on
(Based on Executive Summary and Chapter 7 only)
The report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED or Brundtland Commission) is concerned with the world's economy and its environment. The objective is to provide an expanding and sustainable economy while protecting a sustainable environment. Thus the catchword is "sustainable".
The problem can be expressed simply. The world's population is expected to double, roughly, within the next half century, and to become predominantly urban. To relieve grinding poverty the global economy will have to expand five- to ten-fold, without seriously damaging the environment on which it depends.
Energy is only one of six priority topics examined in some depth, but an essential one. "A safe and sustainable energy pathway is crucial to sustainable development"(#ES.58).
The report's verbiage and weaknesses in logic conceal the unpalatable conclusion that there is no ideal energy solution, no panacea, so that some compromises will be essential. Instead, it talks comfortingly of "'low-energy paths' based on renewable sources, which should form the foundation of the global energy structure during the 21st Century". It admits that "most of these sources are currently problematic" but goes on to claim that "a programme of coordinated research, development and demonstration projects" is all that is needed to ensure their rapid development(#ES.62)
This is typical of the wooly thinking that has characterized debates on energy policy over the past decade - science and technology are the magic wand that will make any wishful thinking come true. It ignores the fundamental physical fact that most renewable energy forms are both dilute and intermittent, making them inevitably expensive in resources to harness in useable form. Hydroelectricity is an instructive exception. Here, nature provides a huge geologic formation for collection and storage, so that man has to provide only a dam and a turbine.
Another conclusion is based on a lack of logic. It is said that "threats of global warming and acidification of the environment most probably rule out even a doubling of energy use based on present mixes of primary sources. Any new era of economic growth must therefore be less energy-intensive than growth in the past" (#ES.59/60) (emphases added to stress illogicalities). Even if the threats turn out to be real, an increased dependence on nuclear energy would avoid their consequences.
The report singles out for separate treatment five energy sectors: improved efficiency and conservation; fossil fuels; nuclear energy; wood fuels; and renewable energy. However, it states that "at present, no single source or mix of sources is at hand to meet (the) future need" (#7.1), and that "each has its own economic, health, and environmental costs, benefits and risks" (#7.3).
The treatment of nuclear energy is ambivalent and illogical. Nowhere is there any recommendation that the energy mix should exclude nuclear energy. Indeed, the recommendations on nuclear energy are for improvements to overcome real or perceived deficiencies. The report confirms that nuclear energy avoids the air-pollution that it regards as so serious with fossil fuels (but described merely as an "irritation" with wood fuels)(#7.83); and that for normal reactor operation "the danger from radiation to reactor personnel and especially to the general public is negligible"(#7.47). Also it acknowledges that nuclear reactors on highly efficient fuel cycles (which it erroneously describes as producing their own fuel, i.e., 'breeders') are in the category of renewable sources (#7.3).
Despite all these manifest advantages, the report weasels out of any clear conclusion on nuclear energy comparable to that for the much less thoroughly studied renewable energy sources. Instead of taking the trouble to reach (and defend) its own conclusions, the commission is satisfied to report that "many experts" have confidence in nuclear energy while "many experts" do not (#7.54). The report's conclusion is that "The generation of nuclear power is only justifiable if there are solid solutions to the presently unsolved problems to which it gives rise".(#7.63) Exactly the same wording could have been applied to every other energy sector, but was not.
The report identifies what it considers to be the "unsolved problems" for nuclear energy, in just three areas:
The concern with reactor safety relates primarily to the accidents at Three Mile Island (USA) and Chernobyl (USSR). The report admits that the latter reactor was of "a completely different type" (#7.50) but does not inform the reader that most of the fatalities and almost all the release of radioactive materials were due to its unique design characteristics (graphite at high temperatures in the core and only partial containment). Nowhere is there any mention of Canada's CANDU type of reactor, the one with the world's best safety record. The report is correct, however, in stating that human errors contributed to both accidents. In this connection, Canadians should be aware that the Ontario Nuclear Safety Study (Commissioner Professor F. Kenneth Hare) is reviewing the safety of CANDU reactors in much greater detail than done by the WCED.
