Danielle Sass

Environmental Studies Capstone

Nuclear Power

March 23, 1999

Nuclear Power - What's missing from the debate?

It is not generally a great idea to apologize for one's paper at the beginning, but the majority of this essay is going to include something which Swatties (or at least, I) have a great tendency to do - through attempting to think critically about issues, end up tearing apart the reasoning/argument of the author we don't think has thought everything through, or with whose opinion we do not agree (which, as some of us were informed by a professor of ours, is not very nice). However, I do think this is a worthwhile exercise, especially when dealing with a very real world problem/debate such as that surrounding nuclear power, as everyone can learn from the holes others see in one's argument. Hopefully, as well, you all will help to point out further discrepancies for me and refute my attacks on the author's behalf.

In his essay Yes: Nuclear Power Is Safe, and We Need It, Jagger presents a litany of reasons for why nuclear power is safer than other energy-gathering technologies, why it is economically viable, why all of the fears surrounding its by-products are unfounded. He presents his case for nuclear power almost exclusively in relation to coal-burning energy, however. If nuclear power really will solve all the world's energy problems, including reducing the amount of air pollution released each year (which cuts down on respiratory disease, acid rain, ozone depletion, and the greenhouse effect), providing limitless energy to the world through the use of an infinite resource, and doing everything safely and at extremely low cost, why would one consider it in terms of purely the dirty, environmentally unfriendly, dangerous coal industry? Why not take on all possible energy technology, or else let nuclear stand by itself with all others having to measure up against it? Perhaps because Jagger has no interest in solving the world's energy problems, just in touting nuclear power.

This is why, when discussing the lack of pollution produced by nuclear power, Jagger chooses to look at four types of air pollution, and compare that with the single heading, ground contamination in an attempt to convince the reader that nuclear power is much better for the environment than coal, oil, and gas. He has set up the equivalent of an unfalsifiable experiment by comparing the new technology to the old one(s) on its(their) worst grounds where there is little relevant overlap. This is what allows him to state that "Nuclear power contributes to none of the problems listed."(p. 480) It is a question of perspective. The real question should not be Does this energy source cause air pollution?, but -What type of pollution does this energy source produce? and how do its effects compare with those of other technologies in terms of environmental degradation and human health?

I appreciate that Jagger attempts to persuade the reader that he is, indeed, critical of nuclear power too. He states concern that the classification of intermediate level wastes as "low level wastes" is occurring and that a more appropriate labelling policy should be developed and enacted. However, this appears to only be of minor concern to him even though it increases human exposure to dangerous radiation. I, on the other hand, would think that inappropriate classification of the dangers of radioactive waste products would be a serious enough oversight that one might reconsider advancement of nuclear power until appropriate waste classification protocol were established.

One way of reducing radioactive waste, though, Dr. Jagger notes, is through reprocessing. Jagger talks about how reprocessing reduces the radioactivity of first-round waste substances and then goes on to state that "A good deal of chemical waste is associated with reprocessing, but disposing of this is no more of a problem than disposal of any other chemical waste." Once again, I would argue that this is an extremely narrow-minded position. Disposal of chemical waste is a very LARGE problem, in fact, and that contributing 'a good deal' of chemical waste to an already serious amount is not a hallmark of a beneficial, and advanced technology.

More generally, in discussing possible disposal techniques, Jagger attempts to demonstrate that radioisotopes from low- and intermediate-level wastes are quickly harmless and drift into the realm of global background radiation. However, the time scales he chooses to talk about (and attempt to compare across) are very different.

There are serious consequences of all these actions on a human scale, an ecological scale, and, potentially, a geological scale. Jagger mixes all three to justify away the amount of time something stays radioactive and dangerous. Three hundred years (the time afterwhich radioactivity is "very low" for strontium-90, cesium-137 and cesium-134) for something to be harmfully contaminated is a long time on human scales, even though it is at the very short end for radioactive waste. Three hundred years is approximately 12 generations of people who could be harmed by the contaminant waste, not to mention the potentially detrimental ecological effects of such an input to any environment over that time scale. Jagger does a good job of showing that these by-products operate on a completely different scale of time than humans, however, he does not address the implications of this shift beyond stating that one could keep records of where things were buried if needed even though some records would have to survive for 1000 years. This brings up a very real question of obligations to future generations that we might want to revisit in class.

