The
nuclear discourse exclusion zone: How the nuclear lobby shuts out the voices
that have been proven right about nuclear hazards
The most obvious and immediate
lesson I drew from the Fukushima meltdowns was that the anti-nuclear groups in
Japan had been right all along. The earthquake-tsunami-meltdown syndrome had
happened exactly like they said it would. One would think that such accurate prognosticators would now be given a prominent role in setting energy policy for the future,
not only in Japan but throughout the world. It doesn’t take much imagination to
appreciate how valuable these critics of the nuclear industry could be, if the people in
power cared to listen to them. TEPCO would still be a viable and profitable
corporation today if it had followed the advice of its most hostile critics, to
say nothing of all the harm to people and other life forms that could have been
avoided.
In spite of the obvious value of
viewpoints that come from outside the nuclear industry and its servants in
government, advertising and academia, these institutions have gone right back
to their old habits, turning inward and referring only to their own narrow
parameters of analysis. Two recent news items illustrate this dismal trend.
The first example, from Phys.Org, is
entitled “Researchers grapple with UK's nuclear legacy.” The
article describes how The University of Leeds and a consortium of ten
universities will study ways to deal with Britain’s nuclear waste. The UK government’s Engineering & Physical Sciences Research
Council (EPSRC) is spending less than 1% of its
budget to fund the program.
The objective is to “bring together
the nuclear industry, the Government's nuclear advisors and the country's
leading academic researchers”
who will work on how to deal with different types of spent fuels, packaging and
storing waste, and nuclear sludges in ponds and silos at nuclear power stations.
The report frames the issue as if it
hadn’t been an urgent and well-researched problem since the inception of
nuclear technology. Project leader Professor Simon Biggs, Director of the
University of Leeds' Institute of Particle Science and Engineering, said, “The
project is primarily focused on developing new technologies and providing
confidence in the safe storage and disposal of legacy waste. The UK is a technology leader in this field
and the core aim of this project is to maintain and further develop that skill
base.”
The key words here are “providing
confidence,” which indicate that the mission is political rather than
scientific. If the intent were to do scientific research, there would be no
goal at the outset of providing confidence. Honest research might lead to the
conclusion that the situation is so dire that it might not give any confidence
at all.
The claim to being a leader in the
field must also be kept in perspective. This leadership has consisted of the
contamination of British shorelines and the Irish Sea. The news from Phys.Org
was released just as a related report in The Independent was published announcing that
Ireland will now be free to sue the UK for radiological contamination of the
Irish Sea, thanks to changes in the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability
in the Field of Nuclear Energy that will take effect this year. In addition,
the elevated cancer rates along the UK shores near the Sellafield nuclear
facility were documented by Chris Busby in his book Wolves of Water. So
this gives some additional understanding of what is involved when people claim
that their nation is a “technology leader” in this field.
Professor Biggs also said that he
was glad the “appropriate research” was being funded and that it would be a
“truly interdisciplinary effort.” However, it includes only civil engineers,
chemists, chemical engineers, robotics experts, radiochemists, mechanical
engineers and material engineers working on thirty projects. The problem
apparently needs no input from philosophers, historians, economists, artists, lawyers
or contrarian radiochemists like Chris Busby who assert that the legacy of
radioactive waste is something more than a “challenge” ─ a term which
exemplifies the sort of anodyne, obfuscating understatement preferred by the nuclear
lobby.
The most telling quote from the
report came from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's Head of Research and
Development, Melanie Brownridge, who said: “Our industry benefits hugely when
high-level academic research is focused at some of the challenges we face in
decommissioning our nuclear legacy.” This
statement makes it explicit: the purpose of the research is to benefit the
nuclear industry, not to pursue yet unknown conclusions that might suggest the
nuclear industry should be shut down.
