I just heard, for the twelfth time, Sen. Joe Lieberman telling “Face the Nation” that the United States should put the brakes on nuclear energy plant construction “right now until we understand the ramifications of what’s happening in Japan.” Meanwhile, the anti-nukes crowd is out in full force, seeing Japan’s crisis as their opportunity to scare the bejesus out of the public, which is nervous about nuclear energy anyway since they know nothing about it, other than that something bad happened at Three-Mile Island, the Russians had a catastrophe at Chernobyl,  Jane Fonda made that scary movie, “The China Syndrome,” where they shot Jack Lemmon— “And don’t they make bombs with that nuclear stuff?”—and the fact that Homer Simpson works for a nuclear plant that creates three-eyed fish and is run by that evil old Montgomery Burns.

Meanwhile, we can count on the feckless Obama administration to, as usual, sway to the breezes of the polls and its core constituency, which doesn’t like nuclear energy even though it may be our best real chance to get out from under our dependence on foreign oil, especially since Obama used the last energy disaster, in the Gulf, as an excuse to shut down new deep-water off-shore drilling to the cheering of The Daily Kos.

What does Japan’s current plight have to do with the nuclear industry here? Virtually nothing, but never mind; there is ignorance to exploit, and cognitive fallacies to piggy-back on. Lauren Fleishman, a doctoral candidate at Carnegie Mellon who studies people’s perceptions of various energy production alternatives, notes that while professional risk assessors focus on the overall likelihood that a disaster will happen, the average person, on the other hand, is more concerned about the possible severity of the potential disaster. That’s why people tend to fear air travel more than car travel, despite the fact that car crashes take far more lives. That’s why the film of one fiery crash with an announcer screaming “Oh the humanity!” killed the airship business deader than a mackerel. Japan is the next Hindenburg. “Oh, goodie goodie goodie!” say the anti-nuke activists. “This is our big chance!”

Never mind that it took the biggest earthquake in Japanese history to trigger the problems with the plants. Never mind that U.S. plants, thanks to locking that barn door tight after Three Mile Island, has more secure facilities than Japan anyway. Never mind that, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, between 1970 and 1992 there were about 0.1 fatalities per gigawatt, or billion watts, of nuclear power produced, for coal power,  3.2 fatalities, and for oil, 3.6. Hydroelectric power was the real killer, taking 8 lives per gigawatt of electricity. Never mind any of that: we are in full confirmation bias mode now. Anyone inclined to distrust nuclear energy sees all the chaos in Japan as proving his point.

One would think that the smart, responsible thing to do would be to presume that a nuclear disaster caused by a once in a millennium earthquake was in fact caused by a once in a millennium earthquake, or what was once called an “Act of God’ before we stopped believing in acts of God (except for Glenn Beck, that is), and does not point to any greater risks from nuclear power, and only put on the brakes after some information to the contrary was uncovered, it it ever is. But that would be fair and prudent…and waste the chance to change people’s flabby and undernourished little minds (on this issue at least) while TV reporters are screaming about leaks and breaches and explosions and iodine pills.

ARGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Run!!! Nuclear energy bad!

The newsmedia, once again, has pretty much disgraced itself in its coverage of the nuclear aftermath of the Japan earthquake. The reporters have not defined their terms, and by using broad generalities when specifics are needed, add to the confusion and hysteria.

In an excellent and well written post on his blog, Charles Martin both describes the botched coverage and explains what it is missing. Here is a sample:

Many stories concentrating on the reactor accidents were illustrated with blazing pictures of a natural gas plant explosion and a burning oil refinery, much more visually impressive than a building with the façade stripped off, but giving the false impression of a blazing inferno at the reactors.

Several headlines said “nuclear explosion,” which is something very different from “an explosion in a nuclear power plant.”

Anti-nuclear politicians like Senator Ed Markey and anti-nuclear activists from groups like the Institute for Policy Studies warned ominously of “another Chernobyl” — which this isn’t and never will be; the reactors are wildly, radically, different in design.

Television talking heads talked about the “containment building.” Which is strictly true, since the building in which the containment is housed would be the “containment building” — but misleading and confusing, because the containment for all three reactors remained intact….

Martin also examines the anti-nuclear slant that has been a feature of the coverage as well, as the pliant reporters aid and abet the efforts of fear-mongers to exploit the event:

 

“Now, let’s look at some of the media reports. One of the first ones I saw was this story in Channel News Asia:

“Several experts, in a conference call with reporters, also predicted that regardless of the outcome at the Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant crisis, the accident will seriously damage the nuclear power renaissance.”

“And who are these experts?

“The situation has become desperate enough that they apparently don’t have the capability to deliver fresh water or plain water to cool the reactor and stabilize it, and now, in an act of desperation, are having to resort to diverting and using sea water,” said Robert Alvarez, who works on nuclear disarmament at the Institute for Policy Studies.”

“Hmm. Robert Alvarez. At the Institute for Policy Studies. Which, according to its web site:

“…became involved in environmental issues through the anti-nuclear movement, a natural extension of its long history of work on the “national security state.” In 1979, IPS Fellow Saul Landau won an Emmy for his documentary “Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang,” which tells the story of the cover-up by the U.S. nuclear program and of the hazards of radiation to American citizens. In 1985, Fellow William Arkin published Nuclear Battlefields: Global Links in the Arms Race, which helped galvanize anti-nuclear activism through its revelations of the impact of nuclear infrastructure on communities across America.”

Anti-nuclear movement? Next?

‘“It is considered to be extremely unlikely but the station blackout has been one of the great concerns for decades,” said Ken Bergeron, a physicist who has worked on nuclear reactor accident simulation.”

Kenneth Bergeron, author of Tritium on Ice: The Dangerous New Alliance of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power.

“I wonder, who else was on this call?

“Joseph Cirincione, the head of the Ploughshares Fund.” This would be the same Ploughshares Fund that:

“… supports a global network of experts and advocates who are now poised to realize the vision of a nuclear weapon-free world. We leverage the impact of those funds with our own advocacy, with our ability to raise the profile and visibility of key issues, and by convening and engaging with organizations and leaders in the field.”

“Paul Gunter is [sic] the U.S. organization Beyond Nuclear,” which:

“… aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. The Beyond Nuclear team works with diverse partners and allies to provide the public, government officials, and the media with the critical information necessary to move humanity toward a world beyond nuclear.”

“Gunter also, according to ecologia.org:

“… is a co-founder of the Clamshell Alliance. A resident of Warner, New Hampshire, he has been arrested at Seabrook for nonviolent civil disobedience on several occasions.”

“I begin to see a pattern. Google those several names; you’ll find that over and over again, these same four names are being quoted as “nuclear power experts.” All of them closely associated with anti-nuclear organizations.

“I wonder if they might have an agenda?“

They have an agenda, all right, and the media is perfectly happy to allow them to use the airwaves to pursue it. In the middle of a long-term debate over energy policy, in which America’s access to affordable, safe and clean energy has huge ramifications on our health, lifestyle, finances and national security, we should be considering all issues with care, logic, balanced information, and dispassionate analysis, free of ideological taint and appeals to fear and emotion. But the anti-nuclear advocates have already decided what is good for us, so this is their chance to cut through all that crap, and shift public opinion decisively by scaring everyone and keeping the narrative simple. The media is about as ignorant as the public, and pre-programmed to be anti-nuclear, so they fall right into line.

It’s not ethical. It’s not responsible. And it isn’t wise.

But it works.