Five moral values that together constitute the overarching value of sustainability
1. Introduction
With the nuclear accidents in Fukushima Daiichi in Japan, the global public and political debate on nuclear power is rapidly reaching boiling point. On the one hand, it seems that nuclear power is losing public support. Japan intends to review its nuclear policy – one in every eight nuclear reactors is currently in that country – and China have planned one-year moratoriums on new nuclear power constructions. China’s position is relevant since the country is set to become a world leader in the next decades: China currently has 13 operational nuclear power reactors, 27 reactors under construction, 50 planned and 110 that are proposed (WNA, 2011). More concretely, pro nuclear stances have led to a loss of political power in Angela Merkel’s party in different regions in the recent German elections; Merkel’s administration recently decided to phase out all German nuclear reactors (Dempsey & Ewing, 2011). Furthermore, the Swiss government abandoned plans to build new reactors and Italians rejected nuclear energy in a referendum. On the other hand, the extent of our dependency on nuclear power makes one wonder whether we are witnessing the end of the nuclear era; approximately 16% of the world’s electricity is currently being produced in nuclear power plants. Perhaps it is more likely that a certain pragmatism with regard to securing domestic energy supplies and curbing carbon dioxide emissions will eventually dominate the debate; see in this connection president Barak Obama’s recent plan to cut American oil import and diversify, indeed, in the direction of renewable energy, but to also include nuclear power (Wynn & Doyle, 2011).
Now, more than ever before, there is a need to reflect on the desirability of nuclear power. In such analysis proponents stress the abundant availability of nuclear resources, the ability to produce large amounts of energy with small amounts of fuel and the very low greenhouse gas production levels. It can also make industrialized countries less dependent on conventional energy sources that mainly have to be imported from other parts of the world. The detractors, on the other hand, would emphasize the accident risks of reactors – the unfolding disaster in Japan speaks for itself – the waste transport risks, the proliferation concerns or worries about the possibility that such technology can always be deployed for destructive purposes and, indeed, the matter of what to do with the long-lived radiotoxic waste.
In this paper, I do not intend to get involved in the general desirability debate. I assert that when carefully reflecting on the desirable
Some people might object that
The paper consists of seven sections. In Section 2, I will elaborate on the ethical aspects of the notion of sustainable development, arguing that sustainability and intergenerational justice are closely intertwined. This section further elaborates on the question of what we should sustain for posterity. Section 3 focuses on a set of moral values which, together, encompass the value of sustainable development. These moral values will then be operationalized and connected to different steps of nuclear fuel cycles in Section 4. The latter Section further elaborates on the intergenerational conflicts between the values. The role of new technologies will be addressed in Section 5 and Section 6 reviews three challenges when assessing the social and political desirability of nuclear power. The final section concludes the paper with the findings in brief.
2. Sustainability and ethics
In the second half of the last century there was growing public awareness of the fact that the earth is a
Many of the analyses regarding the desirability of nuclear power seem to revolve around this notion of sustainable development and the specific interpretations made by different scholars and organizations (Elliott, 2007; IAEA, 2006; Turkenburg, 2004). The implicit assumption seems to be that sustainability is synonymous with social and political desirability. Proponents find nuclear energy sustainable as it can produce clean, secure and reliable electricity that does not put the earth’s climate in jeopardy (Bonser, 2002); other enthusiasts have more reservations but maintain that nuclear power can contribute to sustainable development in a “transitional role towards establishing sustainable [renewable] energy systems”(Bruggink & Van der Zwaan, 2002, p.151). The latter endorse the popular opinion that we are facing an “energy gap” in the coming decades which can only be filled with nuclear power (Connor, 2005; Pagnamenta, 2009). The detractors, on the other hand, are utterly resolute in their view that nuclear power is inherently “unsustainable, uneconomic, dirty and dangerous” (GreenPeace, 2006).
