Ted Turner on nuclear power generation, counters fear mongering from anti-nuke crowd

[txlibdem]

Just saw Ted Turner on Morning Joe talking about philanthropy (he has given away almost all of his fortune), climate change (it's happening and Man is causing it), and then the fear mongering over nuclear weapons and attempts to tie bombs to nuclear power generation:
"A fire's great in the fireplace but not so great when the city's burning down. Proper use of the tool."

Ted Turner is part owner in at least one solar power plant:

“Expanding the role renewables play in our energy mix is a priority for Southern Co.,” Ratcliffe said in a statement. “Renewables, along with new nuclear, increased energy efficiency, cleaner coal technology and additional natural gas, all will be crucial to meeting this nation’s growing energy demand.”

Read more: Southern’s Ratcliffe signs solar deal with Ted Turner | Atlanta Business Chronicle <--that line was added when I copied the text, I didn't write this but am leaving it there on principle

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2010/03/15/daily2.html

Is Ted Turner my environmental hero? Nope. His solar power plant is only 30 Megawatts and it takes at least 300 to 500 Megawatts to achieve economies of scale so solar power can compete against the dirty fossil sources.

I just liked the quote at the top of the OP. It reinforces my own opinion on the fear mongers' tactic of linking nukes and nuclear power plants: it is just as idiotic as linking your fireplace with a city burning down. "Let's ban all those fireplaces! They're gonna kill us all!!!! OMG's."

[ananda]

1. Oh please.

Radioactive toxic waste and accidents will happen.

[txlibdem]

4. Yup. We should IMMEDIATELY stop using a power source that makes radioactive toxic waste!

You are absolutely right. Let's all march in Washington DC to demand that our nation immediately stop using any power source that makes radioactive waste. Like coal:

Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste
By burning away all the pesky carbon and other impurities, coal power plants produce heaps of radiation
By Mara Hvistendahl | December 13, 2007 | 97

Coal, meanwhile, is believed responsible for a host of more quotidian problems, such as mining accidents, acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions. But it isn't supposed to spawn three-eyed fish like Blinky. <-- a reference to the Simpsons...

Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

Darn. When you're right, you're right pal. We should immediately demand an end to coal power plants and demand that the government make nuclear power plants the only large scale power plants possible.

[bananas]

6. Coal Ash Is NOT More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste

Used fuel rods are so so radioactive they have to be stored under water for several years until they cool off enough to be put in concrete casks.
Then they have to be stored in concrete casks for several decades.
Then they have to be buried under a mountain for a million years.
Also, TMI and Chernobyl each released more radioactivity than all coal burning ever will.

[txlibdem]

8. Let's test that theory

You go get a bucket full of coal ash and take a mud bath in it. Then you'll learn exactly how radioactive, how toxic it is.

Stop spouting incorrect figures. Just because the idiots who are supposed to be protecting our environment, our water, our health are asleep at the switch does not make the facts go away.

TMI radiation has already been exceeded by burning coal many times over. Open your brain, let some facts in...

[bananas]

10. You want to test your theory, go hug some spent fuel rods

My numbers are correct, you don't know what you're talking about.
"High-level wastes are hazardous to humans and other life forms because of their high radiation levels that are capable of producing fatal doses during short periods of direct exposure. For example, ten years after removal from a reactor, the surface dose rate for a typical spent fuel assembly exceeds 10,000 rem/hour, whereas a fatal whole-body dose for humans is about 500 rem (if received all at one time). Furthermore, if constituents of these high-level wastes were to get into ground water or rivers, they could enter into food chains. Although the dose produced through this indirect exposure is much smaller than a direct exposure dose, there is a greater potential for a larger population to be exposed."
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bananas]

18. No they don't - you are extremely misinformed

http://bos.sagepub.com/content/60/1/59.full

A spent fuel rod weighs about 28 kilograms, with 36 rods weighing more than a metric ton. Heavy shielding and remote controls are required in their handling, because each rod exposes anyone standing nearby (within a meter) to a lethal dose within seconds.

http://www.michaelhopping.com/features/OntheRoad.html

According to Sticpewich, a person standing three feet away from an unshielded assembly of spent fuel rods would receive a lethal dose in three seconds.

http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/trans/trfact03.htm

Even after ten years of cooling, spent nuclear fuel emits dangerous levels of gamma and neutron radiation. A person standing one yard away from an unshielded spent fuel assembly could receive a lethal dose of radiation (about 500 rems) in less than three minutes.

