Is Nuclear Power The Solution to Global Warming?

[Q]

Friday, September 24th, 2004
Is Nuclear Power The Solution to Global Warming?
Democracy Now

"...More than 1,100 people have been killed in Haiti and more than 1,200 people are missing. The death toll is expected to rise well above 2,000. It also killed two people in Puerto Rico and 11 in the Dominican Republic. In Florida, the hurricanes killed 85 people and caused billions of dollars in damage. As hurricane after hurricane devastates the Caribbean and US coastal states, many are raising questions about the role global warming has played. Now, the nuclear industry is promoting nuclear power as a solution to global warming.

Helen Caldicott, one of the worlds most respected anti-nuclear activists. She was a founder and headed both Physicians For Social Responsibility and Womens Action For Nuclear Disarmament. Now she is president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. She has written a number of books, including "Nuclear Madness-What You Can Do" and "Missile Envy"

Scott Peterson, spokesperson for the Washington DC based Nuclear Energy Institute. The Nuclear Energy Institute is the policy and lobbying organization of the nuclear energy and technologies industry.

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined by Helen Caldicott, one of the world's most respected anti-nuclear activists. She is a physician, founder of Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament, now president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. She's written many books. Among them, Missile Envy, Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do. Scott Peterson is on the phone with us. Is he spokesperson for the D.C.-based Nuclear Energy Institute. Of we go first to Scott Peterson. Why is nuclear power, do you think, the answer?

SCOTT PETERSON: Well it's not the answer. It's one of the answers that we're going to need to -- if we plan to meet the electricity demands that we're going to have in the near future, and that's a 40% increase in electricity demands over the next 20 years. It's also the largest clean air source of electricity that we have in the United States, producing electricity already for one of five homes and businesses. So, to meet the electricity demand that we know we're going to have over the next 20 years and to make sure that we have sources of electricity that are clean air sources, including renewables, hydropower, and nuclear, we have to maintain the nuclear energy supplies that we have today and we have to start on a fairly robust expansion program for nuclear energy, making sure that we build reactors that continue to be safe, and continue to provide affordable electricity for consumers, but also continue to provide clear air benefits that have led to really an improvement in our air quality over the past several years in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Helen Caldicott.

DR. HELEN CALDICOTT: Well, I have just discovered from the Department of Energy's data, that the enrichment of uranium produces 93% per year of the C.F.C. gas in this country, which is currently banned under the Montreal Protocol because it produces destruction of the ozone layer. In Australia, we've got an epidemic of skin cancer because the ozone is so thin. C.F.C. gas, which is the refrigerant gas banned, is up to 20 times more potent global warmer than carbon dioxide, which accounts for 15% of global warming. But also, to enrich uranium, they use 2 two 1,000 megawatt coal power plants to enrich the uranium itself for nuclear power. Massive quantities of carbon dioxide are produced in that very process but also in building the reactors, storing the radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years. The other thing is that nuclear power releases millions of Curies of unregulated radiation into the air every year of noble gases and of Tritium, which is very biologically dangerous and very carcinogenic. And it also creates massive quantities of radioactive waste, which lasts for up to half a million years, which inevitably will leak into the Ecosphere, bioconcentrate in each step of the food chain--the algae, the crustaceans, the little fish, the big fish. We can't taste the radiation, we can't smell it, we can't see it. Cancer takes years to evolve. If I sneeze on you, you're sneezing in two days because the incubation time for a cold is two days. But for cancer, when you've been exposed to radiation, its anytime from 5 to 60 years. Cancer doesn't wear a little flag saying what it was caused by years ago. What is predicted medically because of the nuclear wastes from nuclear power is epidemics of particularly childhood cancer, because they're very sensitive to radiation, leukemia, and genetic disease for the rest of time. And we're not the only species that have genes and get cancer. All other species do as well. So, a nuclear power is extraordinarily biologically dangerous. It produces filthy air with radioactive isotopes, carbon dioxide, and C.F.C. gas. The nuclear industry has been lying in its advertisements, being put out consistently on N.P.R. and P.B.S. and the like. You mustn't lie when you're talking about medical and environmental conditions. That's scientifically inappropriate and unethical to lie.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Scott Peterson, your response and also, given the fact that in the United States there hasn't been a new nuclear plant started to be built in decades, why would you expect the American public to suddenly want to change their perspective on the dangers of nuclear power?

