Huge delays and cost
overruns totalling billions for nuclear
reactors under construction in Finland and
France are once again demonstrating that
nuclear power is no match for renewables
in the fight against climate change. Since
construction started on these two reactors
global capacity
of renewables like wind and solar has grown
at rates between 15% to 50% a year - way
ahead of even
the Chinese economy. In the same period,
new solar plants alone have added more electricity
generation to the grid than nuclear plants.
The fight against climate
change is a race against time. If we are
to avoid the catastrophic consequences of
rising global temperatures then strong and
meaningful action must be taken immediately.
The world needs to forget about building
nuclear reactors that are massively expensive,
dangerous and take too long to build, and
embrace safe, cheap renewable energy and
energy efficiency that are safe, quickly
established and getting cheaper every day.
Enough solar energy
hits the Earth in one hour to give us power
for a whole year. We’re never going to run
out of wind. Solar power is already cheaper
than nuclear power and will soon be cheaper
than oil power. Look at Google building
the world’s largest wind farm.
However, the nuclear
industry claims that nuclear power is a
vital part of the energy mix needed to beat
climate change. The disastrous problem with
that idea is that despite the squandering
of massive amounts of time, money and resources
the nuclear industry is showing no sign
of urgency in the battle against global
warming.
There is, and has been,
much talk about the new generation of nuclear
reactors that are somehow going to miraculously
spring up across the world in the next ten
years and save us from climate change. The
news that is emerging from the nuclear industry
this week shows this to be a fantasy.
The leader in this so-called
Third Generation of nuclear reactors is
the European (or Evolutionary) Pressurised
Reactor (EPR), designed by French nuclear
giant, AREVA. The EPR, if any are ever completed,
will be the largest nuclear reactor the
world has ever seen. Three EPRs are currently
being built worldwide at Olkiluoto in Finland,
Flamanville in France and Taishan in China.
News coming from the Finnish and French
construction sites this week is alarming
to say the least. New problems have been
revealed in the two projects that were already
billions of euros over budget and years
behind schedule.
Finland’s EPR was supposed
to begin operation in 2009 but – because
of delays, safety concerns and lack of proper
oversight - will not be working until 2013
at the earliest. Its initial cost of three
billion euros has almost doubled. Now we
hear there are yet more, new problems: despite
being under construction since 2005, the
reactor’s design is not yet complete. If
the design does not pass inspection, yet
more money and time will be wasted making
any necessary changes.
There have also been
yet more worrying lapses in safety procedures
and quality control of the reactors safety
systems including the backup cooling systems
(these are the systems that failed at Fukushima
in Japan causing the nuclear disaster we
are now witnessing). Work is being carried
out without the required plans or tests
and there is a lack of effective supervision.
All this means significant delays to the
reactors completion. Remember that race
against time we mentioned.
Over at Flamanville
in France things are no better. We were
promised that lessons would be learned from
Finland’s disastrous experience but once
again we see the nuclear industry’s stubborn
refusal to learn those lessons. We see almost
exactly the same problems in France as in
Finland.
French energy giant
EdF, which is building the EPR at Flamanville,
has announced this week that instead of
being operational in 2012
the reactor will not now be ready until
2016 at the earliest. The cost of the project
has rocketed from 3.3 billion euros to six
billion. Tragically, two workers have also
been killed during construction.
Just look at these costs
– lives, time, money, energy and resources.
We cannot afford to waste any of them. Think
what could have been achieved if they had
been devoted to renewable energy and energy
saving projects. Perhaps the race against
climate change wouldn’t be as urgent as
it is now.
Germany, Italy, Switzerland
and Kuwait are already leading the way in
abandoning nuclear power. Japan’s Prime
Minister Kan has called for his country
to look to a nuclear-free future in the
wake of the Fukushima disaster. Germany
already has 370,000 people employed in its
renewable energy industry. They’re way ahead
in the race to beat climate change. It’s
not too late for the rest of the world to
catch them but time is short.
