Nuclear......

[amborin]

European Heat Wave Shows Limits of Nuclear Energy

by Julio Godoy

PARIS - The extreme hot summer in Europe is restricting nuclear energy generation and showing up the limits of nuclear power, leading environmental activists and scientists say.

The heat wave since mid-June has led authorities in France, Germany, Spain and elsewhere in Europe to override their own environmental norms on the maximum temperature of water drained from the plants' cooling systems.

The French government announced July 24 that nuclear power plants situated along rivers will be allowed to drain hot water into rivers at higher temperature. The measure is intended "to guarantee the provision of electricity for the country," according to an official note.

France has 58 nuclear power plants, which produce almost 80 percent of electricity generated in the country. Of these, 37 are situated near rivers, and use them as outlet for water from their cooling systems.

The drought accompanying the hot summer has reduced the volume of water in the rivers, and might force some power plants to shut down.

Under normal circumstances, environment rules limit the maximum temperature for waste water in order to protect river flora and fauna.

"For many years now, French authorities have defended nuclear power arguing that it is clean energy, good for the environment, and that it will help combat global warming, for it does not emit greenhouse gases," Stephane Lhomme, coordinator of the environmental network Sortir du Nucleaire (Phase Out Nuclear Power) told IPS.

"Now, with global warming leading to extreme hot summers, we are witnessing that it is the other way round," Lhomme said. "Global warming is showing the limits of nuclear power plants, and nuclear power is destroying our environment."

During the hot summer of 2003, French authorities had allowed nuclear power ...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0728-06.htm

Nuclear Power is the Problem, Not a Solution

by Helen Caldicott

There is a huge propaganda push by the nuclear industry to justify nuclear power as a panacea for the reduction of global-warming gases.
In fact Leslie Kemeny on these pages two weeks ago (HES, March 30) suggested that courses on nuclear science and engineering be included in tertiary level institutions in Australia.

I agree. But I would suggest that all the relevant facts be taught to students. Mandatory courses in medical schools should embrace the short and long-term biological, genetic and medical dangers associated with the nuclear fuel cycle. Business students should examine the true costs associated with the production of nuclear power. Engineering students should become familiar with the profound problems associated with the storage of long-lived radioactive waste, the human fallibilities that have created the most serious nuclear accidents in history and the ongoing history of near-misses and near-meltdowns in the industry.

At present there are 442 nuclear reactors in operation around the world. If, as the nuclear industry suggests, nuclear power were to replace fossil fuels on a large scale, it would be necessary to build 2000 large, 1000-megawatt reactors. Considering that no new nuclear plant has been ordered in the US since 1978, this proposal is less than practical. Furthermore, even if we decided today to replace all fossil-fuel-generated electricity with nuclear power, there would only be enough economically viable uranium to fuel the reactors for three to four years.

The true economies of the nuclear industry are never fully accounted for. The cost of uranium enrichment is subsidised by the US government. The true cost of the industry's liability in the case of an accident in the US is estimated to be $US560billion ($726billion), but the industry pays only $US9.1billion - 98per cent of the insurance liability is covered by the US federal government. The cost of decommissioning all the existing US nuclear reactors is estimated to be $US33billion. These costs - plus the enormous expense involved in the storage of radioactive waste for a quarter of a million years - are not now included in the economic assessments of nuclear electricity.

It is said that nuclear power is emission-free. The truth is very different.

In the US, where much of the world's uranium is enriched, including Australia's, the enrichment facility at Paducah, Kentucky, requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for 50per cent of global warming.

Also, this enrichment facility and another at Portsmouth, Ohio, release from leaky pipes 93per cent of the chlorofluorocarbon gas emitted yearly in the US. The production and release of CFC gas is now banned internationally by the Montreal Protocol because it is the main culprit responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion. But CFC is also a global warmer, 10,000 to 20,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

In fact, the nuclear fuel cycle utilises large quantities of fossil fuel at all of its stages - the mining and milling of uranium, the construction of the nuclear reactor and cooling towers, robotic decommissioning of the intensely radioactive reactor at the end of its 20 to 40-year operating lifetime, and transportation and long-term storage of massive quantities of radioactive waste.

snip

These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases krypton, xenon and argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs, migrating to the fatty tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs, near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements, which emit high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in the eggs and sperm and cause genetic disease.

Tritium, another biologically significant gas, is also routinely emitted from nuclear reactors. Tritium is composed of three atoms of hydrogen, which combine with oxygen, forming radioactive water, which is absorbed through the skin, lungs and digestive system. It is incorporated into the DNA molecule, where it is mutagenic.

The dire subject of massive quantities of radioactive waste accruing at the 442 nuclear reactors across the world is also rarely, if ever, addressed by the nuclear industry. Each typical 1000-megawatt nuclear reactor manufactures 33tonnes of thermally hot, intensely radioactive waste per year.

Already more than 80,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste sits in....

snip

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0415-23.htm

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Dig the nostalgia!

The 1970s will never die!

--d!

[Luminous Animal]

48. Did science finally disprove the toxicity and danger of lead... er,

I mean nuclear waste?

[endless october]

2. i'm pro nuclear power.

as it stands, it's either that or coal. we can pretend that conservation can get us all the way, but the population is still going to grow.

i much prefer renewables, and hope that we start devoting more resources to developing them.

but currently, it's coal, nuclear, or really expensive NG electricity. count me for nuclear.

[kristopher]

45. Detailed analysis says your conclusions are incorrect

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

Public discussions of nuclear power, and a surprising number of articles in peer-reviewed
journals, are increasingly based on four notions unfounded in fact or logic: that

1. variable renewable sources of electricity (windpower and photovoltaics) can provide little
or no reliable electricity because they are not “baseload”—able to run all the time;
2. those renewable sources require such enormous amounts of land, hundreds of times more
than nuclear power does, that they’re environmentally unacceptable;
3. all options, including nuclear power, are needed to combat climate change; and
4. nuclear power’s economics matter little because governments must use it anyway to
protect the climate.

