Nuclear Power

NUCLEAR POWER

A Deceiving Calm

During the 1980s proponents of nuclear power had much to celebrate. The technology worked, and it did so without burning up the earth's coal and oil reserves and without spewing noxious fossil-fuel pollutants from conventional power plants into the atmosphere. By 1989 there were 426 nuclear power plants worldwide, and the 110 plants located in the United States that year supplied nearly one-fifth of the nation's electricity. All, however, was not well in the nation's nuclear power industry.

A Torrent of Problems

The nuclear power industry in the United States was beset with problems. During the 1980s not one new order was placed for a nuclear power plant anywhere in the country. Cost overruns in construction and maintenance of reactors was much higher than had been anticipated. It was not uncommon for the final price tag of a nuclear plant to exceed tenfold the initial estimates. Safety, too, was a major concern. The events of 28 March 1979 at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania—two hundred thousand citizens fled the region when severe core damage in one of the site's reactors was reported to be nearing a dreaded meltdown—had shaken public confidence in the industry. The issue of what to do with spent nuclear fuel rods—the used-up, highly radioactive isotopes at the heart of the reactors—also plagued the industry. These problems, coupled with an unanticipated reduction in the growth of demand for electricity nationwide (experts had predicted that demand for electricity would grow at the rate of about 7 percent annually, but in 1981 demand was up only 0.3 percent, and in 1982, amid a national campaign to conserve energy, demand actually fell by 2.3 percent), resulted in a major setback for those who had envisioned meeting half of the country's electrical demand with nuclear power by the end of the century.

Generating Electricity

A nuclear power plant is something like a giant tea kettle. The intense thermonuclear reaction at its heart is used to boil water. The controlled fission reaction at the reactor's core gives off extraordinary amounts of heat. Water passed nearby the core absorbs the heat and turns to steam, which is then used to generate electricity. By focusing high-pressure steam onto the blades of a turbine, they can spin the turbine's coils of wire through giant magnetic fields. The result is the electricity that illuminates otherwise darkened streets, powers air conditioners on sultry summer nights, energizes computers, and serves the nation in many other ways. The tricky part is boiling the water. In conventional power plants water is boiled by burning coal or oil. What attracts engineers to nuclear power is the fact that fission can provide a trillion times more energy than a windmill and a million times more energy than the combustion process at the center of conventional coal, gas, or oil power plants. The use of fission to boil water is, however, fraught with problems. Even a minuscule amount of highly radioactive uranium is deadly.

Nuclear Disaster at Chernobyl

Though thousands of miles away from America's shores, the events of 26 April 1986 near the town of Pripyat in the Soviet Union focused concern once again on the issue of safety in the nuclear power industry. One of four nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in the Ukraine exploded with such force that the roof of the building was completely blown off. Eight tons of radioactive material was scattered about the region immediately surrounding the plant. Airborne radioactivity from the blast rained down on northern Europe and Scandinavia—fallout was measured as far away as Scotland—contaminating farm produce. Engineers at Chernobyl had accidently initiated an uncontrolled chain reaction in the reactor's core during an unauthorized test in which they unlawfully incapacitated the reactor's emergency systems. In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, more than thirty people lost their lives, and one estimate placed the number who would eventually live shortened lives as a result of the effects of their exposure to radiation from the accident at twenty thousand.

Reaction

In the United States experts argued that the disaster at Chernobyl was not pertinent to the domestic nuclear industry. They noted that the technology employed at Chernobyl was not being used in the United States. The Soviets, they pointed out, were using a weapons-material production reactor to generate electricity for their domestic market—something not done in the United States. Furthermore, the Chernobyl reactor lacked a containment building—a required safety component mandated for all U.S. reactors. Nevertheless, many Americans drew uneasy parallels between Chernobyl and Three Mile Island: operator error and equipment failure were possible in the nuclear industry. The consequences of a single major mistake could be catastrophic.

Seabrook and Shoreham

Both proponents and opponents of nuclear power persistently articulated their views—sometimes in strident tones—during the 1980s. Proponents hailed the small number of nuclear power plant safety violations. Opponents pointed out that a single mistake could be extremely costly both in environmental and human terms. During the 1980s scores of "anti-nuke" organizations warned of the hazards of nuclear energy and protested plant construction and operation. In Seabrook, New Hampshire, protesters rallied around a citizens' action group—the Clamshell Alliance—to oppose the building of two nuclear reactors. By 1987, in part due to the increased vigilance of oversight safety committees insisted upon by the Clamshell Alliance, the utility that owned Seabrook was near bankruptcy. At Long Island's Shoreham nuclear facility the story was much the same. By 1988, besieged by civic-group opposition, the Shoreham "nuke," having far exceeded initial cost estimates of $241 million (its actual cost to the utility had surpassed $5 billion), was closed by the state government. The utility that owned Shoreham had failed to develop an adequate evacuation plan of that region of Long Island that would be affected in the event of a meltdown. Sold to the state government for one dollar, the completed plant was to be dismantled even before it opened.

Cost Overruns, Problematic Workmanship

Repeatedly the industry discovered that cost overruns and construction problems were an issue. Florida's St. Lucie 2 plant cost about four times its original estimate of $360 million, but this price, as it would turn out, was a relative bargain. By middecade Michigan's Midland nuclear power plant (initial cost estimate: $267 million) had cost the utility constructing it $4.4 billion, and it was nine years behind schedule. In the West, at the Diablo Canyon Plant, earthquake supports were installed backward. At the Shoreham reactor workers had to craft makeshift elbow joints when, during construction, they discovered that pipes failed to meet at the proper point. As one commentator noted, it was no wonder that problems cropped up, because constructing a nuclear plant was "like building a giant Swiss watch" using subcontractors.

The Problem of Disposal

Reactors in the 1980s were inefficient. Only about 1 percent of the uranium atoms in the rods fission; the remaining 99 percent of the uranium remains in the rods even after they are no longer useful for producing power. The pellets of uranium, which are packed into long rods and lowered into the core of a nuclear reactor, remain extremely radioactive even after they are "spent," and remain so for thousands of years. These irradiated fuel rods must be disposed of, but no one wants them in his backyard. During the 1980s utility companies stored these rods on site, at the power plants, in large vats resembling swimming pools, but this was considered a temporary solution. In 1982 Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The act called upon the Department of Energy (DOE) to find a suitable site to bury the radioactive waste. DOE, however, was unsuccessful in locating a site that included both the necessary stable rock formation (free of groundwater) and the requisite local public support. At decade's end, no solution to the problem of nuclear waste had been found.

Sources:

"Energy from Nuclear Power," Scientific American, 263 (September 1990): 136-142;

"The $5 Billion Nuclear Waste," Time, 131 (6 June 1988): 55;

"Memories of a Near Meltdown," Time, 123 (13 February 1984): 41;

"Pulling the Nuclear Plug," Time, 123 (13 February 1984): 34-38;

"We are in a Heap of Trouble," Time, 130 (26 October 1987): 114.