Part of the mass hysteria over Japan’s recent 9.0 magnitude earthquake is worries over its nuclear fallout, as several nuclear reactors are experiencing meltdowns and are releasing radiation into the air strong enough that several countries (France and China included) began evacuating their citizens out of Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the reactors. This also has practical concerns for Americans, as it appears that the design of the Japanese reactors that melted down are identical to many of those used in the U.S. What does this mean for us? Are nuclear reactors safe enough to use?
To answer the question, we must consider the likelihood of our reactors melting down like those in Japan. The answer? Depends on which reactor you’re talking about. 5 of the 6 reactors that melted down were of identical design: Mark 1 nuclear reactors made by GE. The reactor had a controversial development; one of the GE engineers way back in 1976 resigned over concerns of “the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant” in emergency events like, say, an earthquake. Compounding the problem is that the reactors built during that time are now approaching 35 years old and in dire need of repair. Unfortunately, the 23 nuclear plants in the U.S. of such design have not all been retrofitted to prevent a similar failure from occurring, meaning that they would be vulnerable should a similar catastrophe hit- imagine if Hurricane Katrina hit one of these reactors.
Therefore, a retrofit or complete replacement of these nuclear reactors are necessary. As with most pieces of infrastructure in America, our nuclear reactors are outdated and unable to handle the stress of major disasters that more modern materials and know-how are now able to, a result of years of cost-saving procrastination. For this, more stringent requirements need to be in place for nuclear reactors, especially at areas more prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes.
However, the Japanese nuclear reactor incidents should by no means dissuade us from pursuing nuclear energy as a viable alternative fuel. Given the rapid pace and potential negative effects of climate change, the costs of abandoning nuclear energy will outweigh the risk of further nuclear meltdowns. And before you think such occurrences are common, look at France- 80% of their energy comes from nuclear power plants, and as far as I can tell, their country isn’t in nuclear winter yet. We should take steps to minimize the risk of such disasters happening, but we shouldn’t let one incident define a source of valuable energy. To think otherwise is like not mining coal because it leads to miners dying due to collapsed mines- you should redesign the mines, not abandon mining altogether.