[bananas]

11. Don't feel bad - you're not the only person who was fooled by that nonsense

http://www.cejournal.net/?p=410

Coal ash is NOT more radioactive than nuclear waste
This item was posted on December 31, 2008, and it was categorized as Uncategorized.

The idea that coal ash is 100 times more radioactive than nuclear waste has been making the rounds among bloggers and Twitterers discussing the coal ash catastrophe in Tennessee, thanks to a headline which makes that assertion in Scientific American online. In fact, Google the words in the headline and you’ll come up with dozens of Web sites that have repeated this statement.

The problem is that it is a profoundly preposterous idea unsupported by a single shred of evidence.

I must admit that I was taken in by the headline when I first read it a few days ago — I swallowed it hook, line and sinker because I believed in the credibility of Scientific American. But in so doing I violated one of the cardinal rules I tell my journalism students: If it sounds wrong, it most likely is. (And the only way to find out is to check it out.)

<snip>

[bananas]

14. And that's how people learn that: You just can't trust the nuclear industry!

http://www.cejournal.net/?p=410

<snip>

The problem is that it is a profoundly preposterous idea unsupported by a single shred of evidence.

I must admit that I was taken in by the headline when I first read it a few days ago — I swallowed it hook, line and sinker because I believed in the credibility of Scientific American. But in so doing I violated one of the cardinal rules I tell my journalism students: If it sounds wrong, it most likely is. (And the only way to find out is to check it out.)

<snip>

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Confusious]

30. Wrong

Then they have to be buried under a mountain for a million years.

If they are highly radioactive, they will only be so for ~50 years.

If they are low level radioactive they will only be so for thousands of years.

If they are things like natural uranium, they will be so for millions of years, and you will die of other causes long before.

[Nederland]

9. When and how much radiation?

Just wondering...

Also, for historical reasons, how much radiation was released at Three Mile Island? Was it a lot?

[bananas]

13. TMI released about 5 times as much radioactivity as all coal burning worldwide through 2040.

And we can expect another TMI-scale event, with a 1 in 10 chance of it being a Chernobyl-scale disaster.

Here are the numbers for coal, TMI, and Chernobyl.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

Thus, by combining U.S. coal combustion from 1937 (440 million tons) through 1987 (661 million tons) with an estimated total in the year 2040 (2516 million tons), the total expected U.S. radioactivity release to the environment by 2040 can be determined. That total comes from the expected combustion of 111,716 million tons of coal with the release of 477,027,320 millicuries in the United States. Global releases of radioactivity from the predicted combustion of 637,409 million tons of coal would be 2,721,736,430 millicuries.

A millicurie is 1/1000 curie, so that's 2.7 million curies released by all coal burning worldwide through 2040.

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

The Three Mile Island accident was a partial core meltdown ... resulting in the release of up to 481 PBq (13 million curies) of radioactive gases

So TMI released about 5 times as much radioactivity as all coal burning worldwide through 2040.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-26-01.html

Yablokov and his co-authors find that radioactive emissions from the stricken reactor, once believed to be 50 million curies, may have been as great as 10 billion curies, or 200 times greater than the initial estimate, and hundreds of times larger than the fallout from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So Chernobyl released between 20 and 4000 times as much radioactivity as all coal burning worldwide through 2040.

There are smaller but more frequent releases from nuclear plants, as well as releases from other parts of the fuel cycle (uranium tailings, etc).

We can expect another TMI-scale event, with a 1 in 10 chance of it being a Chernobyl-scale disaster.
According to MIT's "The Future of Nuclear Power":

Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) identifies
possible failures that can occur in the reactor,
e.g., pipe breaks or loss-of-reactor coolant flow,
then traces the sequences of events that follow,
and finally determines the likelihood of their
leading to core damage. PRA includes both
internal events and external events, i.e., natural
disasters. Expert opinion using PRA considers
the best estimate of core damage frequency to
be about 1 in 10,000 reactor-years for nuclear
plants in the United States.
...
Potentially large release of radioactivity from fuel accompanies
core damage. Public health and safety depends
on the ability of the reactor containment to prevent
leakage of radioactivity to the environment. If containment
fails, there would be a large, early release (LER) and
exposure of people for some distance beyond the plant
site boundary,with the amount of exposure depending
on accident severity and weather conditions. The probability
of containment failure, given core damage, is about 0.1.

