A coworker recently posited an interesting observation: Nuclear power and information technology have something in common: Both have failed to deliver on the promises they made to simplify things and reduce costs.
Let's start with IT, then get into nuclear power... Some of the promises of computers, printers, networks and the Internet have been fulfilled. We no longer have to employ secretaries to prepare correspondence on typewriters using carbon paper and correction ribbons; manila folders and file cabinets have been reduced in number; Google has put an end to laying bulky reference books on Xerox machines in an attempt to copy a few pages for a term paper... All well and good.
But look at the morass that computer networks, servers, routers, modems and PCs have become -- worsened by email viruses, hacking and all manner of malware. A whole industry of IT professionals, security software developers, code writers and patches has sprung up. The legal field has become a major player, due to privacy issues, laws pertaining to e-commerce, records archiving, computer forensics, and other areas. As IT has become more complex, it has added to our burdens, not reduced them. But we're highly reliant upon it now; it's intertwined with the way we do business and conduct our affairs. There's no going back to simpler times.
Turning to nuclear power, which showed so much promise 40 years ago, this form of energy has been bogged down in bureaucracy, legal wrangling, politics and stifling regulations. It may never live up to its promise of delivering unlimited, cheap electricity. Anti-nuclear activists have managed to throw up ample roadblocks and scare the public with exaggerations about nuclear fission being dangerous, and about huge amounts of radioactive nuclear waste lying around for 10,000 years.
The public is highly ignorant (shocking!) about nuclear power's advantages. It produces no greenhouse gases, and uses up far less land than wind turbines and solar panels. It also doesn't kill thousands of birds. Horrible memories of Chernobyl (including an entertaining, albeit historically inaccurate mini-series recently debuting on HBO) scare the willies out of the uninformed. The type of reactor used at Chernobyl has never been used in the United States, and the safeguards we have in place would never permit such an accident to occur.
The redundancies and precautions built into our nuclear power plants are lightyears ahead of what the Soviets had, and it is sheer ignorance to think a nuclear reactor could blow up like a nuclear bomb. The latter requires precise engineering of physical and chemical properties -- a configuration, if you will. Expecting a nuclear reactor to blow up like a bomb would be like tossing strawberries, flour, sugar and vegetable oil into a pot and expecting to make chili. Ain't gonna happen.
Forty years ago, all the rage was talk of nuclear fusion, a different process for power production that is still largely theoretical. But we still are probably many years away from this becoming a reality. For the time being, it's nuclear fission we'll have to deal with.
Interestingly, some climate change activists are actually giving nuclear power a second look. It used to be that liberals and progressives were solidly united against nuclear power. But their irrational obsession with fossil fuels and global warming (and possibly nagging doubts that wind and solar power are a panacea), have them thinking that maybe nukes ain't so bad, after all.
Production techniques and technology have improved immensely in the past 30-40 years. If only a more uniform approach to design, construction, operation and regulations could take root, and the swamp of litigation and regulatory hell would cease to exist. But given the radioactive politics (sorry, couldn't resist) of the day, and government's propensity to grow and become more bureaucratic and inefficient, I don't hold out hope for such an approach.
Ah, the best-laid plans of mice & men...
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