Better medical science key to future of nuclear power
I have long believed that nuclear energy is needed, rather desperately in some circumstances, to provide the peaceful energy needs of the world at large for a long time to come.
I stand behind my assertions even today as events continue to unfold in Japan from accidents to three large reactors and a yet to be determined amount of spent fuel.
Basically, I believe the future of nuclear power as a means of producing electricity in this county is a political issue, not a technical one.
There are three technical or scientific fields that must come together to satisfy the fears and uncertainties of Americans related to nuclear energy.
The first is the field of nuclear physics. In my view that group of scientists working for around 100 years knows today an incredible amount about nuclear physics. Continued research will always be needed to further advance man’s knowledge in this subject. It is after all the “power source of the universe.”
The second technical field is engineering, specifically nuclear engineering (how to design and build bombs and reactors) and the structural engineering disciplines needed to safely contain any large production of energy, nuclear specifically in this case. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were not failures in engineering. Those accidents were caused by operator errors. No engineering design can prevent consequences from human mistakes 100 percent of the time.
And I do not yet consider Japan’s recent problems should be blamed primarily on “bad” engineering. Those plants were designed to withstand a quake with a magnitude of 8.0 but the actual quake was 9.0. Yes, maybe they should have been designed for a larger earthquake. But the design actually, as far as I know, worked even with the larger quake. Reactor failures in Japan were caused by loss of power for an extended period of time due to the tsunami, not a structural failure of protective systems caused by a quake alone. Had only a huge earthquake occurred, we would not be reading about Japanese nuclear issues today, in my view.
And interestingly, the design criterion for a tsunami in those plants was a wave height of 5.7 meters. The actual wave height experienced was 14.4 meters, about the size of a five-story building. That huge wave overwhelmed all sources of power to supply those plants once the reactors where shutdown at the beginning of the quake. No design can be expected to protect something over three times the size of the specified criteria.
But the third vital field to allow nuclear energy to continue to be used is the field of medical science. Physicians know a lot about how to constructively use nuclear medicine in all its forms. But medical science is far behind in understanding exactly how radiation affects the human body, nor can come even close to telling Americans “how safe is safe” in matters of exposure to radiation or radiological contamination.
An engineer or physicist can talk his head off about real, observable effects, but until the medical community weighs in with sufficient research to tell us all just what the limits of exposure should be based on science then for now all we the people are left with is “if you can measure it, it is too much.”
No industry could function with potentially dangerous materials if that was the basis for all safety limits, be it electrical, chemical, oil, gas or, in this case, nuclear energy.
My overall view that the real problem with nuclear energy is the politics related to such energy. And the missing piece to solve the political puzzle is better medical science as to the real effects of radiation and radiological contamination.
I would also add that better emergency responses by governments when nuclear materials are released into the environment or the “space” of the general public is required. As with any major calamity, be it the Gulf oil spill, Katrina or Japan, governments involved must do a much better job controlling the emergency and getting technically sound direction to the public at a much faster rate. But that view would require a whole different article to make my case.
-Anson Burlingame
