Nuclear Power Still a Deadly Proposition

[cprise]

snip

The enrichment of uranium fuel for nuclear power uses 93 percent of the refrigerant chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gas made annually in the United States. The global production of CFC is banned under the Montreal Protocol because it is a potent destroyer of ozone in the stratosphere, which protects us from the carcinogenic effects of solar ultraviolet light. The ozone layer is now so thin that the population in Australia is currently experiencing one of the highest incidences of skin cancer in the world.

CFC compounds are also potent global warming agents 10,000 to 20,000 times more efficient heat trappers than carbon dioxide, which itself is responsible for 50 percent of the global warming phenomenon.

But nuclear power also contributes significantly to global carbon dioxide production. Huge quantities of fossil fuel are expended for the "front end" of the nuclear fuel cycle -- to mine, mill and enrich the uranium fuel and to construct the massive nuclear reactor buildings and their cooling towers.

Uranium enrichment is a particularly energy intensive process which uses electricity generated from huge coal-fired plants. Estimates of carbon dioxide production related to nuclear power are available from DOE for the "front end" of the nuclear fuel cycle, but prospective estimates for the "back end" of the cycle have yet to be calculated.
snip

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0817-03.htm


Also a reminder of that 'little' problem with Israel and Iran.

[Massacure]

1. That article seems pretty anti-nuclear to me.

Storing waste for 10,000 years is not impossible. It mentions nothing of reprocessing. It says that massive amounts of fossil fuels are needed for nuclear power when it uses less than coal.

[NNadir]

2. Oh really?

When did Uranium hexafluoride become a carbon compound?

Do you have any idea over there at Commons Schemes how much Uranium is refined every year? Any idea to how much that might compare to say (we don't care because it's not radioactive except for the emitted Uranium and Thorium in the ash) coal?

Do you have any conception of the chemistry of nitrogen oxides and their effect on ozone?

What, in your little imagination, would be the primary source of nitrogen oxides on the planet? Let me guess? Nuclear
"waste" right? (Even the dumbbells at the Union of concerned "scientists" aren't this deluded. Nitrogen oxides wouldn't have anything to do with combustion, like from diesel engines powered by biodiesel, you know that little pollution issue we all ignore because we don't care about anything but our anti-radiation religion?

A little chemistry lesson for anyone who really gives a remote rat's ass about ozone depletion:

http://cc.ysu.edu/~amjacobs/Environmental_Chemistry_notes56-66.PDF

As usual, this is a case of dreaming up ersatz and silly objections in order to inflate scientifically illiterate fear by considering an issue in isolation. (And let's not forget the unrelated nonsense that references the threat of nuclear war while feigning a discussion of nuclear power: How come nobody ever mentions napalm when discussing gasoline? How come nobody ever mentions ricin when discussing biomass? How come nobody every mentions lead bullets when discussing lead batteries. Could it be that we simply want to hear what we want to hear and believe what we want to believe because we despise balance and intellectual integrity? Could it be that we have a little bit of an overzealous religion?)

My favorite nuclear distortion (or should I say lie) is this silly business about the "front end of the nuclear cycle" and global warming, a shibboleth that remains decade after decade because no one in this country can be bothered to think. Since nuclear energy uses on a mass balance scale about 1 millionth of the mass of any other form of energy, maybe our "Common Daydreams" folks would like to describe a form of energy that requires no mining whatsoever and that can provide 20% of the nation's electrical energy through the processing of 75,000 metric tons of material over 5 decades. Coal mining machinery doesn't produce greenhouse gases? Reapers don't produce greenhouse gases? The production of solar cells don't produce greenhouse gases? Any calculations offered for the Greenhouse gas break even point for any of these forms of energy? I thought not.


Let me explain it in terms that I know are beyond the comprehension: Commercial nuclear power has caused less than 1000 deaths in its entire existence (over 99% of them in a single incident), over four decades, while growing to produce nearly 20% of the electrical energy on the planet earth.

When somebody can come back with a form of energy with such a spectacular safety record and environmental record, they might have a point. That seems not to be the issue. The issue is that someone somewhere might be hurt by nuclear energy, and some of us think that somehow one nuclear death is worth a million deaths from the alternatives because well, you know those scary words, "nuclear," "radioactive" related deaths are worse, well, because we say so. This anti-environmentalist fear mongering would be better spent banning something with more consequence: Backyard swing sets would be a good place to start.

[cprise]

3. I expected a quicker response

Are you trying to lower my expectations? :)

The UCS aren't dumbbells.


"How come nobody ever mentions ricin when discussing biomass?"

Well, you would; not that much different than characterizing lye as a freakishly lethal substance.

I can't agree with the "nuclear-free" future she wants... not in the mid-term. But neither am I going to accept a nuclear-dominated one just because people won't use birth control or live closer together. If you can't get people to do those things, then just forget it... a few (it only takes a few) will be intent on attacking the plentiful sources of fear that each other's reactors represent anyway, or using the abundance (oversupply) of energy to gluttonize the planet in other ways.

