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ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN STORING NUCLEAR WASTE
Evan Skapik (ejs88@pitt.edu)
THE SCENARIO
Engineer John Doe is part of a team tasked with creating a
permanent storage facility for the nuclear waste of all the
nuclear power plants in the four state area. It is a large task
and a logistical nightmare. A local geologist was hired to find
the ideal location for the storage site. The geologist selected
an area far away from highly populated areas. The only
problem with the location is that any nuclear waste that leaks
from the containment site would contaminate the water table.
Engineer John was recently hired by Company X for his
expertise in nuclear engineering. Company X is a government
hazardous materials disposal company and has not had much
work with nuclear waste. They are also running on a tight
budget provided by the state governments. Engineer John was
tasked with designing a storage facility that would adequately
hold the nuclear waste for a minimum of ten thousand years.
He is now on sight to supervise that his plans are being
followed. John’s plan called for three foot thick concrete
walls to be used to enclose the containers of nuclear waste.
While at the construction site he noticed a problem with the
walls. After some tests he determined they were not made of
the proper concrete. They were made of an inferior concrete
that would not hold up as well over time as the kind his design
called for. He feels torn; on one hand the way the storage
facility is constructed it could lead to nuclear waste leaking
into the environment in the future, but if they stop and fix it
now, it would essentially mean starting over. It would cost far
more than the company had been given just to clean up the
almost finished site, not to mention they would be
contractually obligated to rebuild it the proper way. On the
other hand, any potential issues would only come up hundreds
or even thousands of years in the future. When he brings up
the subject to his bosses, they think he is kidding at first, but
when he tells them he’s serious they tell him that no one will
ever know and that it wouldn’t cause any problems in the near
future.
ETHICAL OVERVIEW
Engineer John faced several ethical dilemmas during his
job with Company X. The company was doing the right thing
by hiring someone skilled in the field of nuclear science [1].
They just cut corners with the concrete which will eventually
lead to structural flaws. The American Nuclear Society code
of ethics says that “We will formally advise our employers,
clients, or any appropriate authority and, if warranted,
consider further disclosure, if and when we perceive that
pursuit of our professional duties might have adverse
consequences for the present or future public and fellow
worker health and safety or the environment” [2]. Engineer
University of Pittsburgh, Swanson School of Engineering 1
2013-10-29
John was following the code when he brought his concerns to
his bosses, but he still had to make the decision whether to not
take his concerns to higher authorities, any further deception
on his part would be breaking his code of ethics, but if he acts
it will cause pain to many people who are going to have to
pay for a new storage facility. Another part of his ethics is to
serve the public’s interest, and major reconstruction to the
facility would be a financial burden to the public. A multimillion dollar error would take money away from other
programs that need the money.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE POWER
The essence of nuclear power is the radioactivity of refined
Uranium and Plutonium causes them to become extremely
hot. This heat is used to boil water and spin turbines which
generates electricity. The period during which the fuel is
useful only lasts a certain amount of time, after which it
simply becomes a dangerous pile of waste. There are three
different types of nuclear waste. Low level waste,
intermediate level waste, and high level waste [3]. Most of the
concern is justifiably directed towards high level waste as it
is the most dangerous and has the most potential to cause
harm.
GEOLOGICAL DISPOSAL
The essence of nuclear power is the radioactivity of refined
Uranium and Plutonium causes them to become extremely
hot. This heat is used to boil water and spin turbines which
generates electricity. The period during which the fuel is
useful only lasts a certain amount of time, after which it
simply becomes a dangerous pile of waste. There are three
different types of nuclear waste. Low level waste,
intermediate level waste, and high level waste [3]. Most of the
concern is justifiably directed towards high level waste as it
is the most dangerous and has the most potential to cause
harm. Today the standard operations of nuclear power plants
involves using the fuel until it is no longer useful, putting it
into big tanks of water for years, and then when it cools down
enough to not melt a container it is placed into a sealed
concrete cask and kept on the site of the nuclear plant [3]. This
is not a sustainable option; the sites containing the waste will
have to keep expanding and the risk of contamination or
terrorist attack is much greater. One proposed solution to the
growing nuclear waste storage problem is geological disposal.
Geological disposal essentially means burying the waste in
the ground for the next ten thousand years until it is no longer
dangerous to anyone. In 1987 Yucca Mountain was chosen as
a permanent storage site for nuclear waste. Unfortunately the
Evan Skapik
Not in My Back Yard syndrome kicked in and the state of
Nevada vehemently opposed moving the waste to Yucca
Mountain after construction was complete and the project was
canceled in 2011 [4]. There was some logic behind the
opponents of Yucca Mountain storage. Moving large
quantities of nuclear waste across the country would be
incredibly dangerous and costly. Also there was not sufficient
research done at Yucca Mountain to prove that it could safely
hold the nuclear waste for thousands of years. The positives
outweighed the negatives with Yucca Mountain; a centralized
storage location for all the nuclear waste would work
perfectly. It would be much easier to defend and in everyday
life, nobody would be affected by it if it were sealed away
correctly. There are some people who propose that Yucca
Mountain doesn’t have to be the only place that nuclear waste
can be stored at. Some suggest that building several smaller
nuclear waste storage sites would be a better solution because
no state wants all the responsibility or burden of having all the
nuclear waste [5]. They would be easier to construct than one
large facility and there would be less danger transporting the
waste to these closer sites. Engineer John was hired to help
construct a storage facility like this.
this sort of time scale in mind, it was only when the company
he was working for cut corners that ethical issues came up.
