Debate on nuclear power: two letters

Submitted by AWL on 27 October, 2021 - 5:43
Nuclear power plant

The front page of Solidarity 610 calls for an economic shift to power-generation from renewables and nuclear, with transport, heating, etc. taking power from the electric grid rather than from fossil fuels.

Why nuclear? With nuclear power, the dynamics of capitalism impose a technology which burdens the next 10,000 years with highly volatile waste products in the interest of short-term profits.

Whilst nuclear technology might be a rational energy source for a future society of associated producers, we should be absolutely clear that the bourgeoisie views nuclear technology in a way fundamentally opposed to the how Marxists should see it. Their concern is for profit, ours is for human need, and the nuclear power stations that they are proposing to build will reflect this difference.

There is no mention on the current agenda of developing thorium-based nuclear generators despite the obvious advantages of this technology from a social and ecological perspective. There is certainly no mention of workers’ control or giving up the nuclear arsenal.

The nuclear power plants that will be built and the waste management systems that they put in place will have the profit-motive written into the very essence and will be very difficult to utilise in a democratically planned economy.

Gerry Bates. London


It’s good that Solidarity 610 added nuclear to renewables when listing available alternatives to fossil fuels.

Solar energy and wind power depend on the sun shining and the wind blowing. Larger, better grids and batteries can distribute energy further and store in larger amounts, but the technologies are still limited and bring large construction costs.

Hydroelectric power is available only in some areas, and often comes with destruction of habitats and livelihoods. Solar panels generate lots of toxic waste. No technology is perfect. We need a fight for workers’ control over varied technologies, not an absolutist fixation on a few technical options.

Suitable underground storage sites exist for high-level nuclear waste. The necessary storage can be reduced with better reactor designs and by developing thorium reactors which “burn up” existing waste.

The maybe 50 deaths from Chernobyl were tragic. But more died when dams collapsed and a hydropower project was damaged in India in February just this year. Wind turbines and their construction are subject to accidents too.

Alan Gilbert, London

Comments

Submitted by Philip Semp (not verified) on Thu, 28/10/2021 - 17:29

Gerry Bates has hit  the bullseye! 

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