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August 12, 1999
THE CVX DECISION: A RARE OPPORTUNITY
In the U.S., many people think nuclear power is dead because it proved to be too expensive and too unmanageable. In this view, the fuel melt at Three Mile Island March 28, 1979 ended nuclear power in this country.
This picture of nuclear power is incomplete. There is still one sector of the U.S. economy where new nuclear reactors are being built: the Navy.
Now the Navy is facing a crucial choice that may well determine the future of civilian nuclear power: will the next generation of aircraft carriers be powered by nuclear reactors, or by diesel engines?
Currently the Navy maintains 12 aircraft carriers -- three diesel-powered and 9 nuclear-powered.[1,pgs.2,123] The Navy plans to build two more nuclear Nimitz-class carriers, and then it will introduce a new generation of carriers, called CVX. (Nimitz-class carriers are named for the 100,000-ton U.S.S. Nimitz which entered service in 1975.)
Will CVX carriers employ nuclear propulsion? That is the question.
The Navy began planning for the new CVX class of aircraft carriers in 1996. CVX carriers will have many new features -- a new hull shape, better computer communications, and more killing power.[2]
The Navy intends to begin building the first CVX in 2006 for service starting in 2013. A carrier typically remains in service for 50 years. With construction costs of roughly $4.6 billion, an aircraft carrier is the nation's most expensive piece of military hardware.
Each aircraft carrier forms the centerpiece of a "battle group," which in turn provides the strategic basis for Navy operations worldwide. The battle group includes:
(1) the carrier itself (with crew numbering between 3200 and 3400) with its 80 aircraft (24 for support, 56 for attack, plus the 2500 people needed to maintain and fly them);[2,pg.24]
(2) six surface combat ships of which at least three are cruisers or destroyers with Aegis weapons systems, and at least four are equipped with vertical launching systems that can fire Tomahawk cruise missiles;
(3) a total of 10 anti-submarine warfare helicopters embarked on the six combat ships;
(3) two attack submarines (one of them equipped with a vertical launch system);
(4) and one multi-purpose fast combat support ship (known as an AOE), which resupplies the other ships in the group (with fuel, ammunition, food, etc.) from stocks maintained at 22 supply depots around the world.
These naval "battle groups" have three responsibilities:
(1) maintaining a "forward presence" during peacetime -- constantly reminding the world just how powerful and militarily-oriented the U.S. is;
(2) responding to crises;
(3) fighting wars.
Since the end of World War II, the Navy (or a combination of Navy and Marines) has participated in 205 out of 207 international crises, versus 53 for the Air Force and 38 for the Army.[2,pg.3] Thus for the past 50 years the Navy has participated in an international crisis every three months, on average.
From the perspective of the Navy and its private-sector industrial partners (which President Eisenhower in 1961 termed the "military-industrial complex"), there are good reasons why CVX carriers should be nuclear-powered:
1) If civilian nuclear power is ever to stage a come-back, the nation must maintain teams of scientists and engineers with up-to-date nuclear skills and expertise. Thus Navy reactors serve to "keep the nuclear design team together" against that future time when Three Mile Island has faded from memory, oil has become costly, solar photovoltaics have been scuttled by the oil companies that own the relevant patents, and nuclear energy is the only technology being offered to the public. From the viewpoint of the military-industrial complex, nuclear is far preferable to solar for generating electricity because nuclear plants require huge investment and are highly complex, thus demanding centralized control. Solar panels can be much smaller, simpler, and more widely dispersed, thus making centralized control impossible.
2) Nuclear power is modern; diesel is a 19th century technology. The Navy first embraced nuclear power in 1954. If the Navy had its way, every ship over 8000 tons would be nuclear powered today. Indeed, in 1974 Congress formally set the policy that all surface combat ships must be nuclear-powered. Between 1961 and 1975, nine nuclear-powered surface-combat ships were commissioned (in addition to the nuclear carriers), but it soon became clear that nuclear-powered surface combat ships were simply too expensive to maintain. Maintaining them would require cuts in other naval operations, and so the Navy capitulated to fiscal realities.[1,pgs.37] Since 1975, the only nuclear-powered surface ships built have been carriers. In fiscal year 1993, the Navy decided to scrap its last nuclear-powered non-carrier surface combat ships, rather than put them through an expensive nuclear refueling process. Thus after only 17 years of service, with more than half of their planned service life remaining, the Navy's non-carrier nuclear-powered combat ships were forced into retirement by excessive costs. Submarines are still being built with nuclear propulsion systems, but by their nature submarines are not highly visible. Thus aircraft carriers are the last highly-visible ships to carry the torch for nuclear modernity.
