Here is my problem with nuclear power plants

[csziggy]

I'm not so worried about meltdowns or some kind of disaster. Disposal of the spent fuel is a bigger problem but we will figure that out eventually. Here is my problem - there is a limit to how much fuel is on earth.

How long will the world's uranium supplies last?
Steve Fetter, dean of the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, supplies an answer:

f the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet's economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.

Most of the 2.8 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity generated worldwide from nuclear power every year is produced in light-water reactors (LWRs) using low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. About 10 metric tons of natural uranium go into producing a metric ton of LEU, which can then be used to generate about 400 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, so present-day reactors require about 70,000 metric tons of natural uranium a year.

According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today's consumption rate in total. Further exploration and improvements in extraction technology are likely to at least double this estimate over time.

More: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last

So the available fuel for an atomic energy boom will last a little longer than the oil boom, but unless we go outside of this planet it will also be used up. As far as I am concerned if this pushes humans to leave the planet, great, but I am pessimistic about any government or corporate entity making that investment. Forty years ago, I was sure we'd have a colony on the moon or on Mars by now, but we've turned our backs on that for now.

So unless we do go into space, even using every bit of what we have here on earth and recycling what spent fuel we can, we might have as much as 500 years worth of nuclear fuel at the current rate of consumption. Of course in reality that means we may have two hundred years worth or less depending on how many more plants are built, how quickly they are built and put into operation, what capacity they are, and how long the current plants are kept running.

About the time we get good and efficient at building the plants, we will run out of fuel for them. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

[vadawg]

1. yup i think our future lies out there not confined to just the earth

i hope that my descendants get to roam the stars...

[paulsby]

2. do you really think we will need or won't have a MUCH better

option in 200 (heck, in 50 yrs) for energy?

[Statistical]

3. Thorium + Reprocessing + Future Technology.

By that logic we should never have started to make steel or burn coal in the Middle Ages because eventually we would run out. Except without the invention of steel or coal we wouldn't have advanced to the point we are now. Nobody was going to discover solar panels before steel, plastics, oil, or coal.

Uranium Reserves are good for about 250 years depending on the study. The US has a larger ratio of reserves to consumption than global Average and there is a lot of Uranium in Australia (an ally) for the supply is secure.

Reprocessing with currently technology can quadruple the life of that. Future technology could increase that by a factor of. So that's 1000 years with todays technology and 2000+ years potentially.

Thorium is roughly 5x as plentiful and it doesn't require enrichment so it can produce about 25x as much fuel. Roughly speaking that gives us another 5000 years supply at current reactor outputs.

Obviously power demands will continue to grow if not in the US at least in the developing world. Even if number of reactors doubled or tripled reserves would be more than sufficient.

Likely centuries before we run out of fissile material we will have moved on to Fusion, or massive kilometer wide solar arrays at triple todays efficiency.

To adopt something today it doesn't have to last till the end of time. To be useful it just needs to last long enough to get us to the next level of human advancement.

[csziggy]

4. The article at the link discusses reprocessing

That is what doubles the lifespan of the existing fuel supply. He does not discuss thorium - that sounds hopeful.

I am not against the use of nuclear power - but the people who think it will permanently solve our problems need to understand that with current technology and current supplies, we will again have a finite resource for energy. Nuclear power using current technologies is a stop gap until we can develop something else more sustainable.

I just don't want to see future generations ending up where we are not - looking at another peak energy resource.

[Statistical]

5. Here is another way to look at it.

The potential energy in all the thorium and uranium on the planet is 100x times all the energy ever used by mankind in recorded history or about 4000x the amount of energy used last year.

In case you are wondering that is 2.4 YJ (that a 2 followed by 24 zeroes). All fossil fuels combined are "only" 0.8YJ of energy.

It is finite but very large. Will we run out of fissile material eventually? Probably but more likely it will be no longer needed. However if we don't reduce CO2 levels in the next decade it won't matter how much uranium we are going to have a thousand years from now.


Everything is finite. Did you know the earths core is a giant nuclear reactor? It is what keeps the earths core molten. In about 100 million years the earths core will exhaust its supply of fissile material. The core will go cold (no more earthquakes, no more volcanoes) and the earth will lose its magnetic field (just like Mars).

That magnetic field protects us from lethal solar radiation. The earth will be bombarded by a massive increase in ionizing radiation that will kill most life on the surface of the planet.

[lazarus]

7. no, it isn't

"The earth's core is a giant nuclear reactor." No, it is not.

...the vast majority of the heat in Earth's interior—up to 90 percent—is fueled by the decaying of radioactive isotopes like Potassium 40, Uranium 238, 235, and Thorium 232 contained within the mantle. These isotopes radiate heat as they shed excess energy and move toward stability. "The amount of heat caused by this radiation is almost the same as the total heat measured emanating from the Earth."

Heat from radiation is not the same thing as heat from a nuclear reaction.

[Statistical]

9. In nuclear decay fission will occur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_fission

Still semantics aside the point was that the ability of the earth's core to sustain its temperature and thus the earth's magnetic field is finite. Eventually all of the unstable isotopes in the core will decay down to stable ones and the core core will lack nuclear "fuel" to continue the process. Once that happens the core will go cold and dormant.

[lazarus]

11. but it doesn't make a reaction

you said it's nuclear reactor. That's just wrong. I'm not saying that eventually, millions of years from now, the earth won't be dead and cold. But that's a long way away. Probably longer than our race's time on the planet.
I'm not playing a semantic game. Nuclear decay and a nuclear reactor are completely different things.

From your link:

"For uranium and thorium, the spontaneous fission mode of decay does occur, but it is not seen for the majority of radioactive breakdowns, and it is usually neglected except for the exact considerations of branching ratios when determining the activity of a sample containing these elements." Fission is not responsible for any measurable part of the earth's core heat.

[Confusious]

12. E=mc^2

Nuclear decay and fission are both the result of mass being turned into energy.

In a sense, it is a nuclear reactor. A reactor doesn't have to use just fission.

Satellites have been launched that use nuclear decay as a way to power the satellite.

