James Norman
From: The Australian April 11, 2011 12:00AM
Damage to the No.1 Fukushima nuclear power plant's third reactor building. Source: AFP
EVEN as the steam was still rising from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was busy personally signing a $US9 billion ($8.5bn) deal with Belarus for a new nuclear-powered reactor.
That deal was the result of lengthy prior negotiations, but the reality is that the industry now faces a spectacular global image problem.
Yet history has shown that the industry is adept at rebranding, and as we approach the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident later this month the Nuclear Power Oversight Committee will be busy drafting a new PR plan.
It's a familiar strategy that successfully recast the industry early this century to convince the public that nuclear power was the clean, green panacea to climate change. Before that, the nuclear industry was in steady decline and had been written off by most people as a dinosaur technology that had wasted billions in public money and left a toxic legacy from Three Mile Island to Chernobyl.
The Fukushima breakdown could not have come at a worse time for the nuclear power industry, globally and geo-politically. It was the first full-scale disaster to receive 24/7 blanket media coverage. Public perceptions were irrevocably damaged by images of radiation spewing into the Japanese skyline and of exploding reactor towers.
The nuclear industry now faces several PR challenges. First, it is damaging that the accident occurred in Asia, the one region where nuclear power has grown over the past 20 years and where it was expected to continue to grow over the next 20.
Moreover, that it occurred in a technologically advanced country such as Japan weakens the perception that the real problem at Chernobyl was reckless communists, not the technology itself.
Then the long history of mismanagement, data falsification and cover-up that has been exposed in the global media of TEPCO, the company responsible for the Fukushima power plants, further exposed the nuclear industry to accusations of lack of proper transparency and international accountability.
Despite all this (or perhaps because of it) the nuclear industry will be redoubling its efforts to continue and hasten the growth that occurred in capacity globally last year -- seen by many as the first year of the so-called nuclear renaissance.
Since its famous meltdown, Russia's state-owned nuclear power company, Rosatom, has actually been incorporating Chernobyl into its marketing for nuclear reactors elsewhere in the world.
The Russian physicist Leonid A. Bolshov, 64, who was partially responsible for Chernobyl and now directs the Institute for Nuclear Safety and Development, said recently: "The Japanese disaster will give the whole world a lesson. After a disaster, a burst of attention to safety follows."
The reality is that Russia has done a booming international trade in its nuclear reactors in recent years, mostly to countries in the developing world. To be fair, there's no doubt Russian reactor safety has improved. However, it is also true that Russia itself has kept using some of the same old reactors as those used at Chernobyl, and valid concerns remain about the non-transparent nature of Russia's nuclear industry because of its centralised political culture, and notoriously poor safety and inspection standards at Russian nuclear facilities.
Given Julia Gillard ratified the nuclear co-operation agreement with Russia last November to supply Australian uranium, the apparent opportunism and the lack of transparency of the Russian nuclear industry is very much Australia's business.
The agreement struck with Russia contains no requirement for nuclear safeguards inspections, despite the rhetoric from the government and industry that "strict" safeguards will "ensure" peaceful use of Australian uranium in Russia.
Aside from the often stated reality that there is still no long-term safe way to dispose of nuclear waste, one of the most critical but frequently overlooked issues is the nuclear industry's repeatedly proven connection to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For those who remain sceptical of this connection, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea provide compelling examples.
Even though the nuclear industry has been putting on a brave face post-Fukushima, it will be under no illusion as to the challenge it now faces to regain public confidence.
As nuclear energy markets feel the squeeze, we can expect to see the industry going into PR overdrive to promote the safety of nuclear technology in the coming months, often air-brushing existential threat dimensions from the nuclear equation out of the public's consciousness.
James Norman is a Melbourne author and communications co-ordinator of the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.
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