The Real Cost of Nuclear Energy, with Pınar Demircan

Nuclear power: the sensible, grown-up answer to the climate crisis? Once you look past the slogan of 'carbon-free', the story becomes harder to sell and impossible to keep local. We sit down with Pinar Demircan, coordinator of nuclearfree.org, to unpack the risks and reality behind the nuclear industry's pitch that promises so much but that could cost the Earth. 

We follow Pinar’s route into anti-nuclear activism, from the emotional weight of Hiroshima in Turkish poetry to the lived reality of Chernobyl’s regional impact and the shock of Fukushima. From there, we dig into why nuclear is being pushed again right now: COP messaging, plans to expand capacity, the energy hunger of AI data centres, and the financial and geopolitical currents that make big nuclear projects attractive to states and industry.

Pinar also describes first hand Fukushima’s landscape of contaminated soil, constant monitoring, and deep public mistrust, then connects that reality to today’s security claims. We ask what “national energy security” can mean when reactors depend on cooling water in a warming climate, and when nuclear sites can become targets in conflict. Share with a friend who still thinks nuclear is “clean”, and leave us a review with your take: is nuclear a climate solution or a long-term liability?

Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.

Transcript

Welcome To Goodgeist

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Goodgeist. A podcast series on sustainability. Hosted by Damla Eusler and Steve Connor. Brought to you by the DNS Network.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hello, hello everyone. You are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability, which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damlo from Mira Agency Istanbul and This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester.

Meet Anti-Nuclear Researcher Pinar

SPEAKER_03 0:41

This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated, and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

So in this episode, we're going to talk to Punard Demirjan, the coordinator of nuclearis.org, literally translated as nuclearfree.org. She's a lecturer and an independent researcher holding a PhD in sociology from Istanbul Mimarsinan University. She is engaged both in civil society and academic fields. In the civil society field, her work mainly focuses on the nuclear risks, problems around the nuclear climate nexus and in the academic field on science, technology, society studies, political sociology, and political ecology, including environmental movements, in her dissertation. Through a political process approach, Punar analyzed the consent to nuclear projects in Turkey and the transformation of the 40-year-old anti-nuclear movement.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

As ever, the biography alone of our guests makes me feel tired and exhausted with all the hard work. So Pinar is also a columnist, anti-nuclear activist, utilizing her Japanese, very impressive. Her published works include research and interviews post Fukushima in 2018 as a Takagi fellow. I hope I got that right, Pinar, in Japan on energy transformation post Fukushima. She conducted her research in Fukushima in Tokyo, contributing to STS Science Technology Society Studies. Her research is published in the Istanbul Technical University Press. As a member of local and global anti-nuclear networks, she presents papers and speeches on broadcasting programs as well as contributing to journals, public, and academic conferences. So, Pina, it's so lovely to meet you. Thank you for taking the time to talk to Damla and myself.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Thank you for your invitation.

SPEAKER_03 2:38

So, as Damla knows, she's kind of broken the secret before we came live that your journey and mine aren't started about the same place. Because I have to admit, the first campaigning I ever did was anti-nuclear. So I'm really pleased. But we'd love to hear our guests' background personal story. So tell us how did you become part of the global anti-nuclear activism scene?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yes, my journey into global anti-nuclear activism stems from the realization that nuclear issues don't respect national borders, actually. Most people join social moments because of a personal experience or a powerful emotion. For me, that seed was planted in my childhood through poetry. I remember crying while listening to a poem by Naz Mikmet, Turkey's most internationally renowned poet and sovereign figure actually in 20th century world literature. He wrote a heart-wrenching poem. I'm sure you know it's about a seven-year-old girl who died in Hiroshima. Even as a child, the words of this poem made me feel borderless nature of nuclear tragedy. Growing up in Turkey, a country directly affected by Chernobyl, I already had a baseline awareness and participated in protests in my 20s. However, my active involvement began with the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, where I had lived for two years, shortly after my graduation from university 10 years ago. So since I was a proficient in Japanese in that time too, I realized I had a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between relatively close society like Japan, where the language is the key to opening the doors of internal dialogue and the rest of the world, including Turkey. Actually, the timing was critical. Just a year before Fukushima, Turkey had decided to build its first nuclear power plant. Even more shockingly, shortly after the disaster, Turkey signed another agreement with Japan. The very country experiencing the catastrophe, you know. And now, and in that year, uh it would build another uh plant in Sinop. For me, Fukushima nuclear disaster was a crucial opportunity to show the world how the capitalist system and its institutions create and then ignore nuclear risks. Fukushima was at the same trait level as Chernobyl, the highest one, you know, from the uh scale, universal scale. But while uh Chernobyl was often blamed on the communist system, Fukushima happened in a different context. There was so much to learn and convey. And for this reason, it was actually the time I had left my career as a mid-level officer in a Japanese firm. It's another totally another story, but I was obsessed with Fukushima. But I didn't know any anti-nuclear organizations in Japan in those years, then uh simply just shared some posts on social media, then met with some, tried to meet with victims and witnesses actually, yeah, and contacted to my colleagues and announced that I would make the translations for free. This led to me joining Nuclear Cysorg and writing nuclear thematic news on Yeshilika ZT. And also I started to, you know, in get in a network of this global anti-nuclear activists. So as a transnational activist role, I also tried to connect the movements in Japan and Turkey. During all these years, I accepted learning uh some projects from Japan also. One of them was the Fukushima Booklet Committee in Japan, and they were trying to let the world hear about their project, about what has been going on in Fukushima, and I became the Turkey leg, let's say. So analyzing the political economic context of these projects also in Turkey, because you know the projects are very special in Turkey, they are made in built on operate model. So this kind of thinking also pushed me toward my doctoral research, uh which I completed in 2023, focusing on the internal dynamics of the anti-nuclear movement. And today I continue this work through my connections with all over the world, including Nuclear Free Forum, it's a worldwide forum actually, and Noninux Asia Forum, where I had participated in uh meetings uh by invitation uh for several times. Yes.