If those estimates apply to the roughly 440 reactors world-wide,
then we can expect a TMI-scale event roughly every 23 years:
10,000 reactor-years / 440 reactors = 23 years
Chernobyl was 24 years ago ... tick tick tick ...
If they try to keep all those reactors running for another 20 years,
then we can pretty much expect another TMI-scale accident,
with a 1 in 10 chance of it being more a Chernobyl-scale event.
And that's with "normally" operating nuclear power plants.

[Nederland]

21. Interesting

The Wikipedia link you provided says that the vast bulk of the radioactive gases released at TMI consisted of noble gases, which are "considered relatively harmless". The release of materials that are actually harmful, like iodine-131, was only 13 to 17 curies. Did you think that little bit of information irrelevant to my question?

[Nihil]

31. Shush! Admitting that the impact was less than 17 curies is sacrilege! (n/t)

[Physics_Prof]

32. Misleading Metrics

So TMI released about 5 times as much radioactivity as all coal burning worldwide through 2040.
----------------------------------

I've been lurking here for some time. However, when I see
such manifest misunderstandings and twisting of scientific
facts, as well as an attempt to invert the message of a
scientific paper, then I must enter the fray.

It's disingenuous to attempt to quantify environmental and
biological harm by a comparison of the number of "curies".
Curies are merely the unit for a rate at which radioactive
atoms decay. Curies do not measure biological damage.

First, some basic misunderstanding of elementary mathematics
is at play here. Just because a rate is high does not mean
the value of the function is also high. As an example, power
is also a rate of energy being produced or delivered. When the
lasers of the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory fire, the "power" or rate of energy use of
those lasers is 200 times the total power generating capacity
of the entire USA. However, because the duration is so short,
the facility uses about $2.00 worth of electricity to fire the
lasers.

Curies only measure the rate of radioactive decay. The authors
of the article use the proper term "dose" to refer to biological
damage, and "dose" is not measured in curies, but in "rem" or
the S.I. unit is the Sievert.

Although the rate of decay is part of the calculation of dose,
the calculation is much more involved.

One aspect that must be taken into account are the properties of
the actual radionuclides under consideration. For example, here
is a link to the ruling of the judge when she dismissed the lawsuit
brought by residents near TMI against TMI's operator Metropolitan
Edison:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/tmi.html

The judge mentions the two classes of radionuclides released, namely
noble gases and Iodine-131. Iodine can be uptaken by the body, and
is stored in the thyroid. Therefore, Iodine, "stays with you" and
can continue to irradiate you. The accident at TMI released 15 Curies
of Iodine-131, which is less than 5 millionths of an ounce.

TMI also released noble or inert gases. Because noble gases are inert, they
can not be uptaken by the body. They do not engage in chemical reactions.
If a cloud of noble gases sweeps by you, you will breathe some in, but you
will breathe those gases right back out. The body has no means to uptake
a noble gas, because such uptake is done chemically, and noble gases do not
participate in chemical reactions. Therefore, one will only be exposed to
radioactive noble gases for the time it takes the cloud to diffuse away.
Noble gases don't become part of you and continue to irradiate you.

Another factor that goes into the calculation of dose is the type and energy
of the emitted radiation. The radionuclides dispersed at TMI were "beta" emitters.
The radiation emitted by the radioisotopes were simply electrons. Compare this
to the alpha emitters one finds in coal effluent. Alpha radiation, when taken
internally, is much more damaging than electrons. Alpha particles are 8000 times
more massive than electrons. When an alpha particle traverses a material, its
effect on the electron clouds of the atoms is analogous to the effect of a heavy
bowling ball traversing a lane of bowling pins. On a per energy basis, alpha
radiation is much more damaging than either beta ( electrons ) or gamma (photons).

Consider the following analogy. Two pilots, Abel and Baker, will be flying over
your town scattering pills. The concern is that the pills will land on the local
playgrounds and children will incautiously consume the pills. Abel will be
dispersing 100,000 aspirin tablets. Baker will be dispersing 10,000 tablets of
cyanide.

Now if one follows bananas "logic", the bad actor here is Abel because he is
distributing 10 times as many pills as Baker. That's what bananas is essentially
saying in claiming the number of Curies released by the TMI accident is so much
greater than the number of Curies released by coal power plants.

Although statistically, there will be 10X as many aspirins consumed by the town's
children as cyanide pills, we do not expect deaths from Abel's actions as we do
from Baker's.

The authors of the Oak Ridge study calculated the "dose", the biological damage for coal
which is 100X greater than the biological damage caused by nuclear power, including
the TMI accident. The TMI accident released radionuclides that spewed lots of electrons,
thus racking up lots of counts on banana's Curie counter; but the biological damage
due to this was insignificant.

