Learning lessons from a nuclear disaster
THE first anniversary of Japan’s nuclear disaster is a good time to take stock. Opponents and proponents of nuclear power are doing so, and have come to the same conclusion: “We were right all along.”
The meltdown at the Fukushima power plant is certainly grist for the mill of the anti-nuclear crowd. It forced the evacuation of 300,000 people and will cost as much as €200bn to clean up, according to the Japan Centre for Economic Research.
If a natural disaster can trigger such a dangerous, disruptive and expensive crisis in a country as advanced as Japan, then it’s impossible to guarantee safety anywhere. Efforts to do the impossible will make nuclear power even more expensive and, by some analyses including that of the Worldwatch Institute, it already costs more than solar energy.
The technical and economic data, though, may offer less support for the anti-nuclear brigade than the images from Fukushima, including explosions and mass evacuations.
Proponents of nuclear plants haven’t exactly been comforted by Fukushima, but they argue that a cool look at the situation actually supports their case. After all, the damage from a near worst-case scenario at a badly managed, ageing plant is proving to be quite bearable. This case is strengthened by the Japanese government’s minimum estimate of direct clean-up costs — something like €10bn.
Besides, the pro-nukes say, the affected plant was too old to be relevant for future investment decisions. New plants are safer by design. Fukushima won’t significantly alter the result of the studies promoted by the World Nuclear Association, which conclude that atomic energy is relatively cheap. Enthusiasts, who have always dismissed atomic phobia as illogical and exaggerated, are quick to point out that Fukushima has nothing to do with Hiroshima. The chain of activities required to generate, say, coal-fired power can be shown to cost more lives, too.
What Fukushima really teaches is that the gap between the two sides of the nuclear argument is too wide to be bridged by evidence. Whatever happens, many opponents will always see an intrinsically dangerous technology which people should not try to tame. And however expensive the last plant or accident, most proponents will continue to believe nuclear power is a wonderful technology, needed for humanity’s long-term comfort.
I think the factual arguments hide a deeply philosophical disagreement — about just how much control man can and should have over the hidden forces of nature. The same fundamental discord embitters arguments about global warming, biotechnology, assisted reproductive technology and the population the earth can durably sustain. In such debates, facts and pseudo-facts are sought largely as weapons to be thrown at the other side. Fukushima seems to provide a fair supply.
The philosophical issue is important. There are surely technologies which really do cross a fairly clear moral line, and the natural world should not be exploited blindly. But nuclear power is no longer an appropriate field for this ideological combat.
That was not always the case. In the 1950s, the destructive power of atomic fission was clear, while the human ability to make it beneficial was not. After more than a half-century of operating nuclear plants with only a few accidents, it’s no longer appropriate to consider this technology as beyond the moral pale.
On the other hand, nuclear costs have consistently failed to plummet as predicted for the past 50-plus years. So the technology cannot be considered a potential wonder-cure for energy woes. Nuclear plants last four to six decades, far too long for accurate predictions of fuel prices and technological developments. There’s no way to foresee or calculate, whether nuclear power will prove more or less expensive, safe, clean or reliable than its rivals. In the face of this uncertainty, a reasonable policy choice is to temporise. The Chinese paused to learn the lessons of Fukushima, and now look set to go on as before. That sounds about right.
* Edward Hadas is the author of Human Good, Economic Evils: A Moral Approach to the Dismal Science.
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