It has been over two years since the earthquake and tsunami that
brought about the nuclear reactor crisis in Fukushima -- the largest
nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. The situation at the six
plants is still grim. Four of the reactors are damaged. Hundreds of tons
of contaminated groundwater are reportedly seeping into the ocean every
day. Nearly 83,000 people were displaced from their homes in the
approximately 310 square mile exclusion zones. On Wednesday October 9,
an
accident
resulted in six workers being doused in radioactive water. Accidents
and mishaps at the Fukushima site are regular occurrences. Japan's Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe has now asked the world community for help in
containing the ongoing Fukushima disaster, as it continues to spiral out
of control.
Earlier this week, I participated in a panel discussion in New York City
called "The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident: Ongoing Lessons." The
event featured notable long-time experts on nuclear technology
discussing the crisis in Fukushima and the current state of the heavily
subsidized nuclear industry in the United States. The panel participants
were former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioner and
later Chairman Peter Bradford, former NRC Chairman Dr. Gregory Jaczko,
former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, and nuclear engineer, Arnie
Gundersen.
Mr. Bradford presented a detailed power point that showed how competing
forms of energy already are leading to the decline of the nuclear
industry.
The panel discussed safety concerns regarding the Indian Point nuclear
power plant located about 30 miles from New York City. Indian Point has
long been rife with safety problems and its location near an earthquake
fault is a source of great concern for many New York residents.
You can view Tuesday's event, in its entirety, here.
In the 1960s, The Atomic Energy Commission determined that a class-nine
nuclear power plant accident could contaminate an area the size of
Pennsylvania and render much of it uninhabitable. A nuclear disaster at
Indian Point would threaten the entire population of New York City and
its outlying metropolitan area. The continued existence and operation of
Indian Point is like playing a game of Russian Roulette with the lives
and homes of the nearly 20 million people who live within a 50 mile
radius of the plant. Consider the difficulty New Yorkers have simply
commuting to and from their workplaces during rush hour and imagine the
horror of a mandatory evacuation due to a nuclear emergency at Indian
Point. The NRDC estimates that a serious accident could, in addition to
massive casualties, "cost ten to 100 times more than Fukushima's
disaster" which would be in the trillions of dollars.
If Indian Point were closed today, there is enough surplus energy
capacity to last the state until 2020 as alternative energy sources are
developed and deployed. Governor Andrew Cuomo has called for the
shutdown of Indian Point, as did Hillary Clinton during her time in the
Senate. A main reason is that an emergency evacuation of the population
up to 50 miles around these two nukes is impossible.
So what's the delay? Mainly resistance from the nuclear industry and a
compliant regulatory agency. The NRC has faltered in its watchdog role
by acting to protect and even bolster the dangerous, expensive and
unnecessary nuclear industry. The industry's last claim is that it
avoids greenhouse gases. But as physicist Amory Lovins says, if the
investment in nuclear plants was shifted to renewables and energy
conservation, it will produce less demand and more environmentally
benign BTUs by far, and with more jobs.
Anti-nuclear advocates have warned against potential dangers such as
earthquakes for decades. Although a new nuclear power plant has not been
ordered and built in the United States since 1974, there are currently
65 nuclear plants operating 100 reactors in the United States -- many of
them aging, many of them near earthquake faults, many of them still not
in compliance with NRC fire prevention regulations, all of them
significant national security risks. Under President Obama, the first
two nuclear reactors since 1978, were authorized to be built at the
Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia. (Panel participant Dr.
Gregory Jaczko was the lone dissenter in the 4-1 NRC approval vote.)
To truly understand the cost of nuclear energy, one must consider the
absurdity of the nuclear fuel cycle itself. It begins with uranium
mines and their deadly tailings, then the fabrication and refinement of
the fuel rods, the risky transport of these rods to the multi-shielded
dome-like plant where they are installed, and then firing up the plant
so it goes critical with a huge amount of radioactivity. Dealing with
volatile nuclear reactions requires flawless operation. And then there
is the storage and guarding of hot radioactive wastes and contaminated
materials that persist for 250,000 years. No permanent site has been
located and licensed for that lengthy containment.
What is the end purpose of this complex and expensive chain of events?
Simply to boil water -- to generate steam to turn turbines to produce
electricity.
With all the technological advancements in energy efficiency, solar,
wind and other renewable energy sources, surely there are better and
more efficient ways to meet our electricity needs without burdening
future generations with deadly waste products and risking the
radioactive contamination of entire regions should anything go wrong.
It is telling that Wall Street, which rarely considers the consequences
of gambling on a risk, will not finance the construction of a nuclear
plant without a full loan guarantee from the U.S. government. Nuclear
power is also uninsurable in the private insurance market. The
Price-Anderson Act of 1957 requires taxpayers to cover almost all the
cost if a meltdown should occur.
No other industry that produces electricity poses such a great national
security risk should sabotage or malfunction occur. No other means of
generating power can produce such long-lasting catastrophic damage and
mayhem from one unpredictable accident. No other form of energy is so
loaded with the silent violence of radioactivity.
Nuclear energy is unnecessary, uninsurable, uneconomic, unevacuable and
most importantly, unsafe. The fact that it continues to exist at all is a
result of a ferocious lobby, enlisting the autocratic power of
government, that will not admit that its product is unfit for use in the
modern world. Let us not allow the lessons of Fukushima to be ignored.
(Autographed copies of my book
The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future are available from Politics and Prose, an independent book store in Washington D.C.)