We can sequester CO2 NOW. But it's generally not done because the world's industrial infrastructure is rotten to the point of being massively destructive. Neither you nor I could IMAGINE what fuckhead, idiotic pasttimes and consumption patterns the current system would pressure people into when it becomes both "frictionless" and "nuclear" at once. No, thank you. What we have now economic and socially is just not something you pour "virtually limitless" energy into.

[treepig]

4. ricin, btw, can be used to treat cancer (experimentally at least for now)

and water can be quite deadly and as many as 90% of americans believe it should be banned in several survey ( http://www.dhmo.org ).

the point being, if everything that's potentially dangerous were eliminated, what would be left?

but my brain hurts, and it's way too difficult to do any rationale thought, so i'm off to sign the petition to ban water since the good folk over at www.dhmo.org make such a compelling case.

[NNadir]

5. Well, lye is more dangerous than nuclear power and the UCS are dummies.

Way back when I was a kid, and thought that nuclear energy was unacceptably unsafe because that's what I heard on TV, I joined by UCS. To be a concerned "scientist" my qualifications consisted of the ability to write a check.

No one over there seems to have heard of either the first law or the second law of thermodynamics, which is not surprising because it's not on the admissions exam, which to repeat, consists of check signing.

[cprise]

6. Aren't you fear-monging?

Would you propose banning lutefisk, fish soaked in lye?

Really, Helen Caldicott would be proud.

[phantom power]

7. Lutefisk *should* be banned.

Not because it's toxic. Although maybe it is. It should be banned because it's a culinary crime against humanity.

[Dogmudgeon]

12. And don't forget about those poor fishies

I mean, to be converted from a Real Fisk to a Lutefisk -- where is PeTA when you need 'em?

:)

--bkl

[cprise]

14. That's no word of a lye

:)

Almost as bad as being converted to a hemaphrodite-fisk by drugs seeping into the rivers.

[phantom power]

8. You seem to be arguing the "humans aren't worthy" viewpoint

I have a hard time buying into this argument. Not that I have boundless faith in the goodness and intelligence of human beings, but I just don't see where it gets us.

We can't sit around waiting for all six billion of us to achieve enlightenment before we move forward. Or I suppose we can, but we'll all be waiting a long, long time...

[jpak]

9. The article didn't mention uranium hexafluoride

It was describing CFC-114 emissions from uranium enrichment facilities in Kentucky.

http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2001/05/29/ke052901s30057.htm

<snip>

Merryman Kemp, a member of the Paducah plant's citizens advisory board, said she gets infuriated when she hears nuclear power described as environmentally clean.

''I can cuss real well, and I usually do,'' she said. ''It really angers me when they (nuclear power advocates) are not challenged on that.''

Kemp said she was alarmed to learn that the plant was a significant emitter of the ozone-eating chemical, and that most of it is from leaky pipes.

''We don't want those ozone holes getting bigger and bigger, and more skin cancer and whatever else they cause,'' she said. ''This is a matter for us to study.''

<end snip>

In addtion to its role in stratospheric ozone depletion, CFC-114 is also a powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential of ~9800 (i.e., one molecule of CFC-114 exhibits the radiative forcing potential of 9800 CO2 molecules)

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/ods.html

Finally, halocarbons - not NOx - dominate the reactions that lead to stratospheric ozone depletion.

Get rid of the anthropogenic halocarbons and stratospheric ozone concentrations will return to preindustrial levels.

http://www.al.noaa.gov/WWWHD/Pubdocs/assessment02/executive-summary.html

... and that means eliminating CFC emissions from uranium enrichment plants (which account for ~90% of US CFC emissions).

[NNadir]

10. I love this the sort of "percentage" thinking or anti-thinking.

Did you know that the annual thyroid cancer increased in the Ukraine by 1000 "percent?"

Did you know that it is completely asinine to remark on that fact since there were only 12 cases of thyroid cancer in the entire Ukraine in 1985, the year before Chernobyl. Thus, we might have 120 cases of thyroid cancer per year where previously we had 12. Now, of course, 120 cases of thyroid cancer in the minds of the scientifically illiterate members of the anti-nuclear religion adherents is intending 1,597,987 "percent" of the time to mean 120 deaths (whoops) I mean 1000 percent higher "deaths" from Chernobyl, because the spinmeisters in the anti-nuclear religion neglect 121,93 percent more times than people who actually know what they're talking about that thyroid cancer is largely curable and very few people actually die from it.

Do you have any idea how much NOx is put out by fossil fuel plants?