The judge dismissed the lawsuit against Metropolitan Edison without a jury trial.
The residents of TMI's surrounding communities were exposed to an average of 1.4 mrem
of radiation dose. That's the amount of biological damage the average person gets
in a day and a half of exposure to background radiation. It's the amount of biological
damage one gets from flying in an airliner for 3 hours. We don't expect such trivial
exposures to result in malignant pathologies, which is why the judge dismissed the case.

The biological effects of the TMI accident on the public were manifestly trivial. Yet,
the anti-nukes seem to persist in attempting to make a mountain from what is essentially
a proverbial ant hill, in the case of the TMI accident.

It must be difficult to be an anti-nuke. The commercial nuclear power industry has had
only a single accident that has affected the public in any measurable way. Those effects
were negligible. It is the only such accident the industry has had in over a half century
of operation, and that accident happened over 3 decades ago.

Yet the anti-nukes persist at attempting to turn that incident into something it isn't.

The true message of the Oak Ridge scientists in the paper in question is the scientific
truth that the damage from the radioactive emissions from coal exceed any damage due to
nuclear power by two orders of magnitude. The message is that it is coal that causes
more biological damage than nuclear, and not the other way around as the anti-nukes
like to portray in their desperation to follow their political goals, and to ignore
the science.

Physics Prof

[kristopher]

33. You're back!

Some things can't be hidden.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Volume 1181 Issue Chernobyl
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Pages 31 - 220

Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health

Alexey B. Nesterenko a , Vassily B. Nesterenko a ,† and Alexey V. Yablokov b
a
Institute of Radiation Safety (BELRAD), Minsk, Belarus b Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Address for correspondence: Alexey V. Yablokov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, Office 319, 119071 Moscow,
Russia. Voice: [phone]; fax: [phone]. [e-mail]
†Deceased


ABSTRACT

Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas—comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination—revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

In all cases when comparing the territories heavily contaminated by Chernobyl's radionuclides with less contaminated areas that are characterized by a similar economy, demography, and environment, there is a marked increase in general morbidity in the former.

Increased numbers of sick and weak newborns were found in the heavily contaminated territories in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia.

Accelerated aging is one of the well-known consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation. This phenomenon is apparent to a greater or lesser degree in all of the populations contaminated by the Chernobyl radionuclides.

This section describes the spectrum and the scale of the nonmalignant diseases that have been found among exposed populations.

Adverse effects as a result of Chernobyl irradiation have been found in every group that has been studied. Brain damage has been found in individuals directly exposed—liquidators and those living in the contaminated territories, as well as in their offspring. Premature cataracts; tooth and mouth abnormalities; and blood, lymphatic, heart, lung, gastrointestinal, urologic, bone, and skin diseases afflict and impair people, young and old alike. Endocrine dysfunction, particularly thyroid disease, is far more common than might be expected, with some 1,000 cases of thyroid dysfunction for every case of thyroid cancer, a marked increase after the catastrophe. There are genetic damage and birth defects especially in children of liquidators and in children born in areas with high levels of radioisotope contamination.

Immunological abnormalities and increases in viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases are rife among individuals in the heavily contaminated areas. For more than 20 years, overall morbidity has remained high in those exposed to the irradiation released by Chernobyl. One cannot give credence to the explanation that these numbers are due solely to socioeconomic factors. The negative health consequences of the catastrophe are amply documented in this chapter and concern millions of people.

The most recent forecast by international agencies predicted there would be between 9,000 and 28,000 fatal cancers between 1986 and 2056, obviously underestimating the risk factors and the collective doses. On the basis of I-131 and Cs-137 radioisotope doses to which populations were exposed and a comparison of cancer mortality in the heavily and the less contaminated territories and pre- and post-Chernobyl cancer levels, a more realistic figure is 212,000 to 245,000 deaths in Europe and 19,000 in the rest of the world. High levels of Te-132, Ru-103, Ru-106, and Cs-134 persisted months after the Chernobyl catastrophe and the continuing radiation from Cs-137, Sr-90, Pu, and Am will generate new neoplasms for hundreds of years.

A detailed study reveals that 3.8–4.0% of all deaths in the contaminated territories of Ukraine and Russia from 1990 to 2004 were caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The lack of evidence of increased mortality in other affected countries is not proof of the absence of effects from the radioactive fallout. Since 1990, mortality among liquidators has exceeded the mortality rate in corresponding population groups.

