(Article changed on October 10, 2013 at 09:35)
It
started this June in California. Speaking about the problems at the troubled
San Onofre nuclear plants through the perspective of the Fukushima nuclear
complex catastrophe was a panel of Naoto Kan, prime minister of Japan when the
disaster began; Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) at the time; Peter Bradford, an NRC member when the Three Mile
Island accident happened; and nuclear engineer and former nuclear industry executive
Arnie Gundersen.
This
week the same panel of experts on nuclear technology--joined by long-time
nuclear opponent Ralph Nader--was on the East Coast, in New York City and
Boston, speaking about problems at the problem-riddled Indian Point nuclear
plants near New York and the troubled Pilgrim plant near Boston, through the
perspective on the Fukushima catastrophe.
Their
presentations were powerful.
Kan,
at the event Tuesday in Manhattan, told of how he had been a supporter of
nuclear power, but after the Fukushima accident, which began on March 11, 2011,
"I changed my thinking 180-degrees, completely." He said that in the first days
of the accident it looked like an "area that included Tokyo" and populated by
50 million people might have to be evacuated.
"We do have accidents such as an
airplane crash and so on," said Kan, "but no other accident or disaster" other
than a nuclear plant disaster can "affect 50 million people...no other accident
could cause such a tragedy."
All
54 nuclear plants in Japan have now been closed, Kan said. And "without nuclear
power plants we can absolutely provide the energy to meet our demands." Meanwhile,
in the two-plus years since the disaster began, Japan has tripled its use of
solar energy--a jump in solar power production that is the equivalent of the
electricity that would be produced by three nuclear plants, he said. He pointed
to Germany as a model in its commitment to shutting down all its nuclear power
plants and having "all its power supplied by renewable power" by 2050. The
entire world, said Kan, could do this. "If humanity really would work
together...we could generate all our energy through renewable energy."
Jaczko
said that the Fukushima disaster exploded several myths about nuclear power
including those involving the purported prowess of U.S. nuclear technology. The
General Electric technology of the Fukushima nuclear plants "came from the
U.S.," he noted. And, it exploded the myth that "severe accidents wouldn't happen."
Said the former top nuclear official in the United States: "Severe accidents
can and will happen."
And
what the Fukushima accident "is telling us is society does not accept the
consequences of these accidents," said Jaczko, who was pressured out of his
position on the NRC after charging that the agency was not considering the
"lessons" of the Fukushima disaster. In
monetary cost alone, Jaczko said, the cost of the Fukushima accident is estimated
at $500 billion by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Nuclear
engineer Gundersen, formerly a nuclear industry senior vice president, noted
that the NRC "says the chance of a nuclear accident is one in a million," that
an accident would happen "every 2,500 years." This is predicated, he said, on what
the NRC terms a probabilistic risk
assessment or PRA. "I'd like to refer to it as PRAY." The lesson of "real
life," said Gundersen, is that there have been five nuclear plant meltdowns in
the past 35 years--Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986 and the three at
Fukushima Daiichi complex. That breaks down to an accident "every seven years."
"This
is a technology that can have 40 good years that can be wiped out in one bad
day," said Gundersen. He drew a parallel between Fukushima Daiichi "120 miles
from Tokyo" and the Indian Point nuclear plant complex "26 miles from New York
City." He said that "in many ways Indian Point is worse than Fukushima was
before the accident." One element: the
Fukushima accident resulted from an earthquake followed by a tsunami. The two
operating plants at Indian Point are also adjacent to an earthquake fault, said
Gundersen. New York City "faces one bad day like Japan, one sad day." He also
spoke of the "arrogance and hubris" of the nuclear industry and how the NRC has
consistently complied with the desires of the industry.
Bradford
said that that the "the bubble" that the nuclear industry once termed "the
nuclear renaissance" has burst. As to a main nuclear industry claim in this
promotion to revive nuclear power--that atomic energy is necessary in
"mitigating climate change"--this has been shown to be false. It would take tripling
of the 440 total of nuclear plants now in the world to reduce greenhouse gasses
by but 10 percent. Other sources of power are here as well as energy efficiency
that could combat climate change. Meanwhile, the price of electricity from any
new nuclear plants built has gone to a non-competitive 12 to 20 cents per
kilowatt hour while "renewables are falling in price."
Bradford
also sharply criticized the agency of which he was once a member, the NRC,
charging among other things that it has in recent years discouraged citizen
participation. Also, as to Fukushima, the "accident really isn't over," said
Bradford who, in addition to his role at the NRC has chaired the utility
commissions of Maine and New York State.
Nader
said that with nuclear power and the radioactivity it produces "we are dealing
with a silent cumulative form of violence." He said nuclear power is "unnecessary,
unsafe, and uninsurable...undemocratic." And constructing new words that begin
with "un," it is also "unevacuatable, unfinanceable, unregulatable."
Nader
said nuclear power is unnecessary because there are many energy
alternatives--led by solar and wind. It is unsafe because catastrophic accidents
can and will happen. He noted how the former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in a
1960s report projected that a major nuclear accident could irradiate an area "the
size of Pennsylvania." He asked: "Is this the kind of gamble we want to take to
boil water?"
Nuclear
power is extremely expensive and thus uneconomic, he went on. It is uninsurable
with the original scheme for nuclear power in the U.S. based on the federal
Price-Anderson Act which limits a utility's liability to a "fraction" of the
cost of damages from an accident. That law remains, extended by Congress "every
ten years or so."
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