Conversations With the Nuclear Genie

By Charlie Barber
Staff Writer

“No clean power is without its drawbacks, and every kind of energy source has its pluses and minuses.” -Henry Petroski

“An outstanding advantage of nuclear over fossil fuel energy is how easy it is to deal with the waste it produces.” -James Lovelock

“There is no time to waste.” -Peter Scott, climatologist, quoted in Bismarck Tribune, 8/13/10

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.” -Author Unknown

While taking a vacation from my retirement recently, I was on my way back from northern Wisconsin one night when I ran into the “Nuclear Genie.”

Actually, I was making one of those “mostly male” pit stops near the former Jamestown missile silo. I once sighted the Northern Lights off of U.S. 2 in northern Minnesota, and was half-hoping that I could repeat that experience, when there he was! 

At first I thought he was the Northern Lights themselves, or perhaps a shimmering reflection from the Manhattan-sized iceberg that recently broke off from Greenland. He did emit a sort of pale blue light as he spoke.

The Nuclear Genie said he was a sometimes distant, sometimes close, relative of the “Oil Genie,” being connected by their mother, “Nature,” and one of their fathers, “Science” or “Technology.” When things went well, Mother Nature claimed paternity from “Science.”  When things went poorly she blamed “Technology,” or even “Engineering,” some third guy who is always hanging around.

Since my mind has been preoccupied with such issues, the Genie thought it only fair that he appear and explain why he had been away so long since those unfortunate incidents at Three Mile Island (Pennsylvania, 1979) and Chernobyl (Ukraine, 1986).

As a former nukes skeptic, who now sees nuclear power as the only hard core, baseline energy alternative to coal in the next ten years, I was eager to learn his views.

High Plains Reader: Oh Genie, why have France and Japan used nuclear power whereas Germany and the United States have relied instead on CO2-producing coal? I mean, one expects the French to do things differently, but the Japanese?
Nuclear Genie: France and Japan did not have abundant coal reserves to tempt them. The European Coal and Steel Community of 1954, today’s European Union, matched iron ore from France with coal in West Germany and Belgium. Germans also feared nukes if the Cold War turned hot. The Japanese, Hiroshima and Nagasaki notwithstanding, had scientists and engineers who understood that my powers can be used responsibly for electricity rather than bombs.

HPR: What about Three Mile Island and Chernobyl?

NG: Three Mile Island is commonly referred to as an accident, and Chernobyl as a disaster, which is about right. Moreover, both incidents took place when danger of misuse of my powers by the Soviet Union or the U.S. was still a major concern of Americans and the media which claimed to inform them. The radiation released at Three Mile Island was not significant, but it was in the Ukraine, and, coupled with Cold War fears, gave nuclear power a bad name, and coal use new life. But engineers, perhaps more than politicians, learn from their mistakes. Newer generations of nuclear plants are designed on a smaller scale with bigger results. I also could go into a long list of fossil fuel disasters that make Three Mile Island look pretty tame, if you wish…

HPR: No thanks. What about terrorists getting their hands on nuclear fuel and making a nuclear weapon with it?

NG: The 9/11 terrorists got their hands on some box cutters and used two airplanes like Molotov cocktails, but those were not nuclear weapons. Sure, such radicals would love to get their hands on my powers. That is what the nastiest among them seek to do in Pakistan, or former Soviet Islamic satellites.

But it’s much easier for them to kill American soldiers and humanitarian personnel in Afghanistan and Pakistan, than it is to get their hands on nuclear material. In fact, Bin Laden clones are making India and Pakistan more aware of their common fears of the Taliban and al-Qa’ida, than their common hatred of each other.

HPR:  What about Iran?

NG:  Like most dictators except Hitler, Ahmadinejad wants to die in bed. He is more afraid of his own people than he is of the West. He’s not stupid. Whatever he is doing with my powers, he is obliged to be aware of their dangers as well as their assets, either for national defense or domestic use. The Russians, quite sensibly, are offering to help Iran use my powers for electricity only. One set of Americans may be upset about that, but environmentalists should be jumping for joy. Hey! I thought you wanted to talk about electricity generation instead of foreign policy.

HPR: I do, I really do. Think, for example, of money saved by the Defense Department on electricity, if they made it with their nuclear fuel here in North Dakota, instead of purchasing it from coal-fired private plants in the State. They could even sell electricity on the open market and reduce the federal deficit.

NG: I believe Defense Secretary Gates has shown interest in cutting costs at the Pentagon lately. Maybe he will be interested. Perhaps the CIA, fearing security issues worldwide from rising ocean levels due to global warming, would support nuclear powered electricity. The irony of the military industrial complex saving us from our coal-possessed folly is not lost on you, is it?

HPR: Of course not! But won’t the private sector complain they are being put out of business by unfair competition from Uncle Sam?

NG: Electric companies will complain until they are cut in on the deal. That’s up to Congress and State Legislatures. The grid is neutral, and utilities don’t give a hoot if the electricity they conduct for A/C, heat, and TV is from fossil, wind or nuclear energy.
HPR: True, but what about jobs lost in the coal industry?

NG: Nuclear-powered electricity would, indeed, steal business from coal fired plants which must explain carbon taxes to their consumers, but skilled jobs that go with coal production can be replaced with skilled jobs in the newer, cleaner energy fields. Right now, employees downsized by cutbacks in the Wyoming coal industry are finding their way to equally lucrative jobs in the Bakken Oil and Gas fields. Why not the same for nuclear power facilities at Jamestown, Grand Forks and Minot?  The only real losers would be the foreign coal companies,  Allete in Minnesota, which owns BNI, North American Coal in Dallas Texas, which owns the Falkirk Mine, and Westmoreland Coal Company in Colorado, which owns the Beulah Mine. The real winners in North Dakota would be those holding down the newer and higher-paying jobs from building nuclear power plants to generate electricity.

HPR: You make it sound so easy.

NG: Of course these choices are not easy, but how easy will it be for you to face your grandchildren, if you live long enough to see the effects of runaway greenhouse gases? You can’t replace the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica as easily as making snow for ski resorts.  In fact, as far as “Mother Nature” and “Father Technology” know in 2010, you can’t do it at all.  Ever.

HPR: But Genie, what about building pipelines to sequester carbon dioxide?

NG: That’s a waste of scarce monies here. North Dakota needs pipelines to transport oil and natural gas, not store waste like CO2 in the ground.

HPR: Thank you for your insights, oh Genie. Would you mind paying a few visits with Mother Nature and “Father Science” to Washington, D.C., and talking to Congress?

NG:  I’ll do what I can. Switching from coal to nuclear actually takes less individual will power than giving up nicotine. What’s comforting here, though, is that illusions are the hard part, and Washington D.C. is where illusions get kicked in the teeth. 

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