The Eighth Tribe, 1980 (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1980-05-01 / 5. szám
May, 1980 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page 9 He called on Gov. Richard Thornburgh to move promptly to consult nuclear “experts rather than dilettante concern scientists,” to get TMI back in service. The krypton that Metropolitan Edison Company wants to “vent” from the plants containment building before major cleanup can begin would release at maximum, according to Teller, “only one-1,000th of the background radiation that we all get in the natural course of events every year, less than I got by taking a plane to come here.” Speaking at the Eighth Annual Power Conference sponsored by the Pennsylvania Electric Association (PEA) of investor-owned utilities and Penn State University, Teller tied the needs for nuclear power directly to Soviet power aims in the Middle East. Soviet troops are in Afghanistan and tanks are in Yemen, he said, poised on the flanks of 60 percent of the free world’s supply of oil. “The outlet of the Persian Gulf could be closed in one week if the Kremlin decides to,” he said. “And we can do absolutely nothing about it. The Soviets have made themselves militarily stronger than us on every level, in nuclear and conventional capability, and quantity and quality.” Asserting that a democracy like the U.S. “cannot and should not go to war for oil, hut only for freedom,” Teller warned that all the world’s developing countries which lack oil of their own depend completely on that fuel to support their food supply with fertilizer and irrigation. All these countries would have to do the bidding of the Russians if the Mideast oil supply is cut off, he asserted, as would Japan and several Western European Countries. “If such a catastrophe would occur, our government has no contingency plan whatsoever to face it,” said Teller. “This unpreparedness in the face of clear danger is the worst of several shortcomings of the administration.” A cutoff of Mideast oil in Teller’s view would force the U.S. to supply more of the free world, which it could do only if it massively cuts down on its own use, in part by substituting electricity from the atom. “We would have to prepare for the most cruel kind of conservation,” he said. “We have shown we can conserve ten percent of our electricity. But 50 percent would be very difficult. Air conditioning would have to he outlawed. Think of heating only one room of your house for your family, and cutting automobile traffic to 30 percent of its present use. “To save that much energy would not be the ‘moral equivalent of war’ it would he a war for survival.” The 200 nuclear power plants now generating electricity worldwide have proven the safety of reactor in terms of equipment, Teller said. The story with the operators “is sadly different.” He said the TMI plant would have shut itself down safely if the operators had simply gone home rather than done the wrong things. “But the bigger failure (of TMI) was that this was practically the same accident which had occurred at the Davis-Besse station (in Ohio), and the reports sat in the files of the NRC for a year without being distributed.” He also asserted that the NRC should have known that the famous “hydrogen bubble” in the TMI reactor could not possibly have exploded and should therefore have never let the public get worried on this score. “We need something better than the present nuclear engineer in the White House and his appointees,” said the Hungarian-born Teller, biting off the words in heavily accented, but emphatic English. A meltdown of a nuclear power plant core is “extremely unlikely” he said, and nuclear wastes can be safely disposed of. He declared that nuclear plants could be built within five years virtually as safely as on the present 10-to-15-year schedule protracted by regulatory delays. The longer period “just makes the plant more expensive, not safer.” Teller said he doesn’t think all the country’s electricity should come from nuclear power — he foresees “a lot from hydro projects,” for example, hut made no mention of coal plants. He put the nation’s need at “several hundred reactors” if 200 plants were “started right now and finished safely in five years, that would be something like a mnimum estimate.” Still associated in the mid-’70s with the University of California’s Livermore Laboratory, Teller was credited in the conference’s program booklet with “significant contribution to the design of the world’s first hydrogen bomb.” But the famous physicist proved this is one title he doesn’t encourage. When a reported prefaced what was to have been the final question of the press conference by saying, "Dr. Teller, as the father of the hydrogen bomb —” lie scientist abruptly snapped, “Thank you,” and sat down. End of press conference.
