Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!morrison From: morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Intellectual Sleaze (Long) Message-ID: <12@ubc-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 16:41:10 EDT Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.12 Posted: Wed Sep 18 16:41:10 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 21:24:47 EDT References: <1386@utcsri.UUCP> <5952@utzoo.UUCP> <820@water.UUCP> Reply-To: morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 80 Summary: The inconsistency in the attitudes of the pro-industrialists with respect to acid rain and nuclear power is the following. Let us agree that the connection between dead lakes and SO2 emissions (largely from coal combustion) is at least as well established as the connection between cancer and the injestion of excessive quantities (whatever that is) of radioactive isotopes found in nuclear waste. It is probably true that the SO2 connection is far better established - perhaps even verging on the status of facthood which Henry Spencer so loves to bandy about. So, what is the result of cleaning up coal combustion?? High costs. And if we were wrong (i.e. there is little connection between lake death and SO2 emissions)?? We have spent an awful lot of money on cleaner air and reduced illness. What, on the other hand, is the result of pursuing the technology of nuclear power? WE DON'T KNOW. Why not? Because we have no way of knowing the concentrations of radioactive particulate which might be introduced into the food chain through a long term program of waste management. (Much as Mr. Spencer might wish otherwise, nuclear technology is in the domain of engineering not science. Engineering artifiacts fail.) Even if we knew these concentrations, we would be in much the same position as we are now wrt carcinogens such as sodium nitrite. There is no flaming gun - only an immense number of factors which we must sift through in order to establish the most tenuous connections. No one can tell you have many strips of bacon are "safe." YET, out of one side of their mouths, the pro-industrialists tell us further study of acid rain is needed before we go to all the expense of a clean-up, while out of the other side they tell us that our fears of long term environmental damage from radioctive contamination are unfounded. That is, no further study is needed. We have the technology, so let's use it. In adopting nuclear technology on a grand scale we are conducting a vast experiment - one that will go on for thousands of years (the time frame arising from the half-lives of the most virulent nuclear wastes). The experiment may be successful. If it is not, we may so contaminate the ecosystem that 30000 lives/year will look good. And because of the lifespans of the contaminants, it could take thousands of years to recover the damage - something even acid rain cannot match. (Note: these are not facts; they are conjectures - and that is about all we have at this stage.) The toxicity and the half-lives of nuclear waste are as close to facts as we are likely to come. The fallibility of engineering artifacts, while hardly a fact, is well established - bridges still fail, buildings still collapse, aircraft still crash. Most often, the failures are minor. Occasionally, they are not. I see no reason, other than blind faith in technology, to believe that the engineering of nuclear power will be different. Unfortunately, in the case of nuclear technology, the cummulative consequences of even repeated minor failures over hundreds of years could be horrendous. Henry Spencer states the "fact" that nuclear power is the safest available technology. The safety of a particular technology, however, is decided largely by its past performance - not by any sort of a priori argument. For the reasons I have outlined, applying this method to nuclear technology could be disastrous. It will certainly require more time than the scant years we have now been applying the technology. Indeed, we must not think in terms of the standard engineering design lives of 50 or 75 years, but in terms of thousands of years. Clearly, we have no experience in the engineering of such artifacts, and to apply current notions of safety analysis to nuclear technology would be folly. We choose to think of empirically well-established scientific theory as fact. Merely repeating TECHNICAL OPINION about the benefits of one form of technology or another, whether in technical journals or on the network news does not make it fact. Adopting it as such is what I consider INTELLECTUAL SLEAZE. My ONLY HARD CLAIM is that our lack of understanding of a technology which has the potential for extreme hazard calls for great caution - caution that is not now being exercised. To continue to promulgate TECHNICAL DOGMA in the guise of scientific fact does nothing for reasoned debate about technical issues.