Discharges of liquid radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants have been well below the limits specified by the aec. A review of reported data has indicated that the type of reactor design (i. e., pressurized water or boiling water reactor) has had no apparent effect on the quantity or character of liquid wastes discharged to the environment except for trit­ium. There are also indications that, again with the exception of tritium, the power level of the reactor may have relatively little effect on the total quantity of liquid wastes leaving the plant. Thus, it is believed that proper in-plant waste management may be the most significant mechanism for the effective reduction in the level of radioactive wastes discharged.

The principal or critical radionuclides found in liquid wastes effluent during the field studies were determined to be 131I, 90Sr, 89Sr, 60Co, and 137Cs. In establishing a surveillance program for the water environment at an operating nuclear plant, these radionuclides and their pathway to hu­man exposure should be examined.

Tritium in the Environment. One of the radionuclides resulting from the operation of nuclear power plants that has recently been the focal point of attention is tritium. Although tritium is considered to be one of the less hazardous radionuclides, its continued production, unavoidable release, and long radioactive half-life (12.3 years) will lead to increased levels in the environment as the number of nuclear power plants increases. Because tritium is an isotope of hydrogen, it can be metabolized in the form of tritiated water and incorporated into body fluids and tissues, al­though most of the tritium ingested would pass through the human body fairly rapidly, with a biological half-life of about 12 days.

The mechanisms for production of tritium in nuclear reactors have been well documented (Peterson et al., 1969; Ray, 1968-1969; Weaver et al., 1969). Data on tritium concentration levels in rivers on which nu­clear facilities are located is routinely obtained by the Bureau of Radio­logical Health and the results are periodically reported in Radiological

Health Data and Reports* Surveillance of tritium in waters of the United States will be expanded as the number of nuclear plants increases. Envi­ronmental tritium concentrations measured during 1967-1968 ranged from 200 to 8400 pCi/1. Calculated population exposure rates from con­tinuous ingestion of water containing these concentrations would corre­spond to 0.03 to 1.4 mrem/yr. By comparison, the normal average popu­lation exposure rate from all natural sources of radioactivity is about 100 mrem/yr (cosmic rays, 30 mrem; terrestrial gamma, 50; internal radionu­clides, 20).

The tritium currently found in the environment is largely due to fall­out from previous atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and the levels are generally decreasing. These data and calculations made by the Bureau of Radiological Health indicate that tritium discharges from currently op­erating nuclear power plants would have little if any detectable effect on tritium concentrations in the environment. Present tritium discharge levels are only a small fraction of presently accepted maximum permissible con­centrations and accordingly do not constitute a significant hazard to pub­lic health. However, the anticipated growth of nuclear power with an in­crease in the number of both power reactors and fuel reprocessing plants will result in increased quantities of tritium’s being discharged to the en­vironment. This potential source of population exposure will require con­tinued monitoring and evaluation by public health agencies to ensure that tritium in the environment does not reach levels hazardous to public health.

It is difficult to conceive how the carefully meticulous civilian reactor licensing process outlined above could be prostituted — even by a most venal aec — to ends other than those of the safety of individuals and the public at large. It is difficult to argue with success, and the aec’s regulatory and licensing responsibilities have been discharged with outstanding success. No one has ever been injured because of an accident or from radiological discharges from a licensed reactor — either a power reactor or a research reactor. It seems to me that when one advocates scrapping a system that is effective, there must be a proved alternative to substitute for it.

Obviously, if the system is deemed unsatisfactory, some or all of the regu­latory and licensing authority now held by aec would have to be transferred to some other agency — either an existing agency or a new agency to be created for that purpose. There is little doubt that the legal authority for the President to make such a transfer exists under present provisions of the Reorganization Act of 1949. Whether the transfer of regulatory authority be to an existing agency such as the Federal Power Commission or to a newly created regula­tory agency, the primary factors to be weighed are the same.

Perhaps the most significant would be the physical and organizational separation of the people charged with regulatory responsibility from those responsible for the research and development. It must be understood that in a highly technical field, development and safety are not two separate goals. There can be no development without safety and no safety without a thorough under­standing of each step in the development of whatever is to be made safe. And certainly the safety requirements won’t be realistic about the burden imposed on an industry and still conservative from the point of view of public health and safety without thorough technical competence in the regulatory staff. Lack of sufficient research could result in inadequate technical training which in turn could well lead to an overly conservative attitude in regulation. The net effect would be an unnecessary brake on industrial development.

These realities lead to the inescapable conclusion that separation would necessitate a safety research program in the successor regulatory agency, for no existing agency other than the aec has the expertise necessary to perform the regulatory function satisfactorily. The impact on an already strained budg­et of duplicate research programs is obvious. Moreover, it is not at all un­likely that a new regulatory agency would have considerable difficulty attract­ing qualified technical personnel to either research or regulatory positions in an agency with no developmental responsibility. When one considers the gen­eral shortage of such qualified people, this difficulty becomes even more ob­vious.

A natural reply to this position is the question, Why must separation of the regulatory function from aec preclude communication between the new regulatory group and the research and development people at aec? It should not, but the realities are that it will. The idealistic credo that all agencies are part of the same government and therefore cooperate fully simply does not exist as a matter of practicality. Interagency communications are at best some­what more formalized than the internal communications within any particular agency. Thus, this separation of regulatory personnel would upset the balanced and coordinated efforts between regulatory, developmental, and operational functions of the government as applied to the atomic energy industry by the aec under the present system. At its worst, such separation could result in the isolation of the regulatory staff from the research and development and the operating personnel engaged in safety aspects of the nuclear industry.

Among the critical comments heard regarding the aec’s regulatory pro­gram are those which assert the existence of too much red tape, too much de­lay, insufficient standards and codes, and a general lack of a streamlined, com­mercially oriented regulatory program. Without either agreeing to those or defending against them, let me merely ask, Would the situation be improved by injection into the process of an additional agency? I can’t help concluding that some of the problems in licensing and regulation experienced today would only be magnified.

One of the bizarre results of transferring regulatory responsibility from the aec would be that all aec facilities performing research and development functions would probably become subject to the regulatory authority of the new agency. This would create a circuitous condition wherein the agency de­veloping the technology and providing the expertise upon which a regulatory agency would draw would be subject to compliance with the regulatory agen­cy’s rules and regulations, which in turn must be created only after a thorough understanding of the technology being developed. This to me hardly seems the ideal situation for an efficient governmental function. Federal agencies are notoriously jealous of jurisdictional infringement, and this situation is a nat­ural for continuous conflict.

This is not to say that the aec in its own operation should be exempt from safety regulation. The only alternative is to develop an in-house procedure for safety review by the research and development group. This would com­pound the personnel problem — we would then have two research and devel­opment groups, one to develop the technology and one to train the regulators, and two regulatory groups, one to regulate the industry and one to regulate the developers.