3) If the CVX is nuclear-powered, there is only one ship yard equipped to build it: the Newport News Shipbuilding Company (NNS). Thus the purchase of nuclear-powered carriers occurs without the messy uncertainties of competitive bidding and further solidifies the tight relationship between the Pentagon and NNS.
4) The Navy is silent on these first 3 reasons for preferring nuclear-powered carriers, but offers other arguments why they are superior:
(a) They can accelerate faster than diesel-powered carriers;
(b) They can travel indefinitely without refueling;
(c) Because they don't require refueling they can arrive at their destination earlier than diesel-powered carriers;
(d) Nuclear carriers can carry more jet fuel and ammunition than a diesel-powered carrier, thus making them less reliant on resupply ships.
In 1994, Congress ordered the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) to compare the cost-effectiveness of nuclear-powered vs. diesel-powered aircraft carriers. In August 1998 GAO issued its lengthy report,[1] in which it evaluated the Navy's claims of superiority for nuclear propulsion:
(a) It is true that nuclear carriers can accelerate faster because their steam boilers are always operating. A nuclear carrier can accelerate from 10 to 20 knots in 1.5 minutes and from 10 to 30 knots in 3 minutes. With only 4 of their 8 boilers operating, diesel carriers can accelerate from 10 to 20 knots in 2.5 minutes but they need all 8 boilers to achieve 30 knots. If they have to light the 4 additional boilers, they can take 1.5 to 2 hours to reach 30 knots.
The Navy says rapid acceleration helps a carrier position itself for aircraft landings, especially in bad weather. However, when the GAO inquired, the Navy could not provide examples in which a plane crashed or was lost because of slow carrier acceleration. Navy staff told GAO that design of the flight deck is a more important factor in aircraft safety than is carrier acceleration.[1,pgs.71-72]
(b) It is true that nuclear-powered carriers can voyage indefinitely without refueling. In submarines this confers a military advantage but the situation with carriers is entirely different because their support ships and their airplanes require regular refueling. Therefore, carrier groups remain "tethered to the pump" despite the carrier's nuclear propulsion.
(c) Because nuclear carriers do not require refueling, it is true that they can arrive at their destinations earlier than diesel-powered carriers. On a 12000-mile voyage from San Diego to the Persian Gulf, a nuclear carrier would arrive in 17.9 days. A diesel carrier would arrive six hours later. On a 4800-mile voyage from Norfolk, Virginia to the eastern Mediterranean, a nuclear carrier would arrive in 7.1 days, 2 hours earlier than a diesel-powered carrier.[1,pg.49]
During long voyages, diesel-fueled carriers slow to 14 knots for refueling. However, GAO points out that this can be an advantage. Pilots are required to remain flight-qualified to engage in combat. This requires regular practice. While a carrier is steaming at full speed, planes cannot fly from its decks. Slowing down to refuel gives pilots a chance to fly and remain qualified for combat. Therefore, when a conventional carrier arrives at its destination, its pilots are ready to enter combat immediately. Pilots on a nuclear carrier must delay combat while they requalify.[1,pg.65]
(d) GAO says diesel-fueled carriers can be designed to carry the same quantities of jet fuel and ammunition as nuclear-powered carriers. The propulsion system isn't the determining factor, GAO says.[1,pg.8]
The GAO finds that diesel-powered carriers have several important advantages:
(a) Because they require much less maintenance, and therefore less down-time, diesel-powered carriers can provide a greater "forward presence" than nuclear powered carriers.
(b) Since 1973, the U.S. has maintained ("homeported," in Navy jargon) a carrier group at Yokosuka, Japan. The Japanese contribute Japanese maintenance personnel worth about $5 billion (U.S. dollars) each year to defray the annual costs of this group. For obvious reasons, the Japanese people won't tolerate U.S. military nuclear technology within their sovereign territory. If the CVX is nuclear-powered, then Japan must be persuaded to change its policy, or the U.S. will need to employ six U.S.-based carrier groups (on rotating duty) to achieve the same "forward presence" in the Pacific, GAO says.[1,pg.104] Even if the Japanese were willing to change their policy, permanently homeporting a nuclear carrier in Japan would require construction of nuclear maintenance facilities which by U.S. law would exclude Japanese personnel.
