The Peaceful Atom: Friend or Foe?

WITH every new demand for electricity, U.S. generating plants belch more smoke into the nation's dirty skies. In theory, the cure is nuclear power--a vision of clean, cheap electricity and smog-free air. Now that vision is being challenged by a growing coalition of conservationists, laymen and legislators who raise disturbing questions about the dangers of the peaceful atom. The critics are vocal and active--and they are getting results.

Increasing public opposition has already been responsible for halting the construction of several reactors; orders for new atomic plants have dropped from a peak of 31 in 1967 to seven in 1969. New York's Consolidated Edison Co. has been forced to postpone some nuclear plants and turn to gas turbines for power. Minnesota's Pollution Control Agency has defied the Atomic Energy Commission and imposed its own stringent radiation standards on a reactor being built by Northern States Power. While the utility has gone to court to challenge the power of a state to regulate atomic energy, Vermont and Michigan have sided with Minnesota in what is becoming a critical legal test of the power of the AEC. What worries many critics is that the AEC is charged with both regulating and promoting atomic energy--a seeming conflict of interest.

Exposure Debate. Legislators are looking into nuclear safety with new zeal. The Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy has been holding full-scale hearings on the subject. New York Representative Lester L. Wolff believes that the entire nuclear-power industry should be put into "mothballs for the next ten years until the environmental effects of the mammoth plants now nearing completion have been reliably assessed."

Although a Nobel Prize was awarded for research done in 1927 on the genetic effects of radiation, there is still controversy over what constitutes safe exposure to radiation. Most scientists agree that there is a 50% chance that adults exposed to 450 rems* of radiation will die. Below about 50 rems, no visible damage has been measured. With little empirical evidence, the AEC has adopted 500 millirems (one millirem is one-thousandth of a rem) as the maximum radiation that the general public can be safely exposed to in one year. That is a very small amount. By comparison, the sun and other natural radiation sources expose the average individual to about 100 millirems each year. A single chest X ray can double the natural dose.

But the Federal Radiation Council warns that "any radiation exposure involves some risk," and critics of the reactor program contend that any risk is too much as long as alternate power sources exist. Says Johns Hopkins Professor Edward P. Radford Jr., a specialist in the biological effects of radiation: "Until a year ago, I was one of those who felt that any problems associated with nuclear power could be solved." Now Radford is not so sure. He is not alone. Last month two scientists at the AEC's Livermore Radiation Laboratory reported that current radiation standards may be responsible for as many as 16,000 additional cases of cancer a year in the U.S. and urged that exposures be cut tenfold. Though AEC officials rebut that finding, other federal radiation experts feel that standards should be reexamined.

67,000 Deaths. Apart from the hazards of low-level radiation, there is the danger that a major reactor accident could release lethal amounts of radiation into the air. To prevent this, the AEC continually upgrades its stringent operating standards, and reactors have a far better safety record than any other major U.S. industry. Most experts agree that the chance of a major accident is exceedingly remote. But accidents do happen, as the Northeast power failure vividly demonstrated in 1965.

In this sense, the danger does exist. The consequences of the worst accident imaginable were, in fact, projected by the University of Michigan's Engineering Research Institute in a study of the Enrico Fermi Plant near Detroit. In 1966, the Fermi reactor was disabled by an accident that released no radiation, and it is still closed. According to the study, if all the radioactive material contained in the Fermi plant were blown into the air during a thermal inversion, 67,000 people could die of radiation poisoning. Even if only 1% of the radiation were released, there would be 210 fatalities. In 1957, when reactors used less fuel, an AEC study also considered the worst that might happen. In that case, it was assumed that a small unshielded reactor situated 30 miles outside a city of 1,000,000 people had suffered an accident that released half of its radioactivity. Though such an accident is improbable, the findings were not comforting: up to 3,400 deaths, 43,000 injuries, and $7 billion in damage.

Right now, insurance companies limit reactor coverage to $82 million. As a result, the Government has to provide an additional $478 million of insurance to persuade utility executives to go atomic. There is no way to eliminate the danger altogether, but it could be minimized by restricting reactors to sparsely populated areas. Physicist Edward Teller also suggests that they could be built underground, a technique already used in Sweden.

Equally pressing is the problem of permanent storage for lethal radioactive wastes contained in spent reactor fuel elements. The practice now is to dissolve the fuel rods in nitric acid, then store the liquid in vats underground. Already the AEC has more than 80 million gallons of this lethal liquid (which includes wastes from weapons production) In tanks that must be constantly cooled and scrupulously maintained for hundreds of years before the radioactivity is spent. The AEC is now perfecting ways to solidify the wastes to permit storage in underground caverns. Even so, the growth of nuclear power could make future storage difficult.

Along with radiation, critics of the reactor program are alarmed about the effects of thermal pollution on marine life. The problem is that nuclear plants use cool water from rivers and bays, then return it hot. All steam-generated plants require cooling water--as do many other basic industries--but reactors can use as much as 35% more water because they use heat less efficiently than plants fueled by coal or oil. Heat decreases the dissolved oxygen content in the water, makes existing pollutants more toxic, disturbs the reproduction cycle of fish and spurs the growth of noxious blue-green algae.

Clean Energy. Cooling the discharged water is possible but costly. Since atomic power is already in financial trouble because of the rising costs of construction and uranium, public utilities are not pleased with the prospect of having to build cooling towers. Soon they may be given no choice. There are several bills before Congress that would order the AEC to consider thermal pollution before granting an operating license for any reactor.

Meanwhile, the U.S. demand for electricity is expected to double every ten years. Generating that much power with fossil fuels (oil, coal) could turn the already polluted skies black with smog. Since the obvious need is a clean source of energy, the arguments for atomic power are persuasive--but not exclusive. One alternative approach being explored by scientists in Britain, Russia and the U.S. is the development of a fusion reactor fueled by a hydrogen isotope found in common water; it would produce no radioactive byproducts. Under pressure from the public, industry is also finding new ways to remove the noxious pollutants from coal and oil.

All this suggests that knowledgeable critics have a point in urging a reassessment of the present nuclear program. Though it may eventually fulfill its high promise, there is still time to re-evaluate the peaceful atom and make sure that every safeguard has been taken to prevent a tragic misstep.

* Rem is an acronym for "roentgen equivalent, man." One rem is the quantity of any radiation that will have the same biological effect on man as the exposure to one roentgen of ordinary X ray.

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