SCOTT PETERSON: The American public's perspective on nuclear energy has actually been supportive for many years now, because they recognize the benefits that they get from nuclear energy, and they also recognize the safety of our plants, particularly over the last decade. 64% of the U.S. Public believes that we should build more nuclear plants, and we are now setting the stage in this country, working both with industry and government to begin building advanced reactors that have even better safety features. They're going to be more cost effective to build so the consumer electricity rates are going to be lower. They're also going to be built in a manner they're takes advantage of existing nuclear power plants so we're building them at the same sites, and actually, using less land, and taking advantage of the land and the transmission systems that we already have. So, we're taking a number of steps to make sure that we can meet consumer electricity demands as they continue to rise in the future. But meet them in a way that also protects the environment, and recognizes that we need to make changes in how we look at our air quality and how we combine the imperatives of having electricity and also protecting our environment. If you took the nuclear plants that we have today out of the electricity-

JUAN GONZALEZ: But if I can interrupt you for one second. What about the other part of my question, which is your response to Helen Caldicott's claims of the actual polluting nature of nuclear plants?

SCOTT PETERSON: I wouldn't know where to begin with some of the claims, because a lot of them are just not factually correct.

DR. HELEN CALDICOTT: But they are you see, because I have the data from the Department of Energy--They're correct.

--- http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/24/1359225

[clydefrand]

1. I expect the entire world to warm up decidely so from

nuclear power, but not in the sense we normally think of as global warming. Just get another 4 years of Bush and his buddies...

[951]

2. Cancer is sooo cool

HAVE WE GONE MAD IN THE US OR WHAT?????

[Massacure]

4. A properly functioning nuclear reactor doesn't cause cancer

The new ones they have now are FAR FAR Superior to the ones we built in the 60s and 70s.

The French get something like 70% of their power from nuclear. Do they have higher cancer rates than the rest of us?

[sweetheart]

5. Yes, and those problems

Somebody spilled some radioactive waste in to the ocean 20 or so
miles from here. The waste is small flakes of plutonium, U235 and
other metals you'd likely find in some fuel rod. If you go to a
beach in North Scotland, you'll likely be exposed, to a little bit
of a mistake, that will, for 700,000 years be polluting the beaches
and potentially radially affecting those who walk those beaches.

What is our apology to the generation 2000 years from now, to the
young mother who's child is dying from radiation-induced leukemia.
We're not sorry... we needed the power, and your kid has not been
born yet, so we don't care. That sucks...

[NinetySix]

10. I agree fully.

Global climate change (NOT global warming; it's an inaccurate term) is less dangerous to the long-term survival of life on the planet than is the radioactive and poisonous waste produced in the process of nuclear fission. If only we could infallibly eject such waste into space, or had a black hole in which to cast it all, it might be a viable alternative. But until nuclear fusion is perfected and brought on-line some 40 years hence, I don't think we should be engaging in such self-destructive, essentially suicidal behavior.

[Yupster]

16. France uses nuclear as their

main power source, but I don't know what they do with their nuclear waste. Anyone know?

[Massacure]

18. Reprocessed. Waste can be recycled to the point where it last 500 years.

It cost a lot more than burying it, but it is a hell of a lot safer. Too bad Americans are so blind.

[sweetheart]

3. It seems an unavoidable stopgap

TO say today that we should switch entirely to renewable energy
sources, is fanciful. There must be a serious vision of that non-petrol future.

Well, wind power, wave power, hydrogen forecourts and hydrogen
vehicles, solar power on every rooftop, and super-insulated houses.
Yet we need the whole existing system to keep running whilst we
change over... and this may involve nuclear. Presuming that the
nuclear waste is already a monumental problem from the weapons
stocks and poor thinking in past administrations.... then that is
still a problem today, that new reactor technology radically reduces
such negative outputs.

So my thinking, is to keep using nuke power until it is replaced, and
then for all of the world's society to end nuclear power and weapons
as a way of life. As long as i know that by the time i die, there
will be no more nukes... then i'm ok with a little bit more.

