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The money trail can be tough to follow - Westinghouse, Duke Energy and the Nuclear Energy Institute (a "policy organisation" for the nuclear industry with 350 companies, including TEPCO, on its roster) did not respond to requests for information on funding research and chairs at universities. But most of the funding for nuclear research does not come directly from the nuclear lobby, said M.V. Ramana, a researcher at Princeton University specialising in the nuclear industry and climate change. Most research is funded by governments, who get donations - from the lobby (via candidates, political parties or otherwise).

“There's a lot of secrecy that can surround nuclear power because some of the same processes can be involved in generating electricity that can also be involved in developing a weapon, so there's a kind of a veil of secrecy that gets dropped over this stuff, that can also obscure the truth” said Biello. "So, for example in Fukushima, it was pretty apparent that a total meltdown had occurred just based on what they were experiencing there ... but nobody in a position of authority was willing to say that."

This is worrying because while both anti-nuclear activists and the nuclear lobby both have openly stated biases, academics and researchers are seen as the middle ground - a place to get accurate, unbiased information. David Biello, the energy and climate editor at Scientific American Online, said that trying to get clear information on a scenario such as the Daiichi disaster is tough.

"'How is this going to affect the future of nuclear power?'That’s the first thought that came into their heads," said Ramana, adding, "They basically want to ensure that people will keep constructing nuclear power plants." For instance, a May report by MIT’s Center For Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (where TEPCO funds a chair) points out that while the Daiichi disaster has resulted in "calls for cancellation of nuclear construction projects and reassessments of plant license extensions" which might "lead to a global slow-down of the nuclear enterprise," that  "the lessons to be drawn from the Fukushima accident are different."

"In the United States, a lot of the money doesn’t come directly from the nuclear industry, but actually comes from the Department of Energy (DOE). And the DOE has a very close relationship with the industry, and they sort of try to advance the industry’s interest," said Ramana. Indeed, nuclear engineering falls under the "Major Areas of Research" with the DOE, which also has nuclear weapons under its rubric. The DOE's 2012 fiscal year budge request to the US Congress for nuclear energy programmes was $755m.

"So those people who get funding from that….it’s not like they (researchers) want to lie, but there’s a certain amount of, shall we say, ideological commitment to nuclear power, as well as a certain amount of self-censorship."  It comes down to worrying how their next application for funding might be viewed, he said. Kathleen Sullivan, an anti-nuclear specialist and disarmament education consultant with the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs, said it's not surprising that research critical of the nuclear energy and weapons isn't coming out of universities and departments that participate in nuclear research and development.

"It (the influence) of the nuclear lobby could vary from institution to institution," said Sullivan. "If you look at the history of nuclear weapons manufacturing in the United States, you can see that a lot of research was influenced perverted, construed in a certain direction."

Sullivan points to the DOE-managed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California in Berkley (where some of the research for the first atomic bomb was done) as an example of how intertwined academia and government-funded nuclear science are.

"For nuclear physics to proceed, the only people interested in funding it are pro-nuclear folks, whether that be industry or government," said Biello. "So if you're involved in that area you've already got a bias in favour of that technology … if you study hammers, suddenly hammers seem to be the solution to everything."

And should they find results unfavourable to the industry, Ramana said they would "dress it up in various ways by saying 'Oh, there’s a very slim chance of this, and here are some safety measure we recommend,' and then the industry will say, 'Yeah,yeah, we’re incorporating all of that.'" Ramana, for the record, said that while he's against nuclear weapons, he doesn't have a moral position on nuclear power except to say that as a cost-benefit issue, the costs outweigh the benefits, and that "in that sense, expanding nuclear power isn't a good idea." 

The Center for Responsive Politics - a non-partisan, non-profit elections watchdog group – noted that even as many lobbying groups slowed their spending the first quarter of the year, the Nuclear industry "appears to be ratcheting up its lobbying" increasing its multi-million dollar spending.

Among the report's closing thoughts are concerns that "Decision-making in the  immediate aftermath of a major crisis is often influenced by emotion," and whether"an accident like Fukushima, which is so far beyond design basis, really warrant a major overhaul of current nuclear safety regulations and practises?" "If so," wonder the authors, "When is safe safe enough? Where do we draw the line?"

The Japanese public, it seems, would like some answers to those very questions, albeit from a different perspective.  Kazuo Hizumi, a Tokyo-based human rights lawyer, is among those pushing for openness. He is also an editor at News for the People in Japan, a news site advocating for transparency from the government and from TEPCO. With contradicting information and lack of clear coverage on safety and contamination issues, many have taken to measuring radiation levels with their own Geiger counters.

"The public fully trusted the Japanese Government," said Hizumi. But the absence of "true information" has massively diminished that trust, as, he said, has the public's faith that TEPCO would be open about the potential dangers of a nuclear accident.