(c) One of the Navy's stated design goals for the CVX is to reduce carrier costs by 20%.[1,pg.30] GAO finds that this requires conventional propulsion because nuclear carriers are so costly to operate. GAO concludes that the 50-year lifetime cost of a nuclear-powered carrier ($22.2 billion) exceeds the lifetime cost of a conventional carrier ($14.09 billion) by $8.1 billion, or 58%.[1,pg.9]
GAO says wars of the future were prefigured in the Gulf War of 1991.[1,pgs.54-55] Examining the record of both conventional and nuclear-powered carrier groups in that war, the GAO found no difference in military effectiveness.
In sum, the GAO finds that nuclear-powered carriers provide no significant military advantage. The nation has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to stuff an important part of the nuclear genie back into the bottle from which it escaped at Hiroshima in 1945.
To get involved in this important decision, contact Laura Hunter, Environmental Health Coalition, San Diego, California: (619) 235-0281. Fax: (619) 232-3670. Email: laurah@environmentalhealth.org.
--Peter Montague
PRECAUTION AND PVC IN MEDICINE
As we saw last week, the chlorine industry needs to expand the production of polyvinyl chloride plastic (PVC, or "vinyl") to maintain the profitability of chlorine production. As other high-volume chlorinated chemicals (such as pesticidal DDT and ozone-depleting CFCs) are phased out because they are toxic, long-lived and dangerous to living things, the chlorine industry hopes to expand the uses of PVC plastic as a profitable "sink" for surplus chlorine.
However, there is mounting pressure to phase out PVC itself because it is a bad actor in at least two major ways: (1) burning PVC in building fires, or in waste incinerators, releases dioxin, one of the most toxic chemicals ever identified, and (2) soft PVC products are made soft by the addition of phthalates (pronounced "thalates"), a class of toxic chemicals that causes a variety of health problems in laboratory animals. (See REHW #603, #661.)
The current concern about soft PVC products is their use in medical supplies and equipment. Approximately 25% of medical plastics are made from soft, phthalate-containing PVC, including intravenous (IV) bags, blood bags, tubing, gloves, and catheters. Phthalates can leach out of the plastic into fluids that end up in patients. As a result, many patients are exposed to levels of phthalates that have been shown to cause health problems in monkeys and other animals.
A large coalition of health care advocates, called Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) is asking hospitals, physicians, and nurses to apply the principle of precautionary action to medical uses of soft PVC products.
The precautionary principle says, (1) people have a duty to take anticipatory action to prevent harm; and (2) the burden of proof of harmlessness of a chemical lies with the proponents, not with the general public; and (3) people using a particular toxic chemical have an obligation to examine a full range of alternatives.
To apply the precautionary principle to medical uses of soft PVC, the debate cannot focus on how much exposure to phthalates is safe (which is a "risk assessment" question). Instead, the debate must center on finding safer substitutes.
Safer substitutes would include those that do not leach toxicants and do not create dioxin when burned. Comparative risk assessment can make a useful contribution to identifying preferable substitutes.
A careful examination of alternatives is precisely what the chlorine industry seeks to avoid. Their primary strategy has been to bog down the debate in interpretations of the toxicological evidence -- the "dueling risk assessments" strategy invented long ago by the tobacco industry.
The main front group for this strategy has been Elizabeth Whelan's American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). ACSH receives 76% of its funding from industry sources, including Exxon, the largest phthalate manufacturer in the world.[1]
ACSH hired Dr. C. Everett Koop, Ronald Reagan's Surgeon General, to spearhead ACSH's "blue ribbon" panel of 17 "experts," most of whom have ties to the chemical industry, examining PVC safety. Koop and ACSH concluded that vinyl toys and medical devices are not harmful.
In its extensive critique of Koop's study, Health Care Without Harm pointed out that ACSH only weighed the risks and benefits of medical products made flexible with DEHP (a toxic phthalate -- see REHW #661), while ignoring the available alternatives -- cost-competitive nonPVC products that are perfectly good substitutes. For instance, Koop said, "removing the phthalate [from the PVC product] would actually pose a significant health risk to individuals who depend on these devices [IV bags]." Koop ignored the fact that an FDA-approved phthalate-free IV bag produced by McGaw already has about 20% of the IV bag market.[2]
With safer alternatives available, how can anyone justify exposing patients to a chemical of dubious safety like DEHP, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] classifies as a probable human carcinogen?
