Richard Rhodes on nuclear technology ichard Rhodes is the author of 18 books, including The Making of the Atomic Bomb (published in 1986), R which won a Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, a Nation- al Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. He also has written Dark Star: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (1995); and Nuclear Renewal: Common Sense About Energy (1993), which provides a look at the viability of nu- clear power in the United States. His writing reaches far beyond nuclear issues. Other works include novels such as The Last Safari and The Ungodly, and nonfiction books including How To Write: Advice and Re- flections and his most recent, Why They Kill: The Discover- ies of a Maverick Criminologist. Rhodes, a Kansas native and a 1959 graduate of Yale Uni- versity, has received numerous fellowships for research and writing, including grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He has been a visiting schol- ar at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a host and correspondent for documentaries on nuclear issues on public television’s Frontline and Amer- ican Experience series. He lives in rural Connecticut. Richard Rhodes: “While people are phobic about radiation, they are not when it is to their benefit.” Rhodes talked with Nuclear News about the experiences as a journalist that opened his eyes to the value of nuclear tech- etc.—journalists and the American public need to take a hard nology, and about how other journalists don’t seem to be do- look at a technology that provides so much to benefit hu- ing their homework in that regard. With what nuclear has to manity, he said. The interview was conducted by Rick offer—power generation, food irradiation, medical uses, Michal, NN senior associate editor.

Besides your acclaimed books on the atomic history of the development of the bomb, So you didn’t start writing about nuclear with and hydrogen bombs, you’ve written on Amer- which led directly to my writing The Making a clean slate? ican farming, mad cow disease, your child- of the Atomic Bomb in the first half of the Not at all, and I don’t think journalists do. hood, and, in a novel, the Donner party. How 1980s. We’re all the product of our education and did you get interested in writing about nuclear What is interesting is that in the ’70s when background and experiences with other peo- issues? I was first writing about nuclear power, I had ple. It’s as clear now as then that journalists Back in the 1970s, I was doing a lot of the usual kind of ill-informed hostility toward are prepared by their backgrounds to be hos- magazine work while writing fiction on my it that most journalists still have today. But as tile. One of the dirty little secrets of the whole own. This was the time of the energy crisis I came to know the subject and assemble some antinuclear movement is that in many ways it and there was a lot of work writing about nu- facts, I changed my mind completely. I really is not about environmental issues, because if clear issues, particularly on nuclear power. got into nuclear technology as a journalist. I it were, the movement would be pronuclear. That’s when I noticed, for example, that think that is obvious from what I’ve written Rather, it is about something that arose from there had never been a complete narrative lately. the era when there was profound skepticism

July 2000 NUCLEAR NEWS 33 and hostility to large corporations, which is of course, they look into subjects and talk to defending this form of energy generation as still a feature today of the antinuclear move- each other. But that’s not a very reliable way having benefits to humanity, I must be on the ment. That movement is as much concerned to find out the real facts about anything. payroll of the nuclear power industry. Subse- about the centralization of energy generation quently, after that program was aired, the ra- as it is about anything else. Since energy is As a follow-up to that question, is the chasm dio station got calls and letters from people successfully and efficiently generated by large increasing between science and liberal arts saying, “Rhodes gives lectures to nuclear central plants, the antinuclear movement re- that the late C. P. Snow wrote about in the power organizations and makes money off of ally reflects the hostility to large organizations ’50s in his book Two Cultures? Would the me- his position.” The station called me and asked and particular corporations. dia’s miscoverage of nuclear technology be about the charges. I responded yes, but that I I came in with all of that. But getting to an example of that chasm? make part of my living giving public speech- know the atomic scientists who worked on the Yes, it would be an example. I’m not sure es. It’s also true that I speak to universities bomb and developed the first nuclear power that the chasm is any worse now than it ever about violence, and I speak to Los Alamos systems in the country and in the world, I has been. For example, while researching on about the bomb. I certainly am not in the came to