Not fear but science should be the driving force for policy making

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BrusselsReport.eu
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By Swedish MEP Johan Nissinen (SD-ECR) 

The German loanwords in English, that enjoy wide popularity, seem to have a strong tendency to deal with the unattractive, the bad, the ugly: Schadenfreude and Blitzkrieg are just two most prominent examples. Japanese loanwords are rather seldom in western languages, but a concept, a philosophy, from the land of the rising sun, that is becoming increasingly well known, is called Kintsugi, Golden Joinery. Something that is broken will be mended in an even more beautiful way, in a better way. One aspect of the Japanese mindset which radiates in her best possible manner. In stark contrast the middle European term and attitude of Angst, which has been able to gain the broadest recognition. Now it has to be said that of course not every fear is necessarily irrational, but one is most certainly so: the fear of the smallest of particles, of that which holds the world together at its core: the atom! Even here it is again worth looking to the Far East. Japan, which had to admit its immediate defeat in the Second World War after two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And yet today Japan and Germany, we stick with the examples, are taking completely different paths with regard to the atom, in light of its undoubtedly difficult legacy. We’ll come back to that in a moment, the reader may already hear a third Japanese city name…

Whereas the well known the term Angst, fear, is not only a linguistic peculiarity, but one might call it a character trait not only of the German people themselves, but also of the present political and philosophical nature of the Germans, to pitch these two nations for arguments sake against each other. In the 1980s, not only against the background of the Cold War and its real threats, but also with regard to the peaceful and safe use of nuclear energy, a party, several parties, were formed that have since then almost mono-thematically and ideologically – very successfully – determined political events not only in Germany and her direct neighbours, but also at broader EU level.

This ideology, which has dominated central European politics ever since, has led to the withdrawal from the use of nuclear energy under the Schröder government in Germany for instance. The subsequent Merkel government then partially reversed this, only to once again reverse the reversion in a particular emotional atmosphere; now we have to mention the name of the third Japanese city, Fukushima. Under the impact of the most serious accident caused by the tsunami, this supposedly conservative Merkel government decided to implement the phase-out. Incidentally, this has led to considerable claims for compensation from the energy suppliers. But that is only the least of the damage. The greatest damage that has been done is to energy security and supply. No one disputes that renewable energies are the future, but in what form? The question of baseload arises immediately, even for the lay newspaper reader. We would have to expand renewable energies, wind, solar and water, which are already fully utilised in Western Europe, by a factor of 1.5 to 2 in order to guarantee permanent security of supply. This is impossible. That is why gas and coal continue to be favoured. Now, after the Ukraine invasion, no longer sourced from Russia, but from Gulf states such as Qatar as liquefied gas, at a horrendous price and with questions of security of supply attached – the Gaza war is just one example.

Fossil fuels

This base load is now generated in Germany, as mentioned, by dirty and dangerous fossil fuels. This is why her CO2 emissions are more than twice as high as those of comparable France. You don’t have to be a fan of gloomy predictions about the future to realise that the consequences of climate change are also putting millions of people in Europe at risk. However, the more imminent, much more concrete danger of fossil fuels, especially coal, is the emissions from power plants that lead to respiratory and vascular diseases. Just because you can’t see it, the danger is still very real. And we are talking about a figure of several million. It is humanly understandable to be afraid of yellow bins, but it is irrational to classify this safe form of storage as more dangerous than polluted, deadly air.

The construction of onshore wind farms is also reaching its limits. Anyone who has ever stood in the shadow of a 100 metre high wind turbine and heard it will understand why you can only live far, far away from it. Hydropower, which is suitable for baseload, has already reached its limits in Western Europe. There is no more room in the Alps without displacing hundreds or thousands of people to build a dam, as is the case in China. So, until fusion is available in a few years or a few dozen years, we need the safe, peaceful use of nuclear energy for the baseload.