Even though Brundtland’s definition has been very influential in the academic and public domain, it requires further clarification, particularly from an ethical point of view. In other words, sustainability is not only a
Before getting into detailed discussion about what exactly sustainability should protect, let us pause for a moment to elaborate on the philosophical roots of the notion of sustainability. Brundtland’s sustainability is founded on principles of social justice viewed from two main angles: 1) the distribution of wealth among contemporaries or the
The two social justice notions that underlie sustainability are referred to as
2.1. Intergenerational justice and nuclear power production
Let me present and briefly discuss the central claim that underlies my analysis, namely that the production of nuclear power creates a problem of intergenerational justice. There are two intergenerational aspects in nuclear power production that support this claim. Firstly, nuclear energy is produced from a non-renewable resource (uranium) that will eventually be less available to future generations. Stephen Gardiner (2003, 5) refers to this problem as “The Pure Intergenerational Problem” (PIP), which is in fact an exacerbated form of the Tragedy of the Commons, extended over generations. The Tragedy of the Commons is a situation in which various rational agents might be inclined to deplete limited resources on the basis of their own self-interest, while the same action will negatively affects the collective interest. The dilemma was first illustrated in an article compiled by Garrett Hardin, in which he pictured a pasture open to many herdsmen (Hardin, 1968). It is in individual interest of each herder to keep as much cattle as possible on the common ground while in collective terms such a strategy would culminate in the fast depletion of the common. Gardiner extends this argument to include different generations. He imagines a world that consists of temporally distinct groups that can asymmetrically influence each other; “earlier groups have nothing to gain from the activities or attitudes of later groups”. Each generation has access to a diversity of temporally diffuse commodities. It is in the individual interest of each generation to use as many as possible of these commodities, but it is in the collective interest of all temporally diffused generations if earlier generations would avoid depletion. Hence, engaging in activity with these goods poses the problem of justice between generations.
A second intergenerational aspect is the long-term consequences (e.g. pollution) that could be created for future generations, while benefits mainly accrue to the current (and immediately following) generations (Gardiner, 2003). A typical example of this intergenerational problem is the fossil fuel energy consumption situation, which is characterized by predominantly good immediate effects but deferred bad effects in terms of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Intergenerational justice and climate change have received increasing attention in the literature in recent years (Athanasiou & Baer, 2002; Gardiner, 2001; Meyer & Roser, 2006; Page, 1999; Shue, 2003). The main rationale behind these discussions is that a change in a climate system that threatens the interests of future generations raises questions concerning justice and posterity.
Alongside the first (depletion) analogy that nuclear power production has with non-replaceable fossil fuel resources, both energy generation methods have potential long-term negative consequences in common. In the case of fossil fuel combustion, it is the emitting of greenhouse gases that can trigger long-term climatic change for posterity, while with nuclear power deployment, it is the creation of long-lived radiotoxic waste that could potentially pose safety and security problems to future generations. What exacerbates this problem is the fact that we – the present generation – are in a beneficial temporal position with regard to not yet existing generations and it is, therefore, quite convenient for us to visit costs on posterity, all of which makes us susceptible to “moral corruption” (Gardiner, 2006).
Intergenerational justice has already been an influential notion in discussions related to nuclear energy, particularly in relation to nuclear waste issues. The International Atomic and Energy Agency (IAEA) has laid down several principles on Radioactive Waste Management, in which concerns about the future were expressed in terms of the “achievement of intergenerational equity” It should be mentioned that equity entails a narrower notion than justice. However in this paper I do not make a distinction betweeh the two notions.