A reactor could be defined as "Anything that generates power from a change in mass of an atom"

[Statistical]

19. What? Come on man this is simple science. Of course it is a reaction.

Although the amount of energy from it is negligible compared to decay heat it still exists.
When fission occurs neutrons containing energy are released.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reaction

There really is no reason to debate this. It is a reaction. It might not be what *you* consider a reaction. It might not be a particularly common reaction. It might not even be a useful reaction. It still IS a reaction.

If you don't think so you should get a high school physics book from the library.

[muriel_volestrangler]

73. But if the heat doesn't come from a reaction, then it's not a reactor

The heat comes from decay. And your claim of "in about 100 million years the earths core will exhaust its supply of fissile material" is complete rubbish:

Thanks for your question, John… You are absolutely correct in
stating that Earth has been cooling since its formation approximately
4.6 billion years ago… and with that statement, you have hit on the
important issue; what is the source of that heat in the first place?
The primary energy source of Earth is radioactive decay. The sun,
gravity, and meteorite impacts all contribute some energy, as well,
but not nearly as much as that provided by radioactive decay
(estimated for the bulk Earth at around 6.18x10-12 watts/kilogram).

As a radioactive isotope decays, particles are ejected from its
nucleus for the purpose of stabilizing the atom. Radioactive decay
processes produce electromagnetic radiation (gamma rays, for example)
which transmit energy from the nucleus to the environment.
Additionally, the ejected particles have kinetic energy that
ultimately converts to thermal energy as the particles are
mechanically resisted by their environment. The crust, mantle, and
core of Earth contain varying amounts of radioactive elements, the
most important for heat production being Uranium-238, Uranium-235,
Thorium-232, and Potassium-40, with half-lives of roughly 4.47 billion
years, 704 million years, 14.1 billion years, and 1.28 billion years,
respectively. From the half-lives of these isotopes and a comparison
with the age of Earth, you can see that internal heat production via
radioactive decay will likely persist at near current levels for quite
some time to come.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/env99/env276.htm

[bananas]

25. Solar resources dwarf nuclear resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption

The estimates of remaining non-renewable worldwide energy resources vary, with the remaining fossil fuels totaling an estimated 0.4 YJ (1 YJ = 1024J) and the available nuclear fuel such as uranium exceeding 2.5 YJ. Fossil fuels range from 0.6-3 YJ if estimates of reserves of methane clathrates are accurate and become technically extractable. Mostly thanks to the Sun, the world also has a renewable usable energy flux that exceeds 120 PW (8,000 times 2004 total usage), or 3.8 YJ/yr, dwarfing all non-renewable resources.

We get more energy from the sun each year than in all the uranium and thorium in the earth. Of course, these numbers refer to extracting energy from every uranium and thorium atom in the ground, a lot of that is trace amounts distributed in granite mountains, it would take more energy to extract those scattered atoms from granite than you would get from fissioning them.

A fraction of wind and solar resources will provide all our needs:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

Surface Area Required to Power the Whole World With Solar and Wind Power

[Moostache]

6. It is unavoidable....peaks in energy supplies.

Everything is finite over a long enough timescale...even the sun is currently tick-tocking its way into eventual oblivion.

We can't be concerned with finding a magic bullet to provide infinite energy (presumably to power our misguided economic theory of infinite growth). We have a nasty habit of hiding the truth from ourselves - one of humanity's least endearing traits is our boundless capacity for self-delusion!

I can guarantee this much, if we do not address the rate of consumption our society has in EVERYTHING - water, soil, minerals, oil, coal, uranium, food - then soon (within as little as two more generations) it will overwhelm us and knock the stuffing out of the entire species and sadly most of the rest of life on Earth as well...

[kristopher]

8. the energy penalty with reprocessing makes nuclear the equivalent of agriculture

There is an energy cost to getting energy and nuclear has a very high energy cost. Oil when it was first discovered had returned about 100 units of energy for 1 unit. It is now down to about 20:1. Coal was about 50-1 and is now down to about 15:1. Nuclear with a once through uranium cycle is about 15:1. With reprocessing it is about 5:1. The maximum for biofuels is predicted to be 8:1 and ethanol today has a max of 1.6:1.
All are on a diminishing trajectory.

Solar is climbing rapidly and is between 20:1 and 60:1 while current generation wind is between 50:1-80:1. Both are on an upward trajectory.

Then you have the costs of new nuclear power. No private capital will take the risk of trying to develop projects that have a such a bad record of completion and cost performance.

Citigroup Global Markets
New Nuclear – The Economics Say No

9 November 2009

Green lighting new nuclear? — The UK government today announced a fast-track planning process for new nuclear power stations. 10 sites have been approved for possible development. The government is presenting today’s announcement as providing the green light for a major new nuclear programme, which it says is needed to meet climate change and security of supply targets.

-But no financial support has been offered — The government has not announced any direct financial support for new nuclear. The government still seems to expect the private sector to take an unacceptable level of risk, in our view.

-The five big risks — Nuclear power station developers face five big risks: Planning, Construction, Power Price, Operational, and Decommissioning. The government today has sought to limit the Planning risk. While important for encouraging developers to bring forward projects, this is the least important risk financially.

-The three Corporate Killers — Three of the risks faced by developers — Construction, Power Price, and Operational — are so large and variable that individually they could each bring even the largest utility company to its knees financially. This makes new nuclear a unique investment proposition for utility companies.

-No where else in the world — Government policy remains that the private sector takes full exposure to the three main risks; Construction, Power Price and Operational. Nowhere in the world have nuclear power stations been built on this basis.

-Nor will they be built in the UK — We see little if any prospect that new nuclear stations will be built in the UK by the private sector unless developers can lay off substantial elements of the three major risks. Financing guarantees, minimum power prices, and / or government-backed power off-take agreements may all be needed if stations are to be built.
Download full report: https://www.citigroupgeo.com/pdf/SEU27102.pdf

Then there are the total impacts compared to alternatives that can also provide the same amount of power. Nuclear stacks up very poorly in comparison.
Jacobson
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


The cost to meet our energy is estimated to be extremely high with nuclear. Much higher than the alternatives.

Estimates for new nuclear power place these facilities among the costliest private projects ever undertaken. Utilities promoting new nuclear power assert it is their least costly option. However, independent studies have concluded new nuclear power is not economically competitive.

