Energy Choices and Risk

Japan’s March 11, 2011 Tohoku 9.0 earthquake, ensuing tsunami and nuclear incident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant have reminded us all that nuclear plants are subject to risk. This should be no surprise, as all sources of energy are subject to some degree of risk. In fact, just about everything in life has some degree of risk attached to it. However, nuclear plants, with their added radioactivity risk, present a considerable challenge in managing the lower probability, higher impact events.

We face global, environmental challenges in managing climate change issues. These climate change issues affect both micro-climates and have a planet-wide impact. In order to meet these considerable challenges, nuclear energy must be a part of the solution along with other energy options. We must seek to understand and mitigate risks facing nuclear plants as we go forward to solve the larger planet-wide problem which affects us all.

It has been almost 25 years since the April 26, 1986 nuclear incident at Chernobyl, in the Ukraine. That incident was ranked at “7” on the International Event Scale. The Three Mile Island Accident, beginning on March 28, 1979 ranked as a “5”. That incident, occurring exactly 32 years ago, took place at the Three Mile Island Plant in Middletown, Pennsylvania. The Fukushima Nuclear Accidents have so far been ranked as high as a “5”, and the situation has not yet been resolved .

In the midst of the efforts to bring the Fukushima Reactors under control, there have been calls to reexamine the safety of nuclear power plants. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called for a meeting before the summer to discuss an assessment of the Fukushima accident, lessons to be learned, strengthened safety measures and strengthened responses to future incidents.

As the Japanese workers worked on the reactor, rating agencies Moody’s Japan K.K. and Standard and Poors downgraded Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco’s) long term debt. Moody’s indicated that it saw risk in GE’s nuclear business, although it did not downgrade GE, which contributes 1% of GE’s annual $100 billion revenue. GE was the designer of the Fukushima nuclear power plants., and the supplier of reactors 1,2 and 6.

At the same time, ongoing issues regarding the storage of the nation’s nuclear waste are unfolding. This waste includes waste from commercial nuclear plants and military/defense waste products. The waste is stored in a variety of locations, ranging from storage on site to storage at the Hanford Site, in Washington State, where two-thirds of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste is stored. The storage issues are complex, involving the removal of the nation’s only designated nuclear waste repository from consideration, and related litigation by states (Washington and South Carolina) and regulators (National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners).

We should develop an energy strategy that optimizes the risk profiles of the various types of power generation (including nuclear). This strategy should be science-based, above politics, in the interest of the nation (and world) as a whole, reflecting our responsibilities to the environment both in theory and in practice, and appropriately reflecting risks in pricing decisions.