Someone recently inquired, with regard to the Japanese nuclear catastrophe, just why we chose a technology that relies on an emergency core cooling system. But there are other pertinent questions to ask, such as: why do we build nuclear reactors that cost billions of dollars? Or: why do we build nuclear reactors heated to hundreds of degrees just to boil water? Or: why do we build nuclear reactors when we have plenty of old and new sources for electricity and our biggest problem is not electricity but oil and liquid fuels?
Why we opted for nuclear fission at all is a mystery. My opinion is that our government needed to make work for nuclear scientists and engineers who were no longer needed for the weapons program. In any case, it was the government who promoted it and pushed the utilities, against their better judgment, to build nuclear reactors. Initially the utilities bowed out gracefully, saying that the technology was too risky and that they could not get insurance to cover the risks, many of which were still unknown. The government said: hey, no problem, we'll insure them. So the utilities went ahead, knowing that they would have no liability in case of accidents.
Most nuclear construction went on apace and almost no one noticed, until the late 1970s, when citizens sat up, looked at the facts, got worried, and organized to stop nuclear licensing. They were outfoxed of course. The government made the rules and set up regulatory mechanisms that handicapped citizens and assured reactor licensing. Reactors went on line as planned, over all objections, receiving construction and operating licenses freely. Only one constructed reactor was ever shut down before it went on line, the Shoreham nuclear power plant on the north shore of Long Island, NY. The issue that stalled the licensing tidal wave at Shoreham was the impossibility of evacuating everyone living east of the plant in case of an accident. At the east end of Long Island are Peconic Bay, Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. Evacuation of all residents east of the plant would have to be to the west......past the power plant itself. End of Shoreham. Since then no new plants have been constructed in this country.
The Shoreham plant was not the only one being opposed. All over the USA nukes were built and coming on line, including two located on earthquake faults in California. A transcontinental anti-nuclear network arose, with direct action such as occupation of reactor sites becoming routine through the actions of groups like the Clamshell Alliance. Similar direct actions were taking place in France and more intensively in Germany, over reactors as well as reprocessing plants. There had been strong opposition to nuclear weapons in this country of course, especially after it was revealed that Americans living near nuclear weapons test sites in the west had been contaminated and died, including famous movie stars and journalist Paul Jacobs. Similarly in Germany, anti-nuclear activist Petra Kelly organized Europeans against nuclear weapons and later against nuclear power, recognizing the intricate connection of the two. One result was the birth of Die Grunen (The Greens) in Germany, with Kelly becoming one of its first elected parliamentarians in Germany. Fortunately the Europeans never separated nuclear power and weapons and always opposed both, which was not true in this country and may become a problem again, especially with those who suffer from the NIMBY syndrome and want only to shut down the reactor near them. This is a self-defeating and ultimately unethical position and it could once again undermine the No Nukes movement and allow the press, nuclear scientists and the government to ignore the opposition to nuclear power plants.
The Europeans faced different obstacles than Americans, because energy is nationalized there; what the government wants it gets. What France wanted it got, in spades: dozens of reactors that produced so much more electricity than the French needed themselves that they had to do two things: export as much as possible; and electrify as much of their end uses as possible to soak up the surplus electricity. Today 80% of its energy comes from nuclear power; in Japan it is (was) about 70% And France is the reprocessing center for nuclear fuel. Of course electrification of things like home heating, which need low-grade heat, is incredibly inefficient and wasteful. But this is the result of nationalization, and in a country dominated by technocratic elites as France is, grassroots opposition and activism are at a severe disadvantage. For them, direct action is the first and last resort.
European environmentalists did share one problem with us: the left. With few exceptions, the left remains hostile to environmentalism. One reason is that in general the left still supports economic growth (to end poverty, they claim) and technology (provided it is controlled by workers or socialized). They spend inordinate amounts of time trying to prove that Marx was an ecologist and that his doctrine supports environmentalism. None of this is true. But far be it from the left to concede anything to nonleftists or doubt its Victorian mentor, or, Marx forbid, join the environmental community.
