Nuclear power’s future

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WEDNESDAY, 27 APRIL 2011 20:50 THE MIAMI HERALD EDITORIAL

Although experts still do not understand clearly what went wrong, the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear installation has sparked understandable fears about nuclear safety and a debate that will have significant consequences for the future of our energy needs.

Nuclear-industry officials have been at pains to proclaim that the 104 US nuclear-power plants are safe. One compelling piece of evidence they cite is that, globally, nuclear plants have close to 15,000 reactor-years of experience, with known severe accidents limited to five commercial power reactors—three of them in Fukushima and only one, at Three-Mile Island, in the United States.

As impressive as that seems, skeptics point out that one nuclear accident is one too many. Indeed, the event at Three-Mile Island was so traumatic that it froze the industry in its tracks for three decades, going on four.

Now, as a result of Fukushima, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) says it is considering improvements for the six nuclear reactors it operates because of “potential vulnerabilities from a chain of events.” Meanwhile, power producer NRG, which was planning the largest nuclear project in the country, announced it was giving up plans for two giant reactors in Texas and writing off its $331-million investment.

The future of the nuclear-power industry is of crucial importance to South Florida because energy provider FPL says it needs to add two reactors at Turkey Point in South Miami-Dade to cover projected electrical-power requirements for a growing population.

Last week FPL executives offered assurances to a delegation of four local members of Congress that it was prepared for any conceivable eventuality and that comparisons with Fukushima were off the mark. Turkey Point has a different design, was built by a different company (Westinghouse, not GE), and is powered by different fuel (uranium, not plutonium).

Unlike the Japanese plant, Turkey Point is not located in an earthquake zone, and getting hit by a tsunami is far-fetched, if not impossible, given the barrier formed by the Bahamas chain. The plant has already survived a direct hit from a Category 5 hurricane (Andrew, 1992) and the accompanying storm surge. And FPL plans to build a “dry” storage facility for spent-fuel rods—an improvement TVA is just now contemplating—to reduce the risk of a leak.

As long as there are an infinite number of things that can go wrong and only a finite number of preventative measures, nuclear power will never be 100-percent safe. But given existing technology, the increasing needs for power generation and the desire for clean sources of energy, nuclear power cannot be ruled out as a viable option. The industry’s safety record and its obvious self-interest in avoiding accidents speak for themselves.

But before going forward, two actions are critical.

·         First, FPL must undertake a campaign to inform the public about nuclear power and its safety measures. The public is right to be worried, and without its support, nuclear power has no future.

·         Second, as Mayor Philip Stoddard of South Miami wrote in a letter to The Miami Herald published on Sunday, “Miami-Dade County is grossly unprepared to deal with a significant radiation release.”

Can’t happen here? Probably right, but who wants to take a chance? South Florida is so congested, and avenues of evacuation so limited, that the public deserves reassurance on this front, as well. FPL, together with county officials and emergency planners, has a duty to bring the public up to date about plans for the possibility of a nuclear accident.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, the worst ever. The area near the Ukrainian site is still a no-man’s land, and the final accounting of damage remains unknown. It’s a good time to redouble efforts to ensure that there are no more Chernobyls—and to be prepared if there are.