Earlier today, I posted a link on Twitter to a poll showing that 66% of white men and only 35% of everyone else support “increased reliance on nuclear fuel.” People immediately started trying to draw conclusions from that data.
“So what does that mean?” asked @lostkiwi. “White males are the only ones rational enough to know nuclear power’s a good thing?” Others responded with takes less favorable to the white men out there. Karen Daltin Beninato called it the “Homer Simpson factor.”
Here’s my thought on it. Even though polling always strikes me as somewhere between art and dark art, I do think this one highlights a key aspect of how Americans look at nuclear power.
First, I’m going to posit that most people bring their social beliefs to energy, not the other way around. It’s the rare bird whose social beliefs grew out of the study of electrons. So, the debate over something like nuclear power for most people is a subset of a general debate about that other kind of power.
Nuclear power, by its nature, has to be centralized and well-guarded, so we don’t know everything that’s going on at the nation’s atomic facilities. What that means is nuclear power requires citizens to trust the industrial order to do what’s right by society. It requires faith that the engineers and executives who build and run nuclear plants will do the right thing — and if some unexpected thing goes wrong, they’ll tell us about it, even if it hurts their profits or reputations.
White males have been in control of their/our (I’m half-Mexican) political destinies since the country coalesced. White men built the industrial order. White men also built the bomb and the first nuclear reactors. White men also run the companies who construct and operate the nuclear power plants.
Is it any surprise that white men trust the structures that they control?
Meanwhile, other groups have had less access to power. At times women and minorities have been systematically discriminated against. At the very least, few hold high-ranking positions at General Electrics, Bechtels, and utilities that stand to gain from more use of nuclear power. Not to single GE out, but there are seven women and maybe two minorities on the company’s 44-person executive page.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that women and people of color would have more trouble accepting the beneficence of the white male-dominated industrial order?
Nuclear proponents have failed to grasp that all the studies about nuclear safety in the world don’t mean a thing to the people who don’t believe that the books are honest and uncooked. Instead, nuclear fans just keep saying, “Trust us, it’s safe!” in different ways.
And, apparently, only a majority of white men are willing to believe that.
Ok now that’s a substantive reply Alexis ;) I only slighted solar to the extent that I find it hypocritical that greens continue to hold out for its renaissance when they refuse to give even one more chance for nuclear. Was it really thaaaat long ago that the Sierra Club was pro-nuke? I am aware that in broader society, nuclear has been by far more a recipient of government aid. Having grown up in Sonoma County, I am indeed well aware of the Bay Area mindset, and it shall be interesting to see what fresh life it breathes into solar. Could well be in ten years or so solar will be going warp nine and nuclear will still be grumbling about the location of his pipe and slippers. Or not.
I don’t think the centralization debate is as overblown as you seem to fear, it just is relevant to a different set of issues. As far as “saving the planet” goes, it may not matter whether it’s panels on my roof or mirrors out in the desert, but it’s a lot of land either way. So do we umbrella every parking lot, bigbox roof, AND the wetlands just off the local highway, or do we supplant the Joshua tree as the dominant outspurt of the Mojave soil? Expect green nimbyism either way.
Which is a big part of why I innately like nuclear. Nice compact footprint. Leave some land for the flutterbyes. As a slacker smartass I of course have no authority whatsoever to decide what is going to work in the end, but neither do I think does Mr. Congresscritter with his padded law degree. Europe passes a biofuel mandate whose chain of events suggest it was specifically intended to kill all orangutans, a race far more noble and intelligent than their obviously jealous usurpers. And yet, I can also see what you’re saying about how profitability only comes after scalability, and how that situation lends itself to… government involvement. All very complicated. Fun to argue about.
Alexis, I’m really against biome destruction, including especially the human biome.
I started out antinuclear because of the waste issue. But then, I thought one day
I should research it, and the alternatives.
For me, the breaking point was when I realized that if you’re against nuclear, you
are favoring coal, whether you want to or not. Coal plants emit hazardous fossil fuel waste.
Coal waste is more than a million times as much by weight as nuclear waste, and it does not
decrease in hazard over time, because stable heavy metals do not decay. Ever.
Coal plant pollution directly causes about 1.2% of all the morbidity in the U.S., and
almost 14% (!) of the morbidity in China. This is just pollution, not counting
mining accidents, dust explosions, etc. The accidents are about a million times larger
in loss of life than nuclear because of the vast difference in the weight of the required fuel.
Dams are the most dangerous energy projects in existence, by far. A coal plant is a
better neighbor.
Solar and wind power are sad. The numbers don’t work. They are just not credible power sources.
The normal lie is to “forget” that neither the sun nor wind are available all the time, and
then “forget” the cost of energy storage and transport. I did my own numbers, and got
very, very large costs (about 8x of a nuclear or coal KWh) even for the best
technologies with favorable estimates (e.g. concentrating solar power in Mojave, wind power
in the american midwest, pumped power storage). CSP destroys desert ecologies. Wind power
isn’t so bad in the plains (it doesn;t kill birds), but in the mountain ridgelines, the roads
destroy fragile alpine biomes.
I think the big corporate interests are almost universally against nuclear plants.
Railroads have lucrative bulk shipping contracts for coal. The coal mines have
unions, as well as owners. Don’t get me started on U.S. foreign lobbyist laws (nonexistent)
and foreign oil interests. All these groups are universally opposed to nuclear.
It was rational public policy in the 1980s to eliminate foreign oil from our economy.
It was draining public and private budgets even then. Why has nothing changed? Who
benefits? I tell you, it’s not the nuclear industry, which starved in that period.
What’s more, if you follow the green antinuclear money, it leads to foundations. If
you follow the foundations’ money, if they have open books (many -don’t-), it tends
to come from large fossil fuel companies, or individuals that own them. The research
isn’t that hard. There are rating services on the web for nonprofits, and they
process the foundations’ mandatory public records and post them on the web.
The research is -so- inflammatory that it’s hard to believe. I really encourage
people to research it.
Alexis:
Congratulations on stirring up much of the nuclear industry.
Your note could have been written about most technology, not nuclear. Substitute “jet aircraft” “i-pod” “internet” “Toyota prius” or “electricity” for nuclear and your article would still work. A lot of white males were involved in most of the technologies that we use daily and take for granted.
You are not suggesting that society should somehow avoid technologies that they do not understand and that had white males involved, but your logic could be extended to this.
Just as most people do not understand the details of nuclear power, they do nto understand the details of the AC electricity network or the inner workings of their i-phone. And do not assume that you can hand craft a wind turbine or a photovoltaic panel using only natural wood, rocks and fibers.
I encourage you to act on this – a life without technology would be pretty challenging. After a year or so, you could return to our technology-assisted modern society and write a blog on your experience.