See the article in its original context from March 14, 1971, Section BR, Page 8Buy Reprints
By the year 1980, 150,000,000 kilowatts of electricity will be generated by nuclear reactors in the United States. This astonishing triumph of nuclear energy comes just as we have become sensitive to the environmental side effects of technology. As a consequence, nuclear power is caught in noisy controversy: the proponents of nuclear energy claim it is clean, safe, and necessary; its opponents claim it is unclean, unsafe and unnecessary. The immediate results of the controversy are long delays in the commissioning of nuclear power plants and frustrating shortages of power.
There are risks in the use of nuclear power—no one denies this. But there are benefits as well—and no one denies this. The issue is: Who shall strike the delicate balance of risk versus benefit? Shall it be the Atomic Energy Commission, the Federal Government, the states, the people? Most will say, "the people," but how are the people to disentangle passion from reason, truth from untruth, in a matter as complex as the risk‐versus‐benefit balance for nuclear power?
Since what should be at issue is, in a sense, not truth but wisdom, it seems clear that these matters transcend any narrow, discipline‐bound scientific expertise. To be sure, many of the issues do have large scientific components, and scientists' views are needed. But in the heat of controversy, the truth is often warped and misread, even by scientists who believe they are speaking in the public interest.
This debate has been marred by books with such pejorative titles as "Perils of the Peaceful Atom," "Population Control Through Nuclear Pollution" or "Poisoned Power." It is therefore a relief to come upon "Nuclear Power and the Public," which is an edited transcript of a symposium held at the University of Minnesota; participants include both members and opponents of the nuclear establishment. The book is authoritative and sensible; it sheds light rather than heat, reason rather than passion. Its great merit derives not only from the credentials of those who gave papers, but also from the opportunity for confrontation between opponents and proponents of nuclear power.
When environmentalist Barry Commoner implies that radioiodine in the thyroid of cattle is attributable to emissions from nuclear reactors, he is nailed to the post by Merrill Eisenbud and Stanley Auerbach, who point out that his data are shaky and that it more probably was the Chinese tests, not nuclear reactors, that were to blame. When Arthur Tamplin pre sents ridiculously high overestimates of the radioactive effluents from a nuclear reactor, Joseph Lieberman reminds the reader that the regulations would have forced the shutdown of a reactor such as Tamplin conjures up.
The indictment of nuclear power rests upon three points: first, that the tiny routine emissions of radioactivity from nuclear reactors are a serious hazard; second, that reactors heat natural waters rather more than do fossil‐fired power plants; and third, that reactors are subject to accidents that could create a serious radiation catastrophe. All of these questions are dealt with in "Nuclear Power and the Public." Each reader will come to his own judgment as to how well the cases are argued and where wisdom lies.
Let me give my own verdict. As for low‐level releases from nuclear reactors, this is largely a red herring since, as Merrill Eisenbud shows, the average radiation to the public attributable to reactors is necessarily much less than the allowable standards. One calculates that even by the year 2000, the increased dose imposed on the United States population by nuclear reactors would average less than 1 per cent of the background of radiation to which we are all exposed every day. A few people will receive more than this, say an amount of radiation about equal to background. But to imply, as do some of the critics, that the entire population could possibly be exposed to this much radiation by nuclear power plants is falsification.
Thermal effects are not as easily disposed of as is low‐level routine radiation, but here the issue is not confined to nuclear power plants. Every thermal power plant emits waste heat; nuclear plants are perhaps 50 per cent worse than are modern fossil plants in this respect. Some thermal effects are unavoidable by‐products of power production. Yet as William Brungs implies in his article, careful design of cooling systems can usually reduce thermal effects to proportions that are acceptable to the environmentalists, and still do not cost too much.
The most difficult question of public policy with respect to nuclear power is the possibility of a serious accident. Now, as is abundantly pointed out by several authors, nuclear power plants are equipped with many lines of engineered defense against serious release of radioactivity. The licensing process imposed by the United States Atomic Energy Commission on an applicant wishing to build a reactor is probably as rigorous as any quasi‐legal procedure that has ever been devised. And the record of power reactors, including the 100‐odd naval reactors, has been extraordinary. During the 28 years since the first nuclear chain reaction was established, no member of the public has ever been harmed by an inadvertent failure of a power reactor.
Yet, persist the critics, this doesn't prove that a serious accident is utterly inconceivable. And, to be sure, the nuclear‐reactor engineer must concede that a serious nuclear accident which would harm the public, just as the collapse of a dam or the destruction of a city by an earthquake, is not totally impossible. It is an event of extremely small probability.
This, to my mind, is the real risk in the risk‐benefit equation that must be weighed by the public. We must balance the extremely small risk that the power source could malfunction badly enough to cause considerable public damage against the obvious benefit of a clean, essentially nonpolluting and practically inexhaustible power source. Though scientific and engineering issues enter into this balance, there are involved much deeper moral and ethical questions. Perhaps the most overriding, as implied in King Hubbert's contribution, is that the long‐term survival of man depends on an inexhaustible energy source. From what we know now, this source almost surely will have to be nuclear; and we shall therefore have to learn to live with the peaceful atom.
There have been during the past year many books, magazine articles and television shows on the "careless atom." Most of these are badly flawed by their blatant sensationalism, their half‐truths and innuendos. "Nuclear Power and the Public" is a much‐needed antidote to such stridently proclaimed inaccuracy. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to examine seriously the issues underlying the current debate on nuclear power.
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