I &%!#ing LOVE Nuclear Power
My wife watched The West Wing last night. Their boogeyman of the week was a staple of the 70's...nuclear power. As a nuclear engineer (of sorts), I was appalled at the horrific misrepresentations thrown around in the show. I shouldn't be...Hollywood gets 99% of everything, from lawyers to the military to science to the weather wrong, all in the name of entertainment. But this issue is a particular thorn, because what most people know about nuclear power comes from Sci-Fi Channel movies, and a few early 80's films. Not content to look at the possible legit consequences of nuclear power, they chose to ignore how US Nuclear plants are designed, run, and monitored in this country.
Here are a few actual truths:
1) Our plants will never explode.
2) Our plants provide an immense amount of energy, with minimal waste, and a safety record everything else in the world would literally kill for.
3) Nuclear power is also critical to our military, powering our forward power projection...carriers and submarines.
4) The people employed by the NRC, the Navy, and civilian plants are smarter than you. A lot smarter. Unless you work for NASA.
Nuclear power has the potential for horrific misuse and danger. Just like an airplane, a fire, or a knife. They can do immense harm...but never have. They can also do immense good. But most citizens are misinformed to the extent that we ignore nuclear power as a viable form of energy. They are misinformed because they think Hollywood is right on this topic.
They are wrong. Hollywood is wrong, willfully so. Nuclear power requires the best minds, the best designs, the best operators, and the best safety programs. And they have them.
The record speaks for itself.
Nuclear power has the potential for great value or great danger. It depends on the discipline used to harness it. It is not inherently evil, bad for the environment, or malicious. Or even unsafe. It is simple science.
Which isn't simple in our ignorant country anymore.
Here are a few actual truths:
1) Our plants will never explode.
2) Our plants provide an immense amount of energy, with minimal waste, and a safety record everything else in the world would literally kill for.
3) Nuclear power is also critical to our military, powering our forward power projection...carriers and submarines.
4) The people employed by the NRC, the Navy, and civilian plants are smarter than you. A lot smarter. Unless you work for NASA.
Nuclear power has the potential for horrific misuse and danger. Just like an airplane, a fire, or a knife. They can do immense harm...but never have. They can also do immense good. But most citizens are misinformed to the extent that we ignore nuclear power as a viable form of energy. They are misinformed because they think Hollywood is right on this topic.
They are wrong. Hollywood is wrong, willfully so. Nuclear power requires the best minds, the best designs, the best operators, and the best safety programs. And they have them.
The record speaks for itself.
Nuclear power has the potential for great value or great danger. It depends on the discipline used to harness it. It is not inherently evil, bad for the environment, or malicious. Or even unsafe. It is simple science.
Which isn't simple in our ignorant country anymore.
posted by Chuck | 2:35 PM
2 Comments:
There is a price to be paid for the benefits of nuclear power. Nuclear waste, which has an effective half-life of forever (well, hundreds of years).
But how much is produced? Where does it go? That is where politics enters into it. This problem won't be solved outright. Energy can neither be created, nor
destroyed. Only converted. We can rant and rail and pretend we will use less energy, but that will never, ever, ever, ever happen. I didn't scour the net
or anti-nuclear websites for a counter-argument. I listened to a
bastardization of science on a popular TV show and responded. I used anecdotal data, being a nuclear engineer and son of a nuclear engineer. I used the
record of the NRC...in the US (and France, among other countries) nuclear energy has killed less people than lightning. Probably less than werewolf attacks. I've
been through numerous reactor inspections, and they always find laundry lists of "concerns" and "failures". None of which amounted to an unsafe situation.
That is simply how critical and complete the inspections are...anything less than 100% is heavily commented upon. I don't know the specifics of your local
plant. I don't proclaim that "Trust us" is the answer. It's not. It's "inspect often" and have levels and levels of protection.
The energy a reactor produces is CLEAN. No environmental impact. The reactor itself is merely a hot rock, and through the use of multiple loops of water (one touching the reactor exchanging the energy/heat with another "clean" loop, it's almost free steam...which turns turbines to create energy). Pretty simple. The size and amount of waste depend on the actual design (which would probably be much more advanced now had we not taken a long moratorium and focused on natural gas and oil...which is working out REALLY well for us) of
the plant. I know fissile material corresponding to a size smaller than a car can power a city for a decade.
Now come the dangers of nuclear power. You dislike my knife and car analogy, but the end result of misusing a knife or a reactor is the loss of life. The amount of lives lost is exponentially higher for nuclear power, making it an
exponentially higher risk. The nuclear waste *can* be (but currently is NOT) a major environmental and health risk. Is the solution to simply remove nuclear power as an option? Where does the opposition think we'll find that 20% of the nation's energy supply? Because that is the current % of US power delivered by Nuclear Power. If the opposition is right, the number should be 0%. We can
drill the hell out of ANWR to make up, I don't know, a fraction of 1%. My point is...why just 20%? I never claimed nothing bad could happen. I said nothing would.
As for the health issues, I sat with 50 feet of a operating reactor for thousands of hours over a 4 year period. I got more radiation from second hand
smoke growing up than I did from that exposure. And cigarettes can't power a fraction of the country. I will gladly back
off nuclear as an option when something better is presented, something viable. Something that can support that amount of power with a safety record even approaching that of nuclear power.
In short, proper design and inspection prevents 1) the leak concern. It is a major concern, but the problem is preventable many times over.
Nuclear waste (2 on your list) is not preventable. It is manageable.
I'll post a second time for your second comment and an aside.
Wind and solar...with respect, no amount of research is going to yield a comparable amount of power to nuclear. Solar power is nuclear power...just 93 million miles of way. Lots of potential energy lost on the way here. That is not to say they shouldn't be pursued...solar and wind could be extremely promising as small scale energy sources. But unless you harness a Cat 4 hurricane, nothing will come from wind and solar that approaches our needs.
As for money going to nuclear for military research...you say that likes it a bad thing. If there was money in wind and solar, GE would have looked into it. Profit drives not just this country, but the world. You know the batteries that make cell phones viable? Thank DARPA (Defense Advanced Research) for that. Defense R&D is responsible for much more than most people know.
As for the "majority of people opposing nuclear power", I'd love to see stats on that. An informal (and therefore non-scientific) poll at MSNBC today (ironically) had 70+% people in favor of ramping up nuclear power right now, with 15% more saying more should be done before ramping up. Less than 15% said it would never be safe. I am sure the response would be different if you put it in their backyard.
Long story short, there is a significant energy demand in our country. We haven't built a reactor in decades...we've simply consumed more of our other resources in the intervening time.
"So you say that there is literally NO potential for leaks and system failure? You have that many system checks built in now?"
Yes. It would require multiple system failures AND multiple human failures for such a condition to develop. Design-wise, even if it did occur (which is always a statistical possibility), it would likely simply ruin the facility for use. There are levels and levels of safety built in at design, construction, and operation. There has to be. The consequences are catastrophic.
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