Russia Adv – 1ac

a2 Nuclear Accidents

No Accidents – This is from an official NASA report – radioisotope equipment is completely harmless

NASA 08 – (Space Radioisotope power systems Multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator, http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdffiles/MMRTG_Jan2008.pdf, pg 2)
Over the last four decades the United States has launched 26 missions involving 45 RTGs. While RTGs have never been the cause of a spacecraft accident. they have been on board three space missions that did fail for other reasons. In all three cases. the RTGs performed as designed. Early RTGs carried smaller amounts of radioisotope material and in keeping with the safety philosophy at the time. were built to burn tip at high altitude during an accidental reentry. One such reentry occurred in 1964 during the malfunction of a navigational satellite for the Navy. Later RTGs were designed to contain their plutonium in case of reentry. RTGs performed this function successfully in the case of a failed weather satellite in a 1968 launch and during the South Pacific jertisoning of the Apollo 13 lunar landet which contained an RTG to power a science package. In both instances. upon re-entry and ocean impact. there was no release of plutonium to the environment.
Empirics prove- future nuclear meltdowns are unlikely and cause zero deaths

The Economist 5/15

(The Economist, “Nuclear Energy: Risk of Meltdown,” 5/15/11, http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/03/nuclear_energy, CJC)

I've been trying to think of a good analogy for a nuclear meltdown. At first a plane crash or terrorist attack came to mind, because they are all rare, but have an outsized effect on public opinion. But this isn't quite fair to nuclear energy, because whereas plane crashes and terrorist attacks have been very likely to result in civilian deaths, nuclear meltdowns have not. Chernobyl is the obvious exception, but that plant didn't meet the safety standards of even the mid-1980s, and the accident there has been blamed on significant errors in operation. The other two major meltdowns at civilian nuclear plants—at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the Lucens reactor in Switzerland—resulted in zero fatalities and had no provable negative health effects. Plants have gotten much safer since those incidents. As Mr Saletan points out, according to one analysis, "plants being constructed by today's standards are 1,600 times safer than early nuclear plants, in terms of the predicted frequency of a large radiation leak." The incident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant may change this history, but it shouldn't change our calculations about nuclear energy all that much. While we are likely to gain valuable insights for improving the safety of nuclear energy from Japan's experience, the main lesson seems to be that we should avoid building nuclear power plants in areas with considerable seismic activity. In America, that lesson obtains to only a small number of plants. For example, there are four reactors at two plants in California, in San Clemente and near San Luis Obispo. The nuclear plant in San Clemente is built to withstand a 7.0 earthquake, and apparently withstood a 7.2 quake last year. But that sounds less reassuring since Friday's 8.8 quake. So far, America's politicians have reacted with admirable composure to the events in Japan. As David Weigel reports, "no one in Washington is abandoning support for nuclear power", including the president. Public statements have reflected a weighing of the potential costs of nuclear energy against the very real, but much less spectacular costs of its alternatives. That's a good thing. A great thing would be if these politicians also pushed for better alternatives.
Fukishima was an isolated incident- steps have been taken to prevent all future meltdowns

Mian 11- Retired senior World Bank official, Director of the general office of utility regulation

(Zia, “Energy sustainability and supply security,”7/17/11, http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110717/focus/focus9.html, CJC)

Although the Fukushima I accident has somewhat tarnished the image of nuclear energy, the fact is, this facility was commissioned in 1971 and was not designed to withstand a 9MW category earthquake or tsunami exceeding six-metre waves. Dr Steve Kidd, deputy director general at the World Nuclear Association, believes that it is unlikely that Fukushima is going to change the world energy supply and demand outlook. The world still needs large quantities of clean energy and nuclear is one of the possible answers to that. Fukushima I doesn't change this assessment. There is a big role for nuclear in the future of world energy - that hasn't changed for many countries around the world. Dr Kidd further states that nuclear is a very good and very safe way of generating clean electricity in large quantities. So the new assessments will overcome the immediate rather negative sentiment that has resulted from Fukushima (see: www.mineweb.co.za - The State of Nuclear after Fukushima and Germany). At present, there are 439 nuclear plants in the world that provide about 370GW of generation capacity. By 2020, this capacity is expected to increase to 500GW when there will be more nuclear-powered countries, particularly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East (including oil-rich Saudi Arabia). It is likely that both in China and India, the regulatory regime will become more stringent and independent. Fukushima I would definitely have an impact on bringing changes to the existing plants with similar designs and upgrading them. However, the modern plants do not suffer from such weaknesses.
New plants have no risk – terrorism fails, reuses fuel, no meltdown, solves warming and health issues

