by Whitney Diaz

When I first started seminar three I did not know anything about energy nor did I really care about energy.  I keep up with current events and I often hear about pipes being built or about gas prices rising, but like many other people I never thought about the availability of fossil fuels and I especially never stopped to think about what we would do after we ran out of them. The disconnect between the now and the future can be attributed to the readily available oil and (as embarrassing as it is to admit) because gas money does not come from my pocket but from my parents. However at the end of this seminar I have learned enough to be both preoccupied and hopeful about our energy future. I’ve also realized that most of the opposition against building reactors stems from fear of the unknown and fear of the mechanics behind nuclear energy. I can assure any reasonable person that after researching nuclear power and power plants, the fear dissipates and nuclear energy begins to seem like a good alternative. Although I did not have the pleasure of visiting Indian Point, my classmates did and from what they told me they felt completely at ease taking a tour of the plant. With the help of my classmates and a little research I’ve come to the conclusion that not only do we need fossil fuel alternatives, but also that out of all the alternatives Nuclear power is the most feasible oil alternative.

We’ve often talked about how energy consumption and employment correlate, so one can only wonder how the economy and families will suffer if there is a shortage of energy in the future, especially with our growing population. Natural Gas will run out, so will coal, and Bio fuels, hydro, and wind are not enough to meet the demand of energy in this country. So the other option is to build more nuclear reactors that can supply our growing population. The US has one hundred and four nuclear power reactors in thirty-one states, operated by thirty different power companies. Since 2001 these plants have generated up to eight hundred and seven billion kilo watt hours per year, accounting for twenty percent of total electricity generated. There are sixty five pressurized water reactors and thirty five boiling water reactors for a total capacity of ninety eight thousand nine hundred fifty one (98,951) kilo watt hours (“World Nuclear Association”) And that’s only one hundred and four nuclear plants! The gas-cooled reactor boasts a fifty percent efficiency (depending on the gas system used) and Transatomic is working on a reactor that is small and so safe that cools itself so a meltdown would not be possible (COOK ).

In the US the possibility of running out of energy is not treated with a sense of urgency because it’s not a popular topic neither for the media nor for oil companies. On the other hand, it’s actually a very scary thought to think that in a matter of thirty to forty years we will run out of primary source of power, but we have to face the harsh reality. If we continue ignoring the upcoming crisis we’re going to hit the wall, and crash and burn. It’s simple physics. We need energy to make power plants to make more energy, but if there is no oil and gas and not enough energy from other sources, how do we expect to build nuclear reactors when the time comes (Chudnovsky )? If we expect to keep consuming the same amount of energy and if we expect no interruption in that consumption of energy, then shouldn’t we start investing in building enough plants to be able to support us now? If in thirty years we need 500 reactors to support us and we don’t have them then what happens? Once again I refer back to the point that employment correlates with energy availability and consumption. So that means that if there is less energy to light buildings and manufacturing there will be less people that will be employed. We as a society freak out when unemployment is at 8 to 10 percent imagine there’s no more power and unemployment jumps to 20 percent or higher. Taking all this into account it makes me wonder, why are we not building more nuclear reactors right now?

I’m not saying that other forms of energy like solar or wind are not viable sources of energy. But the problem with these sources of energy is that they need a large amount of space and are not as efficient as power plants. To place solar panels, or dams, or turbines and in the end simply won’t produce enough energy to support us all (Chudnovsky ). These methods need to be explored and the technologies need to continuously improve, but we can’t just sit around and wait until these technologies are at one hundred percent efficient because we simply have no time and the law of conservation of energy tells us that nothing will ever be one hundred percent efficient because some will be lost as heat. That is why it is necessary that we use a combination of all of these resources in order to prepare for when we have no more oil and coal. And of course since technology evolves reactors will evolve and become safer and more efficient. Ideally nuclear fusion is the next step and it is where we are heading, but how will we continue to fund and test fusion reactors if thirty to forty years in the future there is no energy to continue manufacturing?

