The Scarlet or Black, March it, line—page 5

 

Open Space

The other side of nuclear ener
W

by Eric Christiansen

At the risk of becoming the most
unpopularrman-on-campus, i
would like to present a little bit of
the other side of nuclear power.
The issue is an extremely complex
one with no clear cut answers,
either pro or con. An educated

decision demands a seeking out of ,

the facts, not merely an ace
ceptance of hearsay or widespread
misconceptions,

In May, 1977, a complete and
unbiased study of nuclear power
called Nuclear Power: Issues and
Choices was published. The work
was done, in the interest of a fair
and opensminded study of nuclear
energy, by 21 prominent scientists
from many fields, none of whom
had taken a strong position on
nuclear power. “We did not in-
tentionally exclude any viewpoint
or source of information,” can
tended the chairman of the
research group.

THIS [act book has been used as
a bible in all governmental and
industrial hearings on nuclear
energy since its publication. The
book does not conclude that we
should definitely pursue nuclear
power, nor does it say that nuclear
'power should be shelved im-

Open Space

 

mediately.

Because I have limited space, I
can only challenge some of the
major misconceptions concerning
reactor safety and alternative
energy sources, Three questions
are usually asked in regard to
nuclear reactor safety.

FIRST: Can in nuclear power
plant explode like an atomic
bomb? No, According to the study,
“A light water reactor accident of
sufficient severity to have public
health consequences . . . could only
happen if the reactor core melm
and there is a succession of events
leading to failure’ of the Cons
tainment. The core can only melt
down after the water coolant that
removes heat from the core has
been lost. In the light water
reactor, the low~enriched fuel
cannot susuain a chain reaction in
the absence of the water coolant
. . , Therefore, a light water reactor
cannot explode like a
nuclear weapon since, once the
coolant is removed, the chain
reaction stops.“

Second Question: What are the
chances of a major accident
caused by meltdown? This ac-
cident could not occur unless a
number of successive safety
barriers are breached. The
probability of core meltdown
leading to breach of containment is
0.00005 per reactor year, The total
probability of major accident (i.e.
radiation covering a densely
populated area) is omoooooos per
year, according to the study.

This says that if we had 100
reactors running for 20,000 years,
we would probably have one such
accident. The average rate of loss

 

of human life, including the in-
creased number of cancer

fatalities for this major accident, is
0.02 fatalities per reactor year.
“This is very small when com»
pared with the one fatality per year
from normalnuclear operations or
the 15 fatalities per year from a
comparable coal plant,“ All of the
probabilities were calculated “in
the spirit of an upper limit and
under the assumption that the ECC
(the safety barrier system
designed to prevent meltdown)
would not function adequately.”

lN THE 20 years of commercial
reactor operations so far, “there
have been no meltdowns or even a
loss of coolant accident” upon
which to base calculation other
than probability, In Conclusion, the
study states, “on an average rate-
oHoss basis, nuclear power
compares favorably with coal even
when the possibility of accidents is
included.“

Third: If I live one mile from the
reactor, won‘t the added radiation
give me a higher chance of cancer?
I don’t believe so because I receive
much greater added radiation
from living ina thin atmosphere, in
Colorado, than the added radiation
given off one mile from a nuclear
reactor; and cancer rates in
Colorado, despite the added
radiation from space, are
generally less than elsewhere.

ANOTHER AREA of concern is,
with all of the other alternative
sources of energy, why take a
chance on nuclear energy? Last
week, Wes and George stated,
“solar energy will soon be
available on an inexpensive
commercial basis . , . Existing
solar technology could provide 15-
30 per cent of the nation's energy
needs . . , In short, safe. feasible
alternatives exist, at the present

' time, to nuclear power."

The major problem that people
do not recognize is that solar
energy can only provide 15730 per
centoi our energy needs because it
can only be effectively used for
space heating and cooling~
temperature control of our
buildings. The majority of the
energy used in this country is the
energy needed to run industry.
This is an inescapable fact of our
society,

For solar power to take over this
largest chunk of our energy needs,
huge parabolic reflectors would
have to be set up at enormous cost
and extremely low efficiency.
“Efficiencies of about 10 per cent
have been achieved in direct
sunlight (for photovoltaic and
mixed systems). Even if the
theoretical limit of 22 per cent
could be reached, current collector
costs are about $200,000 per
kilowatt of peak electrical
capacity, several hundred to one
thousand times what they would
have to be in order to compete with
nuclear or fossil plane."

