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While New Zealand is known around the world for its strong nuclear-free stance, mid-last century the nation was as excited about the dawning atomic age as any country. Rebecca Priestly recalls just how close we came to employing nuclear generation.
By the mid 1950s, there were three options to solve the North Island’s looming electricity crisis: bringing hydro-power from the South Island by submarine HVDC cable; conventional thermal plants burning coal or oil; or nuclear power. While the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) and the State Hydro-electric Department favoured a Cook Strait cable, many scientists preferred the nuclear option. Physicist Francis Farley, from Auckland University, said, “The real obstacle to nuclear power in New Zealand is the over-cautious play-safe attitude that is adopted in Wellington.” He predicted we would have 10 nuclear power stations by 1980. Ernest Marsden, ex-head of the DSIR, described those officials who were holding the country back from nuclear science as, “lazy-minded conservative diehards who are afraid of change”. The first major report on nuclear power was commissioned by a Labour Government in 1957. The conclusion was that nuclear power was “promising” but costly, and instead of proceeding with a nuclear option construction began on a new hydroelectric station at Benmore on the Waitaki River. The Cook Strait HVDC cable finally linked the North and South Islands in 1965, with most of the power from Benmore going to the North Island. But while the Cook Strait cable had won the initial toss between nuclear power and a submarine cable, it now seemed that both solutions would eventually be required. The 1964 report of the Planning Committee on Electric Power Development in New Zealand had predicted that a £100 million nuclear power station would soon be needed and in December that year primary sites for our first nuclear power station were chosen at South Head and Oyster Point on the Kaipara Harbour. Training nuclear engineersAfter purchasing a sub-critical nuclear reactor with funds provided by the American Atoms for Peace programme in 1961, the University of Canterbury’s Electrical Engineering Department began offering a nuclear power engineering course to train students for the introduction of nuclear power to the country. New Zealand Electricity Department (NZED) officers also attended nuclear training courses in Sydney and London. In 1967 five New Zealand engineers and a radiation physicist travelled to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Reactor Design headquarters at Risley, Lancashire where they worked for two years on a project to adapt the enriched fuelled Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor into a reactor that could be fuelled by natural – rather than enriched – uranium. The project was completed in 1969 – coincidentally, the same year the Maui gas field was discovered in offshore Taranaki. Commission date setBy 1968 the Planning Committee was recommending a 250MW reactor turbine generator unit to start operation in 1977, with three similar units following at yearly intervals, to build the first nuclear power station up to 1000 MW generating capacity. Indigenous fuel sources, however, were soon proving more abundant than previously realised. By 1972, testing of oil wells off the Taranaki coast had revealed large quantities of natural gas and a reassessment of Waikato’s coal reserves revealed enough coal in the Huntly area to support a 1000 MW thermal power station. The development of the Maui gas field meant that introduction of nuclear power stations was now deferred until the late 1980s. Royal Commission of InquiryWhen a National Government came to power in 1975, they set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Nuclear Power Generation. Just a few days after the commissioners were announced, the Planning Committee on Electric Power Development in New Zealand tabled its 1976 report, in which two planned nuclear power stations were scheduled for commissioning in 1990, with a decision on whether or not to proceed required by 1977. Public opinion had changed by the mid-1970s. Nuclear energy produced by fission had initially been promoted as a cheap, pollution-free, self-perpetuating source of energy. However, because of unexpectedly high costs, the problem of what to do with radioactive waste, and increased public opposition to nuclear energy, many plans for nuclear power plants had been shelved.
Over the course of the Royal Commission of Inquiry, 141 submissions were heard: from the NZED, DSIR, the Ministry of Works and Development, and from environmental, scientific, church and women’s organisations, and interested individuals, including many scientists. Most submissions were against the introduction of nuclear power, generally because of cost or environmental safety and public health. Others criticised New Zealand’s total energy consumption, urging a move towards a sustainable society. In November 1976 Campaign Half Million presented to Parliament a petition, with 333,088 signatures, calling for an entirely non-nuclear future – they opposed nuclear power as well as nuclear weapons – for the country. Meanwhile, as the Royal Commission of Inquiry was hearing submissions, electricity demand projections were significantly reduced. Increased power use was no longer seen as a marker of a growing economy and the government had begun to encourage energy conservation. In the 1977 Report of the Planning Committee on Electric Power Development, a nuclear power station was dropped from the 15-year plan. The initial purpose of the Royal Commission was now, in one sense, obsolete. New Zealand did not need to make an immediate decision on whether or not to adopt nuclear power. The Commission completed its investigation, however, and published its report in 1978, in the hope that the technical detail amassed and the information about the public debate would be useful in the future; their conclusion was that “nuclear power is not justified for New Zealand until about the turn of the century, or even perhaps later.” The commission noted public opposition to the plans for a nuclear power station, describing the history of nuclear power as one of “official enthusiasm, early public acceptance or apathy, and then of rising opposition”. The report did not reject nuclear power outright, however, suggesting that nuclear power should again be considered in depth by 1985, once indigenous resources had been fully exploited. The search for electricity sources that do not emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere has led to calls for nuclear power to be reconsidered as an option for electricity generation. While the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987 does not cover nuclear power, both Labour and National have in recent years confirmed that their nuclear-free polices extend to nuclear power.
Energy NZ Vol.4 No.5 September-October 2010 |
Consideration of nuclear power as an energy source for New Zealand homes and industry began in the 1950s, when nuclear power seemed poised to offer the world a safe, cheap, clean and almost limitless supply of electricity. New Zealand physicist Charles Watson-Munro described atomic power as “a coming force that would be comparable with the first onslaught of electricity on civilisation” and the chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission spoke of an atomic future where electricity would be “too cheap to meter”.
Typically, the Listener’s Boyce Richardson described nuclear reactors as symbolising, “an impersonal future world of computers, robots, explosive violence and uncontrollable technology, rather than the cornucopia overflowing with goods and pleasure that they once promised”.