Over at Potential Energy, Gia Milinovich has taken a look at the numbers, and wonders why nuclear energy is considered to be a "risky" source of electricity:
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Technology, Electricity, Environment
The World Nuclear Association has gathered together some information on energy related deaths since 1979 which makes for some extremely interesting reading. In China in 2004, 6,027 people were killed in coal mining accidents (China averages over 5,000 deaths per year from coal mining). Though the Australian coal mining industry is considered the safest in the world, there have been 112 deaths in new South Wales mines alone since 1979. In 1979 and 1980, 3,500 deaths were caused by the failure of hydro-electric dams in India.I have my own ideas, but I'm interested in hearing what other folks in the industry have to say. Stop by Potential Energy and leave your two cents.
Despite all of these facts, nuclear power is still deemed ‘too risky’. If the risks don’t come from ‘accidents’, where do they come from?
I understand the risks posed by radiation and have come to the conclusion that I’d be happy to have a nuclear waste storage facility in my back garden… Can anyone tell me why most people think nuclear power is dangerous?
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Technology, Electricity, Environment
Comments
Neither you nor James Lovelock can have a nuclear waste storage facility in your backyard without first allowing your neighbors the opportunity to hold hearings.
Besides you wrongly assume that there have never been any environmental, health and safety impacts from uranium mining globally.
Living to for a few years in Moundsville WV and marrying into a family of coal miners allowed me to get a better idea of the human impact of avoiding adequate use of uranium.
I will never forget how the psuedo-environmentalists cheered the deaths of thousands when Zimmer was converted from nuclear to coal.
Then, of course, there is Donara, Buffalo Creek and Willow Island just in the US. Not to mention the daily killing of hundreds by coal pollution. Being an anti-nuke is the easiest way to be a mass murderer.
Have you got the numbers on uranium mining? Let's compare them, shall we? And shall we compare the amount of uranium it takes to produce a megawatt of electricity, versus the amount of coal?
And then let's compare the greenhouse emissions from using coal versus the greenhouse emissions from using uranium... shall we keep going?
Because one has to look at more than just the safety consequences of bad mine engineering and health consequences like black lung, other health impacts have to be factored into the future for both fossil and nuclear.
So, for example, one has to factor the nuclear waste from uranium mill tailings which are left over from the extraction of the uranium oxide. These tailings contain about 85% of the radioactivity of the original ore, like radium-226 (half-life of about 1600 yrs), and thorium-230 (half-life of about 80,000 yrs). While the tailings are lower in radioactivity in comparison to other categories of radioactive waste from the back end of the nuclear fuel chain, these tailings, basically left on the surface, are still radioactive at a thousands times more than natural background and are extremely long-lived. I think to the best estimate is that there are about 230 million metric tons of uranium mill tailings accumulated from U.S. uranium production.
These exposed mill tailings pose a health threat to communities nearby that will last for hundreds of thousands of years through inhalation and ingestion radiation doses.
Actually nuclear power supporters assume an incredible amount... like some day, some where, some body, some way will come up with a scientificially accepted long term management program for nuclear waste. We are now more than a half-century into this technology and you still have to assume that a acceptable management strategy is forthcoming. That should have been taken care of before you started commercial operation.
Dr. Bernard Cohen has explained this quite clearly.
Furthermore, what is hard to explain in a sound bite but you yourself are well aware - the longer the half-life of a radioactive isotope, the 'less' radioactive it is. That is to say, the longer the element 'hangs around' the less hazard it presents for a given time of exposure.
So, for those who want to capitalize on the fear of radioactive health risks, it's either "highly radioactive" *OR* it 'lasts for millions of years.' Both can sound scary, but it's really a fear-mongering attempt to have your cake and eat it, too.
Why? Why would they "eventually reach the surface"? The ore has been buried for millions of years, quietly decaying peacefully under the mountains. Can't you see the difference between hauling millions of tons of ore to the surface and then strewing the tailings all over the landscape, and the incredibly slow leaching process that occurs naturally?
"the longer the half-life of a radioactive isotope, the 'less' radioactive it is."
In the context of dealing with waste, this is a bit of a red herring, isn't it? Uranium 235 (with a half-life of hundreds of millions of years) is less radioactive than Carbon 14 (half-life of 5,700 years) - Gee, no wonder people are so worried about their carbon footprint!
As to the comparisons being tossed about here between coal and nukes...coal is really bad. We need to get away from it as fast as possible. But as for nukes, I'll be in favor as soon as it has nominal limits on potential taxpayer subsidies for disaster mitigation, and, in effect, is commercially insurable for the rest, instead of the other way around. See:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.html
Plus: What Jim said. Big difference between radioactive materials reaching the surface naturally, even through volcanic activity, as compared to deliberately mining and concentrating them.