"Furthermore" Jagger states, "deep geologic disposal of waste in rocks millions of years old would be so safe that we could almost literally forget about it!" I am not sure about other people, but a very loud, ringing bell went off in my head when I read that. Are those famous last words, or what? I can only say that the same attitude used to be present when approaching chemical waste disposal which was thought to be safely buried and out of people's minds at 20 50 feet beneath the ground. The fact of the matter is that no one knows if there will be any effects from deposition of nuclear waste in the future. It has never been done before and theory can only predict so far before one might rely on common sense and previous trends. I would hope that one would not write the same statement now, given the phenomenal number of accidents which have been discovered due to human thoughtlessness with regard to our waste.

Noticeably absent from Jagger's presentation of nuclear power was any actual discussion of worker's health and safety (outside of the un-cited comment about coal mining being twenty times more dangerous than uranium extraction and purification). Jagger does state that "no one has ever been killed and no civilian has even been hurt by civilian power in the United States" . However, without any citation, qualifications, or provisos, I am beyond skeptical of the accuracy of such a statement. First, Jagger did make the statement only about the United States, however, the US does not have nearly the nuclear reactivity on line that Russia, France, and other countries have. Which is to say that we could certainly experience many of the effects of nuclear problems with higher densities of nuclear power plants. Additionally, Jagger makes it obvious that he does not accept the statistics of cancer and deaths that people like Lenssen report in the form of higher incidences occurring in workers and their families who live near, and with radiation all the time.

A final issue which Jagger did not adequately address, is the argument of cost effectiveness which used to propel nuclear power into the arena. All of the other authors said that changes with new regulations and required conservation of funds for shut-downs and clean ups have increased the cost of nuclear power tremendously. Nuclear power may have had the promise of being "too cheap to measure" at one time, but in fact, it has become uncompetitively expensive. I was just told that in the southeastern PA area where PICO energy provides power, a poorly planned nuclear power plant has now ended up forcing residents to pay some of highest energy costs in the country for their power. That does not appear to be atypical.

Seeing as this reading is for an Environmental Ethics/Philosophy course, when/after reading the articles, I was trying to figure out how these readings related to environmental ethics. Neither Jagger, nor Lenssen put the nuclear power/waste debate in moral terms, but they should have. At first, it seems obvious where morality lies when it comes to this issue - on human life and health, right? But really that doesn't have to be/shouldn't be all. Part of Jagger's environmental ethic appears when he is discussing what could/should be done with the nuclear waste that is produced. He talks about putting it in the ocean, in deep space, or in deep ground wells. However, he does not even mention the potential human effects of such measures, only what the chances are (in abstraction) for release of wastes into the surrounding area. Jagger does not mention at all, what the effects of such possible releases would have on any human who would come in contact with it, nor what ecological effects the leakage of, for example, a breached canister of plutonium-239 would have in only a few meters of dispersion.

This is where an environmental ethic comes in. It does not require an extreme view, but if one looks at the natural environment as being worthy of consideration, in addition to human life, one may find extremely compelling reasons for rejecting nuclear power on ethical grounds. This ethical rejection would be grounded firmly in reasoning and based on facts surrounding the debate, but would not accept the requisite disposal problems associated with nuclear power. I believe that this is the approach we have discussed in class on numerous occasions, and that Hans has been hoping we would adopt it as the way to defend ourselves and our environment. However, it requires critical thinking, constant questioning, a lot of refuting, and awareness of the (disappointing) potential for impurity in science. I hope we can work on developing these kind of ethical approaches to many of the problems we encounter in the future.