by Priom Islam

As the world industrializes and the human population grows, people will be faced with the need for more energy to do the tasks that those in the industrialized world have already been doing. The human need for energy will only amplify in the coming decades as countries around the world become more advanced and are able to provide greater opportunities and economic security and prosperity for their people. The remaining stock of oil and natural gas can satisfactorily supply world energy demands for quite some time, but the environmental effects of using such energy resources are also plainly visible for even the most stalwart of energy lobbyists to see. From Hurricane Haiyan that recently hit the Philippines to the rising temperatures and sea levels that will slowly but surely cause untold devastation, the effects of climate change caused by carbon emissions from non-renewable energy sources will be one of humanity’s most significant marks on the history of our world. We cannot continue on our unrelenting path of using petroleum based fuels to satisfy our energy needs, simply because much of those resources will simply run out by the end of the century. Neither, however, can we completely switch to clean and renewable energy sources; much of the technology necessary to harvest those forms of energy are currently impractical to invest in an industrial scale. Moreover, the recent exploitation of oil and natural gas resources within the United States ensures that fossil fuels will continue to play a major role in our energy future. Nevertheless, the switch must be made, at least gradually, and people must know of the benefits of alternative energies. Nuclear energy, in particular, will be a tough sell to citizens of the United States; yet, the fact is that nuclear energy alone can secure much of our energy needs so long as it is handled in a safe and responsible manner.

Nuclear energy provides over 13% of the world’s electricity with fewer carbon emissions than any other traditional non-renewable energy source. In New York alone, nuclear energy accounts for about 30% of the state’s electricity; in New York City, nearly 10% accounted for by the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Nuclear reactors within the United States are typically located on the west and east coasts, near urban centers where the power is most needed. While this may scare many voters and remind people of the dangers of nuclear reactors, it is vital to note that such dangers can be controlled with stringent safety measures and strict protocols. Even more importantly, many of the infamous crises in nuclear reactors occurred because of the lack of such controls, including the incident in Chernobyl. Nuclear reactors in the U.S., on the other hand, are among the most regulated and monitored power plants in the world, as they should be. One facet of increasing our usage of nuclear energy would simply mean continuing the safety measures we already take as a nation with regards to our nuclear power plants. This can be done easily enough. The Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York is an excellent example of this.

Indian Point has been supplying New York City with electricity since 1962. It is currently battling against naysayers and lobbyists in court to renew its licenses to continue to provide clean power to the city. Those opposing the renewal of its licenses however do not have a convincing case: Indian Point has produced negligible pollution, there has yet to be a reported accident, and all studies of the nearby Hudson River suggest that marine life has not been significantly affected by the presence of the plant. Furthermore, closing down the plant would mean importing electricity from off-site locations and higher electricity prices for New Yorkers. While the rhetoric of closing down a nuclear plant may be appealing to some voters, the real world effects of actually doing so will cause a backlash against those who commit the act. Allowing the Indian Point plant to remain would supply New York City with a steady source of power and produce economic benefits for the area around the plant in the form of jobs and revenue. This economic success can be emulated. Building more plants around the country provides temporary construction booms in those areas where the plants are to be built and can secure long-term jobs for locals. Much of the job training for many positions in a nuclear power plant is done on-site, as is the case for Indian Point. The creation of more plants also increases the demand for engineers and technicians with the educational expertise to operate the plant. Giving highly educated students a greater opportunity to earn jobs through the energy sector will be a vital area of economic competiveness with the rest of the world; nuclear power plants are but one of many ways that this need can be satisfied specifically within the energy sector.

The nuclear energy industry has also made quite significant strides in recent years in becoming efficient. In fact, nuclear energy in many cases can be even more efficient than coal, oil, and natural gas combined when nuclear reactors are allowed to reprocess the fuel they have used to create even more usable energy.  Countries all around the world, most notably France, use this practice to reuse spent fuel and make more energy while simultaneously reducing waste byproducts. This reprocessing of fuel is unique to the nuclear energy industry as the radioactive waste produced from an initial use of uranium to make power can be used repeatedly to channel even more energy. The amount of energy that is created decreases each time, but so does the amount of waste. A cycle can be developed in nuclear power plants whereby electricity is created that can be sent to power grids each time the waste is reprocessed. Even more impressively, the physical size of the uranium pellet that can be used to create electricity is much smaller than any amount of coal that is used for the same purpose and it emits comparatively negligible carbon emissions. While uranium itself is a finite resource, like all the other non-renewable resources, it is unquestionably cleaner and safer for the world with regards to climate change and the potential dangers associated with using uranium can be controlled with the continued practice and innovation of existing safety measures. The reprocessing technique also ensures that the known supplies of uranium can last for a long time, even with the projected increase in energy demands across the world. France, for example, uses reprocessing to supply most of its power grids; this can be mimicked by other nations for the same purpose. Japan and several other European nations, including Russia, already do so.

Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for even more energy holds many obvious benefits, yet the United States does not participate in doing so under an outdated policy from the Jimmy Carter administration. Instead, leftover waste lies uselessly in nuclear plants throughout the U.S. The policy itself was derived out of the Carter administration’s fear of uranium and plutonium proliferation, but modern safeguards are designed to counter just that. There is very little good reason to continue this backwards policy, but a lot of great economic benefits that could result from it. Nuclear power plants themselves can benefit by decreasing the volume of the physical waste that is produced from the energy making processes and can thus spend less attention managing an otherwise worthless and dangerous substance.  The Indian Point plant, for example, would be one such plant that could benefit from a reversal on American policy regarding the reprocessing of waste products from spent nuclear fuel. It can supply New York City with even more electricity while reducing the amount of radioactive waste that is located on-site. Moreover, allowing American energy corporations to do this can help the nation’s nuclear energy industry catch up with that of other countries that already reprocess fuel. This game of catch up will be a key aspect of the future of energy security of the U.S. as we are slowly forced away from non-renewable fossil fuels because of dwindling supplies and higher demands from elsewhere in the world. It could be a valuable aspect of ultimately achieving true energy independence as well, as reprocessing itself is done entirely within a nation’s borders. This unique property of nuclear energy is something that should be capitalized on to secure the nation’s energy security and future; instead, the opportunity is being squandered on outdated and irrelevant policies.

Nuclear power plants themselves are extremely secure and existing safety measures can be relied on to handle most incidents and human errors that may occur. The build of structures throughout a plant is also very strong. The containment building, which contains some of the most radioactive material involved in the process of making nuclear energy. In fact, the explosion of pipes within this specific structure caused steam to be released and melt away the nuclear fuel rod in Chernobyl, thus releasing huge amounts of radioactive waste outside the structure that workers died from. The infamous incident at Chernobyl, however, resulted from an inadequately trained staff and an intentional subversion of safety measures for the purpose of an experiment. Now that we know the results, we throughout the world have taken steps to ensure that such an experiment is never repeated again and they have largely worked: there has never been a nuclear accident of the same scale as Chernobyl ever since. The containment building that was the origin of the accident at Chernobyl is also built incredibly strongly now. The building itself has a semi-cylindrical design, engulfed around a pure, reinforced concrete framework that is tough enough to withstand a plane crash, a fact that has been verified by official United States government experiments. In fact, it was the plane that was incinerated on contact, because the containment building is that hard. The strength of this building is enough to dispel the fears of even the most stalwart and imaginative opponents of nuclear energy and is certainly safe enough from all but the most extreme types of occurrences. The concrete shell that completely encases the building is, quite concisely, impenetrable by forces that may damage it from the outside, while also ensuring that the radioactive material inside remains inside. Access to the inside of the containment building is also tightly regulated by security measures, which include keycards, passwords, and armed guards. There are also guard towers and strategically placed cover pieces in the unlikely event that individuals infiltrate the plant seeking to enter the containment building. If, however, something were to occur, plants have a strict hierarchy of measures that can be undertaken to identify and properly address the threat.

At Indian Point, there is a sequence of steps that staff are trained to take. The first step is to classify the event into a certain level, which include: Notification of Unusual Event, Alert, Site Area Emergency, and General Emergency. The primary Control Room is to identify or be reported of any and all unusual conditions, which in turn identifies the level of the alert by assigning it one of the aforementioned levels. Depending on that assignment, every worker in the plant has a pre-determined position to do and representatives of the plant would be in communication with local operations centers to provide updates and information for the duration of the incident. This creates a secure network of real time communication that ensures proper and efficient following of protocols during such times, if they were ever to occur. Employees in emergency response positions are also on call 24/7, in addition to the watch personnel who normally monitor the plant. There are also four specific emergency response facilities: the Technical Support Center, the Operational Support Center, the Emergency Operations Facility, and the Joint Information Center. Each has its own task group that it specializes in if an emergency were to strike. Such a strict hierarchy of measures that are taken in the rare event of emergency ensures that such emergencies are contained and dealt with in a proper manner.

