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The China Syndrome or why we should learn to love the atom


How did we get here?

The OPEC oil crisis of the 70’s shocked the United States and the world, as cheap reliable oil suddenly became an economic and sovereign security problem. The consortium of oil-producing countries, which had formed in 1960 under the name OPEC, cut exports in 1973 to western countries who had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Countries like the USA, Great Britain, and Japan who had all relied on cheap oil to support their economic worlds, were left vulnerable as these Arab oil-producing nations leveraged their commodity influence, resulting in a four-fold increase in prices. The oil embargo of “73–74”, which produced high prices and gas station rationing, put the world on notice that reliable energy was no longer a given. This made energy, not only an economic issue, but one of sovereign security. The inevitable result was an increased domestic production from the United States as well as the UK. Multi-national energy producers now found previous expensive oil and gas reserves as viable under the new pricing regime. Energy companies were able to extract offshore drilling sites in the North Sea for Brent, crude oil exploration in Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, and as well as the Alaska oilfields. This was seen as a way of owning production, reducing reliance on the Middle East, and another engine of economic prosperity. However countries that owned little reserves of fossil fuels like Japan, France and South Korea, still remained vulnerable by importing most of their coal, oil and gas.


Harness the power of wind, water and the atom

The increasing demand worldwide for energy with the rising prices may have been the catalyst for alternative sources of energy and the first real movement towards “green energy”. The 1970s also brought the first realization that pollution and smog from coal and oil was not a sustainable path. This also coincided with mankind’s ability to “tame the atom” to harness energy. The future seemed to be bright for nuclear energy as the long-term solution for affordable and self-reliant energy. Technology finally seemed to provide "the magic bullet" to cheap and reliable energy through nuclear fission.


It’s Cold out there

The 1970s was the height of the cold war between the west and the communist regimes of the Soviet Union and China. The proliferation of nuclear warheads increased dramatically leading to the principle of “assured mutual destruction”. The advance of nuclear technology also brought the increased use of nuclear fission as a power source across the US, Europe, and the East.* France and the United States initiated nuclear programs for energy diversification while the Soviet Union and China embraced this energy as a source to keep the lights from going off.


The Future Derailed

In 1979 a film called the China Syndrome debuted in the United States starring Michael Douglas, Jack lemon, and Jane Fonda. The fictional movie focused on a nuclear power plant outside of Los Angeles that overheated causing the nuclear core to melt. The plot consisted of the belief that radioactive plutonium would melt through the core of the surface of the plant, leak through the earth's globe and come out to the other side of the world in China, therefore the name "China Syndrome". This idea of wholesale destruction, which looking back seems more akin to the popular disaster movies of the ’70s like “Earthquake” and “Towering Inferno”, never really articulates the risks and reality of nuclear energy. Arguably, this left an impression on the minds of people for decades and more importantly environmentalists and activists who linked nuclear power with contamination and destruction. Adding to this consciousness, twelve days after the movies debut and surely adding some free press, a small leak of radioactivity matter was released at nuclear plant Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. In 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in the Soviet Union brought the reality of mass casualties from a nuclear accident. A tsunami in the Pacific in 2011 that struck the coast of Japan caused contaminated fuel to leak from The Fukushima nuclear plant. This seemed to cement the idea that nuclear energy wasn’t worth the risk. As the chart above shows, nuclear energy production peaked 20 years ago and has remained flat even as worldwide energy demand has increased. Alarmingly, 90pct of all US reactors were will built between 1970-1990, with many being decommissioned or soon to be.

Could the human race control nuclear fission as an energy source without wrecking the planet or having a devastative war? Nuclear energy's future seems to hang in balance as nuclear energy has decreased by half over the last twenty years of worldwide electricity production. This leads us to ask , are the risks genuinely assessed? More importantly are the rewards of clean energy not being properly calculated?