I am sure these comments will not satisfy the critics who condemn the existence of both regulatory and developmental responsibility in one agency. Nevertheless, the problems I have outlined which would result from separation of these functions have essentially been avoided, while at the same time there has been a considerable degree of in-house separation of the regulatory staff of the Director of Regulation from the developmental and, if you insist, pro­motional staff under the General Manager. This organizational separation per­mits essentially independent efforts but does not erect barriers to cross-fertiliza­tion by ideas and suggestions for improvement of one program or the other.

In the civilian nuclear power program, other procedures have been estab­lished to assure the independence of those reviewing applications of power plants who must assure the public health and safety. The Joint Committee rec­ommended and Congress enacted in 1957 provisions that the acrs be a sep­arate statutory body whose advice and reports are a matter of public record.

More recently, the aec has established an Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board to which the aec is delegating responsibility concerning certain licensing proceedings and also concerning proceedings relative to licenses or authoriza­tions for facilities in which the aec has a direct financial interest. As has been related, both of these groups, the acrs and the Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board, are comprised of experts who, though compensated for their services by the aec, are generally not government employees but rather are independent experts acting as consultants.

The entire history of the development of the present regulatory system demonstrates an awareness of the potential problems associated with one agen­cy’s being responsible for all aspects of a new and growing technology. It was for this reason that in 1957 the aec abolished the Division of Civilian Applica­tion and established a new Division of Licensing and Regulation which was responsible for regulatory functions only. The “promotional” functions were transferred to various other divisions. In 1959, the aec established the office of Assistant General Manager for Regulation and Safety. This officer became responsible for the activities of the Division of Licensing and Regulation as well as two new units — the Division of Compliance and the Office of Health and Safety. The functions of these new units were implemented by mid-1960, by which time all regulatory functions were under the direction of the Assis­tant General Manager.

Following the exhaustive review of the entire regulatory process by both the aec and the Joint Committee in 1961, there was a further separation of the regulatory functions, removing them from the General Manager’s organ­izational responsibility by establishing the office of Director of Regulation, which reported directly to the commissioners. Thus, all aspects of the aec’s responsibility for protection of public health and safety — licensing, regulation, compliance, inspection, and enforcement — became the responsibility of a sep­arate internal organization responsible directly to the commissioners and func­tioning independently but with complete access to and cooperation from the developmental organizations of the aec, its laboratories, and its contractors.

I must add that neither the arguments of the critics nor the responses I have made are new or original. These are essentially the same arguments that were thoroughly considered in 1961 by the Joint Committee. The Committee staff compiled a comprehensive report printed as Volume 1 of Improving the AEC Regulatory Process in March of that year. Volume 2 is an appendix of pertinent data bearing on these questions. Hearings were held in June 1961 and are printed under the title Radiation Safety and Regulation. Nor has the matter been laid to rest during the intervening years, for it has frequently been considered by the Joint Committee.

During the Joint Committee’s hearing on licensing and regulation of nu­clear reactors held in 1967, I asked about the possible conflict between the responsibility for regulation and the responsibility for promotion of the nuclear industry and the possible detrimental effect on full and complete discharge of the aec’s duty to ensure public safety. Chairman Seaborg replied: “I think that it has worked, so far as my experience is concerned, quite well, with a minimum of that kind of interference in regulatory decisions. This combina­tion of the two responsibilities in one agency has the very much compensating advantage that you have the expertise that is required in your organization in order to discharge the regulatory responsibilities adequately and this is very important in a new and growing technology like this. That is why we think that the time is not yet right for the separation of the responsibility, and that this advantage far outweighs any potential disadvantage from a possible bias that might be introduced due to the dual responsibility.” (Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Licensing and Regulation of Nuclear Reactors, hearings April-May 1967, pp. 7-8.)

The significant factor is that this matter is continually under review. The responsible officials do not assert that future developments will not warrant a separation of functions as is advocated by some of the critics of the present system, but they do assert that the present state of the industry indicates that now is not the time. Perhaps when this technology becomes more common­place and when there is a surfeit of qualified technical personnel, such an or­ganizational change will be in order. However, the time is not yet ripe. The matter will continue to receive careful consideration.

This volume is on a topic which has attracted wide public attention and concern. Minnesotans are justly proud of their state as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” and are understandably concerned that the natural beauty of their surroundings be preserved. Nature provides for a continuing dy­namic balance in species and the environment. Man is the one species hav­ing the ability to modify that balance and the intelligence to assess, if he will, the consequences of the modifications he produces. Using his capa­bilities, he has been able to adapt the environment so he can survive and live on most parts of the globe. He has so vastly increased the output of food and fiber and so exploited the mineral and energy sources of the earth as to be the most ubiquitous of creatures. He has all too often been careless regarding the ecological consequences of his activities. His own advantage has, in many cases, been achieved at the expense of the decline or extinction of other creatures and plants with which he has shared the earth. Some consequences have become so serious that he has come to realize that the future of his own species is threatened by the changes he has produced.

We have become accustomed to statements such as “90 per cent of the scientists who have ever lived are now living” or “the scientific and technical literature which will be published in the next ten years will ex­ceed that which has been previously published throughout history.” These statements are not unrelated to the problem. They symbolize the growth of scientific and technical knowledge. Accompanying that growth and, in­deed, as its consequence, has come a tremendous expansion in the techno­logical base of our economy. This expansion has come so rapidly that in­sufficient time has been available to assess the influence on our environ­ment of individual steps. To further complicate our understanding, many of the technological changes interact to produce more serious effects on

the environment than those which would be produced independently by any one change.

That we have been unthinking about man’s influence on the environ­ment is evident at every hand: the trash which litters our highways and spoils our parks; the contaminated water of our rivers and lakes, resulting from the use of fertilizers and the effects of effluents emanating at major population centers and from industrial wastes; the smog which is the curse of our cities.

This decade has been a period in which there has developed a grow­ing awareness that the environment is not an indestructible resource. We have come to realize that technological innovation can be a mixed bless­ing. Questions are being raised as to whether or not some of the apparent economies resulting from technical innovation are too costly in terms of the destruction of the environment and the quality of life. The public finds itself bewildered because there have not been adequate opportunities to become sufficiently informed so as to make appropriate judgments and to make its influence felt in developing needed legislation. It is interesting to note, in this regard, that the need for new means to inform the public and lawmaking bodies has been the subject of a study by a special panel cre­ated by the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Science and Public Policy. This report, which carries the title “Technology Processes of Assessment in Choice,” says, in part: “Selections among alternative technologies require that choices be made among competing and conflict­ing interests and values. To the extent that those choices are made and en­forced collectively rather than individually, they are essentially political in character and must therefore be the responsibility of the politically re­sponsive branches of government and of those publicly accountable bodies that are specifically entrusted with regulatory responsibilities in narrowly circumscribed areas. The making of such choices is, in principle, indis­tinguishable from the resolution of many other conflicts that beset soci­ety. . .”

