Dr. Jeffery Patterson, the President of the Physicians for Social Responsibility (originally founded by Dr. Helen Caldicott) has published an op-ed titled Lessons from the Gulf for nuclear reactors that is another attempt to use concerns about the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico to increase the level of resistance to the development of new nuclear power plants.
His piece contains a number of incorrect statements. Here is one in particular that raised Ted Rockwell’s ire, especially since Ted was a part of a two decade long effort to do the science and engineering required to prove it false.
Federal lawmakers are weighing a BP-type deregulation of new nuclear reactors – the one energy source in which damage from a major accident could dwarf harm done by a ruptured offshore oil well.
Here is Ted’s response to that claim from an email that he just sent to me. (He gave me permission to quote it.):
The words above in red are demonstrably wrong. Not improbable. Just plain physically impossible in the real world. Scientists were glad to take the billion dollars it took for an international program of several decades duration to back up that statement. It doesn’t apply to every reactor built—not Chernobyl, for example. But for the LWR plants we’re now planning, and the commercial nuclear power plants we have built, the statement applies. It was documented in a Policy Forum by 19 members of the National Academy of Engineering published in the mainstream peer-reviewed journal SCIENCE, 20 September 2002. We cannot guarantee that an accident will not happen. But we can, and we do, guarantee that the public health consequences will be limited and tolerable. The core may melt. The containment integrity may be compromised. Even so, the worst public health consequences expected will be “few, if any, deaths offsite.” The wording was publicly confirmed by then-NRC Chair, Nils Diaz. Anyone who wants to challenge that statement has to start by challenging the backup documentation in the SCIENCE paper, and the 1980 EPRI report by Chauncey Starr, Milt Levenson et al.
How do we expect the public to endorse nuclear power, if we let statements like that in red to stand unrefuted? No major industrial enterprise in history has as impressive a record of safety and reliability as nuclear power: not a single public radiological death, while oil, gas and hydro continue to kill people and despoil the landscape.
There are no tricky PR lessons or techniques involved here. Just a simple matter of insisting that the facts be right.
Additional Reading
David Walters on Daily Kos – We need to apply nuclear standards to oil drilling
Dr. Patterson’s op-ed was originally published in The Hill’ Congress Blog on January 16, 2010 – Lessons from the Gulf for nuclear reactors. The Congress Blog has a subtitle “Where lawmakers come to blog”, and judging from the by-lines on recent posts, that appears to be true. It might be worth your time to visit and add your own comments to Dr. Patterson’s biased rant against nuclear energy development.
Rod,
It looks like this article first appeared in The Hill,
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-a-environment/109259-lessons-from-the-gulf-for-nuclear-reactors
Now it is spreading around to various papers across the country. Just another example of anti-nuclear propaganda spreading without counter discussion.
Another comment on this article after reading further into Dr. Patterson’s letter.
It appears the American Power Act removes the biggest obstacle to new nuclear power.
The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 required all operational tests and inspections be completed before issuing a combined license and a combined license is required for to connect to the grid. APA Section 11108 removes that requriement by allowing the NRC to issue the combined license before all operational testing has been completed based on my quick read of the verbiage in the bill thanks to Google.
In other words APA Secton 1108 removes the risk of having another Shoreham which appears to be sending the ant-nuke groups such as Physicians for Social Responsibility onto the propaganda warpath.
It has been the NRC’s policy for several years to issue the Combined Operating License (COL) even before construction starts. Once built, the plants will need to perform certain tests. I believe the first plants of the new generation (AP1000, EPR, etc.) will require some extra testing to verify the design and plant response. This seems only prudent, but it shouldn’t unduly impede the path to commercial operation.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/licensing-process-bg.html
Pete,
Thanks for the clarification.
I was looking at the info from PRS and others after reading Rod’s post. They are all hammering on the change to Section 1108 saying that will lower the safety standards for nuclear power plant start-up and trying to spread FU&D instead of looking at the entire process of licensing and start-up testing.
From the short description here of section 1108:
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2010/05/american-power-act.html
I don’t see any difference between this and existing NRC requirements. Perhaps there was a mistake in that the 1954 act wasn’t changed when the 10CFR50.52 changes were made. The American Power Act might correct this oversight. Just guessing. Whatever the reason, I don’t see any reduction in safety. The NRC will always have oversight of the facility and they are going to make sure the required start up tests are performed.
A long time ago, I was a start-up test engineer at a new nuclear power plant. It was very challenging work, but also one of the most satisfying jobs I ever had.
Pete
Here is what the American Power Act says about changing Section 1108 (pulled the text from Sen. Kerry’s website which has a link to the full text of the bill):
Section 185 b. of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2235 b.) is amended by striking the third sentence and inserting the following:
Ted and Rod are really, really, really wrong.
The nuclear industry has know from the beginning that the consequences of a severe accident are not acceptable. This kind of thinking is not welcome nuclear industry.
Kit P, you are misinterpreting what Rod and Ted have said in an attempt to score some easy points in your unending propaganda war against Rod’s paradigm of fossil fuel intersts being the driving force behind the anti-nuclear movement. Once again, no sale.
In the political resistance to liability limitation law for US nuclear imports, Bhopal gas tragedy 25 years back has been used as an anti-American argument. Deepwater horizon is a current issue.