Our Nuclear Future: Paris or Hiroshima?

Nuclear energy has always engendered both hope and fear in people. Depending on one’s viewpoint, the power of the atom is the key to either Utopia or Armageddon. In Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Harvard University Press, 1988) physicist-historian Spencer Weart examines the images that have influenced discussion of nuclear energy since the latter part of the 19th century. In this excerpt from the book, Weart offers his views on the next steps in the debate over nuclear power plants and weapons. Billions of words have been written about nuclear affairs; nobody could read more than a tiny fraction. But the writings are staggeringly redundant, offering only a handful of useful ideas. In all that I have read I am most impressed by ideas that David Lilienthal offered in the 1960s and later. As head of the Atomic Energy Commission and afterward he struggled with nuclear energy fantasies, finally, realizing that he and others had abandoned the normal way of dealing with problems through piecemeal compromises: "Our obsession with the Atom drove us to seek a Grand Solution." Some people dreamed of doing away with every nuclear bomb under a system of world control, while others wanted to dismay their enemies by building bombs without limit. As for reactors, some people said the solution was to tear them all down regardless of what the alternatives might be, while others said civilization could survive only through the use of fission. Lilienthal saw that these extraordinary ideas rested on apocalyptic myth, and he rejected them all. Real solutions would be more complex and modest. First, energy supply. Much more electricity will be needed before the entire world reaches minimal prosperity, and none of the ways to make this electricity is fully satisfactory. I think we should keep nuclear reactors at least as an option. As Lilienthal said, "writing at the end of his life in moderate defense of reactors, we should especially continue the work now under way to develop new kinds of reactors, for prototypes already exist that are physically incapable of a massive meltdown no matter what mistakes the operators make. " But even with current reactors, in terms of human and environmental health over both the short and long term, I would personally prefer to get my electricity from a nuclear reactor (provided it was built by a group with proven competence) rather than from a coal-fired plant. In any case, the matter should not dominate public attention. Reactors are far from the worst health problem faced by the developed nations, let alone the less-developed ones. Second, war. Nuclear weapons too deserve less exclusive attention than they have received, for today a war between advanced nations could be intolerable even if they used only their non-nuclear weapons. Our main business is to understand and uproot the domestic and international causes of war itself. It is in non-military areas, as Lilienthal stressed, "that we will build up true security, and it is also there that we may find, instead of hostile calculations, the pleasure of productive work." Our work over the long term should begin with the fact, scarcely known or appreciated, that democratically elected governments never make war on one another. We can be safe not just for a while, but forever, if the complete lack of military threats between the democracies can be gradually extended to the rest of the world. Thus the survival of civilization is tied up with the struggle against institutions whose authority rests on force rather than free consent. That struggle will not be won with our own aggressive force, and least of all with nuclear weapons. In fact, the more we rely on such weapons the farther we ourselves move from democracy, as we grant unelected officials an authority to censor scientific knowledge and even to hold the literal keys to survival. The way to safety is to hold fast to an idea of the free and peaceful society we finally want, working toward it not with hostile demands but with a calm appeal. To survive in the meantime we must do something soon about our tendency to build ever more weapons. My advice is that several billion dollars be cut from the annual budget for the development of new weapons (a budget which in the United States has more than doubled in recent years). This proposal may seem too modest, but I prefer it to a Grand Solution. The history of the 20th century shows that research and development do much to determine what eventually comes to pass; anyone who tries to shift this little lever will learn what tremendous forces rest upon it. Finally, what of nuclear fear itself? And nuclear hope, which can also go to harmful extremes? I wish we could have a moratorium on the archaic images that incite such emotions. Exclaiming that reactors contain astonishing power terrifies the citizen; exclaiming the bombs can lay waste to whole nations tempts the citizen to possess more. If any group has been like children playing with matches, it has been those who thought they could evoke fantastic images to good purpose. The best way to affect imagery is to alter reality. For example, shifting an important fraction of scientific and engineering talent from weapons of mass destruction toward, say, energy supply would bring hope immediately as a gesture, and more hope over de- cades as the changed research effort changed our actual situation. We can also work with imagery directly if we approach the task with full respect for truth. Let us tell each new generation in new ways the fact that someday every town in the world might look like central Hiroshima in August 1945. More important, let us spread the word that every town can look like the finest quarters of Paris or better, merging into a healthy countryside, with nature and civilization, order and freedom, feelings and logic, all working in cooperation. Nuclear energy and its imagery have made familiar the dramatic possibilities for gain and loss that our own human energy can release. In the long run, we may find that they have greatly aided us toward the true transmutations we need. Weart is director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics, 335 E. 45th St., New York, NY 10017.

Our Nuclear Future: Paris or Hiroshima?

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