The public concern is voiced through legislative bodies. The purpose of the University of Minnesota is not to take political positions. It is inte­gral, however, to the University’s educational mission to seek to provide the basis of understanding which will permit individuals to make respon­sible judgments. In this context, the University joined in sponsoring the symposium “Nuclear Power and the Public.” We hope that this volume will bring to readers a better understanding of the issues involved and the consequences of alternative courses of action.

William G. Shepherd

Vice President, University of Minnesota

In this paper I shall, as a biologist, look specifically at the basis for current maximum permissible exposure levels to radiation and radioisotopes. The public is singularly unaware of the fact that scientists know a great deal about the biological effects of ionizing radiation, and of radioisotopes in man, in animals, and to a lesser extent in the biosphere. True, there are wide gaps in knowledge in this field, as in all of biomedical science. Sci­entists tend to emphasize the gaps and surround their statements with qualifying phrases. Nevertheless, the gaps in our knowledge of radiation can be recognized partly because we have enough fabric to see that there are holes in it, whereas in some other areas of interest to those concerned with the pollution of the environment, there is hardly enough fabric yet to see whether or not there are any holes. I hasten to say that this contrast does not mean that we should relax vigilance toward radiation health hazards. But it does bespeak the relatively high validity of our standards from the standpoint of the underlying biology. We are not groping with the unknown or mysterious to the extent that one might gather from the public clamor and the multiplication of safety factors in radiation standards.

It is possible to produce liquid fuels such as alcohol from plants, thus utilizing the energy being stored currently by photosynthesis. When the competing uses for plants as sources of food, lumber, paper, fiber, and other products are taken into account, there does not appear to be much promise of being able to obtain amounts of energy from this source which are comparable to the industrial power requirements.

GEOTHERMAL ENERGY

Power plants using steam from wells drilled in volcanic areas have been in operation for more than half a century. The first such plant was in­stalled near Larderello in Tuscany, Italy, in 1904. Subsequently, Italian power capacity from geothermal energy has been progressively increased to a present figure of about 400 megawatts.

In the United States, the first geothermal power plant, with a capaci­ty of 12.5 megawatts at The Geysers in northern California, began opera­tion in 1960. By 1969 the power capacity had been increased to 82 mega­watts. In New Zealand geothermal power production was begun in 1958 and has now reached a level of 290 megawatts.

In other parts of the world — Mexico, Japan, Iceland, and the ussr — geothermal plants of small capacity have either recently been installed or are under construction. The total world geothermal power capacity for the early 1970’s is estimated to be about 1,124 megawatts.

From a study of the world’s known geothermal areas, White (1965) estimated roughly that the ultimate amount of geothermal power that may be developed is about 60,000 megawatts. White estimates further that since geothermal plants operate principally by depleting natural reservoirs of stored thermal energy, the life expectancy of geothermal plants is on the order of only about 50 years.

In order to consider the appropriate reduction of radioactive release from nuclear power plants in light of existing government regulations and natural levels of radiation, a brief review of the natural level of radiation is appropriate.

Airborne Radiation Considerations. Every day every one of us is receiving radiation from the sky, the ground, the air, even the food we eat. The magnitude of this radiation level is strongly influenced by where we live, what we do, and even what kind of house we live in. For most towns in the United States, this natural radiation level averages about 140 mrem/yr. This magnitude of exposure is composed of contributions from outer space and the sun of between 50 and 150 mrem/yr, depending on where one lives and how frequently he travels by jet. There are also con­tributions from radioactive material in the ground of about 15 mrem/yr, from radioactive material in the air of about 5 mrem/yr, and finally from buildings and structures man has built from stone and other materials found under the ground of about 45 mrem/yr. How these exposures com­bine for any one person is different depending on where he goes and what he does. If we then consider the added man-made contribution from such things as medical or dental X rays, the total exposure for the average resi­dent of the continental United States is about 200 mrem/yr. The accom­panying tabulation summarizes this information. It must be recognized that this is the background level and has been for years.

Radioactivity in Water and Liquids. As in the case of the atmosphere, potable liquids also have a natural radiation level which should be meas­ured before an effective design basis for reactor radioactive release can be established. The accompanying tabulation shows some of the radiation levels. With respect to sea water and many other commonly known liquids, nuclear waste is truly a minor contributor; nuclear power plants produce far less (.001) than allowable radioactivity levels: 5—10 p/1 of nuclear waste, when the mpc> 10,000 p/1.

From this simple review, two conclusions should be obvious. In the first place, nuclear reactors are not bringing to us a new kind of exposure, as does the automobile with high-speed collisions. We had radiation of 50 to 100 times the new level all the time. All we are doing now is measur­ing it with sensitive instruments and talking about it. In this perspective, the addition of less than 5 mrem/yr through the atmosphere and 0.05 mrem/yr through the liquid from a nuclear power plant should be insig­nificant.

Liquid

Domestic tap water

River water…………

Beer (4 per cent).

Sea water……………

Whiskey……………..

Milk…………………..

Salad oil……………..

Design Basis for Gaseous and Liquid Waste

In order to arrive at a design basis to minimize the potential release of any radioactive wastes to the environment, several things must be studied and placed in their proper perspective. It is worthwhile to mention these briefly before discussing typical radiation protection designs.

First of all, one objective is to make certain that regulatory limits are not exceeded. Second, information on natural background radiation and its significance in terms of radiation exposure is gathered and studied. Since the Federal Radiation Council (frc), the National Council on Radiation Protection (ncrp), and the International Commission on Ra­diological Protection (icrp) throughout the years have recognized that man has always lived in an environment which has nonzero radiation, a design decision had to be made as to what level of radiation the nuclear plant waste emissions would not exceed.

Airborne Release Path. The basic question is what level of incre­mental radiation exposure traceable to a power plant would be considered insignificant by most people compared with either the natural radiation exposure of 200 mrem/yr or the permissible exposure of 500 mrem/yr. A judgment was made at the General Electric Company that sufficient design features should be added to its nuclear power plants to bring this radiation level to about 1 per cent of the permissible exposures. This was the “Good Neighbor” design objective. It was felt that most people would consider an incremental exposure of 5 mrem/yr insignificant compared with either natural radiation or the permissible federal radiation exposure limit. Certainly, the variation in background levels from place to place across the United States is much more than the 5 mrem/yr design ob­jective.

Waterborne Release Path. The permissible radioactivity limits for liquid waste discharge in General Electric-designed plants are based on aec regulation 10CFR20, with the general assumption that water released by the discharge canal can be used directly for drinking water. This regu­lation lists about 230 radioisotopes along with the appropriate maximum permissible concentrations (mpc) that must not be exceeded on an annual
average basis. Since this list is quite general and must apply to many uses of radioactive material, only a small fraction of these mpc’s apply to the liquid releases from a power reactor waste system.

