Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

The notes for Chapter 11 appear on page 361 of this pdf.Chapter ElevenNuclear PowerNuclear power reactors, which in 1980 provided about a twelfth of world anda ninth of U.S. electrical generation, suffer from the vulnerabilities alreadydescribed for central electric systems. This chapter explores the following additional,uniquely nuclear vulnerabilities of reactors and their ancillary plants: 1•their enormous radioactive inventories, which may be a focus for civil concernand unrest, 2 an instrument of coercion, 3 and a cause of devastation ifreleased by sabotage or war;• their unusual concentration of interdependent, exotic resources; and•their facilitation of the manufacture of nuclear bombs which can be used todestroy, among other things, nuclear facilities.This analysis focuses almost entirely on the first of these three vulnerabilities:how far nuclear facilities can provide an attractive target for sabotage oracts of war.The large literature on major releases of radioactivity deals almost exclusivelywith accidental releases. Although these are often claimed to be veryimprobable, 4 such analyses ignore the possibility that someone might intentionallycause a release. It is common ground, however, that the consequences of amajor release by either cause could be unprecedentedly grave. The AtomicEnergy Commission’s Director of Regulation agreed, for example, that a bandof highly trained, sophisticated terrorists could conceivably destroy a nearurbanreactor so as to cause thousands or perhaps even millions, of deaths. 5More recently, his successor in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed that“thousands of lives and billions of dollars” could be lost. 6 Because these consequencesare so great, it is important to examine more closely what nuclear ter-141