When a loved one dies (as my brother did last month), one of the standard pieces of advice is to avoid any big decisions. Don’t reorganize your life in a moment of existential panic or remorse. Take your time. Cope.
But when thousands die, or when some sudden calamity befalls us, the tendency of politicians, journalists, policymakers, and experts is to seize the moment to advocate some radical changes. A crisis, Rahm Emanuel famously declared in the early days of the Obama administration, is a terrible thing to waste.
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That this axiom didn’t generate more controversy always struck me as bizarre. I mean, shouldn’t it be “a crisis is a terrible thing to exploit”?
So here we go again in Japan, where the tragedy is literally too terrible to comprehend. The death toll, the scale — the whole nation moved 8 to 12 feet — the suddenness: It all overwhelms.
And yet the search for scapegoats and the thirst to confirm one’s preferred policies kicked in almost immediately.
The most egregious examples were attempts to link, no matter how tenuously, the earthquake with climate change. In fairness, such naked balderdash has been far less common than it was in the wake of the Asian tsunami of 2004, never mind the riot of idiocy after Hurricane Katrina the following year (when, for example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blamed Mississippi governor Haley Barbour: “Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil-fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged”).
This time, all eyes are on the nuclear industry. Many opponents of nuclear power are pouncing not on the actual facts, but on the climate of fear. The reactors aren’t contained yet, and the situation is very serious, but the vast majority of nuclear experts made it clear early on that there would be no “Chernobyl” in Japan. The Japanese reactors are simply different (and superior, in part because the Russians built Chernobyl to allow harvesting of material for nuclear bombs). NBC science correspondent Robert Bazell explained Tuesday morning that this is certainly “not Chernobyl,” but it is “worse than Three Mile Island.”
True enough. But let’s remember that no one was hurt — never mind killed — by the Three Mile Island accident. And over the last decade, the wind farm industry has seen more fatalities than the nuclear industry.
In Europe, where nuclear power is vastly more common than it is here, the Japanese earthquake is being exploited to the hilt. “If the Japanese,” editorializes the British Independent newspaper, “with all their understandable inhibitions about anything nuclear and all their world-leading technology, cannot build reactors that are invulnerable to disaster, who can?”
Well, that’s just it. Who said anything, anywhere, is invulnerable to disaster? At 9.0, this was Japan’s biggest earthquake and could be the fourth largest ever recorded (it was even detected in Pennsylvania). Perhaps the standard shouldn’t be whether Japan’s reactor was “invulnerable” but whether it succeeded by taking such a beating without threatening much human life?
The damaged reactors are ruined, but so what? Cars are designed to be ruined after a major accident too. We routinely, and wisely, trade salvageability for survivability. Few skyscrapers in the United States can withstand a 9.0 earthquake; should we stop making tall buildings?
More to the point, much of the discussion about what this means for American nuclear energy leaves out that even the Japanese reactors are 30 years out of date compared with new designs. So-called Generation III plants have passive cooling systems that do not depend on the electricity grid. Hence any moratorium on new nuclear construction — such as that being discussed in Congress — would prevent building plants that have leapfrogged the problems we see in Japan.
And yet, many in the industry fear that the unscientific hysteria over the Japanese reactor will deal a mortal blow to nuclear power. You would at least think that climate-change activists, who want fossil-free energy (and to bolster the reputation of scientists), would be throwing coolant on the public meltdown. After all, a major backlash against nuclear will be a boon not for wind and solar — still profoundly inadequate to our energy needs — but for coal and natural gas.
Of course the situation is grave. And who knows what the lessons of this tragedy will be? But rather than worry about letting this crisis go to waste, this strikes me as a great moment to simply cope.
So, with all these new safe reactors that are available today, we can build them all in the cities where they need the immense amount of power they provide.
And let's make a law that says you keep the waste where it was used - not ship it go someone else's neighborhood. Then you gung ho nuke types can have all the nuke power your heart desires.
With these two requirements, nuke supporters can reap the entire cost of nuclear power - not just the benefits and the ship the waste to someone else along with the inherent danger that comes with living nearby a nuclear power plant.
The only thing that would make this story juicier for the irresponsible press would be if they could tie Sarah Palin or George W. Bush in as the responsible parties.
I'll take your deal, provided you agree to use only electricity provided by wind and/or solar in any circumstance up to and including the need for, say, a ventilator.
As of now, in the US natural gas is too inexpensive to justify new nuclear power plants.