A conservative method to demonstrate compliance with these regu­lations is to assume that all of the activity results from the presence of a relatively hazardous radioisotope, strontium 90. This original assumption results in a limit of 100 picocuries per liter (pCi/1) in the discharge canal entering a public waterway. This limit was adopted for the design of our plants because it incorporates many assumptions about discharge that are set forth in the accompanying tabulation as doses from drinking water downstream from a bwr plant.

"Calculated"

Reduction Dose to Drinker

Factor Comment (mrem/yr)

First of all, from analysis work it is known that of all of the curies in the liquid waste, only a small amount is actually strontium. The great bulk of the total curies represents a mixture of corrosion products and fission products, for which the mpc would be about 10,000 pCi/1 if calculated in detail, or about 100 times the 90Sr limit of 100 pCi/1. Therefore, someone taking all his drinking water from the discharge canal for a year would get 5 mrcm, not 500 mrem.

Second, to give this maximum possible dose of 5 mrem/yr to the drinker of canal water, the plant must generate a certain quantity of activity. Actual experience in bwr plants indicates that about 10 Ci/yr is a reasonable expectation for yearly output of liquid wastes, which, for a typical flow of 500,000 gal/min in the discharge canal, results in an an­nual average concentration of 10 pCi/1, not 100 pCi/1. Therefore, this drinker of canal water would receive 0.5, not 5 mrem after one year.

Finally, nobody should drink the water in the discharge canal itself; that water usually is less than desirable from a cleanliness standpoint, since it has not had the usual drinking water purification treatment. How­ever, people do drink water from rivers downstream from plants. In the case of a city ten miles down the river, where the water is used for drink­ing, the effluent water will have been diluted by the river by a factor of perhaps 5 and would have been filtered and chlorinated. On filtering the water, the radioactive content will drop by a factor of about 2. Thus, there is another reduction factor of 10. Those who drink their annual water supply from rivers containing the reactor discharge would receive only about 0.05 mrem/yr, not the regulatory annual average dose of 500 mrem/yr, a factor 10,000 times greater.

When one recalls that the inescapable minimum yearly dose of radiation for all individuals is near 200 mrem/yr — or about four thou­sand times as much as that from drinking water downstream from a bwr plant — the magnitude of this liquid waste disposal can be put in proper perspective, as we have seen in the tabulation above.

I return now to a discussion of hearings on construction permit ap­plications. Under the Atomic Energy Act, a hearing is mandatory before a construction permit may be issued. This provision was inserted into the Act in a 1957 amendment because of the conclusion by the Joint Com­mittee on Atomic Energy that “full, free, and frank discussion in public of the hazards involved in any particular reactor would seem to be the most certain way of assuring that the reactors will indeed be safe and that the public will be fully apprised of this fact” (H. R. Rep. No. 435, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 12 [1957]). The Act also provides that any person “whose interest may be affected by the proceeding” shall be admitted as a party to the proceeding. In those cases in which a petition to intervene is granted, the hearing is known as a “contested hearing”; in all other cases, most to date, the hearing is “uncontested.”

In the uncontested case, the only parties are the applicant and the aec regulatory staff. Since they are of like mind in desiring expeditious is­suance of the construction permit, there is no adversary element present; therefore, negative factors are likely to be introduced into the record and the risks articulated only if the Board is unusually aggressive and inquis­itive. Thus, the decision whether or not construction of the nuclear power plant is licensed is really made by three elite groups of experts — the Ad­visory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, the aec regulatory staff, and the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board — on the basis of the questions they choose to ask. A consequence of this is that these expert bodies are really determining how much risk the public will be required to assume. The decisional process, the criteria they use, and their reasoning proc­esses are largely obscured from public audit.

This procedure leaves much to be desired. There are in every nuclear power plant licensing case three distinct interests at stake. First, there is the economic interest of the utility in installing nuclear power capacity to meet its customers’ demand. Second, there is the interest of the public in not being subjected to injury or potential injury. Third, there is the broader public interest which is represented by the aec, a bifurcated interest in­volving protection of the health and safety of the public and assuring the appropriate development of a beneficial technology. These three sets of interests clash to a greater or lesser degree in every reactor licensing case and are, in effect, reconciled in the ultimate decision of whether there is reasonable assurance of no undue risk. The beginning of wisdom is the recognition that whether or not a nuclear power plant is adequately safe is not a decision that can be made as a matter of scientific or engineering fact; it is, rather, a relative matter. Whether a reactor is adequately safe is not a matter of black or white, but lies in a gray area of judgment. Safety is intrinsically a marginal consideration, as indicated by the ques­tions, How much more safety do we want or how much less safety can be tolerated? The answer to these questions lies not only in technical facts, but also involves moral and ethical values. As Clark Havighurst put it in his foreword to the symposium on “Safety” last year, in Law and Con­temporary Problems (1968, 33, 427): “When human life is put in one scale, the cost-benefit balance becomes a metaphysical one and the valu­ation process one of vast ethical implications” (Law and Contemporary Problems, 1968,33,427).

Where, we must ask, in the aec licensing process, do we find any de­cisional body —the acrs, the regulatory staff, the Atomic Safety and Li­censing Board, the aec itself — which has the competence and the experi­ence to deal with these marginal questions in the light of such ethical con­siderations? I do not suggest that the licensing decisions should be made by a board of philosophers and theologians (although perhaps one or two of these should be involved), but at the very least some mechanism should exist for forcing explicit consideration of life values upon those who do make the decisions. This is, indeed, what the adversary process, which un­derlies our legal system, is all about. It simply cannot be assumed that even the most competent, dedicated, and wise decision-makers will on their own initiative search out, expose, and consider all of the risks which should be considered, and translate them into life values as part of the decisional process.

If we are to have an adversary process in nuclear power licensing cases, this can be found only in the contested case in which some outsider intervenes to assert private interests which are part of the broader public interest in health and safety. Unfortunately, however, interventions have been relatively infrequent, although there are starting to be more of them. Most interventions to date have been relatively ineffective.

The paucity of interventions is attributable to two principal factors. First, the public relations efforts of the atomic energy establishment have been remarkably effective in allaying public concerns and in smothering the concerns that are articulated. As a consequence, relatively few mem­bers of the public are concerned. Second, even where serious concern ex­ists, the enormous expense of meaningful intervention means that only rich individuals or organizations are in a position to intervene effectively. The general pattern which has been emerging during the past year or so is for citizen groups to organize, under the stimulus of concerned scien­tists, environmentalists, and conservationists, to intervene in aec licensing cases. Such groups have enthusiasm and some volunteer scientific and en­gineering talent, but they are woefully lacking in money.

