Today’s circumstances are different from the 1970s when a country like France faced the oil crisis, decided to push towards “energy independence” and eventually reached 75% nuclear electricity.

Whilst still revolving around fossil fuel, our current problem is to develop ways of producing energy that will limit our impact on the environment.

So for Australia, the question is not so much to debate the absolute merit of nuclear energy per se, but to appreciate whether to introduce its use is appropriate in that context. Is it logical to swap fossil fuel issues for nuclear ones?

Back then, risk trade-offs were made

Whether or not you agree with the use of nuclear energy, you can admit that there was a logical path to its development throughout the 20th century.

Post war governments made risk trade-offs to harness nuclear energy for civilian use. Toxic wastes and the danger of frightening radiations were accepted by the politicians driving the agenda. The context of an epoch marked by a belief in science and technological progress probably helped. The arms race between the US and USSR made populations swallow quite a few pills. And the economic hardship inflicted by the oil crash of the 1970s did the rest. Cynical realpolitik, but rational. This is exactly what happened in France when an aggressive program was launched in 1974. The French case actually provides valuable insights that countries considering embarking on such a project might want to consider.

Was the community engaged and consulted in the decision to proceed?

The short answer is no. The key support the government relied on came from the unions, not from the population, which had not been consulted.

Unions were on side since the creation of the state energy monopoly Electricité de France (EDF) in 1946. The utility became one of the largest employers in the country and closely associated unions to the management of its large social fund, equivalent to 1% of the company’s financial turn over. This relationship proved instrumental in the implementation of the aggressive nuclear program.

Once things were underway, subsequent effort to craft a national narrative in support of this enterprise kicked in. No effort was spared, through schools and media, to build pride in scientific research and engineering culture. Pioneers of nuclear research like Pierre and Marie Curie were handy symbols to celebrate and the development of the nuclear energy was the French ‘Moon Race’.

So what was the nuclear promise?

Prime Minister Pierre Messmer, who supervised the launch of the program, outlined the pro-nuclear case in 1974: “France has not been favoured by nature in energy resources. There is almost no petrol on our territory, we have less coal than England and Germany and much less gas than Holland … our great chance is electrical energy of nuclear origin because we have had good experience with it since the end of World War II … In the effort we will make to acquire a certain independence, or at least reduced dependence in energy, we will give priority to electricity and in electricity to nuclear electricity.”

That was it. See you 58 nuclear stations and 35 years later.

Did it deliver?

A recent report commissioned by the Greens group in the European Parliament gave a fair assessment: “There is no doubt that such a nuclear program represents a remarkable scientific, technological and engineering performance, [however] it has been designed, developed and implemented under the guidance of a powerful technocrat elite, beyond governmental changes and outside parliamentary decisions and control.”

The study shows that the impact of nuclear power to reduce fossil fuel consumption is more limited than commonly thought. Whilst 77% of the French electricity comes from nuclear plants, it only represents 16% of the total energy consumed by the country. Total dependence on fossil fuels is far from being broken.

A perverse effect of the nuclear program has also been to artificially boost electricity consumption instead of encouraging substitution for other energy sources. France’s nuclear capacity was significantly oversized, and instead of scaling down when it could in the 1980s, the public power company developed very aggressive policies to export base load power and dump electricity into markets like space heating, hot water heating or home cooking appliances. You might notice next time you visit France how prevalent electrical heaters and stoves are in households.

The safety record is also less idyllic than commonly admitted. Superior safety standards are traditionally a strong argument in favour of the nuclear sector.

The trouble with comparing the safety of the 442 nuclear reactors to the 50,000+ fossil fuel power plants worldwide, is that we are not really comparing like for like. Instead it would be more insightful to understand how the current statistics would evolve if nuclear plants proliferated in the same scale as fossil fuel facilities.

Here again, the French experience gives interesting insights. Between 10,000 and 12,000 events are identified in French plants every year of which 600 to 800 are considered “significant events”. Moreover the current trend of privatising the energy sector is incompatible with the risk appetite of the nuclear industry. The pursuit of commercial profit and nuclear safety do not mix. Even conservative politicians now call for a re-nationalisation of the sector!

This is compounded by the difficulty of maintaining a high level of competence in the workforce. 40% of the generation of scientists and engineers that have conceived and operated the current nuclear facilities will retire by 2015. Replacing them has become EDF’s most urgent management concern in the last years. Imagine how this type of issue would play out in Australia where skill shortage is already a problem.

So what does this all mean for today’s debate?

First of all we have to be clear that the nature of the debate is totally different in Australia compared to countries like France, the US or Japan. For them the options are to phase it out, or to keep investing in it. For Australians, it is to decide whether we want to get into this business or invest in other technologies. Those differences are crucial.

Another way to ask the question is: if we had to invest today the equivalent of money and effort which led to the development of the European nuclear capability would we spend it again on the same technology, or would we rather leap frog to the next generation of energy production?

Australia should reach the conclusion that there is enough nuclear technology around the globe. The world does not need another country to add to it. Instead of debating a technology from the 1970s, an impactful contribution to the global agenda would be to lead the charge towards getting us closer to truly harnessing the energy produced by this solar mega power plant. Australia should also realise that its high levels of insolation (solar radiation) and healthy economic situation make it an ideal candidate to lead that charge.

This would take us to a new level of energy production: after inefficiently using the Sun’s by-products, after recreating its atomic reaction in risky conditions, we would finally focus on using it as a direct source. Not to mention that it is the ultimate renewable generator: as long as we need energy the Sun will be there to supply it.

What the nuclear industry actually tells us is that when meaningful investment and policies support scientific research, anything is possible. Who would have thought 70 years ago that atomic forces could be released as they are today?

Now is the opportunity to make sure that something good comes out of the tragedy happening at Fukushima. 70 years on, the world needs a new Manhattan Project to focus money and brainpower on developing the next generation of the solar industry, both in terms of technical research as well as policy setting. This is the opportunity Australia should be seizing to show global leadership.

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leLaissezFaire is an amateur blogger with a scientific academic background. He works in the finance industry researching the relationships between economics, governance, regulation, politics and culture. He blogs here: www.theotherschoolofeconomics.org

Follow him on twitter @lelaissezfaire

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