Nuclear is good by itself, doesn’t need CO2 reduction prop

11th July 2014

By: Kelvin Kemm

  

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I was invited to attend the Atomexpo 2014 nuclear power exhibition and expo in Moscow. I was invited as a guest of State-owned nuclear company Rosatom.


The event started on a Monday, but was preceded the day before by a yachting regatta at the Royal Moscow Yacht Club. I was fortunate to be invited. There I got to meet a number of interesting and friendly people, who all looked after me unbelievably well. The dancing and the music on a floating platform, with food, a bar and ornate decorations, went on in daylight until I was surprised to look at my watch and see that it was 22:30 and the sun was starting to set. There was even more food, drinks and fellowship on the nonmoving land.

The conference was attended by a significant number of people from a wide spectrum of players in various aspects of nuclear power, including nuclear fuel fabrication and the construction of nuclear-powered ice-breaker ships.


The ice-breaker stand had good Russian chocolates, so, just as well that I really am interested in the ice breakers. I figure that, maybe, we can build a floating ship of some sort to place on African lakes to supply power to the shore. Worth thinking about.


What I found was that nuclear people worldwide really do think the same, deep down. I imagine that the international nature of nuclear, from the start, was in its way a unifying force. We all have the same public perception issues to tackle. We all have nuclear waste investigations. We all need security of supply of fuel. We all know that we need one another.


I was interested to hear a fellow from the Ministry of Energy in Turkey say that they had come to the conclusion that nuclear power was totally essential. He and I had a chat later. His name is Necati Yamaç.
I was interested to see how much his Turkish outlook and my South African outlook were similar.


Rosatom head Sergei Kirienko was very upbeat about the future of nuclear. He was also very positive about the need for collaboration between countries, and also appreciated how nuclear fabrication had to take place in many geographic locations. Later, when I spoke to him personally, he told me how pleased he was to have a few South Africans at the event – there were six of us.


One thing I did notice about some people was a feeling of being overburdened with the climate change and carbon dioxide stories. This was particularly noticeable with the Western countries; there were one or two delegates from countries like the UK, Canada and Sweden. They tended to say that, although nuclear was great, their countries were so fixated on wind energy that the nuclear people did not really know what to do next.


At one point in the discussions, I stood up and said: “Where is your courage and confidence? Stop trying to use carbon dioxide reduction as some salvation for nuclear power. Nuclear is excellent all by itself without the props.”


When I had finished my bit, I received a significant round of applause from the mostly Russian audience. I realised that many people had exactly those sentiments in their minds.


What this illustrates is that the nuclear fraternity worldwide needs to do much more to market nuclear to the public. 
When members of the public do not understand, they, quite understandably, go into defence mode and tend to say no! In that state, they very easily believe antinuke propa­ganda about things like “thousands dead at Fukushima”, whereas, in fact, there were zero deaths.


It was my first visit to Moscow and I also got a chance to walk around Red Square, walk past St Basil’s Cathedral, and do a number of other visits to absorb the culture of the great city.

Overall, it was a great experience, and the people were helpful and friendly.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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