COMMENT pubs.acs.org/est
Lessons from Fukushima
E
nergy production is risky business. Whether it’s deep offshore drilling for petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico, coal mine explosions in Chile and West Virginia, hydraulic fracturing for shale gas in Pennsylvania, or nuclear power in Fukushima, Japan; we pose risks to humans and other living creatures when we produce power for electricity, heating, and transportation. But some risks are at a higher level of consequence than others. What lessons can we learn from the release of radiation at the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima following the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011? The list below is certainly not exhaustive but it should give us pause. 1. Don’t believe you can imagine the “worst case scenario”. Who would have thought that the Fukushima nuclear facility would experience one of the largest-ever recorded earthquakes, followed by a 30 ft tsunami, and a massive power failure that lasted days (not hours). What’s the joint probability of occurrence for such a chain of events? On the other hand, it seems emblematic of so many disasters that “should never have happened” including the BP Oil spill of 2010. Nuclear power plants in sensitive earthquake zones of the United States like Diablo Canyon, California, are built to structurally withstand an earthquake of 7.5 on the Richter scale. But what happens if we experience an 8.0 or 8.5 (10 times stronger) there or in an area we least expect? Or what if we encounter an “unimaginable” terrorist event at a reactor like Indian Point near New York City? 2. Don’t expect to have power, water, or cell phone communications. Eight hours of emergency battery power is not realistic to avoid loss of pumping (cooling) capacity for nuclear reactors. It is common to lose power, cell phone communication, and water simultaneously during a flood, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, or terrorist event. That is exactly what happened at Fukushima. Now try to respond to a catastrophe under those conditions. 3. Don’t adopt a technology that can melt down or go critical. Society has difficulty assessing risk when the probability of occurrence is extremely small but the consequences are enormous. It’s like multiplying zero times infinity—it just doesn’t compute for most people. Prudence would dictate we be wary of such technologies. 4. Don’t imagine it’s safe simply because it has been (historically) safe. Nuclear power has the safest record of any energy source in the U.S. considering the relative lack of fatalities, greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, or mining disasters. However, accidents have a way of sneakingup precisely when one is lulled into a sense of security. 5. Don’t build something if you are unsure how the waste will be disposed. We have 104 operating nuclear power plants in the U.S. right now. The Obama Administration eliminated the Yucca Mountain, Nevada, site as a repository for storage of spent fuel rods, and long ago the Carter Administration curtailed fuel reprocessing because of the potential for nuclear proliferation. Would you buy a product not knowing how (or if) it can be disposed for 100,000 years? r 2011 American Chemical Society
6. Don’t pretend that spent fuel rods are stored safely. We have hundreds of reactors throughout the world storing spent fuel rods on-site in vats of water like those at Fukushima. Officials swear the practice is safe because the material is not enriched enough to go critical, but it could nevertheless produce a horrible “dirty bomb” of radiation. Despite assurances that a direct hit from a terrorist aircraft could not blow the roof off a spent fuel rod storage facility, small amounts of hydrogen gas from corrosion reactions did just that at Fukushima. 7. Don’t finance a project if the government must underwrite the insurance or collateral the investment. My father was a used car dealer. He would have loved to sell you a car and finance it, if a third party would guarantee the insurance and collateral. Who wouldn’t? Like Wall Street brokers, utilities are asking ratepayers and taxpayers to underwrite the risks, while their companies privatize the profits of nuclear power. As I write this editorial, Japanese engineers and emergency responders appear to have averted the most deadly consequences possible at Fukushima. Thank heavens for courage and duty. The last lesson is best posed as a question: In such a dangerous world with unforeseen calamities, is nuclear power worth the risk?
Jerald L. Schnoor Editor
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Published: March 30, 2011 3820
dx.doi.org/10.1021/es200937v | Environ. Sci. Technol. 2011, 45, 3820–3820
