The Japan tragedy: don’t let anti-nuclear liberals exploit it
Written on March 22, 2011 by Nathaniel Davidson
Most of us mourn the terrible Tohoku double tragedy in Japan: a super-quake then a devastating tsunami. But for some liberals, given that they regularly use imagined crises to push their agenda, a real crisis is a God-send (or that’s what they tell churchian leftists to make them think they actually believe in God). Anti-nuclear activists have long wanted to ban nuclear energy, and the threats to the Fukushima I nuclear reactor in Japan have given them plenty of excuses. Even the supposed moderate Independent senator Joe Lieberman urges:
“I don’t want to stop the building of nuclear power plants but I think we’ve got to kind of quietly, quickly put the brakes on until we can absorb what has happened in Japan as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami and then see what more, if anything, we can demand of the new power plants that are coming on line.”
How quickly people forget that Lieberman was once the running mate of the ecofanatic Al Gore, and has a very liberal voting record. This prompted Ann Coulter to quip that he “has the distinction of being a member of the World’s Smallest Group: Orthodox Jews for Partial-Birth Abortion.”
However, Thomas Sowell pointed out:
“Much of the self-righteous nonsense that abounds on so many subjects cannot stand up to three questions: (1) Compared to what? (2) At what cost? and (3) What are the hard facts?”
So let’s analyse the proposed ban on nuclear power in these simple terms, going in reverse order.
What are the hard facts?
Last century saw the birth of the “nuclear age”. Although the nucleus is only about a hundred-thousandth of the atom’s volume, some of them are an incredible energy source. When certain nuclei (uranium-235 or plutonium-239) split into two smaller nuclei—nuclear fission—they produce about a million times more energy than the same weight of coal or oil. As shown in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if this energy is released all at once, it’s devastating.
But it has been put to good use: 443 operating nuclear power reactors are spread across the planet in 47 different countries, and provide about 6% of the world’s energy and 13–14% of the world’s electricity. And because of its high energy density, it’s also very “green”—if this energy were produced by fossil fuels, it would emit 2 billion tons of CO2 per year. Nuclear power gives France the cleanest air of any industrialized country, and the cheapest electricity in all of Europe, and even has some to spare for export to its neighbours.
The major problem is the highly radioactive smaller nuclei produced by fission—“nuclear waste”. But in a day, a quarter of the material has decayed to non-radioactive material; in a month, three quarters, and in a year, only 20% is still radioactive, according to nuclear technologist Kirk Sorensen.
The remainder has been stored successfully in many countries around the world. In this country, there was a great site in the middle of the desert, recommended by the scientific experts: the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. But the Obama administration, in payback to the fanatical environmentalist movement, canned this project.
At what cost?
While the ecofanatics exaggerate the dangers of nuclear power, they very rarely consider the costs of abolition. Our society needs electricity, and it saves lives. Electricity powers hospitals, as well as refrigeration. The ability to freeze food has been vital to allow food to be stored all year round, preventing shortages and spoilage. It also allows life-saving vaccines and medicines to be stored.
Efficient power also allows us to cope with environmental disasters. As bad as the Japan earthquake was, with over 7,500 people killed, this was not nearly as tragic as the Haiti earthquake, killing over 220,000. Yet the Japanese quake was 9 on the Richter scale, while the Haiti one was only 7. Because the Richter scale is logarithmic, this means the Japanese quake had about a thousand times the energy. The main difference is that Japan has the wealth, infrastructure and efficient power to help the injured.
Compared to what?
While there are certainly some dangers with nuclear power, leftists hardly ever consider dangers of alternatives. As shown above, one alternative, much reduced power, will cost lives as well. And other sources of power have their own hazards, usually much greater than those of nuclear energy.
The previous worst accident to befall a nuclear power plant was Chernobyl in 1986. Many greenies have claimed millions of deaths, as proof of the terrible dangers of nuclear power. But a study almost 20 years after the disaster—by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN Development Programme and the World Health Organisation, no less—said that the death toll was less than 50! And this was with inferior Communist technology. What about the worst nuclear accident on US soil, at Three Mile Island? Not a single life lost, nor even any proven increase of cancer!
Compare this to coal mining: a highly hazardous occupation due to mine disasters and lung disease. In our country alone, over 100,000 were killed in coal mining accidents last century. Modern safety measures reduced the toll to 28 in 2004 in the US, but China suffered 6,027 deaths that year.
What about wind power, so beloved by the Left, unless of course it spoils their own view, and has the obvious problem: if the wind doesn’t blow, the electricity doesn’t flow? And it’s not even that safe, as James Delingpole points out:
… in the last decade the wind farm industry, it turns out, has killed far more people for far less electricity produced than the nuclear industry
Nuclear fatalities in the last ten years: 7
Wind farm fatalities in the last ten years: 44.
In those ten years nuclear provided thirty times the energy of wind. This means in the last decade, nuclear has been around 200 times safer than wind on an energy produced/accidents basis.
How about hydroelectric power, a genuinely sensible source when there is plenty of water? But as green as this is, the ecofascists still oppose it if a proposed dam might endanger an obscure fish. And even this is not without its hazards. To build just the mighty Hoover Dam, there were 96 “industrial” fatalities, not including other deaths from heat exhaustion and heart failure.
OK, but what about the radiation from the Japan tragedy? Hidetoshi Tagasawa points out:
The highest radiation level that had been detected in Fukushima Prefecture by the evening of March 17 was 30 microsieverts (a microsievert is one-one thousandth of a millisievert) or lower, with most measurements at around 2 to 5 microsieverts. Compare that to a CT chest scan, a single one of which will expose the recipient to approximately 6,900 microsieverts. Even if a level of 30 microsieverts were to be maintained, one would have to stand outside for 230 continuous hours to be exposed to the same amount of radiation as a CT scan.
Furthermore, according to International Atomic Energy Agency adviser Graham Andrew, the radiation levels in Japan and beyond “are not dangerous to human health”. And to reinforce the importance of comparisons, a properly functioning nuclear power plant actually releases less radioactivity into the atmosphere than a coal-fired power plant, according to the liberal Scientific American.
Conclusion
As usual, Sowell’s three questions demolish the anti-nuclear doom-mongers. But as he has often pointed out, conservative politicians after Reagan have been notoriously inept at communicating the merits of conservatism. So all the public hears is the leftist demagoguery.
Patriot Update 2011 March 22