understand that there was a very dif- the development of the bomb, I found that pocket of the nuclear power industry and I was ferent story, that if I looked at other forms of back in the early 1930s at Oxford University insulted that the station had asked. So, yes, be- energy generation, nuclear power looked bet- in England they had not yet wired the physics ing pronuclear does have an effect and people ter and better. laboratory for electricity. That pervasive do notice it. standoff between the humanities and science A reviewer once called you “a peerless ex- is still very much evident in the universities Why would the scientist you were debating de- plainer of difficult concepts.” How much do and in the backgrounds of intellectuals. liberately make false statements? you think this affects the public’s acceptance There’s a sort of snobbery about technology Academics often take positions that they of nuclear energy—that it’s perceived as too in particular—somewhat less so with sci- can’t back up. It is often mantled with their difficult to be understood easily? ence—that pervades the literary intellectuals credibility. For example, I’ve been working Most people in the general public don’t of America as opposed to other Western on the subject of whether exposure to violent know, for example, that steam generators are countries. media makes people violent. I’ve discovered a part of any power generating system. So I’m On the other hand, we’re embedded in tech- that some of the most frequently cited re- not sure that it’s the relative difficulty of ex- nology today and it’s so much more evident search documents are fraudulent. The data plaining fission over chemical burning that is now than it used to be. I look at my desk in were deliberately shaped to fit the conclusions the issue. Rather, I think nuclear power has front of me; desks used to have a phone at that the researcher wanted to arrive at. It’s no been the center of a great deal of attention be- best. Now there are computers, fax machines, surprise, then, that the Nobel Laureate I was cause, for example, of the waste it produces. printers, cell phones, etc. debating made statements that were outra- All generating systems produce waste, of Of course, to some people it’s very de- geous. He claimed to be able to back them up, course, but the difference of nuclear power is pressing, which I find amusing, because half but he cited research that turned out to be that its waste is sequestered in one place rather the population of the United States is alive to- 20–30 years old. I presumed he was hostile to than spewed across the land. The waste issue day due to technological changes in the 20th nuclear power and wanted to put it down in is something that the general public has been century, most of them in public health. Half debate. made aware of by the attention it’s been giv- the population of America would not be en rather than by any inherent difficulty. alive—a quarter would never have been born Recently, a weekly news magazine had a spe- I don’t think that “difficult concepts” is the because another quarter would have died be- cial issue devoted to what life would be like in issue. What has deeply affected nuclear pow- fore they were old enough to reproduce. the future. A colorful illustration depicted the er’s reputation is the historic development of That’s a direct outcome of modern science world being powered 50 to 100 years from nuclear weapons and, in particular, atmos- and technology. People just don’t know that. now by fuel cells, wind machines, solar pan- pheric testing. American people became sen- The paradox is that good technology is trans- els, and gas through pipelines. But there was sitized to the notion of strontium-90 getting parent. People walk through it and use it and no mention of nuclear power. I was amazed into the milk supply. I remember those head- don’t realize it. Right now, of course, we’re at at that. Do you think this is a case of a news lines vividly from the ’60s. The public came a stage where technology is also obvious be- magazine influencing the news instead of re- to be phobic about radiation. In a recent talk cause computers aren’t yet transparent. porting it? [see adjoining article], I mentioned an expe- Before that, within the last year, there was rience of going to the dentist and having him How do other journalists and media people a major series of features in Science that tell his assistant that I needed a radiograph. treat you once they realize you’re pronuclear? talked about future energy, and it totally ig- Technically that’s what we call X-ray films The first response I always see is real sur- nored nuclear power as well. It talked about that are taken. When I kidded the dentist about prise. Sometimes that gives way to hostility solar and wind. It’s strange that people think it, his response was, “I have patients who have and suspicion. Sometimes that gives way to these widely dispersed forms of energy gen- serious dental disease who refuse to be X puzzlement and perhaps reconsideration of eration that require large amounts of surface rayed.” That