The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is speeding its publishing schedule in response to the emergency in Japan. This report reviews four recent articles that reflect the thinking of scholars who spend their lives thinking about these things.
The first article titled "Second chances: Containment of a reactor meltdown" is by Frank von Hippel, codirector of the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and a member of The Bulletin's board of sponsors. He is a former assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology. Von Hippel's areas of policy research include nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, energy, and checks and balances in policy-making for technology.
Article Highlights
* The hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants are a startling reminder of the unlearned lessons since similar events at Three Mile Island in 1979.
* The problem of containment over-pressurization and the potential need to vent is not new: It has been a long-term issue in the nuclear reactor safety community.
* The time is now to question what is "safe enough" in the nuclear industry.
After constructing his factual argument, von Hippel concludes:
In 2002, the NRC, despite alarming evidence that a pressure vessel had almost corroded through, refused to force an owner to shutdown the reactor for inspection before its regular refueling shutdown. After a review, the NRC's own inspector general concluded PDF:
"NRC appears to have informally established an unreasonably high burden of requiring absolute proof of a safety problem, versus lack of a reasonable assurance of maintaining public health and safety."
We failed after Three Mile Island in 1979 to reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or force improved containment designs. The tragedy in Japan may have given us another opportunity.
The second article I'd like to draw your attention to is titled "An explosive mix: Uncertain geologic knowledge and hazardous technologies."
It is written by Allison Macfarlane, who chairs The Bulletin's Science and Security Board. Macfarlane was named to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future by US Energy Secretary Steven Chu in February 2010. She is an associate professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University, and is an affiliate of the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. She is the author of Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste.
Article Highlights
* Geology is an imperfect science full of "unknown unknowns" and geologic events cannot be predicted with any accuracy.
* Because of the limitations of geologic information, there must be reassessment of the portion of nuclear plant planning that depends on it.
* Countries that are considering acquiring nuclear power also need to reassess their plans, especially if they are located in tectonically active regions.
In her factual discussion, Macfarlane writes:
Geologic knowledge is incomplete and imperfect. And we rely on it perhaps too heavily when making policy decisions about siting hazardous technologies such as nuclear power plants. These facilities need geologically stable, physically secure environments in which to operate, and sometimes we push the envelope too far. Clearly that is the case with Fukushima.
Nuclear reactors are built to withstand what is termed "design basis accidents." What happened at Fukushima is a "beyond design basis accident." The nuclear industry bases its design basis accidents on "credible events," which are determined by a probabilistic analysis. Unfortunately, the Fukushima crisis is clear evidence that they got the probabilistic analysis wrong. Why was it wrong? In part because the "credible event" -- one that was "reasonably expected to occur" -- was thought to be an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 at most and a tsunami of 6.7 meters at most. The actual quake released more than 1,000 times the energy and the actual tsunami was almost 9 meters high.
...If a nuclear reactor's safety margin is based on specific predictions of geologic phenomena, as it is, then there is a problem, because geologists are not always correct in their bounding assessments. ...we now face the question of whether nuclear power in unstable areas was worth the risk. ... I think this situation calls for a reassessment of the portion of "design basis accidents" that depend on geologic information, especially in tectonically active regions. We need to do this reassessment for existing reactors around the world. ... Many of the issues described here can be easily applied to the issue of physical security. Spent fuel pools packed with hot, radioactive fuel need water to cool them. They are vulnerable to attack; perhaps even more vulnerable than the cores of the reactors. The pools of the type at Fukushima -- General Electric Boiling Water Reactor Mark I plants -- are located stories above ground level. If the pools were damaged in a sabotage attack, and water was lost, the scenario would be the same as what is currently occurring at Fukushima. Nuclear power requires stability -- geologic stability and political stability -- to perform well. We can no longer ignore these risks, but must clearly account for them.
Please read the full article. > It's not long.
The third article from The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that merits your attention this morning is "After the nuclear renaissance: The age of discovery." It is written by Alexander Glaser, a member of The Bulletin's Science and Security Board. Glaser is assistant professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. He is part of Princeton's Program on Science and Global Security and serves as co-editor of the program journal. His research interests include nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear energy, and nuclear forensics. He is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Material.
Article Highlights
* In the United States and around the world, existing nuclear reactors are nearing their 40-year lifespans, which could mean a drop in nuclear electricity production if plants shut down before new plants are online.
* It remains to be seen how the Fukushima disaster will shape the debate on nuclear safety and whether the public is willing to accept the possibility of catastrophic nuclear accidents.
* The Fukushima accidents are likely to shift the balance in the debate on climate change and the risks and benefits of nuclear power.
In the factual discussion, Glaser writes:
Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power had gradually begun to enjoy more widespread support. Facing unprecedented climate change, even to some skeptics it seemed a lesser evil. This shift was possible as the Chernobyl disaster slowly began to fade away as a distant memory, which in any event -- so the argument went -- had been caused by a flawed reactor design. Optimists were able to point out that roughly two-thirds of the total nuclear electricity generated since the beginning of the nuclear era was produced after Chernobyl and more than 80 percent was produced after the 1979 "near-miss" Three Mile Island accident.
Many chose to believe that the right lessons had been learned. Reactor design and safety had matured, operators were better-trained, nuclear regulators more watchful, and catastrophic accidents were simply not going to happen. Severe accident probabilities of "once in one hundred thousand years" really meant "never." Fukushima has proven these assumptions wrong; and it will have a number of implications for the energy debate.
... The debate will center on the question of whether or not the public is willing to accept the mere possibility of catastrophic accidents that can lead to a large-scale release of radioactivity; and the answer may well be "No."
The public may ask for reactor designs that cannot experience core meltdowns even under extreme conditions as witnessed in Japan, i.e., a complete loss of cooling during an extended power blackout. This and other considerations could also bring to the center of attention fundamentally different approaches to nuclear power such as underground construction or much smaller reactor units (with respectively lower radioactive inventories). Ultimately, of course, such considerations may well push the economics of nuclear power over the edge.
Read Glaser's concise discussion where he lists the implications of the crisis in Japan for climate change and also implications for the license extensions of existing nuclear reactors in the United States -- and in other countries where reactors are reaching the end of their original 40-year lives.
The fourth and final article we're looking at this morning in The Bulletin is by Thomas Rosenbaum, member of the journal's Science and Security Board. He is provost of the University of Chicago and expert on the quantum mechanical nature of materials. Rosenbaum has been a physics professor and vice president of Argonne National Laboratory and has been recognized for contributions to condensed matter physics.
His brief article is titled "Facing fears with facts and reason: Managing energy risks after Fukushima."
Article Highlights
* The energy future must recognize the needs of the world's growing population and protect the future viability of the planet. And this does not come without risk.
* Energy demands are growing in response to lifestyle demands; to satisfy them both -- and control carbon emissions -- nuclear power cannot be overlooked as an energy source.
...It is not only the immediate dangers of exposure, but also the cancers that inevitably will show up years in the future, and the unpredictable impact of radioactive particles dispersed by the winds. Already, there are calls in the United States to slow a budding nuclear renaissance, and it is certain and wise that safety protocols will have to be re-examined for the many nuclear power plants of similar design to those at the Fukushima Daiichi complex....
... The imperative of safer designs and sitings for nuclear plants does not obviate the need to develop an energy future that both recognizes the needs of the world's growing population and protects the future viability of the planet. There are risks no matter which path we choose, and I would argue that we are at a point where a clear-headed assessment of overall risk embedded within a purposeful sense of where we need to go is of the utmost urgency.
Read Rosenbaum's discussion.