Most strangely of all, the acronym for
the new program is DISTINCTIVE, which
one is supposed to guess stands for Decommissioning, Immobilisation and Storage
Solutions for Nuclear Waste Inventories. This replaces the previous research
program launched in 2007 called DIAMOND (Decommissioning, Immobilisation And Management Of Nuclear wastes for
Disposal). The nuclear waste problem has been well understood for many
decades, yet it remains unsolved. Solutions are promised as governments
continually launch into one more research program after another that promises to solve the “challenge.” It may be a bad sign that solutions have
been so elusive that the British can no longer come up with suitable acronyms
that will put fresh lipstick on this pig. DIAMOND was good, but in the present
case they seemed to have done alright only with the first three letters, then they
just sort of threw the rest together randomly with any letters they found in
the remaining words. It is strange that they didn’t see a more obvious
combination of letters there: DISINVENT, which is exactly what sensible people
wish could be done with nuclear technology.
The second example is the Asahi Shimbun article SYMPOSIUM: Japan’s massive stockpile
of plutonium casts shadow over nonproliferation efforts. The Asahi Shimbun has done a lot of critical reporting on nuclear
issues since 2011, and it has published many editorials that are opposed to the
continuation of nuclear energy, but for some reason it invited no critical
outsiders to this symposium. Most of the participants appear to have been
selected from insiders and “realists,” the very perpetrators who were in
charge during the lead-up to disaster. Now they all acknowledge the significant
problems, but their proposed solutions are compromises that are not solutions
at all. They remain within parameters that nuclear advocates will find to be
“realistic” policy options.
The main issue was the complete
failure of Japan’s nuclear energy policy as it was envisioned in the 1970s. The
dream was to achieve energy independence by reprocessing nuclear fuel and using
the new fuel, rich in plutonium, in fast breeder reactors. The reprocessing
center was built in Rokkasho, in Northern Japan (Aomori Prefecture), and the Monju
fast breeder reactor was built in Western Japan (Fukui Prefecture). Both
facilities consumed billions of dollars, but neither has worked as planned. The
program has essentially failed.
When Monju failed to be a viable way
to use the reprocessed fuel, power companies agreed to take it as MOX fuel, and
run it in their existing reactors. It was this fuel that was released in the
explosion of Fukushima Daiichi No. 3 reactor, which scattered large amounts of
plutonium into the earth’s atmosphere.
The dilemma for planners now is what
to do about this completely failed nuclear fuel cycle dream. Aomori Prefecture
agreed to take spent fuel from all over Japan, on the promise that it would not
be left there. It was to be sent out to fast breeder reactors yet to be built.
In order to live up to its promises, some think the Japanese government should
advance with plans to make Rokkasho function as designed. It actually never has
operated, and the spent fuel has been sent to the UK and France to be processed
then re-imported later. There is now no realistic hope of fast breeder reactors
ever being operational in Japan, and the whole future of nuclear energy is in
doubt, but there are still people in high places saying that spent fuel should
be processed in Rokkasho simply to live up to the agreement made in the past
with Aomori Prefecture.
To make matters worse, the dream of
fuel recycling has always been a major weapons proliferation issue. All other
countries that reprocess spent nuclear fuel possess nuclear weapons. Since
reprocessed spent fuel is a source of plutonium for weapons, neighboring
countries wonder why Japan has desired to have such a large stockpile of
plutonium, enough to make 1,500 weapons.
These issues are what the chosen
experts at the symposium discussed.
Steve Fetter, a former U.S. White
House official during the Obama administration, said, “Japan should stop
reprocessing spent nuclear fuel,” but then hedged this assessment by waffling, “…
if that is not possible, it should at least make clear its plan to use
plutonium and reduce the amount of plutonium to the minimum necessary.” How
would one define the “necessary” amount of plutonium?
Yoriko Kawaguchi, who has served as
foreign minister and environment minister, declared it was not possible for
Japan to arm itself with nuclear weapons, in spite of having a massive
stockpile of plutonium the likes of which the international community would
never let Iran possess. She said, “Going nuclear would mean withdrawing
from the NPT and facing international sanctions like North Korea and Iran. Japanese
people would never support (Japan’s nuclear armament).” However, this
contention is not necessarily true. According to a strict interpretation of the
the NPT, Japan shouldn’t be stockpiling plutonium, but it does. Under Kawaguchi's logic, Israel would now be suffering sanctions for its possession of nuclear
weapons. Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether Japanese people would
tolerate nuclear armament. We were told for years that Japanese people would
never accept American nuclear weapons being kept on Okinawa, or on US naval
vessels in Japanese ports, but the nation didn’t erupt in protest when it
learned that nuclear weapons have always been kept in Japan by US forces.