For specificity, this review of these four notions focuses on the nuclear chapter of Stewart
Brand’s 2009 book Whole Earth Discipline, which encapsulates similar views widely expressed
and cross-cited by organizations and individuals advocating expansion of nuclear power. It’s
therefore timely to subject them to closer scrutiny than they have received in most public media.

This review relies chiefly on five papers, which I gave Brand over the past few years but on
which he has been unwilling to engage in substantive discussion. They document6 why
expanding nuclear power is uneconomic, is unnecessary, is not undergoing the claimed
renaissance in the global marketplace (because it fails the basic test of cost-effectiveness ever
more robustly), and, most importantly, will reduce and retard climate protection. That’s
because—the empirical cost and installation data show—new nuclear power is so costly and
slow that, based on empirical U.S. market data, it will save about 2–20 times less carbon per
dollar, and about 20–40 times less carbon per year, than investing instead in the market
winners—efficient use of electricity and what The Economist calls “micropower,”...


The “baseload” myth

Brand rejects the most important and successful renewable sources of electricity for one key
reason stated on p. 80 and p. 101. On p. 80, he quotes novelist and author Gwyneth Cravens’s
definition of “baseload” power as “the minimum amount of proven, consistent, around-the-clock,
rain-or-shine power that utilities must supply to meet the demands of their millions of
customers.”21 (Thus it describes a pattern of aggregated customer demand.) Two sentences
later, he asserts: “So far comes from only three sources: fossil fuels, hydro, and
nuclear.” Two paragraphs later, he explains this dramatic leap from a description of demand to a
restriction of supply: “Wind and solar, desirable as they are, aren’t part of baseload because they
are intermittent—productive only when the wind blows or the sun shines. If some sort of massive
energy storage is devised, then they can participate in baseload; without it, they remain
supplemental, usually to gas-fired plants.”

That widely heard claim is fallacious. The manifest need for some amount of steady, reliable
power is met by generating plants collectively, not individually. That is, reliability is a statistic-
al attribute of all the plants on the grid combined. If steady 24/7 operation or operation at any
desired moment were instead a required capability of each individual power plant, then the grid
couldn’t meet modern needs, because no kind of power plant is perfectly reliable. For example,
in the U.S. during 2003–07, coal capacity was shut down an average of 12.3% of the time (4.2%
without warning); nuclear, 10.6% (2.5%); gas-fired, 11.8% (2.8%). Worldwide through 2008,
nuclear units were unexpectedly unable to produce 6.4% of their energy output.26 This inherent
intermittency of nuclear and fossil-fueled power plants requires many different plants to back
each other up through the grid. This has been utility operators’ strategy for reliable supply
throughout the industry’s history. Every utility operator knows that power plants provide energy
to the grid, which serves load. The simplistic mental model of one plant serving one load is valid
only on a very small desert island. The standard remedy for failed plants is other interconnected
plants that are working—not “some sort of massive energy storage devised.”

Modern solar and wind power are more technically reliable than coal and nuclear plants; their
technical failure rates are typically around 1–2%. However, they are also variable resources
because their output depends on local weather, forecastable days in advance with fair accuracy
and an hour ahead with impressive precision. But their inherent variability can be managed by
proper resource choice, siting, and operation. Weather affects different renewable resources
differently; for example, storms are good for small hydro and often for windpower, while flat
calm weather is bad for them but good for solar power. Weather is also different in different
places: across a few hundred miles, windpower is scarcely correlated, so weather risks can be
diversified. A Stanford study found that properly interconnecting at least ten windfarms can
enable an average of one-third of their output to provide firm baseload power. Similarly, within
each of the three power pools from Texas to the Canadian border, combining uncorrelated
windfarm sites can reduce required wind capacity by more than half for the same firm output,
thereby yielding fewer needed turbines, far fewer zero-output hours, and easier integration.

A broader assessment of reliability tends not to favor nuclear power. Of all 132 U.S. nuclear
plants built—just over half of the 253 originally ordered—21% were permanently and
prematurely closed due to reliability or cost problems. Another 27% have completely failed for a
year or more at least once. The surviving U.S. nuclear plants have lately averaged ~90% of their
full-load full-time potential—a major improvement31 for which the industry deserves much
credit—but they are still not fully dependable. Even reliably-running nuclear plants must shut
down, on average, for ~39 days every ~17 months for refueling and maintenance. Unexpected
failures occur too, shutting down upwards of a billion watts in milliseconds, often for weeks to
months. Solar cells and windpower don’t fail so ungracefully.

Power plants can fail for reasons other than mechanical breakdown, and those reasons can affect
many plants at once. As France and Japan have learned to their cost, heavily nuclear-dependent
regions are particularly at risk because drought, earthquake, a serious safety problem, or a
terrorist incident could close many plants simultaneously. And nuclear power plants have a
unique further disadvantage: for neutron-physics reasons, they can’t quickly restart after an
emergency shutdown, such as occurs automatically in a grid power failure...

From Amory Lovins
Four Nuclear Myths: A Commentary on Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline and on Similar Writings

Journal or Magazine Article, 2009

Available for download: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/2009-09_FourNuclearMyths

Some nuclear-power advocates claim that wind and solar power can’t provide much if any reliable power because they’re not “baseload,” that they use too much land, that all energy options including new nuclear build are needed to combat climate change, and that nuclear power’s economics don’t matter because climate change will force governments to dictate energy choices and pay for whatever is necessary. None of these claims can withstand analytic scrutiny.



******************************************

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Volume 1181 Issue Chernobyl
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Pages 31 - 220

Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health

Alexey B. Nesterenko a , Vassily B. Nesterenko a ,† and Alexey V. Yablokov b
a
Institute of Radiation Safety (BELRAD), Minsk, Belarus b Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Address for correspondence: Alexey V. Yablokov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, Office 319, 119071 Moscow,
Russia. Voice: [phone]; fax: [phone]. [e-mail]
†Deceased


ABSTRACT

Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas—comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination—revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

In all cases when comparing the territories heavily contaminated by Chernobyl's radionuclides with less contaminated areas that are characterized by a similar economy, demography, and environment, there is a marked increase in general morbidity in the former.

