Since a partial meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in 1979 — the worst nuclear accident in US history — the debate over the safety and necessity of nuclear energy has steadily waxed and waned.
Opponents maintain that nuclear power is unsafe, while supporters, noting how France, for example, generates a lot of energy through nukes, take the opposite view. On October 18, from 5:30 to 7, speakers with divergent views on this issue will sound off during the latest installment of Action Speak!, the discussion series at AS220 (115 Empire St., Providence). The panelists will include Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Watchdog Project in Washington, DC; Lisa Stiles-Shell, manager of State Initiatives, Grassroots, and Coalitions at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI); Mike Pintek, who covered Three Mile Island as a radio journalist; and Harold Denton, President Jimmy Carter’s point man on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the crisis.
AS220 and the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities present Action Speaks!, which focuses on underappreciated days that changed America. The Phoenix is a cosponsor.
Gunter recently took part in an e-mail interview.
Nei claims that nuclear power, the second-largest energy source in the United States, is not only safe for “aquatic life,” but that a nuclear power plant emits less radiation to a person living next door in a lifetime than is emitted during a plane ride from Los Angeles to New York. Why is nuclear energy dangerous to living beings and the environment?
The National Academies Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII study has established that there is no “safe threshold” for radiation exposure. Each added exposure carries with it the added risk of cellular and chromosomal damage that can cause a host of cancers, birth defects, and mutations.
Every nuclear power station in the US is now documented as leaking low-dose radiation into the water from deterioration of piping and nuclear waste tanks. Contamination of groundwater with long-lived radioactive isotopes also contributes to future health problems as the result of chronic exposures.
For example, in 1990, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health published a health study for the 24 southeastern Massachusetts communities and concluded that there was a 400 percent increase in rare adult leukemias that were related to the proximity of residence and duration of residency to the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. In other words, the longer you lived close to the nuke, the higher your risks were of getting this rare radiation-induced cancer. Studies focused on the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine have concluded that as many as 60,000 people will die as a result of the 1986 nuclear accident.
Nuclear power plants are a serious security threat. The National 9/11 Commission identified that the original al Qaeda plan was to hijack 10 commercial aircraft and fly two into US nuclear reactor sites. Both the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Academy of Sciences have produced reports in 2001 and 2005, respectively that concluded that the nation’s nuclear waste storage system at reactors is vulnerable to attack.
What are some safe alternatives to nuclear energy?
First, according to five national laboratories, the United States could reduce its electricity demand by 47 percent through aggressive energy efficiency and conservation. Efficiency and conservation does not mean going without life’s necessities and conveniences through electricity. It simply means that we can stop wasting it.