Yukio Sato, a former permanent
representative of Japan to the United Nations, claimed that Japan’s current
lack of a feasible plan to use its plutonium is an “unintended situation,”
created by the devastating accident that unfolded at the Fukushima No. 1
nuclear power plant following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster. This
utter falsehood could have been countered effectively if leaders from the
anti-nuclear movement had been invited to attend. The recycling program was stalled before 2011. The Monju reactor had worked for only a few hours
since opening in the early 1990s. Beyond that time frame, the proliferation
implications, and the danger and implausibility of the reprocessing dream had been
foreseen by critics before construction began. The situation was unintended
only to the extent that it was unforeseeable by gullible people who ignored the
fundamental problems with the whole project.
Sato went on to say that when the reprocessing
program restarts, Japan will “return to the principle of holding no more plutonium
than absolutely necessary.” Once again, no one acknowledges the ethical and
political questions involved in determining what amount of plutonium is
“necessary.”
We can credit Sato for bringing up
the usually unmentionable topic of the true causes of the meltdowns at
Fukushima. He said, “Japan should fully disclose information concerning the
causes of the Fukushima nuclear disaster,” but he diplomatically avoided specifying
what he was alluding to. This lack of courage is disheartening. If anti-nuclear
representatives had been invited to speak, they would have understood the need
to clearly raise the alarm about this important matter before power companies
are allowed to restart their reactors. The crucial facts about the Fukushima
Daiichi meltdowns, which TEPCO is loath to talk about, are that (1) the
earthquake fatally damaged the reactors before the tsunami hit, and (2) when
the waves hit they damaged the heat removal system so badly that the loss of
electricity for pumps may have been irrelevant.
Vice chairman of the Japan Atomic
Energy Commission, Tatsujiro Suzuki, was honest enough to admit that pluthermal
power generation, which burns MOX fuel, is more expensive than the cost of just
disposing of spent nuclear fuel. Unfortunately, he made no mention of the
health effects of MOX fuel being released into the environment during an accident,
as was the case with the Unit 3 explosion.
Klaus Janberg, a German nuclear
engineering consultant pointed out that in Germany, when the costs were
understood, “It was the electric utilities themselves who pulled the plug.” He
added that without a continuous breeder program (i.e. reactors like Monju) it
simply makes no sense do continue reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.
Another non-Japanese person in the
room was able to point out the obvious dangers that the Japanese experts
hesitated to confront. Gordon Thompson, executive director of the US Institute
for Resource and Security Studies, said it would be dangerous to gather spent
fuel from all nuclear power plants in Japan in one location at Rokkasho. There
is simply too much volume of radioactive isotopes to risk having them in one place. The
effects of an accident or terrorist attack, or act of war, would be devastating
on a global scale.
It is stunning to me, as it would be
to many sober observers, that after these experts described the horrific
implications of the mess that has been created, they couldn’t agree that Japan
should stop reprocessing. The most they could agree on is that they shouldn’t
reprocess all the spent nuclear fuel.
Hajime Yamana, chairman of the International Research Institute for Nuclear
Decommissioning, added that the realistic approach was to pursue a mix of
options. However, his reasoning was based on the irrational pursuit of
recovering costs sunk into a lost cause. Because so much has been spent on
building Rokkasho, and so much was promised to the citizens of Aomori (economic
benefits, safety, removal of reprocessed fuel to elsewhere), he argues that the
project must continue no matter how pointless, dangerous and costly it is.
