CHEMISTRY
NUCLEAR ENERGY LDC
NAME ________________________________
10 MARCH 2014
TASK
Should the United States become more dependent on nuclear energy to
meet the growing energy demands of the 21st century?
After reading scholarly reviewed journals and government resources write an
argumentative essay that addresses the question and support your position with
evidence from the text(s).
FORMAT
3 POINT ESSAY (5 Paragraphs – Introduction of topic including your position, 3 main
points in support or opposition of nuclear energy, summary of your position).
APA Reference Style
THIS PAPER MUST BE TYPED!!
BE SURE YOU SAVE YOUR WORK TO YOUR FILE LOCKER (H Drive) and NOT ON THE
DESKTOP. If you are unsure how to do this….ASK!!!
FINAL PAPER IS DUE ON MONDAY, MARCH 17, 2014.
ASSIGNMENTS
MONDAY 10 MARCH 2014
As an introduction to NUCLEAR ENERGY, visit http://www.nnr.co.za/what-is-nuclearenergy/
Read the FIRST TWO PAGES (screens) and WRITE a 1 PAGE SUMMARY of them describing:
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What is nuclear energy?
Nuclear reactions and radiation
What is nuclear damage?
What is nuclear safety ?
What is a nuclear authorization and who needs one?
TUESDAY 11 MARCH 2014
How safe is nuclear energy? Read the following three articles and write a short
summary detailing some good points (2 to 3) about nuclear energy as well as some
concerns (2-3).
http://www.fi.edu/guide/wester/benefits.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/nuclear-power-safe.htm
http://blog.processindustryforum.com/energy/nucleardisasters/
WEDNESDAY 12 MARCH 2014
While nuclear energy is considered by most to be relatively safe, a number of serious
events have occurred involving nuclear power plants.
Explore two or three of the following links describing various NUCLEAR DISASTER events.
CHOOSE THREE EVENTS and summarize each in terms of:
1. WHEN and WHERE it happened?
2. WHAT caused the incident to occur?
3. What were the SHORT TERM and LONG TERM EFFECTS of the event?
http://news.discovery.com/tech/top-five-nuclear-disasters.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/14/nuclear-power-plantaccidents-list-rank
http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-nuclear-disaster
http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-nuclear-disaster
http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/nuclear_disasters/nuclear_disasters.html
http://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/1/56
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120522134942.htm
DUE END OF CLASS TODAY!
THURSDAY 13 MARCH 2014
It is now time to choose your viewpoint and begin developing your ARGUMENTATIVE
ESSAY in support of or opposition to the increased use of nuclear power in the US.
At the END OF THIS DOCUMENT are a series of articles that present information either for
or against nuclear power usages (some of the article also provide general information).
Each article is marked to help you identify which position it represents.
READ* THREE ARTICLES (LINK AT THE END OF THIS DOCUMENT) and decide if you
SUPPORT or ARE AGAINST increase dependence on nuclear energy to meet the US’s
growing energy demands.
*If you choose, go ahead a PRINT the articles if you need to have a hard copy for
reading.
STATE YOUR THREE POINTS that will be used to support your essay and TURN THEM
END AT END OF CLASS.
BEGIN DEVELOPING/ROUGH DRAFTING YOUR ESSAY
FRIDAY 14 MARCH 2013
WORK ON TYPING/REFINING ESSAY
MONDAY 17 MARCH 2014
FINAL TYPED ESSAY DUE
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12 point font MAXIMUM
Cover Page
Reference Page listing the articles or websites used in your essay.
ARTICLES OPPOSING NUCLEAR ENERGY
The Real Cost of Nuclear Power.
(AGAINST)
Lexile: 1330L
Publication: Time (3/28/2011)
Author: Grunwald, Michael
SPECIAL REPORT | NUCLEAR DISASTER
The chaos at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant--explosions, fires, ruptures--has not shaken the bipartisan support
in partisan Washington for the U.S.'s so-called nuclear renaissance. Republicans have dismissed Japan's crisis as an
once-in-a-lifetime fluke. President Obama has defended atomic energy as a carbon-free source of power, resisting
calls to halt the renaissance and freeze construction of the U.S.'s first new reactors in over three decades.
But there is no renaissance.
Even before the earthquake-tsunami one-two punch, the endlessly hyped U.S. nuclear revival was stumbling,
pummeled by skyrocketing costs, stagnant demand and skittish investors, not to mention the defeat of restrictions on
carbon that could have mitigated nuclear energy's economic insanity. Obama has offered unprecedented aid to an
industry that already enjoyed cradle-to-grave subsidies, and the antispending GOP has clamored for even more
largesse. But Wall Street hates nukes as much as K Street loves them, which is why there's no new reactor
construction to freeze. Once hailed as "too cheap to meter," nuclear fission turns out to be an outlandishly expensive
method of generating juice for our Xboxes.
Since 2008, proposed reactors have been quietly scrapped or suspended in at least nine states--not by safety
concerns or hippie sit-ins but by financial realities. Other projects have been delayed as cost estimates have tripled
toward $10 billion a reactor, and ratings agencies have downgraded utilities with atomic ambitions. Nuclear Energy
Institute vice president Richard Myers notes that the "unrealistic" renaissance hype has come from the industry's
friends, not the industry itself. "Even before this happened, short-term market conditions were bleak," he tells TIME.
Around the world, governments (led by China, with Russia a distant second) are financing 65 new reactors through
more explicit nuclear socialism. But private capital still considers atomic energy radioactive, gravitating instead
toward natural gas and renewables, whose costs are dropping fast. Nuclear power is expanding only in places where
taxpayers and ratepayers can be compelled to foot the bill.
In fact, the economic and safety problems associated with nuclear energy are not unrelated. Trying to avoid flukes
like Fukushima Daiichi is remarkably costly. And trying to avoid those costs can lead to flukes.
In 1972 a federal safety regulator, worried that GE's Mark 1 reactors would fail in an emergency, urged a ban on
containment designs that used "pressure suppression." His boss was sympathetic but wrote in a memo that "reversal
of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power" and "would generally
create more turmoil than I can stand thinking about." Four decades after this bureaucratic pressure suppression,
Fukushima Daiichi's Mark 1 reactors seem to have failed as predicted. And while newer reactors don't have those
problems, 23 Mark 1 reactors still operate in the U.S., including a Vermont plant that was relicensed for 20 more
years the day before the disaster in Japan.
When Karl Marx, who would have appreciated nuclear economics, wrote that history unfolds first as tragedy, then
as farce, he got U.S. nuclear history backward. America's initial experiment was a cartoonish disaster, with
construction timelines doubling and costs increasing as much as 1,000% even before the Three Mile Island
meltdown. In the 1980s, the industry required bailouts before bailouts were cool. But the U.S. industry has matured
and learned from its mistakes. It still runs the world's largest nuclear portfolio, and it hasn't had a serious accident
since 1979. Meanwhile, global-warming fears have positioned nuclear power as a proven alternative to fossil fuels
that works even when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, producing 20% of our electricity and 0% of
our emissions. No-nukes outrage has burned out, with a recent poll registering 71% support.
The result has been an extraordinary political coalition. Right-wingers who don't accept climate science and didn't
even want the word French in their fries now wax lyrical about French reactors that reduce French emissions. Leftwingers who used to bemoan the industry's radioactive waste and corporate welfare now embrace it as an earth
saver. So Congress has approved lucrative subsidies for construction, production, waste disposal, liability insurance
and just about every other nuclear cost. It also approved "risk insurance" to compensate utilities for regulatory
delays, even as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has worked closely with the industry to streamline its
licensing process. And nuke-friendly states have required ratepayers to front the costs of any new construction--even
if the reactors are never turned on.
Nevertheless, investors refuse to bet on nukes. The steady increases in electricity demand that were supposed to
justify new reactors have been wiped out by the global recession, and energy-efficiency advances could keep
demand flat. Natural gas prices have plummeted, Congress appears unlikely to put a price on carbon, and the U.S.
still lacks a plan for nuclear waste. It also turns out that building safe places to smash atoms is hard, especially after
such a long hiatus. The U.S. has lost most of its nuclear manufacturing capacity; it would have to import Japanese
steel forgings and other massive components, while training a new generation of nuclear workers. And though
industry lobbyists have persuaded the NRC to ease onerous regulations governing everything from fire safety to
cooling systems, it's still incredibly tough to get a reactor built.
New nukes would still make sense if they were truly needed to save the planet. But as a Brattle Group paper noted
last month, additional reactors "cannot be expected to contribute significantly to U.S. carbon emission reduction
goals prior to 2030." By contrast, investments in more-efficient buildings and factories can reduce demand now, at a
tenth the cost of new nuclear supply. Replacing carbon-belching coal with cleaner gas, emissions-free wind and
even utility-scale solar will also be cheaper and faster than new nukes. It's true that major infusions of intermittent
wind and solar power would stress the grid, but that's a reason to upgrade the grid, not to waste time and money on
reactors.
Anyway, there aren't many utilities that can carry a nuclear project on their balance sheets, which is why Obama's
Energy Department, a year after awarding its first $8 billion loan guarantee in Georgia, is still sitting on an
additional $10 billion. A Maryland project evaporated before closing, and a Texas project fell apart when costs
spiraled and a local utility withdrew. The deal was supposed to be salvaged with financing from a foreign utility, but
that now seems unlikely.
The utility was Tokyo Electric.
Pundits keep saying the mess in Japan will change the debate in the U.S., but the BP and Massey disasters didn't
change the debates over oil drilling and coal mining. And the nuclear debate seems particularly impervious to facts.
Obama wants to triple funding for the already undersubscribed loan guarantees, but Republicans still accuse him of
insufficient nuclear fervor. So don't expect the U.S. to copy German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who just shut down
seven aging plants. GOP Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has already rejected the idea of "a nuclear problem,"
suggesting that "once in 300 years, a disaster occurs." That's true if you don't count Chernobyl and you're sure
nothing will happen for the next 250 years.
The industry's defenders may ignore Fukushima Daiichi, but the industry will not. It's serious about public safety,
and meltdowns are bad for business; no company wants to lose a $10 billion reactor overnight. But additional safety
measures cost money: in 2003 industry lobbyists beat back an NRC committee's recommendation for new backuppower rules that were designed to prevent the hydrogen explosions that are now all over the news.
It may sound unrealistic to require plants to withstand a vicious earthquake and a 25-ft. tsunami, but nobody's
forcing utilities to generate power with uranium. One lesson of the past decade, in finance as well as nature, is that
perfect storms do happen. When nukes are involved, the fallout can be literal, not just political.
France: 58 reactors supply 75% of France's power
Japan: 54 reactors supply 29% of Japan's power
U.S.: 104 reactors supply 20% of the U.S.'s power
Sources: IAEA; LandScan/UT-Battelle; U.S. Department of Energy; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Project
on Government Oversight; FEMA; NEI
Fearing the fallout.
(AGAINST)
Lexile: 1300L
Publication: Maclean's (3/28/2011)
Author: KIRBY, JASONMACDONALD, NANCYBELLUZ, JULIA
How a cascading chain of events and complacent officials exposed Japan to a man-made crisis
LIKE MOST OFFICE workers in Japan, when the massive earthquake hit Friday afternoon, Dan Ayotte ducked
under his desk as light fixtures and filing cabinets smashed to the floor around him. "It sounded like a train, it just
kept getting more intense," says the Peterborough, Ont., native. "I thought I was never going to see my family
again."
But Ayotte wasn't just another terrified cubicle dweller in a swaying Tokyo skyscraper. As a mechanical technician
with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Canada, Ayotte had spent the past three months working on one of the reactors at
the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. It was a position that put him front and center for the full devastation the quake
was about to unleash. (General Electric designed the plant's reactors and is a partner with Hitachi in the nuclear
industry.)
When the violent shakes finally ended after five long minutes, Ayotte and a co-worker drove down to the edge of the
sea. Along the way, they passed gaping cracks in the road so wide they'd swallowed trucks. All around, landslides
snapped trees like matchsticks. Then Ayotte saw it, stretching across the horizon in the distance -- a wall of water
nine meters high, roaring straight toward the plant and its six reactors. The pair spun their car around and raced to a
lookout point on a cliff high above the facility. What Ayotte witnessed next left him stunned. The first wave hit
nearby cliffs with such force that dirt and debris exploded into the air "like it was hit with an artillery shell." A
fishery plant down by the water's edge was swept away in seconds. And then the waves began to pound the plant
and its reactors. "The nuclear plant took the full brunt of that first wave," he says. "The water rolled right over the
southern part of the station."
What Ayotte didn't know then, and what the world would only begin to learn hours later, was that the twin assaults
of earthquake and tsunami had set off a cascading chain of events leading to the worst nuclear crisis in a generation.
The emergency situation was only made worse by a conspiracy of hubris and denial among Japanese officials and
nuclear industry proponents who couldn't fathom that the country's reactors and containment systems might fail. Yet
early assurances that everything was under control soon gave way to the realization the reactors were at risk of
suffering a catastrophic meltdown. As the full scale of the potential horror revealed itself -- punctuated by images of
workers clad head to toe in protective gear screening babies for radiation exposure -- hard questions about the future
of nuclear energy began to emerge, both inside and outside Japan.
As the crisis unfolds over the coming days and even weeks, Ayotte, like the rest of the world, will be watching
closely from the safety of his home. His employer evacuated his crew the day after the quake hit, and he arrived
back in Toronto on Sunday. After the events of the past week, he says he's officially retired now. But his thoughts
remain with the people suffering in Japan. "That plant is devastated, and the country will be years before it
rebuilds," he says. "It looks like a war zone over there."
Events were still developing fast as Maclean's went to print late Tuesday night EDT. After a series of hydrogen
explosions and fires at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, three reactors had suffered at least partial meltdowns and
radiation levels in the immediate vicinity spiked to dangerous levels. (At another nearby plant that had also suffered
damage from the quake and tsunami, Fukushima Daini, operators had succeeded in cooling down all four reactors.)
There were also reports that steam was rising from one of the reactors, though the source was unknown. But even as
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs the plants, raced to bring the reactors under control, a far
greater threat was emerging. An explosion occurred by a pool containing spent fuel rods, and water in the pool was
boiling off. If the rods, which though "spent" remain radioactive and dangerously hot, become exposed, they could
ignite and emit clouds of radioactive smoke directly into the atmosphere. The government was considering a daring
mission that would see military helicopters pour water on the pool to keep the rods submerged. More than 200,000
people living near the plants have been evacuated.
Given the worsening crisis, the International Atomic Energy Agency upgraded Fukushima on its nuclear accident
scale to level six, declaring it a "serious accident." That puts it ahead of Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island incident in
1979, which registered a four on that scale, and just one level below the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl in Ukraine,
which remains the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history.
Japan, a country all too aware of the dangers of radiation, finds itself at a terrifying juncture. With reports that the
last 50 remaining workers had been evacuated due to extremely high radiation levels, that left no one to fight the
fires at the plant. Their departure greatly diminished the chances that Fukushima might come out of this in
something like a Three Mile Island scenario.
It is the other possibility that has gripped the world with fear. In a worst-case scenario, one of the Fukushima
reactors completely melts down. The uranium in the fuel rods could form a molten liquid that melts through the steel
and concrete containment chambers that envelope the core, and expose the environment to lethal levels of radiation.
Likewise, the toxic cloud emanating from the pools has the potential to spread cancer-causing radioactive particles
across Japan and even to neighboring nations like the Koreas and China. This is the Chernobyl scenario, and the
long-term impact would be catastrophic.
Masahi Goto knows the Fukushima reactors inside and out. As a former engineer at Hitachi, he'd helped design the
containment facilities at the site. It was his job to test the safeguard measures to ensure they would not fail if
pressure and temperatures increased dramatically in the event of a crisis. But a day and a half after plant officials
first warned on Friday they were having trouble cooling the reactors down, Goto, who is now with the anti-nuclear
group Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, had become incredibly frustrated with how the government was
handling the situation.
