An exciting new paper titled, ‘The Political Economic Determinants of Nuclear Power: Evidence from Chernobyl”, which shows links between Chernobyl, political lobbying, and health outcomes was published on July 31st. Notable for its decidedly pro-nuclear stance and data heavy approach, the paper gives us a view into the lasting effect of Chernobyl. The researchers conclude that fossil fuel groups did more lobbying, with greater success, in the wake of Chernobyl. This led to worse societal health outcomes in the US and UK, where NPPs were replaced with fossil fuels.

Background

We begin with a brief overview of the current nuclear power industry. Makarin, et al. first point out some positives of nuclear power plants (NPPs), such as the high capacity factor, emissions less than 1% of fossil fuel averages, cheap fuel prices, and the possibility of recycling reactor waste. They note that because fuel is so cheap to acquire and dispose of, it is rarely recycled.

The next topic is regulatory background, which takes on a less optimistic tone. The writers reference other research on the substantial regulatory costs of building a NPP, point to China’s efficiency compared to Democratic countries, and spend a good deal of time discussing how lengthy approval & build times lead to regulations changing mid-project. These moving goal posts, as the writers describe it, lead to cost over runs, missed deadlines and builders having to incorporate new regulations into pre-existing plans on the fly.

Using the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) from the IAEA, the researchers were able to clearly show Chernobyl’s effect on new reactor builds globally (Figure 1). The impact of Chernobyl on the West was so pivotal that we have less operating NPPs in Democracies than we did in 1986. Globally we are hardly better off – not captured in the data is China’s twenty-three reactors under construction.

The US has halted construction of 40 NPPs since the 1980s, leading to billions of investment dollars lost. The most recent US reactors, Vogtle 3 & 4 cost $23 billion dollars and took 16 years to build. This is contrasted by China’s average new NPP taking 4- 6 years and costing 2 billion per reactor.

What is so different about the American and Chinese NPP industries to explain this difference in time and expense?

United States Case Study

The researchers spend a lot of time digging through political donations, lobbying, and votes within the US in the time following Chernobyl, and comparing it to pre-Chernobyl numbers. It’s worth noting that Three Mile Island’s partial meltdown occurred in Pennsylvania seven years before Chernobyl, but did not have real impact on new NPP builds or public opinion in the US (Figure 2).

For the US case study the authors focused on three questions:

1. Are fossil fuel donations related to congressional voting behaviors on nuclear-related issues, and how was this relationship affected by the Chernobyl accident?
2. Are fossil fuel advertisements related to media sentiment in the coverage of nuclear energy, and how was this relationship affected by the Chernobyl accident?
3. Did the fossil fuel industry adjust its campaign contributions and media expenditures after the Chernobyl accident?

The main sources of opposition to new NPPs has come from two sources, the writers say. Primarily the fossil fuel industry, which is in direct competition with the NPP industry. Profits and relevance in peril, the fossil fuel industry responded with anti-nuclear lobbying and media campaigns. Another source of opposition to the NPP industry is from environmental groups, often concerned about NPP leading to nuclear weapon proliferation. The authors note that some of these environmental organizations receive large contributions from fossil fuel companies and focus exclusively on NPPs despite fossil fuels having a much larger impact on the environment.

The focus of this case study is on the fossil fuel industry, and the variety of means they have to influence public opinion and policy on NPPs behind the scenes. The case study begins by looking at the media’s coverage of Chernobyl, which would have had a large impact on public opinion and political will. Figure 3 shows the frequency of keywords related to Chernobyl in the New York Times the year of the accident.

I think it would be interesting if they had compared the 1986 charts to equivalent ones from 1979 for Three Mile Island. Regardless, it is clear Chernobyl galvanized public opposition to the NPP industry and got a lot of bad press. The iron was hot for the fossil fuel industry to strike.

Campaign Contributions & Anti-nuclear Votes

The easiest way for large fossil fuel corporations to exert political power is through lobbying, special interest groups, and campaign donations. Donations are publicly accessible, and clearly went up after Chernobyl (Figure 5) the researchers show.

The simplest explanation for the increase in donations is that public opinion had shifted. Fossil fuel companies knew it was going to be easier to buy anti-nuclear votes, so they stepped up donations.

The researchers were able to access data on congressional voting records, allowing them to test this. Congress is key to the NPP industry because it regulates the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by setting objectives, funding, research topics, adjusting regulation, and dictating how many new reactors can be approved.

The researchers found that congressmen who took donations from fossil fuel interest groups were more likely to vote anti-nuclear after Chernobyl than before. Possibly the change in public opinion made them feel more comfortable voting anti-nuclear. As the writer’s put it, “congressmen [shift] from being staunchly pro nuclear to being open to the idea of opposing nuclear investment.” While it is hard to prove these congressmen taking fossil fuel donations went from pro nuclear to open to opposition, it is clear the bigger the nuclear power related bill, the more firmly they voted anti-nuclear (page 20).

