UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM & ENERGY STUDIES

COLLEGE OF LEGAL STUDIES

BA.LLB (HONS.)
SEMESTER VII
ACADEMIC YEAR: 2016-17
SESSION: JULY-DECEMBER
PROJECT
OF
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Under the Supervision of: Dr. Azim B. Pathan

TOPIC: NUCLEAR ISSUES

NAME: PRASHANT SINGH

SAP NO: 500028509
ROLL NO: R450213080

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Chapterization
1.)

Introduction

2.)

Nuclear Energy Debate: Risks and Gains

3.)

Case Studies

4.)

A middle path

5.)

Conclusion

6.)

References

Introduction
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Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions that release nuclear energy to generate heat, which
most frequently is then used in steam turbines to produce electricity in a nuclear power plant.
The term includes nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion. Presently, the nuclear fission
of elements in the actinide series of the periodic table produce the vast majority of nuclear
energy in the direct service of humankind, with nuclear decay processes, primarily in the form of
geothermal energy, and radioisotope thermoelectric generators, in niche uses making up the rest.
Fission-electric power stations are one of the leading low carbon power generation methods of
producing electricity, and in terms of total life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy
generated, has emission values lower than "renewable energy" when the latter is taken as a single
energy source. As all electricity supplying technologies use cement etc., during construction,
emissions are yet to be brought to zero. A 2014 analysis of the carbon footprint literature by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that the embodied total life-cycle
emission intensity of fission electricity has a median value of 12 g CO2 eq/kWh which is the
lowest out of all commercial baseload energy sources, and second lowest out of all commercial
electricity technologies known, after wind power which is an Intermittent energy source with
embodied greenhouse gas emissions, per unit of energy generated of 11 g CO2eq/kWh. Each
result is contrasted with coal & fossil gas at 820 and 490 g CO2 eq/kWh.[8][9] With this
translating into, from the beginning of Fission-electric power station commercialization in the
1970s, having prevented the emission of about 64 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent,
greenhouse gases that would have otherwise resulted from the burning of fossil fuels in thermal
power stations.
There is a social debate about nuclear power.1 Proponents, such as the World Nuclear Association
and Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, contend that nuclear power is a safe, sustainable
energy source that reduces carbon emissions. Opponents, such as Greenpeace International and
NIRS, contend that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment. Farreaching fission power reactor accidents, or accidents that resulted in medium to long-lived
fission product contamination of inhabited areas, have occurred in Generation I & II reactor
designs, blueprinted between 1950 and 1980. These include the Chernobyl disaster which
occurred in 1986, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011), and the more contained Three
1 James J. MacKenzie. Review of The Nuclear Power Controversy by Arthur W. Murphy The Quarterly
Review of Biology, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Dec., 1977), pp. 467-468.
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Mile Island accident (1979). There have also been some nuclear submarine accidents. In terms of
lives lost per unit of energy generated, analysis has determined that fission-electric reactors have
caused fewer fatalities per unit of energy generated than the other major sources of energy
generation. Energy production from coal, petroleum, natural gas and hydroelectricity has caused
a greater number of fatalities per unit of energy generated due to air pollution and energy
accident effects. Four years after the Fukushima-Daiichi accident, there have been no fatalities
due to exposure to radiation, and no discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health
effects are expected among exposed members of the public and their descendants. The Japan
Times estimated 1,600 deaths were the result of evacuation, due to physical and mental stress
stemming from long stays at shelters, a lack of initial care as a result of hospitals being disabled
by the tsunami, and suicides.
Origins
In 1932 physicist Ernest Rutherford discovered that when lithium atoms were "split" by protons
from a proton accelerator, immense amounts of energy were released in accordance with the
principle of massenergy equivalence. However, he and other nuclear physics pioneers Niels
Bohr and Albert Einstein believed harnessing the power of the atom for practical purposes
anytime in the near future was unlikely, with Rutherford labeling such expectations
"moonshine." The same year, his doctoral student James Chadwick discovered the neutron,
which was immediately recognized as a potential tool for nuclear experimentation because of its
lack of an electric charge. Experimentation with bombardment of materials with neutrons led
Frdric and Irne Joliot-Curie to discover induced radioactivity in 1934, which allowed the
creation of radium-like elements at much less the price of natural radium. Further work by
Enrico Fermi in the 1930s focused on using slow neutrons to increase the effectiveness of
induced radioactivity. Experiments bombarding uranium with neutrons led Fermi to believe he
had created a new, transuranic element, which was dubbed hesperium. But in 1938, German
chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, along with Austrian physicist Lise Meitner and
Meitner's nephew, Otto Robert Frisch, conducted experiments with the products of neutronbombarded uranium, as a means of further investigating Fermi's claims. They determined that the
relatively tiny neutron split the nucleus of the massive uranium atoms into two roughly equal
pieces, contradicting Fermi. This was an extremely surprising result: all other forms of nuclear
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decay involved only small changes to the mass of the nucleus, whereas this processdubbed
"fission" as a reference to biologyinvolved a complete rupture of the nucleus. Numerous
scientists, including Le Szilrd, who was one of the first, recognized that if fission reactions
released additional neutrons, a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction could result. Once this was
experimentally confirmed and announced by Frdric Joliot-Curie in 1939, scientists in many
countries (including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Soviet
Union) petitioned their governments for support of nuclear fission research, just on the cusp of
World War II, for the development of a nuclear weapon. In the United States, where Fermi and
Szilrd had both emigrated, this led to the creation of the first man-made reactor, known as
Chicago Pile-1, which achieved criticality on December 2, 1942. This work became part of the
Manhattan Project, which made enriched uranium and built large reactors to breed plutonium for
use in the first nuclear weapons, which were used on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In 1945, the pocketbook The Atomic Age heralded the untapped atomic power in everyday
objects and depicted a future where fossil fuels would go unused. One science writer, David
Dietz, wrote that instead of filling the gas tank of your car two or three times a week, you will
travel for a year on a pellet of atomic energy the size of a vitamin pill. Glenn Seaborg, who
chaired the Atomic Energy Commission, wrote "there will be nuclear powered earth-to-moon
shuttles, nuclear powered artificial hearts, plutonium heated swimming pools for SCUBA divers,
and much more". These overly optimistic predications remain unfulfilled. United Kingdom,
Canada, and USSR proceeded over the course of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Electricity was
generated for the first time by a nuclear reactor on December 20, 1951, at the EBR-I
experimental station near Arco, Idaho, which initially produced about 100 kW. Work was also
strongly researched in the US on nuclear marine propulsion, with a test reactor being developed
by 1953 (eventually, the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, would launch in
1955). In 1953, US President Dwight Eisenhower gave his "Atoms for Peace" speech at the
United Nations, emphasizing the need to develop "peaceful" uses of nuclear power quickly. This
was followed by the 1954 Amendments to the Atomic Energy Act which allowed rapid
declassification of U.S. reactor technology and encouraged development by the private sector.
Nuclear Energy Debate

