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Articles, Reports, and Speeches
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1204 Whiskey Rd, Suite B
Articles, Reports, and Speeches |
On Being the Nuclear Voice: Effective Citizen Advocacy of Beneficial Nuclear Technologies
Presented at Waste Management 2010 conference
March 2010
The Yucca Mountain Geological Repository for Radioactive Wastes
CNTA Issue Paper
June 2009
"Prospects improve for SRS"
The Augusta Chronicle article (link), November 24, 2006
Statements on Yucca Mountain, Interim Storage, and GNEP
Senator Pete Domenici (N.M.)
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, August 3, 2006
"Going Nuclear: A Green Makes the Case"
Patrick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace)
Washington Post article (link), April 16, 2006
"Finland Rekindles Interest in Nuclear Power"
Lizette Alvarez
New York Times article (link), December 12, 2005
"Nukes Are Green"
Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times article (link), April 9, 2005
"A Second Look at Nuclear Power"
Paul Lorenzini
Issues in Science and Technology article (link), Spring, 2005
Yucca Mountain Documentation
Statement by Samuel Bodman
Secretary of Energy, March 16, 2005
"Nuclear Now!"
Peter Schwartz and Spencer Reiss
Wired Magazine article (link), February 2005
"Nuclear Power and National Security"
Remarks by Admiral F. L. "Skip" Bowman, U.S. Navy
American Nuclear Society, November 2002
"Safe Transportation of Spent Nuclear Fuel" (PDF)
by Eugene E. Voiland, November 2002
"Nuclear Energy 2000: Public Support Remains Strong" (PDF)
Nuclear Energy Institute, April 2000
Perspective on Public Opinion
"The Need for Nuclear Power"
Richard Rhodes and Denis Beller
Foreign Affairs article, January-February 2000
"Rethinking Nuclear Power"
Douglas S. McGregor
The New American article (link), April 2001
"Reexamining low-level radiation health effects" (PDF)
Senator Pete Domenici
Nuclear News, February 2000
Technical Symposium
50 Years of Excellence in Science and Engineering
at the Savannah River Site
The Presbyterian Church in the Nuclear Age
First Presbyterian Church (USA), Aiken SC
"The Need for Nuclear Energy"
Senator Pete Domenici
Nuclear News, January 2002
"Transport of Nuclear Fuel"
R. Bruce Joston
Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A., January 2002
"On Being the Nuclear Voice: Effective Citizen Advocacy of Beneficial Nuclear Technologies"
Susan Wood, Ph.D. and Clinton Wolfe, Ph.D.
Presented at Waste Management 2010 Conference
March 7-11, 2010
Phoenix AZ
Click here for the full presentation in PDF format.
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"The Yucca Mountain Geological Repository for Radioactive Waste"
A CNTA Issue Paper
June 2009
The Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness supports the expeditious review and processing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of the Yucca Mountain license application for geological storage of radioactive waste in an open, technically sound process. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the equivalent scientific advisory panels in every major country support geological disposal of such wastes as the preferred safe method for their ultimate disposal.
The intent of this document is to summarize the considerable evidence that the Yucca Mountain Repository is a safe, scientifically sound solution to the storage of used nuclear fuel and high level defense waste. The American taxpayer has already spent $10 Billion in pursuit of this evidence and there has been no suggestion by more than 50 scientific reviews of the Yucca Mountain bases that this option is not suitable for its intended purpose. We urge compliance with the NWPA and that the necessary funding be restored to pursue the Yucca Mountain Repository project.
Click here for the full report in PDF format.
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"Prospects improve for SRS: Vitrification plant likely will ease plutonium worries"
by Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
The Augusta Chronicle
November 24, 2006
It's been a long time coming, but prospects for the Savannah River Site are finally looking brighter.
First, there was the $4 billion mixed-oxide fuel plant to be located there. That's the Department of Energy's MOX project that's just getting under way. It will convert 34 metric tons of plutonium, being taken out of weapons, into fuel for commercial reactors.
Now comes the DOE's announcement that it plans to build another $300 million to $500 million facility at the nuclear weapons plant near Aiken to get rid of 13 metric tons of orphaned plutonium that's too dirty to run through MOX. ...
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Opening Statement by Senator Pete Domenici
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Hearing on S. 2589, the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act
August 3, 2006
The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 2589, the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act. The Administration proposed this legislation, which I introduced with Chairman Inhofe by request. This legislation provides a number of critical authorities needed to make Yucca Mountain operational:
* Land withdrawal and transfer,
* Waste Confidence,
* Nuclear Waste Fund,
* Environmental and Regulatory Requirements,
* Raising the Cap from 70,000 metric tons and,
* Taking the Nuclear Waste Fund off budget.
Two weeks ago, the Department of Energy DOE released a new time table for submitting a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the Yucca Mountain project by June 2008. The DOE anticipates opening Yucca Mountain in March 2017 to begin acceptance of spent nuclear fuel and high level defense waste.
With this, the Department establishes a schedule by which regulators, consumers and the Congress can monitor the progress for the transportation and storage of commercial spent nuclear fuel and defense related waste.
Yucca Mountain is the cornerstone of a comprehensive spent nuclear fuel management strategy for this country. Let me be clear: We need Yucca Mountain. I want to fix this program and make it work.
However, experience has shown that the schedule for Yucca is a slippery thing. My concern is that the new timetable does not include any margin for any further project delays by the DOE, its contractors, or legal action by the State of Nevada, all of which would cause DOE to miss these new deadlines. Nor does the schedule establish a total timeframe by which all commercial fuel will be moved to the repository.
Meanwhile, the government's liability is piling up. The nation's electric ratepayers are paying twice -- for Yucca and for storing waste on reactor sites. From my estimates, if Yucca Mountain were to open by the Department's goal of 2017 -- and I invite the department or anyone to show me differently -- ratepayers will be paying until late in this century to keep spent fuel
onsite -- not because Yucca will not be open -- but because under current plans, this is the fastest the waste can move. DOE plans to send 3,000 metric tons per year to Yucca Mountain. At that pace, it will be 2040 before DOE transports all of the spent nuclear fuel that exists today to Yucca Mountain. In the meantime, we will continue to generate additional spent fuel that is destined for Yucca.
May I repeat -- for those who don't think we need to address temporary storage: if everything goes perfectly, it will take over 30 years -- longer than I have been in the Senate -- to eliminate the existing backlog of spent fuel. In light of that, it only makes sense to look for additional ways for the government to meet its obligations.
To address this part of the puzzle, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the FY 07 Energy and Water Appropriations bill which has a new approach to nuclear waste consolidation. The proposal offers utility ratepayers relief, and fulfills the federal obligation to take spent fuel, while the government works off the enormous backlog.
Furthermore, I have done the math to understand whether Yucca Mountain can address all of our spent fuel needs. As proposed by the Administration's bill, we must lift the 70,000 metric ton cap on Yucca because by 2010:
* There will already be 63,000 metric tons of spent fuel at commercial sites;
* We will have in excess 2,500 tons of spent fuel from our national defense and
research efforts;
* We will have in excess of 10,000 metric tons awaiting processing and disposal at Hanford, Savannah River and Idaho National Lab.
Unless we take action to raise the arbitrary statutory cap, Yucca Mountain is full 7 years before it is projected to open. We must raise the authorized limit as the DOE has proposed.
However, even with an increase in the limit to 120,000 metric tons, by the early 2050's DOE will have shipped enough fuel to Yucca Mountain to fill it up, leaving an additional 40,000 metric tons at reactor sites. This is without any increase in the size of the current nuclear fleet.
The Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2030 our nation will need an additional 347 gigawatts of electricity brought on line to just to keep up with demand. What are we going to build? Natural gas is expensive and stocks are hard to come by, though we are looking. The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal, but until proven coal technologies come on-line that demonstrate the successful sequestration of carbon emissions, nuclear is the clean air solution. We must - and we shall - build new nuclear power plants.
I have reached a few conclusions:
1) Yucca Mountain must be opened;
2) Even if Yucca Mountain opens on time, significant quantities of spent fuel will remain at reactor sites for many decades, thus the need for a practical interim solution; and
3) That continuing to increase the authorized limit at Yucca Mountain, while a necessary step, is not a complete solution.
Here's where GNEP comes in. This year the Bush Administration took what I believe is the correct path and proposed to close the nuclear fuel cycle and recycle spent nuclear fuel, leaving a reduced amount of material that must be disposed in Yucca. The fact is that unless we recycle, Yucca can't contain everything. We must use the time we have before Yucca Mountain opens to look seriously at these terrific new technologies that can reduce the volume and
toxicity of spent fuel. It is no great shock that I support the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), and it should be included as part of our nuclear waste solution.
The three pieces of the puzzle that we have discussed today - Yucca Mountain, GNEP and interim storage -- will establish a comprehensive program that will provide confidence that our nation's nuclear waste will be managed safely both for current and future reactors.
We can solve this problem and I hope we can move together.
"Going Nuclear: A Green Makes the Case"
by Patrick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace)
The Washington Post
April 16, 2006
In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.
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"Finland Rekindles Interest in Nuclear Power"
by Lizette Alvarez
The New York Times
December 12, 2005
HELSINKI, Finland - Finland is nothing if not pragmatic and law abiding.
So when Finland, a country with a long memory of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and considerable environmental bona fides, chose to move ahead this year with the construction of the world's largest nuclear reactor, the nuclear industry portrayed it as a victory, one that would force the rest of Western Europe to take note.
But the decision to build the reactor, Olkiluoto 3, Europe's first in 15 years, was not taken quickly or lightly.
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"Nukes Are Green"
by Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times
April 9, 2005
If there was one thing that used to crystal clear to any environmentalist, it was that nuclear energy was the deadliest threat this planet faced. That's why Dick Gregory pledged at a huge anti-nuke demonstration in 1979 that he wouyld eat no solid food until all nuclear plants in the U.S. were shut down.
