With global temperatures rising steadily, our way of life is being threatened. Scientists and governments are scrambling, knowing changes have to be made but how and when. Whatever they are, we will all have to sacrifice for the common good. Only limiting the production of greenhouse gases just won’t cut it. Decarbonisation is essential; a drastic reduction of existing fossil fuels and the embracing of new energy demands from carbon-free sources.
Nuclear power is the best option for an energy solution. Despite the nuclear power long-running controversy about the risks and benefits, using nuclear reactors to generate electricity for civilian purposes is the key to prolonging life on earth as we would like it. The fear of what will happen if humanity doesn’t endorse nuclear power outweighs all other fears combined.
Back in the 1950’s the idea of nuclear power was glamorous, today it is surrounded by doubts. How did this change happen? Most likely it was the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima that have changed people’s perceptions. And yet the accidents proved the relative safety, not the relative danger, of nuclear energy. Nobody died from radiation at Three Mile Island or Fukushima, and fewer than 50 died from Chernobyl over the many years since the misfortune.
Over-reaction to the accidents, not the accidents themselves, have resulted in unwarranted fears of nuclear technology. Pollution from coal-fired power plants is responsible for more than 100,000 deaths per year, whereas the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant is unlikely to kill a single person. Why can’t it be seen for what it is by the powers to be?
Sure, radiation leaks are serious. But it is worth remembering that we are subjected to background radiation every day as a result of natural processes – some people more than others. People who take travel by air expose themselves to radiation from cosmic rays. And airline pilots flying high-altitude routes can receive doses that put them in the top 5% of all workers in terms of radiation exposure. We routinely and willingly expose ourselves to large amounts of radiation for medical checks, with dental x-rays providing perhaps the highest doses, often for purely cosmetic reasons.
Understandably, if properly implemented, nuclear power would virtually destroy the coal and related industries and take a huge chunk out of the oil and natural gas ones. Nuclear power would also wipe out the “renewable energy” industries. There are quite a few business people around whose profits and income depend on today’s energy and related enterprises and so they use their combined rebuttal to make sure nuclear power doesn’t happen.
I have talked to many former and current employees of Atomic Energy of Canada at Chalk River. Nearly all mentioned pleasant working conditions, challenges, training programs, good pay and opportunities for advancement or some of these features but not one concern of exposure to radiation. When I asked one guy, “Do you worry about radiation?” He responded, “Would I be living down-river if I did!”
Contrary to that, many of the older generations who lived downriver from Chalk River blamed the plant for a person getting cancer. Some still do. I heard my own family say that my uncle died of cancer because of Chalk River. They kind of neglected to mention that he smoked filter-less Buckingham cigarettes all his life.
Nearly all of Canada’s nuclear power is produced in Ontario. This technology is not able to expand much due to a large anti-nuclear movement in the country. British Columbia, for example, has a strict no-nuclear policy. Despite all this, Canada has reactors operating in Ontario and is a leader in nuclear technology, developing the Advanced Candu Reactor, a light-water-cooled reactor that uses natural non-enriched Uranium.
Study after study of top scientific journals find that nuclear power plants are far and away the safest way to make reliable electricity. Why then are we so afraid of them? Probably it’s because of the historic association of nuclear plants with nuclear weapons. Governments didn’t help either when the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima were greatly overblown. Hundreds of times more people were evacuated or moved than was necessary. The contradiction of long-term health effects were also greatly exaggerated.
I am at an age that whatever decision is made to shrink greenhouse gases, whether nuclear or simply crossing our fingers and hoping for the best, it doesn’t make much difference to me. But I do care about younger generations and what may become of them in the future.
I feel that continuing with a patchwork of solutions like wind power, solar power, bioenergy and all the others are effective in a sense but cannot accomplish what is required quickly. It is like believing that my uncle’s cancer was due to living along the Ottawa River. Who we fooling?
