Article by Steve Chandler

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Created on Sunday, 01 May 2011 01:00

Written by Steve Chandler

It is my turn to write to you all again and my mind has been turning very much to events in Japan. Certainly to the tragic earthquake and tsunami, which appears to have killed more than 14,000 people, but also to the nuclear incident at the Fukushima nuclear power station. I have been involved in working on our response to this in the UK, as part of my work in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, where I am the official responsible for our nuclear safety policy.

This is ghastly accident for the people of Japan, one of the three worst accidents in the history of nuclear energy. It is also of great concern to us, particularly as we live close to an operating nuclear power station at Oldbury which is even older than those at Fukushima and which has also been identified as a possible site for a new reactor. Government is very mindful of the serious implications for present and future nuclear in the UK and so has asked the Chief Nuclear Inspector, the independent regulator, to produce a report on the lessons to be learnt from Fukushima. We are also working closely with the European Commission to develop a "stress test" to be applied to all existing nuclear facilities in Europe, like Oldbury, to see how susceptible they would be to events like those in Japan.

It is not my job here to argue one way or the other on the merits of nuclear power. But I would like to reassure you that we do have a very strong regulatory system that ensures all aspects of design and operation are regularly and rigorously reviewed by independent regulators, who have wide ranging powers to require changes or to shut plants down. The operators of our nuclear plants are also very aware of their safety responsibilities and treat this as their highest priority.

At first sight it may not be easy to see what religion has to do with this. Certainly we should pray for all of those caught up in the tragedy in Japan: those who have been injured, those who have lost loved ones and those working to make the nuclear site safe. We should also offer what practical help we can. But does our faith have anything to say about such natural disasters and, particularly, about the nuclear accident (what we might call an unnatural disaster)? Well, I think our faith can help us to understand how such things happen and what our attitude should be, although it does not give us any easy answers in what is a very complex world.

Most importantly, we must reject any idea that when disasters occur, natural or unnatural, it is God punishing us for our sins or our arrogance in trying to control nature. Jesus very clearly dismissed this line of argument when people asked him whether those killed by the collapse of the tower at Siloam were being punished for their sins. Jesus responded by saying: "do you imagine that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? I tell you they were not..." (Luke 13:4). I think the message is clear; God treats everyone equally, however much of a sinner they are. What some may see as divine retribution is nothing of the kind, bad things just happen. In this case, the Earth has developed with crustal plates which move relative to one another, generating earthquakes and tsunamis. If we choose to live in such areas, then we must accept the consequences. We might ask why the earth and the universe need to be so hazardous. Could it not be cosier and less risky? Almost certainly not.

In order for life to develop there needed to be high energy and risky events; many of you have probably heard me say before that all of the heavier elements in our bodies that we rely on, magnesium, iron and so on are only available because the life of the first generation of stars in the young universe ended in huge supernova explosions. It is also thought that the conditions for life to form on here on Earth were created by fierce lightning strikes in the early atmosphere. But what can create life can also destroy it. It seems that God had to set up the universe in that way, if it were not to remain empty and lifeless.

High energy might also be a pointer to the unnatural disaster of a nuclear accident. Isn't there a way of living that avoids these nasty and dangerous technologies? Again the answer is probably not, not if we want to continue to raise standards of living and minimise poverty across the world. That is going to need energy and lots of it. To develop and maintain the complex society we now take for granted we need highly concentrated sources of energy, like coal, oil, gas and nuclear. These all need careful handling. Less concentrated sources, like wind and water, just won't do it on their own, unless we change our society very radically. Not leaving the TV on standby, using low energy bulbs etc, even if we all do it, will not change that. There is an important issue of honesty here for Christians, honesty about the demands that our own living standards make in terms of resources and energy, and the risks associated with that.

There are just no simple fixes to such problems. They are problems we have created for ourselves by the rapid development of our society. I am sure that God is watching how we get on, with interest and concern, just as we watch our children making their way in the world. I am equally sure that he is not about to intervene to help us out and that he is not punishing us for building nuclear power stations in geologically unstable areas. We are punishing ourselves for that.

STEVE CHANDLER, READER