As to inherent danger, as was noted in the article, with proof all over utube about wind turbines flying apart I will take living next to the nuclear plant before I will live next to the wind farm. They are loud, dangerous, inefficient and just plain old ugly.
I suspect that the "climate-change activists, who want fossil-free energy" would prefer that non-elites live in thatched cottages, with goats and gardens for sustenance. And privies.
Would we be allowed to own a stone? Or be required to chuck it back into the wild instead of violating nature - because, Thoreau-like, it wasn't necessary?
In any case, most of us wouldn't survive, thus improving our porcelain planet's chances of survival. Until the goats went feral and ate the rain forests.
Most of our family lives in eastern Japan, but our two daughters live in NYC, and the younger is adamant that we should leave her native land, having apparently been swept up in the hysteria. We are staying put. Yes, life is full of risks, but not all risks are equal...Jonah Goldberg gets better and better at cutting through the proverbial substance...
This crisis could be a great teaching moment for the Obamateur administration to calm fears about radiation leaks and show real national leadership, if not global leadership.
Instead, Obamateur is closely monitoring the March Madness college basketball playoff situation and will follow up by blaming Bush for keeping his Presidential responsibilities from falling upon him for the past 26 months.
Any candidate for the Presidency in 2012 that does not consistently refer to Obama as an imbecile both doesn't want the job, and lacks the honesty for it.
The climate change crowd will come out for nuclear if they think their friends will. It all depends, ironically, on which side of the argument gains critical mass first. For most devotees, environmentalism is a fashion statement, not a scientific pursuit.
As for the whole "if it's so safe..." gang: How many major thermal, wind, solar, or hydroelectric power generation facilities can you find located in residential areas?
When you connect the dots of the wacko chicken-little leftist environmental agenda do you perceive the following chain of logic, is it just me?
1) Fossil fuels cause global warming, pollution, acid rain, VOCs, blah blah blah, so we must do away with them.
2) Nuclear energy is too dangerous, so ban it.
3) The new normal will be a world with far less energy to support the current population - so contracept it, abort it, and euthanize it.
I have been making this point for a while, and whenever the subject of nuclear power comes up, I get to reiterate it. Since 1955 or so the US Navy has operated in-excess of 200 nuclear powered craft (Some of which contain multiple reactors). These plants are operated on a daily basis by 19 and 20 year-olds, with about a year and a half of training. They operate in extreme conditions most land based power plants will never have to endure. And in those 55 years there has been no serious radiological casualty.
Yes there are dangers associated with nuclear power, but the fear of it that is built in to the American psyche is based on fantasy and bad information.
With all due respect Mr. Goldburg, and sincere condolences about your brother. I am not sure this article even begins to do justice to the gravity of the situation or the topic at hand.
I have lived in Japan for 6 years in the late 80's and early 90's. I am very familiar with the reality they are facing, and to dismiss the gravity of their situation as not being as bad as Chernobyl, but more like Three Mile Island is a comparison that you and all of the articles and media making similar statements will soon regret.
Japan is a MUCH more densely populated country than anything you must understand. 160 miles to the south of this particular reactor is the city of Tokyo, which combined with its surrounding suburbs consists of 39,000,000 people. There is no town in the United States that even comes close to that figured. That city has more people than the entire state of California combined, or almost as much as the entire populations of Texas and New York State combined. It is in fact the most densely populated city in the entire world. That does not include all of the other millions of people that are even closer to the reactors.
Now having given some perspective on population density, Japan is a series of over 4,000 islands. The island of Honshu, where Tokyo and the reactors in question are located is just over 1/2 the size of California. So combining this information you can now get a Reality Check as to the consequences and gravity of the situation. Much more people than the state of California in a space half the size, within 160 miles or less of 6 nuclear reactors all in the process of melting down.
3 of the 6 reactors are not enclosed in containment buildings as 1,2, and 3 are. Reactors 4, 5, and 6 are capable and probable of sending their radio active materials into the atmosphere and drifting into the winds into these dense populations, and that is the primary risk. The other 3 that are in containment buildings will breach these and it is unknown what the consequences will be, but all indications are, it will not be good. A large area of Honshu Island may be rendered unusable for centuries, but potentially millions of people could easily be radiated in the near term.
Have you considered if you would support importing radio active parts or TV's, Cars, DVD players etc from Japan? It is very likely that decision will need to be made by the world soon, as Japan may face a situation where radiation becomes a daily factor in their lives, not just this weeks headlines.
