Here's the pro-fission letter I wrote in response to a 2007 NYT Magazine article in Dubner and Levitt’s Freakonomics series, called The Jane Fonda Effect. I've been meaning to update it, but the basic physics haven't changed, only politics and economics. Things were looking up slightly since then, although Fukushima was obviously another big blow to public confidence in nuclear. With the recent push by the Trump administration to use more coal, it seemed like a good time to trot it out for a new audience; the authors include a coal analogy which I elaborate on in my reply.
I’m not a rabid pro-nuker; we need to develop ALL possible alternative energy sources to replace petroleum – solar in particular, although the Fed should invest more research effort into fusion. Future generations will deride us not only for the environmental damage but the folly of wasting such a useful raw material as petroleum by burning it when we have good energy alternatives now.
Also see the film Pandora’s Promise, in which several noteworthy environmentalists come to the conclusion that nuclear is our best carbon-free alternative for large-scale energy production.
My research indicates that by 1986, the US had developed a viable form of nuclear fission reactor that solved all three major problems: meltdown-proof, no weapons-grade material generation, and no high-level nuclear waste. Also, the only safe way to dispose of nuclear waste and bomb materials is to burn them in a reactor. Ironically, in a trial just prior to the Chernobyl incident, the Argonne researchers demonstrated that the new reactor design was safe even when all cooling was removed, which was what led to the meltdown in Russia. Sound nutty? I have references for all my assertions; although they’re now 10 years old and some links are dead, the information should still be available to the public. Please read the original article too, or better, first.
Re: Freakonomics 9.16.07 The Jane Fonda Effect
I heartily agree with the authors’ analysis, but they missed an opportunity to present the facts on the risks and uncertainties of coal versus nuclear power plants to the general public. While coal mining is a grim business, the more important metric for the average citizen is “would you rather live next to a coal-fired or a nuclear power plant?” Excepting those that have already lived next to one and know better, most people would probably choose the coal plant, citing a fear of radiation from the nuke, without knowing that in fact they’ll receive a much higher dose of radiation exposure from the coal-burning plant; more ironically, the nuclear energy potential of the radioactive elements released as waste in coal combustion is greater than the energy obtained from burning the coal itself [1].
This radioactive fallout is in addition to all of the other well-known toxins emitted by coal plants; as we learn more about their negative health and environmental effects, it would seem appropriate to tighten coal-fired emission controls. Unfortunately, emission standards and enforcement have become more lax recently in the cause of cheaper energy. If the radioactive emissions of coal plants were regulated as tightly as at nuclear power plants, they would immediately become more expensive to operate than nuclear.
What about the likelihood of a catastrophic meltdown or other accident? The authors are correct, The China Syndrome and the unfortunate timing of TMI apparently convinced people that this is eventually sure to happen and that the destruction of the eastern seaboard was only narrowly avoided. While risk comparisons are often made with another technology like the automobile, which kills 50,000 people annually, it’s been argued that the more cataclysmic nature of a potential nuclear accident is what really scares people [2].
In The Nuclear Energy Option, professor Bernard Cohen compares it to the fear of a plane crashing into a stadium and killing 50,000 people at once, pointing out this is actually much more likely to occur than a nuclear accident [3]. Of course, something similar did happen on 9/11, but besides that we’ve become used to airliners crashing with some regularity, roughly once a month [4]; nuclear power clearly has a better safety record by a huge margin.
The U.S. simply went too far, too fast with nuclear power, integrating it into our infrastructure on a large scale before this new technology was thoroughly understood and safe, at a time when we did not really need the energy, with no plan for waste disposal; the public’s trust has been breached.
For a good overview of the issue see PBS Frontline #1511 (April 22, 1997):
Nuclear Reaction: Why Do Americans Fear Nuclear Power?
Is there hope for nuclear power? Yes; while the American public retains their fears gained in the 1970s about nuclear technology dating from the 1950s, taxpayer-supported scientists and engineers were quietly working on safe, clean nuclear power for thirty years, and by Jove, they got it [5-8]. Many third- or fourth-generation nuclear power schemes have been discussed, but critics correctly point out that most of them are either still experimental or present waste problems. There is one that’s ready though: the Advanced Fast Reactor (AFR) design developed at Argonne West/Idaho National Labs, also termed the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) [9, 10].
