A/42/427
English
Page 184
The health risks for the development of peaceful uses of nuclear technology, including nuclear electricity, are very small when compared with the benefits from the use of nuclear radiation for medical diagnosis treatment.
The safe application of nuclear radiation technology promises many benefits in environmental clean-up and in increasing world food supplies by eliminating spoilage.
With a recent and very notable exception, the international cooperation that has marked the development of nuclear power technoloqy provides an excellent model by which to address common environmental and ethical problems posed by the development of other technoloqies.
Ian Wilson
Vice-President, Canadian Nuclear Association
WCED Public Hearing
Ottawa, 26-27 May 1986
eliminate nuclear weapons in their arsenals and the role those weapons play in their strategies. And the non-nuclear-weapon states must cooperate in providing credible assurances that they are not moving towards a nuclear weapon capability.
44. Most schemes for non-proliferation mandate an institutional separation between military and civilian uses of nuclear energy. But for countries with full access to the complete nuclear fuel cycle, no technical separation really exists. Not all states operate the necessary clear-cut administrative separation of civilian and military access. Cooperation is needed also among suppliers and buyers of civilian nuclear facilities and materials and the International Atomic Energy Agency, in order to provide credible safeguards aqainst the diversion of civilian reactor programmes to military purposes, especially in countries that do not open all their nuclear programmes to IAEA inspection. Thus, there still remains a danger of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
2.1 Costs
45. The costs of construction and the relative economics of electricity generating stations – whether powered by nuclear energy, coal, oil or gas – are conditioned by the following factors throughout the service life of a plant:
- the cost of borrowing money to finance plant construction;
- the impact of inflation
- the duration of the period of planning, licensing, and construction;
- the cost of fuel and maintenance;
- the costs of protective measures to ensure safe operation; and
- waste disposal costs (land, air, and water pollution containment) and the costs of dismantling at the end of service life.
