Nuclear Energy Cartoons

Today I’ll be doing a short post on nuclear energy cartoons and the general image they portray of the industry.

This cartoon focuses on the potential fallout in America from the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The aftershock, being a smaller earthquake occurring after the main one, is used metaphorically to depict the effects the earthquake in Japan is having in the US. This would mainly be to increase fear of earthquakes occurring in the US that could damage their own nuclear power plants, especially in California which is sitting on a fault line. This has led to activists calling for a review on energy policy and the potential stopping of nuclear power expansion. These two comics (Japan + USA), although in a similar stream, focus on the risks of building nuclear power plants near a fault zone, both in the US and Japan.

Aftershock of Fukushima (Nate Beeler 2011)

This second cartoon illustrates how the decisive issue of whether or not to build or use nuclear power plants are often made in snap decisions depending on events occurring. This particular image displays how the price of producing power is often a big influence, with its cost against the traditional fossil fuels key; This potentially points to the fact that governments only build nuclear power when it is a cheaper and more convenient alternative, rather than actively trying to reduce carbon emissions as a main goal. This linked comic also goes along the same theme of how quickly we are influenced by disasters around the world, and how the public perception changes through this.

Nuclear Plant Demolition ((NEI 2006)

This third comic depicts the main issues with nuclear power, being the lack of the ability to totally shutdown a nuclear power plant. This is because, even when the induced nuclear chain reaction is halted, the natural radioactivity of the fuel means further nuclear reactions still occur, which means the fuel will need to be kept cooled for a long period of time after shutdown. As evident in the Fukushima disaster, if the safeguards put in place fail or are disrupted, there is very little that can immediately be done to prevent the fallout of the continued nuclear reactions.

(Clay Bennett 2011)

These final two comics refer to the longevity of the nuclear waste produced, with the long decay time of the spent fuel and its radioactivity in nature the big problems. Although not much can be done with the waste in terms of time, which will be around for generations, there are advancements in terms of storage which was lightly touched upon in my previous blog about France.

Nuclear Waste (Mandy Hancock 2013)

Nuclear Decay (BATR)

Overall, the majority of the cartoons portray nuclear energy in a negative light, and as they say, bad news is good news for the media, as the majority of news you see will be from a negative standpoint. Nuclear energy does have its negatives, big glaring ones to be frank, but it does have its positives, with the potential positives being huge. The question is, does all the negative stigma the media create damage the future prospects of this industry?