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 | THE FUROR OVER FISSION The Images and Realities of Nuclear Technologies November 20, 1996 |
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The Nuclear Power and Fear
Forum Homepage
Other Forum Topics
How has the media impacted the perception of nuclear technology?
Can nuclear power overcome nuclear fear?
How do we overcome nuclear fear?
Isn't nuclear fear better than nuclear arrogance?
Will fear ebb as memory of the Cold War fades?
Is nuclear fear an American phenomena?
A question from Jason Bui of Lowell, MA
I'm a Junior at Lowell Catholic High and have been working a Theology project. My topic, Nuclear Energy and its moral implications. How do you think morality has affected the the evolution of nuclear energy?
Dr. Spencer Weart responds:
So far as I can tell, nuclear energy (unlike nuclear weapons) does not raise special moral problems that do not appear in connection with many other technologies. For example, opponents are properly concerned that reactors create material (plutonium) that can be used for nuclear weapons--but the aerospace industry provides the means to deliver the weapons and is subject to much the same moral concerns. Opponents are properly concerned that in producing electricity from reactors we are creating radioactive wastes that will still be a problem for our remote descendants, who must thus run a risk without getting the direct benefit--but many other industries (including the production of electricity from coal) also create dangerous wastes with environmental half-lives in thousands of years. On the other side, proponents of nuclear energy argue (not very publicly) that it is immoral to impede something which might produce many economic benefits, but again the argument could apply to any industry.
The whole idea that there might be something special about the morality of nuclear energy worries me, because it puts one form of technology on a plane different from the rest. Of course, this much-discussed issue does give us a fine place to work for working out general questions of how we should deal with new technologies.
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