Svoboda 10 (Elizabeth, editor and science writer for Popular Mechanics - “Debunking the Top 10 Energy Myths”. July 7, 2010. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/debunking-myths-about-nuclear-fuel-coal-wind-solar) AK

In a recent national poll, 72 percent of respondents expressed concern about potential accidents at nuclear power plants. Some opinion-makers have encouraged this trepidation: Steven Cohen, executive director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, has called nuclear power "dangerous, complicated and politically controversial." During the first six decades of the nuclear age, however, fewer than 100 people have died as a result of nuclear power plant accidents. And comparing modern nuclear plants to Chernobyl—the Ukrainian reactor that directly caused 56 deaths after a 1986 meltdown—is like comparing World War I fighter planes to the F/A-18. Newer nuclear plants, including the fast reactor now being developed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), contain multiple auto-shutoff mechanisms that reduce the odds of a meltdown exponentially—even in a worst-case scenario, like an industrial accident or a terrorist attack. And some also have the ability to burn spent fuel rods, a convenient way to reuse nuclear waste instead of burying it for thousands of years. Power sources such as coal and petroleum might seem safer than nuclear, but statistically they're a lot deadlier. Coal mining kills several hundred people annually—mainly from heart damage and black lung disease, but also through devastating accidents like the April mine explosion in West Virginia. The sublethal effects of coal-power generation are also greater. "The amount of radiation put out by a coal plant far exceeds that of a nuclear power plant, even if you use scrubbers," says Gerald E. Marsh, a retired nuclear physicist who worked at Argonne National Laboratory. Particulate pollution from coal plants causes nearly 24,000 people a year to die prematurely from diseases such as lung cancer. Petroleum production also has safety and environmental risks, as demonstrated by the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. INL nuclear lab's deputy associate director, Kathryn McCarthy, thinks the industry can overcome its stigma. "It's been a long time since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island," McCarthy says, "and people are willing to reconsider the benefits of nuclear energy." Nuclear plants emit only a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide that coal plants do, and a few hundred nuclear facilities could potentially supply nearly all the energy the United States needs, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

A terrorist attack on a nuclear facility is not only impossible and would fail, but even a worst case scenario wouldn’t kill anyone

World Nuclear Association 11­- worldwide collection of nuclear experts in science and theory

(World Nuclear Association, “Safety of Nuclear Power reactors,” 7/26/11, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html, CJC)

Since the World Trade Centre attacks in New York in 2001 there has been concern about the consequences of a large aircraft being used to attack a nuclear facility with the purpose of releasing radioactive materials. Various studies have looked at similar attacks on nuclear power plants. They show that nuclear reactors would be more resistant to such attacks than virtually any other civil installations - see Appendix 3. A thorough study was undertaken by the US Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) using specialist consultants and paid for by the US Dept. of Energy. It concludes that US reactor structures "are robust and (would) protect the fuel from impacts of large commercial aircraft". The analyses used a fully-fuelled Boeing 767-400 of over 200 tonnes as the basis, at 560 km/h - the maximum speed for precision flying near the ground. The wingspan is greater than the diameter of reactor containment buildings and the 4.3 tonne engines are 15 metres apart. Hence analyses focused on single engine direct impact on the centreline - since this would be the most penetrating missile - and on the impact of the entire aircraft if the fuselage hit the centreline (in which case the engines would ricochet off the sides). In each case no part of the aircraft or its fuel would penetrate the containment. Other studies have confirmed these findings. Penetrating (even relatively weak) reinforced concrete requires multiple hits by high speed artillery shells or specially-designed "bunker busting" ordnance - both of which are well beyond what terrorists are likely to deploy. Thin-walled, slow-moving, hollow aluminum aircraft, hitting containment-grade heavily-reinforced concrete disintegrate, with negligible penetration. But further (see Sept 2002 Science paper and Jan 2003 Response & Comments), realistic assessments from decades of analyses, lab work and testing, find that the consequence of even the worst realistic scenarios - core melting and containment failure - can cause few if any deaths to the public, regardless of the scenario that led to the core melt and containment failure. This conclusion was documented in a 1981 EPRI study, reported and widely circulated in many languages, by Levenson and Rahn in Nuclear Technology. In 1988 Sandia National Laboratories in USA demonstrated the unequal distribution of energy absorption that occurs when an aircraft impacts a massive, hardened target. The test involved a rocket-propelled F4 Phantom jet (about 27 tonnes, with both engines close together in the fuselage) hitting a 3.7m thick slab of concrete at 765 km/h. This was to see whether a proposed Japanese nuclear power plant could withstand the impact of a heavy aircraft. It showed how most of the collision energy goes into the destruction of the aircraft itself - about 96% of the aircraft's kinetic energy went into the its destruction and some penetration of the concrete, while the remaining 4% was dissipated in accelerating the 700-tonne slab. The maximum penetration of the concrete in this experiment was 60 mm, but comparison with fixed reactor containment needs to take account of the 4% of energy transmitted to the slab. See also video clip. Looking at spent fuel storage pools, similar analyses showed no breach. Dry storage and transport casks retained their integrity. "There would be no release of radionuclides to the environment". Similarly, the massive structures mean that any terrorist attack even inside a plant (which are well defended) and causing loss of cooling, core melting and breach of containment would not result in any significant radioactive releases. See also Science magazine article 2002 and Appendix 3 . Switzerland's Nuclear Safety Inspectorate studied a similar scenario and reported in 2003 that the danger of any radiation release from such a crash would be low for the older plants and extremely low for the newer ones. The conservative design criteria which caused most power reactors to be shrouded by massive containment structures with biological shield has provided peace of mind in a suicide terrorist context. Ironically and as noted earlier, with better understanding of what happens in a core melt accident inside, they are now seen to be not nearly as necessary in that accident mitigation role as was originally assumed.
New reactor developments withstand Fukushima-like failures – are guaranteed to be safe

