As The Chernobyl Legacy Fades... A Look Back And A Question Society Must Answer: Is Nuclear Power A Solution To America's Energy Independence?
We've talked about the fact that existing technology could go a long way towards transforming the U.S. economy into one of relative energy independence. One method might be the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles. An extension of that might be a plug-in economy using nuclear power as we talked about some years ago. Nuclear power has general government backing and business support. There are also a substantial number of plans being drawn up for new plants in the U.S.
There will come a time when the people of this country will need to decide if a growing nuclear power base is in their best interests. There are obviously very extreme pluses and minuses. You might consider these pluses and minuses similar to the distributions we are seeing in the probability curve of markets and economics. In other words, the negative outcomes associated with nuclear power could be catastrophic death and decimation on a large scale. Yet the probabilities are low. Just like the nearly impossible global economic crisis we see today. Or so we are told.
As the anticipated Generation IV technology and other research initiatives become a reality in future decades, the pluses will increase substantially as the waste and toxicity of the waste will drop and safety is improved. But, none of the reactors considered today meet those design points. We do have a relatively recent intriguing solution in the market. A solution that many would have argued was impossible. Why? It was not a result of the "free" market but instead was developed in a government lab. My god it is socialism! Actually, publicly-funded research doesn't even remotely fit into the definition of socialism as any freshman economics student could tell you. Neither is Social Security or public health care. Socialism has a clear definition in economics as opposed to the histrionics of ideological idiots who have control of the microphone and whip people into a fury over lies and misinformation.
Nuclear power offers great promise but given the rapid pace of innovation in other areas, the cost/benefit analysis must improve considerably. Nuclear power's financial costs are severely underestimated and its potential human costs are beyond quantification. The end of life costs of dismantling a reactor and associated ecological impact are enormous. Dismantling a single reactor could take decades and untold billions of dollars according to OECD studies. Who pays for that? The private company who owns the reactor or do we privatize the gains and socialize the losses like the corporatocracy does with everything else?
Some time ago I would have guessed nuclear power would play a large role in the intermediate future. Now, with the rapid pace of innovation in other areas coupled with the BP Gulf disaster, I am more dubious of this position. I surely don't believe it is a foregone conclusion we must have nuclear power to become energy independent because we clearly don't.
We live in a society where little public debate on the safety of nuclear power is undertaken for the benefit of educating citizens. We know the main benefit of nuclear power - it works. What generally isn't understood are the risks. Especially when taken in human form. So, today as Bloomberg has a story titled Chernobyl Legacy Fades.... let's look back twenty years ago at the largest nuclear accident in history, Chernobyl. As a point of reference, Chernobyl was one hundred times more radioactive than the atomic devastation of Hiroshima.
The first video below is of Pripyat, the city closest to the Chernobyl reactors, twenty years later. It remains a frightening reminder as an abandoned city. The entire city of 50,000 was evacuated in three hours. But, after the people had been exposed to massive radiation. People of Pripyat had to leave everything behind. It is still too radioactive today and remains a dead zone as do dozens of other towns surrounding Chernobyl.
The second video was created during the actual disaster. Somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 workers were required to deal with this disaster and clean up. Yet, even with their efforts, radiation was measured over all of Europe and even the eastern U.S. This was one accident. Just one. And, it had the potential to destroy a measurable number of earth's population without the deadly sacrifice of tens of thousands of Russians who were sent to entomb the reactor's core. Body after body was sacrificed to stem what would have been a catastrophe beyond imagination. These heroes saved humanity from a tragedy of proportions we can't even imagine. There are still consequences and costs associated with ongoing radiation sickness and disease, birth deformities and the like. 7,000,000 people supposedly needed treatment of some form according to the United Nations. Is that data accurate? Who knows. The the scope of the crisis was very real. Many around the world still don't understand the scope and severity of Chernobyl.
