The world’s fossil fuels, which produce nearly 86% of the world’s energy, are not limitless; they will eventually be completely exhausted by the increasingly energy driven economies all over the world.  With existing demand rates, “the world has enough oil in known and economically viable reserves to last more than 40 years, enough gas for more than 60 years, and enough coal for more than 230 years” (Brown and Brutoco 3-4).  According to the British Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering, “we can expect our consumption of energy at least to double in the next 50 years and to grow by a factor of up to five in the next 100 years as the world population increases and as people seek to improve their standards of living” (qtd. in Beller and Rhodes 30).  If present societies and nations do not solve this dilemma, future generations will have to deal with many negative consequences resulting from their preceding generations’ inability to change.  Nuclear power offers a clean, safe, and practical source of energy that could and should be used to solve this energy predicament, especially in the United States. 

Nuclear energy does present many disadvantages as its opponents like to point out.  First, it creates radioactive waste that is relatively difficult to store since it has to be stored for hundreds of years.  Second, it presents an industrial safety concern as remembered in the Chernobyl nuclear reactor melt-down in 1986 and in the Three Mile Island incident of 1979.  Third, it poses problems with regards to nuclear proliferation – security of nuclear waste from terrorists who desire to use it as nuclear weapons.  Last, it requires massive up-front investments to build new reactors and plants.  These are all sensible and measured concerns about the employment of nuclear energy in America.  However, considering the finite amount of fossil fuels and no perfect replacement because all energy sources have shortcomings, nuclear energy deserves a second look.

It is completely understandable that people would be concerned about radioactive waste, nuclear proliferation, and reactor safety.  Anti-nuclear activists reasonably state that all three of these apprehensions could unfortunately result in severe injury or death.  Exposure to high-level amounts of radioactive material in the form of waste will undoubtedly cause cancerous mutations or pre-mature deaths.  Nuclear proliferation could also result in a much greater magnitude of human destruction considering the devastation of a major city from an atomic bomb constructed from nuclear waste.  However, the factor that probably most shapes the public’s negative perception of nuclear power is nuclear reactor safety.  Examining the disaster at Chernobyl makes it fairly easy to understand why reactor safety is so scrutinized by the public.  Through remembrance of the atrocious effects the disaster had on individuals who lived in the region surrounding the nuclear reactor, people become very uneasy about nuclear power.  As a warning of the possibility of catastrophe, the media gives us grotesque and horrifying images from the accident, such as the photographs in Paul Fusco’s and Magdalena Caris’ book titled Chernobyl Legacy, of mentally retarded emotionless children or bodily mutations in children such as oversized legs or pencil-thin arms.  When the public examines these photographs, it becomes extremely difficult for it to look at nuclear energy as an admirable, humane energy source.  All the public sees is the slaughtering effects of nuclear disasters and not the vast advantages related to the use of nuclear energy. 

Nuclear reactors, if not closely and strictly regulated, will experience problems, some of which that could reach the magnitude of the Chernobyl explosion that happened on April 26, 1986.  This magnitude included 31 immediate deaths, 1,000 direct injuries, 135,000 people evacuated from their homes, and “taking the effects of low-level radiation into account, independent experts estimate that the resulting ‘all-time’ cancer fatalities…from Chernobyl will range upward to 475,500 over the next century” (Brown and Brutoco 27).  Jerry Brown is a Founding Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Florida International University, and Rinaldo Brutoco, who has a Juris Doctor degree from UCLA Law School, is a leading international entrepreneur.  Thus, nuclear protesters do offer a valid perspective in the context of nuclear energy’s dangers; however, their perspective is flawed in that it does not consider nuclear energy’s numerous benefits.

One must critically examine the disadvantages of nuclear power and assess other alternative sources of energy before forming opinions on the matter.  Through critical analysis and consideration of the numerous benefits of atomic energy, nuclear power is the answer America, along with the rest of the world, is seeking.  It is cleaner, safer, and more practical than fossil fuels. 

According to Denis Beller and Richard Rhodes, “The great advantage of nuclear power is its ability to wrest enormous amounts of energy from a small volume of fuel” (37).  Denis Beller is a nuclear engineer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Richard Rhodes is the author of many books discussing nuclear energy including Dark Sun: The Making of the Atomic Bomb. A good comparison to illustrate their statement is that one ton of nuclear fuel produces the amount of energy that 2-3 million tons of fossil fuel produce (Beller and Rhodes 37).  Senator Pete V. Domenici, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, notes that there are 103 nuclear power plants in the United States producing 98 GWe (gigawatt electric) which account for 20% of the total American energy supply (49).  By itself, the United States produces as much electricity by nuclear energy as there was produced by all energy sources globally in 1960 (Domenici 49).  It is, therefore, fairly obvious that nuclear power can harvest great amounts of energy that can and should aid in providing power to Americans.

