From Steuart Campbell
In weighing up the pros and cons of nuclear power, David Sang should have made a finer adjustment to his scales (Inside Science, 18 January). I noted several errors.
First, there is no evidence that “9000 extra deaths from cancer” have occurred in the people near Chernobyl as a result of the accident in 1986. Very few deaths have occurred as a result of increased radiation.
Although Magnox and PWR reactors operate at a temperature “only a little above 300 °C”, and have a thermal efficiency of “around 30 per cent” (actually 26 per cent for Magnox and 35 per cent for PWR), advanced gas-cooled (AGR) reactors operate at 640 °C and have an efficiency of around 40 per cent, comparable to a modern coal-fired power station.
MOX fuel does not consist of “96 per cent uranium, 3 per cent high-level waste and 1 per cent plutonium”. That is the composition of used fuel. MOX fuel consists of around 97 per cent uranium oxide and 3 per cent plutonium oxide.
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Technetium-99 was discharged from Sellafield, not because of “a breakdown” in procedures, but by authority. Even so, steps are being taken to eliminate this relatively harmless discharge. Discharges from Sellafield are now a minute fraction of what they were decades ago.
The allegation that a North Korean nuclear plant “is capable of producing plutonium” should be seen in the context that every nuclear reactor produces plutonium, although special procedures are required to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
Finally, it is unclear why Sang included a comment on nuclear fusion (undeveloped) and not fast reactors (developed).
Edinburgh, UK