Just i suspect, that my grandchildren will be tangling with the
question of nukes... and even then, not in the 100'000's of years
view that any sane culture should take on such long-term hazards.

[punpirate]

7. On just energy balance matters...

... nuclear is as bad as fossil fuels. It's adding heat to the environment that didn't come in (and every bit of electricity generated from that source eventually is converted to heat).

If recent statistics are to be believed, the incidence of thyroid cancer is growing, and the likely prominent cause of that is iodine-131, released either by above-ground bomb blasts in the `50s, or by nuclear plants in the past which did containment venting to keep pressures down.

Previous literature put out by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) suggests one "serious" accident once every 400 years--and that was published eleven years prior to Three Mile Island.

In fact, safety estimates produced by the industry are in this range, and have been off by about an order of magnitude. When it was discovered in the early `70s that workers at Hanford had been pouring plutonium waste down well holes on site, the government cited studies that said it would take 400 years for the plutonium to reach the Columbia River and there was plenty of time to find a fix. Now, that plutonium is within a few hundred yards of the river, and the government is suggesting that it's unfixable and inevitable that there will be some contamination.

I won't even mention Chernobyl.

The latest plants proposed are likely to be gas-cooled using helium, and will likely be much more expensive to run than advertised. (Helium is a rather expensive industrial gas. There is actually a small helium mine in Texas, but the very largest portion of it is extracted from the atmosphere by refrigeration liquefication--which uses? you guessed it--electricity.)

I'm also suspicious of the advertised "likely" lower rates after the industry initially sold the public on nuclear power with the "energy too cheap to meter" routine in the `50s. Oh, yes, the engineering is new and great, but why is it that the engineers get that look on their faces when one says, "tell me about Murphy's Law and all its corollaries, especially the one about Murphy being an optimist."

But, with regard to the question of it being a necessary stop-gap, here's some history. When Jimmy Carter, the Democratic nuclear engineer, saw the effects of the oil shortages of the `70s, he asked for and obtained program funds for alternative energy research and tax credits for its implementation. When Ronald Reagan, Republican actor, became president, the research funds were slashed and the credits allowed to be phased out. When Bill Clinton, Democratic policy wonk, became president, those research funds were gradually restored (although not as quickly as they might have been had there been not been a Republican House). When George W. Bush, Republican and failed oil guy, became president, those research funds were slashed again in his first budget, roughly in half. Then he proceeded to launch the country on a series of oil wars.

Now, Bush's energy task force, composed only of large industry, has created a bill sending enormous amounts of tax dollars to an already mature electric power industry which could easily invest its own money in new technology, and which wants more freedom from regulation besides.

This latest push for nuclear energy has a primary objective and it's not to meet future electricity consumption needs. It's to centralize the production of hydrogen (which is electric-power intensive) for transportation fuels, to keep the oil companies in business when oil becomes too expensive to be marketable.

I would argue that hydrogen production could be easily decentralized and integrated into other alternative energy schemes more easily and more cheaply than what is presently proposed.

One final question: what do you think might have happened if we had created a small- and medium-business alternative energy/conservation/mass transit research, development and investment fund in 2001 with the approximately $175 billion we've spent fighting oil wars just in the last three years? That's right--before the first nuclear plant proposed in this cycle of funding ever gets on line, we'd be a world leader in and exporter of alternative energy technology and products.

And the added benefits would be that we'd have much better balance of payments, we'd have created the core of a technology which would provide excellent job growth in well-paying jobs in smaller, locally-owned companies, we'd have begun the transition to an economy which could fully support the Kyoto protocol, not had to worry about creating new problems with nuclear waste disposal, would have broken the political and economic influence of the conglomerate energy cartels, would not have encouraged the enmity of most of the Muslim world, and a whole lot of people would be alive who aren't now.

Now, which administration is advocating a sudden increase in the number of nuclear power plants and spending your tax dollars to do it--and which one has already spent huge amounts of your tax dollars fighting oil wars? Maybe the two are all of a piece. Maybe that's why the administration is so determined not to let any of us know the story behind its energy task force, hmm? Maybe it's not about necessity, but about gross corruption.

