This is the common image that we are fronted with everyday when it comes to nuclear power. Knowing at what I am looking at though, I never stopped to think about what these types of images are portraying to people. What I have always missed is the "smoke" coming out of the cooling towers! No, it is not smoke. It is actually water vapor that is due to the cooling water. Like in coal-fired plants, water must be boiled to turn a turbine to create electricity. Not all the heat is taken out of the water though into electricity. This means that the water is still too hot to let run down a river when the plant is done with it. The water must be cooled so that it does not hurt the environment. The steam coming out of these stacks is a product of that. I can easily see their being room now for a large misunderstanding here.
People live in fear about nuclear materials everyday. The worst type of disaster we could have according to most would be a widespread radioactive contamination from something such as a dirty bomb. The truth is that radiation is not understood well by the public and thus it is feared. A dirty bomb would not actually be effective in creating a massive contamination, but it does create a lot of fear. This is where it is effective.
In the nuclear power world, we often times are shooting ourselves in the foot. We use terms like "nuclear burnup" to describe the fuel cycle, even though what we are talking about has nothing to do with burning nuclear material. Actually, nuclear material does not even burn! Again, a nuclear reactor works off fission, not combustion. I have mentioned this before. What are we referring to when we talk about burnup? Well, when the enriched uranium is put in the reactor, it begins to undergo fission. The fissile part (the U-235) begins to be "used up" as the reactor runs. The burnup of the reactor just simply talks about how "used up" a reactor is. Though this would be a much better way to talk about the subject, we continue to talk like we are burning uranium.
What does this do for us? It makes people believe that the steam coming out of the cooling towers is radioactive smoke being released into the atmosphere. So much for the zero emissions claims that nuclear power makes! Can we blame people though? We talk with terms that have different connotations and expect people to understand what we are talking about. Communication again seems to be the problem here.
3 comments:
For sure. I always thought people knew that it was steam, not smoke, coming out of the cooling towers. Of course, it is hard for us to think like non-scientists. So it would be hard for us to reexamine misconceptions most scientists overlook! Then the public gets the wrong idea and the whole technology is seen in a bad light. Nice job thinking from that perspective, Aaron.
I agree with J.D.'s comment. I think this kind of self-reflection is only going to help you, your colleagues, and the industry. It's not just about spin--it's about clarity and communication. Nice thinking.
I'm not sure it's only the "smoke" that freaks people out--those towers also seem very industrial and menacing, and they seem to be hiding something (they almost look Soviet, if you want to reach). It would be interesting to study what sort of connotations and misconceptions are associated with that.
Another funny thing I've learned is that bloggers and others (myself included) have occasionally posted pics of cooling towers we thought were from nuclear that were, in fact, from coal. Go figure.
That is a very interesting point about the cooling towers. I have also though about the concept of changing how the cooling towers look at a nuclear plant since there is no real need for them to look like that. I mean, not even all the nuclear power plants today have cooling towers that look like that.
Ben, I appreciate that you saw what I was going for there. It is good to know that my efforts were appreciated!
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