2.2. What is it that we should sustain?
The notion of sustainable development implies that there is a certain good that we need to sustain for future generations. I will follow here Brian Barry (1999) in his discussions on the normative aspects of the notion of
The ensuing question is what this valuable entity of X should be. Barry proposes
We should recall the two intergenerational aspects of nuclear power production and how they could affect posterity’s equal opportunity. Firstly, we leave behind radiotoxic waste with tremendously long life-time spans. If not properly disposed of, this waste can influence the
3. The moral values at stake
So far I have argued that the notion of sustainable development needs further ethical clarification which has been provided in terms of the two moral principles that we have with regard to posterity, namely 1) to sustain future generation’s vital interest and 2) to sustain human well-being in the future. In this section I will elaborate on how to understand these principles in terms of the moral values at stake. But let me first say something about the meaning of
Questions about rightness and wrongness are generally subsumed under the heading of
3.1. Sustaining human safety and security and the environment
Let us remind ourselves that one interpretation of sustainable development is that we should sustain the vital interests of future generations. Let us then explore for a moment what exactly is meant by Barry’s principle of vital interest and how that relates to the principle that I am defending here. Barry (1999, 105) argues that taking equal opportunity seriously means that “the condition must be such as to sustain a range of possible conceptions of the good life”; such a good life will, in any case, include “adequate nutrition, clean drinking-water, clothing and housing, health care and education”. Here my understanding of vital interest is applied to a very specific sense. I argued earlier in this paper that whenever we are in a position to negatively influence future opportunities we should be careful not to narrow those opportunities. One clear way in which we can negatively affect future interest is by inappropriately disposing of nuclear waste. My account of future generation’s vital interest relates to the status of the environment and to the safety and security of future generations in so far as they depend on the actions of present generations and how we dispose of our nuclear waste.
Something first has to be said about how to approach issues relating to the environment in a moral discussion. One important issue when addressing ‘values’ is to determine whether a thing is worth striving for for its own sake or because it serves a greater good. To put this in philosophical terms, we must establish whether something has an
When it comes to the relationship between humans and non-humans, it is probably uncontroversial to ascribe designations such as moral wrongness; torturing animals is, for instance, morally wrong. However, our focus in this paper is upon justice to future generations and I follow Barry (1999, p 95) in his suggestion that “justice and injustice can be predicated only of relations among creatures who are regarded as moral equals in the sense that they weigh equally in the moral scales“. Hence, in addressing intergenerational justice in this paper, we refer to the environment with regard to what it means in conjunction with safeguarding the vital interests of human beings. Such considerations would emanate from radiation hazards resulting from possible seepage of radiotoxic material into the environment, which in turn could affect human health and safety. Thus, in the anthropocentric approach adopted in this paper, the moral value of
Sustainability could be taken to relate to human health and safety and to the status of the environment. In its Fundamental Safety Principles, IAEA (2006, p 5) takes safety to “mean the protection of people and the environment against radiation risks“; this definition implies that the IAEA is defending a non-anthropocentric viewpoint. The latter is reiterated in IAEA’s Principles of Radioactive Waste Management, in which one of the key principles relates exclusively to the environment: “[r]radioactive waste shall be managed in such a way as to provide an acceptable level of protection of the environment“ (IAEA, 1995, p 5). However, in a temporal sense and when it comes to protecting the future, the principles 5 (the protecting of future generations) and 6 (the burdens on future generations) in the latter IAEA document leave no room for misunderstanding, making it clear that the IAEA’s approach is anthropocentric and solely refers to future generations of human beings who should be protected (IAEA, 1995). The environment thus has here an instrumental value. Safety issues in nuclear power technology include “the safety of nuclear installations, radiation safety, the safety of radioactive waste management and safety in the transport of radioactive material”(IAEA et al., 2006, p 5). The value we link to these concerns is
3.2. Sustaining future well-being
So far we have presented three values for sustaining the environment and humankind’s safety and security. Another aspect of sustainability links up with the sustaining of human well-being, insofar as it relates to the resources. I will discuss the two values of resource durability and economic viability.
Sustainability could be thought to refer to the availability of natural resources and their continuation. Obviously, in discussions on energy production and consumption, the value of
Some economists claim that “a development is sustainable if total welfare does not decline along the path” (Hamilton, 2003, p.419) and that “achieving sustainable development necessarily entails creating and maintaining wealth”(Hamilton, 2003, p 419-420). In this paper I do not make a distinction between welfare, well-being and wealth.