sort of phobia is clearly a prob- their own positions, because I’ve reached a area are not going to have environmental ef- lem that the nuclear power industry has been point where I have a reputation as someone fects, not to mention the necessary processes suffering for a long time. The fact that coal who is credible. Here’s an example of the de- of manufacturing, which produce toxic wastes burning releases much more radiation into the gree of hostility. For the Frontline documen- and so forth. Solar panels are large semicon- atmosphere is just one of those strange tary “Nuclear Reaction,” for which I was cor- ductors. Semiconductors are notorious for ironies—people don’t associate radiation with respondent, I did a certain amount of publicity producing a stream of toxic waste. There will coal. Nuclear, then, takes the brunt of that before and after the show. At one point, I was also be some major portion of the annual pro- fear—not fear of nuclear power really, but of on the National Public Radio program “Talk duction of iron in the entire world required to the bomb. of the Nation” debating a Nobel Laureate build and maintain that sort of scale of solar physicist. He was deliberately making state- or wind-powered systems. More than that, it Why is it that you seem to be one of the few ments that he knew he couldn’t back up about simply isn’t practical, certainly not in terms journalists who sees benefit in nuclear tech- nuclear power—that there would inevitably of wind. nology? be a major accident within the next 10 years, You’re asking a question that has to do with I don’t know. All I can say is I did my etc. I, of course, was defending nuclear pow- a pervasive mentality. The Kyoto Protocol homework and I’m afraid that one of the se- er. In the background I could hear the pro- talks about everything for limiting CO2 re- crets of journalism is that journalists don’t take ducer whispering to the host, “Ask him who’s leases into the atmosphere except nuclear pow- time to do their homework. They write based paying him,” which I thought was absolutely er. This is amazing, because CO2 won’t be lim- on what they already know. To some extent, appalling. The assumption was that if I was ited without the use of nuclear. It bothers me

34 NUCLEAR NEWS July 2000 INTERVIEW: RHODES most of all because although it looks like a de- cut into the development of nuclear power is spent fuel is a decision that needs to be looked bate among people with different technologi- a fad, that with global warming and continued at again. cal predilections, it’s actually about something air pollution and with nuclear’s good safety much deeper and more serious. It’s about peo- record, Europe’s attitudes will change. The Will the American public accept food irradi- ple in the world who suffer and die because important proviso, of course, is as French nu- ation? they don’t have enough economic resources in clear power executives have told me: “One I think so. Irradiation is a mature technol- their countries. Are those people going to be more Chernobyl and we will all have to fold ogy that’s been around for 40 years. It’s used able to develop these resources so they can live up and steal away.” That would probably be successfully in other countries. It changes with less of what’s called structural violence? the end of nuclear power. It’s important that food considerably less than cooking changes This is defined as violence that is built into the we keep investing heavily in improving the it in terms of the supposed nitrates and so structure of a society by the way resources are safety systems on all those Russian reactors. forth. That’s really what we’re talking about, shared and allocated. If we graph life ex- people being worried about whether their pectancy by country with gross domestic prod- In your book Nuclear Renewal, you blame the food is sufficiently fastidious if it’s been ir- uct by country, the result is a smooth, logistic U.S. industry’s mismanagement for a lot of its radiated. People forget that about 10 000 curve of life expectancy directly correlated to problems. How do you feel about the job that people die in the United States every year economic resources per country. In a country management has done for the last five years from poisoning caused by food contamina- that does well economically, its people live or so? tion. Hundreds of thousands more are injured long lives. In a country that doesn’t have They’ve improved enormously. I think it’s and sickened, sometimes severely with per- much, its people live short lives, which is a a great step forward that the consolidation of manent damage to their bodies, because of kind of violence that is built into its society. operations and ownership of nuclear power food contamination. The only way this country is going to get from plants is ongoing, because another thing I The irony is that this debate happened in the where it’s at to where we are is by having ac- learned from the French is that “this is not just United States once before. It used to be that cess to more energy resources. another way to