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The nuclear power debate is a controversy about the deployment and use of nuclear fission
reactors to generate electricity from nuclear fuel for civilian purposes. The debate about nuclear
power peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, when it "reached an intensity unprecedented in the
history of technology controversies", in some countries. Observers attribute the nuclear
controversy to the impossibility of generating a shared perception between social actors over the
use of this technology2 as well as systemic mismatches between expectations and experience. 3
Proponents of nuclear energy argue that nuclear power is a sustainable energy source which
reduces carbon emissions and can increase energy security if its use supplants a dependence on
imported fuels. Proponents advance the notion that nuclear power produces virtually no air
pollution, in contrast to the chief viable alternative of fossil fuel. Proponents also believe that
nuclear power is the only viable course to achieve energy independence for most Western
countries. They emphasize that the risks of storing waste are small and can be further reduced by
using the latest technology in newer reactors, and the operational safety record in the Western
world is excellent when compared to the other major kinds of power plants. Opponents say that
nuclear power poses numerous threats to people and the environment and point to studies in the
literature that question if it will ever be a sustainable energy source. 4 These threats include health
risks and environmental damage from uranium mining, processing and transport, the risk of
nuclear weapons proliferation or sabotage, and the unsolved problem of radioactive nuclear
waste. They also contend that reactors themselves are enormously complex machines where
many things can and do go wrong, and there have been many serious nuclear accidents. 5 Critics
do not believe that these risks can be reduced through new technology. They argue that when all
the energy-intensive stages of the nuclear fuel chain are considered, from uranium mining to
2 Diaz-Maurin, Franois (2014). "Going beyond the Nuclear Controversy". Environmental Science &
Technology.
3 Diaz-Maurin, Franois; Kovacic, Zora (2015). "The unresolved controversy over nuclear power: A new
approach from complexity theory". Global Environmental Change.
4 J. M. Pearce, Limitations of Nuclear Power as a Sustainable Energy Source, Sustainability 4(6),
pp.1173-1187 (2012).
5 Sovacool, Benjamin K. (2008). "The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy
accidents, 19072007". Energy Policy. 36 (5): 1802.
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nuclear decommissioning, nuclear power is not a low-carbon electricity source. 6 Three of the
worlds four largest economies now all generate more electricity from non-hydro renewable
energy than from nuclear sources. New power generation using solar power was 33% of the
global total added in 2015, wind power over 17%, and 1.3% for nuclear power, exclusively due
to development in China.
Public opinion on nuclear issues is the aggregate of attitudes or beliefs held by the adult
population concerning nuclear power, nuclear weapons and uranium mining. Surveys about
nuclear power use have been conducted internationally for four decades. Surveys originally
examined public opinion on building new nuclear power plants. In the U.S., support has declined
over the period from the mid-1970s through 2000. The Japanese were more supportive of nuclear
power expansion during this time. In 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency presented
the results of a series of public opinion surveys in the Global Public Opinion on Nuclear Issues
report.7 Majorities of respondents in 14 of the 18 countries surveyed believe that the risk of
terrorist acts involving radioactive materials at nuclear facilities is high, because of insufficient
protection. While majorities of citizens generally support the continued use of existing nuclear
power reactors, most people do not favour the building of new nuclear plants, and 25% of
respondents feel that all nuclear power plants should be closed down. Stressing the climate
change benefits of nuclear energy positively influences 10% of people to be more supportive of
expanding the role of nuclear power in the world, but there is still a general reluctance to support
the building of more nuclear power plants. A poll in the European Union for Feb-Mar 2005
showed 37% in favour of nuclear energy and 55% opposed, leaving 8% undecided. The same
agency ran another poll in Oct-Nov 2006 that showed 14% favoured building new nuclear plants,
34% favoured maintaining the same number, and 39% favoured reducing the number of
operating plants, leaving 13% undecided. This poll showed that the approval of nuclear power
rose with the education level of respondents and was lower for women. In the United States, the
Nuclear Energy Institute has run polls since the 1980s. A poll in conducted March 30 to April 1,
6 Mark Diesendorf (2007). Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy, University of New South
Wales Press, p. 252.
7 International Atomic Energy Agency (2005). Global Public Opinion on Nuclear Issues and the IAEA:
Final Report from 18 Countries p. 6.
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2007 chose solar as the most likely largest source for electricity in the US in 15 years (27% of
those polled) followed by nuclear, 24% and coal, 14%. Those who were favourable of nuclear
being used dropped to 63% from a historic high of 70% in 2005 and 68% in September, 2006. A
CBS News/New York Times poll in 2007 showed that a majority of Americans would not like to
have a nuclear plant built in their community, although an increasing percentage would like to
see more nuclear power. The two fuel sources that attracted the highest levels of support in the
2007 MIT Energy Survey are solar power and wind power. Outright majorities would choose to
increase a lot use of these two fuels, and better than three out of four Americans would like to
increase these fuels in the U. S. energy portfolio. Fourteen per cent of respondents would like to
see nuclear power "increase a lot".
A September 2007 survey conducted by the Center for International and Security Studies at the
University of Maryland showed that:
63 percent of Russians favor eliminating all nuclear weapons, 59 percent support removing all
nuclear weapons from high alert, and 53 percent support cutting the Russian and U.S. nuclear
arsenals to 400 nuclear weapons each. In the United States, 73 percent of the public favors
eliminating all nuclear weapons, 64 percent support removing all nuclear weapons from high
alert, and 59 percent support reducing Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals to 400 weapons each.
Eighty percent of Russians and Americans want their countries to participate in the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. According to a 2010 Soka Gakkai International survey of youth
attitudes in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, New Zealand and the USA, 67.3% reject the use of
nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Of the respondents 59.1% said that they would feel
safer if nuclear weapons no longer existed in the world. Identified as most needed measures
toward nuclear abolition were political and diplomatic negotiations (59.9%), peace education
(56.3%) and strengthened measures within the UN framework (53.7%). While 37.4% said that
nuclear abolition is possible, 40.7% said that nuclear arms reduction not abolition is possible.
What had been growing acceptance of nuclear power in the United States was eroded sharply
following the 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents, with support for building nuclear power plants in
the U.S. dropping slightly lower than it was immediately after the Three Mile Island accident in
1979, according to a CBS News poll. Only 43 percent of those polled after the Fukushima
nuclear emergency said they would approve building new power plants in the United States.
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A 2011 poll suggests that skepticism over nuclear power is growing in Sweden following Japan's
nuclear crisis. 36 percent of respondents want to phase-out nuclear power, up from 15 percent in
a similar survey two years ago. In June 2011, both Ipsos Mori and the Japanese Asahi Shimbun
newspaper found drops in support for nuclear power technology in most countries, with support
continuing in a number including the US. The Ipsos Mori poll found that nuclear had the lowest
support of any established technology for generating electricity, with 38%. Coal was at 48%
support while solar energy, wind power and hydro all found favour with more than 90% of those
surveyed. There is little support across the world for building new nuclear reactors, a 2011 poll
for the BBC indicates. The global research agency GlobeScan, commissioned by BBC News,
polled 23,231 people in 23 countries from July to September 2011, several months after the
Fukushima nuclear disaster. In countries with existing nuclear programmes, people are
significantly more opposed than they were in 2005, with only the UK and US bucking the trend.
Most believe that boosting energy efficiency and renewable energy can meet their needs.
Just 22% agreed that "nuclear power is relatively safe and an important source of electricity, and
we should build more nuclear power plants". In contrast, 71% thought their country "could
almost entirely replace coal and nuclear energy within 20 years by becoming highly energyefficient and focusing on generating energy from the Sun and wind". Globally, 39% want to
continue using existing reactors without building new ones, while 30% would like to shut
everything down now. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center poll, 44 percent of Americans
favor and 49 percent oppose the promotion of increased use of nuclear power, while 69 percent
favor increasing federal funding for research on wind power, solar power, and hydrogen energy
technology.
In 2013, Soka Gakkai International released the results of its international survey in which 91.2%
of respondents believe that nuclear arms are inhumane and 80.6% favor a comprehensive treaty
banning all weapons of mass destruction. The 2,840 survey respondents were men and women of
ages 15 to 45 from Australia, Brazil, Britain, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and
the USAthe official and unofficial nuclear weapon states, states under the US nuclear umbrella
and states in nuclear-weapons-free zones (NWFZs).

