Mad Science: The Nuclear Power Experiment

by Joseph Mangano

  I think it will be very difficult to build a new nuclear power plant in the United States in the wake of what happened in Japan. It was already highly unlikely that we would see a new nuclear plant being built in the United States, for simple economic purposes as well as “not in my backyard” psychological issues that still accompany nuclear power.

  Various nations made decisions to put the brakes on its nuclear plans Japan was the obvious one; by May 2012, all of the fifty-four reactors in that country were closed, pending inspections. Some of these reactors, at Fukushima and other locations, will never restart. Some believe that if there are no or few blackouts in the summer of 2012 (when electrical demand is highest), the majority will remain closed, as the mood of the Japanese people remains ardently anti-nuclear. If a nation that has been so dependent on nuclear power for its electricity like Japan is able to continue with much less from this source, some consider this potential scenario as the beginning of a large decline in the nuclear field. Elsewhere, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced plans to phase out all seventeen of the country’s nuclear reactors within eleven years. The Swiss government suspended all considerations of building new reactors indefinitely. And the Indian government, which had high hopes for building new reactors, began a safety review of all reactors in that nation. In America, Congressmen like Democrats Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Henry Waxman of California pushed for public hearings on the safety of US reactors.

  Weeks after the disaster, as the Japanese failed to halt the meltdowns and radiation continued to pour out of the stricken Fukushima reactors, the Obama administration announced a safety review of US reactors in terms of earthquake risk, and suggested a rethinking of the nuclear renaissance in general. Energy Secretary Chu stuck to his theme that nuclear power remained a necessary part of America’s future energy mix, but Fukushima made it difficult for many to accept.

  The nuclear revival was a powerful force in the early 2000s, and many thought it would revolutionize the energy mix in the country. But in mid-2012, any chances of a revival were questionable at best, and defeated at worst.

  Red-Hot Legacy

  The American experience with nuclear power has always featured enthusiastic promises about how it will aid society. There is nothing special about this, as the introduction and sustaining of any commercial product, whether it is a new flavor of ice cream or a new type of automobile, is accompanied by marketing from its manufacturers and vendors. Marketing being a given, the success of the product is ultimately determined by market forces, i.e., whether the demand for the product is sufficient enough to continue supplying it.

  But nuclear power featured one significant difference from most commercial products. It was, and still is, a commodity based on an exceptional effort by government to ensure its success. During the Cold War, an American-Soviet war involving atomic weapons was a distinct, terrifying possibility. The buildup of nuclear arsenals on both sides continued, and any end to the confrontation, or even détente and reduction of these arsenals, was decades away. Government leaders concluded that everything possible was needed to reduce the threat, even if it meant nothing more than soothing popular fears of these terrible realities.

  The Atoms for Peace program was an immediate way to counter the fright caused by all-out nuclear war. Its purpose was making people understand the atom as not just a weapon of mass destruction, but a means of making life better. For example, there were nuclear medical devices and methods that could improve doctors’ ability to diagnose and treat disease. While there was no more lofty use of the atom than saving lives, its ability to produce electricity to power homes and businesses was another logical means of improving society.

  Unfortunately, those who market and sell a product ignore or minimize any risks. For years, tobacco manufacturers extolled virtues of cigarettes, such as flavor, ability to aid relaxation, even ability to improve physical performance – without a mention of the health hazards it posed. Exaggeration and even out-and-out lies were part of marketing, such as athletes stating that they lit up a cigarette right before a game to make them stronger and concentrate better. Those who marketed nuclear reactors would also exaggerate and lie, perhaps more than makers of other products, since national security was at stake.

  Industry was certainly interested in nuclear reactors, but as with any product, only for potential profits. And nuclear-related companies didn’t have to jump into the reactor game, as there were other means of generating electricity. Government, on the other hand, had a much stronger interest. In the eyes of public leaders, nuclear power had to succeed, or the atom would be seen strictly as a means of destroying the planet. Cold War tensions, which were bad enough, would worsen. The government would spare no expense, and would say and do anything to assure the proliferation of nuclear power.