Given this discrepancy, nuclear’s history of cost overruns, and the fact new generation designs have never been constructed any where, there is a major business risk nuclear power will be more costly than projected. Recent construction cost estimates imply capital costs/kWh (not counting operation or fuel costs) from 17-22 cents/kWh when the nuclear facilities come on-line. Another major business risk is nuclear’s history of construction delays. Delays would run costs higher, risking funding shortfalls. The strain on cash flow is expected to degrade credit ratings. Generation costs/kWh for new nuclear (including fuel & O&M but not distribution to customers) are likely to be from 25 - 30 cents/kWh. This high cost may destroy the very demand the plant was built to serve. High electric rates may seriously impact utility customers and make nuclear utilities’ service areas noncompetitive with other regions of the U.S. which are developing lower-cost electricity.

Severance
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf


Also see:
Cooper Report:
http://www.vermontlaw.edu/it/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf

[Statistical]

10. Only if it were 1960.

The Return on Energy you cite involves the energy intense gaseous diffusion enrichment.
Of course the fact that it hasn't been used in 40+ years.
It has been universal replaced with centrifuges which are 5x as efficient.

Of course the anti-nukers know that. They just pretend gas centrifuges don't exist to "cook the books". No commercial power fuel is made by gas diffusion thus the 15:1 number is a product of fiction.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf11.html

Return on energy:
15:1 (w/ outdated 1960s era enrichment)
57:1 (w/ "modern" centrifuge enrichment)

The 57:1 return is actually rather conservative because it assumes things like 40 year plant lifespan, burnup of only 45,000 MWd/ton, and 80% capacity factor.

Current plants in US have 60 year lifespans, 92% capacity factor, and closer to 60,000Mwd/ton which improves the return on energy. GenIII+ plants are even higher.

[kristopher]

14. That's from a 2001 non-industry paper.

it is curious how every researcher that contradicts the rose colored scenario of the nuclear industry is an "anti-nuker". Frankly that is precisely what has turned me against nuclear power - I can't trust the data because it has been so heavily controlled by an industry that is obviously willing to lie its ass off about anything and everything. They routinely dismiss information as anti-nuke and the information later proves to be accurate - mortality from Chernobyl is a substantive case in point.

So when you dismiss this paper (which is actually rather favorable to nuclear in its context) it isn't convincing; and while the presentation by the nuclear industry trade association sounds very impressive, it is still a presentation by the nuclear industry's global trade association. At this point, and given the track record for data-trimming by the industry, it would be much more persuasive if there were independent verification of the analysis at the link you provided. Do you have any such independent peer reviewed sources you could point me to?

Energy Policy 30 (2002) 1267–1278
Life-cycle assessment of electricity generation options: The status of research in year 2001
Luc Gagnona,*, Camille B!elangerb, Yohji Uchiyamac

[Confusious]

17. Irony man is at it again!

"obviously willing to lie its ass off about anything and everything"

"Do you have any such independent peer reviewed sources you could point me to?"

From someone who hands out crap studies from people who interpret data however they want, and include things that shouldn't be included, and gives links to an environmental study by a lawyer.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Confusious]

20. ooo, excellent comeback

Have any peer reviewed studies that will support that?

:rofl:

[kristopher]

21. ..

I'm sure that is typical of what passes for "peer" review in you circle.

[RC]

13. More FUD.

There are such things as "Breeder Reactors" They can make fuel for other reactors.

[kristopher]

15. And lots and lots of plutonium for bombs.

Everyone should have at least a dozen, right?

[Statistical]

22. Thorium breeder make plutonium extraction very difficult.

No nuclear weapon (by any country) has ever been developed from a commercial power reactor.
It is far too difficult and creating a water cooled pile is 1950s era science.

1) Take big chunk of graphite and drill bunch of holes in it
2) Insert uranium slugs
3) Dump water over graphite to prevent heat from causing a fire
4) Periodically remove uranium slugs to extract plutonium.

It is so easy compared to trying to use a fit a square peg (power reactor) into a round hole (weapons grade plutonium).
The plutonium pile is so low tech neither the workers who built it nor the people who operated it even understood what it did.

The idea that somehow not building power reactors will keep this 1950s technology bottled up forever is laughable.
We detonated two nuclear weapons in combat a decade before we built the worlds first nuclear power reactor.

[kristopher]

23. Suuuure it does...

From tthe World Nuclear Association (we know you trust them) page on India's nuclear status - they have the most aggressive thorium program in the world.

Fast neutron reactors
Longer term, the AEC envisages its fast reactor program being 30 to 40 times bigger than the
PHWR program, and initially at least, largely in the military sphere until its "synchronised
working" with the reprocessing plant is proven on an 18-24 month cycle.

...In 2002 the regulatory authority issued approval to start construction of a 500 MWe prototype
fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam and this is now under construction by BHAVINI. It is
expected to be operating in 2011, fuelled with uranium-plutonium oxide (the reactor-grade Pu
being from its existing PHWRs). It will have a blanket with thorium and uranium to breed fissile
U-233 and plutonium respectively, taking the thorium program to stage two, and setting the
scene for eventual full utilisation of the country's abundant thorium to fuel reactors. Six more
such 500 MWe fast reactors have been announced for construction, four of them by 2020. Two
will be at Kalpakkam.


As for the "no bombs from commercial reactors" logic, please stop. Denying the link between the knowledge and technologies associated with nuclear power and nuclear proliferation flies in the face of all we know. Yes bombs can be made without a civilian program, but having a civilian program not only makes it much easier, it makes it more tempting. Advancing the use of nuclear as a solution to the US energy needs is a wedge to promote it for global energy needs. And THAT is a guarantee of massive nuclear weapons proliferation.

[Statistical]

24. Not all plutonium is the same. There is this concept called isotopes. You were aware of that right

It may fly in the face of all you "know" but it doesn't fly in the face of physics.

In commercial nuclear reactor a relatively small amount of useful pluntonium (Pu-239) is generated. However the amounts are tiny meaning massive amounts of fuel must be chemically seperated to produce enough Pu-239 to make a single weapon. Even worse power reactors produce Pu-240 which can't be used to make a bomb. It has a high rate of spontaniuous fission which means trying to make a nuclear weapons core out of Pu-240 could go critical before the intended detonation. Imagine if randomly US nuclear subs or ICBM just "went off". So Pu-240 needs to be separated out from Pu-239 which is even more costly and expensive as there is no known chemical methods. To safely making a nuclear weapon the Plutonium must contain less than 6% Pu-240. Power reactors produce about 18% Pu-240.

