Beyond Fukushima: Disasters, Nuclear Energy, and Energy Law

Abstract

Nuclear power long has occupied a precarious position in our collective energy landscape."Our country, indeed the world, has always viewed nuclear power with fear and fascination." 2 When a tragedy like Fukushima transpires, this fear and fascination spike.Though the harnessing of atoms to create electricity turned "swords into plowshares" long ago, 3 there remains a view today that nuclear power-and its proponents-are "clearly evil." 4 Nuclear disasters like Fukushima create an opportunity for those who hold such views to advocate for a new energy course: one that abandons this energy source.Indeed, in the months after Fukushima, some nations announced their decision to forsake nuclear energy, Germany most prominent among them.5 Others, like Japan, weighed the idea, only to subsequently reject it, 6 at least for the time being.By contrast, in the United States the non-nuclear option received little national political attention.7 Why?This Article takes up the tragedy at Fukushima Daiichi as a vehicle for parsing the role that disasters play in nuclear energy policy-and, by extension, in U.S. energy law generally.In the public discourse, energy law often orbits disasters.No one talks about our oil dependence until there is an Exxon Valdez or a Deepwater Horizon, and then it is conversation fodder for Starbucks runs.We flip switches all day long without wondering where our electrons come from, and then there is a Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island, or Fukushima, and anti-nuclear protestors take to the streets.8 2.

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