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Case Studies
National nuclear energy policy is a national policy concerning some or all aspects of nuclear
energy, such as mining for nuclear fuel, extraction and processing of nuclear fuel from the ore,
generating electricity by nuclear power, enriching and storing spent nuclear fuel and nuclear fuel
reprocessing. Nuclear energy policies often include the regulation of energy use and standards
relating to the nuclear fuel cycle. Nuclear power stations operate in 31 countries. China has 32
new reactors under construction,8 and there are also a considerable number of new reactors being
built in South Korea, India, and Russia. At the same time, at least 100 older and smaller reactors
will "most probably be closed over the next 10-15 years". So the expanding nuclear programs in
Asia are balanced by retirements of aging plants and nuclear reactor phase-outs. Global nuclear
electricity generation in 2012 was at its lowest level since 1999. Following the March 2011
Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Germany has permanently shut down eight of its reactors
and pledged to close the rest by 2022. The Italians have voted overwhelmingly to keep their
country non-nuclear. Switzerland and Spain have banned the construction of new reactors.
Japan's prime minister has called for a dramatic reduction in Japan's reliance on nuclear power.
Taiwan's president did the same. Mexico has sidelined construction of 10 reactors in favor of
developing natural-gas-fired plants. Belgium is considering phasing out its nuclear plants,
perhaps as early as 2015. As of 2012, countries such as Australia, Austria, Denmark, Greece,
Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Israel, Serbia, Malaysia, and
Norway have no nuclear power reactors and remain opposed to nuclear power.
Three mile Island and Chernobyl

