FOOLPROOFING FOR FOOLS...

I was reading the incredibly insightful recent book "Nuclear Renewal: Common sense about nuclear energy" by Richard Rhodes, in which he calls upon the world and especially upon the US to actively campaign for and start using nuclear energy in order to battle the fuel crises imminent upon us. In this slim volume, there are many items of interest (including an especially informative chapter on Chernobyl), but the most striking one is a comparison between nuclear energy in Japan and the US. In the US, 20% of electricity comes from nuclear energy: in Japan, close to 30% and in France, 75%. In spite of this, there hasn't been a single serious nuclear accident in Japan or France. Why? Well, apart from the cold war induced intrinsic fear and disdain in Americans against nuclear energy, and a few technical reasons such as France possessing better reprocessing plants, there was a singular point which I did not know and found very interesting. In the US, especially after the Three Mile Island accident, nuclear scientists, operators, engineers and businessmen (not to mention congressmen) seek to build nuclear reactors which are foolproof. That means that the reactor should be a veritable vault, completely sealed from the inside, preventing access of radioactive material to the outside. But that is not easy. You need to test hundreds of models of such a reactor before you actually put it to work. Even after testing, you cannot be one hundred percent sure. This desire for foolproofness has essentially stalled the US nuclear program, or has at least greatly impeded its progress. In Japan, on the other hand, reactor scientists and engineers KNOW and assume that you cannot make a system foolproof. So they go ahead anyway and construct reactors taking the best possible care they can. Sealing off a reactor essentially also makes the converse procedure very difficult, namely personnel getting in for repairs. So the Japanese take due care not to actually seal the reactor, but to provide a cleverly constructed safe entrance somewhere for personnel and material to get in. This would make it comparatively easy to shut down the reactor, in case there is an accident. They also take some simple but effective precautionary measures like labelling all entrances and exits and water and electricity lines. The motive and thought behind all this? Its not possible to make a system foolproof. Its better to assess the risks as thoroughly as one can, hope for the best, take all necessary precautions to prevent the worst and most importantly, go ahead with the system. The difference is essentially not technical but psychological. The Americans seek perfection; no one knows when they will actually reach it. By that time, they may well have been propelled into another world war, fighting over dwindling natural gas and coal, while their 'foolproof' reactors lie rusting in the machine shop. The Japanese are more practical; they admit that nuclear energy has its risks, but firstly they are not as paranoid about generous quantities of Plutonium making its way into their breakfast cereal, and secondly they are aware of the fact that no matter what the risks are, nuclear energy is the only long term solution to the energy problem at least as of now. I found this difference between aspiring idealogies and practical certainties quite striking. We have to understand the benefits of nuclear energy, especially in view of the dark energy crisis today. Hundreds of years ago, when coal was first used as an energy source in England, there was a lot of protest against it, because it would pollute the air. But we survived somehow without greatly polluting our atmosphere. More importantly, we understood the real concept of tradeoffs then: not to aspire for the best, but only for the best possible. We did it then, we have to do it now. As a very fitting quote, I am reminded of something which Cardinal Newman said, which was printed on the first page of a well know Organic Chemistry text: "A man would do nothing, if he waited until he could do it so well, that no one would find fault with what he has done"...