Moreover, the aec’s procedures in themselves exacerbate the diffi­culties of intervention. Once the acrs and the aec regulatory staff have given their blessings to the proposed nuclear power plant, the case moves very rapidly. For example, in the Indian Point No. 3 case, Consolidated Edison filed its application on April 26, 1967. The reports of the acrs and the aec regulatory staff were completed on January 15 and February 20, 1969, respectively. On February 5, 1969, the aec published notice that a hearing on issuance of the construction permit would be held on March 25,1969. The notice specified that petitions for intervention could be filed on or before March 7, 1969. Under the aec’s rules, petitions for intervention will not be considered until after notice of hearing has been given. This means that if an intervenor petitions for intervention on or near the final date for filing such a petition, he is expected to be prepared for participation in a hearing to commence within three weeks after he is admitted as a party. This imposes an immense burden on the intervenor, since he, his counsel, and his experts have only this limited time even to familiarize themselves with the voluminous record in the case to that point, to prepare direct testimony, and to prepare to cross-examine wit­nesses. On the other hand, the aec staff and the applicant’s staff and their battery of lawyers have had many months of total immersion in the case. Requests for postponement of the hearing are strenuously resisted by the aec staff and the applicant, since delay will interfere with the applicant’s having the new power capacity on line when scheduled and needed. If a postponement is granted, it will be for only a short period of time, much too short for adequate preparation.

The hearing itself is a strange, hybrid affair, part town meeting and part legal proceeding, with the parts interspersed. Much of what transpires is unrelated to the intervenor’s specific interests in the proceeding, but his counsel must nevertheless be present. The testimony consumes hundreds of pages in the typewritten transcript, which can be purchased on a daily basis for a minimum of $1.38 per page. Availability of a daily transcript is a necessity in litigation, but in the usual aec case it must be regarded as a dispensable luxury since the intervenor cannot afford the expense.

The entire proceeding is reminiscent of David versus Goliath. The intervenor’s counsel sitting alone, usually without adequate technical as­sistance, faces two or three aec attorneys, two or three attorneys for the applicant, and large teams of experts who support the aec and applicant’s attorneys. And, in the reality of the situation, the intervenor is pitted against both the aec staff and the applicant.

I hope that what I have said conveys an adequate impression of the intervenor’s plight. His problems are twofold: time and money. The finan­cial problem is most acute. Most of the citizens’ groups which desire to in­tervene have at the most only ten to twenty thousand dollars to devote to the cause as compared with the rock bottom figure of one hundred thou­sand necessary to support an intervention which at least would fully serve the purposes I discussed above.

To assure that nuclear power plants are built and operated safely, we use a “defense-in-depth” concept consisting of three basic lines of de­fense. The first and most important line is the achievement of superior quality in design, construction, and operation of basic reactor systems so as to ensure a very low probability of malfunctions. The second consists of the accident prevention safety features such as emergency reactor shut­down systems, which are designed into the plant. They are intended to prevent any unlikely malfunctions of the reactor systems from escalating into more serious problems. The third consists of consequence-limiting safety features, such as containment shells, to confine or minimize the es­cape of fission products if they should be released from the fuel and the reactor systems.

In addition to the safety reviews on the industry side, applications for a nuclear power plant license undergo four separate aec reviews: by the separated regulatory staff, by the independent aec Advisory Commit­tee on Reactor Safeguards (acrs), by an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, and by a Licensing Appeals Board or the Commission itself. Meet­ing the requirements of these successive reviews requires evidence of the most thorough engineering of the reactor and its systems, supported by extensive engineering reviews and analyses.

The aec’s efforts to assure nuclear plant safety go beyond judging the acceptability of individual applications. We conduct extensive safety research and development programs and foster and encourage industry efforts along these lines, aec is currently spending about $35 million a year on such programs. We also contribute in such ways as emphasizing the need for management know-how, fostering the development of indus­try standards, and encouraging the development of trained personnel. These types of actions constitute a positive approach, characterized by thorough planning and advanced preparation, which have contributed significantly to the safe introduction of nuclear power to date.

As in the case of liquid wastes, gaseous discharges from operating nuclear power plants have generally been small fractions of the licensed limits permitted by the aec. The principal radionuclides normally dis­charged that are of public health concern are the radioactive noble gases. Because of the differences in gaseous waste handling design between boil­ing water (bwr) and pressurized water (pwr) reactors, there are varia­tions in the radionuclides contained in the effluents from the two kinds of plants. A bwr discharges gaseous wastes continuously following a delay of approximately 30 minutes. Consequently, although higher total quanti­ties of gaseous effluents are discharged, they have relatively short half­lives (from seconds to a few minutes) and are, therefore, of reduced pub — * Monthly publication of the Bureau of Radiological Health, Environmental Con­trol Administration, Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service, Pub­lic Health Service, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

lie health significance. The radionuclides normally contained in a bwr gaseous effluent would include isotopes of krypton and xenon with 88Kr, 135Xe, 138Xe, and 87Kr predominating. A pwr, with its much longer stor­age time which allows for radioactive decay would discharge predomi­nately 85Kr with some 133Xe, although in very small total quantities. Off­site dose contributions from gaseous discharges have been undetectable in the case of an operating pwr and only marginally above background for an operating bwr for those facilities studied by the Bureau.

Radioactive iodine is also a nuclide of public health concern because of the air-pasture-cow-milk chain which could permit concentration in a child’s thyroid. Although it is of concern, our own studies and a thorough review of surveillance data have not indicated iodine 131 to be of public health significance as a contaminant from normally operating nuclear power reactors. Iodine 131 was barely detectable in the gaseous effluent of the bwr studied, and extensive efforts to detect this nuclide in environ­mental milk samples faffed even with ultrasensitive analytical techniques. pwr waste treatment systems normally eliminate iodine 131 through stor­age and decay because of its short radioactive half-life (8 days). During our field study of an operating pwr, sampling in the environs faffed to de­tect iodine (Radiological Engineering Laboratory, Division of Environ­mental Radiation, 1970).

It is my purpose in this paper to provide an overall energy perspective to the role of nuclear power in the years to come and touch on some of the applicable public policies. The small Energy Policy Staff which I head is part of the Office of Science and Technology, directed by Dr. Lee A. Du — Bridge, the President’s science adviser. The task of the Energy Policy Staff is to attempt to coordinate the efforts of the differing and often con­flicting government programs dealing with the various forms of energy — oil, coal, gas, nuclear energy, and hydropower. The Staff also sponsors studies of the long-term questions facing the nation in the energy field with a view toward reshaping policies to meet future needs.

First, I shall step back from the current controversy over nuclear power plants and examine the role of energy in the economy — past, pres­ent and future. Today we live in a high energy civilization. But man was slow in developing the ability to use energy sources other than his own muscle power. From prehistoric times until about 1700, man’s supple­mental energy was confined to animal muscles and the energy from wood and other materials used essentially for cooking and heating. The amounts of energy involved were trivial. Even so, they enabled man to inhabit many regions of the earth that would otherwise have been too cold to sup­port human life and to make the few tools and utensils which were essen­tial to his survival in a hostile environment.