A report released in July by Human Rights Now highlights the need for immediately accessible information on health and safety in areas where people have been affected by the disaster, including Fukushima, especially on the issues of contaminated food and evacuation plans.

A 'nuclear priesthood' Biello describes the nuclear industry is a relatively small, exclusive club.

The interplay between academia and also the military and industry is very tight. It's a small community...they have their little club and they can go about their business without anyone looking over their shoulder. " This might explain how, as the Associated Press reported in June, that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was "working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nationalise ageing reactors operating within standards or simply failing to enforce them."

However, with this exclusivity comes a culture of secrecy – "a nuclear priesthood," said Biello, which makes it very difficult to parse out a straightforward answer in the very technical and highly politicised field.  "You have the proponents, who believe that it is the technological salvation for our problems, whether that's energy, poverty, climate change or whatever else. And then you have opponents who think that it's literally the worst thing that ever happened and should be immediately shut back up in a box and buried somewhere," said Biello, who includes "professors of nuclear engineering and Greenpeace activists" as passionate opponents on the nuclear subject.

In fact, one is hard pressed to find a media report quoting a nuclear scientist at any major university sounding the alarms on the risks of contamination in Fukushima. Doing so has largely been the work of anti-nuclear activists (who have an admitted bias against the technology) and independent scientists employed by think tanks, few of whom responded to requests for interviews.

So, one's best bet, said Biello, is to try and "triangulate the truth" - to take "a dose" from anti-nuclear activists, another from pro-nuclear lobbyists and throw that in with a little bit of engineering and that'll get you closer to the truth. "Take what everybody is saying with a grain of salt."

Since World War II, the process of secrecy – the readiness to invoke "national security" - has been a pillar of the nuclear establishment…that establishment, acting on the false assumption that "secrets" can be hidden from the curious and knowledgeable, has successfully insisted that there are answers which cannot be given and even questions which cannot be asked. The net effect is to stifle debate about the fundamental of nuclear policy. Concerned citizens dare not ask certain questions, and many begin to feel that these matters which only a few initiated experts are entitled to discuss.  If the above sounds like a post-Fukushima statement, it is not. It was written by Howard Morland for the November 1979 issue of The Progressive magazine focusing on the hydrogen bomb as well as the risks of nuclear energy.

The US government - citing national security concerns - took the magazine to court in order to prevent the issue from being published, but ultimately relented during the appeals process when it became clear that the information The Progressive wanted to publish was already public knowledge and that pursuing the ban might put the court in the position of deeming the Atomic Energy Act as counter to First Amendment rights (freedom of speech) and therefore unconstitutional in its use of prior restraint to censor the press.

But, of course, that's in the US, although a similar mechanism is at work in Japan, where a recently created task force aims to "cleanse" the media of reportage that casts an unfavourable light on the nuclear industry (they refer to this information as "inaccurate" or a result of "mischief." The government has even go so far as to accept bids from companies that specialise in scouring the Internet to monitor the Internet for reports, Tweets and blogs that are critical of its handling of the Daiichi disaster, which has presented a unique challenge to the lobby there.

"They do not know how to do it," he said of some of the community groups and individuals who have taken to measure contamination levels in the air, soil and food

 Japan's government has a history of slow response to TEPCO's cover-ups. In 1989, that Kei Sugaoka, a nuclear energy at General Electric who inspected and repaired plants in Japan and elsewhere, said he spotted cracks in steam dryers and a "misplacement" or 180 degrees in one dryer unit. He noticed that the position of the dryer was later omitted from the inspection record's data sheet. Sugaoka told a Japanese networkthat TEPCO had instructed him to "erase" the flaws, but he ultimately wrote a whistleblowing letter to METI, which resulted in the temporary 17 TEPCO reactors, including ones at the plant in Fukushima.

the Japanese nuclear lobby has been quite active in shaping how people see nuclear energy. The country's Ministry of Education, together with the Natural Resources Ministry (of of two agencies under Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry - METI - overseeing nuclear policies) even provides schools with a nuclear energy information curriculum. These worksheets - or education supplements - are used to inform children about the benefits of nuclear energy over fossil fuels.

There’s reason to believe that at least in one respect, Fukushima can’t and won’t be another Chernobyl, at least due to the fact that the former has occurred in the age of the Internet whereas the latter took place in the considerably quaint 80s, when a car phone the size of a brick was considered the height of communications technology to most. "It (a successful cover up) is definitely a danger in terms of Fukushima, and we'll see what happens. All you have to do is look at the first couple of weeks after Chernobyl to see the kind of cover up," said Biello. "I mean the Soviet Union didn't even admit that anything was happening for a while, even though everybody was noticing these radiation spikes and all these other problems. The Soviet Union was not admitting that they were experiencing this catastrophic nuclear failure... in Japan, there's a consistent desire, or kind of a habit, of downplaying these accidents, when they happen. It's not as bad as it may seem, we haven't had a full meltdown."