Several times, officials had gone on TV to assure the Japanese the incident at the nuclear plant posed no health
threat to them. And indeed, as late as Sunday night an eerie calm hung over Tokyo, 250 km to the south. But Goto
worried the Japanese had been lulled into a dangerous false sense of security. "Although the government says
reassuring words -- that everything is alright and that safety has been assured -- the general public needs to
understand that this is truly a severe accident," he said during a press briefing for foreign correspondents. "We're not
in immediate danger of a catastrophic situation, but if the cooling system put in place does not function anymore,
there is a possibility that something terrible will happen."
To understand what went wrong with the reactors at Fukushima, one needs to first know a little bit about how they
are supposed to function under normal conditions. Known as boiling water reactors, they do exactly what the name
says -- like a giant kettle, they turn water into steam using nuclear fission, and then harness the steam with turbines
to create the electricity Japan so desperately needs. (The country relies on nuclear power for 30 per cent of its energy
needs.) The science is more technical, of course. Inside the reactor there are thousands of thin rods containing
fingertip-sized uranium fuel pellets. The rods are encased in a steel vessel, which in turn is housed in a thick
concrete structure. As fission occurs inside the rods, they generate intense heat measured in the thousands of degrees
Celsius. For that reason, the rods must be kept fully submerged in water to prevent them from melting. The steam
that burns off is eventually cooled and returned to the reactor. The whole process keeps the temperature inside the
reactor at a manageable 270° C.
When the quake struck at 2:46 p.m. on Friday, the reactors automatically shut down, exactly as they were designed
to do. Control rods were injected into the reactor that disabled the fission process, sort of like flicking an off switch.
But a reactor doesn't just turn off like a light. The rods continue to generate enormous amounts of heat as the
radioactive material inside decays, so they must remain submerged in cool water for hours until their temperature
comes down to below the boiling point. And this is where events at Fukushima went horribly wrong.
The atomic reaction inside the rods may have been disabled, but a chain reaction of errors and misfortune quickly
unfolded outside. The initial earthquake knocked out the electrical power to the water-cooling system. On-site diesel
generators kicked in to provide backup power, but within an hour the wall of water Ayotte saw wash over the plant
flooded the generators and they failed. The plant's operators next turned to emergency batteries to power the cooling
system. But the batteries had a lifespan of just eight hours and were only meant to serve as a stopgap measure. When
mobile generators were located and brought to the reactors, it turned out the plugs didn't fit the cooling system. As
the batteries ran dry, the flow of new, cool water stopped, too. As the heat boiled off the water, the levels inside the
reactor began to fall -- all the ingredients needed for a meltdown.
If fuel rods are exposed to the air, it only takes a matter of minutes for their temperature to soar. Once the fuel rods
hit around 1,200° C, their zirconium casing begins to break down and the uranium pellets inside begin to lose their
shape. In the case of a partial meltdown, which is what happened at Three Mile Island, a section of the rods becomes
exposed and begins to emit radiation. A full meltdown is far more serious. As the pellets melt, they'd form a molten
mass that could melt through the reactor base and threaten human health.
To prevent that from happening, TEPCO, the power company, planned to pump in fresh water to keep the rods
submerged. It's unclear exactly what went wrong, but a valve on the pump is believed to have malfunctioned. As a
backup, the company began to pump seawater into the reactor to keep it cool.
Yet this presented another problem. With the fuel rods so hot, much of the water inside the reactor had been turned
to steam, increasing pressure inside. The pressure was so high that the seawater pumps weren't powerful enough to
force the water inside. There were also fears that if the pressure became too great, it could damage the reactors. This
is why operators began to vent steam into the atmosphere starting on Sunday. By doing so, though, they enabled
radioactive material to escape. "It's a terrible choice," says Goto, the former Hitachi engineer, about what the
engineers are facing. "If you vent this matter into the atmosphere, it will be gas with a very high radioactive content.
If you do not vent and you allow the radiation and therefore the pressure to build up in the vessel, you raise the
possibility of this vessel exploding."
There have been several explosions at the plant, raising fears of a potential catastrophe. Fortunately, the cause of the
explosions was not a nuclear blast. Instead, as the fuel rods reached dangerous temperatures, the zirconium casing
began to degrade and produce hydrogen gas. The gas built up and ignited. The damage was limited mostly to the
roof and walls of the buildings housing the reactors, though there were also indications that at least one of the
reactor vessel's thick steel walls was also affected.
By Monday evening, three days after the quake, it appeared the dwindling number of employees left at the plant was
losing the battle. For the first time, the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said problems at
Fukushima's No. 2 reactor unit could develop into a full-scale "meltdown" situation. In a speech to the nation, Prime
Minister Naoto Kan urged Japanese to "stay calm," then went on say the radiation levels had "risen substantially.
The risk that radiation will leak from now on has risen."
The government imposed mandatory evacuation orders for anyone living within 20 km of the reactors. Far more
frightening in a way, though, were the government's instructions for 140,000 residents living between 20 and 30 km
from the site. An official ordered those people to close their windows and doors and remain inside, preferably in a
concrete building. Those wearing jackets were told to brush them off before venturing indoors, and everyone should
shake any dust particles out of their hair. If there was laundry hanging on the line outside to dry, leave it.
On the one hand, Japanese were being told to go on with their regular activities, yet at the same time, large numbers
of their countrymen were told to seal themselves inside their homes to safeguard their lives.
In the weeks following the Chernobyl disaster, 28 people died as a direct result of being exposed to massive levels
of radiation. By comparison, the levels measured in Japan as of Tuesday have been relatively minor, and contained.
But the long-term health impacts of the radiation released there are still very real. At one point during the disaster,
one official report stated that levels hit 400 millisieverts per hour -- 20 times the annual limit allowed for radiation
workers and uranium miners, and close to the levels recorded in towns 15 km from Chernobyl before they were
evacuated. If a radioactive cloud of this intensity descended over an urban area, it would likely result in a jump in
cancer rates over the long term. A dose of 100 millisieverts over the course of a year is the lowest level at which an
increase in cancer is evident, says the World Nuclear Association.
Exposure levels in areas around the plant were relatively easily treated by decontaminating: taking off clothes,
which capture radioactive particles, and washing with soap and water. Potassium iodine pills were also used as a
preventative measure by stopping radioactive material from attacking the thyroid. The key here, of course, is
ensuring any human exposure is brief and that radiation doesn't spread.
The good news is that a Chernobyl-style explosion is extremely unlikely in Japan. The problems at the Soviet plant
stemmed from serious design flaws that caused a sudden power spike in the reactor, mixed with a lethal dose of
human error. Within three seconds, a massive explosion ejected one-third of the reactor core and radioactive
material 30,000 feet into the air. To ease concerns in Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano at one point said
he believes the problem at the plant "will not develop into a situation similar to Chernobyl," even in the worst case.
Yet the Japanese people have every reason to question what officials have been telling them. Japan's nuclear
industry suffers a dubious reputation for downplaying the risks earthquakes pose to nuclear reactors, and in some
cases even covering up problems. In 2002, TEPCO's former president and other officials were forced to resign after
it was revealed they'd hidden evidence about more than two dozen incidents where reactors were damaged. There
have also been high-profile cases where temperature data was falsified.
Prime Minister Kan has blasted TEPCO for not keeping him informed. He claimed that after the first explosion, the
company didn't inform his office for one whole hour. But Kan himself has at every turn appeared to play down the
seriousness of the accident -- at least until quite late in the process. It wasn't until Tuesday, four days after the quake
and tsunami hammered the plant, that Japan's government and TEPCO formed a task force to deal with the crisis.
"I'm appalled by the government's complacency and arrogance -- the bland assumption that everything is going to be
alright," says Gregory Clark, president emeritus at Tokyo's Tama University. "Government nuclear operations have
a very questionable record of forthrightness. We simply don't know how worried we need to be."
Clark suspects "bureaucratic incompetence and arrogance" are behind the failure of the plant's backup systems. He's
witnessed that first-hand while serving on nuclear safety committees for Japan's industry ministry, where he faced
constant push-back against efforts to get the nuclear industry to open up. "I happen to favor nuclear power, but when
I suggested that whistle-blowing on safety problems should not only be allowed, but rewarded as well, I was told
that this was quite contrary to Japanese culture," he says.
Critics of the industry have also long argued the reactors simply aren't built to withstand the volatile geography of
the region. Not only are the islands of Japan located right on the Pacific Rim of Fire, a region that encircles the
Pacific Ocean and that experiences the majority of the world's quakes, but Japan lies at the intersection of four slabs
of the Earth's crust. The country's 55 nuclear reactors are built to withstand only a 7.5-magnitude earthquake, yet, as
is now known, the seismic convulsions last week hit a magnitude of 9 -- thousands of times stronger.
Five years ago, a Japanese court ordered a nuclear reactor in Ishikawa prefecture to cease operations after nearby
residents filed a lawsuit claiming the plant posed a serious danger. "The building structure of the reactor has a
problem in that it underestimates the damage from an inland earthquake," the judge said. "It is feared that local
residents may get exposed to radiation if an accident occurs due to a quake that is larger than what the power
company estimates." The company, Hokuriku Electric Power, continued to operate the plant while it appealed the
decision. In December, a higher court gave its blessing to the plant, citing "adequate safety measures."
"The nuclear plants should have been built to withstand stronger earthquakes," says Shuji Yoshida, a professor of
geology at Chiba University. Now, as the crisis unfolds, he says the government is "hiding too much information"
from the nation.
The industry and government officials haven't done themselves any favors by being so secretive. The incident has
thrown the future of nuclear power in Japan into disarray. "There are definitely going to be a lot of problems going
forward for building another nuclear plant," says Yoshida. "Japanese are very sensitive to nuclear threats because of
the A-bomb." As if to drive home that point, four days after the first reactor problems emerged, survivors of the
1945 U.S. atomic bomb attacked the way the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. have handled the current
situation. "Speaking from my experience of suffering diseases and health concerns for a long time since being
exposed to radiation, I want them to have more of a sense of crisis," said Haruhide Tamamoto, 80, of Hiroshima.
It's not just in Japan that nuclear's future suddenly looks bleak. Just a few weeks shy of the 25th anniversary of the
Chernobyl disaster, it's taken nearly as long for the industry to recover from that terrible legacy. In the past couple of
years, talk of a "nuclear renaissance" became more common, fuelled by worries over climate change and energy
shortages. Hundreds of new reactor projects were in the planning stages. Now, across Europe, anti-nuclear protesters
feel reinvigorated. In the U.S., there were calls from some legislators for President Barack Obama to rethink his
support for the sector. And in Canada, uranium companies saw their stock prices plunge as investors speculated the
reactor crisis in Japan means the renaissance is over before it started.
For the Japanese right now, those are still distant questions for another time, when the smoke and radioactive fallout
from its nuclear crisis have been contained once and for all.
Finally, No to Nuclear Power (AGAINST)
Lexile: 1350L
Publication: Progressive (Dec2011 / Jan2012)
Author: Tashiro, Akira
JAPAN
In the wake of simultaneous meltdowns in three nuclear reactors at Fukushima, a first in nuclear power history,
public anger and anxiety rose quickly in Japan.
The national government ordered residents of Fukushima Prefecture within twenty kilometers of the nuclear station
to evacuate. In some areas, even forty kilometers from the plant, residents had to evacuate due to high levels of
radiation. Residents living in the vicinity of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant had always been led to believe
that the facilities were completely safe. They never dreamed that they would be forced to flee the land where they
had built farms, factories, homes, and lives.
A month after the Fukushima crisis began; I met a group of evacuees from the town of Futaba at an evacuation
center in Saitama Prefecture near Tokyo. Every one of them told me, "If I could go home today, I would." Their
town sits near the nuclear plant and is highly contaminated. Meanwhile, the Japanese government and the power
company were refusing to report publicly the levels of contamination found in the soil of that town.
At the end of August, almost six months after the accident, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and
Technology finally released a map showing concentrations of radioactive cesium in the soil within a 100-kilometer
radius from the nuclear plant. The residents' desperate hopes of returning to their homes in Futaba and Okuma have
been cruelly dashed. When these people are told that they might be able to go home in twenty or thirty years, they
hear, "Give it up. You are never going home."
If you include families with small children and other voluntary evacuees, about 70,000 people are now living away
from their homes. They are profoundly worried about their internal and external exposure to radioactive fallout.
Those who remain in Fukushima Prefecture are also frightened. The potential damage to human bodies from
invisible radiation is now a growing concern among millions.
In October, the release of radiation from the plant was still continuing. Radioactive contamination has spread across
a vast area of farmland, forests, and sea. Rice, vegetables, milk, fruits, and flowers have all been contaminated or are
not being allowed to grow.
Japan has long had an anti-nuclear power movement, especially among residents near the sites selected for nuclear
power plants. And yet, the voices of caution have never been strong enough to affect Japan's nuclear energy policy,
as millions of Japanese -- including many A-bomb survivors {hibakushd) -- fell for the propaganda about "the
peaceful atom."
Less than one year after the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum opened its doors in August 1955, the museum held
a large-scale exhibition on nuclear energy. Lasting about three weeks, it was dubbed the "Exhibition for Peaceful
Use of Atomic Energy." The U.S. Embassy in Japan provided approximately $1.3 million to help display such items
as a full-size model nuclear reactor. In deference to U.S. wishes, throughout the run of this exhibition, items
normally on display that showed the destruction caused by the atomic bombing were temporarily removed to the
Hiroshima Central Community Center.
This time, however, the accident itself had a tremendous impact on not only public attitudes, but also public policy.
Not long after the accident exploded the myth of perfect safety, then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan stated that he would
seek to "create a society that is not dependent on nuclear power." Though he mentioned no specific measures or
timetable for accomplishing this goal, his comment represented a dramatic change and pointed in the right direction.
And among the citizens, voices against nuclear power have grown louder. At its annual meeting in Tokyo this past
June, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers Organizations indicated that it would demand that the
Japanese government move away from reliance on nuclear energy and would call for the decommissioning of the
nuclear reactors that have been shut down. This stance goes far beyond the previous one of demanding "changes in
Japan's energy policy."
The official peace declarations at the commemorative ceremonies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 this
year asked the Japanese government and Japanese society to shift energy policy away from reliance on nuclear
power and toward renewable energy sources. Peace declarations delivered in the past focused solely on appealing
for world peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons. This year is the first time for both cities to express a view
questioning the peaceful use of nuclear power.
Also on August 6, citizen rallies against nuclear power -- in addition to nuclear weapons -- were held at various
venues in Hiroshima.
Numerous citizen groups throughout Japan are now daily engaged in a wide range of activities to oppose nuclear
power plants. Women, with their strong concern for the health of their children, have been especially active.
Nongovernmental organizations are planning to hold a "Global Conference for a Nuclear Power-Free World" in
Yokohama in January.
On September 19 in Tokyo, about 60,000 people, including refugees from Fukushima Prefecture, held a rally called
Goodbye Nuclear Power Plants. Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe and eight other prominent figures
initiated this rally, at which Oe declared, "Nuclear power is always accompanied by ruin and sacrifice." Continuing
the use of nuclear power plants heralds a crisis for the nation, he said, urging those in attendance to press the
political and business establishment to turn away from nuclear power by engaging in further rallies and
demonstrations. "We must have the will to oppose it," he said.
Oe and his colleagues have been promoting a petition drive, hoping to gather ten million signatures in support of
eliminating nuclear power. They plan to submit these signatures to the Japanese administration and parliament next
March.
On September 19 in Tokyo, about 60,000 people, including refugees from Fukushima Prefecture, held a rally called
Goodbye Nuclear Power Plants.
By Akira Tashiro
Nuclear Power's Green Promise Dulled by Rising Tempratures.