But back in this country, where private utilities were in charge of providing electric power, a process for construction and operating licenses had to be set up, as well as development of safety and health standards for workers and the general public, hence the Atomic Energy Commission or AEC (now called the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or NRC). Citizens were allowed to develop contentions, cross examine, request discovery, and in many cases introduce new concerns....but not so many that they might impede or prevent reactor construction of licensing. The AEC therefore set up a very firm list of issues that could be covered in the hearings and shut out anything else. This is especially relevant with the Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) and the rulemaking hearings held in 1972, where the AEC prohibited the citizen intervenors, who were led by the Union of Concerned Scientists, from introducing any information or witnesses which indicated that there any number of failures that could beset the ECCS and lead to a Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA). In fact there were dissenting AEC scientists and engineers who had brought these additional possibilities to the attention of the AEC but their testimony was banned from the rule-making hearings.
In the reactor construction area, reactors were designed with certain safety features that "proved" that they could meet these standards. It was only after the fact that safety standards were developed that coincided with the reactor design. This enabled the utilities and regulators to address what is called a "design-basis accident". Anything greater than such an accident could not be discussed or challenged. If a reactor was built to withstand an earthquake of a 6.5 magnitude, no one was allowed to raise the possibility or consequences of an earthquake of 7 magnitude or greater. Very neat. The result is what we have today: 104 reactors, most of them thirty or forty years old. Japan's melted reactors exceeded the "design-basis" accident because it was built to withstand an earthquake of 7.9. The recent one measured 9 on the Richter scale, over TEN TIMES the design basis.
The same was true for radiation exposure
So another big question should be asked: how come no one noticed? True, there was some notice after the Three Mile Island meltdown but the feds and the state of Pennsylvania pretty much locked arms and fended it off. Then came Chernobyl but excuses were made that it didn't have a containment (not true actually). So eastern and northwestern Europe was severely contaminated and still is today, twenty years later, with half a million victims-to-come according to Dr. John Gofman's analysis.
And still no one noticed. Now we have the Japanese catastrophe and it appears people are noticing. But the question still remains as to how this country, with its supposed public participation process, representative democracy, a free press and all that comes with these things, let all of this happen without batting an eye. And the same thing is happening with climate change.
Why have Americans - most importantly the educated, the professionals, the liberals, and the liberal/left press - remained distant from and indifferent to environmental issues and especially dangerous nuclear power? Except for the post-Earth Day 1970s, when there was an explosion of environmental groups and laws and regulations and what seemed like a whole new view of the world, we have been regressing to the pre-Earth Day period. What are the reasons and who is responsible?
Blame has to be shared among government, corporations, the energy industry, the media, and our educational system. Government sticks to enforcement of the rules on the book, barely. Corporations resist anything that will either cost them money, cut into profits or cast doubt on what they produce and sell. The energy industry promulgates the tidy myth that the public needs and demands unlimited energy at the snap of a finger and that adverse externalities such as coal mining accidents, oil spills, and nuclear accidents are the price we must pay for "progress" and a high standard of living and continued economic growth. The media, dependent on advertisers, recoil at the notion of publishing bad news that might lose them advertising income. The educational system, left to its own devices, has let the country down badly for unfathomable reasons. There are few schools, either at high school or college level, that have mandatory environmental studies curricula. With luck, a good science teacher can introduce these along with the regular curricula. But this is mainly possible only in private schools. In public universities it rarely happens. There is no mandatory environmental studies program in the New York City or New York State university system.
But there are bigger more diffuse forces at work, notably the peace movement, which had long been involved in stopping nuclear weapons testing and promoting test bans. Thus, they were easily bought off by nuclear scientists who convinced them that nuclear weapons were a bigger threat than nuclear power. This was of course in the scientists' self-interest: to avoid being seen as anything but peace loving scientists.
During the 1970s, the peace and anti-weapons groups stood conspicuously apart from the anti-nuclear power movement. A leading anti-weapons activist was Cora Weiss. I remember attending a panel up at Columbia in which she participated, and when I got up at the end to ask why she and her associates had not opposed nuclear power plants, I got a very hostile reception. Even Dr. Helen Caldicott, noted for her intense opposition to nuclear power for most of her career, softened her position when she headed Physicians for Social Responsibility, whose Boston office worked closely with nuclear scientists at MIT.
