26/11/2010 Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“One of the conclusions of our conference could be the assertion that nuclear energy is in a good position to meet the energy requirements of our societies, for it is plentiful and does not contribute to global warming. But the production and management of such an energy source, intrinsically dangerous, must be aimed above all at keeping risks to a minimum through optimum waste management.”
With these words Vladimir Grachev, representing the Rosatom state corporation of the Russian Federation, and a former member of the Assembly Environment Committee, summed up many of the viewpoints stated at the Conference on Nuclear Energy organised by the committee, which brought together a hundred or so experts in that field in Strasbourg.
“We have often heard the word danger,” he added, “and of course there is danger, but that danger is circumscribed and can be contained, limited, reduced as far as possible, and it is up to us to do so. I earnestly wish that the Parliamentary Assembly should concern itself with this question.”
Nils Bøhmer, representing the Norwegian Bellona Foundation, took up the question by acknowledging that in some European countries, particularly in Scandinavia, there would soon be excellent nuclear waste storage sites, but wondered what the position would be with the other European countries not possessing such facilities and availing themselves of deposits with far more uncertain safety standards.
In this context Peter Wikberg, Research Director of the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB), enquired whether nuclear waste management was an asset or a liability for the future of nuclear energy. A country like Sweden, he stressed, was able to give the benefit of its experience to other countries without storage dumps, as storage was “quite possibly the fundamental issue that we must address”.
Claude Fischer, Chair of the “Confrontations Europe” association, expressed the final observations in the form of questions: should each European state build storage sites? Would recourse to a single European centre be conceivable? Should the costs of nuclear waste management be made reciprocal? These are all questions for which the Parliamentary Assembly will have to try and find answers.
Her conclusion was: “The revival raises many questions and Europe does not yet have a European market framework to enable the European nuclear industry to develop; it will only be a winner in its development if it is capable of producing what is the world’s cheapest energy while being the safest on the planet.”