Energy law from a bioethics perspective: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

1. Energy law from a bioethics perspective: What it is, how it works, and why it matters Catherine M. Hammack Energy Law 19 November 2013

2. What is it? • Technology • Law • Bioethics • Can we? • May we? • Shouldwe?

3. What is it? • “[B]ioethicsis concerned with a specific area of human conduct concerning the animate . . . and inanimate . . . natural world against the background of . . . medicine, biology, biochemistry, and biophysics.” • Major sub-disciplines: • Medical ethics • Animal ethics • Environmental ethics

4. How does it work? • General approaches: • Deontology • Consequentialism • Utilitarianism • Virtue ethics • Casuistry • Principlism

5. How does it work? • Principlism • Tom Beauchamp and James Childress (1978) (latest ed. 2009) • “[T]he most prevalent, authoritative, and widely used bioethical approaches” • Four universal principles: • Autonomy • Beneficence • Non-Maleficence • Justice

6. How does it work? • Principlism • Autonomy • The ability and freedom to govern oneself • Acting • With intent and understanding • Without external coercion or control • Of • Individuals • Communities, groups

7. How does it work? • Principlism • Beneficence • Good; best interest • Defining “good”, “best” • Ethical duty

8. How does it work? • Principlism • Non-Maleficence • “Above all, do no harm” (Hippocratic maxim) • Defining “harm” • ≠ beneficence • Generally more important than beneficence • Ethical duty and right • Beneficence is merely a duty; No right of beneficence

9. How does it work? • Principlism • Justice • ≈ fairness • ≠ equality • For • Individual • Communities, groups • Distribution / exhaustion of limited resources

10. How does it work?

11. How does it work?

12. Ethical energy • Nuclear energy • Can we? • May we? • Should we?

13. “Ethical” energy • "Some people say using nuclear power to generate electricity is a good idea because uranium fuel is available in North America and nuclear power doesn't contribute to global warming. Other people say using nuclear power is a bad idea because of the risk of accident and the fact there is still no long-term solution for nuclear waste disposal. What do you think -- is using nuclear power to generate electricity mostly a good idea or mostly a bad idea?”

14. “Ethical” energy

15. “Ethical” energy

16. Ethical energy

17. Autonomy • United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission • Atomic Energy Act of 1954 • Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970 • Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 • Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 • Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 • Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1980 • Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 • Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985

18. Beneficence • “Nuclear energy has perhaps the lowest impact on the environment — including air, land, water, and wildlife — of any energy source. It produces no harmful greenhouse gases, isolates its waste from the environment, and requires less area to produce the same amount of electricity as other sources.”

19. Beneficence • “Nuclear energy has perhaps the lowest impact on the environment — including air, land, water, and wildlife — of any energy source. It produces no harmful greenhouse gases, isolates its waste from the environment, and requires less area to produce the same amount of electricity as other sources.”

20. Non-Maleficence • Extraction • Miners: higher rates of lung cancer, tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases • 1,000 tons of uranium fuel = ~100,000 tons of radioactive tailings and ~1 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste containing arsenic and other metals

21. Non-maleficence • Production • Nuclear power plants emitting radiation • Residents • Employees • “[A] small portion of radioactivity must be released from reactors. This radioactivity enters the human body through breathing and the food chain, as gases and tiny metal particles. They kill and injure healthy cells, leading to cancer, and are especially harmful to the fetus, infant, and child . . . .”

22. Non-Maleficence • Disposal • High-level radioactive waste: 2,000 metric tons • Low-level radioactive waste: 12 million cubic feet • “More than 58,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel already has accumulated at reactor sites around the U.S. for which there currently is no permanent repository.” • “This waste is actually a cocktail of chemicals such as Cesium-137, Iodine-129, Strontium-90, and Plutonium-239, each radioactive and cancer-causing.” • Waste remains dangerous for thousands of years!

23. Non-maleficence • Failure • 3 out of 14,500 • Three Mile Island (1979) • Chernobyl (1986) • Fukushima (2011) • 2 out of 3: 0 deaths • 1 out of 5: >1,000 deaths • 1 out of 100,000: >50,000 deaths • Average meltdown: ~400 deaths

24. Non-maleficence • 250: Release limit for nuclear power plant over 1 year • 400: Dose per person from food • 4,000: mammogram • 10,000: CT scan • 36,000: Smoke 1.5 packs of cigarettes per day for 1 year

27. justice • Doing less harm • Nuclear is . . . • 5x safer than oil • 10x safer than gas • 100x safer than hydro-electric dams* • 1 X-ray = living near nuclear plant for 2,000 years • 1 round-trip flight from NY to LA = living next door to a nuclear plant for 1 year • Air pollution from coal burning (10,000 deaths per year) = 25 melt-downs each year

28. Justice • “Can we continue to despoil our environment with long-lived radioactive materials that are scattered to the wind and embedded in our precious soil, randomly exposing large populations, and foisting health impacts on unsuspecting future generations who have no choice in this matter?”

29. Justice • Is it just to continue use nuclear energy? • Is it just not to?