Ethics of Geological Disposal
It could be considered unethical that so much nuclear
waste has been accrued over the past sixty years all over the
world. Nuclear waste is a huge problem that has been
unaddressed in the past. It has simply been ignored and now
that the waste is piling up it has to be dealt with. Sustainable
development means that people can “meet the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs” [8]. All the waste
stored at nuclear power plants across the country is creating
issues for many people. Nobody wants to deal with this
dangerous waste. Engineers of the past should have come up
with sustainable solutions years ago. Disposing of nuclear
waste should not even be an issue.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
There is great potential for environmental damage with
nuclear waste. Nuclear waste is dangerous for thousands of
years and can poison the environment and kill living beings.
The area around Chernobyl in the Ukraine is still considered
incredibly dangerous decades after the nuclear plant
meltdown which caused the deaths of many and poisoned the
land for miles around it. Nuclear waste doesn’t have the same
potential to cause damage as a plant meltdown does, it is still
a major concern for an engineer whose job is to contain the
waste for thousands of years. One of the key principles of the
code of ethics of the American Nuclear Society is to protect
the environment [2]. Engineer John would be endangering
and possibly even destroying an ecosystem if he remained
silent about the potential risk of the storage site failing.
Sustainable Development
Geological disposal of nuclear waste may not be without
its faults, but it is the most human-conscience approach to
getting rid of nuclear waste that is available. In the past,
several European nuclear agencies disposed of nuclear waste
simply by tossing concrete barrels full of nuclear waste in the
ocean [6]. These casks are not completely sealed and in one
case, a documentary crew discovered a barrel of waste that
was totally corroded and the waste was contaminating the
water around it. This practice shows the rampant
irresponsibility of those involved with this method of
disposal. The nuclear industry is now highly regulated and
something like that will most likely never happen again.
Throwing barrels of waste in the ocean goes against every
code of ethics that a nuclear engineer would follow. It has a
great risk to poison the environment, and could even harm
people if the amount of waste was high enough.
CONCLUSION: THE DECISION
Nuclear power is a common and practical source of
energy, but it is not without its faults [9]. Anyone involved
with the nuclear industry faces many ethical dilemmas.
Engineer John didn’t feel right about keeping silent about the
faults with the storage site. He knew that it would cause a lot
of harm and suffering for the company to have to rebuild the
entire site, but he knew it was for the best in the long run. He
didn’t want to continue the cycle of doing the least amount
possible and not caring about future generations. Like Barry
Salzberg, he knew that the best thing to do in this situation
was to just say no [10]. He ended up contacting the US
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reveal the dangerous
faults with the storage site. The NRC sent an inspection crew
out and determined that the site would not work out and the
states were ordered to fix the site before it could be opened to
store waste [11]. The four states gave more money to properly
construct the facility. Engineer John is known in the local area
ENGINEERING CHALLENGES
There are many challenges facing engineers who are
attempting to solve the nuclear waste problem. Due to the
dangerous nature of nuclear waste it is difficult to work with.
It is incredibly difficult for an engineer to design something
that will hold up for thousands of years. Humans tend to build
with a human perspective in mind [7]. There are almost no
structures build by humans that have held up for more than
five thousand years, and a structure that would house high
level nuclear waste would need to be structurally sound for
ten thousand years or more. Engineer John was thinking with
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Evan Skapik
as the man who doubled the cost of the storage site and is
almost universally hated because of it. He may have done the
ethical thing but it did not serve him well in the end because
he has a reputation in the nuclear industry as making projects
go far over budget.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my neighbors for helping me keep the goal
in sight. Thank you Dan for coming to our engineering
analysis class and answering questions about the paper. Thank
you to the librarians who came to inform us of the wonderful
resources that the library can provide. Thank you to all the
rest of my family for moral support at all times.
REFERENCES
[1] “NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers.” (2007). National
Society of Professional Engineers. (Online Article).
http://www.nspe.org/Ethics/CodeofEthics/index.html
[2] “Practices of Professional Conduct.” (2012) American
Nuclear
Society.
(Online
Article).
http://www.ans.org/about/coe/
[3] “Radioactive Waste Management.” World Nuclear
Association. (Online Article)
[4] M. Schaffer. (2011). “Toward a viable nuclear waste
disposal program.” Science Direct. (Online Article).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S03014215
10008918
[5] “US Nuclear Waste Dilemma.” PressTvGlobalNews.
(Video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCLdQOOvrww
[6] “Nuclear Waste Disposal Documentary.” (2013).
Subscription
Free
TV.
(Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUYJFlObhtA
[7] M. Easley. (2011). “Standing in Nuclear Waste:
Challenging the Disposal of Yucca Mountain.” Cornell Law
Review.
(Online
Article).
http://rt4rf9qn2y.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.
88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fm
t=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=
Standing+in+nuclear+waste%3A+challenging+the+disposal
+of+Yucca+Mountain&rft.jtitle=Cornell+Law+Review&rft.
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[8] “The Importance of Saying No.” (2013). University of
Notre Dame. (Video) http://ethicalleadership.nd.edu/ethicsresources/video-series/barry-salzberg/
[9] “Ethics, Engineering, and Sustainable Development.”
IEEE
Explore.
(Online
Article).
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1
035228&userType=inst&tag=1
[10] “Nuclear Waste Storage.” University of Michigan.
(Online
Image).
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/sec003group5/remediation_of_w
aste
[11] “Environmental Impacts of Nuclear Waste.” University
of
Michigan.
(Online
Article).
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/sec003group5/remediation_of_w
aste
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