(AGAINST / GENERAL INFORMATION)
Lexile: 1340L
Publication: Christian Science Monitor (8/10/2006)
Author: Sachs, Susan
Problems with Europe's nuclear plants have raised worries just as the energy was gaining support.
Dateline: PARIS
Summer is exposing the chinks in Europe's nuclear power networks.
The extended heat wave in July aggravated drought conditions across much of Europe, lowering water levels in the
lakes and rivers that many nuclear plants depend on to cool their reactors.
As a result, utility companies in France, Spain, and Germany were forced to take some plants offline and reduce
operations at others. Across Western Europe, nuclear plants also had to secure exemptions from regulations in order
to discharge overheated water into the environment. Even with an exemption to environmental rules this summer,
the French electric company, Electricity de France (EDF), normally an energy exporter, had to buy electricity on
European spot market, a way to meet electricity demand.
The troubles of the nuclear industry did not end there. Sweden shut four of its 10 nuclear reactors after a shortcircuit cut power at one plant on July 26, raising fears of a dangerous design flaw. One week later, Czech utility
officials shut down one of the country's six nuclear reactors because of what they described as a serious mechanical
problem that led to the leak of radioactive water.
The disruptions highlight some of the vulnerabilities of nuclear power, just at a time when its future was looking
brighter in traditionally nuclear-shy parts of Europe. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, has just
launched a drive to promote nuclear as the key to making his country self-sufficient in energy.
But antinuclear activists have seized on nuclear plants' summer troubles as evidence of the energy's limitations.
Austrian protesters, including politicians, have demanded that the Czech reactor - which is located just over the
border - be closed. In Germany, influential antinuclear groups reacted to Sweden's closures by calling for the closure
of the country's 17 reactors, many of the same design.
"Global warming undermines the arguments we've always heard about nuclear power, that it doesn't damage the
environment," says Stephane Lhomme, spokesman for a French group, Sortir du Nucleaire, or Abandon Nuclear.
"Nuclear is not saving us from climate change. It's in trouble because of climate change."
His argument may have more resonance in France than elsewhere because, with 58 reactors, France depends on
nuclear energy for 80 percent of its electricity and is criticized by some for failing to diversify its energy resources.
Concerns about global warming are central to the debate in European countries over energy. And this summer's heat
wave and droughts, like those in 2003, have added a new and possibly confusing element to that debate.
Nuclear power is promoted as a clean alternative to oil and coal-powered generators that produce greenhouse gases
like carbon monoxide, blamed by many scientists for warming the earth's surface and melting polar ice caps.
Public opinion seems to be increasingly open to that argument for nuclear power.
A 2005 European Union poll found 62 percent of those surveyed accepted the advantage of lowering greenhouse gas
emissions, compared to 41 percent two years ago. And 60 percent acknowledged the benefits of nuclear power as a
climate-friendly way to reduce dependence on oil.
There are vast differences from country to country, though, over whether to invest in new nuclear power technology
or even replace aging reactors. Finland is building a giant new nuclear reactor, the first in Europe in 15 years.
In France,the government plans to build a new pressurized-water nuclear reactor by 2010. And in England, where
opposition to nuclear plants has been intense, climate change worries may trump antinuclear feeling.
"The jury is still out," says Simon Tilford, an analyst with the Centre for European Reform in London, where the
summer heat brought scattered blackouts. "But I think the government has had some success at turning public
opinion around because they argued the environmental case."
There are vast differences from country to country, though, over whether to invest in new nuclear power technology
or even replace aging reactors.
Finland is building a giant new nuclear reactor, the first in Europe in 15 years. In France,the government plans to
build a new pressurized-water nuclear reactor by 2010. And in England, where opposition to nuclear plants has been
intense, climate change worries may trump antinuclear feeling.
A recently published assessment by the European Environment Agency warned that Europe could expect more of
the extreme weather shifts that it has experienced over the last five years without reductions in greenhouse gases.
Europe's four hottest years on record, the agency said, were 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2004. It did not account for this
year's weather.
Overall, about one-third of all water used in Europe is used for cooling electrical generators, including those
powered by both nuclear and fossil fuels. Environmental officials in several European countries, including France
and Germany, have warned that water levels in some reservoirs are at historic lows and have not returned to pre2003 heat wave levels.
The power plants now used in Europe are big water consumers. For the moment, according to a study released this
month by the Chatham House research institute in London, European utilities are delaying building new generators
because they are not sure whether governments will require them to take the climate change into account.
About two-thirds of the energy produced in a generator is converted into heated thermal waste water, he says some
French cooling towers use circulating water, meaning they need even more water to replace the water that
disappears as steam.
Weaning dependency on foreign fuel: France is the most nuclear energy-dependent country in the world with 59
reactors churning out nearly 80 percent of its electricity.
By Susan Sachs, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Nuclear's Hidden Cost.
(AGAINST)
Lexile: 1300L
Publication: New Scientist (9/18/2004)
Author: Marshall, Nick
I can understand the importance of New Scientist taking a neutral stance in the debate about nuclear power, but your
correspondents seem to have missed out two crucial points (21 August, p 26).
Nuclear power could not survive in a competitive energy market without huge government subsidies. The massive
costs of research and development, waste disposal, reactor decommissioning and accident liability are not included
in either cost/benefit or investment appraisal analyses, but are paid for by taxpayers.
Secondly, nuclear power is not carbon-neutral. According to a 1997 study by the Institute for Applied Ecology in
Berlin, Germany, a nuclear power station of standard size (1250-megawatt capacity) indirectly emits between 376
billion and 1300 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, taking into account the whole fuel-to-waste cycle.
Nuclear power releases four to five times as much CO2 per unit of energy produced as renewable energy sources.
This debate is characterised by misinformation and extreme views. Many people look to New Scientist to provide
comprehensive and unbiased information and analysis. Keep up the good work.
By Nick Marshall
Anti-Nuke Miracle Challenged.
(AGAINST / GENERAL INFORMATION)
Lexile: 1230L
Publication: Earth Island Journal (Spring2001)
Author: Hou, Jeff
Taiwan's 20-year-long anti-nuke struggle finally bore fruit last October, when -- in the face of mounting political
pressure and after months of televised debates and political standoffs -- Taiwan's new President Chen Shui-bian
announced the cancellation of the Nuclear Power Plant No. 4 (NPP4). The $5.6 billion project was 30 percent
complete.
The announcement came within minutes of a reconciliation talk between Chen, leader of the Democratic Progress
Party (DPP), and the head of the rival Kuomintang (KMT). (The KMT had ruled Taiwan unchallenged until the DPP
came to power last March in the country's first peaceful transfer of power.)
Chen's decision triggered a backlash from all three conservative opposition parties and the opposition-dominated
legislature united in an effort to recall the new president. Chen offered a televised apology on the timing of the
decision but he made no concession on the cancellation of NPP4. Polls revealed that more than 60 percent of the
respondents opposed the recall and more than 50 percent supported scrapping the NPP4 in favor of other energy
alternatives.
The KMT has used the DPP'S anti-nuke stance to characterize the party as "anti-business." When it came to power,
the DPP formed a committee of anti-nuke and pro-nuke experts to reassess the fate of the NPP4. These experts
traded accusations in widely watched televised meetings. Tai-Power officials insisted on the safety of the plants,
while anti-nuke scholars argued that the economic benefits of nuclear power were exaggerated and that Taiwan did
not face an energy shortage. In addition, Taiwan lacks the capacity to store radioactive wastes.
In late September, Economic Minister Lin Hsin-yi recommended scraping the project. (Lin also hinted at concerns
about two other controversial projects -- the Binnan Industrial Complex and the Naphtha Cracker Complex No. 8,
signaling a shift in the government's economic development policy.) Lin, a member of the pro-business KMT, was
quickly stripped of his party membership and accused of betraying the party.
Environmentalists see NPP4 as an attempt by industrialized countries to export outmoded technology to lessdeveloped countries. NPP4 is a joint project between General Electric and Japan's Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Toshiba.
The Taiwan Environmental Action Network [TEAN, http://tean.formosa.org] argues that halting the NPP4 marks
the first step in curtailing nuclear exports to Asia.
Activists worldwide applauded Taiwan's decision. "We are heartened by this very courageous and responsible step,"
said John Knox, executive director of Earth Island Institute. Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute
predicted that "Taiwan will be better off economically, not just environmentally, because the alternatives will cost
less than just running the plant." Hideyuki Ban of the Japan-based Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, expressed
shame over his government's promotion of nuclear reactors in other countries.
A TEAN petition supporting Chen's decision quickly gained endorsements from 116 green groups in 21 countries.
In a meeting with anti-nuke supporters, President Chen reaffirmed his stance against NPP4. On November 12, a
coalition of Taiwanese social movements rallied in the streets of Taipei and Kaohsiung to support the government's
decision. As tens of thousands of ordinary citizens marched in the streets, it appeared that Taiwan's anti-nuke
miracle might survive a political recall.
By Jeff Hou d Sigrid E. Luber
Our Nuclear Nightmare
(AGAINST)
Lexile: 1280L
Publication: Newsweek (2/16/2009)
Author: Kissinger, Henry A.
As nations like Iran and North Korea seek to develop atomic weapons, the chance of a calamity is rising
dramatically. Here's how to lower them.
More than 200 years ago, the philosopher Immanuel Kant defined the ultimate choice before mankind: if world
history was to culminate in universal peace, would it be through moral insight, or through catastrophe of a
magnitude that allowed no other outcome? We are approaching a point where that choice may be imposed on us.
The basic dilemma of the nuclear age has been with us since Hiroshima: how to bring the destructiveness of modern
weapons into some moral or political relationship with the objectives that are being pursued. Any use of nuclear
weapons is certain to involve a level of casualties and devastation out of proportion to foreseeable foreign-policy
objectives. Efforts to develop a more nuanced application have never succeeded, from the doctrine of a
geographically limited nuclear war in the 1950s and 1960s to the "mutual assured destruction" theory of general
nuclear war in the 1970s.
In office I recoiled before the options produced by the prevalent nuclear strategies, which raised the issue of the
moral right to inflict a disaster of such magnitude on society and the world. Moreover, these prospects were
generated by weapons for which there could not be any operational experience, so that calculations and limitations
were largely theoretical. But I was also persuaded that if the U.S. government adopted such restraints, it would be
turning over the world's security to the most ruthless and perhaps genocidal.
In the two-power world of the Cold War, the adversaries managed to avoid this dilemma. The nuclear arsenals on
both sides grew in number and sophistication. Except for the Cuban missile crisis, when a Soviet combat division
was initially authorized to use its nuclear weapons to defend itself, neither side approached their use, either against
each other or in wars against non-nuclear third countries. They put in place step by step a series of safeguards to
prevent accidents, misjudgments and unauthorized launches.
But the end of the Cold War produced a paradoxical result. The threat of nuclear war between the superpowers has
essentially disappeared. But the spread of technology--especially the technology to produce peaceful nuclear energy-has vastly increased the feasibility of acquiring a nuclear-weapons capability. The sharpening of ideological
dividing lines and the persistence of unresolved regional conflicts have magnified the incentives to acquire nuclear
weapons, especially by rogue states or non-state actors. The calculations of mutual insecurity that produced restraint
during the Cold War do not apply with anything like the same degree to the new entrants in the nuclear field, and
even less so to the non-state actors. Proliferation of nuclear weapons has become an overarching strategic problem
for the contemporary world.
Any further spread of nuclear weapons multiplies the possibilities of nuclear confrontation; it magnifies the danger
of diversion, deliberate or unauthorized. And if the development of weapons of mass destruction spreads into Iran
and continues in North Korea--in the face of all ongoing negotiations--the incentives for other countries to follow
the same path could become overwhelming. How will publics react if they suffer or even observe casualties in the
tens of thousands from a nuclear attack? Will they not ask two questions: What could we have done to prevent this?
What shall we do now so that it can never happen again?
Considerations such as these induced former senator Sam Nunn, former secretary of defense William Perry, former
secretary of state George Shultz and I--two Democrats and two Republicans--to publish recommendations for
systematically reducing and eventually eliminating the danger from nuclear weapons. We have a record of strong
commitment to national defense and security. We continue to affirm the importance of adequate deterrent forces,
and we do not want our recommendations to diminish essentials for the defense of free peoples while a process of
adaptation to new realities is going on. At the same time, we reaffirm the objective of a world without nuclear
weapons that has been proclaimed by every American president since Eisenhower.
Such a world will prove remote unless the emerging nuclear-weapons program in Iran and the existing one in North
Korea are overcome. Both involve the near certainty of further proliferation and of further incorporation of nuclear
weapons into the strategies of nuclear-weapons states. In the case of Iran, the permanent members of the Security
Council have called for an end to the enrichment of materials produced by the program for peaceful uses of atomic
energy. In the case of North Korea, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the United States have demanded the
elimination of its nuclear weapons. North Korea has agreed to abandon its nuclear-weapons program but, by
procrastinating in doing so, threatens to create legitimacy for the stockpile of weapons it has already produced.
I have long advocated negotiations with Iran on a broad front, including the geopolitical aspect. Too many treat this
as a kind of psychological enterprise. In fact, it will be tested by concrete answers to four specific questions: (a)
How close is Iran to a nuclear-weapons capability? (b) At what pace is its development program moving? (c) What
balance of rewards and penalties will move Iran to abandon the program? (d) What do we do if, despite our best
efforts, diplomacy fails?
A critical issue in nonproliferation strategy will be whether the international community can place the fuel cycle for
the peaceful uses of nuclear energy under international control. Is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
capable of designing a system that places the enrichment and reprocessing of uranium and plutonium under
international control and in locations that do not threaten nuclear proliferation?
Arresting and then reversing the proliferation of nuclear weapons places a special responsibility on the established
nuclear powers. They share no more urgent common interest than preventing the emergence of more nuclear-armed
states. The persistence of unresolved regional conflicts makes nuclear weapons a powerful lure in many parts of the
world--to intimidate neighbors and to serve as a deterrent to the great powers who might otherwise intervene in a
regional conflict. Established nuclear powers should strive to make a nuclear capability less enticing by devoting
their diplomacy to diffusing these unresolved conflicts.
A new nuclear agenda requires coordinated efforts on several levels: first, the declaratory policy of the United
States; second, the U.S.--Russian relationship; third, joint efforts with allies as well as other nonnuclear states
relying on American deterrence; fourth, securing nuclear weapons and materials on a global basis; and, finally,
reducing the role of nuclear weapons in the doctrines and operational planning of nuclear-weapons states.
The Obama administration has already signaled that a global nuclear agenda will be a high priority in preparation for
the Review Conference on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty scheduled for the spring of 2010. A number of
measures can be taken unilaterally or bilaterally with Russia to reduce the pre-emptive risk of certain alert measures
and the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.
For more than 30 years after the formation of the Western alliance, the Soviet threat was the motivating and unifying
force in Western nuclear policy. Now that the Soviet Union has broken up, it is important to warn against the danger
of basing policy on a self-fulfilling prophecy. Russia and the United States between them control about 90 percent of
the world's nuclear weapons. They have it in their control to reduce the reliance on nuclear weapons in their bilateral
relationship. They have already done so for 15 years on such issues as the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.
The immediate need is to start negotiations to extend the START I agreement, the sole document for the verification
and monitoring of established ceilings on strategic weapons, which expires at the end of 2009. That should be the
occasion to explore significant reductions from the 1,700 to 2,000 permitted under the Moscow Treaty of 2002. A
general review of the strategic relationship should examine ways to enhance security at nuclear facilities in Russia
and the United States.
A key issue has been missile defense--especially with respect to defenses deployed against threats from proliferating
countries. The dialogue on this subject should be resumed at the point at which it was left by President George W.
Bush and President Vladimir Putin in April 2008. The Russian proposal for a joint missile defense toward the
Middle East, including radar sites in southern Russia, has always seemed to me a creative political and strategic
answer to a common problem.
