Nuclear Power

There are a number of deeply politicized approaches to the issue of nuclear power, which provides nearly 20 percent of electricity in the United States and 15 percent worldwide. Nuclear scientists and engineers frequently argue that nuclear power poses no discernible impact on public health; antinuclear activists point to the potential risk and pollution produced at all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle; advocates for a transition to a less carbonintensive energy economy often argue in favor of “carbon-free” nuclear; and public opinion remains fairly divided on the issue. For example, there is extensive debate over whether nuclear power plants are “safe.” To understand these debates, it is important to know that the history of nuclear power is embedded in the history of nuclear weapons. Nuclear power emerged, at least in part, as a response to the dropping of American atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. Following the devastation of both cities, many U.S. scientists and leaders believed they needed to make sense of and justify continued research into nuclear technologies. In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly promoted the Atoms for Peace campaign; following that, he and others argued that the atom should be used not only to make weapons but also to produce vast amounts of affordable electric power, promote international agreement, and develop medical breakthroughs.

During the 1986 nuclear plant disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, there was a significant release of radioactive materials, and thousands of people are believed to have died or contracted serious cancers as a result of radiation exposure. Here, a view of Chernobyl in 2005 taken from the roof of a building in the still-deserted city of Pripyat.

Despite these efforts, many Americans mentally associate the risks of nuclear power with the risks posed by nuclear weapons. This sense of risk has been heightened by certain historical events, such as the Three Mile Island incident of 1979, in which a large reactor [Page 320]in Pennsylvania suffered significant technical problems and threatened to release substantial amounts of nuclear radiation. Nuclear scientists and engineers did not immediately understand the problem and poorly communicated the risks; widespread media coverage of the event was frequently inaccurate or confusing, causing unnecessary panic in some cases. The majority of nuclear scientists and engineers today agree that the Three Mile Island incident was not an accident, and that a crisis of public and environmental health was averted. Yet public perceptions of the event as an accident continue.

Even more troubling to antinuclear activists was the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which occurred in what is now the Ukraine. Unlike Three Mile Island, there was a significant and severe release of radioactive materials during the Chernobyl accident, and the effects on public health and the environment in that part of the world (and in fallout zones) was disastrous. Thousands of people are believed to have died or contracted serious cancers as a result of radiation exposure. Furthermore, the land surrounding the Chernobyl plant is still highly radioactive, causing serious ecological, environmental, and economic devastation. It can be argued that accidents such as Chernobyl provide evidence that nuclear power production poses risks that far outweigh its benefits.

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