Well I’m not uptight, Not unattracted, Turn me on tonight, Cause I’m radioactive, Radioactive.

Radioactive - The Firm

This recent article covers the pros and cons of nuclear power, and summarizes the Obama and McCain positions:

Nuclear electricity: Alternating between hope and fear

Prospects of irreducible excess demand in long-term hydrocarbon markets; climate change, which threatens carbon-fired facilities with increasingly harsh financial penalties; and slow expansion in the use of renewable energy are turning fission-based electricity into the default choice — big time. According to the International Energy Agency, the world may need 1,300 new atomic power-generating units by 2050 (over four times more than currently planned and proposed) to avoid severe energy shortfalls, to keep the ever-faster growing number of light bulbs burning.

Intentions are grandiose but you cannot take the “renaissance of nuclear energy” to the bank just yet. OECD countries, which account for nearly four-fifths of globally operating reactors, are mired in an apparent schizophrenia over the issue. While France, Canada, Japan, and the U.S. are working on reactor modernization and indulge in daring plans about cross-border fuel cycles, Chancellor Angela Merkel (an accomplished physicist) wants to end nuclear power in Germany, once and for all. Belgium also sees its energy future in wind farms and solar panels. Some countries (e.g., Finland, France, and Slovakia) are actually building reactors; others plan or intend to do so, and some (e.g., Australia and New Zealand) neither plan nor intend to go down the nuclear path. Italy recognizes the need for and is willing to invest in reactors as long as they are somewhere else (e.g. Slovakia).

So where does Obama stand?

In strong relief with the Republican ticket’s nuclear gung-ho, Democratic Presidential Candidate Obama is rather reserved. Although his energy plans do not rule out reactor-building in principle, he is visibly concerned about safety and would prefer to go in the direction of solar and wind energy in a concentrated private-public national effort reminiscent in some ways of the Manhattan Project.

Whereas Senator McCain appears to be “French” in his outlook on nuclear energy, Senator Obama comes across as “German” — that is, he leans forcefully toward wind and solar sources, leaving atomic energy in an extinction-bound limbo.

The difference is significant but ought not to be overstated.

An Obama victory would not stop the powerful U.S. nuclear industry from pressing its case and McCain wants a national debate on his program with no assurance of clear win. The anti-nuclear movement is strong, well-organized, and legally savvy in the United States.

Nonetheless, with 24 percent (104 out of 439) of the planet’s reactor fleet under U.S. flag, and keeping in mind the still significant role the United States plays in world affairs, the upcoming electoral decision could change the angle of the rudder that determines our civilization’s energy course.

What do we have to look forward to?

Under present technology and practices, atomic pros and cons differ in their assessments concerning the likelihood of major accidents. Theoretically, the cons win because the pros may claim that, if all goes well, the probability of a huge mishap is extremely small but they cannot say that it is zero. And therein lies the grand illusion. Given that even the tiniest chance tends to grow with broadening reliance on nuclear energy and the passage of time, increasing also the quantifiable, stupendous negative consequences of an accident, the difference between something “surely cannot happen” and “almost surely will not happen” tends to widen. Thus, in terms of stochastic credibility the opposition has the more realistic forward look.

Paradoxically, opponents to nuclear power come across as emotive and instinctual and the proponents appear as representatives of technically-informed reason, charged by history to exorcise unfounded superstitions. When the affable yet authoritative pro-nuclear physicist, full of understanding sympathy and belief in his lore, poses the question in a public debate “What scientific proof would assure you that atomic energy is safe?” the opponent knows that avoiding a straight answer is the best option.

The conflict has the appearance — but not the substance — of cerebral rationality facing off with visceral contrariness. Lopsided atom propaganda flatters itself of being a myth-buster. In truth, it is also a myth-maker and myth-taker.

Besides death and taxes you can also count on human error. It remains irradicable, particularly in the context of immense, complex systems that horn into the mystery of subatomic universe, an undefined space where the knowable mixes with the unknowable. Scientific hubris smiling at this may be reminded of what Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, said about radioactive waste in 1955. He advised that burying it 3-meters deep would render it harmless for humans (quote from Der Spiegel, 28/2008). What a genius and how wrong he was.