I think that the reason people are scared of Nuclear Energy is because they relate nuclear energy back to nuclear explosions. They’ve seen the pictures and heard the stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they’re afraid that radiation will leak out of the plant and result in radiation poisoning or birth defects, or that someday the plant will explode an kill everybody around the plant and poison many more people. I know that people who live near nuclear power plants often blame the plant for birth defects or for cancer, when the plant is really not to blame. But what most people don’t realized is that those are uncontrolled nuclear reactions, but the reactions happening in power plants are controlled nuclear reactions that are closely monitored by engineers. But truthfully if almost one hundred plants can produce that much energy and if we can design plants that cool themselves then why should we not try.

On the subject of safety, a quick review of the safety measures that the public should know that might change their opinion would be good. Starting with the outside safety, the reactor is protected by about four feet of steel-reinforced concrete with a thick steel liner, and the reactor vessel is made of steel about 6 inches thick. The containment structures are designed to withstand the impact of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods, as well as airborne objects with a substantial force like airplanes from terrorist attacks. On top of that there are fortified security perimeters, patrolling guards within security zones, barriers to protect against vehicle bombs, and high-tech surveillance equipment. As for the computers that monitor the plant they are isolated from the Internet to protect against outside intrusion, and any plant seeking licensing and relicensing must have plans for cyber security. Inside the plant, neutron-absorbing control rods control the reaction. The nuclear reaction depends on the number of neutrons hitting atoms and the chain it forms, so absorb the neutrons, stop the chain, stop the reaction. These control rods control the fission events and prevent them from happening too many times and getting out of control like what happens in a nuclear bomb. These control rods can be partially inserted into the reactor core to control the reaction according to the engineer’s instructions. In modern nuclear power plants, the insertion of the control rods happens in seconds, so that means the reaction can be dramatically decreased as rapidly as possible. There is also a cooling agent like water or in some plants sodium or sodium salts. There is a series of physical barriers between the radioactive core and the environment that shield the workers from radiation. On top of that a vacuum building is connected to the reactor buildings by a pressure relief duct which is kept at negative atmospheric pressure, so that if any radiation were to leak from the reactor it would be sucked into the vacuum building and would not be released into the environment. There are also multiple back-up components, and independent systems monitoring the reaction and the equipment in order to prevent failures if one piece of equipment doesn’t work ((“Safety of Nuclear “) and (Lamb)).

We should look to countries that have achieved energy independence because of nuclear energy. The country who could be considered the “model” would be France. France’s decision to launch a country wide nuclear program can be traced back to 1973 and the events of the “oil shock,” a result of the events of the Middle East. OPEC nations quadrupled the price of oil, which hit France very hard because at that time most of its electricity came from oil burning plants. As a result France made the decision that they wanted to be independent from oil so that any events that happen in the largest oil producing countries would not negatively effect the energy consumption in France. France derives over seventy five percent of its electricity from nuclear energy and it is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to the low cost of generation by the nuclear plants. France has a hefty profit of gains over three billion Euros per year from exporting energy to it’s neighboring countries like Italy and Germany. As for the nuclear waste France has a great recycling program, so about seventeen percent of France’s electricity is from recycled nuclear fuel. Thanks to the decision to move to nuclear energy, France now claims energy independence and almost the lowest cost electricity in Europe. And to top it all off it also has an extremely low level of Carbon Dioxide emissions per capita since over ninety percent of its electricity is nuclear or hydro. These achievements are possible because the nuclear program is widely popular with the public, partly a result of the visible consequences of the “oil shock.” Part of their popularity also stems from the fact that scientists and engineers have a much higher status in France than in America, so the French public holds their opinions in high regard. On top of that France has really made successful attempts to educate the public about the safety of nuclear plants and the benefit they bring. The government has also shown the public there are risks to nuclear energy, but that the engineers work to minimize the risks and increase the benefits. France launches television-advertising campaigns reinforcing the notionthat Nuclear Plants make modern life and its commodities possible. Nuclear plants offer tours to the public, which six million French people have already taken in order to reassure them that these plants are well managed. All these steps have resulted in nuclear Energy becoming a part of everyday life that the public accepts as a beneficial. Polls have found that the French public, about two-thirds of the population, are strongly in favor of nuclear power. It’s not that the government has put the public into some kind of spell, or have lied to them about the risks, many French people have similar negative imagery and fears of radiation and disaster as Americans. The difference is that the government and scientist have worked hard to counteract these fears in a reasonable way, simply by informing the public and letting them form an opinion (Palfreman).