boil water.” We need a safety milk was delivered raw from the farms and If we want to live in a truly polluted world, culture, an operating culture that’s quite dif- kept in barrels in stores where people dipped then those energy resources are going to con- ferent from the one that prevails at fossil fuel for their daily supply. This was typical of the tinue to come from fossil fuels. If not, they electrical generation plants. It looks to me as tenement sections of New York City in will come from natural gas and nuclear pow- if this is what is happening in the U.S. as a few 1901–1905. Every summer there would be an er, because those are the only major sources companies are specializing in the nuclear epidemic of babies dying of diarrhea from of energy that are in the pipeline today. En- power business and operating their systems contaminated milk. The public health people ergy resources will not be able to come from with a level of professionalism that perhaps of the day tried to get pasteurization in. There so-called renewables at the scale that is nec- wasn’t there at the outset. was a great hue and cry that it would change essary to change the way people live. Look at the flavor of the milk, that it was not natural, the fraction of world energy generation Should the U.S. allow the reprocessing of nu- that it would introduce foreign elements into shared by various sources of power. It is im- clear spent fuel, thus eliminating some of the the milk supply. There were even physicians mediately clear that oil and coal have de- waste problem? who testified before Congress that it would clined, and that natural gas and nuclear pow- I strongly believe, after studying the issue, take away their business. But, finally, sanity er are the only two sources today that are that the United States should reprocess its prevailed and pasteurization was rapidly in- increasing their fractions. Those are the two fuel. It’s amazing that we are willing to bury troduced, and by 1920 infant mortality had sources that will dominate world energy pro- good plutonium in the ground and then have been reduced dramatically in the United States duction in the 21st century. to worry about it all those eons because of its because of this simple process for protecting long half-life. The reason that we stopped re- the food from bacterial contamination. What about nuclear power in Europe and processing, of course, is that Jimmy Carter de- The same thing is playing out with food ir- Asia? France has had some difficulty with its cided that we had to set a good example if we radiation, which is comparable to pasteuriza- new N4 reactors, and Japan has recently ex- were going to negotiate nuclear nonprolifera- tion in its function. Another complaint was perienced difficulties that have caused some tion with other countries. He reasoned that by that if milk was pasteurized, then farmers turning of public support. stopping reprocessing, we would be wearing wouldn’t have any reason to clean up their France is still totally committed to nuclear an honest face when we went to the bargain- dirty farms. That is an argument being used electricity generation and it’s up to around 80 ing table with countries that might be consid- today against food irradiation. But the fact is percent of their total supply. It’s interesting to ering going nuclear in terms of weapons. How the E. coli that has been killing people the last see Germany struggle with whether they’re he arrived at that decision is one of the great several years in the United States is a new going to relicense their plants, which is what mysteries of the Carter era. Dave Rossin, one strain that lives in the intestines of cattle and I think they’re debating now. of the former assistant secretaries of Energy is not something the farmers can clean up. Japan’s problem, let’s be clear, was not a [and a past president of ANS—Ed.], has been Rather than trying to maintain a sterile, surgi- nuclear power problem. It was a problem in a researching a book on Carter’s decision and cal environment on a farm or in a meat-pack- fuel formulation factory for a particular fuel has interviewed several hundred people who ing plant, we should maintain the standards of being prepared for a research reactor. Of were around Carter when he made that deci- cleanliness that are already in effect at those course, it affected public opinion about nu- sion. It’s a mystery to them. Carter apparent- places and also irradiate the food products. clear power. But my impression of the Japan- ly made it on his own without any major con- There also would be much less spoilage of ese is that they’re going to go forward for the sultation. There was one work-up of a “how a vegetables and fruits if they were lightly irra- obvious reason that they have no other choice. country could go nuclear with reactor pluto- diated to kill the organisms that live on the Neither do the French. They have no resources nium” scenario. But the truth is, no nation that surface of those materials. Scientifically, it of their own. has developed nuclear weapons has done so makes great sense