272-5651ndd.indd 300 Nature Vol. 272 23 March 1978 Mr Justice Parker and technical fact Mr Justice Parker, who some time ago handled the Flixborough inquiry into a devastating explosion in a British chemical plant with consummate judicial skill, applied the same talents last year to the proposed construction of THORP (see p298). He was appointed to the Windscale Inquiry, as it became known, perhaps because he had gained experience at Flixborough in inquiries requiring assessment of technical argument. Therefore, as one might expect, where the arguments concerning the con- struction of THORP are capable of strict technical analysis Justice Parker's final report- published by the government on 6 March this year - is masterly. At the lowest level of contention, his description of the basic physics and chemistry of the nuclear fuel cycle should be read by anyone wishing to understand the technical basis of nuclear power and the reprocessing of nuclear fuel. At the next level, Justice Parker 's chapters on risk perform a very valuable function in drawing together the data on the effects of routine discharges of radionuclides from Windscale, and on assessing the possibilities of accident. The Inspector even ordered a few experiments. With their agreement he subjected a few regular ftsh eaters on the coast (where the existing Magnox reprocessing facility discharges low-level liquid waste) to whole body monitoring for the presence of radio- active elements passed down the food chain to the fish and thence to the fish eater. Levels were well below the limits set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection . In such ways Mr Justice Parker allayed some fears about the dangers of Windscale by ascertaining facts . Parker has also made some positive recommendations for improvement, as in the scientific competence of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (Nil) to check the designs of THORP were it to be built, and in the constitution of the Windscale local liaison committee. The latter was set up to prepare emergency plans between the local community and Windscale , but, writes the Inspector 'it emerged in evidence that some of those who, in the event of an emergency, would be required to take action under the plan ... did not even know they had any responsibilities, much less know what these responsibilities were. This was clearly a grave defect .. .' British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) who control Windscale have agreed to act on all Parker's criticisms so local liaison at least should improve shortly. Politics is involved in the environmental and health risks associated with THORP at least to the extent that being subject to them is not a matter of choice for the local residents; but it seems clear that the risks are not likely to be greater than those involved with any other industry. But in almost all the other issues faced by the Inspector complex political judgements are involved. The two central political questions concerned with the construction of THORP are international and national: the effect on the proliferation of nuclear weapons (which we deal with on p302), and the choice of UK energy future. The latter choice offers a number of options quite distinct from the familiar ones of the high growth and low growth future. On one of these Mr Justice Parker heard two days of evidence (outlined below) from Gerald Leach of Mr Ju stice Parker : " We will be castiga ted anyway" the International Institute for Environ- ment and Deve-lopment (liED) , but he pays scant a ttention -to this in his report. The choice of energy future (in Leach 's paper it is one of low primary energy reached largely by choice of efficient consumption technology) drastically affects Mr Justice Parker's recommendation to build THORP. He argues in his conclusions that : ftr st, extra facilities are ne.eded for pro- jected lJ K arisings of spent fuel after about !995 ; second, the best way of dealing with the wastes is to reprocess the fuel; third, that it is better to build the plant early rather than late to gain experience of the technology and avoid possible technical hitches ; and fourth, ·that if we arc going to have reprocess- ing anyway we might as well improve its economics by importing foreign fuel for treatment . (He disposes of the problem of the prolifera,tion of nuclear weapons on the way by a s.pcc.ial read- ing of the non-proliferation treaty.) Thus the argument depend s on the projected UK arisings, which have their origins in a forecast of the Central Electricity Generating Board. This in turn depends on an energy con sumption forecast. A forecast used in this way represents a political decision. It selects a particular path among many options. Parker's words in the report are illuminating. Considering UK ansmgs of spent fuel to the year 2000 he first calculates that 