I get mail:
German physicist Peter Heller wrote a passionate plea for a return to science on the nuclear power issue, published in German here: http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/fukushima/004149/
With Dr. Heller’s permission, I’ve translated it in English. But having gone over the content, I think his plea is worthy of a much wider audience – more than what NTZ can offer. So I send this to you with the kind request that you consider publishing it at WUWT.
Best regards,
P Gosselin
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German physicist Peter Heller makes a passionate plea for a return to science on the nuclear energy issue. He wonders if ignorance and fear will cause us to abandon the legacies of Einstein, Heisenberg and others.
Fukushima
By Dr Peter Heller, http://www.science-skeptical.de
Astronomer, Physicist
There’s no place on earth I would rather be right now than at Fukushima – right in the atomic power plant, at the centre of the event. I say this because I am a physicist and there is no other place that could be more exciting and interesting for a physicist. The same goes for many, if not most physicists and engineers, on the planet.
Already at a young age I knew one day I would study physics. As a boy, I received a telescope for Christmas, and from that point on my view was fixed on the night sky; gazing at star clusters, nebula and galaxies was my favourite preoccupation. It was only later that I learned that these lights and the twinkling in eyepiece were actually the expressions of a chaotic and violent force of nature – the direct conversion of matter into energy during the fusion of an atomic nucleus.
My curiosity carried me, as if on a high, through 10 semesters of study and subsequent graduation. It was a time of discovery that involved the tedious task of understanding. At times I felt exasperation and self doubt with respect to the sheer complexity and breadth of what there was to learn. Yet, there were times of joy whenever the fog lifted and the clarity and beauty of physical descriptions of natural phenomena moved in its place. It was a time that, unfortunately, passed all too quickly and is now some years in the past.
The great minds that accompanied me through my studies were Planck, Sommerfeld, Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, and a host of others who, for us physicists, are still very much alive today. They are great thinkers who contributed to unravelling the puzzles of nature and the forces which keep the world together through the most minute structures. I devoured the stories of Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, of Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller – to name a few – and on how they created completely new technologies from theoretical concepts, how the energy stored in the nucleus of an atom could be used for the good of man and how it became possible in a single process to tap into this source of affordable, clean and plentiful energy on a large scale as never seen by man. Electricity illuminates our world, drives our machines, allow us to communicate over great distances, thus making our lives easier and more comfortable. It is a source of energy that staves off poverty and enables prosperity.
Electricity: manufactured by splitting atomic nuclei with neutrons, gained through the direct conversion of mass into energy. It is the principle by which (via the reverse process of fusion) the stars twinkle in the night sky, a principle by which our sun enables life on our planet.
As a physicist it fills me with great joy and pride to see how man is able to rouse this force of nature at the most minute structural level, then amplify, control, and use it for our benefit. As a physicist I have the fundamental understanding of the processes – I can imagine them and describe them. As a physicist I have neither fear of an atomic power plant nor of radioactivity. Ultimately I know that it is a natural phenomenon that is always around us, one we can never escape – and one that we never need to escape. And I know the first as a symbol of man’s capability to steer the forces of nature. As a physicist I have no fear of what nature has to offer. Rather I have respect. And this respect beckons us to seize the chances like those offered by neutrons, which can split nuclei and thus convert matter into energy. Anything else would be ignorance and cowardice.
Dark times in history
There were times in history when ignorance and cowardice overshadowed human life. It was a time when our ancestors were forced to lead a life filled with superstition and fear because it was forbidden to use creativity and fantasy. Religious dogma, like the earth being the centre of the universe, or creationism, forbade people to question. The forbiddance of opening a human body and examining it prevented questions from being answered. Today these medieval rules appear backwards and close-minded. We simply cannot imagine this way of thinking could have any acceptance.
But over the recent days I have grown concerned that we are headed again for such dark times. Hysterical and sensationalist media reporting, paired with a remarkably stark display of ignorance of technical and scientific interrelations, and the attempt by a vast majority of journalists to fan the public’s angst and opposition to nuclear energy – pure witch-burning disguised as modernity.