Mr. Gregory may be getting hungry.
But it's time for the rest of us to drop that hostility to nuclear power. It's increasingly clear that the biggest environmental threat we face is actually global warming, and that leads to a corollary: nuclear energy is green.
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"A Second Look at Nuclear Power"
by Paul Lorenzini
Issues in Science and Technology
Spring 2005
By overlooking nuclear power in the quest for clean energy, we are condemning ourselves to a future of increased fossil fuel use.
For more than three decades, energy policies in the United States and much of the Western world have been held in the ideological grip of a flawed concept: the notion that we can achieve sustainable energy by relying solely on conservation and renewable resources, such as wind, the sun, the tides, and organic materials like wood and crop waste. Born in the wake of the 1973 oil embargo and arising out of renewed commitments to environmental quality, this idea has an almost religious appeal. An unintended result is that the world has become ever more reliant on fossil fuels and therefore less able to respond to global warming.
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"Nuclear Now!"
by Peter Schwartz and Spencer Reiss
Wired Magazine
February 2005
Burning hydrocarbons is a luxury that a planet with 6 billion energy-hungry souls can't afford. There's only one sane, practical alternative: nuclear power.
Click here for the full article.
Yucca Mountain Documentation
Statement by Samuel Bodman
Secretary of Energy, 16 March 2005
Remarks by F. L. "Skip" Bowman, U.S. Navy, to the American Nuclear Society
Omni Shorham Hotel, Washington DC
Tuesday, 19 November 2002
Thank you, Scott, for that warm introduction. Most of you know that from 1968 to 1975, Scott worked for Admiral Hyman Rickover, the Father of the Nuclear Navy. What you may not know is that, even then, Rickover saw Scott's potential, describing him as an engineer with a "high degree of technical knowledge and capability." Now, being called a "good engineer" by Admiral Rickover is like being called a "good Catholic" by the Pope. In fact, Scott was Rickover's personal representative at the land-based prototype in Windsor Connecticut. Scott wouldn't recognize the site today - we've returned it to green-field conditions. If Harold Ray could be here for his president's session, I'd remind him that when he worked at Naval Reactors, Rickover had similar high praise for him. In fact, Harold's design for the NIMITZ-class aircraft carrier has stood the test of time - next year the ninth NIMITZ-class aircraft carrier, RONALD REAGAN, will be commissioned.
It feels like the beginning of a reunion up here: Michael Sellman also worked for Rickover - coming in to design cores a year after Scott came to NR. And of course, Dr. Weinberg was at Clinton Laboratories (since renamed Oak Ridge National Laboratory) when Rickover started gathering, assessing, and documenting every piece of information about nuclear power he could get his hands on. The discussions between Dr. Weinberg and Rickover focused on developing light water reactors for submarines.
The story of the past, present, and future of nuclear power (the topic of our get-together) is, of course, closely tied to Admiral Rickover and Naval Reactors. It's a story with a moral that we can, and must, learn from. To give you the bottom line first: this story can teach us how a technically based organization, imbued with unchanging core values, can harness an unforgiving technology for the prosperity and security of our Nation. More bluntly, on the heels of the Navy success story, I will argue my personal view that there is today a national security mandate for commercial nuclear power to greatly increase its role in meeting America's energy needs.
NR's History of Contributions to National Security
Before I start the Naval Reactors' story and the resultant contributions to national security, I promise to be brief. The beer garden has a higher "cross-section for absorption" than do speeches at this time of day, and I can already see that my "non-leakage factor" is in peril, even as I speak. Scott, whoever scheduled speeches to compete with free beer needs to have his security clearance checked.
In 1946, Rickover set himself up at Oak Ridge under the slimmest of authorizations, and with an even slimmer staff, to study the nascent nuclear technology. The world situation was unsettling: nation-states were beginning to fall under the long, dark shadow of communism, and the chill of the Cold War was in the air.
By August 1948, Rickover had earned the support of key national leaders in and out of the Navy, and they gave him a formal mandate - a national mandate - to deliver a true submarine that would travel at high speeds, continuously submerged, without recharging its batteries.
Rickover attacked this challenge at full tilt - developing the technologies, the materials, the standards, and the people. The results were incredible. In 1953 - less than 5 years from receiving the mandate - the NAUTILUS prototype began operation... nuclear-powered operation... the first effective harnessing of nuclear power to do real work on a large and practical scale.
In 1955 - less than 7 years from the mandate - USS NAUTILUS sent her historic message: "UNDERWAY ON NUCLEAR POWER." NAUTILUS and her sister nuclear-powered ships would possess strategic and tactical superiority that would revolutionize warfare, deter war, and help ensure our country'?s - and indeed the entire world'?s - security for over 40 years.
But this promising technology wasn't to be limited to warships. So, in 1953, Rickover received another national mandate to start up the commercial nuclear power industry - for the entire world. He attacked this challenge with the same vigor and technical exactness, while still delivering nuclear-powered submarines. In 1957 - less than 5 years from receiving the second mandate - the Shippingport Atomic Power Plant began producing electricity - the center-piece of President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" Program.
Rickover gave the entirety of his strength and character to make nuclear energy safe. His 34 years as the director indelibly marked Naval Reactors with core values that endure - that must endure, for nuclear power to be used safely.
Core Values
Even though this is the 20th year since Rickover retired, those core values remain intact at NR. For example, we still, and will always, select the best people we can find, with the highest integrity and a patriotic sense of purpose... then rigorously train and continually challenge them. Our trained, topnotch people still have total responsibility to provide uncompromising technical service to the Fleet... with an overarching commitment to protect human health and our
environment.
Our reactor designs and operating procedures must be uncomplicated, battle ready, and conservative - relying on a multilayered defense against off-normal events. We demand the highest quality; we build in
redundancy; and we insist on forceful backup, from junior operator to commanding officer... because things do happen (especially at sea). And when things happen, our training and education allow instinctive operator action to return the plant to expected conditions, run problems to ground when they are still small, face the hard facts, determine the root causes, and implement the required corrective actions.
These core values are the foundation for our nuclear-powered warships - having safely steamed over 126 million miles, equivalent to 5,000 trips around the Earth... without a reactor accident... indeed, with no measurable negative impact on the world's environment. Operating nuclear power plants safely demands a serious, lifelong commitment. As you think through what I have labeled as our Naval Reactors' core values, I believe you'll agree there is no one simple, easy path that guarantees success.
The only way to operate a nuclear power plant and indeed a nuclear industry - the only way to ensure safe operation, generation after generation, as we have - is to establish a system that ingrains in each person a total commitment to safety: a pervasive, enduring devotion to a culture of safety and environmental stewardship.
NPW's Cold-War Contribution to National Security
Let me talk a little about what naval nuclear propulsion has meant to our national security... about the decided advantage nuclear power brings to preserving peace, and when necessary, winning war.
Our nuclear-powered ships were absolutely instrumental in winning the Cold War. The Smithsonian's American History Museum has captured the contributions made by nuclear-powered submarines. You've read and seen some of the story in books and on TV - The History Channel, Nova, and The Discovery Channel.
And while security considerations preclude our telling the entire story, what we can tell is a powerful story. Our attack submarines carried out hundreds of difficult, daring missions - and sometimes under conditions that threatened to turn the Cold War hot. Our submarines were often the sole source of solid information for our national leaders on the capabilities, intentions, and activities of the Soviet Union and her allies.
Our ballistic missile submarines - the "41 for freedom" launched in the 1960s, and the Tridents that replaced them - made up the only truly survivable leg of our strategic triad: the Soviets really couldn't find our nuclear-powered SSBNs. They were, without question, a deterrent force the Soviets could neither overwhelm nor ignore.
And our nuclear-powered surface fleet, today embodied in 9 of our 12 aircraft carriers, was - and is - the centerpiece of our maritime strategy. Our aircraft carriers really do constitute 97,000 tons of U.S. diplomacy backed by a self-contained, mobile airfield on 4.5 acres of sovereign U.S. territory. This huge, indispensable contribution to our Cold War victory could not have been achieved without the stealth and endurance provided by nuclear power.
Today's NPW Contribution to National Security
It is a contribution that continues undiminished in this era of turbulent horizons. Our nuclear-powered warships were there in the Persian Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo... and they are there every day of the year: gathering intelligence, assuring allies, dissuading adversaries - and when tasked, they are a necessary, if not sufficient, part of the team defeating our enemies.
Our ships were there on 9/11. As Presidents have done so often, President Bush sent out a call for the nearest aircraft carriers - this time to directly defend the United States of America. USS GEORGE WASHINGTON and USS JOHN C. STENNIS got underway from Norfolk and San Diego to defend both coasts. GEORGE WASHINGTON sailed within view of New York harbor to make her reassuring presence known.
The call also went out for as many combatant ships as we could muster, as fast we could muster them off the coast of Pakistan. The President didn't specifically call for nuclear-powered vessels, yet 12 reactors got the first four warships on station - exploiting nuclear propulsion's endurance, flexibility, speed, and agility. Thus, the nuclear-powered submarines - USS KEY WEST and USS PROVIDENCE - and the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers - USS ENTERPRISE and USS CARL VINSON - were ready on 12 September to execute the President's orders.
These four nuclear-powered warships remained off the coast of Pakistan, as other ships joined them... on station 24/7. And since the order was given, strike-fighters from nuclear-powered aircraft carriers have made over 9,000 combat sorties into Afghanistan, providing 70 percent of the strikes against our enemies. Nuclear power has sustained daily flight operations even as supplies are replenished - a feat not possible with oil-fired ships. Overall, our nuclear-powered submarines have shot about a third of the Tomahawk missiles that have been launched, even as they exploit their nuclear-powered capabilities to collect crucial intelligence and surveillance information - persistently, quietly, and covertly.