Carbon Footprint

When we discuss the term carbon footprint, it means how much carbon is released into the atmosphere from extracting, producing, shipping and the use of a energy source. All these points along the process should also be considered when assessing the risk of fatalities.


Given the chart above, when we account for accidents as well as death from air pollution, the risk-reward ratio doesn't correlate with our collective thoughts on power sources. What stands out is that hydro and nuclear provide the greenest and lowest carbon option of energy. It should be added that while the sun, wind and water don't always shine, blow, and flow, nuclear energy remains reliable. Isn't this the goal of society in 2022 when it comes to understanding energy and the health of the planet? This leaves us with the question of why are we dismissing nuclear energy and what does it's future look like?


Hanging Around

The longer an idea, a collective, or technology sticks around, the more likely it will exist in the future. This is known as the "Lindy Effect" and is an important concept in how we adopt and accept ideas or technologies. We have been capable of harnessing nuclear fusion for 70 years, which according to the “Lindy Effect” should be a viable technology for the next 140 years. The Lindy Effect states that technology or an idea tends to exist twice as long as its existence. So does this mean nuclear fission is here to stay and what does that mean for nuclear fusion which has been around for 4.5 billion years powering the sun? Given this principle, nuclear energy will be part of the future and only time, money and effort will dictate when it becomes more prevalent.


Fusion or Fission HUH?

Simply put, fission is splitting of an atom

(a heavier element like uranium and plutonium) and harnessing the energy in what we know as nuclear fission. It has survived all the negative issues and still remains a source of energy across the globe. It remains the prime source of power in France and has also been a mainstay for the US Navy, as they have safely harnessed nuclear fission for ships and submarines. Unfortunately, the by-product of splitting atoms is radioactive waste which is toxic to all life. It’s arguable that this radioactive waste can be contained and controlled because the total of all the waste so far produced since 1950 could be contained roughly in the size of an Olympic pool. The spent elements from fission are highly radioactive and can be dangerous to life in the air, land, or water. This ,and the promise of abundant elements, are key reasons why researchers are still working so diligently and quietly on nuclear fusion as the next great source of energy. Fusion is the combining or smashing together of atoms, as opposed to splitting them which is done with fission, which creates heat and thus energy. Nuclear fusion uses lighter elements like hydrogen and helium, which means the source can be harvested from sea water, unlike the heavier elements that need to be mined. Does fusion work? If you look up in the sky, there is a great ball of helium fusion sending heat and energy towards us every day. So where are we when it comes to nuclear fusion? The joke among nuclear physicists is that "fusion is almost ready in 30 years". The problem of fusion lies in the energy input being higher than the output, making fusion a non-viable source of energy at the moment. However there are projects in France** and in the US, spun out of MIT Labs***, continuing to work on the problems to make fusion a viable energy source. Once built, the promise of abundant, cheap, reliable and a non-toxic energy sources would render carbon-based energy like oil, coal, and gas as less critical.


The promise of Green Energy

Remedies on how to remove or curtail man-made carbon released into the atmosphere have been a hotly debated issue. Ironically, the one source that may be the least carbon-intensive and dependable, goes largely ignored. Even more confusing is the lack of funding for nuclear technologies while wind, solar and carbon capture enjoy increased funding. Why have we not built more fission reactors while funding and waiting for advances in fusion reactors? Perhaps it’s the large initial cost of building a reactor, the insurance cost or the inevitable “not in my backyard”, which turns out to be a political hot potato. There might be a fear that enriched uranium or plutonium could be weaponized and fall into the wrong hands. The biggest obstacle to the greater use of nuclear energy most likely is the terrible public relations and marketing in explaining the green benefits, while soberly addressing the risks involved.


At the very least, there should be more conversations on the topic between scientists, politicians and the public. Or perhaps, the industry which has demonized for the past 40 years, just needs rebranding.

With this in mind, I submit for consideration, a new marketing campaign: “Green and Carbon Free Fission and Fusion”.


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