"Most people today," writes political
philosopher John Gray, "think they belong to a species that can be
master of its destiny. This is faith, not science."
The
unfolding disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
sorely strains that faith, as did the 1979 crisis at Pennsylvania's
Three Mile Island nuclear plant and the 1986 catastrophe at Chernobyl in
the Ukraine.
Fukushima has already
surpassed Three Mile Island in intensity. As we go to press, experts
concede the possibility of Chernobyl-level meltdown.
Three
things stand between resolution and further tragedy: the quality of the
engineering of the containment vessels surrounding the nuclear
reactors; the heroic efforts of 50 anonymous workers who in the dark and
amidst sporadic explosions and fire suffer prolonged radiation exposure
while working to stabilize the plant; and — it must be admitted — luck.
This
is the third disaster to hit the energy industry within 11 months. The
first occurred last April in Montcoal, West Virginia, where a huge
explosion rocked the Upper Big Branch Mine, killing 29. A couple of
weeks later, an explosion on a British Petroleum drilling rig 52 miles
off the coast of Louisiana triggered what became the world's largest oil
spill. And now there is Fukushima.
The
corporate owners of these enterprises may differ, as do the magnitudes
of the respective tragedies, but they share a common denominator: a
wanton failure to take adequate safety measures. In the case of
Fukushima, it was to safeguard against a worst-case natural disaster.
The
Fukushima nuclear plant was crippled by a one-two punch. First, an
earthquake of almost unprecedented intensity damaged its reactors. Then,
a subsequent tsunami disabled the diesel-powered electric generators
that were supposed to serve as a failsafe.
As
long ago as 1972, experts within the closed nuclear community issued
warnings about potential weakness in the design of the reactors used at
Fukushima — and, in the United States, at 16 power plants, including the
Pilgrim Nuclear Station that sits overlooking Cape Cod.
According
to a US State Department document released via WikiLeaks, American
nuclear officials two years ago found Japan's key atomic regulator a
"disappointment" for being too close to the nuclear industry.
Days
after it became clear that the Fukushima accident was of historic
proportions, the Russian nuclear rescue expert who led the Chernobyl
clean-up publically criticized Japanese and United Nations nuclear
watchdogs for succumbing to corporate influence and greed.
In
a world with an insatiable appetite for energy, the greed and
concomitant recklessness evinced by corporate overlords in West
Virginia, in the Gulf of Mexico, and now in Japan must strike people of
good will as nothing short of criminal.
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