My heart goes out to the people of Japan. The losses so many have suffered are unfathomable and the disaster is far from over. Japan is in need of a full-scale humanitarian relief effort and will be for some time to come. Do not mistake the sense of dignity and stoicism displayed by the Japanese people as a sign at they do not want or need our help. They are a proud people. They do not loot. They do not scream in front of cameras. They do not look for someone to blame. But it is likely that a vast numbers of Japanese citizens are cold, hungry, distraught, and fearful, and they need to know that we don’t look the other way when our friends and allies are in need.
Thousands of miles away, though, it seems as though some Americans are far more concerned about what the disaster in Japan means to us than what it means to the people in Japan. Are we in danger of radiation contamination? No. Will our ports suffer from a reduced import stream? Possibly. Are we importing contaminated food? No—it is very easy to monitor radiation levels in Japan to know which food crops are contaminated, and at what level, and which are not. It is Japan, not the U.S., that is and should be in emergency-response mode, but you wouldn’t know that from the U.S. news coverage. While the Japanese are trying to figure out how to get cooling water to their nuclear reactors, bury their dead, shelter the survivors, rebuild communities, and get their economy moving again, our news channels seem to be dominated by the opportunistic “no nuke” and “consumer safety” types who are making sure that they don’t let this good disaster go to waste. After all, these sorts of disasters allow them to raise more money for their own domestic causes.
Fortunately, President Obama is standing firm in his commitment to the expansion of the U.S. nuclear energy program. After all, if we are to meet his carbon dioxide reduction goals, we are going to need all of the nuclear plants we currently have plus many new ones (including replacements for the current plants that will soon need to be decommissioned). Do the no-nuke types realize that it is largely their fault that we and others (although not the French) are still reliant on 1970′s technology for our nuclear plants because their actions led to the near moratorium on new permits and licenses, not to mention the debacle they have created regarding Yucca Mountain? What they have done to our nuclear energy program is the equivalent of restricting our auto industry to producing AMC Pacers and Ford Pintos forever more, and then wondering why cars aren’t getting safer, more fuel efficient and more comfortable to drive.
The irony is astounding that the same people who once pointed to Japan as the carbon-reduction model country are now saying something quite different about Japan. Fair-weather fans some of these environmental commentators are, indeed. In the end, environmentalists, thought leaders, and policy makers will need to decide which is their highest priority—reducing carbon dioxide emissions or eliminating nuclear risk—since we don’t have the technological ability do both. Until carbon sequestration works at full scale (and can be proven to not have its own earthquake risks) and fusion energy production can be sustained at commercial scale, our main energy options will either produce carbon dioxide or nuclear radiation and waste.
Of course the starry-eyed people will tell us that wind and solar can solve all of our problems and meet all of our energy needs. Meanwhile, even the most hopeful energy experts tell us that in our lifetime, alternative sources will never provide more than 40 percent of our energy supply—and likely far less than that, especially as our energy demand continues to grow. If we convert our automobile fleet to electric cars, then our electricity demands will soar even greater, so using less gasoline means using more coal or more nuclear fuel. How many devices will you plug in to recharge tonight?
This is not to say that we should give up on wind and solar. Fortunately, some of the geographic locations with the greatest earthquake risks are sunny and temperate most of the year, so maybe a larger investment in solar does make sense in those locations. However, even in sunny southern California back up power plants are still required since most people are not willing to forego hot showers and lights on cloudy days and battery storage isn’t yet what it needs to be to allow us to save energy for that not-so-proverbial rainy day. Back-up power plants cost a lot of money, and not only can they not be turned off and on based on the weather, nobody can afford to build plants that sell power only on the rainy days.
If solar power was free (the sun might be, but solar panels and battery systems are far from free), then traditional plants could operate by charging extraordinarily high rates on the so-called back-up power days, but since solar power already costs far more than coal- or nuclear- generated power, how can anyone afford to pay more for their daily electricity and then even more than that on back-up power days? Also, it takes a fair amount of electricity to produce solar panels and batteries, and the environmental risks of both battery production and disposal are significant. My point isn’t that we should give up on solar, but instead that there really is no perfect solution to our energy dilemma. Energy choices cannot be made based solely on advocacy positions, but instead must be based on careful risk-benefit analyses. Which risks are we willing to take to achieve the benefits we deem most valuable? We need to inject some reality into the panacea dream about the miracles of alternative energy and make informed decisions based on the whole, unfortunate truth.
So here is one truth that seems to be lost in the current news coverage. More people have died in recorded history from living near a fault line or near a waterway than have ever died as a result of living in close proximity to a nuclear power plant. So why aren’t the talking heads debating the wisdom of allowing people (at least in countries like ours where there are plenty of other options) to live in close proximity to fault lines and the sea? We are far more likely as Americans to die as the result of an earthquake, hurricane, or flood than we are to die from a nuclear power plant accident. But since the places where earthquakes and floods are most likely to occur also happen to be some of the nicest places to live, we conveniently ignore the stark truth, which is that we could reduce loss of life and property SIGNIFICANTLY in our country not by shutting down our nuclear power industry, but instead by disallowing people to live in areas where earthquake and flood risks are the greatest.
This would not be a popular policy decision, especially since, as one senator recently told a small group of us, the wealthy people in his state think a shore house is their birthright. Why do we keep rebuilding homes and communities destroyed by recurring runaway fires, seasonal hurricanes and high seismic risk? Because the people who live their and the politicians who represent them like it there and want the rest of us to underwrite their opportunity to live where we might all like to live, but can’t.
Life is not risk free. Most of us are far more likely to die in a car accident or in childbirth than from a failure at a domestic nuclear plant. It is time for a little risk-benefit reality to enter the conversation so that we can talk about our national priorities in an informed and enlightened way. If reducing carbon dioxide is our goal, then we better be willing to talk about nuclear. If reducing nuclear risk is our goal, then we need to accept that carbon dioxide emissions will rise. And if we want to save lives and reduce property losses, then we need to move people away from the seashore, large rivers and earthquake fault lines.
Now is not the time to be walking away from our commitment to nuclear power or even to be worried about the highly unlikely event that radiation released in Japan will get to Americans through the air or even the food supply. The disaster is not in the U.S. The disaster is in Japan and we need to help our friends recover.
Let’s leave the decisions about our domestic nuclear energy program for another day and get back to the real question at hand, which is how can we best assist the Japanese in their efforts to survive and rebuild? By the way, you can make your donation to the effort in Japan (or to assist U.S. military families, or for the relief efforts in Africa and the Middle East, or for disasters within our own geographic borders) by going to www.american.redcross.org.