GMOs

A second wide battlefield on which this irrational fear is allowed to run riot is genetically modified food. which is also linked to a hostility towards technical progress itself. Here, too, at least, if not the world, the continent is in danger of suffering from the German character, “am Deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen”. Certainly this oddity is not limited to the largest European nation with her economic and political heavy weight, but here it features most prominently and has the deepest impact on the Union.
Yes at the kitchen tables the blood is boiling hot – in a way, one is only familiar with COVID-related issues – over the very crudely understood question of whether genetically modified food (GM) should be banned not only throughout the Union, but preferably throughout the world. The dream of an all-encompassing regulation is not only dreamt at the desks of the European Commission, but also at these kitchen tables.

The hunger in Africa is very real, but the European, well, the bourgeois, egged on by Green Party functionaries, climb in and wallow in – again – irrational fears. Most astoundingly the use of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology is wantonly cast into doubt and discredited. It allows scientists to precisely edit the DNA of organisms, offering unprecedented control over genetic modifications. The blinkers are deliberately put on and one is blinded (and tries to blind the others also) to the fact that genetic modifications have always occurred and occur naturally through many processes such as mutation, recombination, and gene flow, constantly reshaping the genetic diversity within populations. These natural occurrences are The essential drivers of evolution, there wouldn’t be any! They enable organisms to adapt to changing environments and pressures.

It comes now some technical information, but bear with me: traditional selective breeding, a technique employed by humans for millennia, capitalises on the natural variability already present within species to enhance desirable traits in crops, livestock, and other organisms. Through careful selection and controlled mating, we have accelerated the process of genetic modification to suit very specific needs, paving the way for agricultural advancements and the development of domesticated varieties with improved traits such as higher yields, disease resistance, and nutritional value. Thus, genetic modification, whether natural or human-mediated, is an integral part of the evolutionary process and has been fundamental to the advancement of agriculture and the diversification of life on Earth.

And then we have mutagenesis: a technique used since the 1950s, involves exposing organisms to radiation or chemicals! to induce random mutations.
Countless crops, including barley, wheat, and rice, have been produced using mutagenesis, and these foods have been consumed safely for decades without adverse effects.
In contrast to CRISPR, mutagenesis generates random mutations across the genome, yet its safety record is exemplary, demonstrating the inherent resilience of organisms to genetic changes.

Fear

The fact those ideologues, even in the face of this concrete and not abstract hunger, prefer to continue wallowing in these fears and allow others to share in them is also more than remarkable. Our motto should and must be: don’t listen to your contrite, anxious heart, but to your open, rational mind and often look at the figures. It’s all about the numbers, idiot! Look to the East, ex oriente Lux, Japanese, hit with the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. But with a clear view of the one single death in that context, within a very short time they have decided again to use peaceful nuclear energy to generate electricity. And this sensible, open-minded spirit also carries over to the level of authorisation procedures. No other country builds nuclear reactors so quickly. Four and a half years on average. Here in the midst of the continent, on the other hand, supposed safety concerns have been moulded into regulations to put not just stones but rocks in the way of nuclear energy. And our Japanese friends are also open to new technologies. Small modular reactors could have a great future, and that is for the industry and the consumer to decide. The advantage of these is that they can be built in series bit by bit and, like a wind farm, gradually and quickly increase their output.

This also offers the advantage that the many dozens of reactors support each other in terms of safety. Keyword redundancy. The design is also completely new and different, in that no external power source is required to cool the reactor. If fast breeder reactors can also be used more frequently again, even as small modular reactors, this will be a great help with regard to nuclear waste.

It should be mentioned in brackets, so as not to name the name of The Russian city, that even there the direct death toll is much lower than we all, including the author, assumed. We are only talking about a few hundred deaths, even in the most serious accident, the worst-case scenario. As a reminder, let us again mention the confirmed deaths from air pollution caused by coal-fired power stations alone. You can also put it bluntly. Coal kills, nuclear saves. This is not meant to be German bashing, but this irrational trait is most pronounced in their Green Party. That’s why this catchy example was used.

A good start has already been made by categorising nuclear energy as carbon-free. But still, as elsewhere, there are too many pretence regulations to use nuclear energy to its full potential as a guarantee of energy security. 

We should not look at our belly, into our guts and hide away, “Cease from your fears, banish your lamentations”, we are happy to take this one piece of advice from the great composer Bach. Let us, like Japan, look towards the still rising sun of the small, indivisible particle when it is split, and enjoy its bright, clear, golden light of reason joyfully and freely.

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