Increased numbers of sick and weak newborns were found in the heavily contaminated territories in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia.

Accelerated aging is one of the well-known consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation. This phenomenon is apparent to a greater or lesser degree in all of the populations contaminated by the Chernobyl radionuclides.

This section describes the spectrum and the scale of the nonmalignant diseases that have been found among exposed populations.

Adverse effects as a result of Chernobyl irradiation have been found in every group that has been studied. Brain damage has been found in individuals directly exposed—liquidators and those living in the contaminated territories, as well as in their offspring. Premature cataracts; tooth and mouth abnormalities; and blood, lymphatic, heart, lung, gastrointestinal, urologic, bone, and skin diseases afflict and impair people, young and old alike. Endocrine dysfunction, particularly thyroid disease, is far more common than might be expected, with some 1,000 cases of thyroid dysfunction for every case of thyroid cancer, a marked increase after the catastrophe. There are genetic damage and birth defects especially in children of liquidators and in children born in areas with high levels of radioisotope contamination.

Immunological abnormalities and increases in viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases are rife among individuals in the heavily contaminated areas. For more than 20 years, overall morbidity has remained high in those exposed to the irradiation released by Chernobyl. One cannot give credence to the explanation that these numbers are due solely to socioeconomic factors. The negative health consequences of the catastrophe are amply documented in this chapter and concern millions of people.

The most recent forecast by international agencies predicted there would be between 9,000 and 28,000 fatal cancers between 1986 and 2056, obviously underestimating the risk factors and the collective doses. On the basis of I-131 and Cs-137 radioisotope doses to which populations were exposed and a comparison of cancer mortality in the heavily and the less contaminated territories and pre- and post-Chernobyl cancer levels, a more realistic figure is 212,000 to 245,000 deaths in Europe and 19,000 in the rest of the world. High levels of Te-132, Ru-103, Ru-106, and Cs-134 persisted months after the Chernobyl catastrophe and the continuing radiation from Cs-137, Sr-90, Pu, and Am will generate new neoplasms for hundreds of years.

A detailed study reveals that 3.8–4.0% of all deaths in the contaminated territories of Ukraine and Russia from 1990 to 2004 were caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The lack of evidence of increased mortality in other affected countries is not proof of the absence of effects from the radioactive fallout. Since 1990, mortality among liquidators has exceeded the mortality rate in corresponding population groups.

From 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators died before 2005—that is, some 15% of the 830,000 members of the Chernobyl cleanup teams. The calculations suggest that the Chernobyl catastrophe has already killed several hundred thousand human beings in a population of several hundred million that was unfortunate enough to live in territories affected by the fallout. The number of Chernobyl victims will continue to grow over many future generations.

[avaistheone1]

3. Nuclear power is not cheap and it is not safe.

Those who want it please let us know where you live. We would like to send nuclear waste to a community such as yours that would welcome it. You would have your waste and we could all be happy.

[TheWraith]

14. Nuclear waste: 30 tons a year, contained. Coal waste, 500,000 tons a year in the air.

Which do you think is more hazardous? Please get educated about the subject.

[avaistheone1]

17. It's not safe. That is why the nuclear power industry is trying to force taxpayer to come up with

$50 billion dollars in guarantees. Great it if is so safe put in your communities and have the shareholders who profit from nuclear power come up with the $50BILLION in guarantees. Let the free market reign. Easy solution.

[TheWraith]

19. 435 nuclear power plants operate every single day around the world.

That's almost 160,000 operating days per year in perfect safety. Nuclear power has never killed anyone in the US--pollution stemming largely from coal plants kills 40,000 a year.

The reason nuclear power requires so much red tape and insurance in the US, and nowhere else, is because of the anti-nuclear movement and their fossil fuel backers.

[avaistheone1]

21. Great. If they are so safe than why is the nuclear power indusrty

trying to pawn off their expenses to the taxpayers, instead of to their own bottom lines and that of their shareholders?

What communities have their arms open to receive toxic nuclear wastes btw?

[TheWraith]

22. I just explained that to you.

The reason nuclear power requires so much red tape and insurance in the US, and nowhere else, is because of the anti-nuclear movement and their fossil fuel backers.

And there's lots of established sites for storage of nuclear materials.

[avaistheone1]

29. If the insurers thought nuclear power was a small risk venture they

would not be asking for the guarantees that they do - regardless of what the anti-nuclear movement has to say.
The insurers are in business of making money and minimizing their financial risk, they have no interest of the opinions of
ANY movement.

What areas are receptive to receiving more nuclear storage materials over the course of the next twenty years in the U.S.?
Yucca Mountain? No.

[madokie]

36. As it stands now there is no place to safely store the waste

Thats a failed argument the pro nukers use that its the anti-nuke peoples fault. The reason the price is so high is because of the risk involved not because I or anyone else for that matter doesn't like nukes.

They or we are wasting time and money on this dead horse called nuclear energy.

[Statistical]

37. privatre insurance does cover nuclear reactors.

$300 million per reactor. Costs run about $1 million a year. So private insurance companies seem to think the likelyhood of a payout is very small.

Then all reactors are protected by a group $10 billion policy.

The federal govt only acts as a final safety net at > $10.3 billion. It likely isn't needed but without it what is to stop people demanding $20 bil in insurance, $50 bil, $100 bil, a trillion?

By the federal govt under Price-Anderson hasn't paid a single penny in claims.

[avaistheone1]

43. Then "people" should demand it from the nuclear power companies and their shareholders

who profit from this industry. If nuclear power is so safe than what is the problem with the nuclear power industry backing this financially themselves. Once again if this stuff is safe where is your concern about people's demands regarding financial claims coming from? If there are no accidents there would be no claims. You are contradicting yourself.

This should not be the taxpayers problem no matter what size $$$ claims are made against the nuclear power industry. Let the free market operate.

[Statistical]

44. So you car insurance is fee because you had no accidents.

All insurance has to have limits and all insurance has costs even on events that haven't and likely never will happen. No insurance company anywhere on the planet would write an unlimited policy for any industry.