Another explanation is that fossil fuel groups increased donation size had a greater effect on recipient voting behavior. Opinions may not have changed at all – but financial compensation and social acceptance clearly had.

Advertising by Fossil Fuel Companies

Marketing is a part of any big businesses strategy, and sometimes the best spend is to attack your competitor. This is the next topic the paper turns to. The question: “Are fossil fuel advertisements related to media sentiment in the coverage of nuclear energy, and how was this relationship affected by the Chernobyl accident?”

The data acquisition method for this part of the paper is very interesting. They put together a deep learning model that converts photographs of old newspapers into text. The data was acquired from four datasets: Proquest, Newsbank, Newspaper.com, and Newspaperarchive.com. Articles were filtered for advertisements, using ChatGPT, and then sorted into ‘positive’, ‘negative’, and ‘neutral’ in regards to nuclear power.

There was no increase in spending statistically found after Chernobyl, this is what the graph looked like. While the increase in negative articles is clear, it is not statistically significant.

The researchers suggest an explanation for the muted advertising response: long lead time for commercial advertising campaigns. Organizing an attack ad is not as simple as politicians make it look, and most companies spend months planning their ad campaigns. Perhaps the lag between event and the ad running deterred companies from spending much money here, or the other opportunities such as political lobbying were deemed more effective.

Safety and Health in the UK

The United Kingdom was the second case study country. Instead of congressional voting and donation records, the researchers explored health and safety using air quality data and reactor incidence rates.

After establishing that Chernobyl emboldened fossil fuel lobbyists to attack the NPP industry through increased donations to political campaigns, which resulted in congressmen voting decidedly anti-nuclear, I felt like the paper was complete. Instead, the authors review the increased pollution and environmental harm caused by the fossil fuel industry successfully lobbying against new NPP investment.

The safety argument boils down to two sides: fewer NPPs means less chances of nuclear accidents vs fewer NPPs means worse air quality (due to substitution of fossil fuels) and unsafe operating extensions to old NPPs.

Old Reactors

Currently the majority of global reactors are generation II NPPs, built sometime in the 70s – 80s. Gen. III NPPs were first built in Japan in 1996, but due to the limited construction since Chernobyl are only a small part of the global fleet. This resistance to building new reactors has led to old reactors getting continued extensions, and a high percentage of the global fleet missing key Gen III safety upgrades.

To compare the safety difference between Gen II and Gen III reactors, the researchers used data compiled in a previous paper by Wheatley et al. in 2017. The data contained reports of all nuclear accidents and incidents (anything smaller than a melt down) between 1950 and 2014. The data is used to create two charts. The first shows predicted risk of the global fleet broken up various manners, and the second shows predicted risk of global Gen I & II reactors vs Gen III.

The responsibility for keeping less safe reactor models in operation falls on society. As I understand it, we can’t easily upgrade Gen II reactors to Gen III, so the options are either shut down Gen II and rebuild Gen III, keep building Gen III and slowly phase out Gen II (ie don’t continually extend the operating license), or keep extending Gen II reactors and don’t build Gen III. Right now we are going with the final option, and while it is not ideal in many people’s opinions, the slight increased risk of accident does not outweigh the social good of having that power.

Air Pollution

One of the most important benefits from nuclear is supposed to be the lack of air pollution and emissions. The authors take on the task of estimating air pollution, using the proxy measurement of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), which measures the amount of particles in the air. NASA weather data shows AOD geographically.

To estimate the effect of nuclear power of air pollution, the researchers gathered AOD data before and after opening of a NPP in an area. It was found that AOD levels were stable in the years leading up to the NPP starting operation, and declined in the years following. This was especially obvious in Chinese NPP cases, where new nuclear may have led to the direct closure of coal plants.

The researchers close by estimating the life years lost due to the NPP industry stagnating overnight post Chernobyl. A ridiculous exercise done to make a point, not exact prediction, the number they arrive at is 318 million life years lost. Clearly silly, this exercise is done to show ending new NPP construction post Chernobyl was most likely a massive F*&^ up with social consequences that extended the life and profitability of fossil fuel companies.

Conclusion

On one hand I am obviously sympathetic to the authors cause, I too believe in nuclear. On the other hand, it is a little off putting to see them so overtly pro-nuclear. There is a lot of evidence supporting the reasonable assumption that fossil fuel companies increased political and social lobbying in the wake of Chernobyl, and saw success. While this isn’t a controversial statement, proof is necessary. I find the exploration of voting records and donations from fossil fuel companies particularly interesting, and irrefutable evidence that fossil fuel companies succeeded in influencing NPP investment and policy by the federal government.

Source study: https://conference.nber.org/conf_papers/f205791.pdf