In a recent study, the Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell found readily available alternatives for most PVC medical equipment: "A review of the literature, coupled with supplier interviews, suggests that PVC alternatives are widely available for use in most medical devices and can be cost-competitive. Several U.S. and European medical device manufacturers already have developed government approved PVC-free alternatives for IV bags, tubing, and platelet storage, some of which command a substantial share of their product market."[3]
Under the precautionary principle, the onus is on medical device manufacturers to use the safest alternatives. Baxter Healthcare recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with shareholders who had filed a resolution asking the company to phase out PVC.[4] According to the Memo, Baxter is "committed to exploring and developing alternatives to PVC products and to developing and implementing proposed timetables for substituting its current containers for intravenous ("IV") solutions with a container that does not contain PVC.... In the future, Baxter will update the shareholders on the steps to be taken towards replacing its global line of PVC-containing products other than IV containers with non-PVC alternatives." \tab As indicated above, the transition away from PVC will occur more rapidly with some medical products than others.[5] Baxter has already eliminated PVC in applications such as blister packaging and drip chambers. The company began to produce non-PVC IV bags as early as 1975, when it introduced a PVC-free platelet container. Soon a polyolefin (PVC-free) bag was developed for use with antibiotic formulations.[6] The search for alternatives appears to have accelerated recently, most likely due to PVC-free market pressures. In 1997, Baxter acquired Bieffe, a European manufacturer of PVC-free IV bags.
Although Baxter is seeking alternatives to PVC, it continues to defend the material. K.Z. Hong, Baxter's technical director, says PVC "has more than 40 years of safe and effective clinical use working in its favor." If that is true, then why did Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott in 1998 try to re-write product liability laws to exempt Baxter from lawsuits? The WASHINGTON POST reported that the "last-minute Baxter exemption" would have protected the company from "lawsuits that consumers could bring against makers of defective and dangerous products." Baxter spokeswoman Deborah Spak told the POST the company had been seeking an exemption for IV bags for more than a year, because "some of our suppliers had indicated they had concerns about continuing to supply us" if they were not exempted from lawsuits.[7] As Baxter has acknowledged, "in the past 35 years approximately 5 billion patients have experienced exposure to DEHP in the one-to-ten milligram per day range for one to ten days per year. An additional 3 million patient years of chronic exposure at 5 milligrams per day, for one to ten years per patient, have also been accumulated."[8]
No one is suggesting that essential medical devices be yanked out of patients' arms before safe substitutes are available, which is why the shareholders asked Baxter to produce timetables for the elimination of PVC from its products.
Health and environmental considerations are generating competitive pressures within the chemical and plastics industry which will likely lead to a broader phase-out of PVC. Exxon is already phasing out its North American PVC business and investing in new-generation metallocene polyolefins -- the polymer expected to substitute for flexible, phthalate-containing PVC in a variety of applications. As PLASTICS NEWS recently reported from Flexpo 99, the annual flexible polymers conference, cost-competitive specialty non-PVC polymers are beginning to challenge PVC in medical, film and sheet, wire and cable, roofing membranes and other markets. As one industry official put it, "As polymer scientists, we may feel these trends may not always be based on sound scientific evidence, but we have to accept that public concerns about health play a more and more important role in the marketplace."[9]
While the medical device debate is important, the vast majority of phthalates -- the most widespread pollutants on the planet -- are used in other applications, including many building materials. (See REHW #603.) In order to solve the many environmental problems posed by PVC (including the spread of dioxin, phthalates and other additives) governments must develop broad-based materials policies to aid (and, if necessary, force) businesses to develop and select safer alternatives. (Without governments to establish a level playing field, corporations that cut corners on environmental values gain an unfair advantage in the marketplace, inducing competitors to cut the same corners.)
In Europe, specific materials policies against flexible PVC are beginning to emerge. For instance, in late June, a sustainability report by the German Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) recommended the phase-out of soft PVC.[10] This followed a recent proposal by the Danish Government to restrict and tax the use of PVC. In addition, the UK Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions recently published a buyers' and suppliers' guide, which advises against the use of PVC. The second environmental assessment report by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) lists various problems with PVC.[11]
During the past year, several large companies such as Nike have pledged to phase out PVC. Others include Visa International (which issues 580 million plastic credit cards each year),[12] Firestone (one of the nation's largest manufacturers of roofing products)[13] and large communications firms such as German Telekom and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone.
If we can get people better materials for sneakers and credit cards, shouldn't doctors and nurses be able to provide their patients with the safest materials available?
The question of what to do in the face of uncertainty regarding harm from toxic exposures cannot be solved by science alone. It also requires ethical motivation and common sense.
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