Thus the limits are $300m per plant and combined fund of $10 billion and if there ever is an incident >$10.3 billion the govt picks up the rest.

I mean the line has to be drawn somewhere. If not you could demand they have $89053584048590485409 trillion dollars worth of insurance with an annual premium greater than all money in the world. Ooops sorry you can't cover that then sorry you can't operate.

Once again Price-Anderson hasn't cost a single taxpayer a single penny.

[anonymous171]

4. Wait a minute. I was under the impression that Nuclear power plants emitted only water vapor.

Is this article saying that tritium is created as a result of fission or that Nuclear power plants regularly spew tritium into the air?

[TheWraith]

13. Tritium is produced as a byproduct of fission.

Sometimes a nuclear plant can accidentally release tritium into the environment--this is why they have monitoring wells dug around plants.

[Confusious]

5. noble gases krypton, xenon and argon

These gases don't react with much, which is why they are called "noble gases". There is already krypton, xenon and argon in the air. Argon is the most at: 9,340 ppmv (0.9340%) OMG it's 1% of the atmosphere

WE'RE all going to DIE DIE DIE

There are new ways to deal with the waste. http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/01/27/nuclear_hybrid/

Oh, and as far as fuel, thorium can be used, which is 4-5 times more abundant of the earth then ALL the isotopes of uranium. That would give more then 100+ years of power. Ooops.

Fearmongering at its finest.

[anonymous171]

8. But Thorium cannot be used to make nuclear weapons!

What's the use of nuclear power if we can't use it as an excuse to make more nukes!

[Statistical]

12. Well Thorium nuclear products can be used to make nuclear weapons.

It is difficult but not impossible.

Thorium reactor spent fuel will contain considerable U233 & U232.

U233 is useful in nuclear weapons production. However U232 is a hard gamma emitter making working around it very dangerous. Also there is no cheap or effective method of separating U232 from U233. All this complicates the making of weapons from U232/U233 isotope mix.

So you can build weapons from Thorium fission chain it just is much harder and more expensive.

[kristopher]

53. What is the enrgy cost of the "ways to deal with the waste" that you endorse?

Nuclear power already has a marginal return on energy invested - the once through fuel cycle returns about 15 units of energy for each unit used to produce power. Petroleum at its best was about 100:1. It is now overall about 20:1, and coal is about 15:1.

If you use reprocessing for nuclear fuel the energy return drops to 5:1.

What do you suppose the total energy return is for the fuel life cycle you endorse?

[Dogmudgeon]

6. "No Nukes" is the Left's version of the "Teabaggers"

It's Right-to-Life, Creationism, Global Warming Skepticism, and the War On Drugs all rolled into one big, entertaining, profit-making Movement (with a capital "M"). It even shares most of the rhetorical tropes and tactics. And far from being an anti-corporate crusade, it is actively supported by real estate and fossil fuel interests.

It shames us, that so many of us get so emotionally worked up over this. Check out just about ANY Internet exchange about nuclear energy, and you will see large numbers of Leftists acting like Teabaggers.

WE are supposed to be the ones who think rationally and stand by Science. But we let a couple of right wingnuts and a handful of musicians from thirty years ago determine our politics. It's time to correct that mistake.

--d!

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

7. +1 n/t

[anonymous171]

9. It's because of the nuclear weapons aspect really.

That's why they are so frantic.

[Dogmudgeon]

31. Yet the reactor-and-bombs connection is tenuous at best

Uranium is a very common substance. It requires low concentrations to power a reactor, but very high concentrations to make a bomb. And in some reactors, even UN-concentrated uranium ore can be used. Any tyrant with a fair-sized country probably has a source of uranium ready to exploit.

The big proliferation risks are the centrifuge and gas-separation technology needed to concentrate uranium, and the advanced picosecond-accuracy timing devices required to properly detonate a nuclear bomb. Unsecured uranium ores/oxide is certainly a Bad Thing, but no one is proposing that. Mohammed El-Bardei, the last head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was right: we need a comprehensive international system to control nuclear weapon manufacture altogether, and a system to make reactor fuel available and keep it secure. But simply chanting "no nukes" and ranting at blood heat is an exercise in futility.

--d!

[kristopher]

47. I challenge you to support that statment with any peer reviewed research.

You can't because it isn't true.

Nuclear weapons proliferation is inextricably tied to nuclear power technology.

[Pavulon]

60. Nope , not really. The process of making nuclear fuel

can stop at the level required to power a reactor. Or it can continue, at additional cost and complexity to produce a highly enriched fuel. Civilian reactors do not need HEU to operate. The actual fission reaction depletes that fuel and does not create bomb making materials.

This is a civilian reactor. Obviously the military has different reactors that serve functions that are not needed in a civilian fuel cycle.

Your source is google, this is like asking for a source on how to make pea soup.

[Zoeisright]

10. Wow. How stupid.

Reason and common sense are apparently not your strong suits. If you think that nuclear power is safe, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

I'm going to get emotionally worked up over poison we're producing with a half-life of millions of years that we have no way of safely storing.

Buh bye. Enjoy your delusions.

[anonymous171]

11. Nuclear power is safe. It's products are not. nt

[TheWraith]

16. You don't understand what you're talking about.

For starter, the half-life of nuclear waste is not "millions of years" or even vaguely close to that. Second, 435 nuclear power plants operate in perfect safety every day around the world. Their waste is safely stored away from anyone--unlike the 500,000 tons per year of coal waste dumped straight into the environment by your average coal plant, waste which takes every bit as long to decay as uranium. Except that nuclear waste can be reprocessed and recycled, and coal sludge and smog can't.

[kristopher]

49. "...has already killed several hundred thousand "

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Volume 1181 Issue Chernobyl
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Pages 31 - 220

Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health

Alexey B. Nesterenko a , Vassily B. Nesterenko a ,† and Alexey V. Yablokov b
a
Institute of Radiation Safety (BELRAD), Minsk, Belarus b Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Address for correspondence: Alexey V. Yablokov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, Office 319, 119071 Moscow,
Russia. Voice: [phone]; fax: [phone]. [e-mail]
†Deceased


ABSTRACT

Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas—comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination—revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

In all cases when comparing the territories heavily contaminated by Chernobyl's radionuclides with less contaminated areas that are characterized by a similar economy, demography, and environment, there is a marked increase in general morbidity in the former.

Increased numbers of sick and weak newborns were found in the heavily contaminated territories in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia.

Accelerated aging is one of the well-known consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation. This phenomenon is apparent to a greater or lesser degree in all of the populations contaminated by the Chernobyl radionuclides.

This section describes the spectrum and the scale of the nonmalignant diseases that have been found among exposed populations.

Adverse effects as a result of Chernobyl irradiation have been found in every group that has been studied. Brain damage has been found in individuals directly exposed—liquidators and those living in the contaminated territories, as well as in their offspring. Premature cataracts; tooth and mouth abnormalities; and blood, lymphatic, heart, lung, gastrointestinal, urologic, bone, and skin diseases afflict and impair people, young and old alike. Endocrine dysfunction, particularly thyroid disease, is far more common than might be expected, with some 1,000 cases of thyroid dysfunction for every case of thyroid cancer, a marked increase after the catastrophe. There are genetic damage and birth defects especially in children of liquidators and in children born in areas with high levels of radioisotope contamination.

Immunological abnormalities and increases in viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases are rife among individuals in the heavily contaminated areas. For more than 20 years, overall morbidity has remained high in those exposed to the irradiation released by Chernobyl. One cannot give credence to the explanation that these numbers are due solely to socioeconomic factors. The negative health consequences of the catastrophe are amply documented in this chapter and concern millions of people.

The most recent forecast by international agencies predicted there would be between 9,000 and 28,000 fatal cancers between 1986 and 2056, obviously underestimating the risk factors and the collective doses. On the basis of I-131 and Cs-137 radioisotope doses to which populations were exposed and a comparison of cancer mortality in the heavily and the less contaminated territories and pre- and post-Chernobyl cancer levels, a more realistic figure is 212,000 to 245,000 deaths in Europe and 19,000 in the rest of the world. High levels of Te-132, Ru-103, Ru-106, and Cs-134 persisted months after the Chernobyl catastrophe and the continuing radiation from Cs-137, Sr-90, Pu, and Am will generate new neoplasms for hundreds of years.

A detailed study reveals that 3.8–4.0% of all deaths in the contaminated territories of Ukraine and Russia from 1990 to 2004 were caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The lack of evidence of increased mortality in other affected countries is not proof of the absence of effects from the radioactive fallout. Since 1990, mortality among liquidators has exceeded the mortality rate in corresponding population groups.

From 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators died before 2005—that is, some 15% of the 830,000 members of the Chernobyl cleanup teams. The calculations suggest that the Chernobyl catastrophe has already killed several hundred thousand human beings in a population of several hundred million that was unfortunate enough to live in territories affected by the fallout. The number of Chernobyl victims will continue to grow over many future generations.

[Confusious]

28. You can't say "millions of years"

If it's heavily radioactive, then it will be so for 100 years or less. That is the dangerous stuff, which can be burned in new reactors on site.

If it's radioactive for "millions of years" then you could probably stand next to it for your entire life and never have any ill effects.

Carbon-14 is radioactive for 5,730 years. It's produced by the earth. It's in your body. Maybe we should protest the earth for poisoning us?

Enjoy your delusions indeed. Take a damn chemistry class and dispel them.

[tabasco]

33. Wow, you sound like a real Einstein.

I'm sure you have all the answers.

[ddeclue]

40. Nuclear power IS safe and the stats prove it. Nukes are orders of magnitude safer than hydro dams

which have killed over a thousand in the U.S. alone in the last 120 years. There's only been one real commercial nuke accident in the U.S. ever and it didn't kill anyone.

[kristopher]

51. A short term good operating record does not make them "safe"

When they fail, as all complex human systems are bound to do, the consequences are profound:

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Volume 1181 Issue Chernobyl
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Pages 31 - 220

Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health

Alexey B. Nesterenko a , Vassily B. Nesterenko a ,† and Alexey V. Yablokov b
a
Institute of Radiation Safety (BELRAD), Minsk, Belarus b Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Address for correspondence: Alexey V. Yablokov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, Office 319, 119071 Moscow,
Russia. Voice: [phone]; fax: [phone]. [e-mail]
†Deceased


ABSTRACT

Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas—comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination—revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

In all cases when comparing the territories heavily contaminated by Chernobyl's radionuclides with less contaminated areas that are characterized by a similar economy, demography, and environment, there is a marked increase in general morbidity in the former.

Increased numbers of sick and weak newborns were found in the heavily contaminated territories in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia.

Accelerated aging is one of the well-known consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation. This phenomenon is apparent to a greater or lesser degree in all of the populations contaminated by the Chernobyl radionuclides.

This section describes the spectrum and the scale of the nonmalignant diseases that have been found among exposed populations.

Adverse effects as a result of Chernobyl irradiation have been found in every group that has been studied. Brain damage has been found in individuals directly exposed—liquidators and those living in the contaminated territories, as well as in their offspring. Premature cataracts; tooth and mouth abnormalities; and blood, lymphatic, heart, lung, gastrointestinal, urologic, bone, and skin diseases afflict and impair people, young and old alike. Endocrine dysfunction, particularly thyroid disease, is far more common than might be expected, with some 1,000 cases of thyroid dysfunction for every case of thyroid cancer, a marked increase after the catastrophe. There are genetic damage and birth defects especially in children of liquidators and in children born in areas with high levels of radioisotope contamination.

Immunological abnormalities and increases in viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases are rife among individuals in the heavily contaminated areas. For more than 20 years, overall morbidity has remained high in those exposed to the irradiation released by Chernobyl. One cannot give credence to the explanation that these numbers are due solely to socioeconomic factors. The negative health consequences of the catastrophe are amply documented in this chapter and concern millions of people.