8 Mark Diesendorf (2013). "Book review: Contesting the future of nuclear power". Energy Policy.
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Health and safety concerns, the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, and the 1986 Chernobyl
disaster played a part in stopping new plant construction in many countries,9 although the public
policy organization, the Brookings Institution states that new nuclear units, at the time of
publishing in 2006, had not been built in the U.S. because of soft demand for electricity, and cost
overruns on nuclear plants due to regulatory issues and construction delays. 10 By the end of the
1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as dramatically as once
believed. Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders in the U.S. were ultimately cancelled and the
construction of new reactors ground to a halt. A cover story in the February 11, 1985, issue of
Forbes magazine commented on the overall failure of the U.S. nuclear power program, saying it
"ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history". Unlike the Three Mile Island
accident, the much more serious Chernobyl accident did not increase regulations affecting
Western reactors since the Chernobyl reactors were of the problematic RBMK design only used
in the Soviet Union, for example lacking "robust" containment buildings. 11 Many of these
RBMK reactors are still in use today. However, changes were made in both the reactors
themselves (use of a safer enrichment of uranium) and in the control system (prevention of
disabling safety systems), amongst other things, to reduce the possibility of a duplicate accident.
An international organization to promote safety awareness and professional development on
operators in nuclear facilities was created: WANO; World Association of Nuclear Operators.
Opposition in Ireland and Poland prevented nuclear programs there, while Austria (1978),
Sweden (1980) and Italy (1987) (influenced by Chernobyl) voted in referendums to oppose or
phase out nuclear power. In July 2009, the Italian Parliament passed a law that cancelled the
results of an earlier referendum and allowed the immediate start of the Italian nuclear program.
After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster a one-year moratorium was placed on nuclear
power development, followed by a referendum in which over 94% of voters (turnout 57%)
rejected plans for new nuclear power.
9 Rdig, Wolfgang, ed. (1990). Anti-nuclear Movements: A World Survey of Opposition to Nuclear
Energy. Detroit, MI: Longman Current Affairs. p. 1.
10 "The Political Economy of Nuclear Energy in the United States" (PDF). Social Policy. The Brookings
Institution. 2004.
11 "Backgrounder on Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident". Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster

Japan's 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, which occurred in a reactor design from the
1960s, prompted a re-examination of nuclear safety and nuclear energy policy in many countries.
Germany plans to close all its reactors by 2022, and Italy has re-affirmed its ban on electric
utilities generating, but not importing, fission derived electricity. In 2011 the International
Energy Agency halved its prior estimate of new generating capacity to be built by 2035. 12 In
2013 Japan signed a deal worth $22 billion, in which Mitsubishi Heavy Industries would build
four modern Atmea reactors for Turkey. In August 2015, following 4 years of near zero fissionelectricity generation, Japan began restarting its fission fleet, after safety upgrades were
completed, beginning with Sendai fission-electric station. In March 2011 the nuclear
emergencies at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and shutdowns at other nuclear
facilities raised questions among some commentators over the future of the renaissance. China,
Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Malaysia, Thailand, United Kingdom, Italy and the Philippines
have reviewed their nuclear power programs. Indonesia and Vietnam still plan to build nuclear
power plants. The World Nuclear Association has said that "nuclear power generation suffered its
biggest ever one-year fall through 2012 as the bulk of the Japanese fleet remained offline for a
full calendar year". Data from the International Atomic Energy Agency showed that nuclear
power plants globally produced 2346 TWh of electricity in 2012 seven per cent less than in
2011. The figures illustrate the effects of a full year of 48 Japanese power reactors producing no
power during the year. The permanent closure of eight reactor units in Germany was also a
factor. Problems at Crystal River, Fort Calhoun and the two San Onofre units in the USA meant
they produced no power for the full year, while in Belgium Doel 3 and Tihange 2 were out of
action for six months. Compared to 2010, the nuclear industry produced 11% less electricity in
2012.
Post-Fukushima controversy
Eight of the seventeen operating reactors in Germany were permanently shut down as part of
Germany's Energiewende. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident sparked controversy about
the importance of the accident and its effect on nuclear's future. IAEA Director General Yukiya
12 European Environment Agency (2013-01-23). "Late lessons from early warnings: science, precaution,
innovation: Full Report". p. 476.
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Amano said the Japanese nuclear accident "caused deep public anxiety throughout the world and
damaged confidence in nuclear power", and the International Energy Agency halved its estimate
of additional nuclear generating capacity to be built by 2035. But by 2015, the Agency's outlook
had become more promising. "Nuclear power is a critical element in limiting greenhouse gas
emissions," the agency noted, and "the prospects for nuclear energy remain positive in the
medium to long term despite a negative impact in some countries in the aftermath of the
[Fukushima-Daiichi] accident...it is still the second-largest source worldwide of low-carbon
electricity. And the 72 reactors under construction at the start of last year were the most in 25
years." Though Platts reported in 2011 that "the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plants has
prompted leading energy-consuming countries to review the safety of their existing reactors and
cast doubt on the speed and scale of planned expansions around the world", Progress Energy
Chairman/CEO Bill Johnson made the observation that "Today theres an even more compelling
case that greater use of nuclear power is a vital part of a balanced energy strategy". In 2011, The
Economist opined that nuclear power "looks dangerous, unpopular, expensive and risky", and
that "it is replaceable with relative ease and could be forgone with no huge structural shifts in the
way the world works". Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs disagreed, claiming combating
climate change would require an expansion of nuclear power. "We won't meet the carbon targets
if nuclear is taken off the table," he said. "We need to understand the scale of the challenge.
Investment banks were critical of nuclear soon after the accident. Many disputed their
impartiality, however, due to significant investments in renewable energy, perceived by some as
a valid alternative to nuclear. In early April 2011, analysts at Swiss-based investment bank UBS
said: "At Fukushima, four reactors have been out of control for weeks, casting doubt on whether
even an advanced economy can master nuclear safety...we believe the Fukushima accident was
the most serious ever for the credibility of nuclear power". UBS has helped to raise more than
$20 billion since 2006 and advised on more than a dozen deals for renewable energy and
cleantech companies. Deutsche Bank advised that "the global impact of the Fukushima accident
is a fundamental shift in public perception with regard to how a nation prioritizes and values its
populations health, safety, security, and natural environment when determining its current and
future energy pathways...renewable energy will be a clear long-term winner in most energy
systems, a conclusion supported by many voter surveys conducted over the past few weeks.
Deutsche Bank has over 1 billion in capital invested in renewables projects in Europe, North &
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South America, and Asia. Manufacturers also recognized a profit opportunity in negative public
perceptions about nuclear. In September 2011, German engineering giant Siemens announced it
will withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry, as a response to the Fukushima nuclear accident
in Japan, and said that it would no longer build nuclear power plants anywhere in the world. The
companys chairman, Peter Lscher, said that "Siemens was ending plans to cooperate with
Rosatom, the Russian state-controlled nuclear power company, in the construction of dozens of
nuclear plants throughout Russia over the coming two decades". Renewable energy is a core
component of Siemens's profit base. In February, 2016 the firm proposed a 10 billion renewable
energy investment in Egypt.

