The case of the Atomic Energy Commission and the civilian nuclear-power industry of the late 1960s-1970s

The case of the Atomic Energy Commission and the civilian nuclear-power industry of the late 1960s-1970s

In the shadow of destruction from the atomic bombs dropped in Japan, many nuclear scientists were desperate to show the good nuclear energy could provide the world. Scientific guilt over creation of these destructive mega-weapons led scientists to look toward a brighter use of nuclear energy. A projected energy crisis and increase in environmental awareness combined with the nuclear scientists dreams of atomic benefits to create a positive atmosphere for the development of nuclear power. Grandiose projections of inexhaustible fuel and inexpensive energy helped make the public more optimistic about atomic power and counteracted the anxiety of harm and destruction of nuclear weapons. According to Allan Winkler in Life under a cloud “in the years following WWII, the [Atomic Energy Commission] kept [the vision of the almost limitless benefits of atomic energy] squarely before the public. In school, children were taught about “glorious future possibilities” made possible by nuclear science, and adults were spoon-fed the atomic energy dreams of the future through the media.
Once Dwight Eisenhower took presidency, real progress was made towards promoting atomic power. In 1954, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 was amended, making the AEC responsible for both regulation and promotion of the private development of nuclear power. This was part of Eisenhower’s “Atom’s for Peace initiative”. Soon after, a nuclear submarine was successfully launched, and the nation’s first nuclear plant quickly followed. Slow but steady progress was made in the late 1950’s, but the early 1960’s brought new challenges. The promised progress and elaborate dreams of the atomic future weren’t delivered as quickly as the public had expected, and the race to space stole much of the scientific limelight from nuclear power. Without as fervent support and interest, the advancement of atomic power was all but halted.
Private industry investment in atomic energy suddenly increased in the mid and late 1960’s. Samuel Walker in A Nuclear Crisis In Historical Perspective: Three Mile Island explains that this rapid surge in growth of the nuclear power industry was a result of intense competition between reactor builders, a widening network of interconnections among utilities, and plans for bigger plants which would reduce capital cost by improving efficiency. More and bigger plant orders came in throughout the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, but by 1974, the nuclear industry was in a dramatic slump that was brought on by controversy over power plants, inflation, and a severely misjudged energy crisis.
The late 1960’s – 1970’s was a complex time for nuclear power. During the surge of the private nuclear power industry of the 1960’s an anti-nuclear movement emerged, creating debate over the risks of nuclear power plants. However, proponents were convinced the benefits outweighed any risks.
As discussed previously, nuclear power started as a dream for a better future. Sharply contrasting the destruction of a nuclear bomb, nuclear power plants were going to make life easier and better for the entire world. Proponents of nuclear power claimed nuclear power had less pollution than fossil fuel sources of power; it was cheaper; it would make us self-reliant for energy.

