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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Nuclear answer
2004-06-07
Forgive the bandwidth, Fred, but I was busy and did not get to respond to the Nukes debate of a few days ago. People were ignorant of nuclear accidents, and the costs of the nuclear industry, mistakenly believing that Chernobyl is about the only Nuke accident ever. Here are some facts and resources for people. Bear in mind this is brief: what I found in 5 mins on the internet. I once had far more resources at my disposal once but at present I am far from home.

HEALTH EFFECTS of exposure to radiation:
“Radiation exposure, like exposure to the sun, is cumulative.”
Source: CDC

CUMULATIVE means that the harmful effects build up over time they don’t go away. Every small bit of radiation you are exposed to increases your chances of getting cancer or passing on genetic defects to your children. There is NO SAFE DOSE OF RADIATION. It is a lottery as to whether the radiation strikes out a gene in your DNA that is harmless or one that causes the cell to malfunction and become cancerous.
SOURCE: greenie site but medical doctors agree and despite controversy evidence is good.

People already suffer cancers simply as a result of the background radiation that everyone is exposed to from the Sun and radioactive particles in the air and water. This is unavoidable. But even small leaks of radioactivity from nuclear power plants increase the background level of radiation. As it is CUMULATIVE, this increases the rates of cancer and birth defects in populations exposed to it. You cannot get it out of the environment either once it’s out there in the food chain. Here’s a brief discussion of some of the health effects of radiation written about the Hanford accident:
Link

NUCLEAR REACTORS HAVE PLENTY OF ACCIDENTS NOT JUST CHERNOBYL:
In response to the poster who made the claim that France relies on N-power and has no accidents: The froggies have never been ones to admit when they make mistakes. They’d much rather cover it up. But in case you think the French are so superior that unlike the other developed nations that use N-power and have had thousands of accidents, they have had none, here are a selection (ie: not all just some):
22-09-1980: Pump failure causes accidental release of radioactive water at La Hague reprocessing plant (France)

6-01-1981: Accident at La Hague reprocessing plant (France)

1-10-1983: Technical failure and human error cause accident at Blayas nuclear power plant(France)

19-08-1986: Flooding at the Cattenom nuclear power plant (France)

28-04-1988: Release of 5000 Curies of tritium gas from the Bruyere le Chatel military nuclear complex (France)

1-04-1989: Control rod failure at Gravelines nuclear power plant (France)

28-01-1990: Pump failure during a shut-down at Gravelines nuclear power plant (France)

26-05-1990: During refuelling, five cubic meters of radioactive water spilled at the Fessenheim nuclear power plant (France)

16-09-1990: Superphenix Fast Breeder Reactor is closed down due to technical failures (France)

4-12-1990: 2 workers irradiated during refuelling at Blayais nuclear power plant (France)

1-06-1991: Failure of core cooling system at Belleville nuclear power plant (France)

22-07-1992: Two workers contaminated at Dampierre nuclear power plant (France)

20-01-1993: Technical failure at Paluel causes subcooling accident (France)

22-10-1993: Instrumentation and Control failure at Saint Alban nuclear power plant (France)
SOURCE:
Note: this is sourced from Greenpeace who I disagree with on many issues (eg: global warming), but this is a simple list of facts that are easily independently checkable: Link


EXPENSIVE INEFFICIENCY OF REACTORS:
Unlike conventional power plants, nuclear plants have a relatively short life-span -- 30 years -- before critical reactor components become irreparably radioactive. At that point the plant must be decommissioned (`mothballed’) at a cost of over $100 million, or else its entire reactor core replaced.
[oh, so cheap, so efficient!]
Compounding the storage problem is an accumulation of spent radioactive fuel rods, which have a life-span of only three years.
[Oh but they’re so small, they hardly take up any space!!!! Just a little problem, easily solvable
 just not in my backyard, thanks!] SOURCE: as below.

PARTIAL LIST OF ACCIDENTS AT US REACTORS (there have been thousands of minor and mid-level accidents but for brevity and laziness here are just a few.) SOURCE: Link


28 March 1979
A major accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. At 4:00 a.m. a series of human and mechanical failures nearly triggered a nuclear disaster. By 8:00 a.m., after cooling water was lost and temperatures soared above 5,000 degrees, the top half of the reactor’s 150-ton core collapsed and melted. Contaminated coolant water escaped into a nearby building, releasing radioactive gasses, leading as many as 200,000 people to flee the region. Despite claims by the nuclear industry that "no one died at Three Mile Island," a study by Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, professor of radiation physics at the University of Pittsburgh, showed that the accident led to a minimum of 430 infant deaths.

11 February 1981
An Auxiliary Unit Operator, working his first day on the new job without proper training, inadvertently opened a valve which led to the contamination of eight men by 110,000 gallons of radioactive coolant sprayed into the containment building of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah I plant in Tennessee.

25 January 1982
A steam generator pipe broke at the Rochester Gas & Electric Company’s Ginna plant near Rochester, New York. Fifteen thousand gallons of radioactive coolant spilled onto the plant floor, and small amounts of radioactive steam escaped into the air.

15-16 January 1983
Nearly 208,000 gallons of water with low-level radioactive contamination was accidentally dumped into the Tennesee River at the Browns Ferry power plant.

1988
It was reported that there were 2,810 accidents in U.S. commercial nuclear power plants in 1987, down slightly from the 2,836 accidents reported in 1986, according to a report issued by the Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc.

25 February 1993
A catastrophe at the Salem 1 reactor in New Jersey was averted by just 90 seconds when the plant was shut down manually, following the failure of automatic shutdown systems to act properly. The same automatic systems had failed to respond in an incident three days before, and other problems plagued this plant as well, such as a 3,000 gallon leak of radioactive water in June 1981 at the Salem 2 reactor, a 23,000 gallon leak of "mildly" radioactive water (which splashed onto 16 workers) in February 1982, and radioactive gas leaks in March 1981 and September 1982 from Salem 1.

