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
——————————————–
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.
————————————————–
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/
To Dr Peter Heller:
With the greatest admiration and respect, for having written the article I wish I had written. A toast – to life, to knowledge, and to the wisdom to use these gifts of God for the well being of all.
Jeremy Poynton says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Well, Japan has just had one. And no man is an island…
Yes, but no the kind of calamity I had in mind.
The only way to kick start nukes is to demonstrate that it helps us be energy independent. So a major flair up in the middle east that cuts off US supplies of oil for an extended period of time. Just to get peoples attention. Say no gas available at gasoline stations in the US for 3 or 4 weeks. We need people to get angry.
Thank you, Peter Heller. We need more like you.
Oh, and if they built a nuclear power plant next door to me, I’d stay right where I am.
Oh dear. The use of 9/11 comparisons is usually frowned upon. Especially when the comparison is not even valid.
“But if you fly a plane into a hydro-electric plant”
Oh, you mean like a giant dam with millions of tons of water piled up behind it, at the head of an inhabited valley? An earthquake there (no need for planes) would result in something rather like a tsunami, yes?
“I’m an atheist – because I see rationale and logic.”
What does that have to do with anything?
“You fly passenger jet aircraft filled with fuel into one nuclear power plant – then tell me all is gong to be absolutely fine.”
Sure. “Everything is going to be absolutely fine.” This is in fact one of the tests they do on nuclear power stations, I’ve seen the video. Compared to a magnitude 9 tsunami, a jet plane is insignificant. Compared to a 30 ft high wall of water moving at up to 200 km/hr, a single jet plane is insignificant.
Here’s the video.
People seem to have no comprehension of the scale of what this power station has withstood. I have the same feeling of bemusement that I would if I said my wristwatch was ‘tough’, my mate said ‘oh, yeah?’ and proceeded to take it slam it repeatedly with a heavy sledge hammer, and then said ‘There, see? The glass on the front is slightly scratched!’
“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.”
None of that could possibly happen. The most radio-active isotopes are the shortest-lived. With warning to evacuate, there is little likelihood of more than momentary increases in either cancer deaths or birth defects. A hundred square miles is a square 10 miles on a side, or an area extending 5 miles out from the reactor in the centre – which is not a big deal compared to the size of the planet. And there are uninhabitable places on Earth far more deadly over far longer time scales due to chemical or climatic conditions, that nobody is bothered about because it happens to be natural. Go live in Antarctica for a bit – an entire continent rendered uninhabitable, with death from hypothermia or starvation inevitable to anyone there without massive technological support – and tell me how unendurable it is that such a place could exist.
Go visit the city of Hiroshima, and you will find it thriving. Such events are never a good thing, but we can recover.
Nuclear power is dangerous, but not significantly more dangerous than many other chemical and industrial processes. The potential for harm is minor compared to many other events. And the safety measures are simply out of this world. Even the current event is not a threat to anybody not working at the site, and is unlikely to harm even those who are. It’s simply been blown up out of all proportion by the media and the campaigners.
Given the real disaster due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the urgent need to deal with that, it seems ridiculous to be spending our time fretting irrationally about this entirely imaginary fear. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth about nuclear doom is just annoying, and it will have bad consequences for technological progress for the future.
Forget physics. The Japanese nuclear industry is very corrupt. Nuclear power is a strange right wing talisman that represents the military industrial complex. We know that in the UK a lot of accidents have been covered up or played down by the corporate media.
What are the radiation readings for Fukushima ? – They are censored.
However one area to the south is showing a recent dramatic rise.
ibaraki
2040 (0:5:50) 1635 (0:4:20) 639 (17:40 yesterday)
http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=4870
Umm,
The sun just crossed the equator, it is spring in the NH!!!
@HenryP who said: “And what are we going to do with the waste? I am not convinced nuclear energy is save [sic].
You are thinking of first-or second-generation technology. Try fourth generation. Read up on breeder reactors, aka Thorium or fast fission reactors. They actually consume all that old waste that politicians can’t figure out how to store.
And are you aware that coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
Herr Heller says: (in his pleading for a return science)
>>
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.
>>
I don’t intend to knit-pick this huge out-pouring but let’s just look at this paragraph.
1/ As the 6th largest since quantitive recordings began, mag 9 is unusual but not “unimaginable”. Not a very scientific statement.
2/ Initial speculation of a wave of “up to 10m” was not a reality on the coast. This is about as scientific as IPCC’s may be as high as 6C warmer. Not very scientific.
3/ No “desert of rubble”. The nuclear plant is on the coast not in the city. It was flooded but not smashed up. No “rubble”. Untrue , over dramatisation. Not scientific.
So all dramatic over-statements , not unimpassioned science.
“and there would be no other place I would rather be than on site at Fukushima. ”
Really? So why aren’t you there. They could use someone with no fear of radiation to fix up things up. They have to keep pulling their guys out.
Strange that such a rigorous , hardline scientist can’t stick to the facts whilst appealing for a return to science.