The AFR was demonstrated to be inherently safe and meltdown-proof; when all controls are removed, the metallic-fuel reactor slows down and cools off by a completely passive mechanism [11]. "We actually gave a small prototype advanced fast reactor a couple of chances to melt down." said Argonne nuclear engineer Pete Planchon, who led the 1986 tests. "It politely refused both times." Three weeks later the Chernobyl incident occurred and "provided a disastrous real-life contrast to Argonne's experimental demonstration" said Argonne director and CEO Alan Schriesheim; unfortunately, the American public never heard about the successes at Argonne.
How will we handle the waste? While events like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl could have been prevented, the accumulation of high-level waste was inevitable, and the proliferation of weapons-grade material from breeder reactors is an unfortunate and frightening consequence of the energy policies of other countries. First-generation nuclear reactors utilize as little as 1% of the energy present in the fuel [12]; second-generation schemes slightly more. With Argonne’s pyroprocessing fuel recycling method, over 99% of the available energy in the nuclear fuel can be extracted in a nearly closed cycle that only generates a small amount of waste with a short half-life; no weapons-grade material is created at any point in the process [13, 14].
AFR technology can supply clean power for hundreds of years to come just by burning the waste we already have [15]; burning nuclear waste as fuel is ultimately the only viable option for its disposal. Plutonium from breeders and decommissioned bombs can also be safely incorporated into AFR fuel: swords into plowshares. By 2025, the U.S. could be running almost entirely on nuclear power [12]; unfortunately, Congress cut funding for the AFR project in 1994 and has shown no interest since. But who can blame politicians for not advocating something most of the public is against?
We are at a crucial moment in human history; having discovered the secret of the atom, we can literally use it to destroy the world or to save it. Given our current energy and environmental problems, let’s hope we can make a rational decision about using nuclear power rather than start a nuclear war over oil and continue to pollute the planet to the brink of our own extinction.
References
1. Gabbard, A. Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or Danger? Oak Ridge National Laboratory Review https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0932/ML093280447.pdf 1993. 26(3-4).
2. DuPont, R. Nuclear Reaction: Interviews, in FRONTLINE. 1997, PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/dupont.html.
3. Cohen, BL. The Nuclear Energy Option. 1990: Plenum Press.
4. Airsafe.com. The Most Recent Fatal Airline Events http://www.airsafe.com/events/last_15.htm. 2007.
5. Plumlee, KE et al. Critical Experiments for Argonne Advanced Research Reactor. Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 1966. 9(1): p. 182-&.
6. Rhodes, EA et al. Fuel Motion in Overpower Tests of Metallic Integral Fast-Reactor Fuel. Nuclear Technology, 1992. 98(1): p. 91-99.
7. Robinson, WR et al. In-Pile Loss-of-Flow Treat Test-L05 with Prototype Fast-Reactor Fuel. Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 1984. 46: p. 510-511.
8. Walters, LC. Thirty years of fuels and materials information from EBR-II. Journal of Nuclear Materials, 1999. 270(1-2): p. 39-48.
9. Stanford, GS. Integral Fast Reactors: Source of Safe, Abundant, Non-Polluting Power. 2001, The National Center for Public Policy Research http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA378.html.
10. Baurac, D. Technology pioneered at Argonne shows promise for next generation of nuclear reactors, in Frontiers - Research Highlights http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/Frontiers/2002/d1ee.html. 2002, Argonne National Laboratory.
11. Baurac, D. Passively safe reactors rely on nature to keep them cool. 2002, Logos 20 (1) Argonne National Laboratory, Communications & Public Affairs Division.
12. Finck, P et al. The Path to Sustainable Nuclear Energy. Basic and Applied Research Opportunities for Advanced Fuel Cycles. 2005, US DOE - Office of Basic Energy Sciences http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/reports/files/PSNE_rpt.pdf.
13. Zebroski, EL. Fast reactor designs in the USA: Changing goals and options. Energy, 1998. 23(7-8): p. 533-548.
14. Chang, YI. Advanced Fast Reactor: A Next-Generation Nuclear Energy Concept. in Forum on Physics and Society 31 (2). 2002: American Physical Society http://units.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2002/april/a1ap02.cfm.
15. Till, C. Nuclear Reaction: Interviews, in FRONTLINE. 1997, PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html.