The effort to develop a new nuclear agenda must involve our allies from its inception. U.S. and NATO policy are
integrally linked. Key European allies are negotiating with Iran on the nuclear issue. America deploys tactical
nuclear weapons in several NATO countries, and NATO's declaratory policy mirrors that of the United States.
Britain and France--key NATO allies--have their own nuclear deterrent. A common adaptation to the emerging
realities is needed, especially with respect to tactical nuclear weapons. Parallel discussions are needed with Japan,
South Korea and Australia. Parallel consultations are imperative with China, India and Pakistan. It must be
understood that the incentives for nuclear weapons on the Subcontinent are more regional than those of the
established nuclear powers and their threshold for using them considerably lower.
The complexity of these issues explains why my colleagues and I have chosen an incremental, step-by-step
approach. We are not able to describe the characteristics of the final goal: how to determine the size of all stockpiles,
how to eliminate them or to verify the result. Affirming the desirability of the goal of a world free of nuclear
weapons, we have concentrated on the steps that are achievable and verifiable. My colleague Sam Nunn has
described the effort as akin to climbing a mountain shrouded in clouds. We cannot describe its top nor be certain that
there may not be unforeseen and perhaps insurmountable obstacles on the way. But we are prepared to undertake the
journey in the belief that the summit will never come into view unless we begin the ascent and deal with the
proliferation issues immediately before us, including the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs.
A closing word: A subject at first largely dominated by military experts has attracted the commitment of
disarmament advocates. The dialogue between them has not always been as fruitful as it should be. Strategists are
suspicious of negotiated attempts to limit the scope of weapons. Disarmament advocates occasionally seek to preempt the outcome of the debate by legislating restrictions that achieve their preferred result without reciprocity--on
the theory that anything that limits nuclear arsenals, even unilaterally, is desirable in and of itself.
The two groups need to be brought together. So long as other countries build and improve their nuclear arsenals,
deterrence of their use needs to be part of Western strategy. The efficiency of our weapons arsenals must be
preserved. The program sketched here is not a program for unilateral disarmament. Both President Obama and
Senator McCain, while endorsing this approach, also made it clear, in President Obama's words, that the United
States cannot implement it alone.
The danger posed by nuclear weapons is unprecedented. They should not be integrated into strategy as simply
another, more efficient, explosive. We thus return to our original challenge. Our age has stolen fire from the gods;
can we confine it to peaceful purposes before it consumes us?
By Henry A. Kissinger
ARTICLE SUPPORTING NUCLEAR ENERGY
Accidents Happen, Futures Are Made
(IN FAVOR OF)
Lexile: 1230L
Publication: Vital Speeches of the Day (May, 2012)
Author: GORDON TOMB
RESPONSES TO FUKUSHIMA AND THREE MILE ISLAND
Delivered at International Atomic Energy Agency's National Seminar on Stakeholder Involvement, Tokyo, Japan,
March 7, 2012
I am honored to participate in such important work and to be with people committed to something as vital as their
country's energy supply.
Thirty years ago, I left my profession as a newspaper reporter to manage media relations at Three Mile Island
following the accident there. While at TMI I worked with Japanese scientists and engineers who had come to learn
about the cleanup at TMI. I was impressed by their eagerness to learn and the enthusiasm they brought to their jobs.
I thought often of those times as I watched the television coverage of the Fukushima meltdown. My heart ached for
the suffering of the Fukushima workers and of the Japanese people.
But as you in Japan had to do, the professionals in the U.S. nuclear industry quickly set aside their emotions as much
as possible and focused on responding to the disaster from their vantage point. For the U.S. industry, responding
mainly involved understanding the lessons of Fukushima.
Today, I will discuss first the U.S. response to the Fukushima accident and then some of the lessons from the 1979
accident at Three Mile Island.
One of the most common sayings in English is, "Accidents happen." It is a way of explaining any misfortune,
whether it is a child falling and bruising his knee or a loss-of-coolant event at a nuclear plant.
Traumatic events are inevitable in the human experience. The nuclear accidents in the U.S. and Japan, inevitable or
not, did in fact happen.
But it is up to us to learn from the past and transform the lessons--however harsh they may be--to opportunities for
our industries and our fellow men. Accidents happen, but people create futures.
With that in mind, let's review the U.S. industry's response to Fukushima.
The U.S. industry responded immediately to the Fukushima accident, setting in motion well-established mechanisms
for identifying and sharing lessons learned. In a matter of days, disciplined reviews of safety equipment and
procedures were under way at all U.S. nuclear energy facilities.
The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) required a series of plant assessments that included protection
from seismic and flooding hazards, protection from an extended loss of power to vital safety systems, and protection
of used fuel storage pools.
The independent U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) also initiated special inspections to verify that
nuclear energy facilities are well protected in the event of a natural disaster. The NRC ultimately confirmed that
there are no safety concerns requiring immediate action and made recommendations for longer term enhancements.
The industry is taking a strategic and comprehensive approach to addressing Fukushima under the guidance of
senior industry leaders.
The industry's strategic plan covers areas where a coordinated response to Fukushima is required to maintain and
improve safety at America's 104 reactors. Included in these activities is strategic communications outreach. This is
being done largely through communications personnel at the plants with their local citizens and media and through
the Nuclear Energy Institute on a national level.
The focus has been on how the U.S. industry is implementing the lessons of Fukushima to ensure the safety of its
plants.
The industry has developed a methodology that it believes will provide the maximum safety in the minimum amount
of time. This approach is called FLEX for short.
The basic objective of FLEX is to enhance a plant's ability to handle whatever nature has in store for it.
Our facilities are well protected against extreme natural phenomena--such as tornadoes and earthquakes--within the
design basis. Most of the risk comes from improbable events that are beyond the design parameters.
In summary, we are establishing an ability to cope indefinitely with threats to the integrity of the fuel core.
FLEX expands our existing layered approach to safety by adding portable equipment at pre-staged onsite and offsite
locations.
After the terrorists' attacks of 11 September, 2001, U.S. nuclear operators envisioned a scenario where the facility
suffered a large fire or explosion that disabled vital equipment. Since we couldn't predict exactly which equipment
would be affected, we focused on the equipment needed to keep the reactor cool if the usual safety systems were not
available.
At each site, we purchased portable equipment that could be stored away from the reactor and used to respond
regardless of the location of an explosion, aircraft impact or massive fire.
The scenario of an unexpected natural disaster is really no different, and the work we did after 9/11 gave us a 10year head start.
The lesson learned from Japan is that we need to be prepared to handle catastrophic events simultaneously at
multiple reactors.
We are planning to establish regional centers from which equipment and supplies could be airlifted to a site very
quickly.
As far as new regulatory requirements arising from Fukushima, the industry agrees with the NRC staff on key
technical areas.
An important consideration is balancing new requirements with other important work to achieve the greatest overall
benefit of safety.
In addition to addressing lessons from Fukushima, there is a significant amount of regulatory work under way, Early
this year, the NRC issued the amended design certification rule for the Westinghouse AP1000® reactor, clearing the
way for issuance of construction and operating licenses for four AP1000 reactors to be built at two sites in the
southeastern United States.
Tennessee Valley Authority has undertaken a $2.5 billion project to complete Watts Bar 2 and plans to have the
reactor operating by 2013.
License renewal continues to move forward. More than 70 of America's 104 reactors now have renewed their
operating licenses. The NRC issued 10 of these renewals in 2011--nine of them after the accident in Japan.
Renewal applications for another 15 reactors are currently under review.
Public favorability ratings of nuclear energy understandably declined after the accident in Japan, but we already are
seeing some recovery. Favorability decreased from 71 percent in February 2011 before Fukushima to 42 percent in
April following the March 11 accident. However, favorability had risen to 62 percent by the fall.
A September nationwide survey found the following:
* 82 percent agree that the United States should learn from Fukushima.
* 61 percent would find it acceptable to build a new reactor at the nuclear energy facility closest to their home.
The public's perceptions of nuclear safety are as high today as before the Fukushima accident.
67 percent rated nuclear safety HIGH in February 2011--and 67 percent also rated it HIGH in September.
A survey of residents who live within 10 miles of nuclear energy facilities--conducted since the accident in Japan-showed eight in 10 favor the use of nuclear energy.
Neighbors of nuclear energy facilities continue to express high favorability. In June 2011 a survey of residents
within 10 miles of a plant reported the following:
* 83 percent said they believe the nuclear power plant in their area is safe.
* 87 percent said nuclear energy is important (62 percent) or somewhat important (25 percent) in meeting America's
electricity needs.
Why does there continue to be support for nuclear power in the U.S. after the frightening images of Fukushima? The
person who conducted the research, Ann Bisconti, says the following:
"Support is grounded in excellent safety performance. Seventy-nine percent agree that the plant (in their community)
is prepared to withstand the most extreme natural events that could occur in the region."
Bisconti goes on to say, "Plant neighbors are comfortable also because they know people who work at the plant. In
fact, 61 percent indicated that people they know who work at the plant have been a useful source of information
about that plant.
"Many plants are located in areas where local residents enjoy fishing or boating. The residents see firsthand the
plant's activities for environmental preservation; 84 percent of plant neighbors agree that the company that operates
the plant is doing a good job of protecting the environment."
Since the accident at Fukushima, the industry has worked hard with the regulatory and policy communities, the
media, and the public to maintain strong confidence in nuclear energy.
We've been encouraged by the response to Fukushima.
We've seen a disciplined response from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and, the industry is in substantial
agreement on what needs to be done. The political response has been measured and responsible. Public opinion
dipped but is recovering. And the editorial pages have been largely supportive of the long-term need for nuclear
energy.
Now, I will speak to key communications lessons from TMI.
On 28 March 1979, a series of equipment malfunctions and operator errors led to a partial meltdown of the nuclear
fuel core at Three Mile Island Unit 2. Radiation releases from the plant, though relatively small, prompted a partial
evacuation of the area around the plant.
Although the physical damage at TMI was much less than at Fukushima, poor communications about the accident
and the resulting confusion led to widespread fear in the public and a loss of trust in the operator of the plant.
The mistrust complicated the cleanup work at TMI-2, which took 10 years to complete. And it delayed by more than
six years the resumption of operations at the neighboring plant, TMI-1, which had been shut down for refueling at
the time of the TMI-2 accident and was unaffected by the accident.
This lack of trust cost the company billions of dollars in direct expenses and additional costs in replacement power.
One of several investigations following the accident was done by a commission appointed by U.S. President Jimmy
Carter. Among the commission's findings were the following:
* Neither the company nor the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had plans for providing information to the
public and the media in the event of an accident.
* During the accident, "official sources of information were often confused or ignorant of the facts."
* The company was slow to confirm pessimistic news about the accident, contributing to the company's loss of
credibility.
Prior to the accident at TMI, the plant operator had little contact with members of the public, with elected officials
or with the media. That all changed in 1979.
The tsunami at Three Mile Island came in the form of an ongoing demand for information that inundated a corporate
management that was ill-prepared to handle it and unaccustomed to being challenged about its statements.
At a corporate level, the operator of Three Mile Island set up a nuclear organization dedicated to running nuclear
plants. Previously management's attention was divided among the responsibilities of nuclear power plants, fossilfuel plants and a large electricity distribution system.
In terms of developing a long-term communications response, the objective was to achieve high standards of
timeliness, accuracy and clarity.
To achieve these, we took a number of actions, including the following:
* Established a comprehensive communications plan and regularly practiced it
* Gave plant management complete control of communications
* Gave communications personnel direct access to the control room during emergencies
I was one of 40 people hired to conduct plant tours, meet with public officials, issue news releases, hold interviews
and news conferences and be available 24 hours a day.
Plant management was given complete authority to issue public statements and respond to inquiries as necessary.
This was essential to establishing a high level of credibility and a reputation for being quick to provide information
and being open about activities at the plant.
While we regularly shared information with regulators and other public officials, we conducted our communications
programs independently of them.
If there is any single thing that we found to be most important to establishing and maintaining trust, it was
communicating quickly and accurately during emergencies--even small ones. This requires the right personnel and
rigorous training.
Shortly after the TMI accident, we established a Community Awareness Panel, which exists to this day. The panel is
made up of citizens who live near the plant. It meets several times a year, exchanging information, ideas and
opinions with plant personnel. The plant uses the panel to help inform the public of activities at the plant and to
enhance management's understanding of public concerns.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission formed a Citizens Advisory Panel on the Decontamination of TMI-2. For
about 10 years, the panel held public meetings to review the company's plans for the cleanup of the damaged
reactor. Other agencies such as the U.S. Department of Energy participated in these meeting to provide their
perspective.
The plant communicates regularly with employees and at various times has published newsletters directed at specific
opinion leaders such as medical professionals.
The immediate communications response to the TMI accident failed. However, the longer-term communications
program was instrumental to TMI-2's successful cleanup and TMI-1's return to service and world class operations.
In closing, I want to look to the future:
The U.S. electricity infrastructure is aging. Over the next 20 years, the industry must invest up to $2 trillion in new
power plants, transmission and distribution infrastructure, and environmental controls. The amount that must be
invested exceeds the asset value of the entire electric transmission system today.
Growth in nuclear energy in the United States will be modest in the near term, with four to eight new reactors
operating by 2020. Yet many believe that there is no long-term alternative to a robust nuclear power industry.
Indeed, author Robert Bryce, in his book "Power Hungry", identifies natural gas as merely a transition fuel to the
inevitable development of a worldwide nuclear economy.
In the meantime, it is up to people like us to see that the nuclear technology is understood by the public--and as safe
as possible--no matter what unexpected threats strike.
I believe what we are learning together here will advance that cause.
And it is up to you, my new Japanese friends, to create a future for your industry and your fellow men.
Address by GORDON TOMB, energy affairs communications professional
America's Last Nuclear Hope
(IN FAVOR OF)
Lexile: 1320L
Publication: American Spectator (March, 2011)
Author: Tucker, William
Small reactors may save us yet.
GRIZ DEAL HAD BEEN Entrepreneur in Residence at the Los Alamos Laboratory for only six months when he
saw something he liked.
"I had been thinking in terms of taking some technology for sterilizing food with radiation," he says, sitting in his
corporate offices in New Mexico. "There seemed to be a niche market in that. Then I went into John Peterson's
office and saw a reactor he had designed that was about the size of two hot tubs. He said he thought they might be
able to use it in the tar sand fields of Canada. I knew immediately it could have wider application. It was so obvious
it seemed amazing no one had ever thought of it before."
Six weeks later, Hyperion Power Systems was incorporated and Deal was out marketing the 125-megawatt reactor,
big enough to power a town of about 20,000 people. At first customers hesitated because there seemed no chance
that Hyperion would ever get the design through the glacially slow licensing procedures at the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, the Washington bureaucracy that controls all things nuclear in the United States. But in August
Hyperion signed a memorandum of understanding to build a prototype of the Hyperion at the Savannah River Site, a
weapons-producing installation in South Carolina that lies outside the NRC's jurisdiction. Then, in November,
Hyperion entered an agreement with several European countries to start exploring the possibility of powering
oceangoing oil tankers and transport carriers with nuclear engines. Contrary to all expectations, it appears that
American companies may be able to participate in the nuclear renaissance that is sweeping the rest of the globe after
all.
That America is going to miss the revival of nuclear power that is reaching into the remotest corners of the globe is
now almost a foregone conclusion. While the rest of the world is discovering what will undoubtedly be the principal
source of power by the end of the 21st century, Americans are preoccupied with how many picocuries of tritium are
leaking out of Vermont Yankee or whether we'll ever get around to deciding what to do with Yucca Mountain.
There are 60 new reactors under construction around the world in countries as diverse as Brazil, Argentina,
Lithuania, India, and Sri Lanka. Twenty are being built in China alone. Kenya, Indonesia, Morocco, Bangladesh -all have entered into agreements with one provider nation or another to begin plans on their own nuclear program.