  This “too critical to fail” ethic applied to nuclear power can be traced to the military origins of the atom. During World War II, the possibility of Nazi Germany developing an atomic bomb forced President Roosevelt to assign the Manhattan Project the highest priority. Its budget was unlimited, speed was of the essence, and all other considerations – including health hazards in building and testing a bomb – would have to wait. Moreover, the project was to be kept completely secret from everyone, except for those few leaders working on it. Even the initial bomb test at Alamogordo, New Mexico in July 1945, the flash of which could be seen for hundreds of miles, was explained as an explosion at a munitions plant. During the post-war period, the US effort to test and develop more nuclear weapons than the USSR was also marked by the same dynamics – a massive budget, a breakneck pace, a high degree of secrecy, and lies and distortions (such as the late 1950s myth that the Soviets had exceeded the Americans in numbers of weapons).

  The aspects of secrecy, lying, and distortion in the nuclear field shifted easily from military to civilian applications. Over half a century later, this culture still is evident in the debate over nuclear power’s role in generating electricity for America.

  Early in the atomic era, one of the mantras nuclear proponents used again and again was that reactors would produce electricity at a very low cost. AEC Chair Lewis Strauss’s use in 1954 of the phrase “too cheap to meter” has been cited again and again to epitomize the exaggerated expectations in terms of costs. The truth was that nobody was really sure how much atomic energy would cost – predictions were based on many untried assumptions. And there certainly was a bias on the part of government and industry to minimize cost estimates, to help sell the new product to the American people.

  The early misconceptions that were used to estimate costs of reactors conveniently featured an exclusion of the massive input of federal funds. Early research reactors were all federally funded. Workers and equipment used in early reactors typically gained their experience with the (federal) atomic weapon program. Shippingport, the first permanent nuclear power reactor in the nation when it opened in 1957, was completely funded with federal dollars. Tax breaks were given to nuclear plant operators from the very beginning. Perhaps the greatest subsidy was the liability limitation in case of a meltdown granted by Congress in the 1957 Price-Anderson Act. All private insurance companies had refused to sell utilities a policy in case of a meltdown because of the massive potential costs, so Congress imposed a strict limit on what operators would have to pay – and made taxpayers liable for the remainder. With the law in place, insurance companies wrote policies freely. No nuclear reactors would ever have been constructed in the US without Price-Anderson.

  Once reactors were built, electric bills certainly didn’t go down as promised – they soared. A host of reasons accounted for the high cost of constructing and operating nuclear power reactors. Some of these factors could not have been expected in the mid-twentieth century, such as delays caused by strong opposition, greater security requirements, the large number of cancelled or closed reactors, and inflation. Others were ignored based on wishful thinking, such as frequent expensive shutdowns, costs of meltdo
wns, and the failure of reprocessing to address the waste issue. But many facts known in the 1950s should have been taken into account by those thinking into the future, including the finite supply of uranium, the costs of decommissioning a closed reactor, and the difficulty of agreeing on and safely operating a single waste repository site.

  The cost issue soured many on nuclear reactors. Lenders on Wall Street stopped supporting the industry in the late 1970s, and did not part with a dime for new reactor construction thereafter. Many public officials saw the bottom line spiral, and retreated from being strong supporters of the technology – even when the industry begged Congress for loans in the past decade. Many in the media informed the public of the true costs of nuclear power. Finally, many in the public became aware that nuclear power was not good for the pocketbook – sometimes just by reading their ever-rising electric bills.

  Another form of costs of nuclear power is that of increased health costs to humans harmed by radiation exposure. Costs of a single case can be staggering. For example, treating a child with cancer can often cost $1 million in the first year alone. Premature and underweight babies who require care in neonatal Intensive Care Units for weeks and months often run up bills of $500,000 or higher. While it is often difficult to account for a single case of cancer or a single baby born at low weight, the contribution of nuclear reactors to these cases carries a substantial price tag.