to irradiate our food sup- To look at the future of nuclear power, look with power reactor plutonium. It is not good ply. Politically, it’s been a problem because to South Korea, which is building a dozen new weapons material. people are phobic about radiation. reactors in the next 10 years. Look to China, And, of course, the idea that a group of ter- which is going to continue to build a lot more rorists would be able to take nuclear fuel in its The irrational public fear that’s directed to- nuclear power plants in an attempt to get a han- oxide form and somehow reprocess it to get ward radiation and other issues in nuclear dle on the coal pollution in that country. Those the plutonium out is just absurd. It is a phony technology now seems to have spread toward are the areas where nuclear power would seem issue. It stagnated the American nuclear pow- genetically engineered foods. Do you see the to be under most immediate development. er industry and has given it one more sense public suspicion as a threat to technological What will the Europeans do? There’s a real that it is dangerous, because it could somehow progress? possibility that the green movement that has make bombs for people. The reprocessing of See Interview, continued next page

July 2000 NUCLEAR NEWS 35 INTERVIEW: RHODES

Interview, continued No doubt. Yes, absolutely. However, while people are phobic about radiation, they are not when it is to their benefit. A lot of nuclear tech- Changing perspectives nology goes on in hospitals and doctors’ of- fices and nobody worries much about it except for the occasional person who doesn’t want his on nuclear energy teeth X rayed, for example. The fact is that if a person has a heart attack and a test is needed that uses a radioactive isotope to track what the Perhaps educating journalists and editors will help heart is doing, that person isn’t going to say, “It’s radioactive? Oh, just let me die.” The per- change the public’s perception of nuclear power son will let the medical staff inject the ra- dioactive materials. It’s a selective thing and as an unwise choice for electricity production it suggests that it’s something that can be ed- ucated away. I think it’s clear that Americans into the view that it is the “greenest” choice. have been willing to tolerate all this debate about nuclear power simply because we have BY RICHARD RHODES form of energy for electrical generation, the luxury of doing so. The French and Japan- greener even than hydropower or solar if dam- ese didn’t have that luxury, so they were able ’ VE BEEN WRITING about nuclear pow- age to the environment is the measure. What to move on and educate their populations. er issues since the early 1970s, when the have changed in the intervening years, as you I Energy Crisis moved them to the fore- know all too well, are nuclear power’s repu- Do you have an opinion on the prospects of ground. I vividly remember interviewing tation, particularly in the eyes of journalists fusion nuclear power? Philip Fleger, chairman of the board of and editors, and the public’s perception of the Fusion? Maybe in 20 years? I’ve been hear- Duquesne Light, which started up the first dangers of radioactivity. ing that since I first started writing about ther- demonstration nuclear power plant on the I could multiply examples, but let me men- monuclear fusion. But, honestly, who knows? Ohio River at Shippingport, Pa., in 1954. tion only a few: It’s an interesting technology but it’s obvi- The economics of the Atomic Energy Com- I needed a root canal in April. When my ously also a very difficult technology. mission–sponsored project were favorable— dentist wanted an X ray, he asked his assistant because of AEC subsidy, the plant cost to take a “radiograph.” I kidded him about it. What’s the immediate future—meaning the Duquesne only $5 million—but the basic rea- He said he had patients with serious dental next five to ten years—for nuclear power in son Duquesne went nuclear, Fleger recalled, problems who simply refused to be X rayed the U.S. if Al Gore wins the presidency, or if was pollution control. Pittsburgh was still very because they were afraid of radiation. George W. Bush wins? much the Smoky City in the early 1950s. It Food-borne bacteria cause some 9000 I don’t know George W.’s position on this had begun urban redevelopment in the late deaths and more than 100 000 serious illness- issue. Vice President Gore would seem to 1940s, instituting strict smoke control. By the es in the United States every year. Many of need some serious educating in this depart- time the AEC solicited bids for the demon- these deaths and illnesses could be prevented ment from his book Earth in the Balance. I stration project, sulfur dioxide controls were by irradiating food, particularly fresh meat. Ir- would hope that he’s pragmatic enough to be under discussion in the Pittsburgh area, well radiation could also increase the shelf life and educable. If he truly is concerned about the ahead of the rest of the nation. preserve the freshness of fruits and vegetables, quality of the environment and air pollution, Duquesne