karen silkwood

Karen Silkwood was a nuclear technician that was contaminated by radioactivity while working at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron River nuclear facility in Crescent, Oklahoma. While working at the facility, Karen began to document in a notebook a variety of safety violations that were occurring at the plant. Karen believed that the technicians were being contaminated by plutonium on a regular basis. After a local union meeting, Karen got in her car to drive to Oklahoma City to deliver the evidence that she had been documenting over a seven week period at the facility. However, after ten minutes on the road, Karen was in a fatal car crash. Though police concluded that she fell asleep at the wheel, a private detective stated that he believed that Karen was forced off the road. The manila folder with the evidence that Karen was delivering to Oklahoma was never found at the scene. After Karen peculiar death, there continues to this day in the on-going debate over the safety of nuclear technology and the regulation of the nuclear industry. (Yourdictionary, 2010)

This story is slightly similar to the more recent story and move called Erin Brokovich. Both stories focus on how the environment and human health are effected companies. However, Erin Brokovich was a paralegal that was working for a law firm. She was assigned an assignment where she proved that Pacific Gas and Electric Company contaminated drinking water with hexavalent chromium. 300 cancer cases were linked to this contamination. The case settled for 333 million dollars and brought environmental contamination to the headlines. This caused many regulation changes. (Bio, 2010)

Since the United States stopped investing in nuclear power, another source of energy production was focused on. This source of energy was fossil fuels. This includes oil, coal, and natural gases. These sources of energy are nonrenewable. They are usually converted into electricity before their energy is consumed. Currently, they provide about 90% of the world’s commercial energy. Oil is the principle source of energy. It supplies about 38% of the world’s energy needs. Coal follows with approximately 30%, and then natural gas with 20%. It has been scientifically proven that the combustion of fossil fuel is the single greatest cause of atmospheric pollution due to the fuels’ incomplete combustion. This includes CO2, what many scientists believe is the main cause of global warming (Yassi et al., 2001).

Nuclear power generates electrical power by nuclear reactors that use uranium and thorium. This power source consumes small amounts of fuel and is generally very cheap. It is also very pliable. It is also considered relatively safe with the few exceptions of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and a handful of others. This type of energy produces far less atmospheric pollution (Yassi et al., 2001).

During the 1970’s, France, which was a country that was heavily dependent on imported oils for their electrical production, decided to break their dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Since France does not naturally have fossil fuel reserves, the country went towards a nuclear power infrastructure. In 2004, 78.8% of France’s electrical production was from nuclear power, the highest percentage in the world. They are also the world’s largest exporter of electricity (Enerpub, 2007). If one were to examine France’s production of carbon since its transition in the 1970’s, one would see that there has been a 40% reduction in carbon production, while the United States’ has increased dramatically (Dickey).

References

Bio, (2010). Karen silkwood biography. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/articles/Karen-Silkwood-9542402

Dickey, M. Fear of nuclear power and global warming. Rebirth of Reason. Retrieved from
http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/dickeymf/Fear_of_Nuclear_Power_and_Global_Warming.
html

EnerPub. (2007). France: energy profile. Spero News. Retrieved from
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idarticle=9839&t=France:+Energy+profile

Yassi, A., Kjellstrom, T., Kok, T., Guidotti, T. (2001). Basic environmental health. New York: Oxford University Press

Yourdictionary.com. (2010). Karen silkwood biography. Retrieved from http://www.yourdictionary.com/biography/karen-silkwood