Even as late as the early 1800’s the amount of energy consumed was exceedingly small, and practically all of it was supplied by wood, wind, and waterwheels. The fossil fuel reserves of coal, oil, or gas in the United States were virtually untouched. Wood was used as a fuel for the early steam engines, riverboats, and railroad locomotives, which were invented

and slowly developed in the 1700’s and early 1800’s. Until 1830, this na­tion obtained all of its energy from renewable sources. After 1830, coal became a contributor to the nation’s requirement for energy, but even as late as 1870, just a century ago, wood still provided 75 per cent of the energy supply, and coal the remainder.

By 1870, the industrial revolution was in full swing; steam engines and other energy-consuming machines began to contribute to the rapid growth in energy supply which a century later shows no visible signs of tapering off. This growth was, of course, accelerated by the fact that in the 1880’s energy became available in its most versatile form — electricity.

Many Americans identify hydroelectric power with energy supply because high dams and the lakes they form are much more photogenic than other energy sources. However, hydropower has consistently sup­plied less than 5 per cent of the nation’s energy supply, and its role in the future promises to decrease in relative importance because most of the best hydroelectric sites have already been developed. Electricity has to date primarily been generated by fossil fuels. Of these, coal made possi­ble the rapid industrial growth that occurred in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s. By the turn of the century, it had displaced wood and, if both bituminous and anthracite coal are combined, accounted for about 90 per cent of the energy supply. In the succeeding 70 years, overall en­ergy consumption has grown so that the annual consumption of energy in the United States is now nine times what it was in 1900; in the process, oil and gas have replaced coal as the dominant source: Petroleum, first discovered in the United States in 1860, became a major source of fuel after mass production of the internal combustion engines began in the early 1900’s. And around 1930, when the technology of long-distance pipelines enabled natural gas to be economically transported for long dis­tances, the use of natural gas began to grow. Since World War II, natural gas has moved from a minor role to its present supplying of about 31 per cent of the energy supply; oil supplies about 44 per cent, coal about 20 per cent, and hydropower about 4 per cent. Nuclear energy today supplies less than 1 per cent of the energy needs of the United States.

This brief history stresses the recency of the use of nonrenewable energy sources. But of even greater significance is the enormous rate at which such uses have increased. Per capita energy use in the United States today is almost three times as great as in 1870, and the total energy con­sumed is fifteen times as great. It is really impossible to convey in mere words or statistics the enormity of this nation’s use of energy, and it is cer­tainly impossible adequately to portray the even larger quantities of all sorts of fuels which wifi be required in the future. However, some feeling for the rate of growth can be conveyed by the facts that in the next 20 years this nation will probably consume more energy than has been con­sumed in the previous 70 years of this century, and that next year’s con­sumption will exceed all of the energy that was consumed in this nation before 1900. Electric power, with which we are concerned here, is the fastest growing form of energy. We blithely speak of doubling the use of electric power every decade, but that doubling process has reached the point where a very big number is being doubled —an investment of $80 billion.

In this age when large statistics in terms of dollars and quantities are part of everyday routine, one tends to be oblivious to their implications. However, the enormous projected growth in energy needs goes to the heart of the question of using nuclear power. First of all, we must face up to the impact on the environment of producing, transporting, and burning the enormous quantities of energy that will be required to supply all future needs. The most limiting factors in the future production and consump­tion of energy may well be the already contaminated air, water, and land resources. Environmental, health, and safety problems seem to play no favorites in the energy field — they are present with every form of energy. At the production end, there are serious health and safety problems in the mining of both coal and uranium. Strip-mining of coal has left many a scar on the landscape. And experience at Santa Barbara suggests that taking oil from the rich offshore reserves in some areas presents far greater po­tential hazards to the marine environment than previously assumed.

Electricity is transported through high-voltage lines, which are met with increasing opposition from those who consider them an intrusion on the landscape. Natural gas transportation involves the safety hazard in­herent in pipelines under high pressure through populated areas. And the transportation of oil by tankers poses a threat to the marine environment and shorelines when accidents inevitably occur.

The burning of fossil fuels — whether in automobiles, industrial plants, or otherwise — contributes the major share of the nation’s air pol­lution problem. Fossil fuel electric power plants lead to major environ­mental air and water pollution, as well as spoil the scenery. Nuclear plants promise to alleviate air pollution, although they have special environmen­tal problems which have been brought out in the earlier papers in this vol­ume. Minimizing these environmental impacts seems to me to be the over­riding challenge which is crucial to the future of our use of energy. It is a problem that should command the best research talent, large funding, strict enforcement of regulatory standards, long-range planning, and,

above all, a determination and commitment by the American people and all levels of government that the job must be done.

The enormity of future energy needs has another lesson to teach: Those Americans who for decades have been concerned with the conser­vation of natural resources were right — there is only a limited quantity of fossil fuels. And although the quantities are large, from the perspective of overall history, our high energy civilization may consume them in one big luncheon.

The magnitude of the nation’s future energy requirements also sug­gests that we should strive to develop greater efficiency in all aspects of energy use. When such large quantities are at stake, obtaining the same energy output by even a small increase in efficiency means annual savings of millions of tons of coal, millions of barrels of oil, and like quantities of other fuels. There are opportunities for increased efficiency in the conver­sion of fossil fuels and uranium into electricity, in the conversion of gaso­line to energy in an automobile, and elsewhere. Aside from the need to conserve our resources, increased efficiency is extremely important in terms of environmental protection. The surest way to alleviate air and water pollution and other environmental problems is to obtain energy by producing and consuming a smaller quantity of fuel.

The most striking fact about energy resources is that though oil and gas dominate the energy market, and will continue to do so for the foresee­able future, they are the two energy sources for which there are the small­est known potential supplies. In broad terms, resources of natural gas and oil in the United States are sufficient to meet growing needs for decades, but certainly not for centuries. There are quite large untouched reserves of shale oil and coal reserves, but when one matches these reserves with the projections of future demand, it is clear that the availability of nuclear energy is timely indeed.

In addition to being an energy source, the fossil fuels are an irre­placeable raw material for the fast-growing petrochemical industry and are even a potential source of proteins for food. If fossil fuels alone were used to meet increasing energy needs, there is the real possibility that na­ture’s product of a hundred million years could be consumed within the next century. Nuclear power offers an alternative which should have great appeal to a high energy civilization which is awakening to the fact that its resources are limited and, without conservation, could be exhausted.