Thirty years ago, the big three American companies -- General Electric, Westinghouse, and Babcock & Wilcox -dominated the international market, building reactors in Europe and Asia. Today the field is completely dominated
by foreign giants. Areva, 80 percent owned by the French government, is building in China, India, and Finland.
Westinghouse, bought by Toshiba in 2008, has projects all around the globe. General Electric, still in the field but
running in last place, recently partnered with Hitachi in the hope of reviving its fortunes. Russia's Rosatom has deals
with Vietnam, India, Egypt, Brazil, and Venezuela. The biggest shock came when the United Arab Emirates put out
bids to build four reactors in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Areva and Westinghouse figured to be the contenders but
both were upended by Korea, which only started building its own reactors five years ago. The Koreans won a $20
billion contract in late 2009, the largest international construction job in history. Yet all this will change once again
when China enters the international market with its own design (reverse-engineered from Westinghouse) somewhere
around 2013. France, which prides itself on being 80 percent nuclear, is already fearful that it will be closed out of
the market by the rising Asian competition.
So how can America possibly fit into the highly competitive race to provide what is surely going to be the dominant
energy source of the 21st century? Believe it or not, we still have a chance -- with small reactors.
LAST MARCH, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in which he praised small modular reactors (SMRs) as
"America's New Nuclear Option," Secretary of Energy Steven Chu acknowledged that America is in danger of
falling behind other countries. "Our choice is clear," he wrote. "Develop these technologies today or import them
tomorrow." In fact, America is the only major nuclear country that does not even have the capacity to forge the
three-story steel vessel heads at the heart of large reactors and will have to import them as well. But Chu saw an
opportunity in the new small designs. "If we can develop this technology in the U.S. and build these reactors with
American workers, we will have a key competitive edge."
Bite-sized reactors offer a whole spectrum of advantages. First, in terms of safety, they are much easier to handle.
Temperatures do not reach the same level so there is minimal chance of overheating. Huge containment structures
do not have to be built -- and in fact some are being designed with a built-in containment. Modular reactors can
actually be buried, which more or less eliminates the possibility that even the worst-case accident could have any
serious widespread consequences.
Modular units can be built at the factory and then shipped to the site by rail for final assembly -- a huge cost saving.
Moreover, they can be added in small increments. One of the great disadvantages of contemporary 1,700-megawatt
reactors is that they represent a colossal investment -- upwards of $10 billion -- and may take the better part of a
decade to complete. For a country like the United Arab Emirates building its first reactor, this makes sense. But
American utilities are facing an uncertain future and are incurring almost unacceptable risks by undertaking such
long-term projects. Reactors in the 50-to-150-megawatt range will allow utilities to add power as needed at
acceptable costs.
Finally, the construction of modular reactors presents the possibility that smaller nuclear "batteries" can be
distributed across the electric grid, tucked into factories and urban locations, so that transmission costs can be
minimized and efficient co-generation uses designed. One of the main criticisms of power plants in general is that
they convert only about one-third of the energy input into useful electricity. The process of boiling steam to turn an
electric turbine means that two-thirds of the energy escapes as waste heat. If the steam can be captured and routed to
heating or industrial purposes, however, energy use can become almost twice as efficient. This is difficult when the
power plant is located on an isolated compound miles from the nearest city. But if people can overcome their fears
and tolerate small reactors in their neighborhood, the possibilities become enormous. "Everybody talks about
electricity but we're an enormous consumer of industrial steam," says Doug May, vice president for energy at Dow
Chemical. "We see small reactors as a game changer."
Finally, there is the possibility that nuclear "batteries" can bring power to remote locations that are difficult or
impossible to serve by other means. Because of the extraordinary fuel density of uranium -- approximately 2,000
times the output per pound as coal -- small modular reactors can essentially be stocked with fuel rods and then run
without interruption for five years. This would be invaluable in the tar sands of Saskatchewan, where huge amounts
of natural gas are now being consumed in order to distill the heavy hydrocarbons into usable fractions. Several
remote villages in Alaska are being courted by SMR manufacturers. A reactor buried in the basement of a single
building could power a town of 20,000 without ever being noticed.
A HOST OF COMPANIES have already jumped into the field with innovative ideas. NuStart, a company founded
by Paul Lorenzini, a former Los Alamos scientist, has a 150-MW reactor designed to fit into utility sites. It runs for
five years and then the manufacturer hauls it away for refueling. Lorenzini places the costs at $700 million -chicken feed for electric utilities.
Babcock & Wilcox, which has not built a reactor since the ill-fated Three Mile Island, has introduced mPower, a
175-MW reactor that is cooled by air and can be located anywhere. The company hopes to have a completed design
by 2011 and is making plans to build an experimental model with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Radix, a small Long Island start-up, has a design for a reactor of only 5 megawatts that is intended to run forward
base operations for the U.S. Army. "We looked at the requirements and realized that nothing else works nearly as
well," says Dr. Paul Farrell, a nuclear scientist who founded the company. "Anything involving liquid fuels involves
a whole vulnerable supply chain and renewables like solar and wind just don't provide enough power. But our
reactor can fit on a truck and support an encampment of 100 people."
In fact, the whole idea of using small reactors has been accepted by the military for decades. Nuclear submarines are
powered by 50-MW reactors that sit a few feet away from crewmembers and run for five years without refueling.
Admiral Hyman Rickover operated the Nuclear Navy on impeccable standards and there has never been an accident
or a life lost due to radiation exposure. Since the 1990s, nuclear reactors now power aircraft carriers as well. The
reactors aboard Nimitz class carriers are slightly bigger -- 194 megawatts -- and supply electricity for what amounts
to a small floating city of 2,000 people. Again, there has never been an accident.
So why isn't there more coordination between the civilian and military efforts? In fact there is some. The first
commercial reactor built at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, in 1957 was actually a submarine reactor "beached" by
Admiral Rickover's Navy. Since then hundreds of nuclear technicians trained in the Navy have gone on to find jobs
in the nuclear industry. One reason most new reactors are now being planned in the South is the large presence of
Navy veterans. But beyond that, the Navy's long experience with nuclear does not seem to build anyone's confidence
that the technology can be handled in the civilian field.
Instead, the great impediment to all this is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the gargantuan Washington
bureaucracy that regularly wins awards as the "best place to work in the federal government" yet seems unable to
deliver on its main purpose, which is to issue licenses for nuclear reactors. The NRC last issued a license for a
nuclear reactor in 1976. No one knows if it will ever issue one again. One utility, Southern Electric, has received
permission to begin site clearance at the Vogtle plants 3 and 4 in Georgia. But the Vogtle plants will be
Westinghouse AP1000s, a model for which the NRC has not yet issued design approval, let alone permission to
build particular projects. Four AP1000s are already well under construction in China, with the first scheduled to
begin operation in 2013. Yet here the NRC is still trying to figure out how to protect the reactor from airplanes.
Even though the containment structure is strong enough to withstand a direct hit from a commercial jet, the NRC
asked Westinghouse to put up a concrete shield to protect adjacent buildings. Then after Westinghouse had
completed the revision, the NRC decided the shield might fall down in an earthquake. Further revisions are still
pending.
When Hyperion first approached the NRC about design approval for its small modular reactor in 2006, the NRC
essentially told it to go away -- it didn't have time for such small potatoes. Since then the NRC has relented and sat
down for discussions with Hyperion last fall. Whether the approval process can be accelerated is still up for grabs,
but at least there has been a response from the bureaucracy.
OF COURSE, the NRC is only responding to the lamentations and lawsuits from environmentalists and nuclear
opponents who have never reconciled themselves to the technology, even though nuclear's carbon-free electricity is
the only reliable source of power that promises to reduce carbon emissions. If a new reactor project does ever make
it out of the NRC, it will be contested in court for years, with environmental groups challenging the dotting of every
i and crossing of every t in the decision-making. It will be a miracle if any proposal ever makes it through the
process.
However, we should not imagine the rest of the world is standing still waiting for America to come up with the latest
innovation. Japan, Korea, and Russia already have small reactors and France is preparing to enter the field. Toshiba
has a 75-MW reactor it has been offering to the Alaskan village of Galena, which now generates its electricity by
importing vast quantities of diesel fuel. The Russians have already built a 125-MW reactor and mounted it on a
barge to float to an isolated Siberian village. Last year Rosatom started offering its small reactor to India. Korea is
working on an SMR and France recently decided it was relying too heavily on its giant EPR1700 and will try to
design a small reactor as well. If China ever enters the game -- which is likely by mid-decade -- it may be over for
the competition. Areva's CEO Anne Lauvergeon recently expressed alarm at how quickly and efficiently China is
constructing Areva's own reactors -- much faster and cheaper than the French are able to do it themselves.
So even though American ingenuity and inventiveness are still operating, there is no certainty that it will bring us
any benefit. We have developed a bureaucracy that would make the Byzantine Empire envious. Most helpful,
though, would be widespread public recognition that nuclear energy is not the devil's work but simply the practical
fruition of the great scientific discoveries of the 20th century. Just as we led the world into the Computer Revolution
-- and just about every other technological revolution since the 18th century -- America could still lead the world
into the Nuclear Age. But it is going to be a much closer call this time.
By William Tucker
Time to Choose.
(IN FAVOR OF / GENERAL INFORMATION)
Lexile: 1260L
Publication: Time (4/29/1991)
Author: Greenwald, J. & Cramer, J.
As energy needs rocket, America must face down old demons and decide on a role for nuclear power. Surprise: it's
gaining new respect.
Nuclear power. The words conjure first the hellish explosion at Chernobyl that spewed a radioactive cloud across
the Ukraine and Europe five years ago this week, poisoning crops, spawning bizarre mutant livestock, killing dozens
of people and exposing millions more to dangerous fallout. Then the words summon up Three Mile Island (shown
here) and the threat of a meltdown that spread panic across Pennsylvania's rolling countryside seven years earlier.
From these grew the alarming television programs, the doomsday books, the terrifying movies, even the jokes
(What's served on rice and glows in the dark? Chicken Kiev). Could any technology survive all that? It seemed this
one couldn't. U.S. utilities ordered their last nuclear plant in 1978--and eventually canceled all orders placed after
1973. Nuclear power looked as good as dead.
Yet it lives. More than that, it is reasserting itself with great force. A survey of high-level policy leaders and futurists
by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, released this month, shows a sudden upsurge in support for nuclear power
following a decade of rejection. As the world worries about global warming and acid rain, even some
environmentalists are looking a bit more kindly on the largest power source that doesn't worsen either problem:
nuclear. New reactor designs would make accidents like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island impossible, or so the
engineers say, and while much of the public is skeptical, some scientists are persuaded.
The sometimes theoretical debate is becoming intensely practical. As summer approaches and electric companies
around the U.S. warn of periodic brownouts, people wonder, Where will we get more juice?
Nuclear power has a long way to go before it becomes the answer to that question. The public is afraid of it. Wall
Street doesn't even want to hear about it. Most environmental groups are still virulently antinuclear. Yet here, there,
in more places every day, support is building. The National Academy of Sciences called this month for the swift
development of new generation of nuclear plants to help fight the greenhouse effect. The new atomic plants already
on the drawing board (see box) would replace power stations that burn coal and oil, fossil fuels that belch heattrapping carbon dioxide--the primary greenhouse gas--into the atmosphere.
Many scientists applauded the findings of the independent academy, which conducted a 15-month federally funded
study of the greenhouse problem. Says Ratib Karam, director of the Neely Nuclear Research Center at Georgia
Tech: "Nuclear energy is now the only major source of power that does not produce CO2. In terms of global society,
nuclear power plants are essential."
Even before the academy released its report, George Bush put forth an energy plan in February that proposed greatly
speeding up the procedure for licensing the new generation of nuclear plants. That is critical: public challenges to
plant construction have stretched out licensing to as much as 21) years and raised building costs to such intolerable
levels that many utilities have been forced to abandon plants before they ever opened.
To speed the process further, the Administration wants Westinghouse, General Electric and other suppliers of
nuclear plants to build them to a standard design that would be relatively simple to repair and 'maintain. France,
which generates 75% of its electricity from the atom--more than any other nation--has used a standard reactor since
the mid-1970s, enabling any nuclear engineer or plant operator it) work on 52 of the country's 55 plants at a
moment's notice. By contrast, each of the 112 U.S. nuclear plants, which produce 21% of the nation's electricity, was
custom built at its site. So when something goes wrong, a specialist has to fix it, causing delays that tend to make
U.S. plant shutdowns longer than in France.
The new push for atomic power gained impetus from the gulf war. which focused attention on America's appetite for
Middle East oil. Nuclear advocates have long argued that atomic plants could help wean the U.S. from risky reliance
on energy from one of the world's most volatile regions. The effect would be small. Most utilities have already
phased out their oil-fired plants, which generate just 6% of U.S. electricity and represent about 3% of the country's
overall use of oil. But nuclear proponents insist that new atomic plants would further reduce America's dependence
on foreign oil, enhancing U.S. energy security while reducing polluting emissions of CO2.
The threat of climatological change could lead to a rapprochement between the nuclear power industry and U.S.
environmentalists. long bitter foes. As they prepared to celebrate the 21st anniversary of Earth Day this week.
leading environmentalists had the specter of global warming much on their mind. "Nuclear has a proven track record
of producing large amounts of energy," says Douglas Bohi. director of energy at Resources for the Future, a
Washington-based research group. "But the industry has to convince the public that the new technology will be safe
and pose fewer problems."
Nearly everyone agrees that this challenge will be key. It will surely be one of the most daunting public relations
assignments of the century. After nearly 40 years of living with the so-called peaceful atom--once expected to make
electricity "too cheap to meter"--Americans remain deeply ambivalent about nuclear power. A TIME/CNN poll
conducted this month by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman found that 32% of the 1,000 adults surveyed strongly
opposed building more nuclear plants in the U.S. vs. just 18% strongly in favor. So do Americans hate nukes? Not
necessarily. When asked which energy source the U.S. should rely on most to meet its increased energy needs in the
next decade, a surprising 40% of respondents picked nuclear power, far surpassing the 25% who chose oil and the
22% who named coal.
The apparent contradiction results from the old not-in-my-backyard syndrome. Many people want nuclear power as
long as it's generated elsewhere. Fully 60% of respondents said a new nuclear plant in their community would be
unacceptable, rs. 34% who said it would be acceptable. Coal got a warmer reception. Only 41% considered a new
coal plant in their community unacceptable, while 51% said it would be acceptable.
Such tangled feelings about the risks and rewards of nuclear power fit a worldwide pattern. In March the
governments of Britain, France, Germany and Belgium--Europe's largest users of nuclear energy--jointly reaffirmed
their commitment to the atom and pledged to cooperate in the development of new reactors. Yet while the statement
recognized "the environmental benefits" of nuclear power and noted that it provides "one appropriate response to the
challenges now confronting the entire planet," the signers warned that future development of atomic energy "must
take place in conditions of optimum safety, ensuring the best possible protection both for populations and for the
environment."
Safety is a vital global issue. A nuclear power accident anywhere stirs public fears about nuclear plants everywhere.
Executives of U.S. utilities shuddered in February when the failure of a valve caused the worst mishap in the 20-year
history of Japan's atomic power industry, crippling a plant in the town of Mihama, about 200 miles west of Tokyo.
"When the skill and discipline of the Japanese falter," says Lawrence Lidsky, an M.I.T nuclear engineer, "that means
anyone can screw up."
The strongest motive for a U.S. nuclear renaissance is America's galloping demand for electricity. The Department
of Energy says the country will have to raise its present generating capacity of 700 giga-watts-or 700 billion watts-another 250 gigawatts by 2010. That is the equivalent of 250 large coal or nuclear power stations. The need will
grow more acute as existing nuclear plants, which were designed to last 40 years, are dismantled and buried. By
2030, DOE says, the U.S. will need 1,250 more gigawatts of generating capacity than it has now.
