see how wind has a concerted campaign against it at the moment know one loves it. You know what they say the wind doesn't blow all the time ignoring that it can be used as a backup and saving when it does blow.

I sense an air of desperation in grabbing the nuclear option despite Germany's rejection of it which of our two countries is the bigger polluter maybe you could do the stats on that and draw conclusions about the viability of green technology if it's embraced enthusiastically.

Just like they're ignoring green tech they'll ignore nuclear look at how they've junked the carbon capture programme. If it works and it's really proven to be safe then use it. All I would say is this government seems all at sea regarding any clean energy and when it comes to nuclear energy it's not the public you need to convince. The bottom line for this government is, is it cheap. That's the only argument that will interest them. So though this is interesting for us we are the wrong audience.

"And what would happen in those cases? It can't melt down, any more than, say, your dishwasher can melt down"

Hmm, so you don't know what could happen? Tell me, what happens when liquid sodium comes in contact with water?

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You can see all the income I receive in the Registry of Interests on my website.

Which was the most expensive accident in the coal industry in terms of deaths and monetary value, and which was the most expensive accident in the nuclear industry in terms of deaths and monetary value?

That would be the ongoing destruction of the global environment, the deaths of 2 million people every year and hundreds of billions of pounds worth of damage to human health and the wider environment. How much do you think 30,000 dead costs America every year?

Of course, since that's the normal operation of the coal industry, people don't worry about it.

If what you say is true then I am in. I mean, what's not to like?

It can't explode, it shuts itself down in times of danger, it uses up nuclear waste and it's cheaper to build?

The only problem I have is that if something sounds too good to be true then it probably is. Why have I never heard of this before and why isn't everyone jumping on board?

GEH's proposed PRISM reactor uses the same generating technology as the IFR, though the current proposal doesn't include the reprocessing plant. It should.

Why doesn't it? If it can use up all its own waste and then all the rest why wouldn't it? That would be a massive selling point for nuclear fence sitters like me.

Thanks for offering a dose of hope in what often seems like a hopeless situation.

I sense an air of desperation in grabbing the nuclear option despite Germany's rejection of it which of our two countries is the bigger polluter

In terms of CO2? Germany. Strange, as not only do they have all the renewables but they have more nuclear than us too. Perhaps it's all that coal they're subsidising.

Chronos is right: The coal industry kills more people every week than nuclear power has killed in its entire history. The lack of perspective among those who obsess about nuclear is shocking.

Thanks for the article George. Yes, some 'Greens' have been propagating Green issues around Nuclear as if this was the 'Evil of the Ages'.

Environmentalism as the 'New Religion' to denigrate and beat others over the heads with.

Yes, dealing with global warming and environmental issues are important. But this should NOT be used as a means to screw more taxes out of the hard pressed tax payers, nor as a way to promote even more, and more, and more Wind Farms and Turbines to be scattered in thousands across the skyline etc.

Wind Turbines are NOT the solution, but PART of the solution, which should include Nuclear and other clean sources of electricity generation.

Some Environmentalist appear to be withdrawing into a form of 'Environmental Superstition' just like 'Fundamentalism' to keep themselves apart from the rest of the Earthlings.