4. Operationalizing moral values: Assessing existing fuel cycles
Let us first recapitulate the moral values discussed in the preceding section. I argued that above all else, we should sustain
Preserving the status of nature to safeguard human health and safety | |
Protecting people from the accidental and | |
Protecting people from the | |
The availability of natural resources for the future or the providing of suitable alternatives | |
Embarking on a new technology and continuing that activity to safeguard one of the above values |
4.1. Existing nuclear fuel cycles: open and closed
Generally, there are two main methods, or nuclear fuel cycles, used for the production of nuclear power; namely open and closed fuel cycles. Both fuel cycles have a front-end phase, involving the mining and milling of uranium, enrichment and fuel fabrication, and a back-end phase involving the steps taken after irradiation in the reactor. Both cycles are more or less the same until the moment of initial irradiation in the reactor. I shall start by discussing these fuel cycles from the cutting point of the front-end and the back–end of the cycles, namely form the moment of irradiation in the reactor. What comes out of the nuclear reactor is not necessarily
In the second method, spent fuel will be
4.2. Operationalization of values: Intergenerational assessment of fuel cycles
It would extend beyond the scope of this work to discuss in detail how the fuel cycles should be assessed according to the values presented, but I will briefly discuss the steps that we need to take in order to operationalize these values. First, we must link the impact of different steps in the fuel cycle to the values presented and evaluate to what extent those impacts are for present and future generations. Let me illustrate this with an example in which we shall operationalize the value ‘public health & safety’.
First, when assessing safety issues in an open fuel cycle, we should at least address the following steps that relate in one way or another to the safety issues: 1) mining, milling, enrichment and fuel fabrication, 2) transport of (unused) fuel and spent fuel, 3) reactor operation and decommissioning period, 4) interim storage of spent fuel and 5) final disposal of spent fuel in geological repositories. These impacts have been mapped in Fig. 2. This is a partial representation of a detailed analysis I have made elsewhere together with Andrew Kadak. Readers who are interested could consult this publication for a detailed operationalization of these values in relation to the two existing and the two future nuclear fuel cycles; see (Taebi & Kadak, 2010).
4.3. Intergenerational conflicts
Like in the example above, we can operationalize all the values and relate them to the concrete steps in the two fuel cycle. If we now draw a comparable burden-benefit chart for the closed fuel cycle, it should show that the safety concerns for remote future generations will substantially decrease; this is because the waste life-time of the closed cycle will be a factor of 20 less (approximately 10,000 year). From the perspective of future generations, the closed fuel cycle will thus score better on the issue of safety. However, in the short-term and from the perspective of Generation 1, more safety risks will be created since reprocessing is a chemical process that creates different types of nuclear waste that subsequently has to be disposed of (these are mainly different types of waste with shorter lifetimes). Reprocessing plants are furthermore situated in only a few countries, which means that countries that endorse the closed fuel cycle but have no reprocessing plants will be forced to go back and forth with their waste to the country that can do the reprocessing; this creates additional safety risks in relation to transportation. In Europe, the two commercial reprocessing plants are situated in the UK and France. Other European countries that endorse the closed fuel cycle have their waste reprocessed in one of these countries. Another short-term safety concern has to do with the using of plutonium as MOX in fuel. Plutonium is a very dangerous substance when inhaled. See in this connection the concerns that reactor 3 has been raising in the Fukushima Daiichi accident where MOX is being used as fuel in that reactor.