+ More
Victory! John West changes
its tuna
After more than 51,000
emails, a lot of negotiation and some interesting
stickering initiatives, John West is the
last of the major UK players to shift to
sustainable tuna. This is a big deal when
it comes to tuna as John West produce one-third
of all tuna tins sold in the UK.
This move by John West
will put even more pressure on tinned tuna
companies like Clover Leaf in Canada and
Sealord in New Zealand, already the focus
of our campaigns in those countries, to
abandon FADs and sign up to supporting the
Pacific Commons marine reserves.
John West’s commitment
to shift to Pole & Line and FAD-free
fishing for all of their tuna means everyone
in the UK Greenpeace Tinned Tuna League
Table is now committed to stop using FADs
(Fish Aggregation Devices) with purse seine
nets, a combination responsible for needless
levels of destruction in the world’s oceans.
All UK retailers and brands are also committed
to not sourcing tuna from marine reserves
in the Pacific, collectively known as the
Pacific Commons. The establishment of marine
reserves in the Pacific and beyond means
we can start to restore the health of these
valuable stocks and ecosystems for future
generations.
Tuna instinctively gather
around FADs, but these oceanic minefields
also attract the whole cast of Finding Nemo,
including a host of species at risk of extinction
such as threatened sharks, bigeye tuna,
juvenile tuna and even turtles. Known collectively
as bycatch, all of these creatures are then
scooped up by the purse seine nets. Using
these indiscriminate FAD deathtraps kills
enough bycatch to fill a billion tins every
year. It’s the equivalent of every tenth
tuna tin on supermarket shelves containing
shark or other bycatch instead of tuna.
By switching to FAD-free or pole & line
fishing, as all major UK players have now
committed to, bycatch from tuna fishing
can be reduced by up to 90%.
Make it global!
John West’s journey may just be the start
of a longer odyssey for their parent company.
They are run by MW Brands who sell a number
of big tuna brands throughout much of Europe
with strong presence ofJohn West in Ireland
and the Netherlands, plus Petite Navire
in France and Mareblu in Italy. If they
are serious about making their business
truly sustainable then they should commit
to move to FAD-free and Pole & Line
fishing across all brands in their stable.
Migratory tuna stocks don’t respect national
boundaries, so MW Brands’ policies should
apply across all their markets.
In turn, this should
be taken up by MW Brands’ owners Thai Union,
the world’s biggest seafood company. This
is big business. Thai Union turnover is
forecast to rise from less than $3billion
now to $4billion by 2015, with MW Brands
driving much of this increase. The recent
UK market transformation, proves that large-scale
change is possible by multinational corporations
in this sector: Princes, the UK’s largest
tuna brand, are owned by the massive Japanese
conglomerate Mitsubishi; Asda are owned
by Walmart, the world’s largest retailer;
whilst Tesco is the 3rd largest retailer
globally.
These momentous shifts
in the UK are very timely, as new scientific
assessments show that many tuna stocks are
judged to be at risk of extinction under
extreme pressure from needlessly destructive
fishing methods and overfishing. The International
Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
scientists recently assessed five of the
eight species of tuna to be in the Threatened
or Near Threatened IUCN Red List Categories.
These include: Southern Bluefin - Critically
Endangered; Atlantic Bluefin - Endangered;
Bigeye - Vulnerable; Yellowfin and Albacore
– both Near Threatened.
Ultimately, what we
have in our hands right now from most of
these companies are effectively just words
on a piece of paper. But as Neville Chamberlain
would attest, it’s deeds not words that
count when it comes to paper commitments.
We are dealing with large, often multinational,
corporations who have made clear, public
commitments to change their tuna sourcing
to sustainable methods, and we will hold
them to their commitments!
Our focus will now move
on from the tinned tuna league table to
holding them to account on delivering these
commitments, seeing change out in the oceans.
We will be keeping you informed and asking
for your help. We hope we can count on you
in this next stage of the campaign as it
unfolds. As John West’s own tuna conference
tagline stated earlier this year ‘Action
Today for Sustainable Tuna Tomorrow’.