The reason for this view is that we
are supposed to feel sorry for the people of Aomori Prefecture who agreed to
host the reprocessing facility. Motohisa Furukawa, former minister of national
strategy of Japan, claimed, “But we have to honor the promises the successive
administrations have made to Aomori Prefecture.” Actually, no, they don’t.
Believing that Japan has to honor this promise means that the whole nation has
to go along with some rigid and childish notion of the importance of keeping
promises, even if it has become clear that the cost of keeping them will be a much greater injustice. One would think that the educated elite at
this symposium would know that ethical dilemmas do not usually offer up black
and white solutions. In the adult world, debts and promises are renegotiated all the time as circumstance change.
The Asahi reporter added, “Abandoning the policy of promoting nuclear
fuel recycling could destroy the trust between the central government and
Aomori Prefecture.” This would be true, if there remained any trust between the
central government and Japanese citizens, but it should be clear by now that the failure of the national energy policy has already broken this sacred bond.
Another way of looking at this is
that the people of Aomori were warned. If anti-nuclear groups had been at the
symposium, they could have reminded everyone of this fact. The people of Aomori
didn’t oppose the intrusion of national energy policy on their lives, they shunned
anti-nuclear activists as social misfits, and they elected governors and mayors
who unwisely accepted assurances from the central government. They have to
accept responsibility for this mistake.
Another non-Japanese person at the
symposium was William Walker, a professor at St. Andrews University who studies
Britain’s nuclear energy policy. He pointed out that Britain has already gone
down this road of a failed reprocessing program. Plutonium has been extracted
from spent fuel since the 1990s, but he says, “Nobody knows what to do with the
100 tons of plutonium that have been left behind.” Processing continues just
because of the momentum of established economic interests.
Another foreign scholar, Frank von
Hippel, of Princeton University, thought it would be better to store spent fuel
over a wide range of sites in dry storage casks, even if this meant moving what
is already at Rokkasho. Termination of the reprocessing program would save
seven trillion yen over time, and this could be used to compensate Aomori
Prefecture for the broken promises.
The symposium finally got around to
discussing the final solution ─ permanent underground storage of radioactive
waste. Japan has devoted little thought to this problem, perhaps because it
staked so much hope on reprocessing.
Hiroya Masuda, former minister of
internal affairs and communications, said about 70 percent of national land in
Japan is scientifically suitable for locating a final disposal site. This
absolutely stunning claim seems to have gone unquestioned. It is a surprising
statement because the US, with much more land, has not been able to establish
an appropriate place for permanent storage. The proposed Yucca Mountain repository
in Nevada was cancelled by the Obama administration after billions of dollars
and decades had been spent studying its suitability.
If Chris Busby, or any other
scientist from the anti-nuclear side, had been invited to this symposium or the
British research project, he would have been able to refute the optimistic
claims about solutions to “challenges.”
The symposium failed to address, and
the British project will fail to address, the hard truths of the situation. The
Yucca Mountain site was cancelled partly due to NIMBY politics and senator
Harry Reid’s influence, but the main factors were uncertainties about geological
stability and the integrity of containers. There is no known material that can
remain intact for 100,000 years while it holds radioactive waste, especially
now that so many nuclear plants are using high burn-up fuel. Busby has claimed
that the only feasible solution is to, first, stop making nuclear waste, and, second, prepare to store it above ground across many future generations. We
will need to create a new profession called something such as Guardians of the
Nuclear Waste, and pass on the knowledge of how to isolate it from the
ecosystem and continually repair and replace nuclear waste receptacles. That’s
the honest truth that the perpetrators of the nuclear dilemma don’t want to
face up to, so honest messengers are not welcome at their table.
Sources and Further
Reading:
Allison
Macfarlane and Rodney C. Ewing, Uncertainty Underground Yucca Mountain and
the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste (MIT Press, 2006).
Chris Busby,
Wolves of Water: A Study Constructed from
Atomic Radiation, Morality, Epidemiology, Science, Bias, Philosophy and Death
(Green Audit Books, 2007).
“Researchers grapple with UK's nuclear legacy.” Phys.Org.
Jan 08, 2014.