A middle path
The environmental impact of nuclear power results from the nuclear fuel cycle, operation, and
the effects of nuclear accidents. The greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear fission power are
much smaller than those associated with coal, oil and gas, and the routine health risks are much
smaller than those associated with coal. However, there is a "catastrophic risk" potential if
containment fails,13 which in nuclear reactors can be brought about by over-heated fuels melting
and releasing large quantities of fission products into the environment. This potential risk could
wipe out the benefits. The most long-lived radioactive wastes, including spent nuclear fuel, must
be contained and isolated from the environment for a long period of time. On the other side,
spent nuclear fuel could be reused, yielding even more energy, and reducing the amount of waste
to be contained. The public has been made sensitive to these risks and there has been
considerable public opposition to nuclear power. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident and 1986
Chernobyl disaster, along with high construction costs, also compounded by delays resulting
from a steady schedule of demonstrations, injunctions and political actions, caused by the antinuclear opposition, ended the rapid growth of global nuclear power capacity. A release of
radioactive materials followed the 2011 Japanese tsunami which damaged the Fukushima I
Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in hydrogen gas explosions and partial meltdowns classified as a
Level 7 event. The large-scale release of radioactivity resulted in people being evacuated from a
13 International Panel on Fissile Materials (September 2010). "The Uncertain Future of Nuclear
Energy". Research Report 9. p. 1.
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20 km exclusion zone set up around the power plant, similar to the 30 km radius Chernobyl
Exclusion Zone still in effect. But published works suggest that the radioactivity levels have
lowered enough to now have only a limited impact on wildlife. In Japan, on July 2016,
Fukushima Prefecture announced that the number of evacuees following the Great East Japan
Earthquake events, had fallen below 90,000, in part following the lifting of evacuation orders
issued in some municipalities.