Jay LaVerne, Concurrent Research Professor of Physics at the University of Notre Dame who does research in the field of radiation chemistry, articulates a similar point to Beller’s and Rhodes’ statement.  He claims that the advantage of nuclear energy is its fuel, uranium, which is “a proven quantity…We have all the material we will need for centuries and centuries…We don’t need to rely on outside people.  We can make our own reactors.   So we can do this completely internally.”  In a period of time when conflict could arise from distribution of resources as some would argue has in fact happened in the Middle East, this self-sufficiency in terms of energy would be very beneficial for America. 

Nuclear power plants do create radioactive waste, but the little-known and often forgotten fact is that they release less radioactive materials to the environment than coal-burning power plants do.  Uranium and thorium, both of which are radioactive elements, are byproducts of coal burning.  In addition, coal-burning plants emit many greenhouse gases and other harmful materials – carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur, arsenic, mercury, lead, boron, and the list does not stop there.  Looking at the world’s electrical energy production, approximately 17% comes from nuclear power.  According to Reid Morden, President and CEO of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, “If that energy were instead derived from coal – even from plants that had the best equipment available for removing pollutants – the consequences would be sobering” (109).  This is equivalent to over a billion additional tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide), roughly 2 million additional tons of NaO2 (sodium dioxide), 1 million additional tons of NO (nitrogen oxide), and around 150 thousand additional tons of toxic heavy metals entering the environment every year (Morden 109).  Now, if some of the electricity produced by coal-burning plants was instead derived from nuclear reactors, the results would be completely opposite.  The environment would be significantly cleaner and people would breathe easier simply because nuclear power plants do not produce as much pollutants as coal-burning plants.

Moreover, nuclear power plants release minimal, if any, amounts of greenhouse gases and less radioactive material than coal-burning plants (Beller and Rhodes 32).  The significant difference between the two radioactive wastes that are produced by the two types of plants is that radioactive waste from nuclear power plants is contained and safely stored away while waste from coal-burning plants goes directly into the atmosphere and landscape.  Nuclear waste from nuclear power is placed in casks that are designed to withstand impact, temperature change, corrosion, and radiation.  In July of 2002, President George W. Bush endorsed House Joint Resolution 87, which allowed the United States Department of Energy to continue planning construction of a reliable nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain, Nevada.  The DOE proposes this site because it is very environmentally stable which means that radioactive materials would be extremely unlikely to leak out into the surrounding area (U. S. Department of Energy).  Although there is a minimal chance that a leak would occur at the repository, it is imperative to remember that the nuclear industry attempts to contain radioactive waste from its nuclear plants, while the coal industry passively allows radioactive waste from its coal plants to be directly released into the environment. 

Directly comparing coal and nuclear plants, “A 1,000-megawatt-electric (MWe) coal-fired plant releases about 100 times as much radioactivity into the environment as a comparable nuclear plant” (Beller and Rhodes 32).  Peter Burns, Massman Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame who researches nuclear waste disposal and management, proclaims that “in terms of radioactivity, and release of radioactivity into the environment, nuclear energy plants release less radioactivity than coal-burning facilities.  Coal-burning facilities burn coal that has significant uranium in it.  So if you go downwind from a coal-burning facility, you will detect higher levels of radioactivity than if you go downwind from a nuclear plant unless there is an accident.”  People need to and should be concerned with the excess amounts of radiation and pollutants in our environment because of all of their implications.  Pollutants contribute to the greenhouse effect and to global warming. However, if people want to be worried about radioactive material, they need to start worrying about the radioactive problems associated with coal-fired plants.  They should appeal to their government to start regulating the radioactive waste that these types of power plants do actually produce. 

The fact that coal-burning power plants release more radioactive material into the atmosphere than nuclear plants contributes to coal-fired plants being more insecure with respect to nuclear proliferation.  Because coal-fired plants are not high-profile facilities compared to nuclear reactors and plants, it would be far easier for a terrorist to acquire uranium, capable of fueling an atomic bomb, from coal ash at a coal plant than it would to do similarly at a nuclear plant (Beller and Rhodes 33).  Annually, one 1,000 MWe coal-fired plant produces about 74 pounds of uranium which could make up to 2 atomic bombs (Beller and Rhodes 33).  Nuclear power industry is heavily regulated in order to limit nuclear waste and to prevent nuclear proliferation.  Conversely, the government does not place as many regulations and restrictions on the coal-burning power plants which make it more likely that a nuclear proliferation incident would occur at a coal-burning plant.  Therefore, nuclear power is actually safer and cleaner than traditional sources of energy.

