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Doublespeak: Nuclear Power Plants
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Doublespeak: Nuclear Power Plants
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is the home of a large, efficient, and threatening nuclear power plant, Three Mile Island. Nuclear power plants have the awesome ability to create large amounts of power with very little fuel, yet they carry the frightening reality of a meltdown with very little warning. Suppose you live in Harrisburg and you here that the nearby nuclear plant had a partial meltdown, how would you react? When most people here the word meltdown, they automatically think radiation, cancer, and death. Now suppose your living in Harrisburg and you here the nearby power plant experienced a "normal aberration", you would probably react differently. Even with the highly proven safety of nuclear power, there is still fear from citizens and the chance of an accident. The nuclear power industry uses misleading language, and words understood by nuclear employees only, or euphemisms and jargon, to mislead the public and make them believe that there is nothing to be afraid of and that there is no possibility of a major accident. They take the public's biggest fears, meltdowns and contaminations, and make them into "events" and "infiltrations." This use of doublespeak is misleading to the public and may make them believe that a major accident hasn't happened, or the accident was a normal event or minor incident. In 1979 a valve in the Three Mile Island stuck open, allowing coolant, an important part of the plant, to escape from the re...
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