THIS IS not to say that solar
energy should not be used for space
heating and cooling. 0n the cone
trary, solar energy should provide
as much or the 15-30 per cent of our
energy needs as possible, but it
cannot and should not.be expected
to provide our industrial energy.

Wind power can be used for
electrical energy in some areas,
although at three to five times the
cost of nuclear power,

GEDTHERMAL energy, the
natural heat of the earth's crust,
could theoretically provide U.S.
electrical needs for the next 20

 

 

years. Problems with geothermal
energy include separating the

gy examined

water from the steam, handling
extremely corrosive mineraHaden
water and desalting the water or
reinjecting it into deep wells. All of
these factors push the costs of
geothermal energy to prohibitive
levels.

Again, all of these minor sour
ces, if developed to their fullest,
could not provide the power needed
to run industry and they could not
be used in some geographic
regions.

WHERE does this leave us? I
don’t know, We do have an energy
shortage that must be combated
through conservation We do have
secondary sources of energy such
as solar energy that should be
developed to maximum potential.
But, where do we get the industrial
energy that makes up over half of
our energy consumption?

Coal is dirty and scrubbers are
expensive; nuclear power plants
have problems in storage of wastes
lalthough research is being
worked on now, where wastes
would be sealed and put into placa
where the earth invaginates upon
itself, carrying the wastes to an
already radioactive interior),

I DO NOT advocate a headlong
plunge into nuclear power, nor do I
think that we Should abandon it.
The situation is an extremely
complex mixture of technical and
emotional issues, 1 urge everyone
to read the facts before deciding
what form of energy to advocate,
and I urge a questioning of
generalizations and clear cut
solutions, because they just don't
fairly represent the whole story.
We must examine closely the good
and the bad of nuclear power. We
cannot afford not to look both ways
before we cross this street.

Faculty evaluations: beware of red herrings

by TJ. Brozoski

Recently a comment by Peter
Druian on the current faculty
debate over a proposed revision of
student faculty evaluations (SFE)
appeared on these paga. The
question he raised was, “Can there
be any debate?” Stepping out of
my usual role as a passive, albeit
bemused, observer of the Grinnell
scene,
“yes," i say this with full
awareness that rhetorical
questions are usually not meant to
be answered, and also with full
awareness that the faculty has
already chosen to debate the
matter.

[should begin by noting that this
current faculty debate is among
the more important, if not in-
teresting, to occur in the past year.
I use the word “interesting" in a
relative sense, comparing the
current debate to such perennial
favorites as what should next
year's calendar be, anointment of
the proposed basketball schedule,
Whether or not women should be
allowed to compete in athletic
events heretofore defined as
masculine, and other astoundingly
complex and passionate issues.
Indeed for some time i have been
prepared for the appearance of an

i would like to answer '

 

agenda announcing recon»
sideration of that traditional mind»
bender, “how many fairies can
dance on the head of a pin?”
Members of the gay community,
forgive my choice of example.

BUT T0 the central issue at
hand. The central and most telling
point made by Mr, Druian was that
psychological and sociological
research repeatedly has confirmed
that when the question is posed as
to What is better, i.e., more reliable
and more valid, intuitive personal
assessment or cold, hard
questionnaires subject to
statistical analysis, the invariable
answer is that objective in-
struments are superior. He further
observes that most people have a
strong tendency to invest personal
involvement with a greater sub-
jective worth, even though ob-
jectively this involvement may be
of no value Whatever.

This is a scholarly argu»
ment, and to support it Peter
documented it with the citation of
some insightful research on per»
sonal utility. Ergo, even though all
objective research indicates that
questionnaires with appropriate
statistical applications are,
superior to subjective personal
evaluation, given a choice between
the two, most people will choose
subjective personal involvement
. . . psychologically naive little
nerds that they are.

UP TO this point I have little
quarrel with Peter's argument, but
I refuse to admit that it can be so
simply applied to the question of
SFE, especially at Grinnell. And I
do not consider myself
psychologically naive, although I
reserve judgment about being a
nerd.