This is why the DOD quickly discovered (and every other nuclear nation) that trying to get weapons grade material out of a commercial power reactor just doesn't work.

A nuclear pile can be constructed simply, and at low cost. There is no complex pressure vessel or containment. The pile can be loaded by hand and optimized (via graphite moderation) to produce higher yields of Pu-239 and lower yields of Pu-240. As a result nobody has every produced a nuclear weapon from material obtained in a commercial nuclear reactor.



Here is the nuclear pile at Hanford-B which produced most of weapons grade plutonium. A single "reactor" unpressurized, manually loaded which was constructed in 2 MONTHS produced enough plutonium using 1960s technology to build thousands of nuclear weapons.

The belief that you can prevent another country from building a nuclear weapon by restricting power reactors is just stupid. We build a bomb in 2 years without any nuclear reactors and nobody was even sure it could be done. That was using 1950s technology. Do you honestly think we can keep the rest of the world from figuring out a 60 year old "secret" forever? If a country wants it they will build a nuclear weapon. We helped France, UK & Israel. Still Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan, and India (and likely soon Iran) are proof you can't keep the nuclear genie in the bottle. It isn't that hard to make a bomb. I know that scares people but it really isn't. Is it your belief that scientists armed with limited 1950s knowledge are somehow superior to modern "ebil foreigner" scientists. If figured it out they can figure it out.

Now all of that involves uranium. Thorium makes it even harder (nearly impossible) to build a bomb with the spent fuel.

Uranium-232 is also formed in this process, via (n,2n) reactions between fast neutrons and 233U, 233Pa, and 232Th. Uranium-232 has a relatively short half-life (73.6 years), and some decay products emit high energy gamma radiation, such as 224Rn, 212Bi and particularly 208Tl. The full decay chain, along with half-lives and relevant gamma energies, is: The hard gamma emissions damage electronics, and make the use of Thorium-cycle fuels difficult in military bomb triggers. 232U cannot be chemically separated from 233U from used nuclear fuel; however, chemical separation of thorium from uranium will remove the decay product 228Th and the radiation from the rest of the decay chain, which will gradually build up again as 228Th re-accumulates. The hard gamma emissions also create a radiological hazard which requires remote handling during reprocessing. Of course, a sufficiently well-funded, determined organization could overcome these obstacles, but Plutonium production is a less-risky development path for nuclear weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle

The U-232 in spent Th fuel makes building a stable bomb (one that won't go prompt critical and detonate in your silo) next to impossible. Nobody would even try. Nobody tried to make bombs from Uranium reactors because a plutonium pile is so much easier.

[bananas]

26. Reactor-Grade Plutonium Can be Used to Make Powerful and Reliable Nuclear Weapons

The issue was settled long ago.
Here's something Richard Garwin wrote twelve years ago.
Note that he mentions John Holdren, who is currently Obama's science advisor.
It may fly in the face of all you "know" but it doesn't fly in the face of physics.

http://www.fas.org/rlg/980826-pu.htm

August 26, 1998

Reactor-Grade Plutonium Can be Used to Make Powerful and
Reliable Nuclear Weapons: Separated plutonium in the fuel
cycle must be protected as if it were nuclear weapons.

<snip>

These facts are interpreted by various bodies as follows:

Mark 1993:
"The difficulties of developing an effective design of the
most straightforward type are not appreciably greater with
reactor-grade plutonium than those that have to be met for
the use of weapons-grade plutonium."

CISAC(3) 1994:
"In short, it would be quite possible for a potential
proliferator to make a nuclear explosive from reactor-grade
plutonium using a simple design that would be assured of
having a yield in the range of one to a few kilotons, and
more using an advanced design. Theft of separated plutonium
whether weapons-grade or reactor-grade, would pose a grave
security risk."

American Nuclear Society Special Panel Report(4) 1995:
"We are aware that a number of well-qualified scientists in
countries that have not developed nuclear weapons question
the weapons-usability of reactor-grade plutonium. While
recognizing that explosives have been produced from this
material, many believe that this is a feat that can be
accomplished only by an advanced nuclear- weapon state such
as the United States. This is not the case. Any nation or
group capable of making a nuclear explosive from weapons-
grade plutonium must be considered capable of making one
from reactor- grade plutonium."

U.S. Department of Energy(5) 1997:
"Proliferating states using designs of intermediate
sophistication could produce weapons with assured yields
substantially higher than the kiloton-range made possible
with a simple, first- generation nuclear device." and

"The disadvantage of reactor-grade plutonium is not so much
in the effectiveness of the nuclear weapons that can be made
from it as in the increased complexity in designing,
fabricating, and handling them. The possibility that either
a state or a sub-national group would choose to use
reactor-grade plutonium, should sufficient stocks of
weapon-grade plutonium not be readily available, cannot be
discounted. In short, reactor-grade plutonium is
weapons-usable, whether by unsophisticated proliferators or
by advanced nuclear weapon states. Theft of separated
plutonium, whether weapons-grade or reactor-grade, would
pose a grave security risk."

As an author of the 1994 CISAC report, I helped formulate
the statement that I quote above. What should the reader
believe? Individuals are often skeptical of official
statements, and it is often said "Those who know, don't
speak; and those who speak, don't know." But that is not
the case with the members of CISAC, all of whom endorsed
this statement; they both know and speak. It is
particularly to be noted that among the Committee are the
following physicists who are knowledgeable about nuclear
weapons and who reviewed a secret study done for CISAC by
the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory-- the United States' two
nuclear weapon design laboratories. Besides myself, these
include John P. Holdren, Michael M. May, and W.K.H.
Panofsky. May is a former director of the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory.

<snip>

[Statistical]

27. You miss the point.

Sure you COULD build a bomb out of the spent fuel from a power reactor. After decades of getting aproval for a reactor, then building it, then waiting for fuel cycle to complete, then spending even more wasted time and money on chemical processing & isotope separation. After all that and billions of dollars you might have a couple kg of weapon grade plutonium.

