“Get under your desks. The missiles are coming" “The President has been shot!” “The National Guard has killed four students at Kent State" “The river is burning!” These are my searing teenage and early adult memories. My forma­tive years took place in the 1960s, when society was seemingly coming apart at the seams, with riots over the Vietnam War, riots over racial issues, and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Cold War was in full swing and there was great fear that the United States and the (former) Soviet Union would annihilate the world with a nuclear holocaust. In addition to these crises, the environment had become degraded to such an extent that the Cuyahoga River caught fire and the air in major cities was not safe to breathe. In response to this toxic mix of social and environmental ills, many citizens began questioning whether they could trust the government or technology. Fueled by this questioning, a new sense of activism led to (among other things) an environmental movement that helped establish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up our rivers and air.

This was a time when books such as Silent Spring (1), The Population Bomb (2), and The Limits to Growth (3) were proclaiming dire consequences for our planet if we didn’t take our impacts on the planet more seriously. It was also a time when environmental activists became very concerned and vocal about the haz­ards of nuclear weapons and radiation in general. Fears of even a limited nuclear war leading to a “nuclear winter” were prevalent. As nuclear power plants were being proposed, fierce demonstrations took place to try to prevent them from being built and delaying the time line for actually building them to ten or more years. A large segment of society became convinced that virtually any exposure to radiation would cause cancer and that nuclear reactors were a major health hazard. These fears were amplified by books such as Nuclear Madness (4) by Helen Caldicott, one of the fiercest critics of nuclear power.

The hysteria of a nuclear power reactor meltdown was promoted by the movie The China Syndrome. Those worst fears seemed to come true in 1979, when the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor sustained a partial nuclear core meltdown, and then again in 1986, when the reactor at Chernobyl suffered a complete meltdown and spewed massive quantities of radiation into the air. The Three Mile Island accident led to a total shutdown of new nuclear reactors in the United States and the cancellation of many that were being built. The Chernobyl accident further shredded the allure of nuclear power.

Fast forward to the present, and it is clear that the air and water in the United States have been dramatically improved. The EPA has become a powerful force for reducing the degradation of the environment caused by human activities that was done so cavalierly in the 1960s and earlier. However, in the last decade or two, it has become increasingly apparent that our addiction to fossil fuels for transportation and electricity has led to a major environmental problem that threatens to dwarf the earlier concerns—global climate change. The overwhelming consensus of environ­mental scientists is that greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2) formed as a result of burning fossil fuels and deforestation, are driving climate change in a way that threatens to alter the earth’s sustainability in major ways (5). While the number of people on earth has not reached the dire predictions of books such as The Limits to Growth, relentless population growth has continued to increase the need for energy and other resources, not only in the United States but worldwide. Furthermore, the developing nations, especially India and China, are dramatically increasing their need for energy as they develop into modern societies, as described so eloquently by Tom Friedman in his book Hot, Flat and Crowded (6).

Where does the energy come from that provides for the US and world needs? In the vast majority of cases, it comes from fossil fuels, which produce large amounts of CO2 in the process of generating electricity. In the United States, coal, petro­leum, and natural gas provide about 80% of all energy and 66% of electricity pro­duction. Coal is by far the leader in generating electricity, providing 41% of all electricity in the United States, while natural gas provides 24%. Renewable energy (including hydropower, which is currently by far the largest component of renew­able energy) provides about 12% of electricity, and nuclear power provides 21%. While there is currently a lot of interest in solar and wind for generation of elec­tricity, they have limitations that prevent them from making a large dent in the use of coal and other fossil fuels. By the end of 2012, solar and wind contributed only 3.7% of the electricity generated in the United States. It is clear to me that nuclear power is the only alternative source of clean energy that has the capacity to substantially reduce the use of coal to generate electricity. Because of the fears that were raised in the 1960s and 1970s by environmentalists about the dangers of nuclear power and radiation, the general public is alarmed about increasing the use of nuclear power, and most environmental organizations are opposed to it. The nuclear accident at Fukushima in 2011—the result of a catastrophic earth­quake and tsunami—added fuel to the anti-nuclear fire.

This book has developed out of my concern for the environment, dating back to the 1960s, as well as my 35-year professional career as a radiation biologist. I am a long-time member of the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, and the National Wildlife Federation. I have a mountain cabin that is off the grid and relies exclusively on solar power and battery storage for electric­ity generation, and I also have a solar system on my house that is tied into the grid, so I am a proponent of alternative energy. But I am also convinced that, while very important, wind and solar energy cannot be produced in the massive quantities needed to reduce or replace coal as a primary source for generation of electricity, or even keep up with the increasing worldwide demand for electricity.

As a professor at Colorado State University, I have taught undergraduate and graduate courses on radiation and its biological effects. As the environmental con­sequences of burning fossil fuels became increasingly apparent, I began to focus on the issues associated with nuclear power because of its strategic importance in reducing the huge amounts of CO2 released into the atmosphere from burn­ing fossil fuels for electricity production. While there are an increasing number of books both in favor of and opposed to nuclear power, none of them provides a clear explanation of what we know about the biological effects of radiation and how we know it. There are many myths about radiation and some legitimate con­cerns. The goal of this book is to explore these issues with a firm foundation in science. While the creation of this book has its roots in the courses I have taught, it is not intended to be a scientific textbook but rather a book that will help an educated public better understand the issues and myths associated with nuclear power. This book is for you if you are interested in where we get our energy for electricity, how energy production impacts the earth’s environment, and what we can do to meet our future energy needs while reducing CO2 production and limit­ing environmental impacts.