@Reality Check, standing against your unsupported and likely unsupportable claim that a "large area of Honshu Island may be rendered unusable for centuries" are Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Before you get to anything as grandiose as reality, there are simply facts.
@Reality Check. I'm afraid you are incorrect sir. From what I can conclude researching this event, ALL six reactors at this site are essentially identical (GE BWR Gen I). They ALL are built with primary containment. So there is not a greater chance that units 4,5, or 6 will "send" their radioactive materials into the environment. Years ago I spent a great deal of time working in the US nuclear industry, and have worked at several of our units which are the same design. ALL have primary containment (steel reactor vessel, enclosed in a thick concrete structure). In fact there is only a very very minimal chance that the materials in the core will ever be released into the environment...even with a total fuel melt. The one valid concern would be the spent fuel stored at the facilities being exposed to the air. That seems to be the most likely cause of the several intervals of the radiation levels at the plant spiking (this being related to the fires at units 3 and 4).
I am forced to agree to some extent with your assessment of the situation in Japan. Jonah was a bit cavalier about the realities Japan is facing, I think.
But his main point about nuclear power in the US is still spot on. It's hard to imagine -- frankly, I can't imagine -- a natural disaster other than an 8.x earthquake that could actually breach a nuclear plant. And given the design improvements Jonah mentioned, I don't know that even a quake that size could do it to a thoroughly modern plant. There are only a few places in the US where such an event is at all possible -- the west coast, the New Madrid fault, and maybe a couple of others. If we don't build in those places, we have literally nothing to worry about.
And, not @Reality Check, but for whoever might want to keep reading:
As for the disposal of nuclear waste that someone else brought up earlier, there are good options, like the perfectly safe but horribly politicized Yucca Mountain. And even if one won't accept that, well, still, how does anyone propose that we deal with the waste products of coal and oil (i.e. sludge and smog)? Without nuclear, we are simply going to need more and more coal and oil. There's no way around it. Solar and wind won't give us a tenth of the power we need. And saying they will doesn't make it so.
And, to echo Jonah, the main point I want to make is that the opportunism of the anti-nuke crowd has been abhorrent here. They have been horribly deceptive in this time and, even worse, they have cold heartedly diverted a huge part of the conversation away from the horrible realities our ally Japan is facing. And that is what we really ought to be talking about.
"A large area of Honshu Island may be rendered unusable for centuries"
And it may all just blow over and dissipate as very short half-life elements decay away.
Maybe we should wait to see before halting the only viable solution to carbon-free energy.
It's actually amazing that a 40 year old reactor came through a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami with relatively little damage. Again, any damage is unacceptable but lets have perspective.
One thing to consider is the long half life of some of the radioactive isotopes. How many years will it take before impacted areas in a given radius from the plant will be safe? No one can guarantee over the next 50 or 100 hundred years there won't be another 9.0 earthquake somewhere else in the world where nuclear reactors are situated. I agree however with your suggestion that now is not the time to make hasty or rushed decisions.
Indeed the media is hyping the nuke issue; unfortunately the nature of today’s mass media is big on hyperbole, small on details. While they present confusing and conflicting information, they themselves are not confused as they simply don’t know what they don’t know (and thus remain happily ignorant).
There are multiple power plants involved each with multiple reactors each with different issues, all we get is a muddled mix of partial facts and significant hearsay. Clearly it a fluid, evolving, and complex situation and in defense of the media, it’s extremely difficult to present an issue of such complexity in the 2 minute sound byte format they utilize (thus executive leadership is paramount by President Obama and/or Secretary Chu to elucidate these events but I’ve already posted these thoughts on another string...). But the media strains its credibility when they exacerbate the ‘doom and gloom’ by bringing on political scientists and international relations PhDs to discuss/analyze worse case scenarios. This doesn’t help clarify anything...can they not bring on rational physicists and engineers?
I have friends stationed in Japan and they confirm the media hype here compared to the facts on the ground there.
Not related but good news is that our Armed Forces stationed in Japan are working to bring blankets/food/water/supplies to appreciative survivors. My friend was concerned that body recovery efforts may exert a psychologic toll on these troops but I’m optimistic. If successful at promptly delivering necessary aid, not only will it be a rewarding experience for individuals involved but it will solidify a very important alliance in a time when many doubt America's capabilities.
Bottom line - I pray for a rapid recovery for Japan.
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