Freedom of research
So it fills me with sadness and anger on how the work of the above mentioned giants of physics is now being dragged through the mud, how the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century are being redefined and criminalized. The current debate in Germany is also a debate on freedom of research. The stigmatization and ostracism of nuclear energy, the demand for an immediate stop of its use, is also the demand for the end of its research and development. No job possibilities also means no students, which means no faculty, which then means the end of the growth of our knowledge. Stopping nuclear energy is nothing less than rejecting the legacy of Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and all others. It is tantamount to scrapping it, labelling it as dangerous – all in a fit of ignorance. And just as creationists attempt to ban the theory of evolution from the school books, it almost seems as if every factual and neutral explanation in Germany is now in the process of being deleted.
The media suggests a nuclear catastrophe, a mega-meltdown, and that the apocalypse has already begun. It is almost as if the 10,000 deaths in Japan were actually victims of nuclear energy, and not the earthquake or the tsunami. Here again one has to remind us that Fukushima was first hit by an unimaginable 9.0 earthquake and then by a massive 10-meter wave of water just an hour later. As a result, the facility no longer found itself in a highly technological area, but surrounded by a desert of rubble. All around the power plant the infrastructure, residential areas, traffic routes, energy and communication networks are simply no longer there. They were wiped out. Yet, after an entire week, the apocalypse still has not come to pass. Only relatively small amounts of radioactive materials have leaked out and have had only a local impact. If one considers the pure facts exclusively, i.e. only the things we really know, then it exposes the unfounded interpretations of scientific illiterates in the media. One can only arrive to one conclusion: This sorrowful state will remain so.
In truth, this does not show that the ideologically motivated, fear-laden admonitions and warnings were correct. Fukushima illustrates that we are indeed able to control atomic energy. Fukushima shows that we can master it even when natural disasters beyond planning befall us. Still, at Fukushima the conflict between human creativity/competence continues to clamour against the bond energy in atomic nuclei. It’s a struggle that that shows what human intelligence, knowledge gained, passion, boldness, respect, and capability to learn allow us to do. Personally this does not fill me with apprehension, but with hope. Man can meet this challenge not only because he has to, but most of all because he wants to.
Even though I have not practiced physics for some time now, I will never be anything other than a scientist and researcher, and there would be no other place I would rather be than on site at Fukushima. There is no other place at the moment where so much can be learned about atomic energy, which keeps our world together deep inside, and the technical possibilities to benefit from it. Do we have the courage to learn? Do we accept – with respect and confidence – the opportunities we are confronted with? Fukushima will show us possibilities on how to use the direct conversion of matter into energy in a better and safer way, something that Einstein and others could have only dreamed of.
I am a physicist. My wish is to live in a world that is willing to learn and to improve whatever is good. I would only like to live in a world where great strides in physics are viewed with fascination, pride, and hope because they show us the way to a better future. I would only like to live in a world that has the courage for a better world. Any other world for me is unacceptable. Never. That’s why I am going to fight for this world, without ever relenting.
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Translated from the German, with the permission of Peter Heller, by Bernd Felsche and Pierre Gosselin. Original text appeared here: http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/fukushima/004149/
As a retired physicist/nuclear engineer, I second Peter’s sentiments and would want to be involved in handling the incident.
PaulH says:
March 20, 2011 at 11:10 am
I fear it will take a long time to dig out of this hole.
No matter the length of time it will not be long enough.
Nuclear Power Solutions
We should be looking at practicable, cost effective and safe nuclear power that is quick and easy to install!
A typical nuclear plant takes 10 years and $6-billion to build, while a coal-burner takes thee years and $3-billion. A gas plant Takes two years and $1-billion.
Since 1960 Hundreds of mini reactors have been safely operating in nuclear subs, nuclear aircraft carriers, nuclear Cruisers, nuclear Icebreakers and ships of every description. Over 52 years the design and safety of the new reactors have been vastly improved.