Tomorrow's NPW Contribution to National Security
The country continues to call for the advantages of nuclear propulsion in providing forward deterrence, preparing the battlespace, and defeating our adversaries. VIRGINIA - the first U.S. submarine of the 21st century - the upgradable, modular ship for the future - will be underway on nuclear power in 2004. Joining her will be JIMMY CARTER (the final installment of the SEAWOLF-class), and in 2007, the first TRIDENT SSBN converted to a conventionally armed SSGN.
The aircraft carrier, RONALD REAGAN, will be delivered to the Fleet next spring, followed in 2008 by the 10th and final NIMITZ-class aircraft carrier. Looking forward, Congress has funded the first new generation of aircraft carriers, the CVNX, in over three decades. By capitalizing on three generations of submarine reactor development, CVNX will enjoy unparalleled capabilities made possible by 25 percent more core energy - providing more electricity to launch unmanned vehicles, to shift to electromagnetic catapults, and to power the high-energy weapons of the future.
Looking further out, we will continue to increase core energy density. We have evolved almost beyond recognition from NAUTILUS's first core, which lasted 2 years and traveled 62,000 miles - to cores lasting today's submarine's entire 33-year life and steaming over a million miles. Our advanced core material testing will give us the Transformational Technology Core with 30 percent more lifetime energy, while still fitting in the reactor vessel used today in the VIRGINIA-class submarine.
With great optimism, we are pursuing development work to directly convert reactor heat to electricity. This technology naturally fits with our vision of supremely stealthy, all-electric submarines, eliminating bulky steam piping and the associated rotating machinery noises. Imagine the space and additional volume for payload. Imagine the stealth.
Commercial Nuclear Industry's Contribution to National Security
To this point, I've discussed the contributions of our nuclear-powered fleet to the Nation's security during the Cold War, after the Cold War, and especially now as we wage this new Global War on Terrorism. I also have hinted at future developments. However, most members of the American Nuclear Society are not directly involved in this aspect of our country's well being.
Let me suggest how you and this Society could and should become involved in an equally crucial aspect of the future security of the United States. As I said at the beginning, I am absolutely convinced this country must take immediate steps to greatly increase the energy production from nuclear power - and I believe we should feel the same sense of urgency that Rickover felt in 1948 - the same national mandate to act.
In fact, we've been neglecting this national mandate for far too long. In 1959, President Eisenhower instituted oil import limits of 9 percent because excessive reliance on foreign oil jeopardized our security and independence. Today, oil imports have far surpassed President Eisenhower's 9-percent "line in the sand." In 2001, we imported about 55 percent of our oil. If we replaced our country's oil-fired electric plants with about 18 nuclear plants, we could stop importing over 200 million barrels of oil a year - about the amount of oil that we imported from Iraq in 2000.
Conversely, if we had to replace nuclear power plants with oil-fired electric plants, our dependence on foreign oil would jump to nearly 70 percent. And that oil is being targeted for terrorist attacks.
Al Qaeda statements released after last month's attack on the French oil tanker Limburg threaten that "attacking the French oil tanker is not merely an attack against a tanker - it is an attack against international oil transport lines - the Mujahideen hit the secret line, the provision line, and the feeding artery of the life of the crusader's nation [i.e., the United States]."
Let me recast the argument for nuclear power in another context: How well do we understand the concept of comparative risk? A few weeks ago, in the midst of the tragic sniper killings in this area, David Ropeik (the Director of Risk Communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis) wrote an article in the Washington Post entitled "Be Afraid of Being Very Afraid." While focused on talking our citizens down from near-hysterical fear of a sniper attack, Ropeik identified things that are "riskier than you might think." For example:
Ropeik also includes a list of "risks that aren't really risky." Know what the first one on his list is?
I would add a couple of additional examples:
Folks, we need to tell the story. This is an unforgiving technology demanding our keenest attention to keep it safe. But it can be safe. Our Navy experience says so - and despite TMI (or maybe because of TMI), our practical experience says so. We need to tell the public, and the concerned scientists, the true story. We need to remind people that nuclear power is already our second largest source of electricity, after coal - and that nuclear power doesn't cause acid rain or breathing ailments or the potential for global warming. And we must tell the national security aspects of this story.
Let me cite another aspect where silence is not golden - the challenge of manning our existing nuclear programs with the Nation's best and brightest. The demand signal for people - collectively, over 26,000 scientists and engineers in the next decade for the Industry and the Navy - has barely risen above the background noise of current educational economics. We need more universities like the two in South Carolina starting up new nuclear engineering programs - the first ones in 20 years in America - and fewer universities looking to close the books on established programs.
Fermi maintained that "to know is better than to be ignorant." Our kids need to understand truth and be exposed to fact, not hysteria, in making their own decisions. They need to hear the simple logic, arithmetic, and scientific fact... and so do their parents.
And the commercial nuclear industry has a powerful case to make. Because of my personal and professional interest in this industry, I know the tremendous strides taken since March 1979, and the remarkable results over the past decade.
But average citizens do not know the facts about nuclear power. They do not hear about them on The Learning Channel, The History Channel, or Nova. We need to take vigorous action to reach a wider audience and give them a deeper understanding.
Our country... operating 204 reactors today... with the world's largest operating nuclear navy... the world's greatest output of nuclear-generated electricity... the "Atoms for Peace" country... must apply the core values that grew up with NR to ensure that nuclear power meets the military and civilian mandates for peace, prosperity, and security. Why not build 18 more nuclear power plants - and stop importing oil from Iraq? The President has taken on the terrorist threats with a policy of preemptive strike. We must take preemptive action for nuclear power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. They're both about the collective security of our country.
Conclusion
The title of this session is the Past, Present, and Future of Nuclear Power on the 60th Anniversary of the First Controlled Nuclear Chain Reaction. I hope that I've met your expectations by relating the amazing accomplishments of Rickover to fulfill his mandates for NAUTILUS and Shippingport - ingraining NR core values along the way. I hope that you've gained some insight into the tremendous contributions of the nuclear navy to the Cold War, after the Cold War, and now in the Global War on Terrorism, as well as some idea of our future direction for even greater contributions.
And finally, I hope that you are now as convinced as I am that 9/11 was a clarion call, reminding us of the wisdom of President Eisenhower's concern about our dependence on foreign oil, instilling in us the mandate to reduce that dependence, and prodding this adopted country of Fermi and Rickover once again into action.
The Need for Nuclear Power
AUTHORS: Richard Rhodes and Denis Beller
SOURCE: Foreign Affairs v79 no1 p30-44 Ja/F 2000
The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.
A CLEAN BREAK
The world needs more energy. Energy multiplies human labor, increasing productivity. It builds and lights schools, purifies water, powers farm machinery, drives sewing machines and robot assemblers, stores and moves information. World population is steadily increasing, having passed six billion in 1999. Yet one-third of that number - two billion people - lack access to electricity. Development depends on energy, and the alternative to development is suffering: poverty, disease, and death. Such conditions create instability and the potential for widespread violence. National security therefore requires developed nations to help increase energy production in their more populous developing counterparts. For the sake of safety as well as security, that increased energy supply should come from diverse sources.
"At a global level," the British Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering estimate in a 1999 report on nuclear energy and climate change, "we can expect our consumption of energy at least to double in the next 50 years and to grow by a factor of up to five in the next 100 years as the world population increases and as people seek to improve their standards of living." Even with vigorous conservation, world energy production would have to triple by 2050 to support consumption at a mere one-third of today's U.S. per capita rate. The International Energy Agency (IEA) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) projects 65 percent growth in world energy demand by 2020, two-thirds of that coming from developing countries. "Given the levels of consumption likely in the future," the Royal Society and Royal Academy caution, "it will be an immense challenge to meet the global demand for energy without unsustainable long-term damage to the environment." That damage includes surface and air pollution and global warming.
Most of the world's energy today comes from petroleum (39.5 percent), coal (24.2 percent), natural gas (22.1 percent), hydroelectric power (6.9 percent), and nuclear power (6.3 percent). Although oil and coal still dominate, their market fraction began declining decades ago. Meanwhile, natural gas and nuclear power have steadily increased their share and should continue to do so. Contrary to the assertions of antinuclear organizations, nuclear power is neither dead nor dying. France generates 79 percent of its electricity with nuclear power; Belgium, 60 percent; Sweden, 42 percent; Switzerland, 39 percent; Spain, 37 percent; Japan, 34 percent; the United Kingdom, 21 percent; and the United States (the largest producer of nuclear energy in the world), 20 percent. South Korea and China have announced ambitious plans to expand their nuclear-power capabilities - in the case of South Korea, by building 16 new plants, increasing capacity by more than 100 percent. With 434 operating reactors worldwide, nuclear power is meeting the annual electrical needs of more than a billion people.
In America and around the globe, nuclear safety and efficiency have improved significantly since 1990. In 1998, unit capacity factor (the fraction of a power plant?s capacity that it actually generates) for operating reactors reached record levels. The average U.S. capacity factor in 1998 was 80 percent for about 100 reactors, compared to 58 percent in 1980 and 66 percent in 1990. Despite a reduction in the number of power plants, the U.S. nuclear industry generated nine percent more nuclear electricity in 1999 than in 1998. Average production costs for nuclear energy are now just 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), while electricity produced from gas costs 3.4 cents per kWh. Meanwhile, radiation exposure to workers and waste produced per unit of energy have hit new lows.
Because major, complex technologies take more than half a century to spread around the world, natural gas will share the lead in power generation with nuclear power over the next hundred years. Which of the two will command the greater share remains to be determined. But both are cleaner and more secure than the fuels they have begun to replace, and their ascendance should be endorsed. Even environmentalists should welcome the transition and reconsider their infatuation with renewable energy sources.
CARBON NATIONS
Among sources of electric-power generation, coal is the worst environmental offender. (Petroleum, today's dominant source of energy, sustains transportation, putting it in a separate category.) Recent studies by the Harvard School of Public Health indicate that pollutants from coal-burning cause about 15,000 premature deaths annually in the United States alone. Used to generate about a quarter of the world's primary energy, coal-burning releases amounts of toxic waste too immense to contain safely. Such waste is either dispersed directly into the air or is solidified and dumped. Some is even mixed into construction materials. Besides emitting noxious chemicals in the form of gases or toxic particles - sulfur and nitrogen oxides (components of acid rain and smog), arsenic, mercury, cadmium, selenium, lead, boron, chromium, copper, fluorine, molybdenum, nickel, vanadium, zinc, carbon monoxide and dioxide, and other greenhouse gases - coal-fired power plants are also the world's major source of radioactive releases into the environment. Uranium and thorium, mildly radioactive elements ubiquitous in the earth's crust, are both released when coal is burned. Radioactive radon gas, produced when uranium in the earth's crust decays and normally confined underground, is released when coal is mined. A 1,000-megawatt-electric (MWe) coal-fired power plant releases about 100 times as much radioactivity into the environment as a comparable nuclear plant. Worldwide releases of uranium and thorium from coal-burning total about 37,300 tonnes (metric tons) annually, with about 7,300 tonnes coming from the United States. Since uranium and thorium are potent nuclear fuels, burning coal also wastes more potential energy than it produces.
Nuclear proliferation is another overlooked potential consequence of coal-burning. The uranium released by a single 1,000-MWe coal plant in a year includes about 74 pounds of uranium-235 - enough for at least two atomic bombs. This uranium would have to be enriched before it could be used, which would be complicated and expensive. But plutonium could also be bred from coal-derived uranium. Moreover, "because electric utilities are not high-profile facilities," writes physicist Alex Gabbard of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, "collection and processing of coal ash for recovery of minerals... can proceed without attracting outside attention, concern or intervention. Any country with coal-fired plants could collect combustion byproducts and amass sufficient nuclear weapons materials to build up a very powerful arsenal." In the early 1950s, when richer ores were believed to be in short supply, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission actually investigated using coal as a source of uranium production for nuclear weapons; burning the coal, the AEC concluded, would concentrate the mineral, which could then be extracted from the ash.
Such a scenario may seem far-fetched. But it emphasizes the political disadvantages under which nuclear power labors. Current laws force nuclear utilities, unlike coal plants, to invest in expensive systems that limit the release of radioactivity. Nuclear fuel is not efficiently recycled in the United States because of proliferation fears. These factors have warped the economics of nuclear power development and created a politically difficult waste-disposal problem. If coal utilities were forced to assume similar costs, coal electricity would no longer be cheaper than nuclear.
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE RENEWABLES
Renewable sources of energy - hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass - have high capital-investment costs and significant, if usually unacknowledged, environmental consequences. Hydropower is not even a true renewable, since dams eventually silt in. Most renewables collect extremely diluted energy, requiring large areas of land and masses of collectors to concentrate. Manufacturing solar collectors, pouring concrete for fields of windmills, and drowning many square miles of land behind dams cause damage and pollution.
Photovoltaic cells used for solar collection are large semiconductors; their manufacture produces highly toxic waste metals and solvents that require special technology for disposal. A 1,000-MWe solar electric plant would generate 6,850 tonnes of hazardous waste from metals-processing alone over a 30-year lifetime. A comparable solar thermal plant (using mirrors focused on a central tower) would require metals for construction that would generate 435,000 tonnes of manufacturing waste, of which 16,300 tonnes would be contaminated with lead and chromium and be considered hazardous.
A global solar-energy system would consume at least 20 percent of the world's known iron resources. It would require a century to build and a substantial fraction of annual world iron production to maintain. The energy necessary to manufacture sufficient solar collectors to cover a half-million square miles of the earth's surface and to deliver the electricity through long-distance transmission systems would itself add grievously to the global burden of pollution and greenhouse gas. A global solar-energy system without fossil or nuclear backup would also be dangerously vulnerable to drops in solar radiation from volcanic events such as the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, which caused widespread crop failure during the "year without a summer" that followed.
Wind farms, besides requiring millions of pounds of concrete and steel to build (and thus creating huge amounts of waste materials), are inefficient, with low (because intermittent) capacity. They also cause visual and noise pollution and are mighty slayers of birds. Several hundred birds of prey, including dozens of golden eagles, are killed every year by a single California wind farm; more eagles have been killed by wind turbines than were lost in the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill. The National Audubon Society has launched a campaign to save the California condor from a proposed wind farm to be built north of Los Angeles. A wind farm equivalent in output and capacity to a 1,000-MWe fossil-fuel or nuclear plant would occupy 2,000 square miles of land and, even with substantial subsidies and ignoring hidden pollution costs, would produce electricity at double or triple the cost of fossil fuels.
Although at least one-quarter of the world's potential for hydropower has already been developed, hydroelectric power - produced by dams that submerge large areas of land, displace rural populations, change river ecology, kill fish, and risk catastrophic collapse - has understandably lost the backing of environmentalists in recent years. The U.S. Export-Import Bank was responding in part to environmental lobbying when it denied funding to China's 18,000-MWe Three Gorges project.
Meanwhile, geothermal sources - which explit the internal heat of the earth emerging in geyser areas or under volcanoes - are inherently limited and often coincide with scenic sites (such as Yellowstone National Park) that conservationists understandably want to preserve.
Because of these and other disadvantages, organizations such as the World Energy Council and the IEA predict that hydroelectric generation will continue to account for no more than its present 6.9 percent share of the world's primary energy supply, while all other renewables, even though robustly subsidized, will move from their present 0.5 percent share to claim no more than 5 to 8 percent by 2020. In the United States, which leads the world in renewable energy generation, such production actually declined by 9.4 percent from 1997 to 1998: hydro by 9.2 percent, geothermal by 5.4 percent, wind by 50.5 percent, and solar by 27.7 percent. Like the dream of controlled thermonuclear fusion, then, the reality of a world run on pristine energy generated from renewables continues to recede, despite expensive, highly subsidized research and development. The 1997 U.S. federal R&D investment per thousand kWh was only 5 cents for nuclear and coal, 58 cents for oil, and 41 cents for gas, but was $4,769 for wind and $17,006 for photovoltaics. This massive public investment in renewables would have been better spent making coal plants and automobiles cleaner. According to Robert Bradley of Houston's Institute for Energy Research, U.S. conservation efforts and nonhydroelectric renewables have benefited from a cumulative 20-year taxpayer investment of some $30-$40 billion - "the largest governmental peacetime energy expenditure in U.S. history." And Bradley estimates that "the $5.8 billion spent by the Department of Energy on wind and solar subsidies" alone could have paid for "replacing between 5,000 and 10,000 MWe of the nation's dirtiest coal capacity with gas-fired combined-cycle units, which would have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by between one-third and two-thirds." Replacing coal with nuclear generation would have reduced overall emissions even more.
Despite the massive investment, conservation and nonhydro renewables remain stubbornly uncompetitive and contribute only marginally to U.S. energy supplies. If the most prosperous nation in the world cannot afford them, who can? Not China, evidently, which expects to generate less than one percent of its commercial energy from nonhydro renewables in 2025. Coal and oil will still account for the bulk of China's energy supply in that year unless developed countries offer incentives to convince the world?s most populous nation to change its plans.
TURN DOWN THE VOLUME
Natural gas has many virtues as a fuel compared to coal or oil, and its share of the world's energy will assuredly grow in the first half of the 21st century. But its supply is limited and unevenly distributed, it is expensive as a power source compared to coal or uranium, and it pollutes the air. A 1,000-MWe natural gas plant releases 5.5 tonnes of sulfur oxides per day, 21 tonnes of nitrogen oxides, 1.6 tonnes of carbon monoxide, and 0.9 tonnes of particulates. In the United States, energy production from natural gas released about 5.5 billion tonnes of waste in 1994. Natural gas fires and explosions are also significant risks. A single mile of gas pipeline three feet in diameter at a pressure of 1,000 pounds per square inch (psi) contains the equivalent of two-thirds of a kiloton of explosive energy; a million miles of such large pipelines lace the earth.
The great advantage of nuclear power is its ability to wrest enormous energy from a small volume of fuel. Nuclear fission, transforming matter directly into energy, is several million times as energetic as chemical burning, which merely breaks chemical bonds. One tonne of nuclear fuel produces energy equivalent to 2 to 3 million tonnes of fossil fuel. Burning 1 kilogram of firewood can generate 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity; 1 kg of coal, 3 kWh; 1 kg of oil, 4 kWh. But 1 kg of uranium fuel in a modern light-water reactor generates 400,000 kWh of electricity, and if that uranium is recycled, 1 kg can generate more than 7,000,000 kWh. These spectacular differences in volume help explain the vast difference in the environmental impacts of nuclear versus fossil fuels. Running a 1,000-MWe power plant for a year requires 2,000 train cars of coal or 10 supertankers of oil but only 12 cubic meters of natural uranium. Out the other end of fossil-fuel plants, even those with pollution-control systems, come thousands of tonnes of noxious gases, particulates, and heavy-metal-bearing (and radioactive) ash, plus solid hazardous waste - up to 500,000 tonnes of sulfur from coal, more than 300,000 tonnes from oil, and 200,000 tonnes from natural gas. In contrast, a 1,000-MWe nuclear plant releases no noxious gases or other pollutants(1) and much less radioactivity per capita than is encountered from airline travel, a home smoke detector, or a television set. It produces about 30 tonnes of high-level waste (spent fuel) and 800 tonnes of low- and intermediate-level waste - about 20 cubic meters in all when compacted (roughly, the volume of two automobiles). All the operating nuclear plants in the world produce some 3,000 cubic meters of waste annually. By comparison, U.S. industry generates annually about 50,000,000 cubic meters of solid toxic waste.
