Japan's Nuclear Crisis: A Time for Support The Energy Editorial, March 2011
These are terrifying moments. No one could ever have imagined that the Japanese nuclear sector could fall victim to such a seismic event.
No country has spent more time building safeguards against seismic events than the Japanese who live at the confluence of three tectonic plates directly over the Pacific ring of fire. Yet, while no one can contest that the natural disaster that struck Japan was unprecedented, here we are with a very dangerous situation in Fukushima and it isn’t over yet. As the world observes from a distance, it needs to maintain the same sang-froid as the Japanese people who are living these events and support those who seek to cool the overheating reactors. Already the world knows that the firefighters seeking to cool the reactors are very likely sacrificing their lives.
Now is not the time to make quick judgments about the future of nuclear power or draw comparisons about whether such an event could happen in our country or how we would handle such an event differently. Nor to claim that our reactors are more modern than those in crisis in Japan - we all have operational reactors from multiple generations. Now is the time to watch attentively and learn. What went wrong? What went right? What are the challenges in communicating with the public and the world? How can authorities translate the unstructured evolution of such an event into public messaging that is timely, transparent, and informative and that can help citizens weight appropriately their individual options? What other lessons can we learn?
Thirteen percent of the world’s electricity is generated by nuclear power and another over 60 reactors are under construction. Nuclear power is important to our electricity supply now and will be for some decades to come. It is not a question of ‘whether" nuclear power so much as ‘how" nuclear power and over time ‘how much" nuclear power. Populations around the world will look to their authorities for assurances that nuclear power can continue to fulfill its role safely.
Our energy options are already limited and the challenge of providing clean, reliable, affordable energy to our populations is not getting any easier. As another 2 or 3 billion people on earth seek greater comfort and the benefits of modern energy services over the next years, we need to assure that our choices of energy will be sustainable not just in 2050 or the next century but in the transition between now and then. There are no easy answers.