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We should stand with these heroes, and build a new age of prosperity with ever more safe & inexpensive nuclear energy

Japan’s Nuclear Heroes Show Us The Way



A series of unpredictable strong earthquakes, including a super-size earthquake and subsequent tsunami, have thrown some of Japan’s nuclear energy plants into a crisis: pumping sea water, venting steam, keeping a lid on a disaster. The crisis exists mostly because Japan’s infrastructure suffered a full-body blow, and is essentially incapable of providing expected support to the plants. Indeed, Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan said this is Japan’s worst situation since World War Two’s devastation. Indeed, Japan’s nuclear plant technicians must be feeling hopelessness’ tap on the shoulder, urging them to just give up, to flee. Yet they stay; they are solving the nuclear plant problems no matter that it is the aftermath of entirely unpredictable, unwarnable natural disasters. If they succeed, they will be –and should be honored as – true heroes of a forward-looking nuclear age.

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You know that environmentalists, enviro-socialists, and other liberals will call – shriekingly – for an end to nuclear power. Yet these emotively reactive doomsayers would betray true heroes who struggle and succeed in bringing inexpensive electricity to hundreds of millions. Indeed, the salient points are not doom and Armageddon, nor do the points include an irrational & fearful retreat. Rather, the salient points are powerful & heroic, and they are proving how nuclear energy is indeed ‘the way forward’:

Crisis Response

Japan is facing a real-world example of a ‘worst imaginable’ crisis. With such improbable simultaneous failures, Japan is (so far) handling it per expected outcomes of failures of far less magnitude, even despite unexpected failures in backup systems and lack of community/national support. It’s a testimony heralding the preplanned engineering and extemporaneous brainpower of nuclear plant engineers & technicians.

Comparisons

It’s worth comparing whatever will be Japan’s eventual nuclear-related deaths, to deaths occurring in ‘accidents’ at power plants fueled by other fuels (coal, petroleum, wind, solar, hydro, etc). But as valuable & available as this data is, it’s really apples-to-oranges. It’s also worth – worth more – to compare deaths & illnesses at non-nuke plants that suffer natural disasters. Comparing results flowing from natural disasters – especially from unpredicted, unwarned disasters like the one-two punch that is a set of super-size earthquakes followed by mega-tsunamis – that would be apples-to-apples.

Repair, amidst amazingly bare-bones support

If Japan succeeds in containing & fixing plant damage, against all these unforeseen simultaneous plant equipment failures, and in the midst of a national body-blow of super-size earthquakes and mega-tsunamis, then the headline should read “Heroes Prove Nuclear Power Resilient – Even Against Phenomenal Simultaneous Unknown Threats”

Recovery

If Japan brings those nuclear power plants back on-line, even if having to cap a few reactor cores, then it’s an unmitigated success story indicating Nuclear Power is viable – stellar, even. Japan is as modern a country as we are; what they can do indicates (but does not dictate) that we can do as well. Being a much larger country with far more indigenous natural & industrial resources, the USA should probably handle any similar event with an even greater backup ability than what Japan is showing us in their situation being a relatively small country.

Worst Case

Let’s consider if Japan vents considerable radiation, and/or has an uncontrolled meltdown. Even as we mourn the tragedy, we should quickly understand this worst-case outcome nevertheless provides invaluable analysis – the keys to figuring out how to better deal with similar future occurrences. We should especially analyze how such a worst-case outcome compares to engineering predictions of worst-case tragedies. If the essential predictions are even approximately validated by the myriad complexities of a real-world tragedy, then we move beyond theory into reality; this should make us more confident in our predictions for any similar situation – and reassure us that we have good safeguards even as we use a Japanese tragedy to identify & fix blind spots. Again, even a tragic abject failure, will point to future success … unless we make the decision to give up. And it would be a decision, not an inevitability. But the traditional American Spirit is to learn from mistakes, and try again better than ever. That traditional spirit, I would argue, is what made America a superpower, and can keep America a superpower.

Going Forward

A Japanese success at any level should point irretrievably to one conclusion: nuclear power is safe, and the USA needs more of it to take the load off of petroleum-based electricity generation. The level of Japan’s success merely indicates to what extent we should modify engineering & procedures in the USA’s new-build nuclear plants. Many of these lessons can be retrofitted to existing plants as well – and certainly, procedural changes are relatively easy to determine, equip for, train, and exercise.

Stimulus

We should watch closely, how Japan does. We can do as well – better, even, with the benefit of learning their current lessons. With thusly enhanced confidence, we need to build more nuclear power plants NOW in order to soon reduce the cost of imports and to immediately generate real jobs from blue-color to clerical to engineering & science – now that’d be a real stimulus.

Heroes

Japan is showing us heroes. We can hope to have a hand in helping them, with our navy offshore and air force personnel at Japanese bases. But right now, it is Japan’s own nuclear power heroes we should look to: the scientists who discover, the engineers who design, the builders who construct, and the technicians who operate & troubleshoot – these are heroes. These heroes, and their international counterparts, provide entire communities – whole parts of nations – with inexpensive, safe electricity. When things go horribly wrong, they are still heroes – maybe more so. The scientists, engineers, & builders who foresaw safeguards and backup systems & procedures – they are heroes before-the fact. The technicians and emergency responders who calm problems with standard procedures – they are heroes of today. All these are heroes for their meticulous attention to detail, and for their astute assessments of the myriad cause & effect relationships in nuclear physics. And when the worst imaginable and highly improbable disaster strikes, as in Japan in March 2011, we focus on all those individuals through the specific actions of Japan’s heroes who have been adapting to the unexpected, and overcoming significant problems with little ‘standard procedure’ left available to them in a country felled to its knees by Mother Nature’s forces – forces that are so much more powerful than mankind can conceive. These nuclear power heroes tamed the atom in breezy, sunny days; they are keeping the spooked atom on its leash in an earth-shaking, drenching tempest – and all at a time when expected Japanese national support infrastructure has been wiped out. These nuclear power individuals, fighting to keep Adam Atom on the leash and return him to providing inexpensive electricity to millions – they are heroes. We should herald them, and their concept-proving efforts, as the dawn of a bright new nuclear age. They are proving that nuclear energy technology is indeed safe & manageable. No matter what nature throws at them, they are proving they are nuclear heroes. How could we dare to join the naysaying betrayers, who would have us pull back from a bright future of safe & inexpensive energy? It is far nobler, and far more prudent, to learn lessons for even further improvement, and stand with nuclear energy heroes. Japan’s experience, and Japanese technicians’ efforts in this nuclear meltdown crisis, should reassure us that nuclear power, however different, is as clean & safe as any other energy. We should stand with these heroes, and build a new age of prosperity with ever more safe & inexpensive nuclear energy.


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Paul Pekarek -- Bio and Archives

Paul Pekarek is a retired U.S. Air Force officer who has also spent 35 years studying science, geography, politics, economics, religions, military affairs, security, adult education, spaceflight, and history.  His professional career has included intercontinental ballistic missiles, mapmaking, adult education, foreign military sales, satellites, remote sensing, nuclear warfare, leadership, and technical intelligence.  He is currently a Freelance Writer and Independent Consultant living with his family in Minnesota.


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