4,150 tonnes will have a risen from existing reactors and from those under construction. He goes on " If, as appears likely, reactors to pro- duoc a further 4,000 MW per year of electricity are ordered in the ncar future and begin to operate between 1990 and 1995 they will, by the year 2000, have produced a further 1,700 tonnes of spent fuel. Thus a total of 6,000 tonnes by the year 2000 from UK reactors alone is a realistic forecast" . (Another 4,000 MW is a large increase in nuclear power : the total nuclear generating capacity in England and Wales at the end of March last year was 3,462 MW) . It quite genuinely seems not to have occurred to Mr Parker, that the usc of "as appears likely" and "realistic" is, intentionally or nr)t, loaded, repre- senting a choioc of paths among alternatives. For example, the Depart- ment of Energy's recent decision to invest in the conservation of energy is projected by the department to reduce energy consumption by the end of the centry by 20%-or the equivalent of about 40,000 MW . Flexibilities of that order by political choice are quite fea sihle. Energy futures Gerald Leach 's two days of evidence , which formed an interim report on a study to be published by IIED in June, described a future with "substantial rises in ma terial standards, mobility and other energy-related activities". But it required not a rise but a reduction primary energy demand by the year 2000. This is achieved through increased consumption efficiencies with, for example, gas-fired heat pumps for heat- in g and good thermal insulation. The energy group of the Sussex University Science Policy Research Unit has also discovered that market competition between North Sea gas and electricity at the end of the century might restrict electricity to "essential" uses --such as lights, television, and electric motors. It follows, because of the poor energy efficiency of electricity generation in power stations, that on this basis there is a reduction of some 40% in primary energy consumption . Futures studies have lately taken on a completely new meaning , of which Mr Justice Parker does not appear to be aware: the meaning of offering an option to a policy maker, not of pre- dicting the future . Mr Wedgwood Bcnn, the UK Secretary of State for Energy. expressed a view on this at a meeting on Windscalc at the Royal Institution last year: "To be mcs- • Macmillan Journals Ltd 1978 © Nature Publishing Group1978 Nature Vol . 272 23 March 1978 merised by forecasts is a way of getting you to do what the forecaster wants you to do" said Benn. "I want to have elbow room" . Elbow room-in the form of a set of decision options and their probable consequences-is what energy forecasts are now offering; it is false thinking to take only one as "realistic". Mr Justice Parker uses his single set of projected arisings to indicate that the existing Windscale reprocessing facilities, and those already granted planning permission, are insufficient to cope with the load. Waste management The next step is to show that the only effective means of dealing with this excess of spent fuel is to reprocess it- that is, to treat it chemically to separate out the highly act.ive wastes and, as a by.product of the existing process, produce separated uranium and plutonium. (The latter is not an essential step in that it can be reversed to produce a degraded mixture of the two , but it is essential if it is wished to conserve plutonium for bombs or fast breeder reactors). Here again a political element creeps in. The inquiry considered two principal options. The first is as pro- posed for THORP, to reprocess spent fuel rods, separate out the highly active wastes containing fission products and actinides, gla ssify the resul.t and dis- pose of it underground in geologically stabl.e rock formations. The second is to hold the spent fuel in its can, perhaps further encapsulate it , and store it m cooling pond s or in dry vaults (possibly filled with inert gas). Each means of waste management suffers an unresolved technical prob- lem . In the reprocessing route, we do not know if geological storage will work for the I 00,000 years or so for which the actinides are decaying . If it failed, a large amount of radioactivity could be released upon future generations. Equally in the storage route we do not know if the cans (stainless steel in the case of AGR reactors and zirconium alloy in the case of PWRs) will corrode. Agreed scientific knowledge is lack- ing in both cases; and projecting the futures of mate-rials must always be contentious as t·he only conclusive way to test a theory is to wai·t and se.e. Effective work on both has only recently been undertaken . What re- search there has been has concentrated on the re.proce.ss.ing route, as reprocess- ·ing has always been the obje·ctive of the nuclear industry for a rooson other than waste management: