Skip to main content

USEC Response on Caldicott's CFC Distortions

If Helen Caldicott keeps distorting data about USEC's operations, we're going to keep responding. The latest example comes from nuclear energy veteran Wally Taylor, who recently wrote a letter to NEI Vice President Scott Peterson:
Mr. Peterson,

A recent letter to the editor at the Bloomington Pantagraph in Bloomington IL alleged that the Fuel Enrichment facilities produced 93% of the CFC emissions for the USA. I thought that number was a little high, given that, to my uncertain knowledge, the only operating enrichment facility in the USA, the USEC plant at Paducah, doesn't use CFCs as a process consumable. I believe that they only use CFC as a coolant medium and that any emissions they have come from leakage, not planned emissions.

I did some web based research and the earliest reference I can find comes from a debate that you had with Dr. Helen Caldecott, moderated by Juan Gonzalez. Dr. Caldecott stated that she got this number from the DOE.

So, I don't believe it. But I haven't been able to trace it's provenance. Did you or NEI follow up on that claim and can you share your information with me?

Thank you,

Wally Taylor
35 years in the Nuclear Industry and proud of it!
Elizabeth Stuckle of USEC wrote us a note in response:
Caldicott Assertion A: Uranium enrichment uses 93 percent of the CFC gas released annually in the United States.

USEC Response A

That calculation is based on 2001 data, when USEC was operating two enrichment facilities. That year, USEC consolidated production at its Paducah plant.

The shutdown of the Portsmouth, OH plant and improvements made in control of CFCs at Paducah have enabled USEC to reduce CFC emissions by about two-thirds.

The Paducah gaseous diffusion plant was built in the 1950s. USEC plans to replace it with highly efficient gas centrifuge technology, which will use no CFCs. The American Centrifuge Plant is expected to begin operations later this decade.

Caldicott Assertion B: Uranium enrichment uses electricity generated by coal-fired plants.

USEC Response B

USEC purchases the majority of its electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which produces electricity using a supply mix of 61% coal, 29% nuclear and 9% hydropower.

The remainder of USEC's purchased power comes primarily from natural gas and nuclear plants.
Remember, if she keeps it up, so will we. For another blogger's take on Caldicott from her native Australia, click here.

Technorati tags:, , , , ,

Comments

david lewis said…
I listened to Caldicott on an "Earthbeat" podcast dated 11/3/2008. It was stated that Earthbeat had taped her "earlier this week" at a Washington DC restaurant and bookstore "Busboys and Poets".

I was a bit astonished to hear her imply that nuclear power causes the emission of CFCs, as if future nuclear installations must emit CFC. Here are some quotes from her presentation:

"scientific analysis shows those in the nuclear industry "lie at every single step". They are "unethical". They are"immoral". And: "it should be illegal for scientists to lie". "The nuclear industry has no right to lie"

Moving right along: "CFC gas is used at Paducah Kentucky to cool the hundreds of miles of pipes that take the UF6 which is very hot into the U enrichment plant. Many of those pipes are leaking, and the nuclear industry has been grandfathered out of the Montreal Protocol, so 93% of the CFC-114 gas which is ten to twenty thousand times more potent as a global warmer than CO2 is emitted from that facility in Paducah Kentucky which enriches uranium"...

So this is what she's saying as of November 3 2008.

Nuclear power is so bad, if we were to use it for a few more generations it would cause this:

"you can imagine, generations hence, people waking up in the morning, their babies have already been irradiated in utero, maybe been born deformed, or with genetic disease, the breast milk already radioactive, children getting cancer at the age of six instead of sixty, because they were exposed to radiation very early in life. And children are ten to twenty times more sensitive to radiation than adults"

"its evil because you don't kill people to turn on your lights".

"You need to always remember that nuclear power is the prodigal son of the weapons industry. It's splitting the atom, it's producing energy, available inside the Sun"

and obviously, no one wants that. But there is a new danger:

She even comments on the extra danger for us all now that someone mumbled "peak oil" at her somewhere: "how will our descendants transport huge vats of radioactive waste and radioactive fuel rods and the like WITHOUT ANY OIL to transport it? Imagine that."

Since global warming is assured to cause sea level rise, and I might add this seems certain if we listen to Caldicott, she warns us how global warming will aggravate nuclear problems:

"many reactors are built at sea level, the seas are rising, the control rooms will be drowned. We'll have meltdowns".

"the people who want to build more reactors are insane. They need mental health therapy"

I presume Caldicott doesn't call herself a scientist, as she did say that it should be illegal for scientists to lie.

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should