The enormous future growth in energy use also points up the impor­tance of its price to consumers. One of the foundations of our economy is a low-cost energy base. There will of necessity be upward pressures on the cost of electric energy to reflect measures to protect the environment. To offset these increases, there should be technological developments that provide savings. Nuclear energy is already producing helpful interfuel competition; the development of the breeder reactors is the most promis­ing prospect for cost reductions in the next few decades. Also needed is a much more intensive research and development effort on the fossil fuels. Otherwise, the huge reserves of coal and other fossil fuels may be avail­able only at steadily increasing costs after richer deposits run out and less accessible, marginal sources must be tapped.

Usually those of us associated with the energy field paint this picture of future growth in a most unquestioning manner. But we should pause to ask, Is all this energy really needed? The growth in energy supply is, of course, not an end in itself, but merely reflects the needs of a growing in­dustrial nation. But isn’t the preservation of our remaining unspoiled areas more important? Wouldn’t it be preferable to stop the uncontrolled growth of industrialization? Perhaps it would. Many of us, I suspect, long for a simpler life. Many of us oppose any industrial threat to the natural envi­ronment, including power plants which are big and hardly beautiful.

Unfortunately, however, a return to the “simple life” is not in the cards. First of all, the growth in energy consumption reflects the increase in population. If we are serious about checking the deterioration of the en­vironment, we should give more serious attention to population control. But the growing demand for energy has consistently outstripped popula­tion growth — it goes hand in hand with a rising standard of living for peo­ple and a greater mechanization of industry. Dr. Jean Mayer, President Nixon’s nutrition adviser, has pointed out that people in affluent societies such as the United States and Western Europe are responsible for a much larger drain on resources and the environment than the people in underde­veloped nations. Pollution is a by-product of affluence, not poverty. This rather obvious fact is overlooked by most people who think of population control as a program necessary only in underdeveloped areas or countries where there is a shortage of food. Americans are occupying larger homes, which they keep at warm temperatures in the winter and, increasingly, at cool ones in the summer. A family which operates an automobile — or two or three — consumes more energy for transportation than it would to go a comparable distance in a less affluent country, where it would use mass transit. Each new household convenience is a consumer of energy. As in­dustry becomes more computerized and more mechanized, its consump­tion of energy tends to increase. Increased productivity, to meet increased needs and desires, often requires more intensive use of energy.

I doubt that there are many Americans who are willing to turn their backs on the comforts which are made possible by the increased produc­tivity of our economy. In one sense, the adverse impact on the environ­ment of the increased use of energy is part of the price that we are appar­ently willing to pay for the standard of living that most of us enjoy and to which the remaining citizens in the land aspire. But we must reduce that price to an absolute minimum if the race is to survive.

There is even a more fundamental reason why abandonment of the present growth pattern is unlikely. After man’s long struggle for bare sur­vival and simple comforts, the stage has been reached where most people in this country are trained and paid for thinking. An abundant supply of low-cost energy is essential to continue this trend, freeing man from bur­densome chores and enabling him to spend more and more of his time en­joying the pleasures of affluence, leisure, and education.

It is for these reasons that national policy has long been to assure an abundant supply of low-cost energy. This policy has been implemented through a variety of approaches. Favorable tax treatment has been af­forded to producers of oil, gas, and minerals to encourage exploration and development. Low interest loans have made rural electrification economi­cally feasible, and federal dams have produced low-cost hydropower. Fed­eral lands have been opened for fuels development. Regulatory agencies have assured that the price of natural gas and electricity are reasonably related to costs. And perhaps most important, large sums have been spent for fuels research and development of new energy sources, primarily for nuclear power. These various federal policies, administered by many dif­ferent agencies, have all contributed to an energy supply that is among the cheapest and most abundant in the world.

In recent years there has been an awakening in the land to the fact that we have failed to recognize the damage to our environment that was being caused by our production and use of energy and by other activities. Thus, an overriding and, to some extent, apparently conflicting public policy has evolved to protect the quality of the environment. We have come to realize that the use of energy is more costly than formerly sup­posed. Needless damage to land, heating of rivers, contamination of air, and other external effects are being caused by man’s use of energy. These costs have not been reflected in energy prices, but the costs are neverthe­less real and the public at large and future generations are paying them. The response has been a steadily increasing number of governmental ac­tions to minimize the damage to the environment.

The public policy for environmental protection is already having its impact on the energy industries. The Water Quality Act of 1965 estab­lished the machinery for fixing water quality standards that impose limits on the discharge of waste heat from steam power plants into waterways.

Under the Water Quality Act, these thermal pollution standards are adopted by the states subject to approval of the Secretary of the Interior. Within the past year the standards have been made effective in almost all states. In a similar manner, the Air Quality Act of 1967 has provided for state-imposed standards for air pollution control that are subject to ap­proval by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. The first standards under this act are for the control of sulfur oxides and particulate matter, of which electric power plants are a principal contributor. They are now in the process of being made effective in the major metropolitan areas where air pollution problems are the most pressing.

Increasingly rigorous standards to control the major source of air pollution — the motor vehicle —have also been put into effect in recent years. And there are countless other instances, such as the coming enact­ment of a strong coal mine safety bill, which reflect the intensifying public concern about the overall effects of its need for energy. As a reflection of this concern, President Nixon has formed an Environmental Quality Council, made up of Cabinet members. Mr. Nixon himself serves as chair­man, and Lee A. DuBridge as executive secretary. The Council brings en­vironmental questions to the highest level of government for decision and action.

The new concern for the environment in the energy field is trying to catch up with environmental problems that have long accompanied the use of fossil fuels. The air pollution problem in the cities, which is almost entirely the result of burning fossil fuels in motor vehicles, power plants, and industries, is not a problem of the future — it is with us today, every step of the way on the city streets. The research and regulatory efforts un­der way involve a concerted effort to reduce existing levels of pollution and to provide technology to do so at reasonable costs. Similar efforts are being exerted with respect to mine safety, control of oil spills, and numer­ous other environmental problems. It is going to take a great effort to pre­vent these problems from getting worse by sheer weight of increased us­age. It will take an even greater effort to improve the quality of the envi­ronment.

The intense interest in the environmental problems of nuclear plants therefore is not an isolated situation, but merely a part of the growing con­cern for the environment which is subjecting all industrial activities to greater scrutiny. The problems of air pollution and other issues discussed above deserve and are receiving the same kind of scrutiny and attention as is being given the nuclear plant problems. Those in the nuclear energy in­dustry have little basis for feeling that they are being singled out, even

though this is perhaps a natural reaction of every group when the public interest in environmental quality first addresses itself to their problems.