There are at least 6 companies’ that are in the end design stages of small package nuclear reactor power and heat units.
I think this is an Ideal solution to most power requirements that are safe and affordable, and will satisfy MOST people from both sides of the climate debate.
Here is one such company, an American Company that looks like a winner to me:
Hyperion Mini Power Reactor.
THIS SEEMS TO BE THE WAY A SMALL INEXPENSIVE NUCLEAR POWER MODULES THAT DOESN’T NEED HUGE EXPENSIVE INFRASTRUCTURE, OR LARGE SCALE TRANSMISSION LINES. THE MODULES CAN BE PIGGY BACKED FOR LARGER POWER REQUIREMENTS. CAN BE QUICKLY BUILT ON AN ASSEMBLY LINE BASIS, INSTALLED AND RUNNING IN A SHORT TIME FRAME. – What’s not to like?
Hyperion Mini Nuclear Power Reactor = A fraction of the cost of nuclear reaction power plants + fast delivery and installation time starting in 2013.
The Hyperion Mini Nuclear Power Module (HPG) = 25 megawatts = 25 000 kilowatts
Clean, Safe, Affordable Power where you need it, when you need it.
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/product.html
The Hyperion Mini Power Reactor. It is a small, safe transportable reactor module that is set up and in operation quickly.
Hyperion Power’s Mini Power Reactor, is a liquid metal-cooled fast reactor, and offers unique safety features and efficiency. The Hyperion does not need water to cool the reactor. Water is not used as coolant; it cannot go “supercritical” or get too hot. The Hyperion only needs a water supply to create Steam or hot water for heating or for the Steam turbines that will generate the electricity. Hyperion can be ganged or teamed together; the modules can produce even more consistent energy for larger projects.
Housed in a permanently sealed container just 1.5 meters wide by 2.5 meters tall, it’s small enough to be transported by truck, rail or ship. Meeting all the non-proliferation criteria of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), each unit produces 70 megawatts of thermal energy or 25 megawatts of electric power— enough to provide electricity for 20,000 average American-size homes or the industrial equivalent for seven to ten years depending on usage. Nuclear-based power plants can produce heat or electricity 24/7 with no greenhouse-gas emissions.
Offering a cost-efficient source of clean, emission-free, baseload energy, the Hyperion Power Module will provide crucial independent power for military installations; heat, steam, and electricity for mining operations; and electricity for local infrastructure and clean water processes in communities around the globe.
Who would have thought that the benefits of generating electricity from huge nuclear power plants… could ever be provided in a small, compact, energy module The size of a shipping container, that can be transported by truck, rail or ship to remote locations wherever reliable electricity and heat for communities, industry, military, mining or any application where heat and energy is needed?
Once sited safely in its underground containment vessel, an HPM is monitored but does not require a battery of operational personnel. It just quietly delivers safe, reliable power – 70 MW thermal or 25 MW electric via steam turbine – for a period of 7 to 10 years. A factory fresh module is shipped to quickly and simply replaces the reactor package.
. Hyperion power is also cheaper than fossil fuels and, when you consider the cost of land and materials, watt to watt, Hyperion’s innovative energy technology is even more affordable than many developing “alternative” energy technologies.
Out of sight and safe from nefarious threats, Hyperion power modules are buried far underground and guarded by a security detail. Like a power battery, Hyperion modules have no moving parts to wear down, and are delivered factory sealed. They are never opened on site.
Even if one were compromised, the material inside would not be appropriate for weapon proliferation purposes.
Further, due to the unique, yet proven science upon which this new technology is based, it is impossible for the module to go supercritical, “melt down” or create any type of emergency situation.
If opened, the very small amount of fuel that is enclosed would immediately cool. The waste produced after five years of operation is approximately the size of softball and is a good candidate for fuel recycling.
Conceived at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the HPM intellectual property portfolio has been licensed to Hyperion Power Generation for commercialization under the laboratory’s technology transfer program. Inherently safe, the HPM utilizes the energy of low-enriched uranium fuel and meets all the non-proliferation criteria the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). Three factories, spread across the globe are planned to produce 4,000 units of the first design.