The nuclear controversy was highly intense, involving technical and moral issues. While this debate occurred amongst the public and industry, it also occurred within the AEC. There was over-promotion from the nuclear proponents and over-regulation from the critics, causing turmoil within the group of experts that should have been more cohesive on their position and goals for progression of nuclear technology.
The anti-nuclear arguments included: thermal pollution, low levels of radiation released during normal operation, radioactive waste produced, and the possibility of a reactor accident. Also, critics argued that nuclear power plants could be potential terrorist targets. Lastly, there were other forms of energy available to invest in, like solar, geothermal, and wind energy.
Excess heat created from nuclear power plants was released into the environment. The very first argument against nuclear energy was that this excess heat would negatively impact the environment as it changed the ecosystem with so much excessive heat. This issue was resolved when cooling systems were created to cool the heated water before it could be released into nearby streams.
A very important anti-nuclear argument was the low level of radiation released everyday during normal operation. Proponents of nuclear power claimed that the radiation release was so low there was no chance of any public or environmental safety risk. However, Dr. John Gofman claimed that the low-level radiation was more harmful than scientists were taking into account, and could in fact cause serious cancer risks. The AEC treated Gofman’s research as unscientific and disregarded his findings. In 1954 the AEC was given the task of regulation as well as promotion, and the disregard of possible risks seems also to be a disregard of the important role in regulation of safety.
Radioactive waste was produced in addition to the low-level normal operation radiation release. This waste would last for hundreds of thousands of years, and there was no proactive plan for how to deal with it. Nuclear power critics argued that nuclear scientists should first address the issue of waste before committing the public to waste from hundreds of nuclear power plants across the country. However, proponents argued that they were figuring out how to solve the waste problem, and halting the industry’s progress until a solution was found would actually be more harmful.
Possibilities of reactor accidents created huge concerns for the anti-nuclear position, while the pro nuclear side almost disregarded them completely. The critics were concerned about accidents in many different ways: human errors, technical malfunctions, and unforeseeable disasters. Nuclear power plants were being built quicker than there was time to appropriately train the operators.
Operator was a huge concern because the scientists and engineers had quickly jumped from developing small self-powering plants as demonstration to developing power plants that were enormously larger. To address the issue of risk of human error, the pro-nuclear scientists claimed the plants had so many fail safe mechanisms that it was impossible for human error to lead to a disaster. So in the face of critics that were simply asking the industry to slow down and provide better training, the pro-nuclear scientists preferred to believe their technology was infallible to human error.
The possibility of technical malfunctions was another hot-button issue between the anti and pro nuclear sides. While critics claimed the technology was too new for such a large expansion and that there could be technical malfunctions that would cause an accident, the pro-nuclear side again claimed infallibility in their technology. According to the pro-nuclear scientists there were so many safeguards, that the risk of an accident was nearly impossible and not worth discussion. For example, in several cases a small technical malfunction occurred causing a small loss of coolant. Reports describing the operator error and the potential for accidents with small leaks were submitted starting in 1975. Despite these reports, the nuclear regulatory commission, which was created in 1974 with a bill that split the responsibilities of promotion and regulation of nuclear power into two separate agencies, did not act to solve the problem and prevent accidents, relying on their faith in safeguards. Redundant safety measures, the nuclear scientists argued, would prevent any technical malfunction from causing an accident.
The last cause of accidents that critics of nuclear energy feared was the chance of unforeseeable disasters that could somehow disrupt the reactor and cause an accident, for example, an earthquake. The pro-nuclear scientists had a quick answer to this: with reasonable precautions a reactor would not be built where a disaster of such sort would be likely. Thus, the chances of an accident due to an unforeseeable disaster would be so nearly impossible that halting the progression of the technology to address such issues would harm the industry much more than it would provide any additional safety.
Even with such sure-fire faith in their technology, pro-nuclear scientists could not pretend that the risk of accident or disaster was zero. Studies were done to assess what the maximal cost-risk there would be with a reactor disaster. These studies, the WASH-700 and WASH-1400, suggested that there would be approximately only around three thousand immediate deaths and only forty-five thousand serious radiation-related illnesses. Of course, this was not including any potential lasting effects from low levels of radiation from the fallout like cancer development. According to the AEC the redundant safety mechanisms built into the plants made a disaster so unlikely that even the possible worst-case scenario was worth the risk.
Critics also argued that the nuclear power plants could become terrorist targets. Scientists projected that plutonium would be used in reactors more and more, and it was a concern that if terrorists were able to get enough plutonium they would have the ability to create an atomic bomb. However, many pro-nuclear scientists disregarded this concern as unlikely. There had not been a terrorist attack on American soil at this point in time, and it seemed far-fetched that protecting the material in the reactor was really a great threat. Also, plutonium was not being widely used at that time, so the worry of plutonium falling into the wrong hands was not immediately realistic.
Lastly, critics argued that there were other forms of renewable and eco-friendly energy that could be invested in instead of nuclear energy. Many environmentalists urged scientists and power industry companies to invest in solar, wind, and geothermal technology, claiming that only investing in nuclear power would hinder those other technologies from developing. These other options for energy would be better for future generations as they did not present the inherent risk of disaster that nuclear power presented, and also these options did not produce the hazardous waste for future generation to deal with. Despite these arguments, nuclear proponents claimed that nuclear power was essential and alternative sources could not and should not replace nuclear power, and nuclear power remained at the forefront of fossil fuel alternative energy investment.