Fast forward to 2011, when video clips of each puff of smoke out of the Daiichi plant make it around the world in seconds, news updates are available around the clock, activists post radiation readings on maps in multiple languages and Google Translate picks up the slack in translating every last Tweet on the subject coming out of Japan.

it will be a heck of a lot harder to keep a lid on things than it was 25 years ago. 

Llewelyn King, who hosts “White House Chronicle” on PBS television, and was the summit’s moderator, asked a panel titled “Lessons from Fukushima” whether its four members considered “Fukushima a speed bump, Armageddon or something in between” for the nuclear industry.

William Tucker, author of Terrestrial Energy stressed that nuclear power is needed to provide carbon-free energy to counter global warming, and thus despite the Fukushima situation will do well.

A featured speaker at the event held June 21 and 22 was William D. Magwood IV, a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Although the commission is supposed to regulate the industry without a pro-nuclear bias, Magwood is a staunch advocate of nuclear power. Indeed, at a similar but pre-Fukushima nuclear summit at Idaho National Laboratory in December, Magwood, then head of the Office of Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, bemoaned that “we in the United States have not seen…a new successful nuclear power plant project, since 1973 and our research, industrial and educational bases have eroded dramatically in the last decade.”

Other members of the council include the nuclear industry trade group Nuclear Energy Institute;  Babcock & Wilcox, manufacturer of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant that  underwent a partial meltdown in 1979; Duke Energy, a U.S. utility long a booster of nuclear power; the Tennessee Valley Authority, a U.S. government-created public power company heavily committed to nuclear power; Uranium Producers of America; and AREVA, the French government-financed nuclear power company that has been moving to expand into the U.S. and worldwide

The Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy was organized by the U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council. Council members include General Electric, the manufacturer of the Fukushima nuclear power plants and, since 2006, in partnership in its nuclear plant business with the Japanese corporation Hitachi

He praised the “new general nuclear technology”—much of which is being developed at the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory—at that December 7 meeting called the New Millennium Nuclear Energy Summit

A running point at the summit was the need to “educate the public” about the benefits of nuclear power despite Fukushima

There was also much complaining about a series of Associated Press articles on nuclear power by investigative reporter Jeff Dunn that started running a day before the summit began. On June 20, the AP series of expose’s launched with an article about how “federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation’s aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards

Other speakers at the summit included: John Kelly, an Obama administration Department of Energy deputy assistant for nuclear reactor technologies; Matthew Milazzo representing an entity called the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future set up by the Obama administration; and Congressman Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, chairman of the House Energy & Power Subcommittee, a leading nuclear power backer in Congress

In addition to “Lessons from Fukushima,” there were panels on “China, India & Emerging Global Nuclear Markets,” “Advancing Nuclear Technology” and “State of the Renaissance,”

In addition to the petition for education, Gary Kahanak, of Arkansas Home Energy Consultants, released another one in support of restarting the Integral Fast Reactor program. This petition was inspired by an open letter to the White House with the same goal, written by Steve Kirsch, of the Science Council for Global Initiatives. The petition states:

Without delay, the U.S. should build a commercial-scale demonstration reactor and adjacent recycling center. General Electric’s PRISM reactor, developed by a consortium of major American companies in partnership with the Argonne National Laboratory, is ready to build now. It is designed to consume existing nuclear waste as fuel, be passively safe and proliferation-resistant. It can provide clean, emissions-free power to counter climate change, and will create jobs as we manufacture and export a superior technology. Abundant homegrown nuclear power will also enhance our nation’s energy security. Our country dedicated some of its finest scientific and engineering talent to this program, with spectacular success. Let’s finish the job we started. It will benefit our nation, and the world.

This brings me to my second reason for supporting these petitions: They represent a genuine change in approach for supporting nuclear energy. Throughout the history of commercial nuclear power generation, most of the decisions and support have come directly from government and corporate entities. This has resulted in a great deal of public mistrust and even distain for nuclear technologies. A grassroots approach may not translate directly into research dollars or policy change, but it has to the potential to win hearts and minds, which is also extremely important.

There has been some debate among my colleagues about the value of this approach. Some were concerned about the specific language or content of the petitions, while others did not feel comfortable signing something in support of a particular reactor that is not their preferred technology. Others have voiced that even if we get 5,000 signatures, the White House response will not have any impact on policy. While I understand and respect those points, I want to share why I decided to sign both petitions and to write about them here.

