(翻譯)What Italy's nuclear referendum means for climate change/義大利核能公投一事對氣候變異的意義

(同時發布於facebook)

by Hsiaowei Chan on Monday, June 20, 2011 at 11:10pm
(歡迎轉載，請註明出處)

義大利核能公投一事對氣候變異的意義
投票者壓倒性支持反核能運動者欲斷絕義大利境內一切新核能建設的訴求。

如果你問了一個很笨的問題，你當然得到一個很笨的答案。這就發生在星期一的義大利核能公投。投票者壓倒性支持反核能運動者斷絕義大利境內一切新核能建設的訴求。公投既非決定能源政策也非決定任何其他國家政策的好方法。如果在英國以公投決定極刑執行的方式，那麼絕大多數人都會支持恢復絞刑。

在義大利的核能公投結果必須以更上層的歐洲政治爭議來看待，此即由環保人士(greens)所支持的反核能運動者成功地抹黑了核能。當瑞士與德國政府已經因日本福島核災意外而決定廢除核能，在奧地利的公投無疑地有了相同結果。

(作者)終生身為環境學家且於2009出版一書陳述失控地全球暖化的駭人前景，我(作者)深深覺得德國與瑞士政府(的廢核)決定是近年來排行最劣的氣候政策。不但決定廢除核能─陸上最大的無碳能源來源，並且是在國際能源組織發布2010年排碳量上升至近乎犯罪程度之後的一星期做了這項決定。

這個事實或許令人不快，但解決全球暖化的最好選擇恰好是環保人士幾十年來即使全球暖化已經到來卻依舊反對的科技。我已經數不清多少次自己聽到環保團體堅持氣候變異是「人類面臨最大的挑戰」。現在，他們繼承前策拒絕重新評估核能，說明了他們無人相信之前自己所說的話，或者即使地球的未來已經危亡，多數環境學家亦準備好在思想上積極地一廂情願地作思想避難。

如果德國環保人士真的認真看待全球暖化，他們會轉向廢燃煤火力發電，其為德國現今最大發電來源並因此而為最大排碳來源。反觀新的廢核計畫，將會造成在未來幾年裡必須蓋起11GW(1100萬千瓦)(註一)的燃碳火力發電廠，加上5GW(500萬千瓦)的燃氣火力發電廠。唯一控制這些火力發電廠廢氣的方法將是碳收集封存法(Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS)。而綠色和平組織已經在德國成功地植入危言聳聽的運動反對這項新科技，此舉更確保未來石化廢氣將不減地排放入大氣。

不幸地，這些新燃煤火力發電廠將排放比德國這些即將廢除的核電廠如果繼續營運所能排放還要更多輻射物質進入附近的區域，這都要感謝裝置在燃煤發電廠煙囪上的碳排放同位素追蹤技術(註二)。對福島核災一事的回應─它是一個非毀滅性的意外，至今沒有傷及任何人(註三)，更不用說那些勇敢接下穩定被海嘯衝擊的反應爐的志願者─又，一個應該對待科學合理性非常嚴謹的國家卻非理性地將(災變)指導原則交付由政治策略引導。

的確，基於預防災害的原則，因追蹤到德國有機農場所生產的豆芽菜造成最近大腸桿菌(E coli)大流行一事，其已造成幾乎與車諾比事件相同的死亡人數(作者撰寫本文時為36人，700多人將因此而終身洗腎)廢除有機農業將是一個理性的抉擇。當然，我並沒有聽到任何人如此建議德國環保人士。而且想像大家只針對豆芽菜是基因改造而非「健康」有機蔬菜而喧囂。

德國政府堅持廢核計畫是全面符合其減碳目標。現在這個政府正是最近批准延長補助連連虧損的煤礦業至2018年的那個政府。數學邏輯在面前劃過：2008年德國有23%的電力依賴核能。近年來德國才大幅地提高了再生能源的比例(2010年為17%)，現在又欲以再生能源取代核能並且取代火力發電，此將為德國對氣候變異所定的目標無疑地增加困難，因此又使其更加倍的無法兌現。

愚蠢的事情不只這些。感謝慷慨的售電費率(註四)，近年來德國再生能源的資本多投注於太陽能板上。現在這些太陽能屋頂奇貨可居，價值高達每增加一噸碳就要700歐元(碳税)，而歐洲平均每增加一噸碳為15歐元不到。一位專家的研究提到直到現今為止的所有太陽能實驗已經造成德國能源消費者在未來二十年內1200億歐元的負債─只為了生產僅僅2%的德國電力，或者說少於單一座大型核電廠的電力。

相反地，最近的英國能源政策的確看起來較有道理。其雄心壯志─由傑出的氣候變異委員會監督指導─係藉由將核能與再生能源提升到約提供40%左右的電力，以在2030年降低電力部門整體所造成的排碳。在陰沉的北方國家太陽能板除了消耗地球的資源，其貢獻就是微不足道地降低排碳量，英國降低(民眾)太陽能售電費率的政策也因此合理許多。然而，不像英國，德國已經巡迴鼓吹其新政策值得其他國家效仿─讓我們看在氣候的份上，衷心期望沒有人走進德國環保人士的死胡同裡。