Ethics about Nuclear Issues

Decisions about nuclear power development can draw on economic, social, technical, and
ecological facts, but must still be decided in light of whether and how nuclear energy generation
might be good for a jurisdiction. Risk assessment is founded upon which things are most valued
and whether the technology places these valued things at risk. Doing ethics is this process of
determining what is good and how we should live in order to do what is good. Pursuing the
highest good (sunnum bonum, literally, the end goal) is the prime human purpose according to
classical philosophers. At the least, they believed, what is good was not to be determined solely
on the basis of human preferences, desires, and perceived needs. There are a variety of different
ways of doing ethics or deciding what is the good. The two main approaches to ethics can be
summarized in terms of duty or consequences, or the meansend distinction. On one hand, the
higher good might be in the consequences that result from action, that is, the ends. On the other
hand, we may be seen as having a duty to be good. The saying the ends deserve the means
characterizes the first approach; one might do what would be considered bad or wrong in order to
accomplish good ends (e.g., stealing to provide for ones family, or donating to charity money
gotten by unethical business practices). Many ethical disputes arise from fundamental differences
in social actors basic approaches to determining what is good and ethical. This is particularly
true of the very complicated decisions about nuclear energy that more resemble ethical messes
(wicked problems) than tame problems.

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Philosophers from Plato to Kant have insisted that some things humans for certain are not to
be considered only as means to an end, that is, for their use value. The value associated with
human beings is often due to a belief that humans have intrinsic value, that is, that their value is
located in themselves. A competing view is that humans have been given value from some
external source, such as a divine being. Thus, some disputes are around how and why and what
to view as good or to give moral consideration. Such disputes will arise in the nuclear energy
debate as citizens debate whether present generations or future generations or economic growth
or energy-consumptive lifestyles or nature should be given moral consideration and how nuclear
power generation fits in as a means to what ends. Another general distinction is that of private
goods and common or public goods. The former are those things that individuals use or possess
and this use excludes the use of the good by other people. Common goods are shared by all.
Public goods are common goods specifically delivered or protected by collective action such as
governments. A stable energy supply is a public good, as is environmental health. Money made
by a power company would be a private good. This distinction is important as there are a variety
of benefits and risks to nuclear power. The ethics of decision-making must carefully weigh which
goods will accrue to individuals (including corporations) and publics, particularly if public
(governmental) investment occurs as it has in most nuclear projects. In such situations the risk of
economic loss becomes public, while the economic benefits (in terms of profit) remain largely
private. It is also particularly telling that the risks of nuclear accident have become public
expenses as private insurance only covers a small percentage of the nuclear liability. Finally,
since the state (the public) is responsible for environmental protection and social stability, ethical
decisions must evaluate whether placing these public goods at risk is adequately exchanged for
other public benefits (such as energy sufficiency, carbon reduction, or specific economic
development) and not just privatized goods. In other words, the degree of industry-government
partnership in nuclear power generation is an important ethical consideration that transcends
economic and technical aspects of the nuclear issue.
Ultimately, ethics are social processes as discussion and debate proceeds over competing
definitions of what is to be considered good and what is to be valued. Still, there are a number of
principles that can help clarify the ethics of nuclear power development. As we have described
above, attention should be given to how the social processes of valuation and deliberation
proceed. Like all social phenomena, ethical debate is often characterized by uneven power
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relations as some actors are better able to express their values or are given greater access to
media or decision-makers. Furthermore, distrust, dread and other concerns identified above will
inhibit open deliberation on the ethics of nuclear power and the consequent decisions to be made.

