Nuclear and Biodiversity

The link between nuclear energy and biodiversity is arguably not immediately obvious. This post will focus on Brook (2014) and the relationships between the energy choices we make and the fulfilment of biodiversity conservation goals.

Nuclear energy can detriment biodiversity due to its disruptive land use through uranium mining – yet the relatively small scale factory set up may mitigate the scope of land degradation. It has an important role in reducing pollution through the zero-carbon energy production – however this is countered by the threat of radionuclide fallout and the pollution from waste storage and transport. These threats are of greater concern due to the longevity in which it persists within the environment, in regards to the exponential half-lives of the isotopes produced. The energy options must also have greater reliability and cost-effectiveness than more damaging resources in order for the biodiversity benefits to be realised. This can be tied into previous posts about the stability of nuclear energy prices and the reduced transportation costs, to name a couple of the benefits.

These questions relate to the two greatest threats of biodiversity extinctions, habitat degradation/fragmentation and the indirect implications from an ever warming planet. Many will look at the zero-carbon nature of nuclear and try to promote its environmental merit – however emissions are not the sole environmental factor, as seen with hydroelectric dams that produce no emissions yet disrupt the hydrological cycle and fragment aquatic habitats.

Dams cause low flows which have consequently caused the mass death of fish in the Klamath River, North California (International Rivers 2015).

The literature utilises a multi-criteria decision making analysis framework which ranks the energy sectors through a variety of quantitative and qualitative variables (see Brook 2014; 707). These included CO2 emissions, electricity cost, land use, number of fatalities and waste production. This article ranks nuclear as the best, against fossil fuels, biomass, hydro, wind and solar! This is perhaps surprising, especially due to the fact that throughout this blog there have been countless examples of the negativity that surrounds nuclear and its role in causing environmental damage. Brook (2014) therefore reiterates a point that I have made throughout, that despite concerns revolving around waste and reactor explosions, the “urgency of the global environmental challenges (means) closing off our option on nuclear energy may be dangerously short-sighted (p.706). 

The development of molten salt reactors, which utilise liquid, rather than solid fuel (WNA 2015), has the potential to reduce many of the threats nuclear provides to biodiversity. For example such reactors improve sustainability due to a lack of neutron loss and an ability to reprocess fuel during the operation (Touran 2015). With higher sustainability there will be less intense mining for uranium sources, meaning less land fragmentation and degradation – as well as a reduction in the emissions used in uranium collection.

Furthermore, the molten salt reactors provide less radioactivity due to the continual reprocessing meaning more radioactive material is not needed to be continually inputted to the reactor to maintain long term energy production. Additionally, the liquid fuel is at atmospheric pressure and therefore will not be exposed to the threat of high pressure explosions as seen in Chernobyl and Fukushima (Touran 2015). Both the above factors result in a reduced threat of radionuclide fallout and therefore mitigated biodiversity loss due to direct exposure and incorporation into ecosystem flows.

The figure below shows the differences in the energy storage of different fuels based upon the assumed 6.4 million kWh of energy consumed in a lifetime of a person in a developed nation. It is clear that the storage in uranium provide a far greater energy/weight ratio. An interesting point raised here is the level of land use change required in renewable energies such as solar and wind. For a start offshore wind farms require vast areas to be constructed, for example the recently proposed Navitus Bay project was going to span 153km² (NIP 2015). This has since been rejected due to mass protests in regards to the impact on the status of the Jurassic Coast, including “Durdle Door” as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Booker 2015). Furthermore, there will need to be mass land  degradation and habitat fragmentation from the mining of nickel required in the batteries that store wind/solar energy (Brook 2014). Therefore the “100% green” concepts of wind and solar – often seen in mainstream media – are arguably romanticised ideals. Emissions will also be inevitable in the construction of the turbines or solar panels – with toxic waste water another possible outcome of panel manufacture – as previously mentioned (Nunez 2011).

Comparative energy densities of different fuels (Brook 2014).

Jurassic Coast and Durdle Door - wind farm developments were prevented due to conflicts with the UNESCO status (Booker 2015).

Therefore I would agree with Brook (2014), that nuclear provides a suitable option to overcome the biodiversity crisis. Access to nuclear and the reduced dependency on international fossil fuel trade and markets can also aid wealth inequality and poverty – which are both seen to be major drivers of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss (Barrett 2011). Yes – risks exist but we are not in a position to be “picky” about the route we take. Species’ extinctions are up to 1000x higher than the natural background rate (IUCN 2010) – therefore we must act now to mitigate or overturn this alarming trend! Otherwise we may enter (if we have not already!) a 6^th major extinction event (see Ben’s Blog for further discussion)!