  The final chapter in the long history of unexpected and high cost overruns of nuclear power reactors has occurred during the effort to generate a nuclear revival after the late 1990s. Laying the groundwork for the revival proved costly to utilities. They had to pay for lobbying, other promotional expenses, and to replace the parts of aging reactors that they kept in operation. Eventually, the ever-higher costs of constructing new reactors proved to be the major reason that the revival has sputtered and appears to be failing in the year 2011.

  Another major building block in the early hopes of nuclear power reactors was that they would prove to be “clean” ways to create energy. The existing major sources of coal and oil not only polluted the environment and posed health risks, but also were burdened by the impact on public opinion caused by the image of smokestacks releasing chemicals into the air. Health professionals expressed concerns about inhaling these emissions. But virtually no health professionals in the 1950s opined that nuclear power was a hazard to the public. Reactors were new, appeared physically to be “clean,” and were the benefactor of a massive PR campaign from government and industry. Compared to coal and oil, with virtually no studies in the medical literature, nuclear power – not atomic bombs – seemed a much better alternative.

  A number of health and environmental hazards emerged, and will continue to present a threat to humans, animals, and plants for many thousands of years. Meltdowns were, and still are, the greatest health threat posed by reactors. Chapter 8 lists and describes the not infrequent meltdowns in the early atomic era. The initial meltdown at the experimental reactor at Chalk River in Canada in 1952 was followed by a series of US meltdowns, at the Experimental Breeder Reactor in Idaho (1955), the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California (1959), the Westinghouse Testing Reactor in Pennsylvania (1960), the Stationary Low-Power Unit in Idaho (1961), and the Fermi 1 power reactor in Michigan (1966). These five reactors were relatively small units operating at low power, but several were near large population centers like Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Detroit. Thus, when a large reactor melted down at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, there should have been no surprise. The full damage to human health from these meltdowns is still not known.

  The impact of meltdowns was known before nuclear power reactors were built, but ignored or minimized. The WASH-740 report from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1957 estimated that thousands would become ill or die from radiation exposure after a meltdown. The CRAC-2 report by the Sandia National Laboratory in 1982 also made estimates, and reported them to Congress. And contrary to the oft-repeated slogan that US nuclear power “never killed anyone,” there have been casualties from meltdowns. The three workers killed instantly in Idaho in 1961 are the most blatant examples. The only study to date measuring the impact of the Santa Susana meltdown, which was kept secret for several decades, estimated 1,600 cancer cases (Chapter 5). Several studies of populations living near Three Mile Island have indicated health casualties as well.

  The final health legacy from meltdowns to the US nuclear power story came from overseas. A number of meltdowns occurred in the past half century, but had little impact here. But the catastrophes at Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) could not be overlooked. Health studies of casualties, anecdotal stories, photos, and videos of suffering people (especially children), visual images of fires, explosions, workers dressed like astronauts measuring radiation, and statements of assurance by government and industry leaders were a reminder of the devastating damage reactors are capable of.

  In addition to meltdowns, several other types of health hazards from reactors emerged:

  1. Fuel Cycle. Early information on nuclear plants focused almost exclusively on the actual operation of reactors. It failed to examine the processes needed before a reactor could operate. Processes in which uranium fuel is mined, milled, enriched, and fabricated, are all dirty and hazardous to workers and local residents. Transportation of uranium from one site to another is necessary between each step, creating more hazards. And the end of the nuclear plant’s life – decommissioning – is also a delicate and hazardous process that presents a potential health hazard. All of these processes represent health risks not just from radiation, but from the enormous amounts of greenhouse gases emitted into the air.

  2. Routine Radioactive Releases. Architects of nuclear power reactors knew that they, much like those that built nuclear weapons, had to release a portion of the radioactivity it produced into the local air and water. But this fact was ignored in the promotion of nuclear plants, as government officials simply set “permissible” limits of releases and environmental levels, and termed any exposure to these low doses as harmless – without conducting the needed studies. Other forms of relatively low-dose radiation exposures – abdominal X-rays to pregnant women, exposure to Nevada atom bomb test fallout, and occupational exposure to nuclear weapons plant workers – were linked with higher disease rates in scientific studies. But officials adamantly refused to admit that similar exposures from nuclear plants were also causing harm.