The New Push For Nuclear

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Steve, I love how she just casually drops that she's fluent in Japan, she was also working there, and she connects all the dots. Oh I am so overwhelmed by Yutmar at the moment, but I'm gonna turn back to our issue. So, nuclear, it's a hot topic at the moment with the war on Iran, and nuclear weapons are again a prominent topic. But on the other hand, with the Strait of Hurmuz being closed, the nuclear energy lobby has once again raised its voice in terms of promoting nuclear energy as a source of reliable and lasting energy. So is nuclear energy, and this is a rhetorical question, of course, the answer to all our problems?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yeah, it first of all, it must be recognized that nuclear power plants are being marketed as carbon-free energy, yes, but there is a huge problem because they are also uh exposing a radiation. So out of uh being carbon-free, we have a huge problem here. This ionizing radiation is only released by nuclear power plants. I mean, the industrial one from the nuclear waste also it comes. So it remains hazardous for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of years. So this devastating health effects can persist for up to 7,000 generations. This is huge, huge really for the world. When humans are exposed, internally or externally by ionized radiation, there is a uh, I can say spectrum of health issues ranging from various types of cancer to cellular degradation. These consequences can unfold over a timeline stretching from decades to tens of thousands of years. So we totally forget this, I think. But on the other hand, when it is marketed as a carbon-free energy, we we see some political uh you know interruptions, such as we saw in COP28 in 2023, where the nuclear was declared as carbon-free energy source directly. Following that, 33 or 32 countries, yes, 32 countries, including Turkey, and the nuclear industry, pushed for a goal to triple nuclear capacity. But there is the reality. Nuclear share is still 9% today. So this uh shows that the target is unreliable, but on the other hand, there there are some uh investments made in nuclear. Also, the AI revolution supports nuclear tripling goal, nuclear energy is tripling goal, let's say. So artificial intelligence has created a massive, urgent demand for energy power to data centers, as you know. So some estimates indicate that where the 62% of United States companies are main, you know, in AI market, we see we will see a totally increase of 35% in global investments in AI business. So this brings us to a huge energy demand issue, which is also tried to be met by the agreements made within these companies and governments. So financial shifts allowed some developments. Perhaps the most important development was the World Bank has renewed its support for nuclear projects for the first time in 19 since 1959, I can say. And this is a massive shift in global financial priorities. I once directly asked Fatig Pirov in a Zoom conference, it was uh I asked about the future of nuclear, but he told me that it was just political motivation. And I I agree, of course, with this. However, the same Fatig Pirov, you know, the executive director of the International Energy Agency has stated that a total of 58 nuclear reactors, which of which 52 is currently under construction in China, we will contribute to record level production by 2025. So, from my perspective, nuclear energy persists because it provides events for accumulation crisis of capitalism through massive authoritarian-led investments. It's part of the same complex as fossil fuels and arms industry. So it's not reliable, especially during the war. We see, and you know, we also we will also see during the climate crisis we will have problems with nuclear issue. So the safety argument is collapsing, of course. We saw it in Ukraine with the Russian occupation of nuclear power plants, and we see it now in Iran, where nuclear facilities are becoming direct targets. So it's you know, in Turkey, we call it named built-on operate model. The these kind of projects are promoted by the nuclear industry also, but this is devastating due to the increase due to its causing dependency on other countries, on the nuclear technology countries, governments, let's say. So this is really a big problem for the future.