Provencher 11 (Rick Provencher is manager of the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho Operations Office. “INL reactors can withstand an earthquake” April 29, 2011. Public statement accessed on Idaho Mountain Express website. http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005136416) AK

Japan's nuclear crisis has communities around the world scrutinizing nearby nuclear facilities. Idaho National Laboratory welcomes a public dialogue about its nuclear mission and emergency preparedness. Lab leaders will team with state, tribal and local officials and community groups to hold open houses in Idaho communities this spring. We hope you'll attend an open house or public tour. (More info is at https://secure.inl.gov/NuclearMissionsAndSafety/). In the meantime, here's some fuel for discussion. First and foremost, we want Idahoans to feel confident that INL's nuclear facilities do not threaten public health and safety. The Department of Energy's Idaho site sits on the Eastern Snake River Plain, which is seismically quiet compared to the surrounding mountains. Nevertheless, INL's advanced test reactor emergency systems are designed to withstand very large postulated ground accelerations—nearly 10 times what the site felt during the roughly 7.0-magnitude Mount Borah earthquake in 1983. During that quake, the reactor safely shut down exactly as it was designed to do. Redundant and diverse power and water supplies ensure reactor safety under routine and abnormal circumstances. If power is lost, multiple seismically stable backup power systems and water reserves can keep coolant flowing to the reactor long enough to keep it safe. The reactor requires less than an hour of forced cooling to maintain safety after shutdown. Unlike commercial power reactors built to make lots of heat to turn a turbine, the advance test reactor is designed to expose test materials to large quantities of neutrons. It contains far less nuclear fuel than a power reactor—its entire core weighs less than one fuel element in a typical commercial reactor. The fuel doesn't get nearly as hot, and it cools faster. The Department of Energy maintains an extensive, extremely sensitive radiation-monitoring network around INL. Air monitoring devices are checked continually and any elevated readings would be rapidly reported to the public. Quarterly and annual summaries are available for public review. Environmental standards that were the norm in the early days of the site are no longer acceptable, and we understand that past practices impacted public trust. We're committed to winning it back. Radioactively contaminated materials buried in Idaho are being exhumed, characterized, repackaged and shipped to the licensed disposal facility in New Mexico faster than anywhere else in the DOE complex. These materials will leave Idaho as early as 2015, three years ahead of the Idaho settlement agreement schedule. Our cleanup contractors have done an impressive job staying on schedule and significantly under budget. Eleven of 15 liquid waste tanks have been emptied, cleaned and grouted. The remaining liquid stored in robust stainless steel tanks will be converted to a dry granular solid by the end of 2012 and safely stored above ground in containers that can isolate it from the environment. Used fuel is safely stored in two pools. Both are built to withstand severe earthquakes estimated to occur about once every 10,000 years. Plus, the pools contain many volumes of surplus water to help ensure that fuel stays covered in the extremely unlikely event of a loss of power. We take the safety and security of INL facilities seriously because the lab's mission is serious. INL leads the nation's nuclear energy research efforts by supporting university nuclear programs, current commercial U.S. reactors, and development of advanced reactor materials and designs. This work helps improve the safety and efficiency of nuclear power, the nation's largest source of emission-free electricity. And because energy security underlies the nation's economic competitiveness, the continued safe and efficient production of nuclear energy should be important to Idahoans and Americans alike.