Since the issue of greenhouse gases and global warming in the context of cur­rent energy utilization and projections for the future is essential to the basic mes­sage of the book, I evaluate the scientific knowledge of global warming in the first section. Several graphs clearly demonstrate the evidence for global warming and its relationship to human-caused CO2 production. Then I discuss in detail the sources of our energy and evaluate the pros and cons of coal, petroleum, natu­ral gas, solar, wind, and nuclear power. This section emphasizes the serious con­sequences for global warming of burning fossil fuels but also demonstrates that renewable energy has many limitations and is not sufficient to solve the global warming problem. Thus, the rationale for increasing the use of nuclear power for electricity production to minimize global warming is developed.

The second section is devoted to explaining what radiation actually is (I will try to keep the physics to a minimum, but as my students know, I love to talk about physics so I may get carried away!) and what a “dose” of radiation means. The specific types of radiation will be described in the context of radiation associated with a nuclear reactor. Most people are unaware that by far the greatest human exposure to radiation comes from natural background radiation and diagnostic medical exams. In order to understand the potential consequences of exposure to radiation from nuclear power generation, it is essential to put it in the context of that natural exposure to background radiation in our environment.

What we care about, of course, is what radiation from any source does to our cells and bodies. To understand this, it is first necessary to look at how radiation damages DNA and how cells respond to that damage. It may come as a surprise to many people that our cells have evolved complex and sophisticated molecu­lar methods to repair DNA damage from radiation and other damaging agents. However, under certain conditions, radiation may kill cells or cause mutations. The ability of radiation to kill cells is important in radiation therapy for cancer, while the ability to cause mutations is how radiation can cause cancer.

As it turns out, we know more about the biological effects of radiation and its ability to cause cancer than nearly any other toxic agent. How do we know that? Information on the carcinogenic effects of radiation on humans comes primar­ily from the Japanese survivors of the two atomic bombs dropped during World War II and from humans who have been exposed to substantial doses for medi­cal purposes. Our basic understanding of how radiation causes mutations and genetic damage comes from a vast literature on cellular and molecular studies by radiation biologists. This section is critical to understand the probability of getting cancer from exposure to a particular dose and is essential for understanding the potential hazards associated with nuclear power.

The last section deals with specific issues associated with nuclear power. Mining and milling of uranium ore has traditionally been done in underground or pit mines, but newer in situ leach mining methods greatly reduce the potential expo­sure to radiation and also the environmental damage associated with pit mining. A chapter on uranium will explore the issues of mining and discuss the long-term availability of uranium to power a nuclear renaissance.

The potential for accidents is an important factor in the use of nuclear power— perhaps the largest factor in most people’s minds. I discuss the causes and the envi­ronmental and health consequences of the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. It will surprise most people that the consequences are much less than is generally presumed—the “wasteland” around Chernobyl has actually turned into an island of biodiversity. The overall safety record of nuclear power turns out to compare very favorably with other sources of energy, especially fossil fuels. As a result of these accidents, better operating procedures and designs of nuclear reactors minimize the potential for future accidents. Even considering the Three Mile Island accident, there has not been a single life lost in 50 years of operation of commercial nuclear reactors in the United States. That certainly can­not be said for coal or natural gas!

The waste from nuclear reactors is of paramount concern to most people, but there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the hazards of long-term nuclear waste storage. It is first necessary to understand exactly what is contained in nuclear waste and how it decays over time—back to the physics! Then I discuss the much-maligned nuclear waste repository planned for Yucca Mountain. It has been deeply mired in politics, but the potential radiation exposure to future popu­lations would actually be minimal. What will surprise many people is that we already safely store military nuclear waste at a deep salt mine near Carlsbad, New Mexico, known as WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant). And nuclear waste can also be a resource. France recycles their nuclear waste to extract the uranium and plu­tonium so it can be made into new fuel. This greatly reduces the long-term storage problem of nuclear waste. Is this what we should be doing? It is an option that is available if we choose to pursue it.

I am convinced that greater use of nuclear power is essential for minimizing the effects of energy production on global climate change. However, I have tried to address this subject with an open mind and to present the best scientific evidence and analysis that bear on this very important public policy question. I hope that you will read this book with an open mind also, in spite of what may be a bias against nuclear power, and will learn that radiation is not nearly as hazardous or scary as the majority of Americans believe or the popular press paints it. The issue of energy production and its consequences for the earth and all living systems— including ourselves, our children, and their children—is far too important to have an uninformed debate. My hope is that this book will contribute to an informed debate about the difficult options we face. Truly, there is no free lunch, and dif­ficult decisions will have to be made. Better that they be guided by an informed citizenry than one paralyzed by fear.

“The ice caps are melting!” “The coast is flooding!” Let us work now, while there is still time, so that this will not be the reality our grandchildren will face.

REFERENCES

1. Carson R. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.

2. Ehrlich PR. The Population Bomb. New York: Ballantine Books, 1968.

3. Meadows DH, Meadows DL, Randers J, Behrens III WW. The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books, 1972.

4. Caldicott H. Nuclear Madness-. What You Can Do! Brookline, MA: Autumn Press, 1978 .

5. Alley R, Bernsten T, Bindoff NI, Chen Z, et al. Summary for policymakers. In: Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, et al. eds. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007; 1-21.

6. Friedman TL. Hot, Flat, and Crowded. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

PART ONE

Global Warming and Energy Production