From 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators died before 2005—that is, some 15% of the 830,000 members of the Chernobyl cleanup teams. The calculations suggest that the Chernobyl catastrophe has already killed several hundred thousand human beings in a population of several hundred million that was unfortunate enough to live in territories affected by the fallout. The number of Chernobyl victims will continue to grow over many future generations.

[kristopher]

35. BTW, from 2 years ago...

You know better than to spread this fiction about uranium and plutonium releases from coal
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3592611&mesg_id=3592790


Radioactivity releases from nuclear operations dwarf radioactivity releases from coal
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3592910

[Physics_Prof]

34. More misleading metrics

If those estimates apply to the roughly 440 reactors world-wide,
then we can expect a TMI-scale event roughly every 23 years:
10,000 reactor-years / 440 reactors = 23 years
Chernobyl was 24 years ago ... tick tick tick ...
---------------------------------------------------

The above shows a lack of understanding of probability
theory. The chances of having a one in 24 year accident
don't increase just because 23 years have gone by.

The probability of flipping an honest coin and having
it come up heads 10 times straight is 1 in 1024.
( one-half to the 10-th power )

However, suppose you have flipped a coin 9 times and
had it come up heads each time. What is the probability
of the 10-th flip coming up heads? It is 1/2; and not
1/1024.

When you have a year with no nuclear accidents, the probability
of that past event becomes unity. If the probability in any
given year is 1/24; it remains 1/24 no matter how many years
have gone by.

Additionally, the 440 reactors includes all reactors including
MIT's own little 5 Mw "tea kettle". The MIT figures should only
be applied to the power reactors for which they were calculated.

The USA has about 100 operating power reactors. Therefore, if one
accepts a 1 per 10,000 reactor years probability; then the USA
has a 1% chance of an accident in each year.

The study also stated that there was a 1 in 10 chance that given
an accident, one would have containment failure. Since that is a
conditional probability, one multiplies it by the 1% chance to
obtain a 0.1% or 1 in a 1,000 years of having an accident with
external impacts.

Even then, it doesn't quantify the magnitude of those effects.
The next accident could have effects as trivial for the public
as those at TMI.

Physics_Prof

[kristopher]

36. Or as devastating as Chernobyl.

PS, give "Dr" Greg our regards.

[Laelth]

2. We're going to have to go that route, eventually. Dirty, yes, but better than coal. n/t

-Laelth

[abqmufc]

Ted Turner is a fucking douche

who really has no clue. A shame the man spends most of his time in an area that has seen direct impact of the nuclear industry (New Mexico)...but b/c the damage done is in mostly rural and on Tribal lands who gives a flying fuck. So long as the fat cats in L.A., Phoenix (aka HELL), Tucson, Denver, Salt Lake City who gives a fuck what happens during the mining and milling of uranium in New Mexico, Navajo Nation, and Utah.

Fuck this country I am done!

[txlibdem]

5. I guess you've never heard of mountain top removal, towns getting buried by avalanche of coal slurry

I guess you've never heard of mountain top removal, towns getting buried by avalanche of coal slurry, and the fact that each and every coal power plant we have is putting out not only 5 tons of Uranium but also about 3 times that amount of radioactive Thorium, as well as toxic mercury, lead, arsenic and other poisons.

When a 50-foot high pile of coal ash gave way in Tennessee’s Coal River Valley December 22, 2008, an estimated 500 million gallons of toxic waste tumbled like a poisonous avalanche into the ecosystem around Kingston, Alabama. Photo courtesy TVA.

From the Birmingham Weekly

Into a place where the Cahaba, one of America's last free-running wild rivers, flows, Perry County in Alabama is welcoming, and the Environmental Protection Agency is permitting, almost four million tons of toxic waste (coal or fly ash), shipped in from a TVA plant 300 miles away.

When a 50-foot high pile of coal ash, characterized as an "ash pond," gave way in Tennessee's Coal River Valley December 22, 2008, an estimated 500 million gallons of toxic sludge tumbled like a poisonous avalanche into the ecosystem around Kingston, AL. Besides damaging homes in the adjacent town of Harriman, the muckslide despoiled about 300 acres and emptied residue into the Tennessee River, affecting water supplies in Alabama and Kentucky as well. Cleaning up the mess, which the EPA called "one of the largest and most serious environmental releases in our history" will cost over a billion dollars.