  It wasn’t long before scientists began to notice the emissions, and question the assumption that they posed no health threat. One of the early skeptics, Dr. John Gofman, estimated that reactors could still legally operate within emission limits permitted by government while causing 32,000 cancer deaths per year. Another, Dr. Ernest Sternglass, made use of official public health data to illustrate unexpectedly high disease and death rates near nuclear reactors, especially among the young. These pioneers were subjected to great criticism and ostracism, but the topic never went away. Today, thanks largely to the work of the Radiation and Public Health Project research group, there are dozens of scientific publications indicating that routine emissions from US nuclear plants have caused additional fatal and non-fatal diseases.

  3. Occupational Exposures. Another health threat posed by nuclear reactors is that of occupational exposures to plant workers. Workers are routinely exposed to radiation, and wear badges that are checked each day by operators for doses. For years, officials denied that occupational exposures could cause disease because levels were too low; but a 2000 report from the Energy Department concluded that nuclear weapons workers were vulnerable to many types of cancer, and victims entitled to compensation. It appears logical that similar findings would be made for civilian nuclear workers who are exposed to the same chemicals.

  But even as government officials admitted that nuclear weapons workers had been harmed, they did not flinch on their stance that nuclear power plant workers were in no danger. The standard line that doses below �
�permissible” limits were harmless was used again. Independent scientists have been interested for years in studying risks borne by civilian nuclear plant workers. Unfortunately, no independent studies could be conducted for nuclear power plant workers, as they were employees of private companies, who kept doses and health records under lock and key. Moreover, the government does not conduct or require health studies of power plant workers, much as it doesn’t require studies of disease rates of nearby populations. Any such studies must be conducted by professionals independent of industry or government.

  4. High Level Radioactive Waste. Another health hazard, possibly one that exceeds meltdowns, is the accumulation of high level radioactive waste. Some fission products decay quickly, and do not need to be stored at reactors. But many others have long half lives that require long-term storage. For example, plutonium-239 has a half life of 24,400 years, meaning it is present in the environment for about 240,000 years – essentially forever.

  These particles and gases, contained in fuel rods, must be shifted from the reactor core to storage when the rods are spent, about every eighteen months. The initial storage is in deep pools of water that must be constantly cooled to prevent a meltdown. These pools are meant to be temporary, prior to waste being sent to a permanent repository, which had been expected to be Yucca Mountain since the 1980s. But as time passed and the Yucca site ran into roadblocks, each plant was stuck with keeping the waste at the plant. Pools at many plants reached their maximum capacity to hold rods; some rods were bunched in greater concentrations, but a number of plants have now had to store some of the oldest waste in dry casks of steel and concrete on the ground outside the plant.

  Because some isotopes will last for thousands of years, nuclear reactors have saddled the US and the world with 66,000 metric tons (as of mid-2011) of this highly toxic waste. This amount is about eleven billion curies of mostly slow-decaying waste, far exceeding the initial estimates of 150 million curies of mostly fast-decaying waste released from Chernobyl. Experts debate the alternatives, but in truth there is no safe way to maintain the waste. Keeping it at each plant – in pools or in dry casks – means that these dangerous chemicals will be scattered at nearly 100 sites, some close to highly populated areas, and an accident or act of sabotage at only one site would mean catastrophic health hazards to many. Even a permanent repository means that a massive amount of these deadly chemicals would be stored at a single site and any geological failure in the next several thousand years would mean another catastrophe. A permanent repository also creates a target for terrorist activity. Transporting waste to Nevada means thousands of trips by truck or train, often through large population centers, and a single flub means disaster. Finally, even if all waste is brought to Yucca Mountain or another single site safely over the next twenty years, it would then be full, and continued operation of the 104 reactors means accumulation of waste that would fill another Yucca storage site.