Those of us in the nuclear communications community ask ourselves constantly, “How do we inspire people to get involved and speak out in support of nuclear?” I see these petitions as a sign of success on the part of the nuclear community—we are reaching out and inspiring action from the ground up. Nuclear supporters who are not directly employed by the industry created both of these petitions. In my mind, that is a really wonderful thing. Members of the public are taking independent action to support the technology they believe in.

The release of these petitions was just in time to beat an increased threshold for minimum signatures, from 5,000 to 25,000. That means that if half of ANS members take the time to sign these petitions, we will get a formal response from the White House about their plans for increasing public education on nuclear energy, and moving forward with an important Generation IV technology.

And finally, there is power in symbolic action

The other thing I hate about nuclear energy is that most of pro-nuclear advocates are against renewable energy. That is not compatible with my point of view, making this a very efficient wedge issue for the anti-nuclear forces to exploit. Since most of the pro-nuclear advocates insist on bashing renewable energy, that point puts me out of the pro-nuclear advocacy business. For example, I regard the “Atomic Insights” blog by Rod Adams as hostile territory right now, and I am done writing any comments there for the time being.

So where does that leave me? I don’t exactly know yet. There are a couple of things that are clear already, however. One is that if anybody asks me to choose between nuclear and renewable, I will always choose the latter. That makes any form of pro-nuclear advocacy based on bashing renewable energy quite unacceptable to me. The other is that I am not quite joining the anti-nuclear advocates yet. I still think nuclear is needed as the most effective tool in the box against global warming. But my enthusiasm for advocating for that particular solution went down a couple of notches, so I will probably just focus more on discussing renewable energy issues.

For example, many of you have probably seen or read the Associated Press hit piece on the effort by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry to address the issue of aging nuclear power stations

The encouraging thing about that response is that it happened on the SAME DAY as the AP report was released. After Dan published his report, he notified the world via Twitter that the post was up. I have already had the opportunity to retweet his announcement and to share his link in a conversation related to a Huffington Post article titled U.S. Nuclear Regulators Weaken Safety Rules, Fail To Enforce Them: AP Investigation and in a conversation on Joe Romm’s Climate Progress titled AP Bombshell: U.S. Nuclear Regulators “Repeatedly” Weaken Safety Rules or are “Simply Failing to Enforce Them”.Think about that – it has been just 24 hours since the AP story hit the wires, yet nuclear professionals are already sharing a completely different side of the story without the filter of someone else deciding what is important.

However, the AP reporter, most likely someone who has never worked on an old car or repaired an old submarine, took a lot of stories out of context. He added a number of scary sounding inferences about the relationship between the regulators and the regulated. In response to the story, Dan Yurman, who blogs at Idaho Samizdat and was a professional journalist before he became a nuclear professional, reached out for real expertise.

He interviewed Dr. John Bickel, a man who has about 39 years worth of professional experience in plant aging, defense in depth and other safety related issues. You can read Dan’s excellent article at Associated Press Nukes the NRC on Reactor Safety.

It should be no secret to anyone that the average age of nuclear power plants in the US increases by almost exactly one year with every passing year. We are only officially building one plant right now, with four more that will enter that category as soon as the NRC issues the construction and operating licenses. It is also no secret that the NRC and the industry have been working hard to address aging as part of the effort to relicense plants for an additional 20 years, a process that is complete for more than 60 plants so far.

Another thing that is different about the fight over using atomic energy now, compared to the fight that happened in the late 1960s through the 1990s is that the opposition has a much less capable base of leaders. In the previous phase of the battle, the antinuclear movement grew out of a morally understandable effort to stop testing nuclear weapons in the earth’s atmosphere.

That effort was inspired by real world events like showering a Japanese fishing vessel with lethal doses of fallout from an ill-timed test in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It was led by some of the world’s most renowned atomic scientists, many of whom bore a deep moral guilt for their wartime efforts to build the Bomb in the first place.

When that effort succeeded in convincing the US, the UK and Russia to agree to stop atmospheric testing in 1963, some of the organizations that had been formed to do the heavy lifting saw substantial decreases in membership and contributions. After all, they could have easily hung up a large banner saying “Mission Accomplished” and closed up shop. Some did just that. Some persisted for a while with a variety of related issues like fighting against antiballistic missile installations and medium range rockets.

The groups organized against nuclear energy today are no longer led by world renowned scientists, though they do have some media celebrities with spotty professional histories and puffed up resumes. In many cases, they are grayer than I am and less well versed in the techniques of modern communications. Their fellow travelers on blogs and message boards routinely expose their own ignorance and sometimes their near illiteracy.

In contrast to the past, many of the renowned nuclear scientists and engineers in the profession today have no guilt at all. They did not participate in developing fearful weapons of mass destruction. Instead, they have spent their lives participating in an enterprise that provides massive quantities of emission free, low cost power to the people of the world. Seasoned professionals like Ted Rockwell, Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin and Gail Marcus are out there blogging away and telling people what they know to be true about nuclear energy.