According to Peter Burns, the current technology where waste from nuclear energy is not reprocessed is a “very sloppy use of resources.”  In order to make nuclear energy more palatable and viable, Burns proposes that the nuclear industry adopt reprocessing methods, noting that “the option of a more sophisticated closed fuel cycle technology with recycling and so on would allow you to very substantially increase the amount of energy derived and lower the amount of waste.”  Senator Domenici would agree with Burns about the implementation of a closed fuel cycle in the United States.  The senator states, “I am becoming more and more convinced that we should maintain a vigorous and well-funded research program on reprocessing technology alternatives…” (9). Many countries throughout the world have been using this closed fuel cycle to reprocess its nuclear waste/fuel.  Prime examples include Japan, Great Britain, and France, which has been reprocessing fuel since 1958 (Domenici 118).  As a nation that is trying to promote environmentally sound energy, the United States should follow the example of these nations and begin to recycle its uranium as reprocessing technologies become more practical and cheaper. 

In addition to the concern about nuclear waste and proliferation, anti-nuclear activists fear the industrial safety of nuclear reactors citing examples like Chernobyl.  Some believe the Chernobyl melt-down to be ‘The Greatest Catastrophe of Our Time’ including Alla Yaroshinskaya, who actually had to flee her home to avoid the dangers of radioactive fallout near Chernobyl and who became a member of President Yeltsin’s Council later in life.  Yaroshinskaya writes that “According to the estimates of the Research Institute on Nuclear Reactors, the total amount of radioactive released reached a billion curies…The levels of caesium-137 alone were equal to 300 Hiroshimas” (75).  Yes, that amount of radioactive material should raise concern among the public.  However, it is crucial to distinguish between the nuclear bomb at Hiroshima and the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.  In the case of the atomic bomb dropped on the city of Japan, radiation was not the major result of death; rather, it was the explosion along with its extreme heat and shock wave that killed the majority of the victims.  On the other hand, the Chernobyl deaths resulted from radiation and its debilitating effects.  Comparing the two nuclear incidents is a flaw in logic because they are so different.

Furthermore, Chernobyl was a preventable disaster, and it is an important lesson in nuclear reactor safety.  As Reid Morden states, “Chernobyl should never have happened.  It was a tragedy, but what stands out – or should standout – is the incontrovertible fact that there are about 450 other reactors around the world providing energy safely, most of which have been operating for many years” (109).  In fact, the Chernobyl explosion resulted from faulty and out-dated reactor design and from human error, which can be and is currently regulated at existing nuclear reactors.  Without a containment shell, which is required in all nuclear reactors today, the Chernobyl reactor was more susceptible to undergo disaster.  There have only been 2 cases of true nuclear melt-down in history.  The Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station suffered a partial core melt-down on March, 28, 1979.  Fortunately, it resulted in no deaths, and as already stated, the Chernobyl incident immediately injured 1,000 and killed 31.  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, within a ten year span from 1987 to 1996, “more than 600,000 accidental releases of toxic chemicals in the United States killed a total of 2,565 people and injured 22,949” (Beller and Rhodes 40).  Once again, nuclear power plants are actually safer than ordinary chemical and coal-fired power plants. 

Therefore, the public perception of nuclear power should not be of fear.  Inherently, nuclear reactors are dangerous.  Jay LaVerne notes, “Potential disaster can be really catastrophic.  But I do not know of any energy source that is not dangerous.  If you want to go to coal, there are coal miners that are dying right and left from diseases and cave-ins.”  He also adds that there have been many petroleum plants that have blown up throughout the years.  Peter Burns agrees with LaVerne by stating, “There are many accidents at coal burning facilities, gas burning facilities, things explode and all this, that have done more harm on an annual basis than Three Mile Island in the United States…For example, about 6,500 coal miners die every year in China alone.  Obviously that is a higher cost than has been experienced by a nuclear reactor accident.”  Thus, in terms of safety, all sources of energy are dangerous; the public should not fear one over the other. 

New reactor designs would make nuclear power much safer.  Peter Burns asserts:

There are reactor designs now that are significantly safer than the existing reactors in some ways because you can build intrinsic safety into the reactor.  For example, using the material’s properties of fuel rods and so on, you can build into a reactor, automatic shutdown when it overheats.  Automatic shutdown driven by the material’s properties as compared to some electronic system or some human intervention.  You could have multiple layers of safety.

