Electricity consumption in Japan in 1982 was 1/2 of 2010 levels.
"I
believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what
exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human
beings."
-quote of Albert Einstein published
in the New York Times, April 25,
1929
We
hear a lot about how both developed and developing countries need ever-increasing
supplies of electricity to meet their future “needs.” In Japan, this argument
is used to justify the restart of nuclear reactors and the continuation of the
nation’s pre-Fukushima energy policy. Nuclear is also justified in this
argument because it is “green” and doesn’t require dependence on expensive fuel
imports. Nuclear fuel makes nuclear energy cheap, if you can ignore the
tremendous costs of capital investment, decommissioning and waste handling that
are all pushed on to future generations who may be too ignorant, de-skilled and
poor to deal with them.
The
argument in favor of the nuclear restart takes economic growth and growth of
energy consumption themselves as a laws of nature, like the law of nuclear
energy itself: E=mc2. It also places man at the center of nature, as
if some supreme being somewhere has promised us a solution to the energy crisis
because we are the chosen species.
Physics
professor emeritus Bernard
L. Cohen wrote in 1990,
“The
very existence of plutonium is often viewed as the work of the devil. As
the most important ingredient in nuclear bombs, it may someday be responsible
for killing untold millions of people... If it gets into the human body, it is
highly toxic. On the other hand, its existence is the only guarantee we have
that this world can obtain all the energy it will ever need forever at a
reasonable price. In fact, I am personally convinced that citizens of the
distant future will look upon it as one of God's greatest gifts to humanity.”
Baruch
Spinoza (1632-1677) is considered to be the inspiration for rationalism and the
Enlightenment thinkers who gave birth to the scientific age, and he was the
first to speak of a cool and indifferent god rather than a fatherly God who
cares about humanity. Ironically, here we see in Cohen’s words a 20th century descendant of rationalism using this latter concept of God to justify
the use of plutonium.
People
who warn about the dangers of both carbon fuels and nuclear energy are often
told that the only alternative is to go back to a pre-industrial, pastoral
lifestyle, as if somehow this wins the argument. However, the answer is of
course, yes, that, or something worse, might be the result. But I’ll leave
aside these dark thoughts about being blasted back to feudalism or the Stone Age,
and use the graph below to make readers consider the simple step of going back
to a 1970s or 80s lifestyle. Relax, the music (aside from disco) was better then,
anyway.
The
graph shows the Japanese government’s record of electricity generation from 1952
to 2011, and the curious thing to note is that output doubled from 1982 to
2010, even though the population had stopped growing, and output continued to
increase after the collapse of the bubble economy in 1991. If you subtract the
electricity generated by nuclear in 2010, the amount generated that year by
other methods is still greater than the total output for 1982. What changed in
those years from 1982 to 2010?
units of y-axis: 10E+8 kilowatt hours.
Japan Agency
for Natural Resources and Energy. 2012 White Paper on Energy. p. 132. http://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/topics/hakusho/2012/index.htm
In
the 1980s Japan began the transition from being a frugal, productive nation to
a nation of consumers. The oil shock of the early 70s was a distant memory. The
yen doubled in value in a short period, and suddenly the pressure was on from America to buy
stuff and reduce Japan's trade surplus.
In
the 1980s you could still meet people who refrained from using indoor heat until
January, even though they were living in tiny houses that were suddenly worth a
million dollars. But in the years that followed everything changed. Industry
was beginning to move offshore, but the slack was picked up by consumer demand.
The companies that built nuclear power plants also built the consumer goods
that would use the electricity they produced. Electronics chain stores kept
their front doors open in winter and summer, blasting out heat or air
conditioning according to the season, blaring loud jingles and keeping (it seemed)
every TV on at high volume – something they continued to do even during the
crisis periods of energy shortages in 2011 and 2012.
Some
of the increase in electricity output can be attributed to a shift from carbon
fuels to electricity used for transportation, cooking and heating. This might
have done something to make the local air cleaner, but a lot of electricity is
lost in the wires on its way from distant nuclear power plants.
Most
of the increase can be attributed, I believe, to active promotion of wasteful
lifestyles and non-essential goods – the creation of desire for
air-conditioning, massage chairs and 24-hour convenience stores, more
automated manufacturing, less human muscle power. People were encouraged to be totally complacent about the waste, where it was coming from and how much it might cost to the future.
The
point here is that Japan of 1982 was not the dark ages. Before we scare ourselves about needing to devolve back to the lifestyle of the Amish, let’s consider a simple first step.
It wouldn't be so unbearable to return to the conditions of a few decades ago.
At that time, Japan’s post-war rebuilding was complete. It had excellent
statistics in education, health care and longevity, and employment. It had
some serious environmental problems, but it had managed to lift itself out of
poverty and join the ranks of developed nations. This is something to keep in
mind as our leaders act as if it would be impossible to stop growth, reverse
energy consumption trends and make “drastic” cuts of 10 to 20%. If a cut of 50% would
throw us back to living like Japan of 1982, how is that a problem?
Sources cited:
Japan Agency
for Natural Resources and Energy. 2012 White Paper on Energy, p. 132. http://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/topics/hakusho/2012/index.htm
Cohen,
Bernard Leonard. The Nuclear Energy Option: An Alternative for the 90’s.
1st ed. Plenum Press, 1990. http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter13.html
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