Enthusiastic younger people like Kirk Sorensen, Jack Gamble, and Suzy Hobbs are sharing optimistic visions for the future and explaining why they have chosen to support nuclear energy development, often in the face of numerous friends who disagree

I am encouraged. Atomic energy is alive and well; there is nothing that humans can do to eliminate its existence. We are entering a golden age of nuclear energy where facts and reality will overcome fictional tall tales spun by folks like Arnie Gundersen or Paul Blanche.

However, the city remained at the heart of Washington's drive to directly intervene in the Japanese debate on nuclear energy at a critical time in the relationship between the two nations and the Cold War. Anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan had been aggravated by the contamination of the crew of the Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru by fallout from the Bikini Atoll nuclear test early in 1954.

The previous year, successful hydrogen bomb tests by the Soviet Union had prompted the United States to shift its policy from keeping close control of nuclear technology to bolstering relations with friendly countries by sharing its expertise. The campaign in Japan was just one part of an international effort to promote nuclear energy's peaceful use. Yuka Tsuchiya, a professor of Ehime University and an expert on U.S. public diplomacy, said the U.S. government decided acceptance by Hiroshima residents of peaceful nuclear use would have a major impact on Japanese and world public opinion.

Fotouhi, who was in charge of organizing the Hiroshima event, launched an intensive campaign to win over locals.

His daughter, who came to Japan with him in 1952 and went to a local elementary school in Hiroshima, said her father invited nearly 100 people to his house to explain its aims. He gathered the support of the city government, the prefectural government, Hiroshima University and local newspapers and managed to stop protests by convincing activists of the event's importance to the peaceful use of nuclear power

The exhibition attracted long lines. A remotely operated machine for handling hazardous materials, called Magic Hand, was among the most popular attractions. One 74-year-old woman who had been a victim of the 1945 bombing asked one of the exhibition staff if the machine posed any harm to human health. The staff member said nuclear power could be of great value to human life if used for the public good, according to the woman.

On June 18, 1956, the day after the Hiroshima event closed, the U.S. Embassy in Japan reported to Washington that 120,000 visitors had attended over its three-week run.

A senior official of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission said in another report that the event had swayed the Japanese public's views of nuclear energy. No other country was as supportive of U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower's promotion of the peaceful use of nuclear power as Japan, the official said.

In total, 2.7 million people visited the exhibitions in the 11 major cities. A scaled-down version of the exhibition later toured rural areas of Japan.

Japan's first nuclear reactor, imported from the United States, began operating in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, in August 1957, the month before the end of the exhibition tour.

Ben has produced and continues to refine a PowerPoint Presentation that is worth a look. He calls it Nuclear Power from Opponent to Proponent and he is working to find ever larger audiences to hear him tell that story.

His most recent post is titled Why pro-nuclear has failed when anti-nuclear has succeeded. It is an intriguing essay that points out a key factor – the antinuclear message is so simple that it can be stated in a single word that can be grasped and repeated by any two-year-old – “NO”. That is a message that is easy to propagate. In contrast, Ben believes that nuclear supporters have never developed a strong sales message.

Here is a copy of the comment that I left on Decarbonise SA

Your analysis leaves open an important question whose answer offers the key to pronuclear success – “Why?”

The mission of the antinuclear movement is clear enough, as you stated. It is a simple “NO”. However, pronuclear activists hand that opposition all of the moral strength that they need by accepting the premise that the basis for the “NO” is fear of radiation or fear of the bomb or fear of the possibility of a massively damaging accident that never seems to actually happen.

The real strength of the opposition to nuclear comes from the people who derive their wealth and power from the whole range of economic activities required to extract, refine, transport, distribute and consume the hydrocarbons that produce the emissions that you want to stop. Fossil fuel pushers have a fundamental reason for disliking clean, concentrated, abundant, affordable nuclear energy. They hold sway in a LOT of decision making bodies that can delay nuclear projects and add to their cost. They have influence in the media due to their continuous use of paid advertising campaigns sustained over many decades. They have influence in foundations that have been formed from fossil fuel derived wealth and they have influence in powerful unions like those associated with the railroads that derive most of their steady income from moving bulky fuels like oil and coal.

Your message of DecarboniseSA scares the heck out of the very rich and powerful people who are rich and powerful because THEY SELL CARBON!

The real way to defeat the “NO” to nuclear energy is to find people who benefit from “YES” to nuclear energy. The fuel suppliers have concentrated strength, but the majority of the world’s population does not supply fuel; they consume fuel and have to pay high prices, accept nasty pollution, and suffer through periods of supply constraints. Some of those consumers are major corporations in their own right and have a lot of sway – they just need to be told (over and over again) why fission is so much better than combustion.