You COULD do that or you could build a 1950s "plutonium pile" and produce 10x as much weapons grade plutonium with less cost, in less time, and without the need and expense of a nuclear reactor.

No country has build a bomb from spent reactor fuel. It isn't because you can't. It is because it would be stupid to even try. It is a magnitude simpler to just do what the United States (and Russia, and China, and India, and Pakistan, and North Korea, and UK, and France and Israel) did.

Build a primitive low-tech plutonium pile that operates like a plutonium factoring efficiently and continually converting as much uranium you load into it into plutonium.

[kristopher]

29. "Nuclear Power Without Nuclear Proliferation?"

The global nuclear order is changing. Concerns about climate change, the volatility of oil prices, and the security of energy supplies have contributed to a widespread and still-growing interest in the future use of nuclear power. Thirty states operate one or more nuclear power plants today, and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), some 50 others have requested technical assistance from the agency to explore the possibility of developing their own nuclear energy programs. It is certainly not possible to predict precisely how fast and how extensively the expansion of nuclear power will occur. But it does seem probable that in the future there will be more nuclear technology spread across more states than ever before. It will be a different world than the one that has existed in the past.

This surge of interest in nuclear energy — labeled by some proponents as "the renaissance in nuclear power" — is, moreover, occurring simultaneously with mounting concern about the health of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, the regulatory framework that constrains and governs the world's civil and military-related nuclear affairs. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and related institutions have been taxed by new worries, such as the growth in global terrorism, and have been painfully tested by protracted crises involving nuclear weapons proliferation in North Korea and potentially in Iran. (Indeed, some observers suspect that growing interest in nuclear power in some countries, especially in the Middle East, is not unrelated to Iran's uranium enrichment program and Tehran's movement closer to a nuclear weapons capability.) Confidence in the NPT regime seems to be eroding even as interest in nuclear power is expanding.

This realization raises crucial questions for the future of global security. Will the growth of nuclear power lead to increased risks of nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear terrorism? Will the nonproliferation regime be adequate to ensure safety and security in a world more widely and heavily invested in nuclear power? The authors in this two-volume (Fall 2009 and Winter 2010) special issue of Dædalus have one simple and clear answer to these questions: It depends.

On what will it depend? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is not so simple and clear, for the technical, economic, and political factors that will determine whether future generations will have more nuclear power without more nuclear proliferation are both exceedingly complex and interrelated. How rapidly and in which countries will new nuclear power plants be built? Will the future expansion of nuclear energy take place primarily in existing nuclear power states or will there be many new entrants to the field? Which countries will possess the facilities for enriching uranium or reprocessing plutonium, technical capabilities that could be used to produce either nuclear fuel for reactors or the materials for nuclear bombs? How can physical protection of nuclear materials from terrorist organizations best be ensured? How can new entrants into nuclear power generation best maintain safety to prevent accidents? The answers to these questions will be critical determinants of the technological dimension of our nuclear future....

"Nuclear Power Without Nuclear Proliferation?"
Introduction to Volume 1 of the On the Global Nuclear Future Special Issue
Journal Article, Daedalus, volume 138, issue 4, pages 7-18

Fall 2009

Authors: Steven E. Miller, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, Scott Sagan, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1981-1982

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/19850/nuclear_power_without_nuclear_proliferation.html

Full paper available for download by clicking "read more" at the above link.

All researchers at Harvard participate in "open access" publishing of their work.

[bananas]

30. No, you miss the point.

All aspacts of the fuel cycle have to be carefully monitored, because all aspects of the fuel cycle have serious proliferation risks. That will be true even with so-called "proliferation-resistant" technologies.

Sure you COULD build a bomb out of the spent fuel from a power reactor. After decades of getting aproval for a reactor, then building it, then waiting for fuel cycle to complete, then spending even more wasted time and money on chemical processing & isotope separation. After all that and billions of dollars you might have a couple kg of weapon grade plutonium.

But that's exactly what the nuclear cheerleaders want to do - build thousands of reactors and reprocessing plants across the world.

No country has build a bomb from spent reactor fuel ... It is because it would be stupid to even try.

That's not correct. The US built a bomb from spent reactor fuel and concluded it wouldn't be stupid to try, it's a serious proliferation risk. Under "nukes for mangoes", only half of India's reactors will be under IAEA safeguards, the other half will be used for making nuclear weapons:

"Expert projections made in December 2006 envisage an increase in India's nuclear arsenal by 40 to 50 weapons a year as a result of the deal."

[bananas]

31. National Academy of Sciences: any combination of isotopes can be used to make a weapon

"Virtually any combination of plutonium isotopes ... can be used to make a nuclear weapon."
"In short, it would be quite possible for a potential proliferator to make a nuclear explosive from reactor-grade plutonium using a simple device that would be assured of having a yield in the range of one to a few kilotons, and more using an advanced design. Theft of separated plutonium whether weapons-grade or reactor-grade would pose a grave security risk."
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=2345&page=32

[Tesha]

34. You'll notice in that article a key fact that Statistical routinely avoids:

Spent fuel from a power reactor *IS PERFECTLY SUITABLE* as the feedstock
for weapons-grade plutonium production as long as the burn period is
short. What you get out of the power reactor in such situations is just as
useful as what you get out of a purpose-built plutonium production
reactor.

Sure, you're wasting some fuel value, but if the point is to divert the waste
into weapons production, that's a reasonable tradeoff.

Nuclear power plants *ARE* a proliferation hazard, and no amount of fancy
statistical dancing can deny that.

Tesha

[Confusious]

And what most of you like to do is change the topic

I've been in on a lot of these discussions, and nowhere has statistical or any one else for nuclear power talked about giving power plants to non-nuclear countries.

The only people who bring it up are those against nuclear power because we've countered every one of their other arguments.

If you took a poll, 100% for nuclear power would be against it (giving power plants to non-nuclear states).

We're talking about nuclear power for the United States, not anywhere else.

As much as you'd like to believe otherwise.

[bananas]

42. You are confused

I've been in a lot of these discussions, and many aspects of nuclear energy are discussed.
This particular thread is about "How long will the world's uranium supplies last?"
Go back and read the OP.
The thread is not just about the United States.
As much as you'd like to believe otherwise.

[Statistical]

45. Worlds uranium doesn't mean every country has reactors.

One of the largest supplies of Uranium in the world is in Australia.

