The Work Of Nuclear Power Plant: Ethics And Societal Impact
The need for a nuclear power plant to operate in an ethical manner is important to ensure the safety of the world population and the environment. The trust that the world gives these companies to operate should not be taken lightly due to the fact of the extreme consequences that can occur from a nuclear disaster. Some issues of ethical decision making these companies face are improper operation and operator action during a casualty, negligent maintenance practices, failure to enforce safety standards and dismissal of updating design standards based on new research and development.
On March 11th, 2011, Japan suffered from a 9. 0 magnitude earthquake that led to a massive tsunami that bombarded the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Each nuclear power plant is designed to withstand a design basis natural disaster, but due to the extreme nature of the natural disaster the Tokyo Electric Power Company(TEPCO) was unable to prevent their plants from a nuclear accident even though they could have taken the correct measure beforehand to ensure the safe operation. As a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Japan seemed to disregard the IAEA’s publication to follow examples of ethical behaviors that are particularly important for nuclear organizations such as “always place safety before commercial gain and to integrate safety and environmental considerations into business practices” (IAEA 2007). THESIS: TEPCO’s unethical decisions led to cascading problems when trying to place the plants in a safe condition that could have been avoided had they established and implemented an effective safety culture, but due to their lapse in judgement it created a significant negative societal and economic impact around the world.
An unfortunate factor in the Fukushima nuclear power plant’s unsuccessful operation of the plant in maintaining stable plant conditions during the natural disaster was the company’s unethical decision making. From the official report from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission gave the following statement regarding the accident from their findings, “The TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties. They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly “manmade. ” We believe that the root causes were the organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual” (The National Diet of Japan 2012). From their findings, they saw that the TEPCO and the regulatory commissions were aware that they were susceptible to a risk of a loss of all electrical power if the Fukushima Daiichi plant were impacted by a tsunami. The operator failed to make any changes to ensure the public safety and instead fed their self-interest and the regulatory commissions did not take extreme measures to ensure that they were taking action to correct these deficiencies. The seawall is one example of their unethical decision to increase profits instead of making the decision to upgrade it due to recent tsunami studies. “The original design-basis tsunami for Fukushima Daiichi of 3. 1 meters was chosen because a 1960 earthquake off the coast of Chile created a tsunami of that height on the Fukushima coast”, but the estimated height of the actual Tsunami that hit the site was twice that (Acton & Hibbs 2012). This negligence in establishing the safety requirements necessary to combat such a natural disaster was a major cause of why the plant was unable to maintain stable conditions.
Another unethical decision that significantly compounded the Fukushima Disaster was that “plant managers were hesitant to give the order to issue seawater to the core for cooling in order to prevent damage to their expensive assets” (Kaneko 2013). The loss of their normal means of cooling due the power outage created the decision on whether or not to use seawater for cooling with neutron absorbing boron. The problem with this to managers was that it would mean the irreversible loss of the estimated 7 billion-dollar reactor. This “profits before safety” mentality that the mangers had on the site was not the right answer. If they did not hesitate like they did, there was a good probability that temperatures of the reactor could be maintained and meltdowns not occur with the release of radioactive material to the environment.
The Chairmen behind the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission Kiyoshi Kurokawa stated “that this was a disaster “Made in Japan. ” Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity” (The National Diet of Japan 2012). The Japanese culture was a major influence in way the operator TEPCO managed their plant. They developed a culture that lacked the priority of safety and rather a profit first business. This is shown by their nuclear programs lack in funding for tsunami risk research. There is also evidence that they were unwilling to take advice from experts outside the nuclear field due to the cultures insularity. The culture also overlooked safety concerns that poised little or no safety significance because they knew that they could get away from scrutiny from regulators. They did this also by falsifying reports and committing fraud in order to not have any evidence that would prevent them from operating and making money. “TEPCO has admitted to falsifying reports to its regulator in 29 cases between 1988 and 1998 and to frauds in safety-related inspections at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 1993-1994” (National Academy of Sciences 2014). Japanese culture’s reluctance to question or challenge authority gave way for TEPCO to ignore these regulatory deficiencies without any accountability to fix them.
The results of these unethical decisions and the lack of safety culture in the TEPCO power plant are some major reasons of how the Fukushima nuclear disaster could have been avoided, but because of this it has created a negative societal impact. [image: ]Figure 1 (Kim 2013)After the accident a study was done of the public acceptance of nuclear power on 42 countries. 40 of the countries level of public acceptance declined with Japan expectedly decreasing the largest. “As for the human costs, in September 2012, Fukushima officials stated that 159,128 people had been evicted from the exclusion zones, losing their homes and virtually all their possessions” (Starr 2012). Areas that became contaminated can no longer grow agricultural crops and fishing has become banned off the coast of Fukushima where it has been found to have radioactive cesium levels higher than the current Japanese regulatory limits. The loss of the Fukushima nuclear power plants has put a huge economic strain on the Japanese government and its citizens. “In October 2016, the Japanese government said that expenditure on decommissioning the Fukushima plant would rise from the current figure of ¥80 billion (US$690m) per year to several hundred billion yen (several billion US dollars) per year” (Green 2016). The citizens of Japan will now see their tax dollars going towards the cleanup of TEPCO’s mess. They not only will see that, but also have to pay an increase in their electricity bills due to the increased use of renewable energy sources and increased fossil fuel import cost. “METI noted in its April 2014 Strategic Energy Plan that electricity prices have risen as a result of strategies to replace nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster: "Six Japanese electric power companies have already revised their electricity prices by a range of 6. 2% to 9. 8% for regulated sectors. However, actually, the model electricity price for the average household has risen by around 20% across Japan due to the rise in fuel price, etc. "(Green 2016). Japan’s decision to shut down the use of nuclear power was definitely the correct decision until they can re-build and implement new controls to operate again, but its citizens will have to pay the price in the meantime.
The ethical and societal impact that has occurred from the event has put a black-eye on nuclear power. There are so many positive benefits of the production of nuclear power, but if the nuclear power company does not adhere to the lessons learned from the Fukushima event, there might be a public push to stop the production of these plants. As a result, from this “the Japanese government announced a comprehensive review of its energy policy and halted its plans to build additional nuclear reactors. Germany shut down all 17 of its operational nuclear power reactors, and Switzerland agreed to phase out its 5 aging power reactors as they reached the end of their lifecycles over the next 25 years” (Kim 2012). It is up to the countries to adhere to the policies and the regulators to enforce them if they decide to continue to retain nuclear energy as part of their national energy resources.
