The Uneasy Existence of Nuclear Energy
Jackson Doughty
The nuclear industry and nuclear energy as a whole have been hotly contested topics ever since the power of the atom was introduced to the world on August 6th, 1945, when the United States dropped the “Little Boy” nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan and then again on August 9th, when “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. From this point forward, the world would live both in fear and awe of what power atoms, the microscopic building blocks of all matter, truly hold within them. The world was rudely awoken to the fact that entire cities could be leveled, organic life vaporized, and entire armies decimated in a matter of seconds due to a relatively simple-to-achieve physical reaction. The actions taken by the allies to end World War II would be a turning point in the course of human history as the world would forever more need to be constantly aware of the looming threat of nuclear destruction. However, there was a silver lining in the realization that the atom was understood enough to be a nearly limitless source of energy, and that energy could be manipulated, controlled, harvested, and applied in many beneficial ways to society.
As the most powerful nations in the world have stockpiled nuclear arms to nearly irrelevant levels, the other primary use of atomic energy has been on the sociopolitical forefront: nuclear energy. [1] Shortly after the end of World War II, countries across the world began reimagining infrastructure to be run on nuclear energy. Seen perhaps most obviously in both the Soviet Union and United States of America, nuclear power stations started to appear, powering entire cities and regions of their respective nations. [2] Nuclear energy is harvested by utilizing the fission-properties of radioactive elements like Uranium and Plutonium. These refined elements were then condensed into a concentrated core of fuel, around which the rest of the nuclear reactor would then be constructed. To put it in an overly simple fashion, the heat generated by the nuclear reaction coming from the fuel in the core would heat water to create steam. That steam would then be channeled to various turbines connected to generators which it would then spin to create electricity. Similar in its application to a coal or natural gas fueled generator, which also heat water to create steam and spin turbines, however, the source of heat in this case, the nuclear fuel, will essentially never run out of energy to produce heat; making up for the inconvenience of needing to replace traditional fuels. [3]
However, even as man grew to manipulate and control the power of atoms, the risk of nuclear disaster was still very real and present. The threat of meltdowns and expansive radiation loomed as the cities that were destroyed in Japan remained irradiated for years. As the radioactive concerns of World War II began to fade, the threats of the civilian nuclear power industry reared their ugly heads during the Cold War in both the United States and the Soviet Union. First, in 1979, at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Middletown, Pennsylvania, reactor 2 experienced a meltdown when an electrical malfunction caused a feed water pump, used to cool the core, failed. [4] This meltdown was serious and led to the eventual shutdown of the reactor entirely, however, due to many precautions put in place by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), this incident had negligible effects on the surrounding environment and the populations both in and around the plant. The world was shown the terrifying power of nuclear energy yet again seven years later in spring of 1986, when reactor 4 of the Vladimir I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station, more colloquially known just as “Chernobyl”, located just outside of Pripyat, Ukraine, experienced a meltdown and subsequent explosion. [5] However, the fire that followed the explosion was putting smoke that was twice as radioactive as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima into the atmosphere that rained down radioactive ash on most of Europe before the fire was quelled months later. [6] Whereas the cleanup at Three Mile Island was conducted relatively efficiently and with little risk to those working due to the precautions that were put in place, the cleanup at Chernobyl took months, cost the lives of thousands of Soviet Citizens, and irradiated many parts of Eastern Europe to dangerous levels. The Chernobyl plant remains buried under a steel and concrete sarcophagus as the nuclear reaction from its exposed core continues to burn, serving as a cruel reminder of the dangerous power that nuclear energy has.
To this day, the threat of nuclear energy and its potential dangers has maintained an uneasy relationship with fossil fuels and natural gas within our societies. On one hand, fossil and natural combustion fuels pose much less of a risk in the event of an explosion; however, they are limited in amount and put harmful levels of waste into the atmosphere, water, and earth. On the other hand, nuclear energy has shown that it can devastate organic matter down to the cellular level, yet it can burn nearly wasteless for hundreds, if not thousands of years and power entire regions with a handful of fuel cells smaller than a cell phone. As the concerns regarding traditional fuels continue to grow, be it about the harmful chemicals they put into the atmosphere or the rapidly depleting amount of them left, the question then becomes: is nuclear energy inevitable?
Nuclear energy has many arguments in favor of the power source, such as those mentioned above, but also has sufficient fuel availability and has very low maintenance costs once reactors and plants are finished being constructed. [7] However, on top of the arguments against it listed above, there are the issues of nuclear powerplants as possible threats to national security as they are more likely to be attacked by foreign enemies. And although they produce less waste, the waste produced is more difficult to safely neutralize or dispose of. [8] These issues have been openly argued in the American sociopolitical landscape, especially by those in the environmental and oil industries, as nuclear energy provides unique threats to both major industries.
On top of safety concerns about the widespread inclusion of nuclear energy into American infrastructure, there are also more administrative concerns such as the costs of building and maintaining facilities, the regulation of such facilities and nuclear energy production as a whole, and its impacts of the American and world economies as a whole, especially due to the current reliance on fossil fuels. Careful regulation and application will be of the utmost importance in making sure an infrastructure based around nuclear energy is both as efficient and as safe as possible. If the power of the atom is not respected once again, then the risk of loss of human life will be incredibly high and casualties may be inevitable.
If history is any indicator, nuclear energy clearly has potential to be an extremely dangerous force, however, nuclear energy is likely to be an inevitable part of the future as our reliance on fossil fuels continues to grow and global supplies continue to deplete. The atom is a source of nearly limitless energy, be it applied positively or negatively, and therefore, must be used and regulated in the most responsible and cautious ways possible by everyone who ends up using it.
About the Author
Jackson Doughty is a first-year member of Volume 14. He graduated from Grand Valley State University with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Environmental Science and Ecology. Jackson is interested in environmental prosecution after graduating from law school.
References
[1] Outline History of Nuclear Energy, World Nuclear Association (Nov. 2020), https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/outline-history-of-nuclear-energy.aspx.
[2] Id.
[3] NUCLEAR 101: How Does a Nuclear Reactor Work?, Office of Nuclear Energy (Mar. 29, 2021), https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-101-how-does-nuclear-reactor-work.
[4] Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident, U.S. Nuclear Reg. Comm. (Nov. 15, 2022), https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html.
[5] World Nuclear Association, supra note 1.
[6] Id.
[7] Sandy Schaefer, Godzilla’s Original Symbolism STILL Holds Up Today, CBR.com (Feb. 21, 2021), https://www.cbr.com/godzilla-modern-symbolism/.
[8] World Nuclear Association, supra note 1.