Nuclear Shadow

WHERE CAN WE SET STANDARDS, AFTER FUKUSHIMA?

After the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, the debate over how the incident will affect global plans for reactor construction is continuing. Germany has shifted sharply (though they had been seriously contemplating new nuclear policies for some time); China has paused approvals of new reactors; and the United States is bound to eventually revisit its safety regulations, if not its broader policy framework for nuclear power. Yet there is every indication that nuclear expansion will continue in many parts of the world.  Few countries actually seem to be scaling back the nuclear plants that they have already deployed.

The international system will thus continue to need serious policy to address the safety of operating reactors. But there has been little discussion thus far of international steps that might be taken in response. Since nuclear accidents can have consequences that extend across borders, international coordination, if not common regulation, is a natural possibility to consider. But significant progress at least at a formal level will still be difficult to come by.

The most commonly considered response by the international community involves uniform minimum standards for reactor construction and safety. This might seem simple but it would be exceedingly difficult to put into practice. National regulators already face difficult challenges navigating industry and public concern in their own countries. Adding another layer of international requirements, which would need to extend across countries with very different attitudes toward technology and risk, would make that job even harder. Even the European Union has not been able to agree on common reactor safety standards for its own member states, making it difficult to believe that a broader set of international players would have better luck. Moreover, many countries – both developing and emerging – would inevitably resist stern international regulatory standards as an attempt to stymie their economic efforts.

A better alternative would be to increase international capacity to advise countries’ regulators and to review their approaches on a voluntary basis. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), given appropriate additional funds, could step into this role. It could either conduct reviews using its own staff or facilitate and perhaps audit ones by other countries.

Less discussed, but perhaps equally as important, is international coordination on disaster response. Less developed countries may in principle be able to develop safe reactors by bringing in appropriate expertise from abroad. But plant disasters like the one in Japan cannot be definitively excluded, and effective response will be key to limiting consequences of any incident. Alas, poorer countries are highly unlikely to be able to mount the sort of rapid response that Japan has. One need look no further than the challenges faced by China in responding to the Sichuan earthquake, and contrast that with the Japanese response over the past month.  One cannot help  but be worried.

Countries with expertise in responding to nuclear disasters could help address this by aggressively sharing their knowledge with colleagues in countries that have less disaster response capacity. This would not only help prepare more countries for disasters, it would also help develop trusted relationships that could facilitate cooperation in the event of a nuclear incident.

Though developing informal relationships among national regulators may be less reassuring than an international initiative that promises to make all reactors safe –  it may prove ultimately be more valuable.

By Michael Levi
Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change
Council on Foreign Relations

RELATED MATERIAL FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 18

BACKGROUND

The nuclear meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plants near Sendai – which was recently designated a level seven nuclear accident – on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster – has re-opened a contentious debate over the viability and safety of nuclear power. Though the conditions that brought about the trouble at Fukushima Dai-Ichi were certainly exceptional and may not be applicable to many countries, proponents of alternatives to nuclear energy in Germany, the United States, South Africa, and India, among others, have gained momentum from the events in Japan.  Nuclear opponents have used images and news about the Japanese disaster to forward their own calls for greater scrutiny of nuclear energy practices and regulation.

One key example of anti-nuclear energy movements using the events in Japan to advance their agenda is the anti-nuclear power Green Party in Germany, which on March 27^th won a majority in the traditionally conservative, Christian Democrat state of Baden-Württemburg. This victory took place in spite of President Angela Merkel of the CDU shifting away from her pro-nuclear energy stance by shutting down several older reactors in Germany after the earthquake in Japan.

In the United States, the nuclear crisis in Japan brought to light potential problems with aging American nuclear plants. The New York Times ran a series of articles on the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which is located only 25 miles north of New York City, a location that would require essentially the complete evacuation of New York City in the event of a crisis. Other nuclear safety issues that have been brought to light include a report released in 2006 that noted that back-up power generators at the Fermi 2 plant in Michigan had been inoperable for 20 years, so that in the event of failure of cooling mechanisms, there would have been no alternative cooling system in place.

On April 14, 2011, 45 groups and individuals in the United States signed a petition demanding that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) suspend its licensing activities and conduct thorough inspections of US nuclear power plants.  In spite of these and other arguments, President Barack Obama defended nuclear power in the United States only days after the earthquake in Japan. An AFP poll after the earthquake in Japan found that nearly 60% of Americans believe that American nuclear power plants are safe, and in the wake of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi disaster representatives of the U.S. nuclear lobby insisted that American nuclear plants could withstand a disaster like the one that befell Japan.

RELATED MATERIALS

• In this blog post, Andrew Winston of Harvard Business Review explores questions about viability of nuclear energy and centralized energy.
• In this article, Tyler Bryant from the Canadian David Suzuki foundation addresses key questions and concerns about nuclear power and what role, if any, it has to play in our future.
• In an interview conducted by the Discovery News Network, Korean atomic scientist Hae-Yong Jeong discusses why nuclear energy is crucial to the survival of the human race.
• The IAEA has a feature page on the Status and Outlook of nuclear power with the latest news, audio, video, statements, facts and figures on the topic.
• In The Future of Nuclear Energy, two UCL experts, Paul Ekins and Anthony D Owen, assess the future of nuclear energy in the wake of events at the Fukushima power plant in Japan.
• Analysts at the Belfer Center of the Harvard Kennedy School assess the global future of nuclear power after the Fukushima incident.
• The City Room blog at nytimes.com recently featured a discussion of energy company Con Edison’s 1962 plan to build a nuclear power plant in the heart of New York City.