Although it might be still too early to gauge the full environmental and societal costs of what has actually happened in Fukushima’s nuclear power plant in Japan there is no doubt that this is not a problem that will go away easily or quickly

The nuclear accident has already affected the outlook for the global nuclear industry while various key players have been busy trying to determine whether there can actually be a safe nuclear industry or not, as well as whether this massive and disturbing ecological and health incident will facilitate a real push towards green energy worldwide.

As the heated debate over the siting of nuclear power plants will surely pick up in coming months, one hopes that the same will be done about the wisdom or lack of it about such plants in seismically active regions.

As for the existing nuclear industry one hopes that the Japanese disaster will lead to greater transparency and even more regulation.

Regardless of whether Angela Merkel’s course reversal on atomic energy was motivated by electoral considerations or not due to last Sunday’s crucial tests in the southwestern states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Wurttemberg, at least her belated policy reversal sent a clear positive signal.

In sharp contrast I felt flabbergasted with the ‘blast from the past’ courtesy of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl when he was reported to have warned that the Merkel decision to retreat on nuclear energy could ‘make the world a more dangerous place’.

It is worth noting that Kohl himself when chancellor actually oversaw the opening of several nuclear power plants in Germany.

One must realise that what happened in Japan was not just a massive earthquake and tsunami, but with the constant reports of further nuclear reactor leaks we could be very well talking of a still ongoing disaster.

I have no doubt that in the coming days, as the world continues to try and take stock of the national and global tragedy triggered in Japan, attempts will be made by the nuclear industry itself to try and turn such a crisis into a pro-nuclear debate.

One particular whitewashing report actually found many asking us to weigh nuclear against fossil fuels, while using comparisons with the mortality rates per terawatt hours caused by coal.

The main purpose behind this spin was to cast Fukushima in a more flattering light.

Expect that ‘experts’ will soon start bringing up another deceitful argument; that nuclear power is a lesser evil than climate change.

I never adopted a fundamentalist approach towards nuclear energy but whenever I heard the argument brought up that nuclear power is 100% safe unless anything bad happens, I could not but feel perplexed.

I recently read how the moment our neighbour country Italy started relaxing their nuclear game rules, big players from both sides of the Atlantic immediately set their eyes on this potentially new captive market.

In saying so I am for a moment even ignoring the potential terrorist and proliferation risks that nuclear plants can bring along with them, as well as the whole issue and problem of radioactive waste.

One particular statistic that the nuclear lobby will surely try to keep hidden, but that recently saw the light of day thanks to the International Energy Agency was the following: That if existing world nuclear power capacity could be quadrupled by 2050, its share of world energy consumption would still be below 10% – and that in spite of all the talk that going nuclear cuts down carbon dioxide, in actual fact were this push to materialise, this would merely reduce carbon dioxide emissions by less than 4% on a global level.

The ideal solution was recently spelt out by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council. Whether governments will have the political will to pursue it is another matter altogether. But for information’s sake the plan which forms part of an energy scenario which delivers the world’s energy supply with 95% renewables by 2050 actually provides for a situation where:

• No new nuclear reactors are built

• Currently operating plants are phased out; and

• About two thirds of those currently under construction are mothballed.

The point which governments and decision makers must definitely keep in mind, as the Japanese nuclear reactors continue to leak, is that we are paying an exorbitant human, environmental, and yes, even a financial price, while taking even bigger risks, for zero benefit in the fight against climate change.

I agree with those who might argue that it will be years before we might know the full consequences of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

But this must surely lead to a rethink of nuclear power policy. Not just in Japan; but in Europe, the United States and the rest of the world too.

I was recently reminded that in spite of the 1979 accident at the Pennsylvanian Three Mile Island nuclear plant, since then the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has often been too timid in ensuring totally safe operation of the 104 or so commercial reactors in the USA.

The biggest threat that the nuclear industry poses in many countries goes beyond the ecological, environmental and the health hazard aspect. It is one of so-called ‘regulatory capture.’

In effective terms this means that a situation has long developed whereby a particular industry gains control of an agency meant to regulate it.

One of society’s biggest sins of omissions worldwide is that in recent years interest in nuclear regulation has declined drastically.

Some lobbyists even had the cheek to argue that increased costs from safety requirements could kill the nuclear power industry.

If the Japanese incident will not lead to an actual downsizing of the nuclear industry, I will be partially satisfied if it will contain the extent of its expansion, while finding much solace in any moves that could change for the better the industry-regulator relationship.

Any new reactors that may be developed need to be inherently safe.

Anything that makes nuclear proliferation easier should also worry us, particularly as recent events worldwide have continued to show the need to strengthen the barriers to misuse of nuclear energy technology to develop nuclear weapons.

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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change