Obie says:
March 20, 2011 at 11:03 am
So why no comments from the usual readers of WUWT.
I’m one that’s been here posting, oh, just a couple comments in these nuclear power related threads threads.
No-one is dissing Einstein. And frankly, the idea that Fukushima is the greatest place in the world to be right now for scientists is offensive – to those who have put themselves at risk trying to get the place under control, and their loved ones. Creationism has nothing to do with this.
You may have a fundamental understanding of the processes behind fusion and fission, but there are other issues. How should spent fuel rods be dealt with? Why has information coming from the authorities been so poor (I watched a NHK news broadcast this evening where the journalists had a palpable sense of anger at the lack of clear info coming out this weekend)?
I’ve observed a lot of good as well as very poor MSM journalism over this story. Frankly, it feels like you’ve created a really good straw man to beat up to cheers from an echo chamber.
Einstein believed God created. Opps!
Greg, San Diego, CA says:
March 20, 2011 at 11:21 am
This article brought tears to my eyes – the passion of this man is palpable.
How do we get this article into newspapers worldwide?
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So you want to get the word out?
Link to this article from your website.
Hit the 5 star button under the post.
Like it on facebook and any of the other sites, listed below the post, where you have an account.
Send the page to your friends and ask them to do the same.
That should be a good start. 🙂
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.
I too am a physicist (retired) of the astro- kind. My opinion, in the past, was that nuclear energy was too risky to use on a wide scale. The events in Japan have demonstrated that such apprehension was, for the most part, unfounded; I became converted almost overnight.
But. Fear, in the population masses, is, and has been, a primary driving force. It has been a useful, if not fundamental, tool to instigate and maintain control, doctrines, dogma, and ideology.
From the original Judeo-Christian POV, the One God was here/there to provide solace or comfort or deliverance from the consequences of physical (natural) and/or moral evil. It didn’t take long for that specific offering (or sacrifice) to transmogrify into — “do it my way, or else I’ll clobber you”: the bad-news of tyrants, rather than the “come, let us reason together”: the good-news of the One God.
And so pandemic fear has permitted educated, degreed, popular, successful politicians and scientists and clerics and journalists and everyday pedestrians to believe that CO2 is poison. Almost the same crowd will readily accept that multiculturalism (in the sense that all cultures and religions and ideologies are of equal value) is a value beyond which there is nothing conceivable more valuable. The idea is to be revered or venerated or worshipped; opposition to the value is to be extinguished in any way.
All physicists are not immune to rampant, mimetic contagions. Neither are all clerics, or politicians, or anybody else. And even in “free-science” there remains the risk that the discoveries can lead to a triumphalism as potent as any religious brew has concocted.
“Come let us reason together” is a notion of workable religion as much as it could be a workable notion of the scientific method or a cultural mandate. But, like peace, reason does not always defend itself.
And if you’ll believe that CO2 is poison, then it’s not much of a stretch to criminalize the radioactivity of a banana.
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Not all newspaper columnists are scientifically illiterate. See this article by Suzanne Moore in today’s Sunday Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1368050/Japan-nuclear-meltdown-Stop-scaremongering-I-swam-sea-round-Sizewell.html
Perhaps I’m easily impressed but I thought the translation from German was amazing.
Excellent comments by James Sexton and Theo Goodwin. I am not a “Creationist”. I was taught evolution from grade school on. Only recently have I realized that the theory of evolution has a lot of holes in it. It does not fully answer some very fundamental questions like “how does an organism add genes to evolve into another organism?” And no…an adaptive response like Staph aureus developing resistance to an antimicrobial is not “evolution”. The adapted bacterium is still a Staph aureus.
Theo Goodwin makes a good point about PC. Rather than trashing Creationism it may have been more appropriate to use the example of AGW. But in Germany to doubt AGW is nearly a crime. Dr. Heller would have lost his audience. To be fair, there’s much better empirical evidence to support evolution than there is Creationism. At the same time there’s better empiric evidence to support UFOs and extraterrestrials than there is to support AGW.