Coal ash, the stuff left over after coal has been burned, is a nasty brew of goo. Besides containing potentially harmful metals such as chromium, mercury and selenium, as well as an unhealthy dose of arsenic, power plant coal ash, according to Scientific American, has so much concentrated uranium and thorium that it "delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage."

http://www.thegrio.com/health/is-this-alabama-toxic-dump-institutional-racism.php

Waste in our water: The coal ash problem

by John Young

Jeff Stant has long led the fight against pollution associated with coal-fired plants.
For the past thirty years Jeff Stant has gained a reputation around Indiana as a relentless and tenacious environmental defender. "I grew up in the woods in Zionville, springing animals from traps before trappers got them, I was in love with nature," he says. His current battle is to get coal ash, the by product of burning coal for power, deemed as a hazardous waste by the federal government, "It could be an epic move," says Stant.

The push to regulate coal ash comes from those like Stant, who believe it to be harmful. Because coal contains traces of heavy metals, so will the ash that is left behind after coal is burned to produce electricity. Arsenic, lead, copper, mercury, nickel, selenium, zinc and many other metals are commonly left behind in coal ash.

After 12 years with the Hoosier Environmental Council, Stant has been a consultant for the Citizens Coal Council and the Clean Air Task Force. His current gig is with the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a Washington, DC group that focuses on strong enforcement of environmental laws.

The EIP recently released a report identifying numerous sites across the country contaminated with deadly pollutants from coal ash, bringing the total number of sites nationwide to 101. The levels of heavy metals at these sites are well above federally permissible levels.

http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/waste-in-our-water-the-coal-ash-problem/Content?oid=1333657

The article goes on to describe the communities that have found toxic substances in their drinking water supply due to coal power plants.

COAL-ASH WASTE CONTAMINATION STUDY: 31 NEW WATER POLLUTION SITES FOUND IN 14 STATES, SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASING PRESSURE ON OMB TO RELEASE DELAYED EPA RULE

Arsenic, Other Deadly Pollutants Found in Water From Additional Sites in DE, FL, IL, IN, MD, MI, MT, NC, NM, NV, PA, SC, TN and WV; Toxic Metals Found at Levels Up to Nearly 150 Times Federal Limits.

...

WASHINGTON, D.C.///February 24, 2010///The case for the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to stop sitting on a delayed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) coal-ash site contamination rule is even stronger than it first appeared to be, according to a major new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and Earthjustice. The analysis by EIP and Earthjustice identifies 31 additional coal-ash contamination sites in 14 states, which, when added to the 70 in the EPA's justification for the pending rule, brings the total of coal-fired power plant waste storage sites with poisoned water to 101.

...

Arsenic, a potent human carcinogen, has been found at 19 of 31 sites at extremely high levels, with one site found at nearly 150 times the federal water standard. Arsenic causes multiple forms of cancer, including cancer of the liver, kidney, lung, bladder, and skin. Offsite arsenic levels in ash-contaminated groundwater from the Reid Gardner plant (Nevada) have been measured at 31 times the EPA drinking water standard of 10 micrograms per liter.

...

Examples cited in the report include: a boron- and sulfate-contaminated drinking water supply that sickened people in Montana and had to be abandoned; major arsenic pollution from a coal ash dump that contributed to a Great Lake Bay becoming an "International Area of Concern"; a mile-long plume of contamination in Florida; mercury contamination of residential wells in Tennessee; and selenium levels in West Virginia surface waters at 4-5 times what is permitted under federal law.

http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/news_reports/news_02_24_10.php

It's clear that we need to start addressing the deadly radioactive waste and deadly toxic material coming from each and every coal power plant. Ban coal power and force the industry to pay for the toxic waste cleanup!

[abqmufc]

3. Ted Turner is a fucking douche

who really has no clue. A shame the man spends most of his time in an area that has seen direct impact of the nuclear industry (New Mexico)...but b/c the damage done is in mostly rural and on Tribal lands who gives a flying fuck. So long as the fat cats in L.A., Phoenix (aka HELL), Tucson, Denver, Salt Lake City get energy to fuel their lustful needs for power who gives a fuck what happens during the mining and milling of uranium in New Mexico, Navajo Nation, and Utah.

Fuck this country I am done!

[txlibdem]

7. I guess you've never heard of mountain top removal, towns getting buried by avalanche of coal slurry

I guess you've never heard of mountain top removal, towns getting buried by avalanche of coal slurry, and the fact that each and every coal power plant we have is putting out not only 5 tons of Uranium but also about 3 times that amount of radioactive Thorium, as well as toxic mercury, lead, arsenic and other poisons.