WHEN Druian asserts that time

 

and again objective instruments
have been found superior to in

tuitive personal judgment, what he
neglects to add is that virtually all
research supporting this con»
clusron has incorporated for
comparison highly sophisticated
objective measuring devices.
Objective devices such as the
Wechsler intelligence scales, or
clinical diagnostics such as the
MMPI, have been carefully
developed over a long period of
time, Tile have been continually
readjustedV and in a sense “em~
pirically tuned," so that yes in
deed, they are superior in
predictive validity and reliability
to the personal judgments of even
skilled observers of human
behavior. This Should not surprise
anyone. But what of an inrhouse
product likely to be produced at
Grinnell? What kind of expert
construction and “fine tuning" can
we expect?

To quote an insightful, and often
inebriated iormer colleague of
mine, “The best predictor of
future performance is usually past
performance." Within the recent
past Grinnell has turned out at
least two official SFE’s, and a
larger number of unofficial ones
(how many Grapevines can your
remember'll. in most people's
opinion all have been losers. Want
to know whatmy guess is about the
potential success of a new
homespun er?

There is one further con-
sideration, The difference in ap-
plication between psycho-
diagnostic devices and public
opinion surveys on the one hand,
and SFE'S on the other, is far from
trivial. While the interpretation of
all objective measuring devices is
delicate, it is apparently doubly so
for the srld. , . .. »

lN AN exceedingly well~designed
study of a reliable SFE in use at
Cal Tech, Rodin ‘and ‘ Rodin'

(Science. 1972, 177, 1164-1166) found
a 7,75 correlation fr) between
overall Student evaluations of their
instructors and their objective
performance on a standardized
end-ofscourse examination That is
to say, those instructors who were
the most effective teachers, as
indicated by their students success
on the comprehensive exam, were
rated lowest in effectiveness by
those very students. The message
for the teacher was in this case
clear: give 'em the Wowles instead
of the facts and you will be thought
of fondly ‘ere after.

But it would be unfair to end
here. At other instututions SFE's
similar to the one employed by
Rodin and Rodin, have turned up
significant positive correlations as
well (Gessner, Science, 1973, 180,
566-567). So in other cases students
have been found to quite ac-
curately rate their teachers’ ef-
fectiveness in the classroom.

WHAT rs to be made or all this3
The interpretation and value of
highly similar, and in both cases

‘ reliable, SFE’s seems to strongly

depend upon small differences in
course content, institution, and
perhaps even the time at which it
was applied. I also suspect the
results interact terrifically
with things like the hour of day
during which the course is taught,
the instructor’s personality tyes, I
said it, Peter), and a few other
things as well. One of these other
things may in fact be what the
tacher teaches for,

‘Permit me to mention just one
final experiment, this time an in-
triguing and clever one done by
.Zelby (Science, 1974, 183, 1267-
1270). Taking two very dissimilar
courses (one was an advanced

 

 

course in’ electrical engineering
*and me other a humanities course

on current technological problems
of society), Zelby was able to
manipulate his overall rating as
an effective teacher in both, all the
way from ranking in the first
quartile to the lower end of the
third quartile. He did so by
assuming alternative teaching
styles in alternate semesters, but
in all cases used similar materials
and identical texts. The styles that
earned Zelby the lowest ratings
were those that required
“systematic and reasonably
rigorous consideration (or the
material),” along with an en-
couragement to be critical of the
course content along with
suggested novel approaches to
solving assigned problems. In
contrast a jocular style which
included rather openrended and
vague discussions along with a
modest amount of straightforward
rote learning earned the highest
ratings.

I TRULY believe that students
should have a formal and
serious input to the overall
evaluation of faculty. They, after
all, as has often been observed, are
the most directly affected by poor
quality as well as high quality
teaching I also believe that the
facts indicate Sl’E's to be ex'
traurdinarily complex in both
design and interpretation. Some
might even say they are a can of
worms, A can of worms, of course,
can be seen as an ugly mess to be
avoided entirely, or as a useful
adjunct to a fishing expedition (as
we return to the question of
faculty debate). Most fish are
caught by only five per cent of
those who try, Some people call
these few lucky, while others
simply say they know what they
are doing. Most of the catches. at
Grinnell seem to be composed of
red herrings: ‘ "

 