Maybe it is not just the IPCC and “the team” , maybe science has always been a lie, it’s that we only just noticed.
This is a long video, 1 hour, 7 minutes, BUT well worth watching:
Energy Biosciences Institute Seminar – Richard Muller
He makes a number of points about energy. Of interest is …
> The bulk of the radioactive waste is gone in 120 years
> When one factors in Coal and Natural Gas, the US has lots of “Liquid” Energy
> “Green Technology” will fail if it is not cheaper than current technology
> IF the US cuts carbon emissions, it makes NO difference
Bob Diaz
The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley says:
March 20, 2011 at 1:59 pm
“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. ”
Since 9/11, the NRC has required the nuclear power plants develop and implement strategies to intercept and stop land or water based terrorist attacks and to mitigate the consequences of an airborne terrorist attack that successfully makes it to a plant without being shot down. While the details of these strategies are not publicly available (to keep the details from the terrorists), from what I’ve seen, they’re a lot more robust than most folks would expect, including periodic drills where guys that look like they’ve got special forces backgrounds try to make it into the plant and access vital plant equipment.
Heller’s piece reads like an obituary for a fifth grade science teacher written by one of his students. Sophomoric dull and whiny. Spare me.
I don’t understand your response to my earlier post. I come down squarely on the side of we NEED nuclear power. TMI was Nothing, but the media keeps bringing it up to keep the scare on.
Take you Meds or something 🙁
Theo Goodwin says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:53 pm
” But we are forbidden to discuss anything that might be taken as critical of Darwin. That Political Correctness is immoral, unscientific, and un-American.”
_____________________________________________________
Theo,
I agree with you. For the most part I dismiss Creationism as mythology. Lately I have come to question evolution and you’re right, it is politically incorrect to dare to question Darwin’s theory. Darwinism has become as accepted as absolute fact as Newtonian physics. Anyone who dares question it is ignorant and un-scientific. Until recently I never questioned it, it all made such perfect, logical sense. Then just a few questions asked by the “other side” (be they Creationists or Intelligent Design proponents) compelled me to re-examine the issue. The fossil record is not nearly as supportive of evolution as the proponents would have us believe. And even at today’s state of technological advancement I have yet to see a proven biological mechanism that explains how one species can transform into another. I’m not dismissing evolution as impossible – simply as “unproven”. Yet one dare not question this “immutable truth” even though the hypothesis, like AGW, cannot be falsified nor proven. Evolution, like AGW is no longer taught as a “theory” but as a “fact”. In may, indeed, actually be a “fact”…but to date it remains an unproven theory. From time immemorial there are some things “society” just won’t tolerate being questioned.
Now, veering suddenly back on topic…I very much enjoyed Dr. Heller’s essay. It was passionate and well written (certainly expertly well translated). Being strongly pro-nuclear I agreed with nearly everything he wrote. My objection was to his (mis)use of Creationists’ doctrine to make his point. Darwinists stand a nearly equal chance at being wrong. In Germany he couldn’t possibly have used AGW as an example…most of the population buys into this crap. Perhaps he should have used the astrophysics example of the dispute between Hoyle and Lemaître. BANG!!
TheJollyGreenMan said:
I’ve got to believe reactor cooling engineering is not a full time job for you. Here’s a page that can help put things in the proper scale for you:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/teachers/04.pdf
If I’ve done my math right that comes to about 500 cubic yards of water per minute. There are 1440 minutes in a day, 10,000 in a week. That’s turning out to be quite a bit of water to put on a hill top. But let us assume there is a hilltop to put it on. Oh – wait. No hill top. But then calculate the size of the pipe needed to gravity feed that much water per minute and then describe how you turn that pipe on and off when there’s no electricity. You have to be careful the inertia in the pipe doesn’t pull the pipe off the hill. Air has to be let into the pipe at the top so it doesn’t get sucked flat like a cheap drinking straw. Haven’t mentioned yet the preferred condition of that cooling water be clean and free of plants and drowned animals. And wouldn’t it be a shame if it became contaminated on the way through the reactor, because all that water has to finally go into the sea (insert cheap joke about the rebirth of Godzilla).
Clearly a recirculating cooling system that can use preprocessed sea water is desirable and feasible. The problem is the site is susceptible to tsunami waves and the facility was not engineered to withstand a large tsunami. We don’t know if it was built to withstand a tsunami of any serious size, but even a small tsunami is capable of going over the barriers that were put in place. Tsunamis will rise to the occasion. See more at http://geology.com/records/biggest-tsunami.shtml.
Until it was de-commissioned I lived most of my life 20 miles from a nuclear plant at Berkley, Glos, England and never gave it a second thought. However I do understand it was nowwhere near as safe as modern plants with automatic shutdown etc.
I therefore totally agree with the professor and was pleased to hear the head of EDF confirm that they are still planning to go ahead with the three new nuclear sites they intend to build in the UK.