And what are we going to do with the waste?
I am not convinced nuclear energy is save.
@Jerome Hudson Gustafson on March 20, 2011 at 12:12 pm
Re nuclear power would be very cheap if…
My comments on that topic are on record on WUWT’s earlier thread
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/18/good-news-from-japan-situation-fairly-stable-says-iaea/
The lawsuits are generally brought to force the plant into compliance with the governing regulations. The additional costs are built into the nuclear plant design – the triple-shielding is required due to the ultra-hazardous nature of atomic fission. The multiple redundancies for various systems are also required under the law, again because of the catastrophic harm that occurs when these things melt down, shake apart, blow up or otherwise go badly wrong.
The plant’s equipment is much bigger, for one thing, and therefore more expensive, simply because nuclear power plants produce low-pressure steam, and THAT requires much more steam to circulate for the same amount of power produced. More steam flow requires larger turbines, larger condensers, larger pumps, larger pipes and valves, larger cooling water systems, and so on. This is especially true for the BWR designs (boiling water reactor). The construction codes for nuclear plants require much more extensive, and expensive, testing and inspection including x-ray of most of the welds in the plant.
All these things add to the cost of the plant – but are required simply because nuclear power is very, very dangerous without elaborate and multiple safeguards. The original atomic physicists were absolutely correct when they said this should never be used. When the green genie escapes, there are multiple types of hell to pay.
a) someone wrote, we need physicists as politicians. Well, the angela merkel (german kanzlerin) has a phd in physics.
b) anti-nuclear is not anti-science!
c) it’s indeed a problem that germany (europe?, western countries in general?) has not enough (young) nuclear scientists.
When you take into account the number of accidents and environmental damage done annually by the conventional power industry, nuclear is much cleaner and much safer. Why is nobody complaining about the mercury “fallout” from China’s coal power? That is more dangerous than anything we are going to see from Fukushima and it occurs every day, day in, day out, and does cumulative damage to the food chain.
We recently had a natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed people and damaged homes. We have such explosions practically monthly in the US. Globally, probably nearly every day someplace. We have all sorts of industrial accidents that kill dozens, yet no hue and cry as we have over this incident that has killed nobody or even injured anyone due to any radiation leakage.
If I were “big oil” or “big coal” I would be giving big money to the anti-nuclear wackos.
Most of us have always been “greenies” we’re just pragmatic, active-minded greenies, not the faddist sheeple greenie that are so noisy. Worry less about green someone says they are and worry , more about how green you are really.
Unless we have the political will to grow nuclear it won’t happen. There is too much negative information out there most of it wrong. People still believe that many people died at TMI and hundreds of thousands have cancer due to Chernobyl.
Someone will need to take the bully pulpit of office, like Senator James Inhofe has fought against AGW. And let’s not think the our current president ‘H’ is pro-nuclear. He is just mouthing the words. He appointed Gregory B. Jaczko whose record would be better described as anti-nuke. And at DOE Dr Chu is focusing on alternative green energy.
Boy, are we screwed!
“There’s no place on earth I would rather be right now than at Fukushima – right in the atomic power plant, at the centre of the event.”
I am sure that we could find a Japanese family to do a house swap if you really mean this.
Onion says:
March 20, 2011 at 12:36 pm
. Frankly, it feels like you’ve created a really good straw man to beat up to cheers from an echo chamber.
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Onion. It is you that maketh the strawmen. It’s all you ever do here. Go, take your onions with you and weep elsewhere.
Douglas
The author seems insolated from everything but physics. Is he aware that science has become political science, at least in the AGW-CO2 chapter of science and no where is it more the case than in Germany (maybe the UK is worse). Actually, it can be said that this post normal science movement began with the anti-nuclear crowd 50 years ago. It must have already been about as bad as it is now when Dr. Heller was a student.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 20, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Douglas says:
March 20, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Leif Svalgaard says: March 20, 2011 at 11:12 am
Max Hugoson says:March 20, 2011 at 10:44 am
the “sea wall” is going to have to be: 14 meters high.
