Tsunami warnings, written in stones centuries old in Japan

While nuclear engineers, scientists and technical risk assessment experts debate where to install back-up generators, spent fuel rods, and remote controls, Fukushima offers five major lessons for France.

1) Do not risk something you cannot afford to lose.

Like your home. Your agriculture. Your patrimony.

France, like Japan, is small.

Unlike the Soviet Union after Chernobyl, Japan cannot simply walk away from Fukushima, dumping poisoned lands on someone else.

(What would an accident mean for France--a land famous for its locally produced wine, cheeses, poultry?)

LESSON NUMBER ONE: Nuclear reactors and waste storage facilities should not be built in areas that it is unthinkable to lose. Ever.

2) Conflict of interest is lethal for safety.

The collusion of interests between the nuclear industry, Japanese politicians determined to promote nuclear, and financial firms with huge bets on the industry ensured that repeated, flagrant safety violations were ignored. Regulatory agencies were weak and compromised, scientists and researchers afraid to lose their jobs and managers more interested in profits than safety.

This situation is not unique to Japan. In France, too, governments are committed to nuclear, industry ties are pronounced and independent experts cowed. EDF, AREVA and the French government collaborate closely.

(Witness the French government's public support of the nuclear industry before the Fukushima crisis was even resolved.)

LESSON NUMBER TWO : Only with strong, completely independent regulators can safety be ensured.

3) Experts can and will make mistakes.

Assuming electricity supplies will never be cut off for more than 12 hours.Failing to take tsunamis into account in a region known for tsunamis. Installing nuclear reactors in major earthquake zones.Depending on the massive, uninterrupted flow of water in areas which periodically suffer devastating droughts.Promoting nuclear power in violent countries with profoundly fragile regimes.Stocking radioactive materials "temporarily" in dangerously exposed positions.Failing to plan for simultaneous problems at more than one reactor and a natural disaster that disrupts roads, electricity and other infrastructure surrounding a plant

Nuclear experts are human and make mistakes, just like the rest of us. Also, as Fukushima shows, situations can rapidly spin out of control where the expert know longer knows what is happening or how to respond.

People like Claude Allègre are dead wrong when they argue that nuclear power is too complicated for a democratic debate. On the contrary, it is ONLY democratic debate, with full disclosure, that will enable us to make the right choices.

LESSON NUMBER THREE : It is a mistake to put blind trust in experts.

4) Black Swans happen

Refusing to seriously plan for human error, terrorist attack, computer failures, hacking, fire, flood, or any of the many things which can and do go wrong--because the consequences would be to terrible to contemplate--is stupid and irresponsible. Black Swans happen.

Extreme events are not just possible, they are inevitable. (Think: Kobe, tsunami in Thailand, Katrina, Volcano...)

Do not let people with a financial, political or emotional stake in the nuclear industry tell you that it is childish to envisage an unlikely event.

LESSON NUMBER FOUR: See lesson number 1.

5) The costs of nuclear energy are much higher than stated.

For years, government and industry have conspired to conceal the true costs of electricity produced by nuclear energy.

Decommissioning costs, spent fuel storage costs, the costs of the inevitable accidents--none of these costs are included in current calculations, and they should be.

Only when the full costs are calculated and included can a reasonable cost comparison be made with alternative energies.

LESSON NUMBER FIVE: Nuclear's costs, still unknown, are rising.

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from Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog