Team Gamma Ray Can Nuclear Energy Be Revived?

Safety Concerns Involving Nuclear Power

1. Introduction

   When you hear the world nuclear, it often evokes images of Armageddon and nuclear war or radiation and catastrophe. Nothing could be further from the truth regarding American nuclear power. Safety and health concerns coupled with a misinformed population are responsible for the shift in public perception against this form of energy.
   
   
   

2. Fatality and Injury Related Comparison Across Economic Sectors

   In the United States, since the advent of the very first nuclear power plant, not a single person has lost their life or been seriously injured as a result of reactor accidents or mechanical failure. Compared with other sectors of the economy, oil and gas industry deaths numbered approximately 719 from 1992-1995, a 3 year period, and smoking kills more than 419,000 people per year. Similarly, from 1899-1995 more than 2.9 million people have been killed in automobile accidents, from 1938 until present 54,000 have died in civil aviation accidents, and more than 31,000 people have died in coal mining accidents from 1931-1995.
   
   
   

3. Major Reactor Accidents and Their Roles in Shaping Public Perception

   Despite these statistics, which a majority of the general public are oblivious to, the primary concern about nuclear power is not how many it has killed, because so far nobody within the United States has died as a result of an accident, but rather the potential for a catastrophic accident and release of radiation with subsequent health affects and the possibility of mass death. Two reactor accidents have forever altered the public perception of nuclear power. One was the accident at Three Mile Island power plant outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1979 and the other was a catastrophe in Chernobyl, Russia in 1986.
   
   
   

   1. Three Mile Island - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (1979)

      
      
      
      

      

      
      
      Three Mile Island was the result of mechanical failure and human error. However, the design of the nuclear reactor, a pressurized water reactor, and highly specialized training of plant workers mitigated the possibility of a meltdown. While radiation did escape, according to Professor Pisupati, “people living within 50 miles of Three Mile Island were exposed to an average of 1.5 millirems of radiation. In a cross-country flight, you would be exposed to approximately the same amount of natural background radiation”. It was the single worst nuclear accident in the history of American nuclear power. Even so, the government spent billions to cleanup the limited amount that was released. Additionally, no link to increased cancer or leukemia rates was ever established. The accident did, however, begin to shape public perception against nuclear power. The populace began to realize the potential for a major disaster that could kill hundreds and thousands of people. Then Chernobyl, the straw that broke the camels back, occurred in 1987.
      
      
      

   2. Chernobyl, Russia (1986)

      
      
      
      

      

      
      
      Chernobyl was an unauthorized experiment at a Russian nuclear reactor to determine how fast a nuclear reaction could be stopped. Engineers removed the control rods used to prevent a nuclear reaction from going supercritical and then attempted to replace them. The reaction spiraled out of control and the reactor went supercritical. As mentioned before, US reactors use water as a moderator and water acts as a built in safety mechanism by vaporizing to steam in order to slow a reaction in the event of an emergency. Chernobyl used graphite as a moderator. Graphite burns at high temperatures because of its chemical makeup. Temperatures in the reactor soared and the graphite caught fire, igniting hydrogen that had accumulated in the reactor containment unit causing an explosion. It blew the ‘lid’ off of the reactor, killing people and spreading radioactive fallout for miles and miles. People began to suffer radiation sickness after the initial exposure and some would die from it later as well. Even though the town was evacuated and Chernobyl declared a radioactive zone unfit for habitation, people are still living there now. The radiation exposure they received had long term effects as well. Birth defects, cancer, deformations, and infertility are common in people who were exposed. Chernobyl more than anything else, permanently changed public opinion against nuclear power for the fear of nuclear meltdown.
   
   
   
   

4. Environmental and Health Risks Associated with High Level Radiation Exposure

   Exposure to high level radiation, the radiation found in nuclear fuel, can cause cancer, leukemia, birth defects, deformity, molecular change in the cells of the body which permanently damage internal organs and tissues, blindness, damage to the nervous system, stunted growth, a whole range of illnesses, and death. On the environmental side, radiation can contaminate soil and plants killing them or stunting their growth and making them inedible along with indigenous mammal and marine life.
   
   
   

5. Benefits of Nuclear Power

   Despite risks from exposure to high level radiation, nothing on the scale of Chernobyl has ever occurred in the history of United States nuclear power or is likely to occur given the stringent operating and reactor licensing procedures that exist. The major problems stemming from Chernobyl according to Professor Pisupati were that workers at Chernobyl were given inadequate operating procedures and training, there were several design deficiencies in the nuclear reactor which are not present in safer western nuclear reactors, physical and political infrastructure was lacking to sustain safe operation of the plant, and there was inadequate nuclear regulation. Those major problems have never existed in the United States. Various nuclear control acts have been passed since the first atomic explosion, and a governmental body, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees nuclear power plants and maintains adherence to the strictest safety and operating guidelines. Despite Chernobyl and doomsday scenarios of reactor meltdowns, some of the benefits of nuclear energy are that it releases no carbon dioxide, no sulfur oxides, and no nitrogen oxides, which traditional fossil-fuel based electricity generating methods do. All of those gases, known as greenhouse gasses, contribute to global warming, acid rain, smog formation, and ground level ozone formation. Consequently, nuclear power does not add to worries of global warming and in fact acts as a mitigating factor in greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, while huge amounts of fossil fuels are required to burn in coal and natural gas fired power plants, nuclear reactors require a comparably small amount of fuel in relation and nuclear fuel supply is estimated in centuries and generations.
   
   
   

6. Post 9/11 - The Terrorist Factor

   
   
   
   

   

   
   
   While the track record for American nuclear power is excellent, the potential for disaster still exists in the publics minds. Now in the post 9-11 world, terrorism plays an ever-increasing role in the argument of whether or not nuclear power is safe. A successful attack against a reactor would be likely to cause severe and long-lasting health and environmental damage. Does the public want more nuclear reactors and more targets for terrorists? Another issue at the core of the public debate is the problem of nuclear waste and how to dispose of it.