Going Nuclear Is Safe and Right: Michigan Professor
The disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant has all but disappeared from headlines in the U.S., but the issue over whether nuclear power is a safe and viable energy source remains a big topic of discussion worldwide and here at home — especially after the Ft. Calhoun plant in Nebraska was flooded by the Missouri River. (See: "No Way" Ft. Calhoun Turns Into American Fukushima, Nuclear Expert Says)
Germany just sealed a deal on Thursday to eliminate all nuclear power by 2022 after debating the issue for the last 30 years. The unexpected deadly disaster that hit Japan in March no doubt put the final nail in the coffin on the highly controversial energy source there.
Italy also has moved to end its nuclear power ambitions, and Switzerland is considering similar moves, Prof. William Martin of Michigan's Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences tells Aaron in the accompanying interview. However, he doesn't believe turning off nuclear power is the right thing to do.
"I just find these decisions baffling because they are making them in the absence of what really went on and is really going on at Fukushima," he says. "It seems to me a knee-jerk reaction to a very bad and very tragic accident in Japan. It is a once-in-a-life, once-in-a-thousand-year earthquake, followed by a tsunami."
He fervently believes that nuclear power is safe, especially here in the U.S.
"After 9/11, steps were taken to harden the plants against terrorist attacks ... the plants have been designed and engineered to withstand for a certain number of days a total station blackout, which is what happened in Japan," says Martin. "So I am confident that our plants have been designed and engineered ... to withstand an accident, such as Fukushima, or an accident that might be man-made."
Martin contends that nuclear power is the way of the future and that it's critical to the state of the world economy. China and India are well aware of this, he says, while the rest of the developed world argues over safety issues.
"There is no source of electricity at that scale that can provide the power that is needed to power our countries," he says. "[China and India] are two countries that have a large population that wish to improve their standard of living ... . "They are going nuclear, and it's the right thing to do."
Tell us what you think in the comments below. Do you think nuclear power is safe, or do you agree with the nations that are cutting it out of their energy plans?