I didn't think so. Suppose that NOx is 1/100,000 th as potent an ozone depleting agent as CFC (again a completely asinine assumption, since NOx is much more potent than that, but one must really try to address the scientifically illiterate in ways that they can comprehend.) Now, number two, lets consider that coal plants put out six million tons of NOx, then we would have to put out 60 tons of CFC to equal just the NOx pollution from coal. Now of course in the Louisville Courier Journal's "reporting of the matter we use the biggest number we can 800,000 pounds of CFC's to create an impression, ignoring completely that 800,000 pounds is actually about 360 metric tons of NOx, meaning that, if - again for the benefit of the chemically illiterate - we dream that NOx is only 1/100,000th as potent as CFC's, we have the claim that nuclear power is 400 percent tougher on ozone depletion than coal plants. Of course, because the point is religious: We want to prove that nuclear power is too dangerous even though no one anywhere has actually died from a nuclear accident in the United States. Therefore we will ignore completely because it doesn't suit our purposes the two billion tons of carbon dioxide put out by coal plants, the thirteen million tons of sulfur dioxide, the 52 tons of mercury http://www.consciouschoice.com/note/note1402.html or the 15,000 metric tons (world wide) of radioactive Thorium and Uranium http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html released by coal plants.


In the anti nuclear religion, we don't do comparisons, because comparisons because if we did our religion would be exposed as rather similar to the "creationist" religion: It only makes sense if you twist the facts unmercifully with the predetermined conclusion in mind.

Noah's ark accounts for dinosaur bones, oh yeah, and nuclear power is dangerous compared to it's alternatives.

Now, for the benefit of anyone who actually knows science and reads this response, I note that it is unnecessary to use CFC's at all to make Uranium hexafluoride. I have no idea why - if they in fact do so - the folks at Paducah use CFC's (maybe some members of the team have a refrigerator recycling business on the side), but it is unnecessary: direct fluorination is the normal way of making Uranium hexafluoride.

I will add that I think that Uranium enrichment in the long term is unnecessary: Were we to switch to the Thorium cycle (largely to further reduce the already low risk of weapons diversion programs) we would not need to enrich Uranium: We would simply take 20% U-233 "enriched" Uranium from Radowsky plutonium burning PWR's and dilute it to 3 or 4% and recycle it repeatedly.

If in fact CFC's are used at Paducah it may be a function of the type of thinking that Tom Paine remarked upon centuries ago in his opening toCommon Sense

"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."

Paine's remarks give me hope that we will have some "Common Sense" about energy in the future and expand nuclear energy as quickly as is possible. It is morally wrong to oppose the expansion of nuclear energy because it is probably the last and best damned shot we've got at saving the planet and saving our own damned lives. Hopefully time will make enough converts before time runs out. As it happens, the sands in the hour glass are actually best counted as molecules of carbon dioxide.

[jpak]

15. CFC's are used as a coolant - not a reagent - at Paducah

Until recently UF6 was produced at a facility in Metropolis IL and shipped in casks to Paducah for enrichment.

Note: this was the only UF6 production facility in the US. It was shut down after a fire/UF6 release last December and will not reopen for at least 2 years. The US is now entirely dependent on foreign sources of UF6.

Releases of CFC-114 US uranium enrichment plants account for a whopping 14% of total global freon emissions and are a significant contributer to stratospheric ozone depletion.

CFC-derived chlorine and anthropogenic bromine account for >95% of the ozone-depleting halogens present in the stratosphere.

These are the substances responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion...and there are literally thousands of peer reviewed publications to support this.

NOx emissions from fossil fuel power plants do NOT contribute to stratospheric ozone depletion.

Anthropogenic NO2 and NO have mean atmospheric residence times of <5 days. They are rapidly oxidized by hydroxyl radicals and removed from the troposphere by precipitation. They are not transported to the stratosphere in significant quantities.

The only significant source of NOx to the stratosphere is nitrous oxide (N2O). It has a mean residence time of ~100 years and is present in the atmosphere long enough to be transported to high altitudes.

N2O is produced primarily by bacterial nitrification and denitrification. Industrial sources account for <5% of global annual (natural and anthropogenic) N2O production.

Fossil fuel combustion for power generation accounts for less than 3% of annual N2O production.

Again, the bottom line: NOx from fossil fired power plants does NOT contribute to stratospheric ozone depletion (but the US nuclear fuel cycle certainly does...)

[phantom power]

11. what if they just fixed these leaking pipes?

This sounds like a maintenance problem, not a "nuclear" problem.

[treepig]

13. fix the leaking pipes?

don't think that's going to be happening in the usa.

it's much easier just to ban the offending substance/compound and be done with it - mbte in gasoline provides an example. in europe they have leak-proof/resistant storage tanks (which would seem to be just plain good ole-fashioned common sense in any case) and use mbte safely. here, storage tanks leak, mbte gets into water supplies, and what's the solution? fix the leaky tanks - hahahahahaha; not when the anti-thinking folk can get on the ban-it bandwagon.