ENERGY LAW FROM A
BIOETHICS PERSPECTIVE:
WHAT IT IS, HOW IT WORKS, AND WHY IT MATTERS
Catherine M. Hammack
Energy Law
19 November 2013
WHAT IS IT?
• Technology
• Can we?
• Law
• May we?
• Bioethics
• Should we?
WHAT IS IT?
• “[B]ioethics is concerned with a specific area of human conduct
concerning the animate . . . and inanimate . . . natural world against
the background of . . . medicine, biology, biochemistry, and
biophysics.”
• Major sub-disciplines:
• Medical ethics
• Animal ethics
• Environmental ethics
HOW DOES IT WORK?
• General approaches:
• Deontology
• Consequentialism
• Utilitarianism
• Virtue ethics
• Casuistry
• Principlism
HOW DOES IT WORK?
• Principlism
• Tom Beauchamp and James Childress (1978) (latest ed. 2009)
• “[T]he most prevalent, authoritative, and widely used bioethical
approaches”
• Four universal principles:
• Autonomy
• Beneficence
• Non-Maleficence
• Justice
HOW DOES IT WORK?
• Principlism
• Autonomy
• The ability and freedom to govern oneself
• Acting
• With intent and understanding
• Without external coercion or control
• Of
• Individuals
• Communities, groups
HOW DOES IT WORK?
• Principlism
• Beneficence
• Good; best interest
• Defining “good”, “best”
• Ethical duty
HOW DOES IT WORK?
• Principlism
• Non-Maleficence
• “Above all, do no harm” (Hippocratic maxim)
• Defining “harm”
• ≠ beneficence
• Generally more important than beneficence
• Ethical duty and right
• Beneficence is merely a duty; No right of beneficence
HOW DOES IT WORK?
• Principlism
• Justice
• ≈ fairness
• ≠ equality
• For
• Individual
• Communities, groups
• Distribution / exhaustion of limited resources
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Autonomy
Domestic
Oil
Tragedy of
the
Commons &
unitization
Beneficence
Energy
security
NonMaleficence
-Exxon
Valdez
-Deepwater
Horizon
-Water
quality
-Air quality
(hydrocarbons,
flaring natural
gas)
Justice
Rule of
Capture
& the
Correlative
Rights
doctrine
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Autonomy
Hydro
Fishers and
farmers
(Reuniting a
River)
Beneficence
NonMaleficence
-Reduce
GHG
emissions
-Cheaper to
operate
-Flood
control,
irrigation
-Adverse
effects on
wildlife, river
systems
-Increased
CO2 from
cement
-Increased
CH4 from
degenerating
vegetation
Justice
Distributing
limited
resource to
competing
interests
(Reuniting a
River)
ETHICAL ENERGY
• Nuclear energy
• Can we?
• May we?
• Should we?
“ETHICAL” ENERGY
•
"Some people say using nuclear power to generate electricity is a good idea because
uranium fuel is available in North America and nuclear power doesn't contribute to
global warming. Other people say using nuclear power is a bad idea because of the
risk of accident and the fact there is still no long-term solution for nuclear waste
disposal. What do you think -- is using nuclear power to generate electricity mostly
a good idea or mostly a bad idea?”
Total
Good idea
36%
Bad idea
58%
Don’t know
6%
“ETHICAL” ENERGY
“ETHICAL” ENERGY
ETHICAL ENERGY
Autonomy
Nuclear
Energy
Beneficence
NonMaleficence
Justice
AUTONOMY
• United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• Atomic Energy Act of 1954
• Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970
• Energy Reorganization Act of 1974
• Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978
• Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978
• Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1980
• Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982
• Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985
BENEFICENCE
•
“Nuclear energy has perhaps the lowest impact on the environment —
including air, land, water, and wildlife — of any energy source. It produces
no harmful greenhouse gases, isolates its waste from the environment, and
requires less area to produce the same amount of electricity as other
sources.”
BENEFICENCE
•
“Nuclear energy has perhaps the lowest impact on the environment —
including air, land, water, and wildlife — of any energy source. It produces
no harmful greenhouse gases, isolates its waste from the environment, and
requires less area to produce the same amount of electricity as other
sources.”
NON-MALEFICENCE
• Extraction
• Miners: higher rates of lung cancer, tuberculosis and other
respiratory diseases
• 1,000 tons of uranium fuel = ~100,000 tons of radioactive tailings
and ~1 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste containing
arsenic and other metals
NON-MALEFICENCE
• Production
• Nuclear power plants emitting radiation
• Residents
• Employees
• “[A] small portion of radioactivity must be released from reactors.
This radioactivity enters the human body through breathing and
the food chain, as gases and tiny metal particles. They kill and
injure healthy cells, leading to cancer, and are especially harmful
to the fetus, infant, and child . . . .”
NON-MALEFICENCE
• Disposal
• High-level radioactive waste: 2,000 metric tons
• Low-level radioactive waste: 12 million cubic feet
• “More than 58,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel
already has accumulated at reactor sites around the U.S. for which
there currently is no permanent repository.”
• “This waste is actually a cocktail of chemicals such as Cesium137, Iodine-129, Strontium-90, and Plutonium-239, each
radioactive and cancer-causing.”
• Waste remains dangerous for thousands of years!
NON-MALEFICENCE
•
Failure
• 3 out of 14,500
• Three Mile Island (1979)
• Chernobyl (1986)
• Fukushima (2011)
• 2 out of 3: 0 deaths
• 1 out of 5: >1,000 deaths
• 1 out of 100,000: >50,000
deaths
• Average meltdown: ~400
deaths
NON-MALEFICENCE
• 250: Release limit for nuclear power
plant over 1 year
• 400: Dose per person from food
• 4,000: mammogram
• 10,000: CT scan
• 36,000: Smoke 1.5 packs of cigarettes
per day for 1 year
JUSTICE
•
Doing less harm
• Nuclear is . . .
• 5x safer than oil
• 10x safer than gas
• 100x safer than hydro-electric dams*
• 1 X-ray = living near nuclear plant for 2,000 years
• 1 round-trip flight from NY to LA = living next door to a nuclear plant
for 1 year
• Air pollution from coal burning (10,000 deaths per year) = 25 meltdowns each year
JUSTICE
• “Can we continue to despoil our environment with long-lived
radioactive materials that are scattered to the wind and embedded in
our precious soil, randomly exposing large populations, and foisting
health impacts on unsuspecting future generations who have no
choice in this matter?”
JUSTICE
• Is it just to continue use nuclear energy?
• Is it just not to?