Costs And Emissions Versus Renewables

SPEAKER_03 13:30

Yeah, it's I find it extraordinary, Pana. The uh one one thing I always point out here in the UK, when there is a debate, often a debate about nuclear energy in particular, is that uh if it's presented as a solution to the climate crisis, the construction times for new nuclear power stations are so long that we'd have missed all of our carbon targets way before they even come online. So it's kind of crazy. And they often don't, and they always run over budget. But I want to focus in on costs because a report by Greenpeace Mediterranean states that nuclear energy is no obstacle to sustainable development. And you also promoted this report on nuclearfree.org. And can you give us a frame around the cost of nuclear energy in particular in political, socioeconomic, and environmental costs, and and compare it with renewables?

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yes, uh, to be honest, I find the term sustainable development a bit problematic. I prefer to talk about yeah, I prefer to talk about an argy that interrupts the continuity of life. Because sustainability is so exposed, we are so exposed with this term, and it's it's consumed too much also by the industry. They stole our terminology, actually, so we we should find some other saying, I think. And I prefer saying continuity of life is interrupted. So when we evaluate nuclear power, we we must look at the entire fuel cycle. If we will make a cost comparison also, we must follow this path. Because it's not the plant itself only, it's not that this construction, you know, from uranium mining and fuel fabrication to transportation, construction, and the final waste process, it's scientifically proven that nuclear energy results in six times higher than carbon emissions, than solar, and three times higher than wind, also. So looking at the socioeconomic costs, the world industry status report, you know, every year Michael Schneider and colleagues released this report, and it's a reliable source. So it highlights a stark contrast. Over the last decade, the cost of generating nuclear energy has risen by 35 percentage, while the cost of solar has dropped by 40 percentage and wind by 77 percentage. Today, with improvements in renewable technologies, this gap has widened even further.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

And I'm gonna make it a little bit more grim, I know, but you have first-hand experience with Fukushima. You have worked with MGOs in Japan in your study visits and conducted research as you told us in your story. So, can you tell us how the environment and the surroundings were affected in the Fukushima area with your on-site experience so that we can all bring this theory down to earth?

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Yeah, to understand the reality of Fukushima, first uh let's visualize a landscape filled with endless rows of blackbags. Imagine waste waste fields, the areas under every tree, the edge of the coastline all stacked with these bags. In areas with higher radioactivity, this contaminated soil is buried deep underground. A scene where the earth itself is being buried within the earth. It feels as if nature has been stuffed into these bags. Some are torn, and there have been discussions in Japan about incinerating this nuclear waste or burying it in the backyards of village schools. Ironically, amidst the devastation, you constantly see solar-powered radiation monitor monitoring clocks everywhere. The atmosphere is punctuated by the constant beep, beep Geiger sounds, for example, you know, this counters. I last visited Japan as a Takagi fellow just before the pandemic to conduct interviews and analyze the energy transition in Fukushima and Tokyo through the interviews. At that time, the plan was for renewables to replace nuclear power. However, now there's a turn also in nuclear energy, and it's being forced to Japanese society actually. This society has a very heartbreaking, you know, the this past of nuclear catastrophe. Actually, it's still living. The storage of uh nuclear waste is a massive conflict. You know, even a society like Japan, which is characterized by a culture of compliance, the disposal of love to intermediate radioactive waste triggers fierce resistance. When the government proposes burning this waste in incineration plants by risking the release of radioactivity into the air, the public protested heavily. And well, uh another uh very you know strong remembering I have actually I witnessed the fundamental uh violation of the right to a healthy life, you know. It's you can uh I I throw away my shoes, for example, because I was afraid of radiation while I was sleeping in the room, you know. If the it comes from the shoes, it will be a may may be causing a problem in the future. How can I how can I prove it? So imagine people are forced to return back to their homes where the radiation, those limits have been increased 20 times more when you compare to the the general uh standards. It's one millisewatt per year today, but it's 20 millisewatt hours today in Japan. So it's very threatening. And the government data is often mistrusted. Citizens have been established their own radiation monitoring stations and associations where grassroots and volunteer-based efforts struggle to make the measurements to consume uh healthy food. Even you know, the way of um you know the uh preparing food requires this kind of measurements. Yeah, it's they represent a disparate attempt, you know.