Many of the experts who have been involved in the government's related committees since before the outbreak of the nuclear crisis on March 11 are pro-nuclear energy advocates. The inclusion of some anti-nuclear experts in discussions since March has created a bit of a stir, but they're still vastly outnumbered. Talks remain under the tight control of bureaucrats from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), as well as staff dispatched from utility companies. The lineup is so skewed to nuclear energy promotion that it even gets a government insider anxious to get "someone like Koide" involved.

The government is now reviewing its energy policy in terms of a management overhaul at the stricken plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), and comprehensive reform of the electric power system. It is beginning to look like TEPCO will be nationalized to ensure stable power supply, with the government obtaining at least two-thirds of TEPCO's shares. A final decision about the utility will be reached before account settlements for the fiscal year ending next March are made.

This scheme is a pipe dream. Nuclear power plants across the country are being stopped for regular inspections, with no clear prospects of them being restarted.

Winning the public over is the biggest obstacle that lies ahead for the government.

So what would happen if the debate over energy policy fails to pick up steam, and things proceed with the "nuclear village," a pro-nuclear collection of politicians, bureaucrats, academics and utilities, firmly in charge? A bureaucratic source offered the following vision: "Dependence on nuclear energy for our power supply can stay at (pre-March 11 levels of) 30 percent. This would still be lower than our original goal of achieving 50-percent dependence, so it would count as a 'reduction in nuclear dependence.' It would be acceptable to abandon the Monju fast-breeder project, but nuclear fuel reprocessing plants should be preserved. We would process MOX fuel from plutonium extracted from spent fuel, and export it at the same level as Britain and France."

The government may be able to come up with options, but it won't be able to reach a decisio

No one believes the government's recent announcement that "the crisis has been brought under control." This widespread mistrust is not something that one-sided rhetoric from government or business leaders can dispel.

But more insidious and objectionable is the creeping misinformation that the nuclear industry has fed into the public sphere over the years. There seems to be a never-ending cabal of paid industry scientific ''consultants'' who are more than willing to state the fringe view that low doses of ionising radiation do not cause cancer and, indeed, that low doses are actually good for you and lessen the incidence of cancer. Canadian Dr Doug Boreham has been on numerous sponsored tours of Australia by Toro Energy, a junior uranium explorer, expounding the view that "low-dose radiation is like getting a suntan". Toro must have liked what it heard because it made him a safety consultant for the company in 2009.

Ionising radiation is a known carcinogen. This is based on almost 100 years of cumulative research including 60 years of follow-up of the Japanese atom bomb survivors. The International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC, linked to the World Health Organisation) classifies it as a Class 1 carcinogen, the highest classification indicative of certainty of its carcinogenic effects.

In 2006, the US National Academy of Sciences released its Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (VII) report, which focused on the health effects of radiation doses at below 100 millisieverts. This was a consensus review that assessed the world's scientific literature on the subject at that time. It concluded: ". . . there is a linear dose-response relationship between exposure to ionising radiation and the development of solid cancers in humans. It is unlikely that there is a threshold below which cancers are not induced."

The most comprehensive study of nuclear workers by the IARC, involving 600,000 workers exposed to an average cumulative dose of 19mSv, showed a cancer risk consistent with that of the A-bomb survivors

April 26 marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The pro-nuclearists have gone into full-spin-ahead mode, misrepresenting the latest UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) report on Chernobyl.

Two days ago on this page, George Monbiot (''How the anti-nuclear lobby misled us all with dodgy claims''), citing the report, wrongly plays down he death toll. He correctly states that the report found 6848 cases of thyroid cancer in children, although he fails to acknowledge it was due to the effects of radioactive iodine in the nuclear fallout. The number of cases will continue to increase, according to the US National Cancer Institute, for a further 10 to 20 years.

Thyroid cancer is easy to detect because it is normally a rare cancer. Most other cancers caused by radiation are not that easy to detect above the high background natural rates of cancer. It is the proverbial needle in a haystack scenario - but in this case the needles (radiation-induced cancer) look the same as the hay (other cancers). What the report therefore said was that statistical limitations and large uncertainties precluded being able to single out any radiation-induced cancers. It did not say there have been no cancers, as Monbiot and others claim, or that none will develop, only that it is not possible at this stage to detect them.

IARC states that ''by 2065, predictions based on these models indicate that about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident and that about 16,000 deaths from these cancers may occur''. Whether we will be able to detect them when there will also be more than 1 million other cases of cancer over this period is debatable. But every one of these excess cancers is a tragedy for each victim and their family, and is no less so simply because cancer is a common disease. George Monbiot should read properly the BEIR VII report that Helen Caldicott gave him - all 423 pages

The article, with its spectacular allegations, was swiftly picked up by the mainstream media including USA Today along with video and a picture of an example of reactor corrosion. In a piece titled "Nuke regulator, industry compromise safety to keep reactors running," Donn wrote . . . "Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews. The result? Rising fears that these accommodations by the NRC are significantly undermining safety - and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the United States."