[We should state whether we endorse the 12 items of #7.60]
There is no specific criticism of the internationally endorsed proposals for the safe and permanent disposal of nuclear wastes, only the concern that "this technology has not however been fully tested or utilized" ( #7.53). There is a very simple answer: Governments, especially the Canadian government, should declare a schedule for concept approval, site selection and facility construction for a disposal vault for nuclear wastes. The technology has now reached the stage for this to be done. The report seems to regard reactor decommissioning as a significant problem, while ignoring all the relevant experience, much of it Canadian.
While recognizing that "there still remains a danger of the proliferation of nuclear weapons" (#7.44), the recommendations are to improve the Non-Proliferation Treaty that exploits the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy to reduce the risks from nuclear weapons (#7.43).
A careful reading of the report reveals several important aspects in which the nuclear-energy sector is already doing what is only now being recommended for other sectors:
The most serious criticism of the WCED is not what it did, but what it ignored. It based its estimates of energy requirements and potential supplies on two obscure books, while ignoring the thoroughly researched and internationally agreed findings of the World Energy Conference, which stated:
It claims to speak for the whole world, but ignores the findings of the International Energy Agency that represents the OECD countries that account for about half the world's energy consumption. The IEA's Director-General has written:
Worst of all, in examining the prospects for nuclear energy, this commission, an outgrowth of the United Nations, has ignored the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN agency responsible for nuclear energy, which includes the protection of the environment as part of its mandate. (The only IAEA document cited in 79 literature references is used only to give the number of research reactors.) If one UN agency is not worthy of attention, then why should anyone take this one seriously?
In the report's discussion of energy efficiency, which everyone supports, there is the implication that because some measures are cost-effective, all measures will be cost-effective (#7.90). Also, the fact that investments in energy efficiency lower energy-supply needs (#7.94) does not necessarily mean that they are cost-effective. We do not need energy-efficiency at the cost of cost-efficiency. Similarly, the commission's expectations for energy conservation, which are not stated explicitly, are open to question. For these and other reasons it would be prudent to plan for an increase in energy supplies of at least twofold, in case academic predictions of increased efficiency and conservation are not realized in practice.
The uneven treatment of the different energy sectors is illustrated by the unexplained optimism expressed for reductions in the costs for renewable energy sources. Solar energy is acknowledged to incur the risk of "injuries from roof falls"(#7.81) but the inevitable fatalities are not mentioned. The thousands of deaths from all renewable energy sources that would occur one by one are regarded as one of the "minor issues compared with the ecosystem destruction at hydropower sites" (#7.82). The fact that the smoke from wood furnaces contain some of the most carcinogenic and mutagenic agents is completely suppressed. The report claims that "the fuel alcohol programme in Brazil saves the nation hard currency, and it provides the additional benefits of rural development, employment generation, increased self-reliance, and reduced vulnerability to crises in the world oil markets" (#7.79): just the same could be said of the CANDU nuclear energy programme in India that is contributing to that country's rural electrification.
Finally, returning to the commission's key theme of sustainability, the report instills a false sense of urgency, bordering on panic. It admits that global "gas supplies should last over 200 years and coal about 3,000 years at present rates of use" (#7.16), but ignores oil sands which are not important globally. For Canada, however, an energy mix based on remaining oil resources, heavy oil, oil sands, coal, hydroelectricity, and uranium and thorium in CANDU reactors can provide an energy supply sustainable for centuries. While there are environmental concerns for each of these, there is no evidence that the problems cannot be satisfactorily overcome. If the same optimism for science and technology solving the renewables' problems were to be applied here, there would be little cause for concern. The Brundtland Report may have some useful advice for developing countries but it has little relevance to Canada, if only because it never considered Canada's special circumstances. We should exploit our energy advantages to develop a sustainable economy while protecting our environment.
1987 September 4