A similar analysis could be presented for the security concerns. Security relates to both
If we now assess the security concerns of the closed fuel cycle, one important issue will appear in relation to proliferation, namely the issue of the separation of plutonium during reprocessing. In addition to highly enriched uranium, plutonium is also deployable in nuclear weapons; the Nagasaki bomb contained 8 kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium. Plutonium, which usually emanates from civil reactors, is usually of a much lower quality for weapon production, but it does carry serious proliferation risks. For a more technical discussion on the different isotopes of plutionium and the risk of proliferation, please consult (Taebi, Forthcoming).
Let us continue with the value of resource durability in our two fuel cycles. If the 2008 uranium consumption rate were continued, there would be enough
The last issue is the one of economic viability. As stated earlier, reprocessing plants are situated in a very limited number of countries. That is partly because of security concerns in conjunction with proliferation, but what is at least of equal importance, is the fact that reprocessing plants are very expensive. So, for countries with a small number of nuclear reactors, it is not worth while building their own reprocessing plant. Purely from the economic perspective, the open fuel cycle would then be preferred.
Let us now make an overall comparison between the two fuel cycles from the justice angle. From the perspective of the present generation, the open fuel cycle would be preferred, since it creates less safety and security risks and is less costly. The closed fuel cycle is, on the hand, more beneficial from the point of view of future generations, because it reduces the long-term safety concerns of waste disposal and because it helps extend non-renewable resources farther into the future. At the same time, the closed cycle creates more short-term safety and security concerns and economic burdens. This cuts right to the heart of the central issue of this paper, namely that of intergenerational justice. The questions that need to be answered are the following. Does intergenerational justice require that we reduce the waste life-time and enhance the resource availability into the future? If so, are the additional current burdens of the closed fuel cycle sufficiently justified? See for a detailed discussion of this issue (Taebi & Kloosterman, 2008).
5. Sustainability as an ethical field of tension: The progress of technology
When opting for a certain fuel cycle, we first need to express opinions with regard to the moral relevance of the values presented for different generations. After the accidents in Japan, we could for instance conclude that if we want to continue on the nuclear path, we will have to reduce the safety burdens for the present generations as much as possible. So, in terms of our values, we rank the moral relevance of the value of ‘public health & safety’ in the short-term higher than all of the other values. In such an example, the open fuel cycle with its fewer nuclear activities must be favored. On the other hand, if we now conclude that as producers of nuclear power we are the main ones responsible for reducing its future burdens, we give the same value of ‘public health & safety’ for future generations higher moral priority; the closed fuel cycle would then become an attractive option.
Then discussion concerning the prioritizing of moral values will gain particular relevance when we come to address technological advancement. Even though technology has no inherent moral value as such, it does enable us to comply better with other moral values. Also in questions regarding the development of new technologies for the future, it is important to be clear on the purpose of this technology, or to put it in philosophical terms, to be clear about which values this technology should improve for which group of people or which generation. Before moving on to discuss new technologies and how they could affect values, let me first say something about the interdependency of these values. Rather than contemplating them in isolation, it is actually the combination of these values which goes towards forming the overarching value of sustainability. We could liken our set of values to several American football balls held tightly together with springs; see in this connection Fig. 3. Please note that the value of ‘environmental friendliness‘ has been subsumed under the value of ‘public health and safety‘.
Due to its radiotoxic nature and extremely long lifetime, nuclear waste is perceived to be the Achilles heel of nuclear energy production. Serious attempts have been made to further reduce its lifetime. A new technology for the latter purpose is that of Partitioning and Transmutation (P&T). This is a complementary method to the closed fuel cycle that involves separating and dividing (partitioning) the materials remaining after reprocessing so that they can afterwards be eliminated (transmuted) in Fast Reactors; these reactors can irradiate the radionuclides that the currently operational thermal reactors cannot irradiate. If completely successful P&T will, it is expected, make the waste lifetime five to ten times shorter when compared to closed fuel cycle waste. After P&T, waste radiotoxicity can decay to a non-hazardous level within the space of hundreds of years, i.e. 500 to 1000 years (KASAM, 2005, Ch 8).