The high-level waste is intensely radioactive, of course (the low-level waste can be less radioactive than coal ash, which is used to make concrete and gypsum - both of which are incorporated into building materials). But thanks to its small volume and the fact that it is not released into the environment, this high-level waste can be meticulously sequestered behind multiple barriers. Waste from coal, dispersed across the landscape in smoke or buried near the surface, remains toxic forever. Radioactive nuclear waste decays steadily, losing 99 percent of its toxicity after 600 years - well within the range of human experience with custody and maintenance, as evidenced by structures such as the Roman Pantheon and Notre Dame Cathedral. Nuclear waste disposal is a political problem in the United States because of widespread fear disproportionate to the reality of risk. But it is not an engineering problem, as advanced projects in France, Sweden, and Japan demonstrate. The World Health Organization has estimated that indoor and outdoor air pollution cause some three million deaths per year. Substituting small, properly contained volumes of nuclear waste for vast, dispersed amounts of toxic wastes from fossil fuels would produce so obvious an improvement in public health that it is astonishing that physicians have not already demanded such a conversion.
The production cost of nuclear electricity generated from existing U.S. plants is already fully competitive with electricity from fossil fuels, although new nuclear power is somewhat more expensive. But this higher price tag is deceptive. Large nuclear power plants require larger capital investments than comparable coal or gas plants only because nuclear utilities are required to build and maintain costly systems to keep their radioactivity from the environment. If fossil fuel plants were similarly required to sequester the pollutants they generate, they would cost significantly more than nuclear power plants do. The European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have determined that "for equivalent amounts of energy generation, coal and oil plants ... owing to their large emissions and huge fuel and transport requirements, have the highest externality costs as well as equivalent lives lost. The external costs are some ten times higher than for a nuclear power plant and can be a significant fraction of generation costs." In equivalent lives lost per gigawatt generated (that is, loss of life expectancy from exposure to pollutants), coal kills 37 people annually; oil, 32; gas, 2; nuclear, 1. Compared to nuclear power, in other words, fossil fuels (and renewables) have enjoyed a free ride with respect to protection of the environment and public health and safety.
Even the estimate of one life lost to nuclear power is questionable. Such an estimate depends on whether or not, as the long-standing "linear no-threshold" theory (LNT) maintains, exposure to amounts of radiation considerably less than preexisting natural levels increases the risk of cancer. Although LNT dictates elaborate and expensive confinement regimes for nuclear power operations and waste disposal, there is no evidence that low-level radiation exposure increases cancer risk. In fact, there is good evidence that it does not. There is even good evidence that exposure to low doses of radioactivity improves health and lengthens life, probably by stimulating the immune system much as vaccines do (the best study, of background radon levels in hundreds of thousands of homes in more than 90 percent of U.S. counties, found lung cancer rates decreasing significantly with increasing radon levels among both smokers and nonsmokers). So low-level radioactivity from nuclear power generation presents at worst a negligible risk. Authorities on coal geology and engineering make the same argument about low-level radioactivity from coal-burning; a U.S. Geological Survey fact sheet, for example, concludes that "radioactive elements in coal and fly ash should not be sources of alarm." Yet nuclear power development has been hobbled, and nuclear waste disposal unnecessarily delayed, by limits not visited upon the coal industry.
No technological system is immune to accident. Recent dam overflows and failures in Italy and India each resulted in several thousand fatalities. Coal-mine accidents, oil-and gas-plant fires, and pipeline explosions typically kill hundreds per incident. The 1984 Bhopal chemical plant disaster caused some 3,000 immediate deaths and poisoned several hundred thousand people. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, between 1987 and 1996 more than 600,000 accidental releases of toxic chemicals in the United States killed a total of 2,565 people and injured 22,949.
By comparison, nuclear accidents have been few and minimal. The recent, much-reported accident in Japan occurred not at a power plant but at a facility processing fuel for a research reactor. It caused no deaths or injuries to the public. As for the Chernobyl explosion, it resulted from human error in operating a fundamentally faulty reactor design that could not have been licensed in the West. It caused severe human and environmental damage locally, including 31 deaths, most from radiation exposure. Thyroid cancer, which could have been prevented with prompt iodine prophylaxis, has increased in Ukrainian children exposed to fallout. More than 800 cases have been diagnosed and several thousand more are projected; although the disease is treatable, three children have died. LNT-based calculations project 3,420 cancer deaths in Chernobyl-area residents and cleanup crews. The Chernobyl reactor lacked a containment structure, a fundamental safety system that is required on Western reactors. Postaccident calculations indicate that such a structure would have confined the explosion and thus the radioactivity, in which case no injuries or deaths would have occurred.
These numbers, for the worst ever nuclear power accident, are remarkably low compared to major accidents in other industries. More than 40 years of commercial nuclear power operations demonstrate that nuclear power is much safer than fossil-fuel systems in terms of industrial accidents, environmental damage, health effects, and long-term risk.
GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE
Most of the uranium used in nuclear reactors is inert, a nonfissile product unavailable for use in weapons. Operating reactors, however, breed fissile plutonium that could be used in bombs, and therefore the commercialization of nuclear power has raised concerns about the spread of weapons. In 1977, President Carter deferred indefinitely the recycling of "spent" nuclear fuel, citing proliferation risks. This decision effectively ended nuclear recycling in the United States, even though such recycling reduces the volume and radiotoxicity of nuclear waste and could extend nuclear fuel supplies for thousands of years. Other nations assessed the risks differently and the majority did not follow the U.S. example. France and the United Kingdom currently reprocess spent fuel; Russia is stockpiling fuel and separated plutonium for jump-starting future fast-reactor fuel cycles; Japan has begun using recycled uranium and plutonium mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in its reactors and recently approved the construction of a new nuclear power plant to use 100-percent MOX fuel by 2007.
Although power-reactor plutonium theoretically can be used to make nuclear explosives, spent fuel is refractory, highly radioactive, and beyond the capacity of terrorists to process. Weapons made from reactor-grade plutonium would be hot, unstable, and of uncertain yield. India has extracted weapons plutonium from a Canadian heavy-water reactor and bars inspection of some dual-purpose reactors it has built. But no plutonium has ever been diverted from British or French reprocessing facilities or fuel shipments for weapons production; IAEA inspections are effective in preventing such diversions. The risk of proliferation, the IAEA has concluded, "is not zero and would not become zero even if nuclear power ceased to exist. It is a continually strengthened nonproliferation regime that will remain the cornerstone of efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons."
Ironically, burying spent fuel without extracting its plutonium through reprocessing would actually increase the long-term risk of nuclear proliferation, since the decay of less-fissile and more-radioactive isotopes in spent fuel after one to three centuries improves the explosive qualities of the plutonium it contains, making it more attractive for weapons use. Besides extending the world's uranium resources almost indefinitely, recycling would make it possible to convert plutonium to useful energy while breaking it down into shorter-lived, nonfissionable, nonthreatening nuclear waste.
Hundreds of tons of weapons-grade plutonium, which cost the nuclear superpowers billions of dollars to produce, have become military surplus in the past decade. Rather than burying some of this strategically worrisome but energetically valuable material - as Washington has proposed - it should be recycled into nuclear fuel. An international system to recycle and manage such fuel would prevent covert proliferation. As envisioned by Edward Arthur, Paul Cunningham, and Richard Wagner of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, such a system would combine internationally monitored retrievable storage, the processing of all separated plutonium into MOX fuel for power reactors, and, in the longer term, advanced integrated materials-processing reactors that would receive, control, and process all fuel discharged from reactors throughout the world, generating electricity and reducing spent fuel to short-lived nuclear waste ready for permanent geological storage.
THE NEW NEW THING
A new generation of small, modular power plants - competitive with natural gas and designed for safety, proliferation resistance, and ease of operation - will be necessary to extend the benefits of nuclear power to smaller developing countries that lack a nuclear infrastructure. The Department of Energy has awarded funding to three designs for such "fourth-generation" plants. A South African utility, Eskom, has announced plans to market a modular gas-cooled pebble-bed reactor that does not require emergency core-cooling systems and physically cannot "melt down." Eskom estimates that the reactor will produce electricity at around 1.5 cents per kWh, which is cheaper than electricity from a combined-cycle gas plant. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory are developing a similar design to supply high-temperature heat for industrial processes such as hydrogen generation and desalinization.
Petroleum is used today primarily for transportation, but the internal combustion engine has been refined to its limit. Further reductions in transportation pollution can come only from abandoning petroleum and developing nonpolluting power systems for cars and trucks. Recharging batteries for electric cars will simply transfer pollution from mobile to centralized sources unless the centralized source of electricity is nuclear. Fuel cells, which are now approaching commercialization, may be a better solution. Because fuel cells generate electricity directly from gaseous or liquid fuels, they can be refueled along the way, much as present internal combustion engines are. When operated on pure hydrogen, fuel cells produce only water as a waste product. Since hydrogen can be generated from water using heat or electricity, one can envisage a minimally polluting energy infrastructure, using hydrogen generated by nuclear power for transportation, nuclear electricity and process heat for most other applications, and natural gas and renewable systems as backups. Such a major commitment to nuclear power could not only halt but eventually even reverse the continuing buildup of carbon in the atmosphere. In the meantime, fuel cells using natural gas could significantly reduce air pollution.