Australia has no nuclear reactors but does have a large uranium mining and export industry.

[bananas]

47. We're not discussing just the United States

To answer the question in the OP "How long will the world's uranium supplies last?" you have to consider global uranium consumption as well as global uranium supply.

[Statistical]

67. How long will the world's uranium supply last doesn't mean you need to build reactors ...

in non nuclear countries.

The United States going from 104 to 154 reactors doesn't increase proliferation risk.
Finland going from 4 to 6 reactors doesn't increase proliferation risk.

If Finland wanted nuclear weapons they could have built them decades ago.
If Finland wanted to supply terrorists with nuclear material they could have done so decades ago.

[kristopher]

70. Typcial narrowing of perspective by nuclear industry

I know it is irrelevant to you and your end goals, but the rest of us are trying to solve a problem - climate change.

The US is a leader in the world and that means that the solution we pursue is going to be construed at appropriate for use around the world. Any rational person recognizes that a push for deployment of nuclear power within the US equates to far wider adoption of nuclear power worldwide.

[Confusious]

52. For your enlightenment

The post before mine:

Spent fuel from a power reactor *IS PERFECTLY SUITABLE* as the feedstock
for weapons-grade plutonium production as long as the burn period is
short. What you get out of the power reactor in such situations is just as
useful as what you get out of a purpose-built plutonium production
reactor.

Sure, you're wasting some fuel value, but if the point is to divert the waste
into weapons production, that's a reasonable tradeoff.

Nuclear power plants *ARE* a proliferation hazard, and no amount of fancy
statistical dancing can deny that.

I don't see how this post pertains to the OP. Unless you just want to make a cheap point against me, and give someone who agrees with you a pass.

As you might well know, things in discussion usually take different turns then the OP, such as discussing the number of nuclear weapons the United States had during the end of World war 2, which has nothing to do with worldwide uranium supplies.

[bananas]

65. For your enlightenment

You wrote,

I don't see how this post pertains to the OP.

Try to keep up.
The OP asked, "How long will the world's uranium supplies last?"
This subthread started with the claim:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7839893&mesg_id=7840249

There are such things as "Breeder Reactors" They can make fuel for other reactors.

This subthread is about the efficacy of breeder reactors and other misguided attempts at prolonging the nuclear fuel supply.

[bananas]

49. Another thing you're wrong about

there are many for nuclear power who are also for giving nuclear power plants to non-nuclear states.

[Confusious]

51. And those people on this board would be?

Or is this a "some say" condition?

and seeing as the United States is a signer of the Nuclear Non-proliferation agreement, I would like to see how that would work.

It wasn't the United States who's been giving away nuclear info to non-nuclear countries. Might try looking somewhere else.

I personally don't like it and am against it.

[kristopher]

59. a list of countries with and currently seeking nuclear power

&w=377&h=288

[Confusious]

60. I asked for a list of people on this board who support

Giving nuclear power to non-nuclear states, not a list of countries with nuclear weapons and those aspiring to have them.

Again, who on this board who supports nuclear power has said they want to give non-nuclear countries nuclear power?

[bananas]

61. That's considered a "call-out" and is a violation of DU rules.

It is shameful that you would ask other DUers to violate the rules of civility.

[kristopher]

71. You want to give nuclear power to non-nuclear countries.

Climate change is a global issue and you can't have it both ways - if you support nuclear power as the solution to climate change then you support giving nuclear power to non-nuclear nations.

An alternative that I admit is much more likely is that you actually don't give a shit about climate change and it is just a meaningless term you mouth to try and justify nuclear power. In which case, no you haven't advocated for giving nuclear power to non-nuclear nations.

[bananas]

63. You are seriously misinformed

First, it's considered a violation of DU rules of civility to talk about other DUers behind their back, it's considered a "call-out", so naming those people would be a violation of the DU rules of civility. It is shameful of you to ask other DUers to violate the rules of civility.

Second, you wrote:

and seeing as the United States is a signer of the Nuclear Non-proliferation agreement, I would like to see how that would work.

It wasn't the United States who's been giving away nuclear info to non-nuclear countries.

You seem to be unaware that the "Atoms for Peace" program was created by the United States:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoms_for_peace

The United States then launched an "Atoms for Peace" program that supplied equipment and information to schools, hospitals, and research institutions within the U.S. and throughout the world. The first nuclear reactors in Iran and Pakistan were built under the program by American Machine and Foundry.

[bananas]

64. Direct contradiction of your claim

You wrote:

nowhere has statistical or any one else for nuclear power talked about giving power plants to non-nuclear countries.

Here is a direct contradiction of your claim:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6527356

Statistical Fri Sep-11-09 05:08 PM

IAEA hikes nuclear power projections for 2030 (40% more reactors in next 2 decades).

<snip>

We are a global leader in reactor design, construction, and operation. We should be able to take a substantial portion of the world market.

<snip>

[Statistical]

68. How is that a contridiction?

We could build hundreds more reactors in existing nuclear countries.
That would generate trillions of kWh on emission free power.
The US could take the lions share of the world market.

We could limit nuclear expansion to existing nuclear states.

Alternatively IEAE has called for closed fuel-cycle in countries without enrichment capabilities. Countries could be given reactor technology in exchange for not building enrichment facilities and agreeing to nuclear oversight. Those countries would receive new fuel in exchange for their spent fuel at a contracted price.

[kristopher]

72. Because that worked so well in Korea and Iran...

[bananas]

75. Well...

The IAEA article you quoted included expansion to countries which don't have nuclear energy.
Under the current IAEA and NPT treaties, you can't limit nuclear expansion to existing nuclear states.
There are many countries which don't have nuclear energy but have already signed on to the NPT and IAEA.
The IAEA and NPT are there specifically to help spread nuclear energy technology:
NPT: "the right to peacefully use nuclear technology" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty
IAEA: "seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAEA

You can't restrict countries which have nuclear energy from spreading that technology to other IAEA and NPT members.
UAE just bought 4 reactors from S.Korea based on US technology.
Westinghouse Nuclear was bought by Toshiba, the AP1000 is now a Japanese reactor, they are marketing it to countries which don't have nuclear energy.
Iran doesn't have nuclear energy yet, they have some partially built reactors that were sold to them by the US back when the Shah was in power. After he was kicked out, the US changed its mind, Iraq bombed their reactors, and they say they are going to provide the nuclear technologies they've learned to other countries. Under current IAEA and NPT agreements, they can do that.
Even France based its reactors on US designs, they market them to countries that don't have nuclear energy.