譯者註一：一座核能反應爐的電容約為1000MW，以台灣的單位為100萬千瓦。
譯者註二：裝置在燃煤火力發電廠煙囪的碳同位素追蹤裝置顯示燃煤火力發電廠所排放的碳同位素輻射量比一般核電廠正常營運所排放的輻射量還高。
譯者註三：作者說的應該是輻射本身沒有直接造成傷亡，而非廠房或是管線爆炸所造成的傷害。
譯者註四：售電費率(feed-in-tariff)，指得是民眾售電給電力公司的價格。在歐洲民眾可以經由申請在屋頂架設太陽能板或在空地設立的風力發電，將所得電力賣回給電力公司，每度電售電價格比從電力公司買電要高，藉此獲利(沒有規定一定要用到自己的電)。

原文在/Original article is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/jun/15/italy-nuclear-referendum

What Italy's nuclear referendum means for climate change
Voters overwhelmingly backed anti-nuclear campaigners' demands to block any new atomic power in Italy


Ask a stupid question and you'll get a stupid answer. That's what happened in the Italian referendum on nuclear power on Monday, where voters overwhelmingly backed anti-nuclear campaigners' demands to block any new atomic power in Italy. Referendums are not a good way to set energy policy, nor many other aspects of national policy either – if a referendum were held on capital punishment in Britain, a hefty majority would support bringing back hanging.

The Italian result needs to be seen in the context of a wider European political debate where anti-nuclear campaigners – led by the greens – have been successful in discrediting nuclear power. No doubt a referendum in Austria would have the same result, while the governments of Switzerland and Germany have already decided to phase out their nuclear plants altogether in response to the Fukushima accident in Japan.

As a lifelong environmentalist, and author of a 2009 book which laid out the terrifying prospects of uncontrolled global warming, I cannot help but feel that the decisions of the German and Swiss governments rank among the worst climate-related policies of recent years. Carbon emissions cannot do anything other than rise as a result of phasing out the continent's largest source of zero-carbon power – and doing this just a week after the International Energy Agency reported that 2010 carbon emissions rose to the highest levels ever is little short of criminal.

There is perhaps a certain discomfort about the fact that one of the best options for tackling global warming just so happens to be a technology that greens had spent decades opposing before climate change even hit the agenda. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard green groups insisting that climate change is the "greatest challenge ever to face humanity". Yet their refusal to reassess their inherited positions against nuclear power suggest that none of them actually believe what they are saying – or that most environmentalists are prepared to take refuge in ideologically motivated wishful thinking even when the future of the planet is at stake.

If the German greens really took climate change seriously, they would instead be pushing for a phase-out of coal – which generates by far the largest proportion of the country's power and consequent carbon emissions – from Germany's electricity grid. Instead, the new nuclear phase-out plan will see a hefty 11GW of new coal plants built in years to come, with an additional 5GW of new gas. The only way emissions from these plants could be controlled would be through "carbon capture and storage" (CCS) – yet Greenpeace in Germany has already mounted a successful scaremongering campaign against this new technology, helping to ensure that future fossil emissions will go into the atmosphere unabated.

Unfortunately, the new coal plants will spew out more radioactivity into surrounding areas than any of the German nuclear plants would have done if they stayed open, thanks to the fact that trace isotopes in coal escape up power station chimneys. That all of this has come about in response to Fukushima – a non-fatal accident which has so far injured no one, not even the workers who have bravely battled to stabilise the tsunami-stricken reactors – elevates irrationality to a guiding principle of political policy in countries which supposedly pride themselves in taking scientific rationality seriously.

Indeed, it would be far more rational on a risk-precautionary basis to phase out Germany's organic farming sector, given that the recent E coli outbreak – now traced to organic sprouts produced on a farm in Lower Saxony – has killed nearly as many people as Chernobyl (36 at the time of writing, with 700 or more suffering permanent kidney damage). I have not of course heard any suggestions to this end from the German greens. And just imagine the hullaballoo had the sprouts been genetically modified instead of the "healthy" organic option.

The German government insists that the nuclear phase-out plan is entirely compatible with its emission-reduction goals. Yet this is the same government which recently extended subsidies for loss-making coal mines until 2018. It also flies in the face of mathematical logic: in 2008 Germany relied on nuclear for 23 percent of its electricity. Renewable generation in Germany has increased substantially in recent years (to 17% in 2010) – yet to ask renewables to replace nuclear as well as fossil fuels will make the achievement of Germany's climate goals doubly difficult, and therefore twice as unlikely to actually happen.

The silliness does not stop there. Much of Germany's renewables investment has been in solar photovoltaics in recent years, thanks to extraordinarily generous feed-in-tariffs. Yet these solar roofs are so expensive that they cost more than €700 per tonne of carbon abated, compared to a carbon price in Europe of €15 or less. One expert study suggests that the whole solar experiment up until this year has already landed German energy consumers with a €120bn liability for the next two decades – this in order to generate a mere 2% of the country's electricity, or less than a single large nuclear plant.

In contrast, the UK's energy policy actually looks quite sensible these days. There is a broad ambition – articulated by the excellent Climate Change Committee – to decarbonise the entire electricity sector by 2030, by deploying nuclear and renewables in roughly equal proportions of 40% or so. There is a lot of sense also in Britain's policy of ramping down feed-in-tariffs for solar PV, which cost the Earth while doing little to reduce emissions in this cloudy northern country. Unlike the UK, however, Germany has gone around trumpeting its new policy as worthy of emulation by other nations – let us hope for the sake of the climate that no-one follows down the blind alley led by the German greens.

• Discuss the future of the green movement with Mark Lynas in London on 6 July