Cheers.

[BeFree]

19. Thanks, punpirate

You've stated the truths behind this developing crisis so well, that I can add nothing.

Except this:

If we are going nuclear, then I want a nuke generator for myself. I wanna be free from the long electric lines and the monthly power bills.

If nuclear is so safe, then each and everyone one of us should be able to mount our own nuke generator in our backyard. Eh?

Ya know, if the people in Florida had solar on their roofs, they'd be a damn sight more comfortable now, even with the powerlines down all over the place.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Unfortunately, no.

There is not enough uranium. This is a problem that most people who suggest nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels are utterly ignorant of; as things are now, with our current technology, there IS no replacement for fossil fuels. The ONLY way to shift to an alternate energy source such as nuclear in this country would be for Americans (wasteful, gluttonous swine that they are) to reduce their energy consumption to one-fifth or less its current level. Which most people aren't willing to do.

[Junkdrawer]

8. Even scarier thought: The Plutonium Economy....

Breeder reactors and plutonium recycling...

Google "Japan Breeder Reactors" to see the "success" they've had. :scared:

[Gregorian]

9. Interesting post

I hadn't ever heard that statement on uranium.
You are so right about what we should do. And in fact, we will do it. But we love a crisis. So as the waters rise, and we get fatter and less healthy, we will die before getting on a bike, or consolidating our drives, or not going on airplanes to travel the world. I've been doing it for decades. I've missed a lot, by American standards.

The way we live today, makes the world that people will live in tomorrow. If we overpopulate, it's THEIR problem. If we drive like morons, it's THEIR problem. It's a hit and run crime.

Less is the only answer. We can start funding fusion research again, and we can even refine solar voltaics, and even new unknown forms of energy conversion, BUT there's only so much fresh water, and land for farming. Energy is not the weak link. Less is the only answer.

[Minstrel Boy]

11. The US has enough uranium to fuel its reactors for the next 40 years.

Uranium is finite, like oil. And most of the energy needed to mine it currently comes from oil.

[Gold Metal Flake]

12. As an nuclear alternative to fossil fuel, what about this method?

anyone have additional info on this?

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


snip

The energy amplifier uses a cyclotron accelerator to produce a beam of protons. These hit a Thorium target and produce neutrons by the process called spallation. Thorium nuclei absorb neutrons, forming fissile uranium-233. This isotope of uranium is not found in nature and is not the isotope used in nuclear weapons. Moderated neutrons stimulate U-233 fission, releasing energy.

If a beam energy of 7 Megawatts (7 mA protons produced by a 1 GeV cyclotron) is used, the energy amplifier would produce 280 MW of thermal energy, corresponding to about 100 MW of electrical power after steam production and turbine generation. As the power needed to operate the accelerator is about 20 MW, there would thus be a net production of over 80 MW. Larger designs could achieve higher energy gains in the range 30 to 60.

Given the advantages of this technology, it is surprising how little investment has been made in it.

[Dudley_DUright]

13. Nuclear fusion would be much better

(virtually limitless fuel and no high level radioactive waste), but it is very very difficult to pull off anywhere except inside a star or in an H bomb. It certainly is not a solution in the near term.

http://www.fusion.org.uk/focus/

[Gore1FL]

14. The waste of Nuclear reactors is worse that that of coal

Not that Coal is good...

In 2001 (approx) the Sierra Club compared moving from coal to Nuclear as quitting smoking to take up crack.

[Barney Rocks]

15. I thought that we had

come up with some cleaner ways to use coal in the last decade or so? I can't reference anything offhand--I just vaguely remember reading this--is it correct or not?

[Gore1FL]

17. There are ways to use coal more cleanly and efficiently

But no mater how you slice it, you get the energy by creating CO2 (and CO, for that matter). The first dramitically effects global warming, the second is a poison.

Any sulfer, or other potential impurities still make it into the air, depite best efforts.

Still, it beats the waste from nuclear energy.

Ideally, renewablle alternative energy sources need to be further developed.

Nuclear energy is clean, and reasonably safe, until you dispose of the waste, then it becomes costly from shipping, storage, etc.