On March 28th, 1979 a hardware malfunction initiated what was to be the largest accident that had yet occurred in nuclear power history. A small loss of coolant was reported to the control room at the nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island. Lacking proper training on how to handle the situation, the operators made a fateful mistake, compounding the issue. The combination of technical malfunction and human error resulted in a partial meltdown of the reactor core. Full catastrophic meltdown was avoided with less than an hour to spare.
The official version of the incident at TMI was that a full-meltdown was averted, there were no immediate deaths, and thanks to the knowledge gained from this, new operating procedures, improved control room design, upgraded inspection and enforcement programs, and upgraded technical training of the operators were going to be developed and enforced.
However, there were serious mistakes that occurred while trying to stop the meltdown. Primarily, the regulatory agencies had been made aware that this small loss of coolant accident was possible and the technical malfunction had occurred before in similar plants, however nothing was done. Secondly, the regulatory agencies had also been made aware that the training of operators was lacking and especially lacking in the area of small loss of coolant accidents. The proponents of nuclear power believed that despite human error or technical malfunction, safeguards would prevent an accident. In this instance, the safeguards could not account for both a technical malfunction and operator error. Training was so lacking in operators and communication to those who had the knowledge to help was so inadequate there was almost a catastrophe.
The accident at Three Mile Island was a culmination of just some of the heated issues between nuclear critics and nuclear proponents. The NRC was forced to acknowledge that serious accidents were possible and there had been some serious overlooks in the safety precautions necessary for such a high-risk technology. Unfortunately, after this accident occurred the disaster at Chernobyl happened, and public support for nuclear power practically plummetted. A long-lasting debate of risks and benefits was finally grinding to a halt and the overwhelming majority of public, government officials, and industry leaders were against the pro-nuclear scientists. The financial cost and possible safety risks were just simply not worth the benefits. Especially since the incredible possibilities of the “atomic future” had not been delivered to the public as quickly as everyone had hoped.

In my opinion General Bradley put it best when he said: “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.” There is not an inherent evil in nuclear power, but in the late 1960’s – 1970’s the development of the technology of nuclear power was driven by an unreasonable optimism with disregard for risk, which led to many mistakes. These mistakes put innocent lives at risk and ultimately led to the downfall of the “atomic age”. Pro-nuclear scientists allowed the promising technology of nuclear power to be run by politics and industry business goals, and they disregarded their moral obligation to value the hazards of such a technology.
The debate over nuclear power was both a moral and technical one. Despite limited operating experience and scientific evidence, nuclear scientists allowed their optimism for the technology to overshadow their clear responsibility to consider their moral and ethical obligations as scientists. Creators of a technology have an unmistakable duty to ensure that their creation does not harm people. The simple fact that thousands of possible deaths and tens of thousands of possible immediate sicknesses would be an acceptable risk for the benefit of the technology is unbelievable. Those possible deaths and illnesses were not even worth the scientists taking the time to address malfunctioning technology or deficiencies in operator training. Clearly, in that situation, any and all issues reported to the regulatory agencies should have been dealt with immediately. Not only for the good of the people but also for the good of the science.
I also feel that it was immoral for the pro-nuclear scientists to assume that hazardous nuclear waste from hundreds of nuclear power plants was an acceptable problem for the future generations to deal with. Without appropriate knowledge on how the problem could ever be solved, the proponents of nuclear power made another cost benefit analysis and decided that they wanted to benefit now and the future could deal with the cost.
The rush into developing the technology for commercial use and the grandiose promotion of an atomic future by the scientists, led to unfortunate consequences for the entire nuclear energy industry and the world. Had the scientists taken the necessary time to address the issues raised, the promising technology of nuclear energy may have become successfully beneficial for the world and the future.