The end of nuclear energy? Or a new beginning?
In light of the recent nuclear accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant in Japan, many are questioning the safety of nuclear power; some are even calling for the dismantling of nuclear power plants in favor of other “safer” forms of energy, such as coal-fired power plants and increased use of other fossil fuels like natural gas and oil. But is this really a good idea?
“There are a lot of public misconceptions about nuclear energy,” says Michael Orr, MS, a nuclear engineer and faculty member at University of Phoenix. “First of all, it’s more environmentally safe than fossil fuels, in the aggregate. There’s no greenhouse gases, because you’re not burning anything. And when you look at all the nuclear reactors in the United States combined, there are far fewer deaths associated with nuclear energy than with other power industries, such as coal — every single year you have coal miners killed in accidents, dying of black lung, plus all the chronic public-health problems that arise from air pollution, like asthma.”
Orr’s primary experience with nuclear reactors involves reactor core design, specifically for the reactors that power the U.S. Navy’s Virginia-class nuclear submarines. Orr has also had numerous professional debriefings from the American Nuclear Society and the U.S. Department of Energy regarding nuclear accidents, such as those that occurred at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. “From a technical perspective, nuclear power is very safe,” says Orr. “The problem is with education and public perception of nuclear power more than anything else.”
Jose Lepervanche, PhD, an MIT-educated nuclear scientist who also teaches for University of Phoenix, agrees. “The benefits of nuclear power in terms of efficiency and emissions have been widely proven by the experience of countries that rely on this type of energy to provide electricity,” he says. “The possible environmental impact of nuclear energy is linked to the high safety standards related to nuclear reactor operations and used nuclear fuel disposal.”
Lepervanche, like his colleague Michael Orr, cautions that while nuclear accidents like the current situation at Fukushima are tragic, they serve as important lessons for the industry that can help improve safety in the long run. “The three major nuclear accidents (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima), generated new information to improve safety operations,” says Lepervanche. “Engineers at Fukushima have been using all accumulated experience in nuclear safety to manage this crisis with minor consequences.”
When it comes to educating the public about nuclear energy and nuclear safety, Michael Orr believes that both the American education system and the American media could do a much better job. “When you bring up the term ‘nuclear,’ the average American thinks only of nuclear bombs,” says Orr. “But a nuclear reactor cannot explode like a bomb, because there’s not enough nuclear material in a reactor to produce that kind of a reaction. The explosions that have occurred (like at Chernobyl and Fukushima) were actually hydrogen explosions that occurred due to buildup of heat in the reactor core that first caused steam to increase pressure in the cooling tanks.”
While much of the fear surrounding nuclear energy and nuclear accidents centers on radiation leaks, Orr cautions that many of these fears are based on overstated risks, especially in the media. “The thing is, there’s radiation in everything,” he says. “There’s radiation in coal. There’s radiation in food, like bananas. Radiation comes from household appliances like microwaves, toasters, and your computer. There’s even radiation in your own body — we have carbon-14, potassium, and iodine in our bodies, and those are all elements that have naturally occurring radioactive isotopes.”
Orr advises that even some of the worst nuclear accidents released a negligible amount of radiation into the atmosphere. “Three Mile Island actually released less radiation than you’d get on a routine flight from New York to Denver,” he says.
Jose Lepervanche says that nuclear accidents like Fukushima actually provide an opportunity to make nuclear power safer. “I did my master’s thesis on the lessons of the Three Mile Island accident,” he says. “New safety procedures, operations, and materials are normally introduced after an accident. Nuclear engineers use this opportunity to find innovative solutions, attract new scientists to the field, and to educate the public to avoid misinformation and sensationalism.”
That said, could the current disaster at Fukushima have been avoided? “That’s really hard to say,” says Orr. “There’s a subspecialty of nuclear engineering called Probabilistic Risk Assessment, or PRA (also known as Probabilistic Safety Assessment or PSA). Engineers do statistical forecasts of the probability around certain events happening, then try to design reactors, plants, and safety procedures around those probabilities. When you look at what happened at Fukushima — a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that was immediately followed by a massive tsunami, that was an event so extraordinary, the probability of it happening so miniscule, that it just wasn’t planned for.”
Orr goes on to say that while many of the existing nuclear facilities in the U.S. and around the world are aging, technology and design paradigms now exist that can make new facilities safer than ever. “Current reactor design paradigms employ something we call passive design,” he says. “In passive design, we are basically building reactors that are completely hands-off, that don’t need human operators to intervene or manage them. The safety procedures and emergency backups are built into the system such that once it starts up, it basically runs itself.”
Jose Lepervanche also believes that the U.S. could benefit from building new nuclear power reactors that incorporate improvements in safety systems. “Additional redundant systems (beyond those usually required) are in place in multi-reactor Japanese power plants to reduce the probability of failure in these systems,” he says. “U.S. nuclear plants could learn about these additional redundancy systems to improve cooling and the impact of an accident in a multiple-reactor facility like Fukushima.”
Lepervanche also suggests that the current media interest in the Fukushima accident could lead to a new era for nuclear energy. “If we follow the news and unfolding events in the Fukushima plant, it is important to observe that nuclear plant personnel and authorities are working together in a professional way to protect the general public, minimize the impact of radiation, and to show that safe nuclear power can continue with a minor impact on public confidence,” he says. “I believe if we look at what happened at Fukushima as an ‘accident’ and not as a ‘disaster’, it will create enough of a new wave of research and interest to have a nuclear energy revival.”
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