Guest Post by Adam Sadowsky on Nuclear Power and the Repurcussions of Japan

For the context, Adam's comments are in response to this article, but I think they're pretty cogent all on their own. Adam used to be a nuclear engineer so he knows his shit. Take it away, sir!

Adam: You bring up a lot of really good history in this argument, and it does appear that the response of the government regulatory agencies and other recent government decisions do not seem to be impacted by the nuclear reactor disaster in Japan.  My personal opinion of what this country should be doing as far as energy policy aside, I would like to play devil's advocate on a few points that were brought up.

 

Looking at the disaster in Bhopal, the BP oil spill, and other disasters, including Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, there is one very key difference that separates these disasters from the Fukushima disaster.  The big difference is that all of the mentioned previous disasters were easily preventable (and predictable), and the Fukushima disaster was not.  The Fukushima plant was built and engineered in accordance with all of the regulatory guidelines that are in place in Japan (and these guidelines and requirements are all consistent with United States construction codes).  The plant was also maintained and operated as it should have been.  There were no operator errors that resulted in the disaster, nor could there have been any operator actions that could have prevented or mitigated the melt-down.  Previous nuclear disasters and industrial disasters are all rooted in poor operation and companies taking shortcuts in training, maintenance, and engineering.  These shortcuts all had the typical warning signs that upper management in the associated industry chose to ignore, which is why government regulations are so vital to industries that can affect public health.

 

What happened in Fukushima is a worse-than-worst-case-scenario.  An earthquake and tsunami of this magnitude were never predicted to likely occur in our lifetime.  That is why the plant failed, as did many other buildings and major structures.  Nuclear power plants (as well as buildings, cars, airplanes, boats, trains, stadiums, etc.) are designed to withstand a certain magnitude of environmental disaster.  This could include hurricane wind speed, earthquake seismic magnitude, water current speed, among other parameters.  The maximum magnitude that everything is designed to withstand is based upon a probabilistic assessment that essentially states, "the odds are so small (like 1 in 30,000) that a (insert disaster) greater than this size will occur, we will only design to that maximum size disaster."  Eventually over-designing components becomes expensive and unmarketable, inhibiting technological progress and quality of life.

 

Thus, the only lesson that can be learned to prevent disasters like Fukushima is to raise our construction standards even higher, to withstand an even more unlikely dusaster.  The thing is, why should this lesson be exclusive to nuclear power plants?  Plenty of office buildings collapsed and killed members of the general public, but no one is pushing to cease and hold all construction of new office buildings.

 

So finally, my personal opinion:  I understand your concern as to why we aren't holding up progress with developing our nuclear energy assets.  The important thing to keep in mind is that since the Fukushima disaster occurred because there was a beyond-design basis catastrophe, this doesn't make nuclear power any less safe than any other type of power.  There will always be uncertainty as to if that unthinkable (very small probablity) disaster will occur.  The certainty is in the fact that nuclear power is greenhouse gas free and the effects of global warming are far more harmful to a much great population than any nuclear disaster would be.  Because if this fact, I am not at all upset that our nation is not letting the disaster impact it's energy policy as much as other countries have.

 

Thanks Adam!