There is also a great fear among people of the radioactive waste that nuclear energy releases. As discussed before, the issue of waste can easily be addressed by starting up the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel to generate even more energy; this reduces the physical amount of waste produced by essentially recycling it to make more usable energy. Nuclear plants in the U.S. instead resort to storing the existing waste in secure locations, because of outdated policies still in place. At Indian Point, the waste is locked away in a small pool that houses the radioactive material. However, that alone is the majority of the waste that is created. After nearly 30 years of operation and reliably powering New York State with megawatts upon megawatts of energy, most of the byproduct waste can be fit within the area of a pool. That pool could easily be cut in half if reprocessing were to begin. Compare this with coal powered plants, which have released unquantifiable amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus keeping more of the sun’s heat on Earth instead of bouncing it back to outer space. That is the foundation of the current climate crisis we are in, all caused by the CO₂ released from the cheap fossil fuels we are so addicted to using. The waste that nuclear power plants create is minimal at most and can be contained with well-known and well-implemented methods. It does not trap any excess heat from the sun that would otherwise radiate back outside of Earth, so it does not contribute to climate change. The radioactive waste can be released as small particulates and gases in the air, but even this can be managed; it is already being done so at hundreds at the plants around the country. There is really no environmental argument that stands against the building and use of more nuclear power plants. The misconception that the radioactive fuel can be hypothetically explode like an actual atomic bomb is false as well; the uranium involved in nuclear power is simply not enriched enough for it be used as a bomb. It is well know in the scientific community that the level of enrichment necessary for uranium as a power source is far below that required for uranium as a fissile material. With government watchdogs, it can be ensured that this level of enrichment is never reached in a civilian setting. At this point, the only reason why people are still frightened of the prospect of such plants being built is the fear that people with investments in other forms of energy perpetuate in order to secure their own stakes in the existing status quo.

The physical security on the actual plant is extensive. At Indian Point, fences and gates guard the perimeter, all vehicles going in are checked, and armed guards are stationed nearly everywhere. All visitors and their possessions are personally screened by security and employees themselves are given background checks every three years to record significant health or mental changes. The entire facility at Indian Point is kept under surveillance, with no blind spots. Access to high-level areas, such as the radioactive waste storage, is restricted and enforced using keycards, badge IDs, and machines that detect hand geometry of employees in order to verify their identity with a scientific basis. The waterfront of Indian Point, which is near the Hudson River, is also kept under watch and close guard to provide cover from threats. Frankly, much of this is to provide a psychological sense of security, but it can also guard against real physical threats if the plant is ever infiltrated. Members of the security force also participate in a war game simulation in which unknown “enemies” invade the plant unannounced during a specific week and attempt to reach the core of the plant with the radioactive material. This simulation is meant to prep the guard corps of the plant with real life training and provide them with exposition to a disaster situation. An exercise like this, although seemingly drastic at first, is something that much of the public is unaware of, beyond the employees of Indian Point themselves. Educating the broader public of the kinds of measures that Indian Point takes, and that of most of the nuclear power plants across the country, could go a long way in terms of broader public acceptance and understanding of the use of nuclear energy and how importantly security is taken at these facilities. While so many measures are taken on a daily basis at plants everywhere, people still have a scared and largely false perception of nuclear energy. Although it is true that few ever take the time to appreciate societal structures in place when they do work, many people do criticize those same structures when they fail to work, or when an incident happens. The residue from that criticism often taints our perception for years to come.

This is the situation that the United States is in now. Many Americans are fearful of the dangers that they think are associated with nuclear power production and thoughts of Chernobyl reign in their minds. Three Mile Island is also referenced as the American version of the incident at Chernobyl. Three Mile Island, located off the coast of Pennsylvania, had two nuclear reactors on site. In 1979, one of the reactors suffered a partial meltdown. The radioactive material that was released lasted on the island for a total of three days. During this time, over 40000 gallons of radioactive waste was released into the nearby river and official cleanup efforts cost nearly $1 billion. The accident at Three Mile Island formulated public opinion against nuclear power ever since and has seeped into the mindset of many Americans. This is unfortunate, as the mechanisms within nuclear power plants have vastly improved since then, thereby reducing the chances of a similar accident from happening again. In fact, improvements and innovations in facility design are made on quite frequently, leading to efficient and safer plants. The United States, however, suffers from an outdated mindset and outdated policies that seriously harm competitiveness of the American energy sector and its nuclear power corporations in the new globalized economy. An energy problem that can be solved with a political solution, nuclear power remains an anomaly in the otherwise vibrant and successful American energy industry and the wider American economy. Unfortunately, the political environment of the United States allows for very little room for such wrongs to be righted, regardless of how easy it may be; there is simply too much dysfunction.

In many ways, the present state of the nuclear energy industry is a microcosm of the present state of the United States: a failure of one specific industry to work because of the shortcomings of the wider general system due to outdated and inefficient leadership. Nuclear energy is an unequivocally beneficial thing to pursue; yet it cannot be pursued because of the lack of political will and capital that needs to be expended in order to do so. While the current political dysfunction is largely a result of a failure of effective leadership and national paralysis, the current energy situation and its corresponding environmental crisis are not waiting for us to get our act together. Those problems are leaving their mark on the world now. Polar ice caps are melting at an unprecedented rate and global oil reserves are expected to deplete rapidly in the coming decades. Both facts go hand in hand and present extraordinary problems that human society will eventually have to face. While other forms of renewable energy, such as solar power, are still in their infancy stages of commercial use, nuclear power is already a proven method of energy production that has widespread commercial applications. It is a necessary, but not necessarily easy, path to enforce the use of nuclear power on a local and national level. So long as our leadership throughout the country can overcome the petty partisanship and outdated policies that overflow the modern public discourse, the future of American energy and the world environment can be secured for generations to come.