[ RadSafe ] Overcoming America's nuclear power phobia

[Thomas Potter]

I believe that in evaluating the limited acceptance of nuclear power in the
US, John Jacobus overestimates the importance of economics, underestimates
the importance of fear-driven political opposition, ignores the processes
through which fear-driven political opposition increases nuclear economic
costs, and, in asserting that costs are "recovered" in any event, ignores
the real impact of those real costs, recovered or not, on power generation
technology selection.  

Fear-based political opposition has not been sufficiently strong to outlaw
nuclear power at the Federal level.  California effectively outlawed it at
the state level primarily as a means to stop the development of one project.
But limited success here hardly matters because other means have worked as
well.  

Fear-based political opposition has used opportunities in the regulatory
process to stop the construction of a number of individual nuclear power
plants and other nuclear facilities outright.  In addition, fear-based
political opposition has driven up costs greatly in many other specific
instances and over the various nuclear regulatory processes more broadly.
Power plant construction costs in particular have historically been driven
up unpredictably and sometimes greatly due to construction schedule
extensions often related to regulatory issues.  Construction in the US
regularly required 5-6 years more than in other nations.  There is simply no
aspect of nuclear power in the US today that does not bear a high
fear-driven tax, either hidden or plainly visible.  This combination of
outcomes has greatly discouraged the planning of new nuclear power plants,
despite long experience showing that new nuclear should be relatively
economical, barring long delays in construction.  Fear-based worry about all
things nuclear has reached such a level, at once absurd and commonplace,
that the term "radioactive" has taken on an entirely new negative cultural
meaning unrelated to the physical property the word once described, a
classification of horror that surpasses even "taboo."  

I think John is also wrong about the impotence of political opposition to
coal.  New coal plants have been dead for decades, despite substantial
economic advantages over natural gas, which, until recently, replaced new
coal and nuclear.  Substantial increases in coal-fired capacity have
occurred over the last few decades, but they were confined almost entirely
to those controversial (some would say illegal) cases of existing plants
where capacity could be increased with little or no opportunity for public
opposition.  It is only because natural gas prices are increasing from
merely uneconomic toward entirely unaffordable that planning is recently
turning once more toward coal.  Even so, it is generally expected that many
of the recently proposed new coal projects will ultimately be rejected.

As I see it, the acceptance problem is particularly acute for nuclear power
for two reasons that work together.  The first is that opportunity for
stakeholder impact is greatest in the nuclear regulatory process.  This is
partly by regulatory design, which, with a bow toward democracy, has
attempted to accommodate "stakeholders" more extensively.  The limitations
in achieving this goal seem not to be easily forgotten.  Only a small
portion of the total population of stakeholders can ever be able or even
available to participate in any particular case, and the fraction that
participates will almost always be skewed strongly negatively.  We know the
most outspoken well.  It's practically a traveling road show.  The great
masses of stakeholders who never show up seem always considered to be
apathetic, never simply trusting that regulators will make a sound judgment.
The process then gets skewed in favor of limited numbers of local
stakeholders.  The regulatory process, as designed in the past, was easily
stalled, if not hijacked by such groups.

The second is that in nuclear proceedings a substantially larger fraction of
participating stakeholders is holding the long, wooden, sharp-pointed
variety.  Their views are clear and strongly held:  Every radioactive atom
causes cancer; all mistakes are disastrous; waste will pollute the world.
Every new expression of these views recapitulates, and, in a sense,
regenerates an important element of the creation myth of the environmental
movement--the response to the creation, use, and testing of nuclear weapons.
To this group of people the decision at hand is not about a power plant, but
about saving the world. Input is not what these stakeholders want.  No
output is what they want, and they will use any pretext and opportunity in
the process any way they can to get it.  If in the process they can take pot
shots at corporate and governmental representatives who have unwittingly
consented to appear in public meetings to participate in their own ritual
public humiliation, so much the better.  If the group can muster or appear
to muster a little political strength, it may be able to move the regulatory
authority to cede its better judgment in favor of granting to the most
vociferous stakeholders what they want, or, failing that, at least to draw
out the process interminably.  The regulator reasons that he has
accommodated political realities, and perhaps engendered trust, which, based
on his humiliating experience (skewed as it may be), is sadly lacking.  If
voters don't like these outcomes, he reasons, they will express themselves
at the polls.  And so they may.  (Could it be that they are?)  But win or
lose, the opposition uses the process to celebrate, publicize, re-energize,
organize, and perhaps even expand its movement.

The way I see it is that we as a society have allowed ourselves to operate
this way because we have not really needed this technology.  We could afford
to dither.  If and when we clearly need the technology, a regulatory process
that will give the stakeholder voice without so easily yielding control will
be necessary.  (Some change in this direction is already occurring.)  If the
need for nuclear power technology becomes generally clear (it will never be
clear to the most vociferous opponents), such a change will be adopted
quickly.  Until then new nuclear plants will not be built.  This is a high
threshold for acceptance.  I doubt that any of the frequently mentioned
fixes--incentives, hormesis, systematic risk assessment, public relations
advertising, etc., will have much effect.

Tom Potter


-----Original Message-----
From: John Jacobus [mailto:crispy_bird at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 5:05 PM
To: jjcohen; Muckerheide, James; mbrexchange at list.ans.org; radsafe at radlab.nl
Cc: rad-sci-l at wpi.edu
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Overcoming America's nuclear power phobia

No.  What I am saying that is you are giving too much
influence to those who are "radiophobic."  In my
opinion, they have not stopped the construction of new
nuclear power plants.  Rather, it has been the lack of
incentives to the utilities to request the licensing
of new ones.  Has the fear of air pollution stopped
the construction of coal, diesel or gas power plants,
or forced any out of business.  Again, you are giving
the fringe too much credit.

Fear is an emotion.  Dislike of nuclear power, because
of waste issues, terrorist attacks, etc., should and
can be addressed.  

--- jjcohen <jjcohen at prodigy.net> wrote:
> Radiophobia cannot be assuaged by any financial
> incentive because
> it is irrational to begin with..Since radiophobes
> believe that any
> radiation exposure  leads to a certain and horrible
> death, how much
> money would it take to compensate them?
> Or, are you suggesting that radiophobes are
> unprincipled people
> who would abandon their deep seated beliefs for a
> few dollars?
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: John Jacobus <crispy_bird at yahoo.com>
> To: Muckerheide, James <jimm at wpi.edu>;
> <mbrexchange at list.ans.org>;
> <radsafe at radlab.nl>
> Cc: <know_nukes at yahoogroups.com>;
> <rad-sci-l at wpi.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 6:03 AM
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Overcoming America's
> nuclear power phobia
> 
> 
> > To me, the real test is what happens with a
> company
> > proposes to build a new nuclear power plant in the
> > U.S.  The hypothesis that radiophobia is the
> problem
> > to the development of new power plants is
> speculative.
> >  I think that this is an economic issue, which can
> be
> > fixed by giving tax incentives to the power
> companies.
> 
> 

+++++++++++++++++++
"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the
result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com


		
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html