However, P&T is merely a technology that has been scientifically proven at lab level. It still requires decades of development which, in turn, will necessitate serious investments in this technology (NEA-OECD, 2002). Furthermore, the industrialization of P&T requires the building of many more facilities, both nuclear reactors and new reprocessing facilities. All these additional safety, security and economic burdens will have to be borne by contemporaries or at least by those nations that are capable of developing the technology; due to the inherent technological implications and complexity, not all countries will be capable of developing or deploying this technology (IAEA, 2004). To conclude, while P&T is capable of improving the value of ‘public health & safety’ in the long run, it is compromising short-term ‘public health & safety’ and ‘security’. In addition, the economic burdens will mainly be borne by the present and the immediately following generation. In other words, P&T (as an extension to reprocessing) presents an exacerbated form of the intergenerational dilemmas of the closed fuel cycle. The intergenerational distribution of the burdens and benefits of different fuel cycles is more precisely and extensively discussed in a joint paper written with Andrew Kadak (Taebi & Kadak, 2010). The breeder fuel cycle was also assessed in thsi paper.
Similarly, we could present fast reactors in the configuration of nuclear breeders in order to breed (make) more fuel than they consume. Breeders are capable of
In short, new technology can contribute to an improvement in moral values. It is therefore important that we include the progress of technology in our moral analysis. For one thing, in a discussion focused on what we
6. Challenges of assessing social and political desirability of nuclear power
In the preceding sections I approached the notion of sustainability as a moral value consisting of several other values. Different nuclear fuel cycles can now be assessed in terms of how well they safeguard or jeopardize these moral values for present and future generations; this gives rise to issues of intergenerational justice. What is now the relationship between these moral discussions and policies? How influential could and should these justice principles be when policy-makers need to deal with serious choices and trade-offs?
I shall elaborate on this issue by giving an example of where tangible nuclear waste management policy and fundamental philosophical discussions on justice to posterity are closely intertwined. The IAEA’s principle of avoiding “undue burdens” on future generations is one that has been endorsed by all members of IAEA and it forms part of the current national policies on nuclear waste management. However, what this “undue burdens” clause precisely entails remains a moot point. Indeed, we cannot completely prevent harm to future generations and as the principle implies, there must then be a certain degree of
It is the combination of the engineered barrier (i.e. canisters stored in concrete containers) and the natural barrier (i.e. geologic formations) that makes repositories favorable from the point of view of long-term safety (Chapman & McCombie, 2003, 27-31). However, the tremendous long-term uncertainties that repositories bring (Macfarlane & Ewing, 2006) make it difficult to guarantee equal safety for distant future generations (Shrader-Frechette, 1993, 1994; Taebi, Forthcoming). In the case of the Yucca Mountains repositories, once the location had been designated for the permanent disposal of American spent fuel for a million years, an interesting distinction was made between different future people: “a repository must provide reasonable protection and security for the very far future, but this may not necessarily be at levels deemed protective (and controllable) for the current or succeeding generations” (EPA, 2005, 49036). People living in the next 10,000 years deserve a level of protection equal to the current level and the generations belonging to the period extending beyond 10,000 years could conceivably be exposed to a much higher radiation limit. The underlying argument for this distinction is sought in the low degree of predictability for the remote future and the fact that any positive influence on such societies is meaningless, all of which is believed to diminish our responsibility towards future generations.
As a matter of fact, this issue relates to another intergenerational aspect of the notion of sustainability that I was merely hinting at in Section 2, namely that of for whom (and for how long) we should sustain the valuable entity of X? If we now agree that through the inappropriate disposal of nuclear waste, we can affect the vital interests of future generations, and if we again agree that location in time and space does not provide sufficient moral ground for treating people differently (in accordance with Barry’s (1999) principles of fundamental equality), we can now argue that this distinction between different people of the future is ethically problematic. The arguments provided for proposing this distinction are more pragmatic reasons for why we cannot act otherwise than solid moral justifications. The discussions on tangible policies should, therefore, be preceded by the more fundamental discussions on what our relationship with posterity should be. For a detailed discussion on Yucca Mountains Radiation Standards, please see (Vandenbosch & Vandenbosch, 2007). Elsewhere I argue that the proposed distinction must urge us to reconsider other waste management possibilities that could be used to help reduce waste lifetime and potential future burdens (Taebi, Forthcoming).
