[A-List] Is Nuclear Power Worth the Risk?

[Bill Totten]

Naked Capitalism (March 19 2011)

One of the interesting features during the Fukushima reactor crisis were
the fistfights that broke out in comments between the defenders of nuclear
power and the opponents. The boosters argued that the worst case scenario
problems were overblown, both in terms of estimation of the odds of
occurrence and the likely consequences. The critics contended that nuclear
power was not economical ex massive subsidies, that there was no "safe"
method of waste disposal, and that nuclear plants were always subject to
corners-cutting, both in design and operation, so the ongoing hazards were
greater than they appeared.

Reader Crocodile Chuck passed along a story from the Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists, "The Lessons of Fukushima" {1}, by anthropologist Hugh
Gusterson. Here is the key section:

    And presumably there are other complicated technological scenarios
that we have not foreseen, earthquake faults that are undetected or
underestimated, and terrorists hatching plans for mayhem as yet unknown.
Not to mention regulators who place too much trust in those they regulate.

    Thus it is hard to resist the conclusion reached by sociologist
Charles Perrow in his book Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk
Technologies {2}: Nuclear reactors are such inherently complex, tightly
coupled systems that, in rare, emergency situations, cascading
interactions will unfold very rapidly in such a way that human operators
will be unable to predict and master them. To this anthropologist, then,
the lesson of Fukushima is not that we now know what we need to know to
design the perfectly safe reactor, but that the perfectly safe reactor is
always just around the corner. It is technoscientific hubris to think
otherwise.

    This leaves us with a choice between walking back from a technology
that we decide is too dangerous or normalizing the risks of nuclear energy
and accepting that an occasional Fukushima is the price we have to pay for
a world with less carbon dioxide. It is wishful thinking to believe there
is a third choice of nuclear energy without nuclear accidents.

Readers will correctly argue that other energy sources have considerable
human and environmental costs. Coal fired electrical plants are major
carbon dioxide emitters, and the older ones also spew a lot of
particulates. Many communities in the US are fighting fracking out of well
warranted concerns about the damage it might do to underground water
supplies. Others readers have contended that we need to get over our
growth addiction and start adapting to less energy intensive lifestyles
(which if we were really serious about it, means much more urbanization in
the US).

Is nuclear power worth the risk? And if you argue against it, what
energy/economic strategy do you recommend in its place?

Links:

{1}
http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/hugh-gusterson/the-lessons-of-fukushima

{2}
http://www.amazon.com/Normal-Accidents-Living-High-Risk-Technologies/dp/0691004129

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