at that time was petitioning to greatly reducing waste. The technology has then I would think he would take another look build a coal-fired power plant on the Alleghe- been mature for at least 40 years, but proces- at nuclear power. He should. ny River, and citizens were resisting. “We en- sors and grocers in the United States still shun countered a great deal of harassment and de- it because they fear bad publicity from anti- What would it take for the American public to lay from objectors,” Fleger told me—objectors irradiation activists who claim without war- be more accepting of nuclear power? to coal, that is, not nuclear power. Fleger rant that irradiation induces cancer-causing I doubt very much if the United States is added, “It began to look as if we wouldn’t be chemical changes in food. going to simply let its nuclear industry slip able to complete the plant on time to meet the The Associated Press covered the story of away. We’re now relicensing plants, which is power demands we were facing.” How’s that the steam leak at Indian Point-2 in mid-Feb- the next phase of nuclear power. Under these for déjà vu? From Fleger’s and the Pittsburgh ruary. The third paragraph of an AP followup conditions, nuclear power is coming in cheap- community’s point of view, Shippingport was story on March 3, as printed in the New York er even than natural gas. a godsend. Times, read as follows: I want to stress again that I think the issue In 1954, nuclear power was generally per- of what sources we use to generate our elec- ceived to be the green form of energy for elec- On Feb. 15, radioactive water heated in the tricity ultimately concerns human health and trical generation. Nothing whatsoever has reactor leaked from one of the generator’s welfare, not some argument about whether changed, factually speaking, in the 46 years 32,000 tubes into the clean water that sur- these are dark corporations taking us over, or since then. Nuclear power is still the greenest rounds them. As a result, a small amount of whether nuclear waste can be successfully radioactive steam discharged into the atmos- buried. These are questions that have to deal Richard Rhodes is the author of 18 books, includ- phere. There were no injuries, and the in- with human lives, with real benefit to the pop- ing The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won crease in radioactivity was too small to be ulation of this country and the world. It’s sad a Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, a National Book measured, officials said. Still, it was the worst to see these concerns lost in the noise. It’s an Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award; accident in the plant’s 26-year history. [My issue of reeducating the public. When we did Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb; emphasis.] “Nuclear Reactions” for Frontline several Nuclear Renewal; and, most recently, Why They years ago, we interviewed a woman who had Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist. The next day, in a further followup story by been near Three Mile Island who said that her He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard and MIT a Times reporter, the qualifiers were gone. The child had been vomiting green bile after the and a host and correspondent for documentaries accident became simply “the most serious in- accident. The interviewer asked her, “Have on nuclear issues on public television’s Frontline cident in the history of the 26-year-old plant.” you had the radon checked in your base- and American Experience series. This article is The Nuclear Energy Institute does an ex- ment?” And she looked disbelieving and said, based on a speech presented on May 4 at the Nu- cellent job of addressing these issues, and “No. Should I?” Obviously, there is a lot of clear Energy Institute’s Nuclear Energy Assembly, serves as a highly credible source of informa- educating to do. in Chicago. tion. But I would submit to you that the most

36 NUCLEAR NEWS July 2000 fundamental educational challenge facing you less bias. ural gas and nuclear power. Wood, coal, and today and in the years ahead is improving the It evidently doesn’t occur to most journal- oil have all peaked, one after another, as frac- nuclear knowledge of journalists and editors. ists, not even those who write for the New tions of total world energy production; only I always get a laugh at conferences like this York Times, to ask themselves where all the natural gas and nuclear power are increasing one when I recommend as a primary strategy waste goes from coal, oil, and natural gas their share. And because major, complex tech- that each and every one of you adopt a jour- burning, whether the disposal of fossil fuel nologies require more than half a century to nalist. It’s never clear to me whether the wastes is an “unsolved technical problem,” or spread around the world, no other energy laugh is a nervous laugh or a skeptical laugh. what the environmental persistence might be source, such as solar or thermonuclear fusion, But I mean the recommendation seriously, if of nonradioactive