When a 50-foot high pile of coal ash gave way in Tennessee’s Coal River Valley December 22, 2008, an estimated 500 million gallons of toxic waste tumbled like a poisonous avalanche into the ecosystem around Kingston, Alabama. Photo courtesy TVA.

From the Birmingham Weekly

Into a place where the Cahaba, one of America's last free-running wild rivers, flows, Perry County in Alabama is welcoming, and the Environmental Protection Agency is permitting, almost four million tons of toxic waste (coal or fly ash), shipped in from a TVA plant 300 miles away.

When a 50-foot high pile of coal ash, characterized as an "ash pond," gave way in Tennessee's Coal River Valley December 22, 2008, an estimated 500 million gallons of toxic sludge tumbled like a poisonous avalanche into the ecosystem around Kingston, AL. Besides damaging homes in the adjacent town of Harriman, the muckslide despoiled about 300 acres and emptied residue into the Tennessee River, affecting water supplies in Alabama and Kentucky as well. Cleaning up the mess, which the EPA called "one of the largest and most serious environmental releases in our history" will cost over a billion dollars.


Coal ash, the stuff left over after coal has been burned, is a nasty brew of goo. Besides containing potentially harmful metals such as chromium, mercury and selenium, as well as an unhealthy dose of arsenic, power plant coal ash, according to Scientific American, has so much concentrated uranium and thorium that it "delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage."

http://www.thegrio.com/health/is-this-alabama-toxic-dump-institutional-racism.php

Waste in our water: The coal ash problem

by John Young

Jeff Stant has long led the fight against pollution associated with coal-fired plants.
For the past thirty years Jeff Stant has gained a reputation around Indiana as a relentless and tenacious environmental defender. "I grew up in the woods in Zionville, springing animals from traps before trappers got them, I was in love with nature," he says. His current battle is to get coal ash, the by product of burning coal for power, deemed as a hazardous waste by the federal government, "It could be an epic move," says Stant.

The push to regulate coal ash comes from those like Stant, who believe it to be harmful. Because coal contains traces of heavy metals, so will the ash that is left behind after coal is burned to produce electricity. Arsenic, lead, copper, mercury, nickel, selenium, zinc and many other metals are commonly left behind in coal ash.

After 12 years with the Hoosier Environmental Council, Stant has been a consultant for the Citizens Coal Council and the Clean Air Task Force. His current gig is with the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a Washington, DC group that focuses on strong enforcement of environmental laws.

The EIP recently released a report identifying numerous sites across the country contaminated with deadly pollutants from coal ash, bringing the total number of sites nationwide to 101. The levels of heavy metals at these sites are well above federally permissible levels.

http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/waste-in-our-water-the-coal-ash-problem/Content?oid=1333657

The article goes on to describe the communities that have found toxic substances in their drinking water supply due to coal power plants.

COAL-ASH WASTE CONTAMINATION STUDY: 31 NEW WATER POLLUTION SITES FOUND IN 14 STATES, SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASING PRESSURE ON OMB TO RELEASE DELAYED EPA RULE

Arsenic, Other Deadly Pollutants Found in Water From Additional Sites in DE, FL, IL, IN, MD, MI, MT, NC, NM, NV, PA, SC, TN and WV; Toxic Metals Found at Levels Up to Nearly 150 Times Federal Limits.

...

WASHINGTON, D.C.///February 24, 2010///The case for the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to stop sitting on a delayed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) coal-ash site contamination rule is even stronger than it first appeared to be, according to a major new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and Earthjustice. The analysis by EIP and Earthjustice identifies 31 additional coal-ash contamination sites in 14 states, which, when added to the 70 in the EPA's justification for the pending rule, brings the total of coal-fired power plant waste storage sites with poisoned water to 101.

...

Arsenic, a potent human carcinogen, has been found at 19 of 31 sites at extremely high levels, with one site found at nearly 150 times the federal water standard. Arsenic causes multiple forms of cancer, including cancer of the liver, kidney, lung, bladder, and skin. Offsite arsenic levels in ash-contaminated groundwater from the Reid Gardner plant (Nevada) have been measured at 31 times the EPA drinking water standard of 10 micrograms per liter.

...

Examples cited in the report include: a boron- and sulfate-contaminated drinking water supply that sickened people in Montana and had to be abandoned; major arsenic pollution from a coal ash dump that contributed to a Great Lake Bay becoming an "International Area of Concern"; a mile-long plume of contamination in Florida; mercury contamination of residential wells in Tennessee; and selenium levels in West Virginia surface waters at 4-5 times what is permitted under federal law.

http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/news_reports/news_02_24_10.php

It's clear that we need to start addressing the deadly radioactive waste and deadly toxic material coming from each and every coal power plant. Ban coal power and force the industry to pay for the toxic waste cleanup!