Apart from energy they will bring jobs and the fact that the plants in Japan have experienced such a battering without so far causing too much damage fills me with optimism for the future.
I note the comment about the latest IPCC scare, this time regarding CO2 in the oceans….all I can say is that snow is once again on Kilamangaro.
Those pesky AGW’s must now be getting desperate.
Dr. Dave says:
March 20, 2011 at 12:56 pm
“To be fair, there’s much better empirical evidence to support evolution than there is Creationism. ”
In the beginning there was God …. God created the world and all of creation in 6 days.
In the beginning there was a Big Bang…. in a few trillionths of a second the whole universe appeared from nowhere.
Science has explained nothing , it’s just changed the language.
u.k.(us) says:
March 20, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Umm,
The sun just crossed the equator, it is spring in the NH!!!
No. the equator just crossed the Sun !!!
Wasn’t it in the 1600’s that Galileo showed we were not the centre of the universe?
You’re not a creationist are you?
Douglas says:
March 20, 2011 at 1:40 pm
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
=======================================================
Are you intentionally changing the subject?
Kinda strange that you think I don’t care about the people caught in the tsunami.
Douglas says:
March 20, 2011 at 1:40 pm
A 9.0 one plus a 10 metre one plus the stored rods – all together.
What if next time it’s a 9.6 with an 80 foot tsunami? Is that planned for in any nuclear plant located on an ocean? That can’t happen?
You shouldn’t expect all people to agree with you. You shouldn’t get bent out of shape so easily. You also shouldn’t assume that just because someone doesn’t agree with you about nuclear power that it also means they don’t care about people. That’s quite a leap to make. It could be that people have serious objection to nuclear power because they do care about people.
So please no more accusations that I or anyone else that doesn’t like nuclear power doesn’t care about the people caught in the tsunami.
Also, shouldn’t your conversation be only about the people caught in the tsunami since you think I should be doing that? Does it really make sense that you say just because I’m not rah-rah about nuclear power that I am insensitive about what really happened over there?
Please clean your own house before you think you see dirt on the floor of someone elses.
Holbrook says:
March 20, 2011 at 4:50 pm
>>
I therefore totally agree with the professor and was pleased to hear the head of EDF confirm that they are still planning to go ahead with the three new nuclear sites they intend to build in the UK.
>>
Well they would say that. Since the UK govt. has promised the tax-payer will cover the cost of any accident , it’s a win-win deal for the EDF. No risk , no need for insurance. In any other industry that would be an illegal govt subsidy.
Any why did Brown’s govt agree to that ? Because no financial institutions would even consider insuring them.
Worth noting that they got the tax-payers’ money from a bailed out bank to buy existing nuclear sites that belonged to the state, ie we the people.
They buy our land, using our money and if it fucupshimas … well, we pay for that too. Of course if nothing goes wrong they get to keep everything and flees us all with energy bills for the next 50 years or so before we come back and pay for decommissioning and eternal storage of all the shit they leave behind.
Yep , their position makes perfect sense to me. Whatever happens in Japan is irrelevant to their position.
BTW what better way to encourage a commercial operator to cut corners on safety than to tell him he won’t be responsible if anything goes wrong?
P. Solar says:
March 20, 2011 at 5:02 pm
=============
Ah, now we’re having fun, syntax as an argument.
It’s all about perspective.
The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley says:
March 20, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Instead people want to continue on a path thats always walked a fine line.
If the billions put into developing hot nuclear had been put into developing coal, such as ways of cleaning the fumes from coal fire, coal fire energy could have been developed to satisfy the strictest green. Masks could have been developed that made black lung a thing of the past. All the promoting of nuclear because it’s cleaner than coal would become antiquated. Apparently there’s been more than 40 billion put into the study of hot nuclear, in the USA alone. The things I listed about coal could have been done for less than 40 billion.
But then maybe that’s not sophisticated enough for some. Maybe they like walking that fine line you talk about. Maybe it makes some feel they are advancing as a human to do it. That may, or may not be true. But it looks like some people want to take the most difficult and dangerous path possible to providing energy. What a mistake.
E Smith says:
March 20, 2011 at 4:19 pm
“However one area to the south is showing a recent dramatic rise.
ibaraki
2040 (0:5:50) 1635 (0:4:20) 639 (17:40 yesterday)
http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=4870
”
So that’s a map in nGray/h; wikipedia says
1 Sv = 1 Gy · W (where Sv=sievert, Gy=gray, W=weighting factor specific to each type of radiation and tissue).
where W ranges from 1 to 20 depending on the radiation. Your highest reading is 2040 nGy/h. That would translate to 17mSv/year to 357 mSv/year, depending on the unknown W, if it persisted which it won’t. What have we learned? 100mSv is the lowest one year dose clearly linked to an increase in cancer.
I wouldn’t panic yet, even if your link is real.
DirkH
Flying a plane into a nuclear plant would be hard. But what if they had a missile? Aiming that is frighteningly easier than a plane.