wastes from fossil fuel can overtake the lead of natural gas and nu- not literally. burning (such as sulfur, arsenic, mercury, cad- clear power across at least the next 50 years. Many journalists and editors, in my expe- mium, and lead) compared to radioactive The challenge—your challenge and mine— rience, don’t understand or don’t credit nu- wastes with known half-lives. is to communicate that promising evolution clear power’s environmental advantages in It doesn’t occur to them to ask whether away from higher carbon energy sources to the comparison to fossil fuels. They have no burning coal with its load of natural uranium public here and abroad, which will benefit mental tables of comparison to assess acci- and thorium might not release more radioac- from the reduction in pollution, including dent risk, so that “Three Mile Island,” for ex- tivity into the environment than a nuclear pow- global warming, that the change will foster. ample, is regularly evoked like a mantra in er plant of comparable size. (As you may or Your industry, by steadily improving its ca- the same breath with “Chernobyl,” as if the may not know, a 1000-MWe coal plant re- pacity factor, has already made the largest con- two accidents were in any sense equivalent. (I leases about 100 times as much radioactivity tribution of any U.S. industry to meeting the remember the near-apoplexy of my late into the environment annually as a 1000-MWe commitment the United States made at Kyoto physicist friend Luis Alvarez at the scream- nuclear plant. Not that such coal radiation is to limiting CO2 releases into the atmosphere. ing headlines reporting the Chernobyl fallout harmful—it isn’t. It may even be beneficial.) The United States may lag behind in this approaching California bearing picocuries of It evidently doesn’t occur to journalists and evolution because of nuclear phobia. If we do, radiation. “Picocuries,” Luis would repeat editors to assess accidents and breakdowns in that will be a lost opportunity for reducing do- with exasperation; “picocuries!”) Worse, the nuclear power industry in the context of mestic pollution and for contributing our ex- journalists start from the assumption that or- accidents and breakdowns in other indus- pertise to the world and profiting from that ganizations exist primarily to lie, cheat, and tries—by comparison, for example, with contribution. defraud the public, so that official informa- Bhopal, with dam overflows and failures, with Psychologists deal with phobias by doing tion is prima facie suspect in their eyes. And coal-mine accidents, oil- and gas-plant fires, behavioral retraining, which basically means they are particularly skeptical of the nuclear and pipeline explosions. helping their clients feel emotionally secure power industry. There’s nothing in the stylebook of any enough to accept reeducation. Antinuclear By “adopt a journalist” I mean invite a jour- news organization I know that forbids con- activists, in my experience at least, are large- nalist or editor to lunch—and to dinner. Con- textual comparisons of this kind. They’re very ly beyond help. For the activists I’ve met nect and communicate, face to face. Journal- rarely made, probably because they dramati- and debated, nuclear issues are as rigidly de- ists don’t have time to go back to school and cally exonerate nuclear power, which chal- fined and as nonnegotiable as abortion is to relearn the fundamentals. They generate sto- lenges journalists’ antinuclear bias and thus antiabortionists. ries on the fly, by the seat of their pants, with induces uncomfortable cognitive dissonance. But in the long run, the explicit opposition whatever knowledge and bias they’ve stored When I defended nuclear power in debate of antinuclear activists influences public opin- up ahead of time or can glean from each oth- with the late physicist Henry Kendall on the ion less than the implicit opposition of the me- er. And since American education today, from National Public Radio program “Talk of the dia, which is why journalists and editors need kindergarten to graduate school, draws heav- Nation” several years ago, even though I have to be reassured and reeducated. They, not the ily on the received wisdom of environmental- what I believe to be a good reputation for ob- activists, are the gatekeepers of public opin- ism and is thus pervasively antinuclear, that’s jectivity, I could hear the producer in the back- ion. Journalists and editors need their phobias what most journalists know and believe. ground stage-whispering to my interviewer: relieved, to balance their reporting of these vi- Reeducating them means first of all establish- “Ask him who’s paying him. Ask him who’s tal issues. You know your work better than ing your credibility with them. Only when paying him.” anyone else. Sharing the good news about nu- they have come to consider you a credible In the century just beginning, two forms of clear power is a challenge you’re eminently source will they be able to hear the facts with energy will dominate world production: nat- qualified to meet.

July 2000 NUCLEAR NEWS 37