Sitting in Bill Richardson's office while he was Secretary of Energy under President Clinton was an opportunity that my colleagues and I from Standing for Truth About Radiation had worked hard to obtain. We wanted Richardson to not only close the research reactor at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, but also to shut down the Millstone plant in Waterford, Connecticut, which we asserted had been killing enormous amounts of fish with its water intake system for cooling. Local groups had been charging Millstone with destroying millions of pounds of local fish and with pumping superheated water back into the Long Island Sound, the temperatures of which had negatively impacted fish and shellfish habitat for decades.
Richardson, like any DOE Secretary before or after him, wasn't all that interested in closing Millstone. Everywhere we went, government officials like Richardson invoked the figure "20 percent." Twenty percent of domestic power in the US is derived from nuclear energy. The clean and safe source of power.
Often when discussing the advent of a new era in nuclear power generation, advocates for nukes, like Stewart Brand, who I referenced in my previous post, tread lightly over certain subjects, such as waste disposal and security issues. Other problems inherent in nuclear power generation, they simply ignore completely. One such issue is the impact of mining and processing radioactive materials into actual fuel. The mining and processing of material like uranium is one of the most carbon intensive processes used in creating energy. To mine, mill and refine uranium and to then submit the material to the enrichment, or gaseous diffusion, process takes vast amounts of energy. In sites around the US, massive coal burning plants pollute the air while providing the energy for uranium enrichment. Add to that the power needed to fabricate the enriched UF6 into fuel rods, and the resources needed to store the byproduct, reduced or depleted UF6. You begin to see that everything that leads up to a utility reactor going on line is anything but clean.
Another issue that nuke advocates sidestep is calculation of the true cost of bringing nuclear power plants on line. Just as oil, and thus gasoline, actually costs astronomically more than what we pay at the pump, due to the cost of US military interventions in the oil-rich areas of the world ( not to mention the costs in human lives, US and foreign), nuclear power has its own menu of hidden costs that are now, or one day will be, inherited by our children. Waste storage is the primary issue here. But the actual decommissioning and decontamination of reactors themselves will soon come to pass. Even with current licenses being foolishly extended and, thus, pushing the operational lives of these units years, even decades, beyond their original design, these units will eventually expire. The cost of closing them safely in current dollars is staggering. In the future, that will only get worse.
Scott Simon never asked Stewart Brand about Price Anderson. Even as utility operators put hundreds of millions into the Price Anderson fund respectively and billions collectively, one accident at, say, Indian Point, adjacent to New York City, would mean potentially many billions in costs. Who pays that? US taxpayers do, while Entergy, a private energy company, profits from the operation of the plant. Insuring these plants, over a hundred of them in the US, all aging, falls largely to US taxpayers. Another hidden cost. At least hidden in so far as most US citizens are concerned.
In the next piece that I post here, I will touch upon the issue of the health hazards posed by exposure to ambient radiation, which I believe is the least discussed and among the most insidious components of the nuclear powered utility legacy.
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While we often hear the phrase, "solves two problems at once", using double deduction for co2 is nothing but an accounting trick enabling temporary hyping of this product's "net gain". While it may be applicable to some short "transitio
Biochar likewise uses double accounting for both it's sequestere
How Waste Bio Fuels works:
All the good land is used all the time for food, clothing and wood.
We stop corn ethanol as well.
Everything we grow and harvest, eventually gets used up and thrown away. Got that?
When we throw it always, instead of dumping it someplace, we convert it into energy and fuel.
Got that?
Bio Char is one the easiest, cheapest, and best of the bio fuel systems.
For instance toxic sewage dried and Bio Charred eliminate all the toxic organic chemicals: drugs, hormones, pesticides
Got it?
For anyone serious about energy, see my profile.
Evidence??
if anybody else wants to know and can;t find it, just ask, and not the other pro nuke pr folks like charles.
http://www
Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerato
The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours or a compact fluorescen
http://nex
"The average yearly deaths from rooftop solar is 0.83/TWh. Those who want a lower bound estimate can double the life of the solar panels (0.44death
The real truth seems to be that raw material issues have not yet been analyzed sufficient
http://en.