When addressing the desirability of a certain fuel cycle for the future we should incorporate the social and economic context within which policies are articulated. One possible conclusion to a moral analysis could be that if we decide to continue on the nuclear path, the P&T method as an addition to the closed fuel cycle should be favored, since it has many advantages in terms of substantially reducing the waste lifetime and the potential future burdens. This argument is extensively defended elsewhere (Taebi, 2011).
A highly relevant question in policy-making is that of whether nuclear power should be considered to be a viable option in the future of energy provision. I started this paper by circumventing this general desirability discussion surrounding nuclear energy. It is, however, worthwhile considering what this analysis can contribute to that public and political discourse. As stated earlier, we should not consider nuclear power in isolation but address its desirability in the broader perspective of the desirable
When one compares two non-renewable energy systems, focusing on the intergenerational aspects of sustainability would help us to facilitate a comparison based on moral grounds. We should then distinguish between the nature and longevity of those long-term effects; the latter is, for instance, different for oil and nuclear power both in terms of the type of the consequences and the period for which those consequences will be present. These intergenerational arguments lose, however, relevance when we assess a renewable energy system; there is no depletion of a non-replaceable resource and there are often far fewer, or virtually no more, long-term consequences. Even though renewability is an important aspect of sustainability and – we want to eventually move towards these renewable systems – we should also be aware of the societal and ethical consequences of such energy systems. When addressing the desirability of renewable energy resources, we should instead focus on the spatial aspects of sustainability and on the questions of intragenerational justice that are raised for the generations currently alive. For instance, when assessing the desirability of biofuel there are the issues of land use, water consumption and the possible effects of producing biofuel from food crops that could potentially exacerbate the problem of hunger. The British Royal Society has repesented a comprehesive analysis of how to assess the sustainability of biofuel; see (Pickett et al., 2008).
When it comes to comparing different energy systems, we encounter at least two types of implications, namely 1) how to compare different types of burdens and benefits and 2) how to value future burdens and benefits in relation to present burdens and benefits. In economic studies and investment decisions with potential benefits for the future, these issues have been dealt with in
While CBA and discounting are undisputed There are at least two issues that can make short-term CBA problematic. Firstly, the question of how to express the value of goods in terms of money; e.g. what is the economic value of rainforests? Secondly, there is disagreement on the interest rate of discounting when considering future effects; the rate can seriously influence the outcome.
There are many philosophical objections to the applications of a CBA (see for an overview (Hansson, 2007)), but at least two of these objections are worth mentioning here. Firstly, CBAs fail to address the distribution issue between generations and, secondly, if we are to discount risks in the remote future, the policies for mitigating climate change and disposing of nuclear waste will be seriously undermined. The following example may serve to illustrate this: at a discount rate of 5 percent, one death next year becomes
To conclude, policy-making on nuclear power production and nuclear waste management needs to include fundamental discussions on our relationship with posterity and to address issues surrounding the distribution of burdens and benefits between generations and also among the present generation. Since economic instruments such as CBA offer no solace, policy-making in nuclear technology should go hand in hand with more fundamental moral discussions.