POWERING THE FUTURE
To meet the world's growing need for energy, the Royal Society and Royal Academy report proposes "the formation of an international body for energy research and development, funded by contributions from individual nations on the basis of GDP or total national energy consumption." The body would be "a funding agency supporting research, development and demonstrators elsewhere, not a research center itself." Its budget might build to an annual level of some $25 billion, "roughly one percent of the total global energy budget." If it truly wants to develop efficient and responsible energy supplies, such a body should focus on the nuclear option, on establishing a secure international nuclear-fuel storage and reprocessing system, and on providing expertise for siting, financing, and licensing modular nuclear power systems to developing nations.
According to Arnulf Grübler, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, and David Victor, who study the dynamics of energy technologies, "the share of energy supplied by electricity is growing rapidly in most countries and worldwide." Throughout history, humankind has gradually decarbonized its dominant fuels, moving steadily away from the more polluting, carbon-rich sources. Thus the world has gone from coal (which has one hydrogen atom per carbon atom and was dominant from 1880 to 1950) to oil (with two hydrogens per carbon, dominant from 1950 to today). Natural gas (four hydrogens per carbon) is steadily increasing its market share. But nuclear fission produces no carbon at all.
Physical reality - not arguments about corporate greed, hypothetical risks, radiation exposure, or waste disposal - ought to inform decisions vital to the future of the world. Because diversity and redundancy are important for safety and security, renewable energy sources ought to retain a place in the energy economy of the century to come. But nuclear power should be central. Despite its outstanding record, it has instead been relegated by its opponents to the same twilight zone of contentious ideological conflict as abortion and evolution. It deserves better. Nuclear power is environmentally safe, practical, and affordable. It is not the problem - it is one of the best solutions.
ADDED MATERIAL
Richard Rhodes is the author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Dark Sun, and other books. DENIS BELLER is a nuclear engineer and Technical Staff Member at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
THE WORLD'S ENERGY PRODUCTION
SHARE OF ELECTRICITY GENERATED BY NUCLEAR POWER
ANNUAL SOLID WASTE PRODUCTION
FOOTNOTE
1 - Uranium is refined and processed into fuel assemblies today using coal energy, which does of course release pollutants. If nuclear power were made available for process heat or if fuel assemblies were recycled, this source of manufacturing pollution would be eliminated or greatly reduced.
"Rethinking Nuclear Power"
by Douglas S. McGregor, Ph.D.
The New American
Vol. 17, No. 9
April 23, 2001
With blackouts, power shortages, and rate hikes becoming more common, now is the time for America to reexamine the promise of nuclear energy.
Click here for the full article.
Technical Symposium
As part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Savannah River Site, a Technical Symposium, "50 Years of Excellence in Science and Engineering at the Savannah River Site", was held on May 17, 2000. This event was successful with over 360 people in attendance. A 338-page publication of the proceedings is available from the CNTA office. Below you will find a list of titles and authors of the papers in this publication. To order a copy of a specific paper(s), please contact our office at (803) 649-3456, 1-800-299-CNTA, or e-mail at cnta@bellsouth.net.
The Genesis of the Savannah River Site Key Decisions, 1950
J. Walter Joseph and Cy J. Banick
Heavy Water for the Savannah River Site
J. W. (Bill) Morris, William P. Bebbington, Robert G. Garvin, Mal C. Schroder,
and W. C. Scotten
Development of Coextruded Fuel and Target Tubes for the Savannah River Plant Reactors
Philip H. Permar
High-Performance Uranium-Metal Fuels for Savannah River Reactors
William R. McDonell, George R. Caskey, and Carl L. Angerman
Aluminium-Lithium Technology and Savannah River's Contribution to Understanding Hydrogen Effects in Metals
M. R. (Mac) Louthan, Jr.
The Influence of Xenon-135 on Reactor Operation
Paul L. Roggenkamp
The Nuclear Test Gauge
Thomas F. Parkinson and Norman P. Baumann
Reactor On-Line Computer Applications
Kris L. Gimmy
Reactor Safety Management Systems for the Savannah River Reactors
Ben C. Rusche
Experimental Thermal-Fluids Program in Support of Reactor Operations
David Muhlbaaier, Sam Mirshak, Vascoe Whatley, and Elwyn Wingo
Reactor Program for Increased Production Capability
James M. Morrison
Reactor Production Diversity
James M. Boswell
The Restart of L Reactor
Thomas C. Gorrell
JOSHUA - A Nuclear Reactor Design and Analysis Computational System
John W. Stewart
Discovery That Nuclear Fission Produces Tritium
Edward L. Albenesius, J. Henry Horton, Harold M. Kelley, Daniel S. St. John,
and Robert S. Ondrejcin
Savannah River Site Canyons - Nimble Behemoths of the Atomic Age
LeVerne P. Fernandez
Development and Performance of Centrifugal Mixer-Settlers in the Reprocessing of Nuclear Fuel
Albert A. Kishbaugh
Development of Pu-239 Processes and Facilities
Edwin N. Moore, Donald A. Orth, Wally B. Sumner, and James A. Purcell
Development of Chemical Processes and Equipment to Recover Curium-244 and Californium-252
Robert M. Harbour, Clark H. Ice, William H. Hale, and John T. Lowe
Development and Performance of Processes and Equipment to Recover Neptunium-237 and
Plutonium-238
Harold J. Groh, W. Lee Poe, and John A. Porter
Production of Pu-238 Oxide Fuel for Space Exploration
D. Thomas Rankin, William R. Kanne, Jr., McIntyre R. Louthan, Jr., Dennis F.
Bickford, and James W. Congdon
Hydrides for Processing and Storing Tritium
Theodore Motyka
Thermal Cycling Absorption Process - A New Way to Separate Hydrogen Isotopes
Myung W. Lee
Development of Resistance Welding Methods for Tritium Containment
William R. Kanne, Jr. and Robert J. Alexander
Evaporation and Storage of Liquid Radioactive Waste
Claude B. Goodlett
The Defense Waste Processing Facility, from Vision to Reality
Chris T. Randall, Lou M. Papouchado, and Sharon L. Marra
Savannah River Site Waste Vitrification Projects Initiated Throughout the United States:
Disposal and Recycle Options
Carol M. Jantzen, Dennis F. Bickford, Kevin G. Brown, Alex D. Cozzi, Connie C.
Herman, James C. Marra, David K. Peeler, John B. Pickett, Ray F. Schumacher, Mike E. Smith,
John C. Whitehouse, and Jack R. Zamecnik
Excellence in Control of Radiation Exposures
Kenneth W. Crase
Advances in External Dosimetry at the Savannah River Site
Danté W. Wells
The Evolution of Internal Dosimetry Bioassay Methods at the Savannah River Site
George A. Taylor
Environmental Radioactivity On and Near the Savannah River Site Before the Start of Nuclear
Operations
William C. Reinig
High Sensitivity Measurements of Ultra-Low Amounts of Radioactivity in the
Environment
Albert L. Boni
Applied Environmental Technology Development at the Savannah River Site: A Retrospective
on the Last Half of the 20th Century
Brian B. Looney
Role of Microorganisms in the Operation of the Savannah River Site
Carl B. Fliermans
Lost Lake Found - Restoration of a Carolina Bay Wetland
Lynn D. Wike, F. Douglas Martin, and John. B. Gladden
The Evolution of SRSnet
Andrew J. Johnson
Sensor and Detector Technology
C. Wayne Jenkins
Robotics Applications at the Savannah River Site
Clyde R. Ward, W. Ivan Lewis, Robert F. Fogle, Paul S. Hebert, Phillip J.
French, and Frank M.
Future Direction of Science and Technology at SRS
Susan Wood
The Presbyterian Church (USA) in the Nuclear Age
PART 1 - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT NUCLEAR ELECTRIC POWER
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, many of the members and staff of the First Presbyterian Church (USA) of Aiken, South Carolina, have become increasingly aware and concerned about the distrust of anything designated as "nuclear" both in the national news media and within our own church hierarchy. In response to these concerns, a Nuclear Study Committee was assembled within the First Presbyterian Church of Aiken to examine the role that the nuclear generation of electric power, and nuclear technology in general, should play in the development of Church goals and, consequently, its effect on social justice for the people of this earth.
The problems are real and solutions will not be easy. One question is, "What are the consequences of the decisions we make regarding electrical power generation to meet our future energy needs? What are our energy needs?" Few new electrical power generating stations have been built in the United States over the past two decades. The supply of power has kept up with demand only through long overdue conservation measures along with new, smaller installations to provide peak power needs. Beginning with the end of our current decade, many of our major installations will be coming to the end of their normal life span and will be taken out of service, with no current plans for replacement. The rate of decommissioning will increase with time. In forty years, hardly a single existing fuel-powered generating station, fossil or nuclear, will still be in operation. If these are to be replaced based on our present rate of energy consumption, even with extended conservation measures, these five hundred or so generating stations must be replaced not on a one-for-one basis but two-for-one.(1) The question is, "With what?" What will be the source of the electricity we will use as the world of nations enters the 21st century? What role will Christians play in the determination of our power needs and by what doctrine will they be guided?
A recent development within the Presbyterian Church (USA) is a Policy Statement adopted by the 200th General Assembly (1988) entitled "Christian Obedience in a Nuclear Age." The phrase "nuclear age" is misleading; the Policy Statement deals solely with nuclear weapons, and not with nuclear technology in general as the name implies. We of the Study Committee are concerned that no attempt is made in the Policy Statement to differentiate between the two. The purpose of this Study Group is to address the latter.
