Seaborg on Nuclear Power

[Mike Grissom <mikeg@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

Radsafers,

Although parts of this have been posted before, the recent
spate of responses to the Caldicott column make it seem even
more topical than ever.  The lengthy Web site "Seaborg on
Seaborg" may be viewed in its entirety at the following URL
(as Paul Frame would say, truly fascinating stuff!):

  http://teamweb.lbl.gov/seaborg/bio.htm

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Perhaps the most significant achievement of my AEC tenure was the
growth of the civilian nuclear power program. In 1961, there were
two nuclear power plants in operation. When I left the AEC there
were more than 70 on line or being built. More important, many
utilities preferred the atom to fuel new facilities.

Of course, that success has been reversed over the last two
decades, and perhaps our early, aggressive success is partly to
blame for that.  As plants were being built, the environmental
movement was building as well. Environmentalists began an attack
on nuclear power that would virtually halt construction of new
plants by the end of the 1970s.  One of our mistakes at the AEC
was not being attuned to the growth of this movement, and not
being more open to compromise and dialogue.

An environmentalist myself, I remain convinced that nuclear power
remains the best choice--and I believe that in the future most
environmentalists will come around to support it. The world is
going to need huge amounts of energy if the population in the
developing countries is going to enjoy the standard of living we
do.

Nuclear power's pollution and safety record is at least as good as
that of other major sources. The cost of burning coal includes the
deaths of miners, strip mines that poison streams, and acid rain.
More radiation is released into the atmosphere from a coal-burning
plant than from a nuclear plant. Our reliance on oil has led to
Exxon Valdez-sized oil spills, acid rain, and our entanglement in
the Mideast--where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and
tremendous amounts of pollution released in Desert Storm. If a
utility tried to build a solar electricity plant large enough to
power a city, the facility would cover so much acreage that
environmentalists would oppose it, just as they are opposing wind
farm construction today.

There's a scientific consensus that the use of fossil fuels is
leading to global warming, and what environmental impact is
greater than changing the climate of an entire planet? In the
coming years, we will be forced to reduce the amount of
hydrocarbons pouring into the atmosphere, and nuclear power will
make a comeback.

Nuclear opponents play on the fear of catastrophic accidents.
Contrary to the popular image, the accident at Three Mile Island
demonstrated the safety of nuclear power. Everything that could go
wrong did, the feared "meltdown" occurred, and yet very little
radiation escaped.

A Chernobyl-style tragedy cannot happen in the United States.
Chernobyl occurred because of a flaw in Soviet reactor design not
shared in the United States.

The real problems of nuclear power are political, not due to
economics or actual environmental impact. The proof of this can be
seen in France, which generates 75% of its electricity through
nuclear power, economically enough to sell power to its neighbors.

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Born in 1912 in Ishpeming, Michigan, Seaborg received a Ph.D. in
chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1937. He joined the UCB faculty in
1939 and served as chancellor from 1958 to 1961. From 1961 through
1971 he served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission
(predecessor of the U.S. Department of Energy) under U.S.
Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. He then returned to
research at Berkeley and to LBL, where he continues today in his
search for new elements and isotopes.