Bickel has 36 years experience in the US and International nuclear engineering profession, specializing in reliability and risk assessment. He has a Masters Degree and PhD in nuclear engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. ~ John Bickel, left, attending a meeting of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency in Paris, where he chairs the special working group on Defense in Depth of Electrical Systems (DIDELSYS) ~ I asked Bickel what he thought of the AP article. Here are some highlights of what he said in a series of email exchanges. Bickel agreed to let me post his personal email comments here. Also, he agreed to let me post his contact information at the end of this blog post so that AP, or anyone else in the media, could contact him for confirmation. Here’s what he said. "I had hoped for more insight from a prestigious organization such as AP. Their article entitled: “US nuke regulators weaken safety rules” is pretty sloppy and indicative of the fact AP failed to research much of what they have written about."

Point and counterpoint

Howard and I planned thoroughly, as usual. We sent a press release. We sent e-mails to lists of people, inviting them to come. I put the rally on my blog and on the Save Vermont Yankee Facebook page. Howard sent a practical e-mail with directions to the plant and recommendations for dressing for the weather. He stressed the importance of wearing sturdy-soled shoes for standing on damp grass. We did everything we could to make the rally a success. We had held a rally before, early in the morning of the first day of the Entergy/Vermont trial. At that rally, we had 25 people, a good showing, and reporters noted that both opponents and supporters of the plant were present. (I blogged about this rally at ANS Nuclear Cafe). We hoped to have an equally successful rally this time.

Instead, this rally  “went viral.” About 25 people had said they would come. Instead, there were about 60 people! People told their friends. People brought their kids. One man of 92 years came to support the plant.  (He is sitting on the bench in the photo.) One couple came down from Vermont’s Champlain Islands. A man who owns the local tavern came with his son. Among all these people, I met some who I had previously met only on Facebook, and I met their kids, too! Two documentary filmmakers interviewed Howard, and one interviewed me. The people at the plant were very happy, honking, and waving at us. “Nuke Roadie” (look up his Facebook page) was there and posted pictures of the rally on his page. The plant posted great pictures of the rally on the Vermont Yankee Facebook page.  (I include some of those pictures here, by permission.)

An article that appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper was very positive about the event.  Since the supporters came and went during the rally, however, the article stated there were thirty people. Actually, there were about twice that many. Lessons Learned What are some of the lessons learned from this rally? Well, the rally was yesterday, and we haven’t quite digested all the lessons yet, but here are some:

Organizations grow. Success at one rally helps build success at the next one. People tell their friends. Afternoon rallies are better than rallies that start at 7:30 a.m., at least in terms of getting people to show up. (Yeah, this is obvious…) Some rallies let people stand up for nuclear in a potentially confrontational situation (our first rally). On the other hand, sometimes it’s great just to be among friends! This pro-nuclear rally was a great evening amongst friends!

Instead, in order to keep these dangerous reactors operational, many now with twenty year license extensions, the NRC task force is recommending that rather than the industry volunteering a dubious containment vent system, the NRC should order the nuclear industry to take another try at an experimental venting fix which fundamentally compromises their own defense in depth philosophy.

the same day that the NRC  publicly released its report in the USA, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that the implications of Fukushima for nuclear power in Japan meant that “’We will aim to bring about a society that can exist without nuclear power,’ he said.” Perhaps, now too late for a society to live without the threat of increasing radioactivity levels.

This sets the context for nuclear energy ambitions across Asia.

The Chinese intend to roll out the grandest nuclear power plant building program seen in history. Countries in Southeast Asia with no prior experience in large scale, nuclear power generation — Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand — plan to build their first plants.

Post-Fukushima, Beijing has called for a pause in order to re-look at safety issues. Other Asians however continue to push time lines, notably Vietnam and Malaysia. In many cases, their own citizens are not consulted, despite public concerns over environmental protection, human health and safety.

The overarching context of energy policy seems lost in the anxiety to push ahead with nuclear plants. Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia continue to subsidize energy, increasing government burdens as oil prices rise. Their artificially low energy prices increases waste and destroys incentives to build new capacity, and invest in energy efficiency and alternative technologies.

Moreover, aside from China, others in Asia project only small percentages of their total energy needs will come from nuclear power. Indonesia targets to meet just 5 percent of their needs from nuclear by 2025. In Vietnam, the plan is for 14 plants by 2030, providing a modest 8 percent of power needs. Given safety and security concerns, the Southeast Asian nations seem to be risking a considerable amount for relatively small returns.