So we have an international marketplace where companies are bought and sold and treaties designed to spread nuclear energy to countries which don't have it. There are no proposals for changing that, and it would be politically impossible to do so. That's the reality of the situation, if you are advocating nuclear energy for countries which have nuclear energy, then you are implicitly advocating nuclear energy for countries which don't have it.

[hunter]

57. Tesha! I haven't seen you for awhile.

I'm going to agree with you somewhat. The Soviet Union probably built reactors like Chernobyl because they could be easily configured for plutonium production.

Doing the same with a light water reactor would be an expensive pain in the ass. Customers buying your electricity or citizens in your authoritarian-communist-fascist paradise get cranky when the nuclear power plant is offline for fuel shuffling.

[Tesha]

74. The simple answer is to design your powerplant with more than one unit.

If you're playing it cheap, some equipment might even be shared,
especially if you designed units with two reactor cores but one of
everything else. That design might arouse suspicion, of course,
whereas three or four complete, free-standing but co-located units
probably wouldn't (unless they're RBMKs, of course ;).)

And you can always find me over in DU's "Cooking and Baking"
forum!

Tesha

[hunter]

28. We also had a dozen more bombs in the pipeline to use against Japan...

Once the U.S. figured out how to make plutonium bombs we started producing and stockpiling them in a big way.

It's a myth that the U.S. would have ever invaded Japanese mainland using conventional forces. We would have nuked them into radioactive rubble. Truman said this explicitly and he wasn't bluffing.

Of course this scared the shit out of Stalin so the Soviet Union started building their own plutonium production plants, which are exactly as you describe -- big stacks of graphite bricks with a bunch of holes drilled in them for tubes containing uranium slugs and cooling water. Thus began the Cold War.

The plutonium reactors built during World War II at Hanford were run for many years after the war until we had more than enough plutonium to obliterate human civilization.

Nations like Iran could easily build similar reactors but they don't because such reactors are glaringly obvious military targets and impossible to hide.

[Confusious]

40. We only had two bombs, no more

It would have taken a year or more to make another. Truman bluffed, and the Japanese surrendered.

Where did you get your history from?

[bananas]

43. Wrong, they were in the pipeline, 3 a month

We dropped the first two on August 6 and August 9,
there was another ready to be dropped on August 19: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/72.pdf
and we were ready to produce 3 a month for September and October:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

After six months of intense strategic fire-bombing of 67 Japanese cities the Japanese government ignored an ultimatum given by the Potsdam Declaration. By executive order of President Harry S. Truman the U.S. dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945,<1> <2> followed by the detonation of "Fat Man" over Nagasaki on August 9. These are the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.<3>

<snip>

Plans for more atomic attacks on Japan

The U.S. expected to have another atomic bomb ready for use in the third week of August, with three more in September and a further three in October.<77> On August 10, Major General Leslie Groves, military director of the Manhattan Project, sent a memorandum to General of the Army George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, in which he wrote that "the next bomb . . should be ready for delivery on the first suitable weather after 17 or August 18." On the same day, Marshall endorsed the memo with the comment, "It is not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President."<77> There was already discussion in the War Department about conserving the bombs in production until Operation Downfall, the projected invasion of Japan, had begun. "The problem now is whether or not, assuming the Japanese do not capitulate, to continue dropping them every time one is made and shipped out there or whether to hold them . . . and then pour them all on in a reasonably short time. Not all in one day, but over a short period. And that also takes into consideration the target that we are after. In other words, should we not concentrate on targets that will be of the greatest assistance to an invasion rather than industry, morale, psychology, and the like? Nearer the tactical use rather than other use."<77>

[Statistical]

44. Well you are both wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Plans_for_more_atomic_attacks_on_Japan

By this time US Hanford "reactor" B (which as I discussed above was a primitive nuclear pile) was up and running and generating enough plutonium to make a bomb every 10 days.

US would have enough material for another bomb in 2 weeks (3rd week in August).
Then enough material for 3 more bombs in next month (Sept)
Then enough material for 3 more bombs in next month (Oct)

The US was already selecting potential targets to hit as these bombs came online.

[hunter]

54. I was looking for the reference, but those numbers look right.

Japan was a smoldering mess with insufficient food and oil to fight a war. Our plan was to let them starve a few weeks or months and then hit them with multiple atomic weapons, maybe a dozen by December if they did not surrender. We knew by then we were the biggest baddest meanest asses on the planet.

In two years, from 4/47 to 4/49 the U.S. built 120 Mark III "Fat Man" bombs. That's 60 bombs a year from the plutonium factory at Hanford. In 1950 these were recycled into the safer, easier to deploy Mark IV bombs. When the war was over and we were catching our breath we realized It would really really suck if an atomic bomb went off by accident. The super simple enriched uranium bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was an even scarier thing than the Mark III. Any random spark or concussion could have lit that off.

Once the US started producing plutonium at Hanford we didn't stop for over twenty years. By the late sixties we'd stockpiled more than enough plutonium to destroy civilization.

[Statistical]

66. Agreed. I was only indicating we didn't have a dozen on hand (we had ability to make a dozen)

Before Japan surrender we only had "reactor B" (unpressurized nuclear pile) up and running. The output was enough plutonium for about 3 bombs a month. Later that output would increase by almost 1000% due to improved yields in producing and separating plutonium.

Prior to Japan's surrender there was some debate on building a second pile to double output and hold all the nukes for one massive barrange. However it would have taken about 2 months to build so we didn't built more plutonium piles until the Cold War & nuclear arms race started heating up.

The point the anti-nukkers never get is not that you CAN'T build nuclear weapons from a commercial power reactor it is that you don't need to. A commercial nuclear reactor is very complicated, very expensive and takes years to build. It also isn't optimized to produce plutonium. On the other hand a nuclear pile is far simpler can be built in months and will output more plutonium.

