NUCLEAR POWER IN EUROPE (2)

As I feared would be the case, the official death toll from Friday's earthquake in Japan (not the quake itself, but the subsequent tsunami) has risen sharply, and now stands at about 2,400. Many people think that it will end up a lot higher. Whatever the number, the earthquake was a catastrophe for the country, with widespread devastation and over 500,000 people made homeless.

The other likely casualty from the event is any future expansion of nuclear power, particularly in Europe. The earthquake and subsequent aftershocks have caused at least three explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, situated on the coast some 250km north of Tokyo and right in the middle of the zone "severely" affected by the earthquake. Radiation is leaking out, leading to an evacuation of everybody within 20km of the plant, and a no-fly zone in the airspace. The incidents are already the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, and may yet get worse. They have also provoked a swift reaction elsewhere. Germany, which voted as recently as last autumn to extend the life of its nuclear plants, has now put that decision on hold, pending an analysis of what happened in Japan; so too has Switzerland. Plans for new plants look decidedly less likely than they did a week ago.

It is true that Japan - in contrast to Europe - is a particularly vulnerable country for the siting of a nuclear reactor, since it sits right on the edge of the so-called Ring of Fire in the Pacific Ocean. Yet because of that, it also has probably the highest proportion of earthquake-resistant buildings in the world. It also has a huge need for nuclear power, since it has not one drop of fossil fuel of its own, and must import the lot, a position that may well come under strain during the next 50 years. Put bluntly, if the safety of nuclear power can't be accepted in Japan with its notoriously stoic population, then it probably can't be accepted anywhere. Not least in Germany, where there is a strong anti-nuclear movement, who were out in force in the streets this weekend.

In a world desperate to find ways of reducing its reliance on fossil fuel, a de facto moratorium on nuclear energy will inevitably have profound consequences. Not least for our wallets.

Walter Blotscher