The BP deep-water oil well that is expected to be out of control until August exemplifies three lessons: 1. Starting and stopping an oil well under 5000 of water is a highly technical project. 2. Cleaning up the BP oil spill will go on for months and cost billions of dollars. 3. The oversight failures of the U.S. Mining and Mineral Service become more apparent with each passing week.
Let us now apply these lessons to nuclear power plants as solutions to energy needs. Nuclear power plants can malfunction. Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in the Ukraine and China Syndrome in fiction are examples. Three Mile Island went out of control, cause 136,000 people to be evacuated and temporary hysteria. When the nuclear plant in Chernobyl blew up workers and firemen died from radiation burns. Furthermore, tens of millions of Europeans were exposed to radioactive fallout. China Syndrome is when a plant goes out of control and melts into the groundwater, and causes an explosion that is beyond imagination. That has not happened, yet.
Cleaning up Chernobyl meant entombing the rubble in concrete, a hazardous and ineffective response. More than 300,000 people were relocated by the government. Clean-up after a China Syndrome event would be impossible.
Regulatory control of the nuclear industry in the U.S. (and the old U.S.S.R.) has been spotty at best. Nuclear waste has already contaminated critical groundwater in the State of Washington. Poorly designed nuclear plants in Ohio, South Carolina and Florida are often shut down for repairs. In 2009 the Crystal River nuclear plant was found to have a nine inch deep crack in the "containment" dome intended to keep radioactive leaks from escaping. The original 30 year life expectancy of nuclear plants is being extended by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. One must ask, "Is this for economic or technical reasons?" The decommissioning of aged nuclear power plants will be very expensive. Letting the plants run longer will help pay for decommissioning, at the cost of old concrete containment domes failing to stand. Keep in mind, federal law limits the liability of nuclear plan owners for nuclear accidents, just as there are limits on oil company liabilities for oil spills.
If nuclear power plants are the answer to energy needs, it is not just Levy County that should think twice about operation, clean-up and regulation of the energy industry. | 