The Right Way to Defend Nuke Power

The accident in Japan shouldn't make us abandon nuclear energy. The nuke industry though is doing a poor job convincing the public.

The tragedy in Japan has led to much criticism of nuclear energy (mostly by the left), attempts to defend it (mostly by the right), and a lot of confused and worried people in the middle.  The accident in Japan — however serious — is not sufficient reason for us to completely abandon nuclear energy.  However, many of the “industry pundits” defending nuclear power this week have failed to present arguments which will convince the American public.  Talking down to or talking past those who are worried about the incident in Japan won’t work.

Here are a few of the poorer arguments I’ve seen from nuclear power defenders since the Japan disaster, and my suggestions for more productive approaches:

Argument #1: “More People Died from the Tsunami and Earthquake than from the Nuclear Power Plants”

This is a red herring: true, but irrelevant.

One reason this is a bogus comparison is that we can’t control whether or not we have natural disasters, but we can control whether or not we build nuclear power plants.

The other is that the concern with nuclear power accidents is not immediate deaths, but the impact on long-term health, and the poisoning of the environment, which can last for centuries. Not very many people died immediately at Chernobyl, but eventual death totals could reach the thousands among those who were exposed. And the entire area was transformed into a wasteland.

There really isn’t a way to improve this argument, because it’s flatly fallacious. It would be better to focus on comparing the safety of nuclear to other options (see point #6 below).

Argument #2: “These Plants Used an Older Design; Ours are Newer and Better”

Again, this is true, but it’s not convincing to many people. The plants may have been old, but at one time they were new, and undoubtedly were portrayed as being the latest and greatest that technology had to offer. More modern plants are safer, sure, but they are also enormously expensive, and they require decades of use to recoup their costs. Materials and mechanisms degrade over time, and we discover things we didn’t know before. Again people will wonder: “Will we hear the same thing about newer plants being safer after a disaster in, say, 2041?”

A better approach here is to point out in terms that people can understand why and how newer designs are safer. How specifically would they prevent the problem that occurred here from happening again? What are the differences between types of fuel used in plants, methods of cooling, and safety measures? And this should be done without complex schematics and terminology, much of which even engineers and technology writers can’t always readily comprehend.

Argument #3: “The Plants Survived the Earthquake, Just Not the Tsunami”

Correct, but the designers knew from the start that they were putting the plants in an area that was threatened by tsunamis. Heck, there’s a reason why the English word for “destructive waves caused by an undersea earthquake” is Japanese in origin! Not only are tsunamis common in Japan, but the plants affected were built right on the ocean, in what appears on satellite imagery to be a flood plain. So why didn’t they have a plan to deal with what was, really, only a matter of time?

People don’t want to hear excuses. They want to hear how all of the reasonable potential risks are being addressed. Nobody expects every risk to be covered fully, but they want to know about how risks likely to a particular region will be addressed. A plant built in Kansas doesn’t need a tsunami contingency plan, but can it survive a direct hit from an F5 tornado?

Argument #4: “It’s Just Steam Releases, Not a Real Meltdown”

To most people, radiation is radiation is radiation. Also, being told “radiation was released but it’s not a real meltdown” strikes the average American about the same way as being told “you have cancer, but it could be worse.”

If there’s an important distinction between radiation released as steam and that coming from direct exposure of fissile material, then this needs to be explained to the public much more clearly. Far greater emphasis also should be placed on explaining the role of containment buildings—but not pretending that these are perfect or impermeable, because they aren’t. Discussing what we do when a serious event leads to a cracked containment vessel would be a good idea: what happens when the safety measures fail?

Argument #5: “The Radiation Leaked Isn’t That Bad”

Humans are terrified of things that are dangerous, things that can’t be seen, and things they don’t understand. Radiation is a direct hit on all three counts. When officials and pundits try to minimize the danger with hand-waving about how the radiation “isn’t that bad”, the natural reaction of most people is to get more scared.

The solution here is a combination of detailed information and education. Don’t tell people “radiation is at safe levels”. Nobody knows what that means, and it sounds sort of like “the amount of cyanide in your water is at safe levels”. Be specific. Use charts. Teach people more about radiation, how it works, and how it is measured. Compare the level of radiation released by these accidents to radiation we receive from other sources, such as the sun, to put it in perspective. And above all, be honest with people, because they can tell when you are trying to snow them.

Argument #6: “Everything Has Risks. Thousands Die in Car Crashes Every Year”

This is the nuclear power version of the classic argument in favor of air travel over road travel. It’s strictly speaking, correct; yet it ignores human nature. We are notoriously bad at risk assessment: just ask anyone who runs a lottery. We also tend to put far too much focus on splashy, attention-grabbing disasters, no matter how infrequent they are. So it doesn’t matter how rare these events are, or how many fewer people they kill than car accidents: they are newsworthy and they grab headlines.

The other problem here is that most of us do not have alternatives to traveling on the road; we do have alternatives to building nuclear power plants.

The proper approach here is a simple one: cost/benefit analysis. Don’t compare nuclear power to driving cars, but to other forms of energy production. How many people die each year on oil rigs or in refineries? Or mining coal? How about installing solar panels and wind turbines?

The same applies to longer-term issues such as health risks over time due to radiation exposure. How many ill health effects do Americans suffer from pollution due to burning coal and oil? This can even be more indirect: if a lack of nuclear power leads to a reduction in available electricity, or an increase in its cost, how many more people each year will become sick or die due to untreated conditions, lack of air conditioning, lack of access to other beneficial technology because of funds paid for electricity, etc.?

In the case of alternative energy, it is also important to explain how much power is generated by nuclear and how many solar panels or windmills would be needed to replace one plant. That adds important perspective. I hear many nuclear power opponents suggesting renewable energy options that, while often worth pursuing, are simply not feasible on a scale necessary to replace nuclear.

Tweet