It only takes one mistake. A mistake near a major city could see millions of people permanently displaced and an entire region abandoned forever. Can you imagine how solar, wind, biofuels or even dirty coal might have such a devastating impact in the event of a mistake? Can you fly a plane into a wind farm? Would a devastating earthquake cause millions of deaths if affecting a solar facility? Could a human error kill millions of people in a coal-fired power plant?
There will come a time when the people of this country will need to decide if a growing nuclear power base is in their best interests. There are obviously very extreme pluses and minuses. You might consider these pluses and minuses similar to the distributions we are seeing in the probability curve of markets and economics. In other words, the negative outcomes associated with nuclear power could be catastrophic death and decimation on a large scale. Yet the probabilities are low. Just like the nearly impossible global economic crisis we see today. Or so we are told.
As the anticipated Generation IV technology and other research initiatives become a reality in future decades, the pluses will increase substantially as the waste and toxicity of the waste will drop and safety is improved. But, none of the reactors considered today meet those design points. We do have a relatively recent intriguing solution in the market. A solution that many would have argued was impossible. Why? It was not a result of the "free" market but instead was developed in a government lab. My god it is socialism! Actually, publicly-funded research doesn't even remotely fit into the definition of socialism as any freshman economics student could tell you. Neither is Social Security or public health care. Socialism has a clear definition in economics as opposed to the histrionics of ideological idiots who have control of the microphone and whip people into a fury over lies and misinformation.
Nuclear power offers great promise but given the rapid pace of innovation in other areas, the cost/benefit analysis must improve considerably. Nuclear power's financial costs are severely underestimated and its potential human costs are beyond quantification. The end of life costs of dismantling a reactor and associated ecological impact are enormous. Dismantling a single reactor could take decades and untold billions of dollars according to OECD studies. Who pays for that? The private company who owns the reactor or do we privatize the gains and socialize the losses like the corporatocracy does with everything else?Some time ago I would have guessed nuclear power would play a large role in the intermediate future. Now, with the rapid pace of innovation in other areas coupled with the BP Gulf disaster, I am more dubious of this position. I surely don't believe it is a foregone conclusion we must have nuclear power to become energy independent because we clearly don't.
We live in a society where little public debate on the safety of nuclear power is undertaken for the benefit of educating citizens. We know the main benefit of nuclear power - it works. What generally isn't understood are the risks. Especially when taken in human form. So, today as Bloomberg has a story titled Chernobyl Legacy Fades.... let's look back twenty years ago at the largest nuclear accident in history, Chernobyl. As a point of reference, Chernobyl was one hundred times more radioactive than the atomic devastation of Hiroshima.
The first video below is of Pripyat, the city closest to the Chernobyl reactors, twenty years later. It remains a frightening reminder as an abandoned city. The entire city of 50,000 was evacuated in three hours. But, after the people had been exposed to massive radiation. People of Pripyat had to leave everything behind. It is still too radioactive today and remains a dead zone as do dozens of other towns surrounding Chernobyl.
The second video was created during the actual disaster. Somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 workers were required to deal with this disaster and clean up. Yet, even with their efforts, radiation was measured over all of Europe and even the eastern U.S. This was one accident. Just one. And, it had the potential to destroy a measurable number of earth's population without the deadly sacrifice of tens of thousands of Russians who were sent to entomb the reactor's core. Body after body was sacrificed to stem what would have been a catastrophe beyond imagination. These heroes saved humanity from a tragedy of proportions we can't even imagine. There are still consequences and costs associated with ongoing radiation sickness and disease, birth deformities and the like. 7,000,000 people supposedly needed treatment of some form according to the United Nations. Is that data accurate? Who knows. The the scope of the crisis was very real. Many around the world still don't understand the scope and severity of Chernobyl.
It only takes one mistake. A mistake near a major city could see millions of people permanently displaced and an entire region abandoned forever. Can you imagine how solar, wind, biofuels or even dirty coal might have such a devastating impact in the event of a mistake? Can you fly a plane into a wind farm? Would a devastating earthquake cause millions of deaths if affecting a solar facility? Could a human error kill millions of people in a coal-fired power plant?
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