Imagine if Hurricane Katrina had simultaneously struck a dozen or more other cities right up the coast. This immense human catastrophe will, like other disasters, result in a brief outpouring of international support, followed by decades of rebuilding, adapting, and mourning after the rest of the world’s brief attention span has moved on.
Direct financial loss estimates range well above $100 billion, but that’s only the first ominous economic ripple. High-tech manufacturing like Sony’s semiconductor plants will never open again, Toyota and Honda have closed down local operations, millions are without power, and seaports are closed for business, some completely inoperable. The reopening of the Japanese stock market saw it drop 6% immediately, with further shocks on the way. It is difficult to imagine the Japanese economy ever fully recovering.
This all pales beside the nuclear drama still unfolding. Daiichi is not a nuclear reactor, it is six. Chernobyl held about 180 tons of nuclear fuel, Fukushima holds 560 tons of fuel and 1700 tons of still dangerous spent fuel in on-site storage, so the potential exists for the worst nuclear disaster to date.
The Fukushima reactors were commissioned in 1971 and built by Westinghouse. The Japanese government was previously warned that the reactors’ proximity to fault lines placed them in danger of catastrophic seismic impacts. When the earthquake struck, the plant went into shutdown mode exactly as its designers intended, and stopped producing power. Backup generators took over the job of running crucial cooling systems. Then the tsunami wiped out the backup generators and suddenly there were no brakes on the reaction anymore. Crucial coolant boiled away, and, exposed to the air, the reactor cores rapidly heated many to thousands of degrees.
Thus far there have been three significant hydrogen steam explosions, soberingly demolishing containment structures, and a fire in reactor four that is actively expelling radioactive material. This material has already started to circle the world, and was detected as far away as Iceland. All three reactors that were in operation have core leaks, and the cooling pools, which dwarf the reactors themselves, are also in crisis.
Geiger counters can identify the quantity of nearby radiation, but they don’t help to identify which specific isotopes are emitting it, so hazard levels are difficult to assess. As I write, Japanese officials consider 30 miles a minimum safe distance, but if the reactors continue to break down, all bets are off. Stratospheric winds could dust the entire northern hemisphere with tragic stories.
Nuclear apologists may be heard saying there is no immediate danger, which is true enough; the millionth of a gram of plutonium that you inhale will take five or more years to give you testicular cancer. But that is small consolation, if you happen to inhale it. Lung and thyroid cancers and leukemia are other likely human impacts. These toxins also bioaccumulate in tissues, so plants would accumulate some, and then herbivores would accumulate more, and our place atop the food chain would guarantee us the heaviest dosage.
The world’s 442 nuclear power stations produce about 17% of all humanity’s electricity, about as much as hydroelectricity and dwarfing maybe 2% from solar and wind combined. They collectively have an impressive safety track record, but when things do go wrong, it is unthinkably bad.
To my mind, the risks of apocalyptic local events like this one are not even the primary reason to reconsider our love affair with this technology. Containment facilities to store hazardous used fissionable materials require constant vigilance, uninterrupted power, and high technology for generations to come.
The lifespan of some dangerous nuclear waste is measured in hundreds of thousands of years. The longest lived and most successful human civilizations of all time have managed no more than about three thousand years of relative order. We’re expecting our descendants to play caretakers to immense personal danger for about a hundred times longer than we have ever successfully held our collective act together before. There’s a freakish level of unrealistic optimism in that scenario that borders on the pathological.
When talking with people about the issue of nuclear power, I find the most persuasive argument is ultimately the simplest, requiring no understanding of science whatsoever. Simply look closely at France, the only locale on the planet more currently dependent on nuclear energy than Ontario, and look at neighbouring Germany, which has more renewable energy per capita than any other country on Earth.
We can see that per public dollar invested, renewable strategies produce twice as much power and create two and a half times as many jobs as nuclear plants. No nuclear project in history has been completed on schedule, come in anywhere near on budget, or failed to involve unforeseen complications. Look at your latest hydro bill, and you’ll see the ‘debt retirement charge’ that represents the Ontario public still paying for the construction of nuclear power plants in the 1970s.
Nuclear power carries dangers in operation, in handling of wastes, in weaponization, but also to our pocketbooks. Symbolically, our mastery of the atom can feel like the pinnacle of human cleverness and achievement, but I’d take fiscal responsibility and environmental good sense any day.