The hottest argument in energy circles focuses on the right mix of fuels and conservation methods to satisfy this
proliferating need for plug-in power. The issue is not whether the U.S. has enough coal. Even if the nation chose to
meet all its staggering demand with its most popular fuel for generating electricity, coal, its reserves would last
many decades. The question is whether America wants to bear the costs and effects of burning all that coal or would
prefer the costs and effects of splitting some atoms instead.
Or perhaps it would rather do something else entirely. Environmentalists call for harnessing such renewable
resources as wind and solar power and retrofitting homes and offices to use electricity more efficiently. The only
trouble is that, according to the National Academy of Sciences report, "alternative energy technologies are unable
currently or in the near future to replace fossil fuels as the major electricity source for this country. If fossil fuels had
to be replaced now as the primary source of electricity, nuclear power appears to be the most technically feasible
alternative."
That endorsement marks one of the few recent positive developments for an industry that has been mired in misery
for more than two decades. Faced with an endless round of challenges, U.S. utilities have walked away from 120
nuclear plants since 1974--more than all the plants now in operation. In New York State, the Long Island Lighting
Co. gave up on its completed $5.5 billion Shoreham nuclear facility in 1989 after local authorities refused to
approve the firm's plans for an evacuation route for nearby residents in the event of a serious accident. The state now
plans to buy the plant for a token $1--and to spend about $186 million to dismantle it.
Such fiascoes have for years discouraged virtually every U.S. utility from even looking sideways at nuclear power.
"We have no plans to build a nuclear plant," says Pain Chapman, a spokeswoman for Indiana's PSI Energy. The
troubled company is still reeling from the financial crisis that sandbagged it in 1984, when it wrote off $2.7 billion
in construction costs for a half-built reactor. Concurs Gary Neale, president of nearby Northern Indiana Public
Service Co., which scrubbed a barely started nuclear plant in 1981: "We're not antinuclear, but given the size of our
company, I just don't think it ever would be practical for us."
Nor is nuclear power currently practical for any other firms in America, Wall Street experts argue. "The first utility
that announces plans to build a new nuclear reactor will see its stock dumped," warns Leonard Hyman, who watches
electric companies for Merrill Lynch. Hyman estimates that abandoned U.S. nuclear projects have generated some
$10 billion of losses for the utilities' stockholders. "Investors are not quite ready to warm up to nuclear power just
yet," says Hyman. "They're still recovering from their first chilling experience--and it was very chilling." He adds,
"There is no demand for new plants, because no one wants to spend the next 10 years in court or being picketed."
All that resistance stems from fear, and the overriding fear these days is of nuclear waste. Says I.C. Bupp, managing
director of the Massachusetts-based Cambridge Energy Research Associates and a longtime student of nuclear
energy: "There will be no nuclear renaissance until a waste-disposal program exists that passes some common-sense
test of public credibility and acceptability."
The public's dread centers on the radioactive elements that remain in spent fuel rods after atomic reactions. While
such highly toxic fission products as strontium 90 and cesium 137 have half-lives of only about 30 years, other
intensely radioactive substances like plutonium will endure for tens and even hundreds of millenniums, and are
piling up fast. High-level waste--that which is most radioactive--from U.S. power plants is not voluminous. More
than 30 years' worth totals 17,000 tons, a thimbleful compared with the slag that would result from generating
equivalent power by burning coal. Yet this waste threatens to fill all available storage space at generating facilities,
and the U.S. has made little headway in developing a safe final resting place for more of it.
Congress three years ago selected Yucca Mountain in a remote part of southwest Nevada as the site for a permanent
underground repository. The state has fought the plan in a series of court battles that have helped delay the
scheduled opening of the site to 2010. The DOE is meanwhile compiling a library of 10 million computerized
documents that will attempt to analyze every aspect of the site to be sure it can safely hold the waste.
In light of all the turmoil, most people might be surprised to learn that a number of scientists say the waste problem
can be solved with little fuss. The spent fuel rods can be buried in steel canisters thousands of feet below the surface,
and experts can predict with a high degree of probability that a site will remain stable for hundreds or thousands of
years. But as the public perceives nuclear waste, that's just not good enough. While the risks of so-called deep
geologic disposal appear no greater than many others that Americans accept every day--crossing the street, driving a
car--no scientist can guarantee that a disposal site will remain unchanged for tens of thousands of years or that
groundwater may not seep into the containers at some point during the eons that the waste will remain radioactively
hot. As long as the American public demands ironclad assurance that the waste cannot ever escape its containers,
people's fears can never be entirely soothed.
In France, where the state runs the nuclear plants, the public seems less fearful of nuclear waste. The French convert
their high-level waste into a stable, glassy substance and store it in concrete bunkers at plant sites white experts
study where to dispose of it permanently sometime early next century. "The most important thing to remember is
that we have time to make a proper decision," says Bernard Tinturier, director of strategic planning for the
government's Commissariat for Nuclear Energy. French scientists are considering four locations around the country,
including clay deposits about 120 miles north of Paris and a .shale site near the Loire valley. If the French seem
calmly deliberate about the issue of nuclear waste, that may be because they view atomic power as a necessity rather
than an option. With virtually no oil and little coal or natural gas, France has decided to rely on its rich uranium
deposits as the primary source of fuel for its power plants. The country is pressing ahead with plans to construct
seven new nuclear plants by the end of the decade.
With new nukes out of the picture in the U.S., utilities have been scrambling to find other sources of the electricity
they meed to prevent summer brownouts and blackouts that hit when demand for air conditioning peaks. To handle
the load, utilities have quietly placed orders in recent years 'for enough gas-fired generators to produce 30,000
megawatts of electricity--equivalent to 30 large nuclear plants. But gas has drawbacks as a long-term alternative to
nuclear energy. Though far cleaner burning than coal, it is still a fossil fuel that emits at least some CO2. Reliance
on natural gas would require augmenting pipelines that link the energy-rich U.S. Southwest to the populous North
and Northeast, an expensive undertaking with its own environmental hazards.
So utilities are turning with increasing vigor to other nonnuclear energy sources. California's giant Pacific Gas &
Electric gets a substantial 14% of its generating capacity from renewable energy sources such as the sun and wind.
Its neighbor, Southern California Edison, joined forces this month with Texas Instruments in a six-year, $10 million
project that will use low-grade silicon instead of more expensive higher grades to make photovoltaic cells that
convert sunlight into electricity: Says Robert Dietch, a Southern Cal Edison vice president: "This has the potential to
be the type of breakthrough technology we've all been looking for in the solar industry."
An alternative energy source that will not become practical for a long time, if itever does, is nuclear fusion, which
can use ordinary water as fuel. The difficulty is that fusion requires temperatures as high as hundreds of millions of
degrees Celsius, and scientists have been unable to develop reactors that can handle that. Reports that some
researchers achieved "cold fusion" at room temperature now produce more chuckles than heat.
The most productive nonnuclear, nonfossil power source in the long run may be not some new way of generating
more electricity but new ways of using less. Instead of spending money to build plants, utilities sometimes find it
more economical to offer customers financial incentives to use power more efficiently. In New York City, for
example, Consolidated Edison spent more than $8 million in January and February on rebates to customers who
traded in their energy-hogging air conditioners and lighting fixtures for efficient new models. Notes John Dillon, a
Con Ed assistant vice president: "The cleanest megawatt is the megawatt not consumed."
Most environmentalists emphatically endorse conservation as a superior alternative to nukes. "Over the past decade,
the U.S. has gotten seven times as much new energy from savings as from all the net increases of energy supply,"
asserts Amory Lovins, director of research at Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colo. "Efficiency is a clear
winner in the market, leaving everything else in the dust." Declares Lester Brown, president of the Washingtonbased Worldwatch Institute: "We as a nation should be hell-bent for efficiency. The exciting thing about
conservation is, we have a huge potential for savings with already existing technology."
Other experts argue that the U.S. will profit from both conservation and nuclear power. "Conservation has
tremendous potential," says Cambridge Energy's Bupp. "We have every reason to applaud the effort. But it will take
time and good management to get the full results." Meanwhile, he says, the nuclear power industry has "invested $1
trillion over the past 30 years making plants simpler, cheaper and safer. Nuclear power should continue to provide
about 20% of U.S. electric generation over the next century because it does work."
That moderate proposal seems sensible, but it won't be easy to realize. No matter how much scientific support the
stricken industry receives, it hasn't a hope of getting back on its feet without lots of help from Washington, and for
the moment that looks uncertain.
Utility executives must be persuaded that ordering nuclear plants again can make economic, environmental and
practical sense. The first challenge, already addressed in the Administration's recent proposal, will be to streamline
the licensing process, which now requires a set of public hearings before a plant can be built and another before it
can start operating. In the case of New Hampshire's $6 billion Seabrook nuclear power station, the second round of
hearings kept the completed plant idle for three years, costing its owner, Public Service Co. of New Hampshire, an
extra $1 billion in interest and other expenses before the facility finally opened in 1990. To prevent such costly
delays, the White House wants to accelerate licensing by compressing the two sets of hearings into one while still
allowing for public comment before a plant starts up.
But that proposal seems sure to set off a furious battle in Congress that will test the depth of George Bush's
commitment to nuclear power. "Congress is risk averse," says a House staff member. "The public doesn't like
nuclear energy, and it doesn't want the right of a public hearing taken away." A careful reader of the public mood,
Bush has so far shown little willingness to put up much of a fight for his program. Even chief of staff John Sununu,
a former engineer who pushed hard for Seabrook when he was New Hampshire's Governor, has shown at least as
much interest in blocking opponents of nuclear power from key jobs in the Administration as in promoting nuclear
energy.
While the White House has dithered, the DOE has invested more than $160 million in recent years to help develop a
new generation of advanced reactors with standardized designs. Participants in the program include GE and
Westinghouse, which have put up a total of $70 million. Washington wants four designs ready for utilities to choose
from by 1995. "The key is getting the first one built," says William Young, an assistant DOE secretary for nuclear
energy. That would "let the public know what it can expect."
But the question remains: Who would buy such a plant? Wall Street experts say the most likely customers could be
consortiums rather than individual firms. "The next generation of nuclear reactors will be partly owned by
manufacturers as well as by utilities," says Barry Abramson of Prudential Securities. "Utilities want to spread the
risks around this time." That seems to be happening already. Without much fanfare, for example, Westinghouse and
Bechtel, a San Francisco-based engineering firm, have formed a joint venture with the Michigan utility Consumers
Power to purchase and operate nuclear plants.
The federally 'run Tennessee Valley Authority could be another deep-pocketed customer for the first new reactor.
TVA chairman Marvin Runyon. says he may order a nuclear plant by the end of the decade. TVA also plans to
restart one of three nuclear reactors at its Browns Ferry plant, near Athens, Ala., this summer. The facility had a
serious fire in the mid-1970s and shut down in 1985 to correct safety problems. Runyon likes atomic energy because
it is clean, but he lists four conditions that must be met if nukes are to regain the public's trust: "One-step licensing,
standardized designs, a nuclear-waste-disposal program and a bold spirit of confidence."
That will be a tall order for a frac-tious industry that seems to have a knack for making things difficult for itself.
Case in point: while some congressional law-makers want to sponsor a demonstration project that would showcase
new nuclear technologies and help streamline licensing procedures, squabbling manufactur-ers have been resisting
the idea. Companies that have developed new technologies argue that they don't need the project to prove that their
designs are efficient and safe. Firms whose plans are still on the drawing board are worried that the project would
leave them out in the cold.
The bickering has left legislators shaking their heads. Bennett Johnston, a Louisiana Democrat who chairs the
Senate Energy Committee, says he may drop a provision to fund demonstration projects from a bill be has cosponsored to speed up the licensing of nuclear plants. Sighs a frustrated Senate staff member: "This is a hard
industry to help."
It certainly is. Of all the genies unleashed by modern science, none has inspired more anxiety than the power of the
atom. As if that were not disquieting enough, the industry has long been plagued by what Victor Gilinsky, an
outspoken former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has called "too many deep-dish thinkers," who
believed the future belonged to nuclear power and often overstated its potential. "It became a way of life instead of
just a practical way of generating electricity," Gilinsky says. "The whole thing just became too ponderous, instead of
practical and sensible."
Now the U.S. must decide just how practical and sensible nuclear power--and other sources of energy--really are.
Nukes worry the public far more than they worry scientists who have studied their technology, yet the decision must
be a matter of public will. Would Americans rather run the risk of a worldwide rise in temperatures or take the
chance that steel canisters filled with high-level radio-active waste might someday leak? Or would they prefer to
minimize both risks in favor of heavy reliance on efficiency and alternative energy--and then not be sure the lights
will come on when they flick a switch?
The choice should not seem anguished. After all, it's about how to improve the lives of a growing number of people
in an expanding economy. But following any course will require years of commitment--and as projections of
electricity demand soar, there is no time to lose.
Why environmentalists should promote nuclear energy.
(IN FAVOR OF)
Lexile: 1320L
Publication: Issues in Science & Technology (Summer, 1996)
Author: Wolfe, Bertram
It may be the only viable energy option that can prevent economic stagnation energy conflicts, and environmental
degradation.
Third World population growth and economic development are setting the stage for an energy crisis in the next
century. By mid-century the Third World population will double from 4 billion to 8 billion people, while the
population of the industrial world will grow by about 20 percent to 1.2 billion. Impoverished Third World people
today use less than one-tenth as much energy per capita as do U.S. citizens. Unless we expect to see the majority of
the world's people living indefinitely in dire poverty, we should be prepared for per capita energy use to rise rapidly
with economic progress. Even if Third World per capita energy use rises to only one-third of the U.S. level, that
increase in combination with expected population growth will result in a threefold increase in world energy use by
2050.
If fossil fuels are used to supply this increased energy need, we can expect serious deterioration of air quality and
possible environmental disaster from global climate change due to the greenhouse effect. In addition, increased
demand for fossil fuels combined with dwindling supplies will lead to higher prices, slowed economic growth, and
the likelihood of energy-related global conflicts. Does anyone doubt that Kuwait's oil resources were a major factor
in U.S. willingness to take military action against Iraq? Increased competition for fossil fuels will only exacerbate
tensions.
Alternatives to this scenario are few. Perhaps future world energy use can be stabilized at a level much less than a
third of present U.S. per capita use. (of course, the demand could be much higher.) Perhaps solar or wind power will
become practical on a large scale. Perhaps fusion, or even cold fusion, will be developed. Perhaps some new, clean,
plentiful energy source will emerge. We can all hope for an easy answer to our energy needs, but it is irresponsible
to base our future on such hopes.
But if we limit our planning to proven and reliable energy technologies with adequate fuel supplies and low
environmental risks that we know can meet the world's energy needs in the 21st century, we must focus on nuclear
power. However, even conventional nuclear power plants will face fuel supply problems in the next century if their
use expands significantly. Fortunately, we also have experience with nuclear breeder reactors, such as the Advanced
Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR), that can produce more than a hundred times as much energy per pound of uranium
as do conventional reactors.
The United States has been a leader in the development of nuclear power technology and the adoption of stringent
safety standards. Not a single member of the public has been harmed by the operation of any of the world's nuclear
plants that meet U.S. standards. (The Chernobyl reactor, which lacked a containment structure, did not meet U.S.
standards.) The United States has also been successful in using its peaceful nuclear power leadership to limit the
worldwide spread of nuclear weapons.
But the future of nuclear energy in the United States is now in question. Since 1973, all new nuclear energy plant
orders have subsequently been canceled. In 1993, U.S. utilities shut down three nuclear energy plants rather than
invest in needed repairs. of the l 10 presently operating U.S. nuclear energy plants, 45 will reach the end of their
planned 40-year lifetime in the next two decades, and there are no plans for replacing them with new nuclear energy
plants. Indeed, the utility industry seems to have no interest in even thinking about building new nuclear power
plants. Not a single U.S. utility responded to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) request to test a proposed
new procedure for early approval of a new nuclear energy plant site even though no commitment for actual site use
was required. And the Clinton administration has canceled support for advanced nuclear energy development
programs, including the ALMR program.
