The crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility has rekindled doubts in Hong Kong about atomic power, not least because of our proximity to the Daya Bay plant and the government's plan to double our reliance on nuclear energy. Several government officials were sufficiently concerned to visit Beijing recently to discuss nuclear energy with their mainland counterparts. It is likely that new plant designs will be safer than the Daiichi facility, but the key to nuclear safety is not just design: it is also the quality and precision of construction, management and control systems. If Japan's experts, with decades of experience and a reputation for precision, have failed to avert a crisis, it is hard to imagine that the highly secretive management culture on the mainland can guarantee safe operation of nuclear facilities during their half-century operating lives. What is more, additional reliance on nuclear power may undermine Hong Kong's energy security in times of crisis. Fukushima shows how quickly an industrialised city reliant on nuclear power could be brought to its knees. Though unlikely, the possibility of a war between China and one or more other countries sometime during the next 50 years has to be considered. This threat of violent conflict should be added to rare but potentially catastrophic threats to nuclear facilities from earthquakes, tsunamis, engineering faults, operator error and so forth. The Japan earthquake and its nuclear fallout starkly reveal the potential dangers of our addiction to electricity. Hong Kong is the poster child for energy waste. The government has made things worse by subsidising electricity. Its policies discourage investment in more secure, environmentally friendly and safer forms of energy. Sceptics may say that we cannot rely on alternative energy because it is unreliable and inadequate. The response should be to address the drawbacks, for example by developing sophisticated power-storage systems that can retain energy from the sun and wind. We can harness every last watt of alternative energy within the city, and encourage similar action across the border. We might cover our local reservoirs with floating solar arrays and put solar panels on every rooftop, build offshore wind farms wherever possible (such as along the new bridge to Macau and Zhuhai), construct mini-hydroelectric generators at local dams to benefit from heavy rains or deploy underwater systems that harness energy in tides and currents. These or other ways of diversifying our energy mix, when combined with smart energy grids and aggressive conservation, could more safely and securely meet our electricity needs than nuclear plants. Nuclear power will be part of Hong Kong's near-term energy future. But to rely on it for half our supply may be very unwise. It makes us lazy about conservation and finding innovative alternatives. Instead of more nuclear, we need a robust mix of renewable sources, and we need to put a stop to our profligate waste of electricity. Paul G. Harris is chair professor of global and environmental studies at the Hong Kong Institute of Education
