Nuclear debate continues to stir up controversy 

The event was organised by the European Movement, a platform for pro-European and non-governmental organisations, and featured a range of panellists including MEPs and representatives of industry and a pro-nuclear environmental NGO.

A show of hands at the beginning of the event indicated that most of the several hundred audience participants are in favour of using nuclear as a main element of the EU's future energy mix, with a "sizeable minority" opposed. There are also signs of a "nuclear renaissance" in the EU, with public opinion shifting somewhat in favour of the technology amid growing concerns over climate change and energy security.

While the conference included emotional interventions and charged discussions, a number of participants indicated that the essential elements of the debate have changed little in recent decades, with waste and security issues still high on the agenda. Meanwhile a Eurobarometer survey, published yesterday (3 July), shows that many citizens might change their opposition to nuclear if radioactive waste issues were satisfactorily resolved.

A number of speakers and participants also lamented that discussions on nuclear are seldom based on fact and scientific evidence, but rather on "ideology".

In the light of increasing concerns about climate change and energy security, the Commission is actively promoting the use of the technology as a "low carbon" option in the EU's energy mix (EurActiv 03/10/07).

Nina Commeau, adviser to the deputy director general of the Commission's Energy Directorate, argued that nuclear provides a solution to both rising electricity demand and climate change concerns. 

Giancarlo Aquilanti, head of the Nuclear Technology Area for the Italian energy company ENEL, which is planning to construct a number of new reactors in the coming years pending regulators' approval, said price calculations were a major factor in the company's decision to invest in the technology.

While the price of fossil fuels has increased some 800% since 2000, the price of uranium has essentially remained stable, he said. In addition, Italy's industries currently pay far more for electricity than their French counterparts, and Aquilanti hopes the use of nuclear will bring costs down.

But Italian Green MEP Monica Frassoni  argued that the nuclear option is "very expensive", and that the EU and member states currently face a choice between investing massive sums in energy efficiency and renewables or in nuclear and other 'traditional' energy supply sources such as fossil fuels.

Frassoni also lamented that the ongoing debates over nuclear during the past 25 years "did not solve any of the waste and security problems" connected with the technology.

Hungarian Socialist MEP Edit Herczog spoke out in support of nuclear, highlighting broader issues of employment and citizens' access to inexpensive electricity as her main concerns. Concerning nuclear safety and related issues, Herczog does not think that "politicians know better than the engineers" and scientists.

The most passionate advocate of nuclear was Bruno Comby, who founded the group Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (EFN). "Nuclear is the main part of the solution," he said. Anti-nuclear groups have made an "historic error" in opposing the technology and "there is no time to lose with solutions that do not work," he said in reference to renewable energies.

Commentator and journalist Willy De Backer gave arguments both for and against nuclear, arguing that reactors are necessary as a "bridge solution" while the renewable energy revolution has time to take shape.

But De Backer also cautioned that the use of public monies in support of nuclear should not come to the detriment of subsidies for renewables.