At one point, Caldicott publicly declared that nuclear power was "the pimple on the pumpkin" (presumably the pumpkin being the bomb ready to explode). At a fund raiser by opponents of the Shoreham nuclear plant, where she was the featured speaker, she gave a long speech and never mentioned nuclear power or the Shoreham plant. Afterwards I called her to account for this and she muttered defensively something about her peers in Boston, to which I responded that she was perfectly free to express her personal opinions without representing PSR. A group in the southwest that called her to get a copy of a film on nuclear testing was told by her that they could have it but only on condition that they not discuss nuclear power at the screening. Lately she has apparently reverted to her staunch anti-nuclear power position.
Arguably the biggest failure overall has been in the intellectual community. Pick up any of the centrist or liberal journals such as The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and The New York Review of Books, for starters, and you will almost never find any serious in-depth coverage or analysis of nuclear power (unless there is a major crisis such as a nuclear accident or the Gulf oil spill or a mining accident). Mother Jones stands alone in its consistent and powerful environmental coverage.
The environment - and science itself - has never played anything but a minor role in the American intellectual community. Since the 1960s, the cultural wars and revolutions, Identity Politics, abortion, feminism, gay rights, the Cold War, racism, and works of history and literature have monopolized the attention of intellectuals. Science, nature and the environment, the systems and structures that directly enable human society to persist and develop, remain on the unlit back burner. When was the last time you heard a discussion or argument at a party or in a restaurant or in public about the killing of whales and dolphins? About global warming? About the disappearance of ocean fisheries?
Susan Jacoby, in her book, The Age of American Unreason, and others have noted the persistent anti-intellectualism of American public life.
This condition has grown even graver thanks to the internet, where irrationality and conspiracy theories are now daily menu items. Backlashes against traditional medicine, Big Pharma, Big Brother, vaccines and government in general are not restricted to the loony right wing or Tea Party. These anti-science attitudes are matched in the broader intellectual community and among progressives. In the social sciences, some academics bristle at the notion that the human species evolved within the same evolutionary constraints as nonhuman species and spend inordinate amounts of time trying to re-define natural selection or re-write Darwin, as some in the "New Age" movement have done. The inevitable result of such anti-nature attitudes is the belief that humans are separate from the rest of nature and therefore need to be studied differently because they are subject to different rules. This of course is what allows us to commodify and therefore exploit nature as much as we want. Nothing could be more irrational nor more deleterious to the environmental cause. In truth, we are entering the Dark Ages when superstition, myth and religion were dominant.
Where will the Japanese disaster lead us on energy policy? Already the defenders are mounting their defense, based either on the myth that our reactors are different (they aren't), that we have better regulation and oversight (we don't), and above all that our economy needs the energy. This is of course the same defense used to promote oil drilling, coal and natural gas. Our best defense is to address this last point and not get into futile arguments with the NRC over technical details. Whether it is nuclear, oil or climate change disaster, a simple fact must be acknowledged: there is no way to avoid ANY disaster from energy development as long as we accept the need for continued economic growth and consumption.
Unless there is a clear, strong message from the American public that they are ready to cut their consumption by paying more for energy and supporting stringent mandatory energy efficiency standards, we will be outflanked by those who will raise the spectre of hardship and sacrifice if growth does not continue. If we do not reject growth, we are agreeing with them that any and all risks associated with nukes or oil or gas drilling are acceptable because these are just part of "progress", jobs and development. We need to cut to the chase: either we are willing to take the steps necessary to curtail energy use and growth, or we accede to the arguments of the nuclear power proponents. There is no other choice.
Presently single-issue pressure group politics dominates, as indeed it has for most of our history. Occasionally separate movements come together for a demonstration or rally but they quickly go their own way afterwards. Few if any of them stop to ask themselves about systemic causes of their disparate problems. Self-interest rules the day, whether in abortion, gay rights, racism or unions, mainly because there is no political or electoral vehicle that expresses and supports multiple issues, as the European parliamentary system does. But the major failure lies in the resistance of Americans to the intellectual discipline that is required for making judgments about environmental issues. This discipline cannot be achieved in the absence of a sensibility that regards human endeavors as embedded in nature. This in turn requires a sensitivity to and basic understanding of Nature and natural processes. It may well be that industrial society has definitively suppressed this innate sensitivity that was vital to the persistence of our species. One might describe this sensitivity as the Soul. Reawakening this sensitivity is in the end what environmentalism is all about. But one wonders whether we have enough time left.