7. Conclusion
Nuclear power production and consumption gives rise to the problem of intergenerational justice as we are using uranium, which is a non-replaceable resource, and as the remaining radiotoxic waste creates potential burdens extending into the very distant future. Since future interest is subject to present action, we have every reason to include posterity’s interests in our decision-making in the area of nuclear power production. In my arguments, I presented the notion of sustainable development as a moral value and elaborated on its relationship with intergenerational justice. Following Barry, I argued that we should sustain future generation’s opportunity for well-being insofar as that can be accomplished with the available energy resources and their vital interests. I then introduced a set of moral values which, in combination with each other, comprise the overarching value of sustainability. The values ‘environmental friendliness’, ‘public health & safety’ and ‘security’ together safeguard the vital interests of future generation; the values ‘resource durability’ and ‘economic viability’ help to sustain future well-being.
The impacts of different nuclear fuel cycles were then assessed according to how they affect the values presented. In this operationalization process, we took into consideration the fact that the values could relate to the interests of different groups of people belonging to different generations. The two existing fuel cycles were then compared according to their values; the open fuel cycle could best be associated with short-term benefits and the closed fuel cycle with long-term benefits and the accompanying short-term costs. All of this gives rise to an intergenerational conflict of interests between those alive today and future generations.
The ranking of these values with regard to their moral relevance requires thorough public and political discourse. This is particularly relevant when assessing the desirability of new technology. Even though technology has no inherent moral relevance, it does help improve other values. In a moral discussion on what we
When it comes to policy-making for nuclear power deployment, we need to address several ethical issues regarding our relationship with posterity and the intergenerational distribution of benefits and burdens. Therefore, policies on nuclear power should be accompanied by thorough moral analysis. One possible conclusion arising from such analysis could be that we, the present generations who are enjoying the lion’s share of the benefits of nuclear power, should remain responsible for dealing with its waste. This supports the application of P&T that reduces the waste lifetime and therefore also the potential future burdens. Before P&T can be introduced, decades of research and development still need to take place. Several technological challenges, both in the development of reprocessing technologies and in the development of fast reactors still have to be surmounted and the development and ultimate deployment of P&T will create considerable burdens (including certain economic burdens) for contemporaries. So, if the result of the moral discussion is that we want to be able to apply P&T, then this technology should be high on the research agenda so that it can become a serious alternative in the near future; one that is both technically feasible and economically affordable. The decision-maker should be aware of the technological state-of-the-art and of the cost that the development of a certain technology, desirable or not, creates for the present generation. This paper aims to contribute to that awareness.
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Notes
- It should be mentioned that equity entails a narrower notion than justice. However in this paper I do not make a distinction betweeh the two notions.
- In this paper I do not make a distinction between welfare, well-being and wealth.
- This is a partial representation of a detailed analysis I have made elsewhere together with Andrew Kadak. Readers who are interested could consult this publication for a detailed operationalization of these values in relation to the two existing and the two future nuclear fuel cycles; see (Taebi & Kadak, 2010).
- For a more technical discussion on the different isotopes of plutionium and the risk of proliferation, please consult (Taebi, Forthcoming).
- See for a detailed discussion of this issue (Taebi & Kloosterman, 2008).
- Please note that the value of ‘environmental friendliness‘ has been subsumed under the value of ‘public health and safety‘.
- The intergenerational distribution of the burdens and benefits of different fuel cycles is more precisely and extensively discussed in a joint paper written with Andrew Kadak (Taebi & Kadak, 2010). The breeder fuel cycle was also assessed in thsi paper.
- For a detailed discussion on Yucca Mountains Radiation Standards, please see (Vandenbosch & Vandenbosch, 2007). Elsewhere I argue that the proposed distinction must urge us to reconsider other waste management possibilities that could be used to help reduce waste lifetime and potential future burdens (Taebi, Forthcoming).
- This argument is extensively defended elsewhere (Taebi, 2011).
- The British Royal Society has repesented a comprehesive analysis of how to assess the sustainability of biofuel; see (Pickett et al., 2008).
- There are at least two issues that can make short-term CBA problematic. Firstly, the question of how to express the value of goods in terms of money; e.g. what is the economic value of rainforests? Secondly, there is disagreement on the interest rate of discounting when considering future effects; the rate can seriously influence the outcome.