The most recent forecast by international agencies predicted there would be between 9,000 and 28,000 fatal cancers between 1986 and 2056, obviously underestimating the risk factors and the collective doses. On the basis of I-131 and Cs-137 radioisotope doses to which populations were exposed and a comparison of cancer mortality in the heavily and the less contaminated territories and pre- and post-Chernobyl cancer levels, a more realistic figure is 212,000 to 245,000 deaths in Europe and 19,000 in the rest of the world. High levels of Te-132, Ru-103, Ru-106, and Cs-134 persisted months after the Chernobyl catastrophe and the continuing radiation from Cs-137, Sr-90, Pu, and Am will generate new neoplasms for hundreds of years.

A detailed study reveals that 3.8–4.0% of all deaths in the contaminated territories of Ukraine and Russia from 1990 to 2004 were caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The lack of evidence of increased mortality in other affected countries is not proof of the absence of effects from the radioactive fallout. Since 1990, mortality among liquidators has exceeded the mortality rate in corresponding population groups. From 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators died before 2005—that is, some 15% of the 830,000 members of the Chernobyl cleanup teams.

The calculations suggest that the Chernobyl catastrophe has already killed several hundred thousand human beings in a population of several hundred million that was unfortunate enough to live in territories affected by the fallout. The number of Chernobyl victims will continue to grow over many future generations.

[Confusious]

59. Chernobyl was not safe from the start

They used a reactor building without a containment vessel, and on top of that, ran a dangerous test which the were not ready for.

US reactors have a containment vessel, surrounded by extra-thick concrete.

[11 Bravo]

42. Speaking of delusions, please share with us ANY isotope with a half-life of millions of years.

Of course, I would have to wait millions of years for an answer, because no such thing exists. But please, don't let simple things like truth or facts interrupt your little rant.

[scarletwoman]

15. When "science" comes up with a method of safely disposing of the toxic wastes produced by nuclear

energy, THEN I'll sign on.

Science in the abstract is no more worthy of blind devotion than Religion.

[TheWraith]

18. We long since have.

Spent fuel reprocessing reduces the volume of nuclear waste by 97% right off the top, produces fresh uranium for new fuel use, and we can work on further separating that 3% down into useful elements.

[scarletwoman]

24. Really? Then why is Prairie Island applying for permits for more waste storage space??

Why is the federal government looking for storage space (i.e. Yucca mountain) for nuclear waste?

How has the problem been solved when existing nuclear energy plants are running out of room to store their waste and are looking for places to ship it?

And that doesn't even touch on the problem of the dangers and pollution from uranium mining in the first place.

[TheWraith]

62. Because, frankly, buying new uranium is dirt cheap.

There's no pressing economic need to reprocess used fuel rods the way they do in Europe; it's cheaper just to toss them on the pile and install new ones, even though 97% of the uranium in the old ones is still usable. Imagine if you drove your car until the gas tank was 97% full, then threw all of the remaining gas in it into a big storage facility and completely refilled the tank? That's what we do with "nuclear waste," aka used fuel rods. The only difference is that they need to be cleaned up a little before we can use the rest of them.

Reprocessing eliminates waste, and reduces the need for uranium mining by 97%.

[kristopher]

50. "Science" does NOT support nuclear power as the best energy choice

Please review the first study in post #45 at top of thread - it is a detailed analysis of all available technologies to meet our climate change and energy security needs and it concludes that for electrical power nuclear is tied for dead last with CCS coal.

[Dogmudgeon]

27. Wow! So much (self-) righteous rage!

They rant like Teabaggers, they react like Teabaggers, they "reason" like Teabaggers, they reject science and education like Teabaggers ...

... and then they get upset when someone notices that they ACT like Teabaggers.

I'll stick with Obama, Chu, Franken, the Democratic rank-and-file ... and coffee.

--d!
Make mine decaf.

[kristopher]

46. No, it is the rational choice - all the nuclear industry has is propaganda

I challenge you to refute the evidence offered by these papers:

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

Public discussions of nuclear power, and a surprising number of articles in peer-reviewed
journals, are increasingly based on four notions unfounded in fact or logic: that

1. variable renewable sources of electricity (windpower and photovoltaics) can provide little
or no reliable electricity because they are not “baseload”—able to run all the time;
2. those renewable sources require such enormous amounts of land, hundreds of times more
than nuclear power does, that they’re environmentally unacceptable;
3. all options, including nuclear power, are needed to combat climate change; and
4. nuclear power’s economics matter little because governments must use it anyway to
protect the climate.

For specificity, this review of these four notions focuses on the nuclear chapter of Stewart
Brand’s 2009 book Whole Earth Discipline, which encapsulates similar views widely expressed
and cross-cited by organizations and individuals advocating expansion of nuclear power. It’s
therefore timely to subject them to closer scrutiny than they have received in most public media.

This review relies chiefly on five papers, which I gave Brand over the past few years but on
which he has been unwilling to engage in substantive discussion. They document6 why
expanding nuclear power is uneconomic, is unnecessary, is not undergoing the claimed
renaissance in the global marketplace (because it fails the basic test of cost-effectiveness ever
more robustly), and, most importantly, will reduce and retard climate protection. That’s
because—the empirical cost and installation data show—new nuclear power is so costly and
slow that, based on empirical U.S. market data, it will save about 2–20 times less carbon per
dollar, and about 20–40 times less carbon per year, than investing instead in the market
winners—efficient use of electricity and what The Economist calls “micropower,”...


The “baseload” myth

Brand rejects the most important and successful renewable sources of electricity for one key
reason stated on p. 80 and p. 101. On p. 80, he quotes novelist and author Gwyneth Cravens’s
definition of “baseload” power as “the minimum amount of proven, consistent, around-the-clock,
rain-or-shine power that utilities must supply to meet the demands of their millions of
customers.”21 (Thus it describes a pattern of aggregated customer demand.) Two sentences
later, he asserts: “So far comes from only three sources: fossil fuels, hydro, and
nuclear.” Two paragraphs later, he explains this dramatic leap from a description of demand to a
restriction of supply: “Wind and solar, desirable as they are, aren’t part of baseload because they
are intermittent—productive only when the wind blows or the sun shines. If some sort of massive
energy storage is devised, then they can participate in baseload; without it, they remain
supplemental, usually to gas-fired plants.”