This is the wrong time for the nation or the world to ignore nuclear power. Demand for energy will grow, and our
options are limited. Ironically, environmentalists, who have opposed nuclear power since the 1970s should have the
strongest rationale for promoting nuclear energy. Like almost all large endeavors, nuclear power has its problems
and its risks. But the problems of nuclear power do not look so bad when compared with the air pollution, global
warming, and the supply limitations associated with fossil fuels. Besides, the major drawbacks of nuclear power-from cost to waste disposal--are due more to institutional impediments than to technological difficulties.
Considering the growth in energy demand and the risks associated with other energy sources, the benefit-risk ratio
for nuclear power is very attractive. Indeed, the welfare of our future generations and the environment may depend
on maintaining the viability of nuclear power.
Peaceful nuclear power began in 1954 with President Eisenhower's "Atoms For Peace" program. A major goal was
to inhibit the spread of nuclear weapons by trading peaceful nuclear power knowledge and technology for
agreements to refrain from nuclear weapons development. During this period it was estimated that some 20 nations
had initiated nuclear programs, and President Eisenhower's concern was that the "knowledge possessed by several
nations will eventually be shared by others--possibly all others." In view of the lack of weapons use and the small
number of nations with nuclear weapons today, one can characterize the Atoms for Peace program as a major
success. of course, our experience with Iraq, North Korea, and South Africa makes it clear that diligence must be
maintained.
Peaceful nuclear power development started slowly in the late 1950s with initial demonstration plants, but by the
mid- to late-1960s commercial nuclear power plant orders began to take off, and by the early 1970s some 30 to 40
nuclear energy plants were being ordered each year. It was projected that the United States would have more than a
thousand nuclear energy plants in operation by the end of the century.
This bullish outlook resulted from several factors. The first was that electricity use was growing at the rate of about
7 percent per year, leading to a need for a doubling of electrical capacity every 10 years. At the same time, there was
a growing awareness among utility executives of the pollution effects of fossil-fuel burning. Responding to the very
negative public reactions to his company's announcement that it would be starting up a new coal-fired plant in 1961,
McChesney Martin, chairman of Florida Power and Light (FP&L), promised never to build another coal plant.
Shortly thereafter, FP&L committed to build the Turkey Point Nuclear Station. In the mid-1960s, the Sierra Club
became a major supporter of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant in California..
This period of rapid nuclear expansion and environmentalist support of nuclear power ended in 1973 after the Arab
oil boycott. As a result of the boycott, the cost of oil went from $2 to $12 a barrel. This drove up the price of
electricity, which led to economic disruption and a dramatic slowdown in the growth of demand for electricity. The
rate of growth fell to 2 percent a year, a doubling of use every 35 years. Because of the prior ordering to meet the
anticipated 10-year doubling time, there has been until very recently a surplus of electric-generation capacity. This
surplus was maintained despite the post-1973 cancellations of 108 nuclear and 93 fossil-fuel plants that were on
order.
This surplus has distorted the nation's perspective on energy in general and nuclear energy in particular. During this
period of surplus, one could find fault with virtually all energy sources; coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectricity, and
nuclear power could all be judged unacceptable because there was no need for new plants. A number of
environmental organizations such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club insisted that the nation should hold out for
ideal or risk-free sources such as energy conservation, solar power, and wind energy. It didn't matter if interminable
delays were imposed on the construction of new power plants because there was no pressing need for the electricity.
No one suffered from a shortage of electricity as the construction time for a nuclear power plant expanded from 4to-6 years to 10-to-15 years or even longer.
These extended construction times have been ascribed to an ever more complicated and inefficient regulatory
licensing system and to court delays resulting from suits brought by those opposed to nuclear power. Although these
did indeed contribute to the delays, in my view the underlying cause was lack of need. In Japan and France, for
example, where demand for electricity continued to grow rapidly, new nuclear energy plants of U.S. design are still
being licensed and built in four to six years. I question whether NRC or the courts (or for that matter Congress)
would have tolerated the delays if new electricity was truly needed. one real result of the delays, however, was that
the cost of building a nuclear plant in the United States increased dramatically, making nuclear power uncompetitive
and unattractive to investors.
Although the rate of growth of electricity use declined after 1973, demand did increase as the economy expanded
U.S. electricity use increased 70 percent between 1973 and 1994, while the gross domestic product grew by 63
percent. The new demand was met primarily by new plants, predominantly coal and nuclear, that were ordered
before 1973 and constructed in the two decades following. Coal generation doubled between 1973 and 1994, and
today provides over 50 percent of U.S. electricity. The 74 nuclear energy plants that came on line in this period
increased nuclear's share of electricity generation from 4 percent in 1973 to more than 20 percent today, second only
to coal. The other sources are natural gas (14 percent); hydropower (9 percent); wood, wind, and solar (3 percent);
and oil (3 percent). The added nuclear capacity allowed for the shutdown of oil-fired plants, permitting the utilities
to reduce oil imports by some 100 million barrels per year and thus lower the trade deficit by over a billion dollars
per year. The substitution of nuclear for fossil-fueled plants has reduced present CO 2 atmospheric emissions by
more than 130 million metric tons of carbon per year, roughly 10 per cent of total U.S. CO 2 production.
Nevertheless, the United States still needs to reduce carbon production by an additional 10 percent to reach its goal
of returning to the 1990 production level. In addition, replacement of fossil-fuel plants with nuclear power has
reduced nitrogen oxide emissions to the air by over 2 million tons annually, meeting the goal set by the Clean Air
Act for the year 2000 and has reduced sulfur dioxide emissions by almost 5million tons per year, half the goal for
the year 2000. Both nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide are harmful to human health and the environment.
U.S. nuclear power plants themselves have an admirable environmental and public health record. Safety has been a
critical consideration in plant design from the beginning. Standard operation of a nuclear plant produces no ill
effects, and even in the case of a major malfunction or accident, the use of a containment structure that surrounds the
plant prevents the release of significant amounts of radioactive material. The wisdom of the U.S. approach is evident
in a comparison of the accidents at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and the Soviet Union's Chernobyl
reactor. Thanks to the containment structure, not a single member of the public was injured by nuclear radiation
from the Three Mile Island accident. In fact, a person standing outside the plant would have received less radiation
exposure from it than from a two-week vacation in high-altitude Denver with its uranium-rich soil. Significant harm
to humans resulted from the accident at the Chernobyl plant, which lacked a containment structure.
One commonly cited drawback of nuclear power is that it creates radioactive waste that must be contained for
thousands of years. Nuclear waste is a serious concern, but one that can be successfully managed and is less
worrisome than the emissions from fossil-fuel plants. Coal, gas, wood, and oil plants emit greenhouse gases and
other undesirable materials to the environment. No nuclear wastes are directly emitted to the environment. of course,
radioactive waste can represent a serious hazard if it is not properly maintained, but its small volume allows very
high expenditures and great care per unit volume. If all the country's high-level nuclear waste from over three
decades of plant operations were collected on a football field, it would be only 9 feet deep. Nuclear power plant
wastes have been carefully maintained at the plants for decades without harm to the environment or the public.
Because high-level waste, composed largely of spent nuclear fuel, remains radioactive for thousands of years, the
plan is to seal this waste in sturdy containers and bury it in underground geological structures that have remained
stable for millions of years. The feasibility of this approach has been supported by a large number of national and
international studies.
After the Department of Energy considered a number of possible storage sites for the waste and made its
recommendations, Congress selected Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which is adjacent to a nuclear weapons testing site,
as the place for the first high-level waste repository. Extensive underground exploration of the site and evaluation of
its geology is now under way. If this research finds that the site is suitable, the repository will begin operation in the
period from 2010 to 2020 In the meantime, the used fuel can be safely stored indefinitely in above-ground facilities.
Progress toward permanent storage of low-level waste from nuclear energy plants, medical procedures, and
industrial processes, which is less radioactive and loses its radioactivity within a few hundred years, has also been
slow. In 1987, Congress passed a law giving responsibility for management of the low-level wastes to the states.
What has happened since then in California is an example of the institutional barriers impeding nuclear power
development.
After extensive study, California chose a site in Ward Valley in the Mojave desert. The California Department of
Health Services spent several years reviewing the site and the design of the repository, with ample opportunities for
public input. In 1993, it approved the site and design. Unfortunately, the site is on federal land, which must be
transferred to the state before it can be used for the repository. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt insisted on an
independent review by the National Research Council before making the transfer. This year-long study concluded in
May 1995 that the site was suitable for the repository. Similar conclusions were also reached by the Bureau of Land
Management and the U.S. Geological Survey. Nevertheless, because of pressure from antinuclear organizations, the
site has still not been transferred, and it is not clear how long the delay will be. In the meantime, the low-level
wastes, including medical and industrial wastes, are being held at many temporary storage sites in the state. These
sites could raise safety problems that would easily be avoided by opening the Ward Valley Repository.
There is no guarantee of absolute safety with nuclear wastes or with any potentially hazardous substance. Numerous
expert studies have found that Yucca Mountain and Ward Valley provide the safety needed by the public. But as
long as our institutional processes make it easy to stop the development of repositories on the basis of insubstantial
doubts about safety, we will not be able to move from temporary storage to a safer, permanent solution. We are
moving in the right direction, but the pace is unnecessarily slow. And while antinuclear activists continue to quibble
about the possibility of some future hazard, we continue to pollute the air with fossil fuel emissions that cause tens
of thousands of premature deaths each year in the. United States and produce greenhouse gases that could lead to
global climate change with potentially disastrous consequences. Are some environmental Neros fiddling while
Rome burns?
And if high-level radioactive waste is such a serious problem, doesn't it make sense to revive developmental support
for the ALMR reactor, which "burns" or transmutes the long-lived radioactive materials, so that after a few hundred
years the wastes become less hazardous than the natural uranium in the ground.
As the damaging effects of fossil fuels become more apparent and the need for additional electric generating
capacity increases, the time for dismissing nuclear power is coming to an end. The current generation of U.S.
nuclear power plants has performed well, and an even better generation of new designs is ready. General Electric, in
partnership with Hitachi and Toshiba, has developed the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR), which
incorporates lessons learned from earlier designs. Construction of the first ABWR began in Japan in 1991, and the
plant is already operating at full power. The ability to build and begin operation of a new design in less than five
years is a testament to the quality of construction and the regulatory system in Japan. Combustion Engineering,
which has been building its System 80 nuclear plants in South Korea in less than six years, is ready to move forward
with its improved System 80+ Both of these new designs have already gone through more than six years of
evaluation by NRC, receiving favorable reviews and approvals.
In addition to these evolutionary new designs, several companies have been working on passively safe designs,
which it is hoped will provide even greater protection in the event of an accident. Westinghouse's AP600 and the
technology of General Electric's Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (SBWR) are moving forward, but neither design
is ready for commercial construction. Although there are people who argue that we should wait for such design to be
ready before building any new nuclear plants in the United States, currently available designs do not pose a safety
problem and are safer than the alternative of increased fossil fuel use. Thus, there is no practical reason to wait for a
new design that is theoretically safer but has its own development problems.
Reviews of the new commercially available designs indicate that they will have favorable safety, operating, and
economic characteristics compared to fossil plants if (and this is a big if) they can be built as efficiently here as they
are in other countries. But experience with the U.S. licensing and court review procedures suggests that it can take
two to four times as long to construct a nuclear plant in the United States as it does abroad, with exorbitant increases
in cost.
One reason for the long construction times is that in the past each U.S. plant had to go through the full review
process, even if it was a replica of a previously built plant. In addition, much of the review took place during
construction. Aware of this problem, the NRC, the nuclear industry, and Congress have developed a new
"standardized" licensing procedure intended to eliminate the delays. Under this procedure, the NRC reviews the
design and construction procedures in detail and evaluates critical comments from those opposed to the plant design
or construction before construction is allowed to start. If a standardized license is granted, multiple plants of the
same design can be built with the only licensing requirement being to demonstrate that the construction was
performed in accordance with the license.
The problem is that this new licensing system has not yet been demonstrated to work as intended. Can it withstand
the efforts of opponents of nuclear power who will use the legal system in any way that they can to stop or slow
construction of a new nuclear power plant? Who can predict the timing of court rulings and appeals? Despite the fact
that the new licensing procedure is intended to let construction continue during the court proceedings, what
company would risk proceeding with a multibillion-dollar project with so little certainty about if and when it will be
completed?
The private sector will not proceed with a new nuclear project without evidence that the new licensing system
works. This is likely to require that a demonstration project or two be initiated whose licensing risks are
underwritten by the government and/or shared by a number of power utilities. The U.S. government, for example,
might agree to underwrite the added costs of the first demonstration plants if they encounter delays that the new
licensing system is intended to eliminate. Similarly, utilities who feel a responsibility to provide for their customers'
future might enter into a joint demonstration project and share the risks and (hopefully) the benefits.
Japan, Korea, and France have demonstrated that nuclear power plants that meet U.S. standards can be built
economically in four to six years. Thus our problem is clearly not technical but institutional: Can we build U.S.designed plants as efficiently in the United States as we do abroad? our government should eliminate bureaucratic
impediments that serve only as tools for those philosophically opposed to nuclear power.
The world must be prepared for the increasing energy needs in the next century and beyond. The U.S. led ALMR
program was intended to develop a safe, economical, proliferation-resistant, essentially unlimited energy supply for
the future. The program was proceeding well, with reactor design and fuel cycle development making substantial
progress. As we have learned from past experience with light water reactors, it takes decades to uncover and solve
the long-term problems of a new nuclear system. Thus, to be ready for the energy needs projected in next century,
the ALMR development program should be vigorously pursued now. Private companies cannot take on such an
expensive and slow-maturing project. Government must fund the project at this stage.
Unfortunately, the program has been canceled because of concern that the use of plutonium could lead to the
proliferation of nuclear weapons. Although it is true that the use of breeder reactors in the United States would result
in the creation of more plutonium, a U.S. decision to forego breeder reactors will not affect other countries that see
the need for breeders in the future and continue to develop and operate them. The major effect of our abandonment
of the ALMR program will be loss of U.S. leadership and influence in its future development as well as the loss of
our leadership in assuring a proliferation resistant fuel cycle.. Besides, the failure to provide adequate and affordable
electricity for future economic needs is a much more serious threat to world peace. Indeed, competition and potential
hostilities over scarce energy supplies increase the threat that nuclear weapons will be acquired--and used.
None of these policy changes will be made without a change in the public's attitude toward nuclear power. People
need to understand the need for additional future energy supplies; the problems of fossil fuels; and the relative
safety, reliability, and environmental advantages of nuclear power. The nuclear industry has done a poor job of
educating the public about nuclear energy. And because of its perceived economic stake, the nuclear industry may
not be a credible carrier for this message. More disinterested voices, particularly those in the environmental
community, should be heard. The Club of Rome, an international organization with a particular interest in
preserving the environment, has evolved from nuclear critic to nuclear promoter because of its concern about global
climate change. U.S. environmentalists need to take a fresh look at world and national energy needs, the clear and
worsening problems of fossil fuels, and the empirical evidence about the safety of nuclear power.
World Energy Council, Energy for Tomorrow's World. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993.
THE ATOMIC NUCLEUS
(GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT)
Lexile: 1320L
Publication: New Scientist (10/1/2011)
Author: WALKER, PHIL
SHELLS AND LIQUID DROPS
Two very different models have helped researchers visualize the atomic nucleus in the century since its discovery.
The way neutrons and protons appear to stick together, rather like molecules in a liquid, gave rise in the 1930s to the
"liquid-drop model", which accurately predicts the binding energies of nuclei and the amount of energy fission or
fusion processes will release, once factors such as charge repulsion between protons are taken into account.