Energy Security In A Warming World

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Well, I mean, the the image, I think, can our of solar-powered radiation monitoring is kind of crazy, isn't it? So we're almost uh our last question, but I just wanted to ask about the the internationalism. You mentioned this right at the start about this being an issue without borders. And there is the risk is never only about the country that these nuclear plants are constructed in, right? Massive areas of the world are affected, in any case of a so-called incident. Yet we are not close to any international regulation with enforcement in place. There are some regulations, but in reality, this is all about pursuing national energy security, is the phrase you hear in the end. How do you think this can be shifted, especially in a time of rising nationalist agendas?

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Yes, very good question. To address this question of national security, we have to look at the actual performance of nuclear fleets during this crisis, I think. For example, let's look back to Fukushima disaster when the disaster happened. The Japan shut down all of its nuclear reactors. Number of the reactors were first 56, but after the I mean, actually the only operating number was 43. But anyway, today the number uh has been renamed and it's 33 reactors only, where 14 reactors are only in operation. So 20 more. Will be opened but still closed because there are some tests that need to be taken to check this earthquake resistance. Actually, the most telling part of this situation, when Japan shut all the reactors soon after one year, the crisis, the country continued to function without its nuclear fleet, which fundamentally challenges the argument that nuclear is an indispensable backbone of energy security. Some countries also export the energy, nuclear energy which they produce. So for what this production is needed, really. However, the real failure of the nuclear security arguments probably will come through climate crisis conditions. Because nuclear power plants, you know, need cooling waters. And this cooling water are almost all of them in the world are water-cooled reactors, by the way. So this needs cooling waters. For this reason, nuclear power plants are established near rivers or seas. But when these water, river water or sea water becomes too warm, there's a problem. So these power plants must be shut down for safety. So we just we are just we will be just squeezed between the energy security and our security. So for a country, for example, France, where nuclear energy is produced through produce about 75%, there's a huge there's a huge uh problem. And due to water warming, France had need to get into some kind of you know uh restoration process by saying that it's just for maintenance. Germany faced a similar situation in 2020. In fact, the rising temperature of cooling water was one of the practical reasons, alongside the powerful post-Chernoby and post-Fukushima activism led by the Greens, that pushed Germany toward nuclear phase out. So I believe that as nuclear power becomes an increasing liability for states under the pressures of the you know, this national security, etc., there's a huge global threat by climate crisis. We will see this definitive shift actually. So national security meat also is very much destroyed, I think, in these war conditions. So this countries directly, you know, in Iran and nuclear power plants are targets. So in an era of rising nationalism, governments promote it as sovereign and energy source, but in reality, it's also vulnerable to climate flagation as well as uh vulnerable to war, where they are direct targets, where these constructions are direct targets and suddenly can shift to atomic bombs. So these are our risks, future risks, and actually present risks. We are living in it today.

Nature, Hope, And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Well, let's hope that it's gonna be a definitive shift, but not a definitive end for the humankind. That that will be, I think, our motto. We would love to go on forever, but it's time to wrap up. So, our final question. Our network is ironically called Do Not Smile because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. So, what object, place, or person always makes you smile?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Well, being in nature brings a genuine smile to my face, it's where I find my inner peace. It has this magical power to lift my spirit and keep me smiling. In such a combative world, whenever I find the chance, I escape for the you know few remaining green forests of Istanbul to catch my breath and feel regenerators. Love that.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

Yeah, I know. Good good answer, Pinard. The nature is the answer, so let's look after it, shall we, and let it regenerate. No, totally agree. What a great conversation. And and I'm I'm left with it's a not the cheeriest episode we've had because it's so many challenges that you bring forward, Pinard. But I also think that there is just a huge irony at the heart of the nuclear proposition that you've really exposed brilliantly there. So just keep on campaigning. It's amazing work that you're doing. Damla, it's time to wrap us up.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

So thanks to everyone who has listened to our good guys podcast brought to you by the Do Not Smile Network of Agencies.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

And make sure you listen to future episodes where we'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more, should we say, viable future, Damler? Sustainability is getting hammered in these episodes recently.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

A future we can actually survive. Take care. See you soon.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Bye. Goodgeist. A podcast series on sustainability, hosted by Damla Eusler and Steve Connor. Brought to you by the DNS Network.