That widely heard claim is fallacious. The manifest need for some amount of steady, reliable
power is met by generating plants collectively, not individually. That is, reliability is a statistic-
al attribute of all the plants on the grid combined. If steady 24/7 operation or operation at any
desired moment were instead a required capability of each individual power plant, then the grid
couldn’t meet modern needs, because no kind of power plant is perfectly reliable. For example,
in the U.S. during 2003–07, coal capacity was shut down an average of 12.3% of the time (4.2%
without warning); nuclear, 10.6% (2.5%); gas-fired, 11.8% (2.8%). Worldwide through 2008,
nuclear units were unexpectedly unable to produce 6.4% of their energy output.26 This inherent
intermittency of nuclear and fossil-fueled power plants requires many different plants to back
each other up through the grid. This has been utility operators’ strategy for reliable supply
throughout the industry’s history. Every utility operator knows that power plants provide energy
to the grid, which serves load. The simplistic mental model of one plant serving one load is valid
only on a very small desert island. The standard remedy for failed plants is other interconnected
plants that are working—not “some sort of massive energy storage devised.”

Modern solar and wind power are more technically reliable than coal and nuclear plants; their
technical failure rates are typically around 1–2%. However, they are also variable resources
because their output depends on local weather, forecastable days in advance with fair accuracy
and an hour ahead with impressive precision. But their inherent variability can be managed by
proper resource choice, siting, and operation. Weather affects different renewable resources
differently; for example, storms are good for small hydro and often for windpower, while flat
calm weather is bad for them but good for solar power. Weather is also different in different
places: across a few hundred miles, windpower is scarcely correlated, so weather risks can be
diversified. A Stanford study found that properly interconnecting at least ten windfarms can
enable an average of one-third of their output to provide firm baseload power. Similarly, within
each of the three power pools from Texas to the Canadian border, combining uncorrelated
windfarm sites can reduce required wind capacity by more than half for the same firm output,
thereby yielding fewer needed turbines, far fewer zero-output hours, and easier integration.

A broader assessment of reliability tends not to favor nuclear power. Of all 132 U.S. nuclear
plants built—just over half of the 253 originally ordered—21% were permanently and
prematurely closed due to reliability or cost problems. Another 27% have completely failed for a
year or more at least once. The surviving U.S. nuclear plants have lately averaged ~90% of their
full-load full-time potential—a major improvement31 for which the industry deserves much
credit—but they are still not fully dependable. Even reliably-running nuclear plants must shut
down, on average, for ~39 days every ~17 months for refueling and maintenance. Unexpected
failures occur too, shutting down upwards of a billion watts in milliseconds, often for weeks to
months. Solar cells and windpower don’t fail so ungracefully.

Power plants can fail for reasons other than mechanical breakdown, and those reasons can affect
many plants at once. As France and Japan have learned to their cost, heavily nuclear-dependent
regions are particularly at risk because drought, earthquake, a serious safety problem, or a
terrorist incident could close many plants simultaneously. And nuclear power plants have a
unique further disadvantage: for neutron-physics reasons, they can’t quickly restart after an
emergency shutdown, such as occurs automatically in a grid power failure...

From Amory Lovins
Four Nuclear Myths: A Commentary on Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline and on Similar Writings

Journal or Magazine Article, 2009

Available for download: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/2009-09_FourNuclearMyths

Some nuclear-power advocates claim that wind and solar power can’t provide much if any reliable power because they’re not “baseload,” that they use too much land, that all energy options including new nuclear build are needed to combat climate change, and that nuclear power’s economics don’t matter because climate change will force governments to dictate energy choices and pay for whatever is necessary. None of these claims can withstand analytic scrutiny.



******************************************

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Volume 1181 Issue Chernobyl
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Pages 31 - 220

Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health

Alexey B. Nesterenko a , Vassily B. Nesterenko a ,† and Alexey V. Yablokov b
a
Institute of Radiation Safety (BELRAD), Minsk, Belarus b Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Address for correspondence: Alexey V. Yablokov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, Office 319, 119071 Moscow,
Russia. Voice: [phone]; fax: [phone]. [e-mail]
†Deceased


ABSTRACT

Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas—comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination—revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

In all cases when comparing the territories heavily contaminated by Chernobyl's radionuclides with less contaminated areas that are characterized by a similar economy, demography, and environment, there is a marked increase in general morbidity in the former.

Increased numbers of sick and weak newborns were found in the heavily contaminated territories in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia.

Accelerated aging is one of the well-known consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation. This phenomenon is apparent to a greater or lesser degree in all of the populations contaminated by the Chernobyl radionuclides.

This section describes the spectrum and the scale of the nonmalignant diseases that have been found among exposed populations.

Adverse effects as a result of Chernobyl irradiation have been found in every group that has been studied. Brain damage has been found in individuals directly exposed—liquidators and those living in the contaminated territories, as well as in their offspring. Premature cataracts; tooth and mouth abnormalities; and blood, lymphatic, heart, lung, gastrointestinal, urologic, bone, and skin diseases afflict and impair people, young and old alike. Endocrine dysfunction, particularly thyroid disease, is far more common than might be expected, with some 1,000 cases of thyroid dysfunction for every case of thyroid cancer, a marked increase after the catastrophe. There are genetic damage and birth defects especially in children of liquidators and in children born in areas with high levels of radioisotope contamination.

Immunological abnormalities and increases in viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases are rife among individuals in the heavily contaminated areas. For more than 20 years, overall morbidity has remained high in those exposed to the irradiation released by Chernobyl. One cannot give credence to the explanation that these numbers are due solely to socioeconomic factors. The negative health consequences of the catastrophe are amply documented in this chapter and concern millions of people.