Conclusion
The design of public institutions and public processes to more effectively deal with risky
activities and risky technologies is an important challenge in contemporary society. This
challenge is exacerbated by several factors. First, civil society is less trusting and less deferential
to all forms of expertise. Challenging expert opinion of science with alternative evidence has
become common place. This transformation has implications for risk managers and a risk
assessment that is based on narrow scientific evidence or a limited definition of probabilistic
risk. Second, civil society and social values are more diverse than was the case in previous
decades. Through education, immigration, and the on-going impact of social movements within
the environmental community, civil society is culturally and ideologically pluralist. At times this
pluralism results in deep divisions about issues of livelihood and sustainability. Third, there are
emerging complexities and uncertainties that limit our ability to made decisions with full
knowledge of impacts on others within the human and non-human world. Prions that that lead to
mad cow disease and the human variant CJD; nanotechnology and the maintenance of natural
processes in plants and animals; persistent organic pollutants and the maintenance of
environmental quality, along with many other complex processes lead to uncertainty and a need
to make decisions within the context of such technological and environmental change. Given
these social realities, the issue of risk management through institutional design is no small task.
Moreover, there are precious few examples within the real world to signal cases where
institutional design has made an important difference in the management of risky technologies
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and activities. What we do know, however, is that simple solutions that limit accountability, rely
on overly technical risk assessments, and fail to recognize or account for risk and uncertainties
are not likely to lead to successful technological innovation and wide-spread social acceptance.
Toward a more careful consideration of institutional design, Canadian scholar William Leiss
(2001) has invested his career in understanding risk controversies and in imagining ways of
improving the risk management capacities of responsible institutions. A primary concern for
Leiss is the way that risk management institutions persistently fail to understand the essential
difference between risk management and risk issue management. Risk management is mostly
associated with technical risk assessment, where probabilities of death or harm are calculated for
a particular technology. In contrast, risk issue management involves attention to risk
communication, and careful attention to the nexus of science, policy and civil society. Risk
issues management is fundamentally about the contested domains of a particular issue and how
risk issues are formulated, managed, and translated by various publics. In this sense, risk issue
management involves attention to stakeholder interaction, overcoming intractable behaviours,
and dealing with high levels of uncertainty, as well as attending to the values particular
stakeholders perceive to be at risk.
Based on these qualities of risk issue management, Leiss goes on to describe the basic
competencies of risk issue management for institutions. These competencies are briefly outlined
below.
1. Accepting responsibility this involves accepting the legitimacy of a risk controversy such as
nuclear power. Rather than dismissing risk perception as uninformed or misguided, risk issue
management would involve meaningful interactions with the public and accepting responsibility
and obligations to understand and address risks that are represented within the public sphere as
opposed to dismissing them as unfounded.
2. Addressing uncertainties recalling the persistent public perception of nuclear power risk as
dreadful, unknowable and uncontrollable, these aspects of uncertainty are a fundamental
challenge when dealing with this risk issue.
3. Managing the science/policy interface the science policy interface involves a willingness to
take responsibility for engaging with the public in a timely fashion and in representing the
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complexity of scientific evidence, and historical experiences with nuclear power in other parts of
the world.
4. Communicating risks appropriately the tendency within traditional risk management
institutions is to announce and defend the development of a risky technology, and then invest
considerable resources in marketing the risky decision to the public. In contrast, appropriate risk
communication involves longer-term dialogue about risks that are fair, open and well informed.
Further to this last point, Leiss calls for the development of an arms-length agency to facilitate
the science policy interaction and to support this longer-term dialogue regarding the merits of a
risky technology. Put directly, those actors should surrender control over the process of
consensus building for risk understanding, as well as the risk messages themselves that emerge
from that process. These tasks should be entrusted to independent and credible third parties who
are capable of demonstrating to the wider public that they can be trusted to create a fair,
informed, and disinterested forum for these risk dialogues.
Decision-making about nuclear energy will weigh various notions of what is good, and use a
variety of ethical principles and social science research conclusions. Information will have to be
collection to determine whether the facts and projections align with the principles. Key among
these principles and the public consultations, procedures, dialogue and decision-making is if
these processes themselves are ethical, that is, if they are open, transparent, fulfilling the
principles of participatory equity and so on. Harm and benefit, and their distribution, collective
goods and justice are other key principles to be used in the dynamic process of deciding on the
ifs and hows of nuclear energy production. Technical, economic and social facts will provide
additional insights for use in ongoing analysis of the extent of nuclear development.

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