One might wonder about the rationale in a tsunami-prone country to build power plants on the coast…
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We’ve all got 20/20 hindsight.
Douglas
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They didn’t know about earthquakes and tsunamis ahead of time?
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Amino – Of course you HAVE got 20/20 hindsight vision – A 9.0 one plus a 10 metre one plus the stored rods – all together. Great stuff. You guys p*** me off – Give these people a break. The damage at the plant is bad enough on top of the REAL disasters there– they will learn from it – believe me – but they don’t need s*** from EXPERTS like you to pontificate about it.
Douglas
The Make Believe Media, are, of course, trying to justify their continued existence. That is because many of us have realized that we don’t need them and we can no longer afford them.
They will continue to rush around turning everything into a catastrophe until the real catastrophe hits them.
”Fukushima illustrates that we are indeed able to control atomic energy.” – Dr Peter Heller, Physicist, Germany
Fantastic article Dr. Heller. Outstanding.
Current doses from the emissions, virtually unmeasurable.
Fukashima has managed to “contain” most of the “hard stuff”, other than Cesium, Iodine and Xenon. 99% of all the Cesium and Iodine has “gone out to sea”, where it’s totality will be indistinquisable from background.
The BIG problem here is the loss of almost 3 Gigawatt of capacity. And let’s get down to the heart, if the other 3 units at Fukashima are going to go back on line, the “sea wall” is going to have to be:
14 meters high.
The emergency D.G.s are going to be in a tsunami/explosion proof building (earthquake too). Emergency plans will include 3 week offsite power loss.
All in all, this should NOT happen again.
Too NOT “fix” these things, would be a TREMENDOUS LOSS OF FACE for Japan, and I can assure you they WILL fix them!
– “Max Hugoson at March 20, 2011 at 10:44 am”
Excellent comment Max, I fully concur with the fixes.
BOB (Big Ole Battery), which also happens to be made by TESCO, could easily provide the multiple week or longer dedicated energy source for a nuclear plant. Every nuclear plant on the planet needs a Bunkered BOB within a few kilometers for backup.
I’ve written about it and a few other suggestions in this article:
http://pathstoknowledge.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/safer-nuclear-reactor-designs-are-a-must/
I just recently read that Fukushima is ‘at least ad bad’ as TMI.
My father worked at TMI.
TMI was a blip on the radar compared to this. People are CLUELESS when it comes to such things and the anti-science, anti-advancement media cheerfully keep them that way.
REPLY: yeah, sure, whatever. TMI was a failure of humans and technology, Fukishima was a result of an act of nature, big diff. – Anthony
Okay, I’ve heard enough. Picture this; the 9/11 planes didn’t fly into the WTC, instead they were flown directly into nuclear power plants. Would you all be so sure about their continued programme then? I’m an atheist – because I see rationale and logic. I love science, because it trumps everything else. But if you fly a plane into a hydro-electric plant, or a geothermal-electric plant, or a coal-electric plant, or a gas-electric plant, you know what? It’s going to cause annoyance and economic problems…but everyone’s going to be fine. You fly passenger jet aircraft filled with fuel into one nuclear power plant – then tell me all is gong to be absolutely fine. And yes, there will be people reading this that will say that a nuclear plant could withstand it. Well do you want to know something else…I don’t believe it.
I don’t want to go back to the Dark Ages, and I want science to trump religion and belief in nonsense. But I don’t want to go to an age where hundreds of square miles are a no-go area for thousands of years, where cancer becomes a major killer, where birth defects affect millions.
Fusion? Great. But don’t tell me that we’re perfectly safe with nuclear power, because we ain’t. We could invest all those billions in hot-rock geothermal, or hydro, or tidal. We could. Instead people want to continue on a path thats always walked a fine line.
@ew-3 says: march 20, 2011 at 10:40 am
“we need a major calamity…”
Well, Japan has just had one. And no man is an island…