The most recent forecast by international agencies predicted there would be between 9,000 and 28,000 fatal cancers between 1986 and 2056, obviously underestimating the risk factors and the collective doses. On the basis of I-131 and Cs-137 radioisotope doses to which populations were exposed and a comparison of cancer mortality in the heavily and the less contaminated territories and pre- and post-Chernobyl cancer levels, a more realistic figure is 212,000 to 245,000 deaths in Europe and 19,000 in the rest of the world. High levels of Te-132, Ru-103, Ru-106, and Cs-134 persisted months after the Chernobyl catastrophe and the continuing radiation from Cs-137, Sr-90, Pu, and Am will generate new neoplasms for hundreds of years.

A detailed study reveals that 3.8–4.0% of all deaths in the contaminated territories of Ukraine and Russia from 1990 to 2004 were caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The lack of evidence of increased mortality in other affected countries is not proof of the absence of effects from the radioactive fallout. Since 1990, mortality among liquidators has exceeded the mortality rate in corresponding population groups.

From 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators died before 2005—that is, some 15% of the 830,000 members of the Chernobyl cleanup teams. The calculations suggest that the Chernobyl catastrophe has already killed several hundred thousand human beings in a population of several hundred million that was unfortunate enough to live in territories affected by the fallout. The number of Chernobyl victims will continue to grow over many future generations.

[inna]

20. Why in the world is this getting unrecommended???

DU, wake the fuck up.

[Odin2005]

23. Because some of us don't like anti-nuclear propaganda.

[bigtree]

26. no more propaganda

. . . than the billions the nuclear energy industry has spent to bring our government to the point where they'll even consider letting them back in the room. The door's still, not all the way open, btw. I suspect that's what gets proponent's goat about opposing views.

[Confusious]

30. If you read my post above

It's obviously propaganda that anyone who has taken a chemistry class can identify.

Argon is dangerous. It's freaking argon. It doesn't react with anything!

[bigtree]

25. Helen Caldicott

. . . there's a fine expert.

[PacerLJ35]

32. You're spelling it wrong...it's "nucular"

[AdHocSolver]

34. Two reasons not to fear nuclear energy.

The good people who manage the nuclear energy industry are competent and responsible leaders who will ensure our safety as exemplified by their actions related in the following snippets from news articles (with links).



snip
..........
Allegations of the dumping of toxic waste, as well as illegal fishing, have circulated since the early 1990s, but hard evidence emerged when the tsunami of 2004 hit the country. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) reported that the tsunami washed rusting containers of toxic waste onto the shores of Puntland, northern Somalia.

Nick Nuttall, a UNEP spokesman, told Al Jazeera that when the barrels were smashed open by the force of the waves, the containers exposed a “frightening activity” that had been going on for more than a decade. “Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste starting in the early 1990s, and continuing through the civil war there,” he said. “The waste is many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals like cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, and there are hospital wastes, chemical wastes—you name it.”
..........

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/3-toxic-waste-behind-somali-pirates/




Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina

snip
..........
One of the most lethal patches of ground in North America is located in the backwoods of North Carolina, where Shearon Harris nuclear plant is housed and owned by Progress Energy. The plant contains the largest radioactive waste storage pools in the country. It is not just a nuclear-power-generating station, but also a repository for highly radioactive spent fuel rods from two other nuclear plants. The spent fuel rods are transported by rail and stored in four densely packed pools filled with circulating cold water to keep the waste from heating. The Department of Homeland Security has marked Shearon Harris as one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation.
..........


snip
..........
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has estimated that there is a 1:100 chance of pool fire happening under the best of scenarios. And the dossier on the Shearon Harris plant is far from the best. In 1999 the plant experienced four emergency shutdowns. A few months later, in April 2000, the plant’s safety monitoring system, designed to provide early warning of a serious emergency, failed. And it wasn’t the first time. Indeed, the emergency warning system at Shearon Harris has failed fifteen times since the plant opened in 1987.
..........

snip
..........
Between 1999 and 2003, there were twelve major problems requiring the shutdown of the plant. According to the NRC, the national average for commercial reactors is one shutdown per eighteen months.
..........

snip
..........
The study recommended relatively inexpensive fixes, which would have cost Progress approximately $5 million a year—less than the $6.6 million annual bonus for Progress CEO Warren Cavanaugh. Progress scoffed at the idea and recruited the help of NRC Commissioner Edward McGaffigan to smear the MIT/Princeton report.
..........


http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/4-nuclear-waste-pools-in-north-carolina/


As you can see, our safety and the safety of the planet is a top concern of our industrial leaders. Nothing to worry about. :sarcasm:

[avaistheone1]

35. k&r

[ddeclue]

38. More anti-nuclear FAIL..

You don't have to cool these plants in the river.. This a totally artificial limitation. Ever hear of a "cooling tower"? You can also cool through thermal exchange with land instead of water.

[timeforpeace]

39. If President Obama is on board for nuclear power, so am I.

[Ildem09]

41. thats a horrible reason to be for something... drone

I support some forms of new nuclear power so long as they are not the big hulking uranium rod health risks. but smaller sodium breeder reactors could be interesting

[avaistheone1]

52. I think for myself.

Obama doesn't do my thinking. Thank God.

No politician no matter who they are is going to think for me. Hell, I don't surrender my thinking to anyone.

[ensho]

54. hot water almost closed the plant in Fla. that's on the Gulf

maybe this summer

no more nuke power plants

[ThomWV]

57. This may come a a great surprise to you but about all coal pants are located on waters too.

And they shut down with low or hot water as well. It happens all the time.

[ensho]

58. I believe I know that - and your point being?

nt

[Pavulon]

61. Modern plants do not require water flow rates

of 30 year old systems they will replace. That closing would consist of an orderly shut down of the systems until the environmentals had returned to an acceptable range.

[snooper2]

55. funny how people are scared of things they don't understand

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/7/7a/20080612095000!Nuclear_power_plant_pwr_diagram_de.png

[ThomWV]

56. This crap just seems to never end, it has a half life loner than Plutonium