[Nihil]

12. That'll be the day ...

> It's clear that we need to start addressing the deadly radioactive waste
> and deadly toxic material coming from each and every coal power plant.
> Ban coal power and force the industry to pay for the toxic waste cleanup!

Yeah ... and while we're at it, let's get the plastic out of the oceans,
the CO2 out of the atmosphere and magically vanish a few billion people
(i.e., without having to rely on the usual famine/disease/war approach).

:beer: :smoke:


(Sorry, not getting at you txlibdem, just fed up at all of the problems
that are recognised by the minority while the majority just continue with
maximising their quarterly profit, buying the latest & greatest TV screens
and burying their heads in the oil-soaked sand.)

[txlibdem]

15. Yup. Even quite a few posters right here on DU just can't seem to recognize facts from fanatacism

That's what make America great on the one hand but when presented with the fact that coal ash is 100 times as radioactive as the emissions from any nuclear power plant they just can't seem to take off their anti-nuke blinders.

Anti-nukes love to throw Chernobyl into every nuclear power conversation despite the fact that it had NO containment vessel --something that no, none, zero, zip, nada nuclear power plants would be able to get away with here in the US. The only reason for the disaster there in the first place was because the personnel on staff had shut down the majority of their safety equipment and detectors to conduct a test of the system. It was human error and foolish actions combined. The lack of containment was the true tragedy of Chernobyl because there was nothing stopping the radioactive materials from escaping, such a tragedy could never happen in the US or Western Europe due to the far higher safety standards and the requirement that all reactors have a containment vessel.

There never has been, nor will there ever be a nuclear reactor like Chernobyl built in the US. Therefore it is a red herring of the worst kind --using the deaths of thousands of brave firefighters and plant workers who worked to install a containment vessel, knowing that their exposure to radiation was going to be fatal. It sickens me when these hucksters and fools cheapen the heroism and sacrifice of those men to score some cheap points on a forum argument.

PS, once these heroes got the containment vessel built the danger was contained and no further emissions occurred. Their deaths meant safety for hundreds of thousands of nearby residents. Honor them, don't lie about their deaths and the cause of their deaths. Sickening.

[kristopher]

22. There is no way that anyone supporting nuclear energy has the high moral ground on that argument.

What is unconscionable is maintaining the false assertion that we NEED to accept the risks of nuclear - which are CLEARLY far in excess of those associated with the very viable alternative of renewable energy sources.

That is a fiction that cannot be substantiated. With the reality of a viable superior alternative in the picture your scold can be seen for exactly the cynical ploy that it is.

Your screed also includes a strawman - that those who direct attention to events at Chernobyl are suggesting that technology has not improved or even that a Cherynobly STYLE reactor is the problem when the norm is for Chernobyl to be used as a real world benchmark for the SCALE of an accident involving nuclear power - even with current technology.

The content of your poison-the-well argument was a prototypical example of the "sickening" type of exploitation you decried.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kennah]

19. Tenuous support for nuclear power

"He is backing nuclear power out of desperation, not because it is a rational option."
-- Jonathon Porritt, Head of Britain's Sustainable Development Commission, commenting on Dr. James Lovelock

I would ascribe the above quote to my own view of nuclear power.

[GliderGuider]

20. That's because there are no rational options in this situation

People want to have their cake and eat it too. There is no energy solution that is simultaneously large-scale, low-CO2 and non-nuclear - these goals are mutually exclusive with current technology.

[kristopher]

23. No, rejecting rational solutions isn't the same as them not existing.

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[joshcryer]

26. 300 Apollo's or 50 WWII's is not a rational solution.

[bananas]

28. There are rational options, and they are widely known

There is an energy solution that is simultaneously large-scale, low-CO2 and non-nuclear, and cost-effective.
See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x191961

[joshcryer]

25. Look at the growth of non-clean options vs clean options.

Nuclear is the only way to get us out of this mess short of magic technology. :(

[bananas]

27. Wrong.

The only way out of this mess is a massive build-out of renewables, efficiency, and "soft" geo-engineering (reforestation, white roofs, etc).
It's widely understood that there is no "silver bullet", that a mix of technologies are needed.
Specifically, nuclear is not a "silver bullet" which can get us out of this mess.
It's also widely understood that nuclear isn't needed at all,
and that it won't play a major role.

[Confusious]

29. Magic thinking. nt