From the Vancouver Sun – March 14, 2011
by Stephen Hume
Exactly what’s happening with the nuclear emergency after the
magnitude 8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan last week isn’t
entirely clear, but whatever it is, it’s bad.
Bad for Japan’s
energy infrastructure; bad for those citizens unfortunate enough to live
in proximity to nuclear reactors damaged by the great earthquake and
very bad, indeed, for those who have been advocating for a renaissance
in nuclear energy here in North America.
Proponents of nuclear
power are likely going to have to limp back into the shadows where
they’ve been biding their time since serious nuclear accidents at Three
Mile Island in the United States and Chornobyl in Ukraine drove them
from the limelight.
It’s true that the probability of nuclear
accidents appears to be relatively low, but it also seems true that when
they do happen, they have the potential to be catastrophic.
And
so, it seems certain in the aftermath of the great Sendai earthquake of
2011 that North America’s nuclear industry won’t be ramping up rapid
expansion any time soon, at least not without fierce opposition.
That’s
not to say that there shouldn’t be a rational discussion of the nuclear
option as world energy demand rises inexorably. It is to say that the
promise of nuclear power will quite properly face a rising tide of doubt
and skepticism from the public.
When I last checked late Sunday,
estimates for the number of people evacuated from the country
surrounding Japan’s Fukushima complex of nuclear power stations
following a meltdown in a reactor core when cooling systems failed had
exceeded 200,000.
To make things worse, fears were growing that a
second meltdown in another reactor core was underway at Fukushima. Then
another emergency was declared at the nearby Onagawa nuclear power
plant.
The government was handing out anti-radiation pills while urging the public to remain calm.
Japan
is probably the best prepared nation on the planet for great
earthquakes and tsunamis. By comparison, British Columbia is woefully
behind the learning curve.
So witnessing the disastrous
consequences in Japan, citizens on the West Coast have every right to
doubt the security of any nuclear power infrastructure and earthquake
preparedness here.
There are half a dozen nuclear plants on the
U.S. West Coast -some have been decommissioned -where earthquakes of
similar magnitude to the one just experienced in Japan are not uncommon.
Since
1899, there have been five earthquakes of magnitude 8.0 or greater in
an arc ranging from Mexico to Alaska. There is disagreement over whether
the 1906 temblor was magnitude 7.9 or magnitude 8.3 but whichever it
was, it flattened San Francisco.
On the other hand, there’s little
argument over the magnitude 9.2 earthquake that occurred in Prince
William Sound, Alaska, in 1964 with a subsequent damaging tsunami.
In
1899, the North Coast experienced three great earthquakes over eight
days along the Alaska-Yukon border -the most powerful is estimated at a
magnitude of 8.0 -which spawned a 10.6-metre-high tsunami in Yakutat
Bay.
And in 1949, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake occurred just off
Haida Gwaii. Federal government records show the shaking was so severe
and prolonged that cows were knocked off their feet, a geologist working
with the Geological Survey of Canada reported being thrown to the
ground and unable to stand, and hundreds of kilometres inland, people
described standing on the street as being similar to standing on the
heaving deck of a ship at sea.
Should the public be concerned? Yes. And for Canadians, all this should be considered in one troubling context.
In
2008, when Linda Keen, head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission,
refused to approve a nuclear reactor at Chalk River unless emergency
backup power was installed for pumps cooling the nuclear reactor core,
the Harper government fired her.
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