I honestly and wholeheartedly believe that New York should be moving towards building more reactors and that instead of decommissioning them we should have plans to update these reactors. And if decommissioning them is the only option then we should build more to take their place. In New York five thousand three hundred thirty five (5,335) Giga watt hours are supplied by natural gas, making it our number one energy source, but it is closely followed by nuclear which produces three thousand nine hundred and five (3905) Giga watt hours making it our second energy source. Petroleum, coal, hydro, and other renewables combined make up only two thousand eight hundred sixteen (2,816) meaning that together they produce about seventy two percent of what nuclear energy produces. But what happens when there is no more natural gas and we have to deal with a possible increase in demand or even just keeping up with the current demand (“NEW YORK State “)?

With any form of energy production plant the most important aspect of operations is security, which includes internal security (actual energy production) and external security (from outside threats). Lately there has been and alarming amount of news outlets (like the Huffington post) reporting that the NRC found that during terrorism simulators (and during regular days where there is no NRC visits) Indian Point’s security systems have been hijacked to the point where communications are shut down by and outside hijacker (Witherspoon). There have also been reports of inadequate fire safety plans, a violation on storing bulk chemicals and a transformer explosion that dumped oil into the Hudson River and that’s only been in 2012 and 2013 (WALD). Because I’m a cynic by nature and my parents have made me distrustful of news outlets I decided to hunt for the information myself on the NRC website. This is where the problems regarding education of the public begin. The power plant is easy to locate on the NRC website, but that’s about the only thing that is user friendly. I searched for hours and read many reports regarding all kinds of safety, but in the end I was more confused than when I first began. The website is not user friendly and when I managed to locate any shred of important information the NRC simply referred to the violations as “minor violations” that led to no significant findings. In fact I found a “green” rating regarding safety, but these incident don’t sound minor or green to me. Furthermore Entergy website does not even hint at any negative publicity on its website. So with no information on entergy, a non-user friendly website courtesy of the NRC, and news articles that could or couldn’t be exaggerating how is the public suppose to educate themselves and form an educated opinion? And this is where the problem lies. This miscommunication from anyone directly involved with the plant carves a negative opinion on the powerplant and by association on Nuclear energy. Ignorance breeds fear and fear results in negative consequences. That’s not taking into account the fact that we are only months away from the anniversary of the now famous Fukushima Daiichi incident. Whether or not the Indian Point power plant has violated safety regulations, one faulty powerplant should not define nuclear power as a negative form of energy. It just means that the NRC should enforce stricter regulations and the penalty for them should be severe. Blaming nuclear energy for our inability to adhere to safety regulations (and to enforce them) means abandoning a viable source of energy.

Sources

Chudnovsky, Eugene. “The physics of unemployment.”physicstoday. (2013): n. page. Web. 9 Dec. 2013. <http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/10.1063/pt.5.2006>.

COOK, GARETH. “A NEW WAY TO DO NUCLEAR.”New Yorker. (2013): n. page. Web. 9 Dec. 2013. <http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/06/a-new-way-to-do-nuclear.html>.

Lamb, Robert. ” How a Nuclear Meltdown Works.” HowStuffWorks n.pag. Web. 9 Dec 2013. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-meltdown3.htm>.

“NEW YORK State Profile and Energy Estimates.” n.pag.U.S. Energy Information Administration. Web. 9 Dec 2013. <http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NY

“Nuclear Power in the USA.” World Nuclear Association(2013): n.pag. Web. 9 Dec 2013. <http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-T-Z/USA–Nuclear-Power/>.

Palfreman, Jon. “Why the French Like Nuclear Energy.”Frontline n.pag. PBS. Web. 9 Dec 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html>.

“Safety of Nuclear Power Plants.” n.pag. Web. 9 Dec 2013. <http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeSafetyOfNuclearPowerPlants>.

WALD, MATTHEW . “$1.2 Million Fine for Indian Point Fire.” New York Times (2012): n.pag. Web. 9 Dec 2013. <http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/1-2-million-fine-for-indian-point-fire/?ref=indianpointnuclearpowerplantny&_r=0>.

Witherspoon, Roger. “NRC Probes Indian Point Security Lapses.” Huffington Post (2013): n.pag. Web. 9 Dec 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-witherspoon/are-terrorists-training-a_b_4321385.html>.