In this report, we shall respond to some assertions made by Dr. David Young, one of the PC(USA) scientists on the staff of General Assembly Missions Board, in a recent publication(2) in which the relationship of nuclear energy and social justice are discussed. These assertions represent concerns that many of our fellow Christians have expressed and so are considered an appropriate vehicle for beginning this dialogue. We have distilled these assertions into questions that are typically asked of advocates of nuclear electric power.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
(1) What about a nuclear plant accident similar or worse than that at Three Mile Island? Or the terrible disaster at Chernobyl?'
The accident at Three Mile Island is probably the only "disaster" ever recorded in which no one was killed, or even injured. If the Three Mile Island incident proved anything, it is that our nuclear power plants are designed to withstand this type of accident without releasing any harmful amount of radioactivity. This incident was attributed to human error. Even so, when operators took actions that were contrary to the well being of the reactor, the safety redundancy built into the system prevented damage outside the reactor containment structure. One result of this accident has been a greater emphasis on engineered safety measures and operator training throughout the entire nuclear industry. The excessive continuing concerns associated with this incident are illustrated by the fact that as a part of the cleanup of the plant, operators were forbidden to discharge water that was cleaner and less radioactive than the waters of the Susquehanna River into which the discharge was to flow. This action reflects an admission by the Environmental Protection Agency, which stated in an internal memo that "Our priorities [in regulating carcinogens] appear [to be] more closely aligned with public opinion than with our estimated risks.(3)"
The accident at Chernobyl was the result of flagrant disregard for safety throughout the history of this nuclear power plant. None of the three basic safety violations at Chernobyl will ever be found in any nuclear plant in the United States.
First, the plant was designed with a fundamental flaw that would never be allowed by any competent reviewing authority. In all nuclear power plants outside of what was then the Soviet Union, and in most of those in that area, reactors are designed so that the nuclear reaction "slows down" if the reactor begins to lose the water that cools the reactor. In the Chernobyl plant, however, the initial loss of water caused the reactor to become more reactive, with a resulting power surge that culminated in a steam and hydrogen (not a nuclear) explosion.
Second, the Chernobyl plant had no high-strength containment vessel around its reactor. This design is typical of most of the reactors in the former Soviet Union, but containment vessels are used throughout the rest of the world's power reactors. Once the power surge started, there was nothing to contain the spread of radioactivity that followed the steam/hydrogen explosion.
Third, the core of the Chernobyl reactor contained large amounts of graphite, a material similar to charcoal, and that was the fuel for the fire that burned for several days. No currently operating nuclear power plant in the United States uses graphite as a part of its core.
Lastly, the disregard for operating procedures was so serious that managers of the Chernobyl plant were sent to prison for their negligence. Still there is an interesting continuation to the Chernobyl story. In addition to the 31 people who died initially in the accident (29 of whom died fighting the fire that never would have occurred in a properly designed plant) an American doctor, Robert Gale estimates that over the next 50 years there will be 2,500 to 75,000 premature deaths, throughout the affected population, due to the accident. However, Dr. Gale estimates that there would be 1,000,000 premature deaths for the same population (due to respiratory related illnesses) if the same power generation were from fossil-fueled plants during the same time span.(4) This comparison vividly illustrates that while no form of power generation is risk free, even the casualties of Chernobyl leave nuclear power less than one-tenth as harmful as present day coal power. The same is true for fossil versus nuclear electrical generation throughout the rest of the world.(5)
Four years after the Chernobyl accident, an international study group representing over thirty nations and United Nations committees(6) concluded that the health effects in the areas surrounding the accident had been greatly exaggerated. In the words of the study, "There were many important psychological problems of anxiety and stress related to the Chernobyl accident and in the areas studied under the project these were wholly disproportionate to the biological significance of the radioactive contamination." It is precisely this unfounded anxiety regarding nuclear power that our church study group wishes to rectify.
(2) What about the costs? Is nuclear-generated electricity really cheap? Again, one can find all kinds of estimates, but where do we take into account the fact that whereas it was once touted that generating plants would cost a few tens of millions of dollars, their price tags continue to escalate and are now multi billions of dollars each? Do these figures include the cost of dismantling a plant when it has worn out in 10 to 20 years? Is it true that estimates of plants being decommissioned today indicate that these costs will be equal to or more than the cost of building them in the first place?
A little over half of the electricity generated in the United States is from coal-fired plants, so the cost of electricity from that source provides the best basis for comparison as to whether nuclear power is "cheap." In brief, electricity generated by coal or by nuclear costs about the same. In the 1970s, nuclear power was less costly but in the 1980s, as the more costly nuclear plants came on-line the cost advantage shifted slightly to coal: a fraction of a cent per kilowatt-hour. As additional environmental controls are imposed on coal-fired plants, the costs are expected to favor nuclear.(7) Electricity generated by burning oil costs up to twice as much as by burning coal. Solar energy is an option for home water heating and for supplying small amounts of power to isolated locations but because of its cost it cannot yet compete economically in producing quantities of energy large enough to power a large industrial plant, or light a city.
The nuclear industry was unfortunate in that its greatest building period coincided with one of the worst inflationary periods in recent history, causing costs to escalate dramatically. In fact, these cost escalations are similar to the cost history of the Washington DC subway system and the new Senate office building, which were caught in the same inflationary spiral and experienced the same magnitude of cost overrun, as did almost all major construction projects of that period. Extensive litigation by nuclear power opponents significantly delayed construction and caused further cost increases.
Insofar as decommissioning costs are concerned, the cost is very much dependent upon the method selected. If a plant were to be completely dismantled soon after generation ceased and all components removed to some burial site, the cost could run as high as half the cost of building the plant. But there is no need to decommission a plant in this manner. If all of the spent fuel is removed, the containment vessel sealed, and a small guard and maintenance force is maintained for about 50 years, the cost of decommissioning is about 10% of the original plant cost.(8)
Also, while many detractors assume a nuclear plant lifetime of ten to twenty years, these plants are designed to operate for a minimum of forty years and experience indicates that they will do so.
(3) What about radioactive wastes? Some would say that this alone is a sufficient reason to stop the development of more nuclear reactors. Is it true that there is no way yet known to handle radioactive wastes other than storing them in containers that will have to be changed when they begin to leak? Aren't these wastes dangerous for up to a few hundred thousand years? Since all efforts to find ways to store radioactive wastes in the ocean or underground have been shown to be ineffective - a more honest word would be dangerous - should we continue to pile up wastes, hoping that the race will be won by a solution instead of by an irreparable natural disaster?
There are quite adequate methods of handling and controlling radioactive wastes, such as suspending small particles of high level wastes in molten glass then letting it solidify. This is common practice in Europe, where spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed and the residual uranium and plutonium is recovered and reused in new fuel. These solid glass "logs" are still highly radioactive but the glass matrix prevents the activity from contaminating the environment. They are easily shielded and sealed for permanent disposal in dry geological formations.
In the U.S., commercial fuel will be disassembled and compacted, then sealed in corrosion resistant cylinders for disposal in deep geological formations. Such extensive treatment is required for only a fraction of a percent of all radioactive wastes. The rest can be safely buried in shallow geological formations for the time period necessary for them to become innocuous. To put a "few hundred thousand years" into proper perspective, it should be noted that in less than one thousand years nearly all of the waste products of nuclear plants will be no more radioactive than the uranium ore that was mined from the earth. It is true that measurable radioactivity will exist long beyond a thousand years, just as the radioactivity present in all living things can be measured long after that thing has died. That's how "carbon dating" is used to determine how long ago a plant, animal, or human being lived: by the residual, readily measurable, radioactivity in the remains. What is greatly un-appreciated by most people is how very radioactive this universe of ours really is. To quote Dr. William G. Pollard,(9)
The earth and all the other planets were loaded throughout with radioactive waste at their formation. Most of the original radioactivities, including plutonium, have long since decayed to stable elements in the intervening four and one-half billion years, but some with half lives of a billion years or more, such as uranium, thorium, or potassium-40 are still present. The heat generated by their decay has given the earth's crust its plasticity and geological dynamism, evident in the drift of continents, in earthquakes, and, most visibly, in volcanoes. When we bury deep into the earth's crust the radioactive waste we generate, we shall not be adding anything foreign to it, nor will we add any more than a minute fraction of what is already there.
(4) How much radiation is dangerous? Is it true that there is no way to calculate the threshold dose of radiation below which there is not a problem, and above which there is a problem?
The premise of this question is that radiation is something new and that it comes only from the generation of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. That simply isn't true. To respond to this question, we need first to define the term "problem." We know from the discussion of question 3 that without vast quantities of radioactivity, the earth as we know it today would never have come into existence. Natural radiation from the sky and from the earth bombard our bodies with 15,000 particles every second. Radiation is simply a fact of life. The answer to the question of the effect of nuclear waste on the general public will never be found in observations of the general public because the contribution from nuclear waste is so insignificant compared to the natural variations in radioactivity from the environment at different locations (e.g., soil, altitude, atmosphere, etc.). People who live in Denver receive incrementally more radiation due to altitude than those who live at sea-level, but as trivial as this increment is, it is still more than the general public receives from the nuclear power industry. There are people living in places in the world, such as the higher elevations of Peru, where they receive as much or more radiation than is permitted for workers in nuclear power plants, and they have shown no ill effects due to radiation exposures over several generations. Excessive radiation can be fatal, just as excessive fire, electricity, or water can be fatal. The level at which it becomes a problem, or is not a problem, is just as nebulous as the level at which other potentially fatal aspects of our environment become a problem.
(5) Finally, what about the kind of society that would support the use of nuclear energy? Doesn't the use of nuclear electricity require large, centralized plants and operating systems that threaten our abilities as individuals to make our own choices? Shouldn't some guilt be felt for leaving this terrible legacy for generations to come? Is it possible that using nuclear technology puts humans into the situation of sin?