Therefore, it would be impossible for nuclear reactors to blow up or ever reach disastrous magnitude as seen in the Chernobyl accident.  Jay LaVerne adds that another important aspect of new reactors is that the government is now standardizing all new reactors along with modifying the old ones.  Because America’s current nuclear reactors, all of which were built no later than the 1970s, were made in the “true spirit of corporate America,” there were many different designs and many different builders (LaVerne).  With a standardized design, more engineers, more scientists will be looking at the same type of reactor as opposed to differing designs – making it extremely easier to find problems in reactors and fix them (LaVerne). 

Moreover, the Chernobyl accident was not as destructive as many people believe.  At the Chernobyl Forum, a meeting between representatives from many world organizations including the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, various experts examined the effects of the disaster and wrote a report titled “Chernobyl's Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts.”  According to Yelena Zhuravlyova  who reported on the Chernobyl Forum, the experts did not find through their extensive study that a cancer epidemic did occur in areas surrounding Chernobyl.  However, the experts did affirm that although the residents of those areas were physically healthy, they experienced great anxiety, stress, and depression (Zhuravlyova 8).  Zhuravlyova states that the Representatives from the WHO attributed these psychological problems to “the affected countries’ authorities, who, on the one hand, have failed to provide people with accurate information about the danger of radiation and, on the other hand, have labeled all survivors of the accident ‘victims’ of Chernobyl.  This policy has had the result that people ‘perceive themselves as helpless, weak and lacking control over their future’” (8).   Therefore, the problems associated with this disaster were more psychological than physical and could have been avoided through simply educating the public on the various dangers of radiation. 

In order to clear the public’s fear of nuclear energy, both Jay LaVerne and Peter Burns think that education is essential.  LaVerne feels that programs, in which the community directly affected by a proposal of a new reactor or a nuclear waste repository would be able to sit in and listen to the scientists, engineers, and government officials discuss their plans, would be very beneficial in providing the populace with the relevant information.  He argues that the community would be much more comforted and accepting of a nuclear reactor or repository being close to them, if they knew the actual facts associated with the safety concerns.  Peter Burns conveys that education is crucial to changing the public’s perception but that educating the public on such a controversial topic is very difficult.  Blaming this difficulty on the America’s freedom of speech, Burns declares, “The government can’t do anything when the press misrepresents facts, creates overblown concerns that are not realistic and so on.”  Burns continues by alleging that he would not be concerned at all if he lived by a nuclear reactor.  He does not fear nuclear power because he knows the properties of the materials associated with nuclear energy as opposed to the majority of Americans who do not.

The concern about radiation due to nuclear power plants is exceedingly justifiable.  However, the fact remains that coal power plants release the majority of radioactive materials that enter the environment as opposed to nuclear plants.  In order to build a stronger, more efficient, cleaner, and safer energy driven America, we need to utilize nuclear power as our main power source.  This task will not be possible until the American public realizes that nuclear energy is not what the media often portrays, a horrifying bomb that could explode at any instant.  As Pete V. Domenici attests, “[nuclear power] plays a vital, diverse role in assuring the health and general welfare of the American people through medical and industrial applications.  Nuclear energy is the only baseload energy source that can meet increasing energy demand while reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions in the process” (210).

The energy predicament of today will become an increasingly more problematic and pressing predicament in the future if current and subsequent generations do not change the way America, or the world, obtains energy.  Nuclear energy should be implemented in order to alleviate this potentially disastrous situation at hand; if it is not used, future generations will have to deal with an absolute energy crisis.

Works Cited

Beller, Denis, and Richard Rhodes. “The Need for Nuclear Power.” Foreign Affairs. 79.1 (2000): 30-44.

Brown, Jerry, and Rinaldo Brutoco. Profiles in Power: The Antinuclear Movement and the Dawn of the Solar Age. Ed. Robert D. Benford. New York: Twayne, 1997.

Burns, Peter. Personal Interview. 10 Nov. 2006.

Domenici, Pete V. A Brighter Tomorrow: Fulfilling the Promise of Nuclear Energy. Ed. Blythe J.

Lyons and Julian J. Steyn. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.

Fusco, Paul, and Magdalena Caris. Chernobyl Legacy. Millbrook: de.MO, 2001.

LaVerne, Jay. Personal Interview. 9 Nov. 2006.

Morden, Reid. “Nuclear Power: Option or Imperative.” Energy Resources. 20 (1998): 107-111.

United States Department of Energy: Yucca Mountain Repository. 2006. United States Department of Energy. 20 Oct. 2006. <http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym_repository/index.shtml>.

Yaroshinskaya, Alla. Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

Zhuravlyova, Yelena. “UN Experts: Chernobyl Damage Exaggerated.” Current Digest of the Post Soviet Press. 57.36 (2005): 8-9.

)