"At the present time, the price of the raw materials cadmium and tellurium are a negligible proportion of the cost of CdTe solar cells and other CdTe devices. However, tellurium is an extremely rare element (1-5 parts per billion in the Earth's crust; see Abundances of the elements (data page)), and if CdTe were to be used in sufficient
http://www
the CdTe is sealed under glass, there is no work exposure.
No work exposure while installing perhaps. What about during their manufactur
If you had looked into it at all, you would have seen that some of these nanomateri
http://en.
"The toxicity is not solely due to the cadmium content. One study found that the highly reactive surface of cadmium telluride quantum dots triggers extensive reactive oxygen damage to the cell membrane, mitochondr
The truth is Solar PV hasn't been around long enough for anyone to know what the problems with decommissi
Complete lifecycle analysis has not yet been fully done for Solar PV, biochar, etc.
http://en.
"The disposal and long term safety of cadmium telluride is a known issue in the large scale commercial
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are nominating Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) for inclusion in the National Toxicology Program (NTP). This nomination is strongly supported by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and First Solar Inc. The material has the potential for widespread applicatio
http://sto
http://www
"Module decommissi
The need for further developmen
http://en.
"The disposal and long term safety of cadmium telluride is a known issue in the large scale commercial
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are nominating Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) for inclusion in the National Toxicology Program (NTP). This nomination is strongly supported by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and First Solar Inc. The material has the potential for widespread applicatio
http://www
On an annual basis, for a typical 1000 MW uranium powerplant
We found no evidence of a link between exposure to low-level ionising radiation before conception and increased risk of adverse reproducti
http://uvd
"documente
...The trend is as expected - as more turbines are built, the more accidents occur. Numbers of recorded accidents reflect this, with an average of 72.1 accidents found per year from 2002 to 2009"
http://en.
"To compare the historical safety record of civilian nuclear energy with the historical record of other forms of electrical generation
Nuclear will be needed as well.
http://car
Waste Bio CHar let's us use the land for wood, clothing wood.
After humans are done with it and throw it away,
that's when it is converted to energy and fuels.
The total output of the land can eventually be converted into energy and fuel,
without competing with food, clothing and wood.
Something you are clearly pretending not to understand
After food is thrown away, it goes into municipal waste which is polluted with other toxic materials, and the resulting biochar cannot be put back on the land. Zero co2 sequestrat
After lumber from a house is torn down, it goes to municipal waste, where it is already too polluted with lumber chemical treatments and other constructi
After the tires are used and thrown away, woops, can't put that biochar back on the land, either. What part of that don't you get, exactly?
So, no matter how many times you repeat, repeat, repeat the same line about "total output of the land", does not make it true unless you can supply some evidence to back it up. So far, you have not. Quite the contrary, the very same links you supplied show otherwise if you just read more than one sentence or quit cherry picking out only the parts you like.
more than just about any industry I have ever seen.
Perhaps it's because the truth about their product is so apocalypti
Maybe it's just the legacy of secrecy, lies and disregard for the safety of civilians from the Manhattan project.
Now they claim life cycle emissions are cleaner than pv solar.
sure, as along as you don't count
THE MILLION YEAR DEADLY WASTE!
Nukes, 25 cents not 3, proliferat
http://www
Stop wasting time, and resources on fossil and nukes, and commit big time to green energy.
Solar wind and biofuels can supply all the energy the world needs cleanly, safely, cheaper and forever.
sure, as along as you don't count THE MILLION YEAR DEADLY WASTE!"
That sounds like you are finally admitting there are less emissions of all types to the air, from nuclear, than from any other source.
Is that waste deadly like the Virginia coal mine accident this week, or the gas plant explosion a few weeks ago? Can't wait to see your evidence link for deaths this week directly attributab
thank god there wasn't nuclear waste stored there.
This is even more conclusive nuclear wins hands down in the lifecycle analysis, and covers all emissions, not just co2. Check it out and you will have to admit the nuclear lifecycle is the lowest.
http://www
http://nuc
““How about a newer technology reactor design that can recycle wastes?
http://ene
“Proposal for recycling the existing nuclear waste we have now, into 1000 Gigawatts per year of near zero co2 producing electricit
http://ene
http://www
More radiation/
http://www
More radiation/
Thank you!