There is, however, a fundamental difference between the environ­mental protection policies for nuclear energy and those for other fuel sources. The effort to perfect the peaceful atom is of recent origin and was started with full recognition that building safety into nuclear power plants was absolutely essential. The civilian nuclear power program began as a monopoly of the federal government. When the Atomic Energy Act was revised in 1954 to open the door to private enterprise participation in the civilian power program, Congress lodged in the Atomic Energy Commis­sion the responsibility for administering a substantial licensing program to protect the health and safety of the public against radiation injury. Thus, the public policy of environmental protection with respect to radia­tion hazards from civilian nuclear power is reflected in the very birth of the commercial use of nuclear power.

aec’s nuclear safety program consists of a combination of regulation and research which has been strongly supported as a central feature of the aec’s work. My purpose is not to justify the aec’s regulatory program— there are other contributors to this volume far more capable than I of do­ing that. I merely want to point out the contrast between energy policies generally, where environmental concerns are trying to catch up with pol­lution that is already causing great damage, and policies in the nuclear field, which is now only emerging and where public health and safety have been a primary consideration from the beginning. It seems to me that the current controversy over nuclear plants reflects the merger of these two trends. Nuclear power has come of age at about the same time that this nation is beginning to manifest an intense concern for environmental pro­tection. In a sense, the current controversy reflects the success of nuclear power as much as its problems. In the past five years there has been great progress in the terms of economic feasibility of nuclear power. It seems to me there has also been a much greater acceptance by the general public that the combination of engineered safeguards and distance from areas of dense population affords adequate protection against the dangers of major nuclear accidents. I do not suggest that there are not lingering questions on this score, but the major focus of public concern now appears to be upon the subtler environmental problems associated with the low-level re­leases of radioactivity to the atmosphere and the surrounding waterways, and other problems such as thermal pollution and the general question of the optimum siting for power plants and transmission lines, which are at best an intrusion on the surroundings.

The aec’s regulatory authority is narrowly focused on radiation safe­ty; it has been in the embarrassing position of holding public hearings on nuclear power plant license applications and having to inform people that it cannot deal with important issues such as thermal pollution and aesthet­ic questions of siting. The situation is a natural result of public concerns that simply did not exist even as recently as 1954 when the aec licensing charter was granted.

We are moving rapidly into a new era where nuclear plants are no longer a scientific curiosity but will become more and more numerous and supply a sizable fraction of the growth in electric power supply. It is timely that we re-examine the associated public policies. There are questions as to federal policy with respect to nuclear power, such as funding of re­search and development for the breeder and fusion reactors as well as eco­nomic regulation. But the subject which I believe is of most concern to this audience is the one that we have been discussing — namely, the proper framework for reflecting the public’s concern for protecting the environ­ment against the dangers inherent in the peaceful use of the atom. For that reason it may be well to discuss for a moment a few of the controversial aspects of aec’s present program in that respect.

I believe that few will dispute that in terms of experienced personnel the Atomic Energy Commission is uniquely equipped to carry out its stat­utory assignment of regulating nuclear plants to protect the public health and safety against radiation damage. This regulatory assignment obvious­ly requires a wealth of specialization which aec now possesses. The regu­latory staff is a separate group within aec. One advantage in this arrange­ment is that the regulatory group is in the same organization as the scien­tists and engineers who are conducting the research and development ef­forts on new reactor concepts as well as developing new engineered safe­guards for existing reactors. Information flows freely among them.

I believe it is, however, relevant that in addition to being charged with regulating the nuclear power industry the aec has the responsibility for promoting the utilization of the peaceful atom. I doubt that there really is any conflict in the basic objective of safety and promotion because aec would certainly fail in its assignment of promoting nuclear power if it did not guard against a major incident. Nevertheless, these dual responsibili­ties do raise in the public’s mind a question of conflict, especially as we begin to focus on questions of the degree of protection against low-level wastes which involve trade-offs between stricter controls and associated costs. It is important where possible for public policies to avoid the ap­pearance of conflict, even when no such conflict exists in practice. It therefore seems to me that the policy issues of whether aec’s regulatory function should be completely separated from aec’s other responsibilities is one which deserves thoughtful consideration in the future.

Another troublesome aspect of current policy is one to which I al­luded earlier. The programs for protecting the environment from the by­products of electric power plants are somewhat fragmented. At the federal level nuclear plants, but not fossil fuel plants, require a license. Even when licensing nuclear plants the aec cannot consider the many environmental problems other than radiation. At the state level the responsibility for wa­ter pollution control, air pollution control, siting, and routing are often lodged in separate agencies and in some instances may be nonexistent. There is obviously a need for better coordination and more comprehen­sive treatment of all of the environmental problems associated with all types of power plants. Under the sponsorship of the President’s Environ­mental Quality Council we are now in the process of taking an intensive look at this question with a task force that includes the aec and other in­terested agencies.

Another controversial question is the proper division of responsibili­ty between the state and federal governments in these environmental mat­ters. Some aspects of the problem such as the routing of transmission lines involve questions of scenic beauty which affect the interests of local resi­dents to such an extent that I should think there would be broad agree­ment that state and local agencies and not the federal government should have the primary responsibility. The federal programs for air pollution and water pollution control have also given the lead to the states. On the other hand, until very recently the aec exercised exclusive responsibility for protecting the public against radiation damage from nuclear power plants. However, the existing policy is confronted by the new, broadened concern and interest in environmental matters which has resulted in this policy’s being questioned in Minnesota.

All of these issues suggest a need for re-evaluating existing policies in the light of the future growth of the nuclear power industry and the awakened public interest in environmental protection. Surely, the prob­lems are great enough to warrant encouragement of informed and positive contributions by all levels of government; at the same time we should all act in concert and not in conflict if we are to achieve our objectives.

Nuclear power, perhaps more so than any form of energy, can be a great blessing or an awful curse to mankind in the future. The basic ob­jective of the nuclear energy program is to provide energy that is cheap enough and plentiful enough so that it becomes a basic raw material. The present light water reactors are but the first commerical step along that road. If the dreams and aspirations of the nuclear scientists and engineers can be achieved, the abundant supply of truly low-cost energy from the breeders and fusion power will provide answers to the pressing shortages of food, water, and metals here and throughout the world. They could move mankind into a new era of material abundance. We are no doubt decades away from the achievement of these goals, but the progress to date suggests to me that the dreams can become a reality if the necessary research and development effort is sustained.

Nuclear energy has great promise for mankind, but we must not and cannot lose sight of the fact that it is inherently dangerous to mankind. It probably is a happy coincidence that the beginning of a large-scale nuclear industry coincides with this nation’s general awakening to the environ­mental crisis which is already with us. As the aec itself points out, the standards and patterns for environmental protection are subject to con­tinual revaluation. As public policy generally begins to reflect the grow­ing concern with the environment, it is both fitting and inevitable that this concern also be reflected in the standards for the emerging nuclear plants.

From my experience, a government regulatory program always benefits from an informed public’s taking an active interest in its work. With the continued scrutiny of nuclear plants by the aec and a lively and questioning attitude by interested and concerned groups throughout the country, there is every reason to believe that damage to the environment from the peaceful atom can be held to a bare minimum and that nuclear energy will indeed become a blessing to mankind.