Anyone with enough technical skill to operate a nuclear reactor even a research reactor could build a primitive graphite pile. I mean it is 1950s era technology. It has no moving parts (other than a low tech pump to dump water over it to remove heat) and is manually loaded and unloaded. Any country that wants nuclear weapons will eventually acquire them. They simply are not that complex. Shutting down every commercial power reactor in the world will not change that.

[hunter]

48. One can figure it out by doing the math.

The B Reactor at Hanford had its first nuclear chain reaction in September, 1944, the D Reactor in December, 1944 and the F Reactor in February, 1945

We built big, and we'd built as if we'd be fighting an atomic war with Germany.

Truman was assured of a dozen atomic bombs by December. The production line was running. We wouldn't have invaded Japan with conventional forces. We would have backed off a bit as Japan starved and then flattened what was left of them with atomic bombs.

The Hanford B, D, and F reactors were not a boutique production line designed to produce just a few bombs. These were major industrial production facilities that were not shut down until the later 'sixties.

The Cold War was lit off at Hanford. That's where the plutonium for U.S. weapons came from. By 1953 we had more than 500 atomic bombs.

[ThomWV]

16. Nope ...

I will pose this to you and let you make of it what you will.

There is a silly little child's puzzle that we've all heard: Presume you are put in a room that is 100 feet long and you wish to get to the other end. Once every minute you walk half the distance to the far wall. So in the first minute you go 50 feet to the middle. Then in the second minute you walk 25 feet toward the far wall, and in the next minute 12.5 feet and so on. How long will it take you to get to the wall. Sometime around the age of 7 most people realize you never get to the far wall.

Radio active elements are sort of exactly opposite of that. With them it takes you 10 minutes to get to the far wall. After any radio active element has passed through 10 half lifes it essentially ceases to exist in its former identiy. Uranium becomes lead, and after 10 half lifes there is so much lead and so little uranium left that its basically undetectable.

Every bit of uranium on earth is way beyond 10 half lifes old - but there is still plenty of it detectable. So the question really isn't how long will what we have last, the real question is why is there any left at all.

[wuushew]

33. look up the half lives

U-238 is 4.468×10^9 years
U-235 is 7.038×10^8 years

These are not insignificant periods of time relative to the total age of the Earth

[Johonny]

36. You must be using new math

U 235 half life 704 million years. Earths Age 4.54 Billion years. So we talking around 6 half lives.
Or

X = 100 % * (1/2)^(4540/704) = ~1.1 %

1.1 % remain doesn't equal 0.

[wuushew]

32. you can also use heavy water reactors

as per the Canadians.

[DefenseLawyer]

35. Chernobyl

End of discussion.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

37. Not for informed people.

[DefenseLawyer]

62. What about dead people? Where do they line up?

I generally find the dead people rarely take a position, while the informed people are often right wing tools.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

69. Usually right in front of the lawyers.

[Codeine]

46. For dummies, sure it is. nt

[Sugarcoated]

38. Cancer rates are higher in people who live near nuclear power plants

particularly in children.

For me, that's a deal breaker.

[Confusious]

39. No they are not

If you have a link, provide. I have several scientific studies saying otherwise.

[Sugarcoated]

41. I believe they are

Of course there are some studies saying it's not the case, but most, here and in Europe, indicate a clear cancer connection. Radiation levels are higher in fillings tested from people who live around the Limerick plant here in PA.

I did a search, which anyone can do and find this out, but here's a few:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13825

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7121789

http://standardspeaker.com/news/study-nuclear-plant-radiation-may-be-to-blame-for-cancer-spike-1.563288

[Confusious]

50. Links, no real studies

One from the state of Illinois saying no link, which has 2 PHD's signing on it.

http://www.idph.state.il.us/cancer/pdf/nuclear%20study%20final%20report%20ERS06_1.pdf

If you had read the articles also, it says that the radiation from the plants (if any) is far below the background radiation.

So how do people get radiation far below background radiation?

"Another source of radiation in nature is radon, a gas given off from naturally occurring uranium decaying underground, said Scopelliti."

[Sugarcoated]

53. The articles draw their conclusions from studies

My search brought up page after page of articles, mostly concluding there's a connection. My neighbor has a dental practice just outside of Limerick, in Pottstown, and he's given fillings over for study . . . I can't remember the details, I'll call him tomorrow with more information and post it. He said the fillings had higher radiation levels than what's considered normal.

There's enough evidence out there to convince me.

[Confusious]

55. I don't believe everything I read

And there are more then enough people out there who, along the same lines, blame autism on vaccines. They don't understand science, so it scares them. They go and blame the easiest thing to see on the horizon on their problems.

A post a few weeks ago comes to mind, where people were complaining about all sorts of health issues, and wanted the radio tower shut down, because that was the source of their problems.

The owners said they couldn't be shut down. Why?

Because it had never been turned on.

So I need hard studies either published by a state or University or in a peer reviewed mag to believe it, and the scientist better have a good reputation, otherwise, I don't believe it.

The study you posted was not by a scientist, but someone with an MPH and MBA. Sorry, but I just don't believe it.

P.S. Another example. Found an article with a scientist named sternglass:

In total, Dr. Sternglass estimates that 19 million adults have died prematurely and that an additional million children have died as a result of radiation in the air from nuclear bomb tests, nuclear plant accidents and radiation released into the atmosphere from power plants.

Wikipedia says about him:

Some people have found Sternglass' radiation research to be "groundbreaking".<6> However, his research has also been frequently criticized by local, state and federal environmental and health agencies, when the results of his research on the health effects of low level radiation
could not be verified by peer review.<7> Sternglass has been accused of using faulty methodology, including selection bias, in his research.<1>

While I don't dispute people have died because of nuclear weapon tests, I dispute his methodology and therefore his number.

P.S.S More on the radon which I missed:

Radon gas occurring naturally in the soil is a problem for many parts of Eastern Pennsylvania. It is a known radioactive health hazard. Scopelliti, who lives one mile from his power plant, has installed a passive radon vent in his basement. “If there is a regional pattern that might be caused by radioactivity, I would first look to radon,” he said.

[Sugarcoated]

58. That's fine

agree to disagree. The studies in those articles I linked to are good enough for me. I read up on this a few months ago, but now I feel the urge to study this in more depth.

[upi402]

56. no "Nuke-Away!" that's my problem n/t