To answer the questions posed here we need only to consider the alternatives. What kind of society would support the wide scale use of nuclear energy? A society that:
- wishes to reduce infant mortality to the lowest possible levels by providing adequate food before and after the birth of the child, and a clean, healthy environment in which the child can grow and live to twice the life span of a primitive society.
- provides time for recreation and self development instead of dawn to dusk toil to avoid starvation.
- reaches out to others for exchange of ideas and understanding rather than being obligated to defend its own borders against outsiders.
- accepts the God-given gifts of knowledge and wisdom and shares the benefits therefrom with the energy-poor nations whose premature death rate is staggering.
- does not long for the "good old days" of spoiled food, impure water, boiling laundry kettles and the backyard lye pot.
- realizes that those persons who have the farthest to rise in their society are the ones who will be most immediately and detrimentally affected by the shunning of new technologies.
- shares in the benefits of nuclear medicine, particularly in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, which has resulted in prolonged life for thousands of people.
- recognizes that the economies of scale make energy available to everyone, not just those with the wealth to have it no matter what the cost.
- can give realistic hope to the human spirit.
In a theological reflection on nuclear development, Jacques Ellul(10) is quoted in reference 2 as asking, "We are called to be responsible human beings, and the central question remains: 'What have you done to your sister or brother.'" Our study group of concerned Christians feels that by making our views known we can help free the disadvantaged and oppressed by providing a better world in which to live. The typical anti-nuclear activists ask why we must make electricity so expensive, then offer solar energy as a "soft" technology in place of nuclear or fossil fuels when solar energy costs several times as much. We respectfully request that Mr. Ellul answer his own question before asking it of others.
As far as the use of nuclear power being a sin: If we can save lives (as nuclear power does when compared to the only available alternatives, including not generating any power at all), if we can provide a more abundant life for our sisters and brothers throughout the world and help free them from physical suffering, then the choice of nuclear power seems to our study group to reflect the way of our Lord and not the way of sin. Is the person whose life (or whose children's lives) was saved by a smoke detector that contained radioactive material a sinner because the device that saved his life contained a product of nuclear technology?
The concerns of the general public are not taken lightly by our study group. After two decades of headline-grabbing, catastrophic predictions by the national media and special interest groups we can understand why "nuclear" has been reduced, in many minds, to a scare word. Our position is that it is quite the opposite. We reiterate that our present capacity to generate electricity will soon be wearing out faster than it can be replaced. The amount of electricity generated each year is very closely related to our nation's Gross National Product, an indicator of the nation's economic well being. As decisions are made concerning the selection of replacement generators of electricity we urge that those decisions be based on the sanctity of human life and not on scare tactics or political self interests. As a result of our study, it is our opinion that without the extensive use of nuclear generated electric power and without appropriate utilization of nuclear technology in commerce, medicine, and science, world-wide social justice cannot be attained in the foreseeable future. Other forms of generating electricity can and will be used, but not with the environmentally desirable characteristics of nuclear power. In the words of the American Medical Association's House of Delegates, "Generating electricity with nuclear power is a safe method in the U.S. both absolutely and in comparison with alternative methods."(11)
In closing, we would like to quote the following from our Presbyterian Confession of 1967:(12)
The reconciliation of humanity through Jesus Christ makes it plain that enslaving poverty in a world of abundance is an intolerable violation of God's good creation. Because Jesus identified Himself with the needy and exploited, the cause of the world's poor is the cause of His disciples. The church calls all persons to use their abilities, their possessions, and the fruits of technology as gifts entrusted to them by God for the maintenance of their families and the advancement of the common welfare. It encourages those forces in human society that raise person's hopes for better conditions and provide them with opportunity for a decent living. A church that is indifferent to poverty, or is open to one social class only, or expects gratitude for its beneficence makes a mockery of reconciliation and offers no acceptable worship of God.
It is our hope that this report will generate an open dialogue among concerned parties on the merits of nuclear technology, especially nuclear generated electric power, as it relates to the world's well-being in spirit and in body. We believe that the use of nuclear power to generate electricity is the cleanest, safest and will soon be the least expensive method available to us in the immediate future. We hold our views sufficiently strongly to share them openly, and we invite others to reciprocate.
Endnotes:
1. Dr. Gale is a specialist in bone marrow transplants. He was requested by the Soviet government to treat some of the victims of the Chernobyl accident.
2. Dr. Pollard was a consultant to the Institute for Energy Analysis, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge, TN. He was also an Episcopal priest and continued to serve in that capacity for many years after his retirement.
REFERENCES:
1. Rossin, A. D., and Fowler, T. K., (editors), "Conversations about Electricity and the Future." Papers and conversations of a seminar, "The First 1990 Group on Electricity," convened at the Univ. of Calif. Berkeley campus, Jan., 1990, pages 28 - 36, and: Lee, W. S., "Energy for Our Global People," The Bent of Tau Beta Pi," Winter edition, 1991, pages 20 ff. (Mr. Lee is chairman and president of Duke Power).
2. Young, D. P., "The Speed of Love - An Exploration of Christian Faithfulness in a Technical World." Friendship Press, New York, 1986, Chapt. 6.
3. Ray, D. L., "Who Speaks for Science'" Imprimis, Hillsdale (MI) College, Aug., 1988, Vol 17, No. 8.
4. du Temple, O., Presentation on the Chernobyl accident to a meeting of the Greater Savannah River Section of the American Nuclear Society, Oct., 1986
5. Jagger, J., "The Nuclear Lion - What Every Citizen Should Know About Nuclear Power and Nuclear War," Plenum Press, New York, 1991, pg. 161-162.
6. "Conclusions and Recommendations of the International Chernobyl Project, Assessment of Radiological Consequences and Evaluation of Protective Measures." International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Wagramerstrasse 5, A-1400, Vienna, Aus., P. O. Box 100.
7. See Reference 1., pages 80-84.
8. "The Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants," IAEA, Aug., 1982. Available from IAEA (see Ref. 6) or American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Ave., La Grange Park, IL 60525.
9. Pollard, W. G., "A Theological View of Nuclear Energy." Nuclear News, Feb., 1979, pages 79 ff.
10. See Ref. 2, page 72.
11. Council on Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association, 1989, "Medical Prospective on Nuclear Power," Journal of the American Medical Association," 262, 2724-2729.
12. "The Confession of 1967," Part II, Section A, Subsection 4.c (9.46). The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Part I, Book of Confessions. Office of the General Assembly, 1983.
CONTRIBUTORS
All of the following contributors are members of the First Presbyterian Church of Aiken, South Carolina.
I. Lehr Brisbin, Ruling Elder; Ph. D. (Zoology/Ecology) Univ. of Georgia, 1967. He is a senior staff scientist with the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, specializing in wildlife biology, radiation biology, and environmental toxicology.
Anthony Gouge, Deacon; B.S. (Chem. Engr.) Univ. of Tennessee, 1981. He is the Technical Manager for one of the nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, SC. He has also worked in research and development programs for nuclear fuel reprocessing.
Boyce H. Grier, Ruling Elder; B. S. (Engr.) U. S. Naval Academy, 1946 and B. A. (Chem. and Math.) Erskine College, 1950. After completing his naval service he worked as a reactor physicist for du Pont, then spent several years with the Atomic Energy Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in inspection and enforcement programs. His work also involved nuclear reactor safety and nuclear quality assurance.
John M. Hunter, Jr., Ruling Elder; J. D. (Law) Univ. of So. Carolina, 1977. Practicing attorney in the city of Aiken, civic leader and former member of the Aiken County school board.
David M. Losey, Deacon; Ph. D. (Nuclear Engr.) Univ. of Michigan, 1982. Dr. Losey has worked in the field of nuclear reactor core functions in the U.S. and in Europe.
Paul N. McCreery, Ruling Elder; B. S. (Physics) LSU, 1948. Specialized in the design and handling of nuclear transportation casks for high level radioactive materials. He served as the moderator of this Nuclear Study Group.
J. William Morris; Ph. D., (Chem. Engr.) Univ. of Texas, 1944. Career included positions as Superintendent of Health Physics at Hanford, WA, and management positions in research and development for the du Pont Co. He is a Past-President of the South Carolina Academy of Science.
David R. Muhlbaier, Ruling Elder; B. S. (Mech. Engr.) Drexel Univ., 1961. He is a manager in the field of thermohydraulics, specifically in the effect on materials after normal and accidental discharges from nuclear reactors.
Thomas F. Parkinson, Ruling Elder; Ph. D. (Physics) Univ. of Virginia. Dr. Parkinson was formerly Chairman of Nuclear Engineering Programs at the Univ. of Missouri and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He is now Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society.
Daniel R. Ratchford, Ruling Elder; B. S. (Chem) Duke Univ., 1956. Works with the applied aspects of radiation health protection and environmental studies at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Dean R. Sackett, Rear Admiral, USN (Retired), Ruling Elder; B. S., U.S. Naval Academy and M. S. (Engr.) George Washington Univ. He served on the U.S. Delegation for Strategic Arms Reductions in Geneva, Switzerland, and was in command of U.S. Naval forces ashore in Japan. He is Vice President and General Manager of Halliburton-NUS Environmental Corporation, Savannah River Center.
Richard G. Spaunburgh, Ruling Elder; B. S. (Chemistry) Clark Univ. Career includes research and development for Allied-Signal Corp. and Allied-General Nuclear Services. Also employed by the New York State Energy Authority as a Project Manager.
John N. Wilson, Ruling Elder; M. A. (Physics) Harvard. His early career included work on the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge. He later was Research Manager for Applied Physics at the Savannah River Laboratory.
"The need for nuclear energy -
Four years after the Harvard Speech"
Senator Pete Domenici
Nuclear News, January 2002
"Transport of Nuclear Fuel"
R. Bruce Joston
Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A., January 2002
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