The quantum-mechanical Pauli exclusion principle, meanwhile, teaches us that nucleons protons and neutrons
together - cannot all occupy the same energy states. In this picture they orbit in concentric energy "shells", much as
electrons are ordered into shells around the nucleus to complete our picture of the atom.
Just as a full electron shell makes an element peculiarly unreactive - a noble gas a nucleus with just the right
"magic" number of neutrons or protons to fill a shell gets a stability boost. If both proton and neutron shells are full,
then the nucleus is "doubly magic". Examples of these favored nuclei are oxygen-16 (8 protons and 8 neutrons),
lead-208 (82 and 126) and helium-4 (2, 2) - this last being better known as the alpha particle.
Both the liquid drop and the shell model remain popular for their different purposes. Nowadays, though, it's possible
to build a consistent quantum-mechanical picture of the nucleus - albeit only with substantial supercomputing power
to take account of all its complexities.
Though many chemical elements are described as stable, their nuclei are not all as tightly corralled as each other.
Different amounts of "binding energy" are needed to break them down into their constituent protons and neutrons
(see diagram, below).
A few minutes after the big bang, the only elements present in any abundance in the cosmos were the two lightest,
hydrogen and helium. The binding energy curve gives us a clue where the rest came from. For elements lighter than
iron, the strong nuclear force reigns supreme; binding energy per nucleon depends largely on the ratio of a nucleus's
volume to its surface area, and varies starkly between nuclei. This is the realm of nuclear fusion, where rearranging
nucleons into larger nuclei liberates vast amounts of energy. The elements up to iron, we think, were first forged
through nuclear fusion in the cores of stars.
Beyond iron with its 26 protons, however, the charge (Coulomb) repulsion between protons comes to dominate
nuclear structure. Energy is won not by joining nuclei together, but by splitting them apart in the process of nuclear
fission - the reason why commercial nuclear reactors use very heavy elements such as uranium and plutonium as
fuel.
So what made elements heavier than iron? A full complement of nuclei probably came about only when the first
stars exhausted their fusion fuel and collapsed in on themselves, detonating supernovae. These massive explosions
are thought to liberate a huge number of neutrons. According to the theory of nucleosynthesis by rapid neutron
capture, also known as the r-process, these neutrons bombard and stick to already existing nuclei faster than these
can cast them off, making elements all the way up to uranium and beyond. Exactly how this works, however, is still
a matter of conjecture.
The idea of atoms as the ultimate, indivisible particles of matter dates back to the pre-Socratic philosophers of
Ancient Greece. It worked amazing well for many hundreds of years, and was the bedrock on which our burgeoning
understanding of the elements - the new science of chemistry - was built from the 18th century onwards.
All that changed 100 years ago this year, with the first glimpse of something nestling at the heart of the atom,
something vastly smaller than it, yet containing almost all its mass: the atomic nucleus.
The impact of this discovery was so profound that the past century has sometimes been called "the nuclear age".
Well into the 21st century, however, the interior workings of the nucleus are still far from perfectly understood
Long after the nucleus was discovered (see "Firing shells at tissue paper", right), its basic structure remained a
puzzle. By the early 1920s, Rutherford had isolated a positively charged constituent, the proton, while working at
the University of Cambridge. Only in 1932, though, did his colleague James Chadwick isolate the other component
of the nucleus: the chargeless neutron.
Neither protons nor neutrons, collectively called nucleons, are themselves elementary particles. They are made up of
smaller constituents, quarks, plus gluons that hold them together. Slightly different compositions mean that the
proton is lighter by a whisker. It weighs in at 938.3 megaelectronvolts (MeV) still more than 1800 times the
electron's mass.
The neutron, meanwhile, tips the scales at 939.6 MeV. While a proton left on its own is stable, or at least has never
been observed to decay, a neutron changes into a proton through the process of beta decay (see page iv), with a halflife of just 10 minutes.
Combine this with the fact that their common positive charge makes all protons repel each other, and it seems a
miracle that nuclei stay together at all. That they do is down to the trumping effect of the strong nuclear force, which
binds together protons and neutrons over very small distances, albeit in constellations of varying stability.
In 1897, the British physicist J. J. Thomson was investigating streams of particles given off by metal electrodes
placed under high voltage in a vacuum. These particles turned out to be much smaller than atoms and, unlike neutral
atoms, negatively charged.
The discovery of these "electrons" put paid to the idea that the atom was uniform and indivisible. To maintain the
atom's overall electrical neutrality, Thomson suggested that electrons were embedded inside it like plums in a
"pudding" of positive charge.
By 1908, New Zealander Ernest Rutherford, working with his assistant Hans Geiger at the University of
Manchester, UK, had revealed a different picture. When fired from a radioactive source, positively charged "alpha
particles" themselves later revealed to be the atomic nuclei of helium - largely passed through metallic foils placed
in their way, deflected by just a few degrees. The atom, it seemed, incorporated a large amount of empty space.
Follow-up experiments by Geiger and a research student, Ernest Marsden, delivered an even greater surprise. Some
alpha particles bounced straight back, turned by up to 180 degrees. It was, as Rutherford later said, "as if you fired a
15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you".
Rutherford's interpretation, first delivered publicly in February 1911, was that the mass of the atom, itself less than a
billionth of a meter (10-9 m) across, was concentrated in a tiny central volume just 10-14 m across. That is
something akin to a fly buzzing around inside a cathedral - except the fly accounts for 99.9 per cent of the
cathedral's mass. The atomic nucleus was born.
Nature’s processes provide us with a rich variety of elements, ranging from hydrogen with just one proton, to
uranium with 92 protons. Almost 300 stable nuclides combinations of different numbers of protons and neutrons are
known.
That is a small brood compared with the 3000 or so unstable nuclides known (the full list is represented in the chart
below). These nuclides decay by a variety of radioactive processes, with half-lives ranging from fractions of a
second to more than the age of the universe. Another 4000 or so nuclides are predicted by theory, but are yet to be
seen. Understanding this extended nuclear family is one of the great challenges of nuclear physics today
Alpha decay involves the emission of a tightly bound helium nucleus (2 protons, 2 neutrons), generally with lots of
energy. It is common among the heaviest nuclides, where charge repulsion between protons weakens the binding of
the strong nuclear force.
The heaviest naturally occurring nuclide, uranium-238 (92 protons, 146 neutrons), decays to thorium-234 with a
half-life of 4.5 billion years, which is about the age of the Earth. The amount of helium trapped in uranium ore was
used by Ernest Rutherford in 1906 to estimate Earth's age - a precursor to today's radiometric dating techniques (see
"Speed dating", page vi).
Where a nucleus has a considerable excess of protons - or equivalent shortage of neutrons - it can decay simply by
emitting a proton. Single proton decay was first observed in 1970 from an isomeric state of cobalt-53, which
contains six fewer neutrons than the stable cobalt-59. In 2002, iron-45 (nine neutrons down on stable iron-54) was
observed to undergo an even moe rare two-proton decay.
Oddly, an equivalent to proton decay for nuclei with a large excess of neutrons has never been observed. Some
nuclides do however have weakly bound neutrons orbiting at a relatively large distance - a "neutron halo". A twoneutron halo around lithium-11 (four excess neutrons compared with stable lithium-7) makes it look as big as lead208.
Beta decay occurs in nuclei towards the edges of the nuclide chart - that is, those with more neutrons or protons than
a stable nucleus can accommodate. The most familiar example is beta-minus decay, in which a neutron decays to a
proton, emitting an electron to keep the atom's overall charge in balance. An analogue process, beta-plus decay,
involves a bound nuclear proton turning into a neutron, emitting an anti-electron, or positron. A similar
transformation can occur through the process of electron capture (EC), in which a nuclear proton absorbs an orbiting
atomic electron.
The observation that beta-decay electrons were emitted with a lower than expected energy led physicists Wolfgang
Pauli and Enrico Fermi to conclude in the 1930s that a second particle must also be emitted - a ghostly, weakly
interacting particle of the type now known as neutrinos.
A select band of 11 nuclides undergoes two beta decays simultaneously, with the emission of two neutrinos. Some
theories beyond the current standard model of particle physics also predict the existence of a "neutrinoless" double
beta decay - but claims to have spotted this process in action are controversial.
In gamma decay, a nucleus's number of protons or neutrons does not change; what changes is how the nucleons in
an excited nucleus orbit each other. When such a rearrangement reduces the overall energy, the excess can be
carried away as a photon. This deexcitation is usually fast, lasting less than a billionth of a second. But where
substantial orbit changes are involved, it can be slow, resulting in excited states known as nuclear "isomers" that can
persist for years.
Bismuth-209 (83 protons, 126 neutrons) was once thought to be the heaviest of all stable nuclei, but in 2003 it was
observed to decay by alpha-particle emission. Still, with a half-life of 2 1019 years, about a billion times the age of
the universe, you are unlikely to notice.
Nuclear fission, discovered in 1938, is a comparatively rare decay mode. Only four naturally occurring nuclides
thorium-232 and uranium-234, -235 and -238 undergo spontaneous fission, and even these are vastly more likely to
decay via alpha emission. The key to fission as an energy source is to stimulate a chain reaction by bombarding one
of these fissile nuclides with neutrons that are themselves produced during fission.
Calculations based on the nuclear shell model (see Shells and liquid drops, page ii) suggest comparatively stable
nuclei exist beyond those known on Earth for example around the doubly magic combination of 114 protons and
184 neutrons. The superheavy inhabitants of this island of stability would have been created in supernova explosions
just as ordinary heavy elements were. Their apparent absence suggests they have short enough half-lives less than
200 million years, perhaps to have almost completely decayed away since Earth formed.
We can test the island idea by colliding lighter nuclei to make heavier ones. The current record-holder is a nucleus
with 118 protons and 176 neutrons, first synthesized in Dubna, Russia, in 2002. The longest-lived super heavy
nucleus survives for about half a minute disappointingly short, perhaps, but far longer than the millisecond or shorter
lifetimes typical at the upper extremities of the nuclide chart.
Landfall on the island of stability itself is no easy matter: nature does not provide the right stable nuclei to collide to
reach the doubly magic 114, 184 combinations. A new generation of accelerators aims to get there by first making
the smaller nuclei and then colliding them before they disappear (see A century on, p viii).
The fact that different nuclei decay at different rates makes some of them tremendously useful in determining the
age of various objects.
A familiar example is the radiocarbon dating of organic materials. Carbon consists overwhelmingly of the stable
isotope carbon-12, but living things contain a small amount of carbon-14. This isotope, with a half-life of 5730
years, is made at a steady rate in Earth's atmosphere in cosmic-ray collisions. It is incorporated into plants via
photosynthesis and then into animals when they eat those plants.
As soon as the organism dies, this uptake stops. While the carbon-12 remains unchanged, the carbon-14 gradually
decays and is not replaced. Thus, if you measure the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12, you get a measure of the time
since death.
Performing radiocarbon dating used to require large samples because there are, even initially, only a small number
of carbon-14 nuclei, and those that are there don't decay very rapidly. A more sensitive technique, which only
requires tiny (milligram) samples, is SPEED DATING accelerator mass spectrometry. The decay itself is not
measured; instead, an energetic carbon beam is produced from the sample via an accelerator, with magnets and
radiation detectors distinguishing between carbon-14 and carbon-12. This technique was used in 1989 to date a tiny
piece of the Turin Shroud, reputed to have been used to wrap the body of Jesus while lying in his tomb. It showed
that the cloth was much more recent.
Other dating techniques use different nuclides according to their half-lives. The decay of particularly long-lived
nuclides, for example, is the basis of uranium-lead, potassium-argon, rubidium-strontium and uranium-thorium
dating, used to assess the ages of different types of rock.
The phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance is used in an imaging technology with particularly wide
application. Nucleons within nuclei act as tiny magnets, which have a preferred orientation in an externally applied
magnetic field. The flipping of these magnets once aligned using an external pulse produces radio-frequency
radiation that can be used to construct a detailed image of certain materials.
This is familiar from medicine as the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan that is particularly effective in
producing pictures of soft tissues in the body. But it has other uses, which are as diverse as measuring water uptake
in trees and watching paint dry to ascertain mixes with optimal properties.
Not least since a tsunami inundated the Fukushima reactors in Japan, power generation through nuclear fission is
controversial. For all its faults, though, it is still considered by many to be one of the few reliable and constant
sources of low-carbon power.
The alternative, harnessing the power of nuclear fusion, could go some way towards squaring the circle. A huge
international effort is now under way in Cadarache, in the south of France, to do just that. The International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), due to come on stream in 2019, uses magnetic confinement of a hot
ionized gas (plasma) in an attempt to kick-start a tame version of the fusion processes that go on inside the sun.
Meanwhile, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, aims to ignite fusion in plasma using
"inertial" confinement after heating and compression with giant lasers. Measurements are now getting under way.
Nuclear fusion has a checkered history, and it remains to be seen whether such projects fulfill their promises. It is in
our and the planet's interest that they do.
The two most obvious applications of nuclear physics have done the most to give the word a bad name: producing
energy via the process of nuclear fission and facilitating mass destruction through nuclear bombs. But while the
world debates to what extent it wants - or needs - nuclear power, the unique properties of atomic nuclei also impinge
on our lives in less controversial ways
Many medical diagnoses and treatments use radioactive isotopes. The most popular diagnostic nuclide, often used to
locate bone problems, is the gamma-ray emitting isomer technetium-99m.
Technetium is taken up by growing bone, concentrating in areas of abnormal growth such as arthritic joints. The
isomer has a half-life of only 6 hours - long enough to get a good picture in a surrounding gamma camera, but short
enough that you don't get too much unwanted radiation. A recent global shortage of technetium, brought about by
problems at two reactors in Canada and the Netherlands that together produced two-thirds of the world's supply,
illustrated how ubiquitous and accepted this procedure had become.
Many other nuclides are used in medicine (see table, left). Those that decay through beta-plus emission are
particularly prized for imaging: the emitted positron quickly annihilates with an electron in the surrounding material,
producing two gamma rays that can be traced back to give the precise location of the emitter. This is the basis of the
technique of positron emission tomography (PET) scanning.
Meanwhile, energetic beams of protons, or nuclei such as carbon, are increasingly used as a treatment for cancer
with more localized effects than conventional X-ray radiotherapy. This can be especially suitable for the treatment
of deep-seated brain tumors. A dedicated ion-beam treatment facility has recently begun operation at the University
Clinic in Heidelberg, Germany.
Basic nuclear physics currently stands before two major, related challenges. The first is to understand and explore
the world of neutron-rich nuclei, including those heavy elements made in stars in the explosive astrophysical rprocess. The second is to journey beyond that to the super heavy island of stability. We are already on the island's
shores, but the view ahead is a little foggy.
A clearer vista could come with a new generation of rare-isotope accelerators. These will explore previously
uncharted regions of the nuclide chart on a two-step principle. First, two stable or long-lived nuclei will be collided
to produce one that is short-lived. Then, this rare isotope will be collided with another stable or long-lived one, to
reach right into the unknown regions.
The key to success will be large numbers of collisions, so as to produce measurable numbers of the desired final
products. The technology to produce this high beam intensity, and in particular to handle the radioactive products
safely and reliably, is now available, and many facilities are in their design or construction phases around the world.
These include the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) being built in Darmstadt, Germany, which uses
heavy nuclides such as uranium for the initial collisions with light nuclei. The European Isotope Separation
On-Line (EURISOL) facility, whose construction site has yet to be decided, will work with proton beams colliding
with heavy target nuclei. One hundred years after Rutherford's discovery of the atomic nucleus, the future still looks
exciting. It could be as-yet-unforeseen discoveries that will make the biggest impact. Perhaps there are other islands
of enhanced stability, apart from the super heavy one - quite possibly among the excited nuclear states, or isomers,
that are a particular focus of my work. The exact properties of very neutron-rich nuclei, and nuclides in many other
regions of the chart, also remain to be explored. And the often-overlooked medical and technological spin-offs of
nuclear research will continue to benefit our society.