There are few environmental issues as pervasive as the anti-nuclear movement. With a history of public protest and resistance spanning decades, the use of nuclear technology is just as contested today as during the initial protests following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of 1945. Monday marked the second anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan after the Dai-ichi power plant went into meltdown due to the 9.0 earthquake and its resulting tsunami. Sadly, Fukushima is not an isolated event. Other sites like Chernobyl testify how science can go wrong. Badly.
The nuclear debate carries both social and political weight, but it is first and foremost an environmental concern. As an environmental blogger, I can’t afford to remain a fence-sitter forever when it comes to my views on nuclear technology. When I arrived on campus on Monday, a group of students armed with colourful anti-nuke posters were eagerly explaining their cause to passers-by. On a completely different continent, 40 Argentinian Greenpeace protestors were arrested and allegedly beaten for demanding an end to nuclear power at the Embalse nuclear facility in Cordoba.
It’s time to choose sides.
When looking at the facts, nuclear power stations do not flood the atmosphere with carbon dioxide like plants making use of fossil fuels. This already awards atomic energy sources some eco plus-points. Seeing as life revolves around cold hard cash as well as conservation, nuclear plants also produce more kilowatts of electricity than their coal, wind or solar counterparts over a much smaller land area. However, all of these perks come at the added cost of toxic waste which will remain radioactive until kingdom come.
Despite assurances from the powers that be that nuclear waste can be tucked safely out of sight, we can’t afford to put it out of mind. In the United States, 1000 gallons of nuclear waste leak from Hanford Nuclear Reserve tanks each year. To us non-American folk, that’s 3.78541178 kilolitres per annum (Thank you, Google). National budget cuts that went into effect in the USA at the beginning of this month are making clean-up of this waste a challenge, especially since the price tag on the clean-up is $114.8 billion and growing. And that’s only if they want to complete the job before the end of the century.
Well, so much for nuclear power being clean, safe and cost-effective.
In forming an opinion on nuclear technology, its capacity for devastation as an instrument of war has to be acknowledged. While these dangers are all too real and all too frightening, nuclear technology isn’t something that can be dismissed quickly and simply. It’s not a signed-sealed-delivered type of affair.
Nuclear technology provides the medical field with an invaluable means of diagnosing certain diseases. Radiopharmaceuticals localise to particular organs or receptors and enable the progression of a disease within the body to be imaged. Nuclear medicine can often detect medical issues earlier than any other forms of diagnosis. Radiation therapy in cancer treatment is another indispensable branch of nuclear medicine. These nuclear innovations can mean the difference between life and death for a patient. As a result, the drive to disband all nuclear research out of fear of atomic warfare would do far more harm than good.
It all boils down to the simple fact that nuclear power plants are a massive environmental risk which the planet cannot afford to take. Human error is all too real, technological gremlins occur and it would be arrogant to assume that humans can harness this type of force without courting disaster. Radiation remains in the water and soil for decades, meaning that all forms of life are indiscriminately affected.
If you’re still not sold on the anti-nuclear movement, take a look at the video by Aljazeera which is embedded in this post. Two years down the line, the Fukushima disaster still has a devastating environmental and social impact.
I’ve chosen my side. Have you?
Earth Oriented 