In contrast, studies suggest that energy efficiency measures can achieve at least the equivalent savings in power needs with safe, off-the-shelf technology at a much lower cost. Renewable energy currently costs more but with technological advances may prove viable in the medium term.

Then early last month, a third reactor shut down at Genkai after a worker mistakenly pulled out a cable from the unit’s condenser vacuum, causing the turbine to stop. The full details of the case have not been made public.

Yasushi Furukawa, the governor of Saga Prefecture, has wavered on whether to allow restarting two idle reactors at the Genkai Nuclear Power Plant. Seen as a bellwether for the rest of Japan, Mr. Furukawa had appeared to be moving toward allowing two of the reactors to restart but his decision was put off after revelations of a scandal over faked supportive e-mails sent by employees of the local Kyushu Electric Power Company posing as pro-nuclear citizens.

Kyushu Electric called it a small error and said that the automatic shutdown it triggered had gone smoothly. But some critics warned that the episode constituted a serious safety lapse and pointed to a more widespread problem at other plants. Since then, however, the utility has submitted — and Japan’s nuclear regulators have checked and approved — operation manuals for that reactor, paving the way for a restart. “If this is a decision reached by the central government after ample checks, we accept,” Mr. Furukawa told reporters Tuesday before the restart. The reactor at the Genkai plant was started up around 11 p.m. local time and was set to reach 100 percent generating capacity on Wednesday, Kyushu Electric said. But the reactor’s run will be brief: the same reactor must be stopped in mid-December for routine maintenance.

As Curt Stager and other researchers like him have determined, the material will be suspended in our atmosphere and affecting our climate for at least 100,000 years. Many of the effects are somewhat unpredictable and not terribly beneficial. The duration of the effect gets worse if we continue on our present course and speed. An unaltered dependence on fossil fuels also puts future generations at risk of trying to figure out how to operate an economy WITHOUT access to reliable sources of controlled heat.

The twin attributes of supply sustainability and climate change mitigation are nuclear fission power advantages topics that have attracted some high profile converts (Mark Lynas, George Monbiot, James Hansen, Stewart Brand, Gwyneth Cravens, and Patrick Moore, for example) to the cause of pronuclear advocacy. If nuclear energy’s potential as a climate change mitigation strategy is something that attracts former antinuclear protesters and causes them to reevaluate their opposition, that alone makes it something worth emphasizing

It was interesting to hear that the primary nuclear technology that Curt mentions as being worth aggressive pursuit is based on thorium, but I am pretty sure that is mainly because thorium evangelists have done a better job of guerilla marketing since 2005 than the people who have been refining uranium-based nuclear reactors for the past 5 decades.

As I often to tell my thorium enthused friends – you cannot build or operate a thorium reactor without uranium. I also tell both my buddies who are thorium advocates and my integral fast reactor (IFR) friends that any atomic fission power plants is better than any hydrocarbon based power plant. I hope that someday soon, fission fans will stop engaging in fratricidal attacks on each other, but I guess I have always been a bit of a dreamer

I have been involved in the financial analysis of enough large projects to know that there are two sure ways to add cost to any project. The first method is to add delay

The second method is to add lawyers to the mix; they are professionally motivated to argue and delay. After all, they bill by the minute.

Here is the response that I posted in the comment section of Ms. Smith’s Wall Street Journal article.The sad part of the story was the apparent lack of understanding by the project detractors of the impact of their actions on the cost of the project. The length of time spent building the plant will have a very real impact on the cost of the project due to the fact that more time means more salaries, more interest on borrowed money, and a greater chance of increased prices for materials and equipment purchased and installed at a later time than planned.

Maintaining projected costs and schedules is highly dependent on the actions of regulators and intervenors who continue to slow down progress with legalistic arguments that have nothing to do with safety. The issues that the regulators raised are related to a difference of technical opinion on whether or not is reasonable to neglect the impact of solar heating and cooling while modeling the behavior of the containment building after an accident that releases 600 F water and steam into the building.

Westinghouse went back and recalculated the impact of the minor term in the equation – the final result was that under absolutely worst case conditions, the final pressure inside the containment went up by about 0.3 psi and was still well below the building’s allowed maximum pressure.

The current Chairman of the NRC is a professional political staffer whose complete professional experience following college was working for two avowed antinuclear politicians. He has cost taxpayers in 31 states billions already with his decision to refuse to finish the Yucca Mountain license review; now he is aiming to cost Georgia ratepayers and GA Power investors (remember, utility investors are often widows and orphans) hundreds of millions to billions more. He took the unprecedented step of issuing a press release calling Westinghouse’s application into question over such a technical dispute regarding the significance of terms in a mathematical model.

Americans need to know just how job unfriendly the NRC Chairman is.Full disclosure – I work for a company that is designing nuclear reactors that will soon need to be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I fear for my long term employment and that of hundreds of my colleagues and neighbors.