It is Time That We Reconsidered
Our Position on Nuclear Energyby
Harold Richman
We no longer have the luxury of ignoring nuclear energy as a source of power. We are living in the 21st century where energy is a necessity. It is not possible to return to a time when electric energy was not required. We therefore must consider all the possible sources including nuclear energy.
Canada and the United States are the only two countries in the industrial world that have not built any new nuclear plants in the last 20 years. The environmental movement has made it so difficult and expensive to obtain approval for new plants that none has been planned or built during this time.
In the meantime other countries continue to construct nuclear plants and now produce a large part of their electric energy by the use of nuclear fuel. For instance, France produces 75% of its electric energy, Germany 31%, England 29%, and Japan 36%, whereas Canada produces only 12% and the U.S., 20%.
If we are really concerned about reducing pollution we must consider the use of nuclear fuel. One of the major causes of air pollution is the burning of fossil fuel to produce electricity. Burning coal produces the most pollution, and it is estimated that this one source of pollution in North America is greater than that produced by all automobiles. In addition, the mining of coal is often done by strip mining, destroying the land which can never be returned to its original condition.
I can still remember when I was a youngster, how proud we were of Canada because of its unlimited hydropower. This was considered to be the ideal method to produce electricity. It was a renewable resource and produced no pollution. Only recently have we started to consider the real environmental cost of producing hydroelectric energy. It is hard to believe that at one time we would devastate hundreds of square miles of virgin forests without giving it a second thought. The fact that we destroyed the habitat of thousands of animals, insects and birds never entered the equation.
It is hard to believe that when building the huge hydro projects no one considered the effect they would have on indigenous people. Complete settlements were relocated as if the historic relationship between the people and the land could be ignored. There have been numerous cases where moving a settlement to a new location has produced social problems that virtually destroyed the community.
Recently I visited the Palo Verde nuclear plant located about 30 miles west of Phoenix. The plant consists of three identical nuclear reactors which produce more energy than any power-generating station in the United States. This one plant produces more energy than the Grand Coulee Dam. The Palo Verde nuclear plant is located on about one square mile of land which was not suitable for agriculture. The plant produces no emissions except for water vapor from its cooling towers.
The main concerns voiced by opponents of nuclear energy are the possibility of an accident and how to dispose of the spent fuel rods. There have been two serious accidents in the past 40 years since the first nuclear plant was built. The accident at Three Mile Island was the first and only accident in the United States. Even though the accident was very serious, there was almost no radioactive emission due to the fact that the nuclear reactor was enclosed in a containment building. The accident was caused by a valve that failed to re-close after opening, and slowly drained the cooling water. Because of inadequate training and confusing instrumentation, the operators failed to determine the cause of the accident for several hours, by which time the fuel was badly damaged. Since then the plant has been removed and the other two reactors are still operating without any incident.
The world's most serious nuclear accident occurred in Russia at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. My nephew, who works for Atomic Energy of Canada, was selected to be on the international committee to investigate the cause of the accident. In the final report the committee found that the accident was caused by the operators. They had decided to carry out an experiment which was not authorized. In order to do the experiment, they turned off the safety control. The reactor became critical but they were not able to correct the situation. The accident would not have produced the devastating consequences if the reactor had been enclosed in a containment building and had included an automatic shut-down such as is used in all other countries.
The disposal of spent nuclear rods is still a problem since the environmental movement will not allow them to be stored in certain rock formations that scientists have determined to be suitable. In the meantime the spent rods are being stored at each nuclear power plant in a water bath or above ground in concrete containers. This prevents any nuclear radiation being emitted. Every plant in the United States stores its spent rods on its own property. Since this has been going on for over 40 years you can see that the amount of radioactive material produced is not very large.
With all the knowledge we now have as to how to operate a nuclear giant and the sophisticated safety controls, a modern nuclear power plant is safer than any other power generating facility.
Incidentally, the Palo Verde nuclear plant buys waste water from Phoenix. The water is purified and then used as cooling water. Rather than producing pollution as all other power generating plants do, the Palo Verde nuclear plant reduces pollution