28 May 1993
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a warning to the operators of 34 nuclear reactors around the country that the instruments used to measure levels of water in the reactor could give false readings during routine shutdowns and fail to detect important leaks. The problem was first bought to light by an engineer at Northeast Utilities in Connecticut who had been harassed for raising safety questions. The flawed instruments at boiling-water reactors designed by General Electric utilize pipes which were prone to being blocked by gas bubbles; a failure to detect falling water levels could have resulted, potentially leading to a meltdown.

HERE’S A LIST OF MORE ACCIDENTS FROM THE 1990s
Link
including that of Hanford, Washington, where wildfires burnt the reactor.

GIVE UP on the nuclear fantasy, it isn’t the great powersource of the future that it’s cracked up to be. The other alternatives may not ALL be applicable in EVERY situation. They may not be cheap – in fact they are expensive. But they come without the social cost of Nukes. This fantasy is a dead-end path. Forget it, it’s over. Nobody wants the waste, it cannot be safely stored and even if you can guarantee that you can store it for a thousand years you cannot guarantee that human beings will remember where it is or understand that they cannot go digging there. As Gandalf said (loosely paraphrased) in Lord of the Rings: “you think only of yourselves, and this time. But there are people yet to be born and time still to be. They are also my concern.”

You cannot guarantee against human error. You cannot guarantee against outside events such as the fire that caused the Hanford disaster: sabotage, flooding, earthquake, terrorist strikes. You cannot guarantee the stability of civic society beyond the next 100 years let alone the next 10,000. This means that you cannot guarantee the safety and efficiency of Nuclear reactors as a source of power. They are too expensive and I’m not willing to pay the price! Find another way.
Posted by:Anon1

#12  actually, I DID post the links so you could check them out for yourself.

You'll also note that I originally had a lot more resources but that I am far from home and have no access to them now.

I am not prepared to spend hours researching it for your benefit but am content to skim for a short while to find a few facts and figures to back up my argument, which I did.

I'm 28 hours late: yes, I have a life.

I respect that you provided the new server it was good to provide Fred with extra as Rantburg is a really important site.

But don't think that changes the rules of engagement. Facts and logic rule. Agreeing with faulty logic is simply idiotarianism even if it appeals to your opinion on the topic.
Posted by: Anon1   2004-06-09 9:14:01 AM  

#11  AW - No I wouldn't believe you because you're a link whore who dumps tons of text from links you skimmed off of idiot sites, instead of just posting the URLs so people can judge the source for themselves. You eat lots of bandwidth that doesn't belong to you. BTW, davemac is really an alien. And your 28+ HOURS LATE.

Toodles.
Posted by: .com   2004-06-09 9:08:12 AM  

#10  .com: davemac did not clarify anything.

His argument was simply an appeal to authority.

I'm an expert he said, so believe me.

But he did not provide any facts, evidence or logic.

For all YOU know he could be a streetcleaner.

If I told you I was an astrophysicist and then told you I had invented a time machine, would you believe that, too? Even if I WAS an astrophysicist I could STILL be either mistaken, biased or lying.
Posted by: Anon1   2004-06-09 9:03:39 AM  

#9  Thx, davemac! It is the purpose of RB to allow those who know WTF to clarify issues and inform those lacking the firsthand info. Please come back often!!! Your comment made me LOL - again, thanks!

Phil_B - A dead thread, indeed!
Posted by: .com   2004-06-08 4:13:41 AM  

#8  Your arrogance is your greatest obstacle, Phil B, since you think anybody that disagrees with you is simply clueless and ignorant.

I provided evidence to back up my claims, which were logical and well-reasoned.

In answer to that you respond with an ad-hominem attack and a vague generalisation.

Guess what Phil B.... I already stated that background radiation is unavoidable and is already responsible for cancers.

The trick is not to add more to it because the effect is cumulative and that means more cancers and birth defects as a direct result.

You've earnt my ad-hominem attack on you:

You are ignorant. You have only vague ideas to back up your position. You haven't refuted my argument with evidence and logic.

Where's the source to back up that there are "substantial" (whatever that means) emissions of radon. Where is your source that proves that the emission of Radon gas is not a problem in and of itself. Where is your evidence that this is actually a "bigger" problem than releases from nuclear facilities (which facilities? which spillage? how many milliseiverts of radiation in the water supply/atmosphere/food chain is it worse than?)
Posted by: Anon1   2004-06-08 4:04:42 AM  

#7  I wouldn't want to be living in a city where .... release of radioactive gas into the atmosphere

This is what burns me about greenies. They are so ignorant and clueless. I guarantee whatever city you (Anon1) live in there are substantial emissions of radioactive gas (Radon) happening right now. And this problem is orders of magnitude bigger than releases from nuclear facilities.

Memo to self - stop posting to dead threads!
Posted by: Phil B   2004-06-08 3:31:28 AM  

#6  With all due respect to all, (ie: respect for Frank, but none for Phil B) the hazard of nukes lies in the longevity of the radiation.

I have listed some straight verifiable facts.

They directly contradict the argument that nuclear power is safe, efficient and cheap.

To die of radiation poisoning would involve extremely high doses of radioactivity. Workers have died as a result of this during accidents at nuke plants around the world and not just at Chernobyl.

It is the thousands of N-plant workers who die of cancers, who have down-syndrome children or leukaemia, who maybe worked at the reactor for 5 years then moved to a different state and weren't tracked that are the problem. Those figures don't get traced back to the reactor because oh no then we'd have to admit there was a problem.

The russians relocated thousands after Chernobyl and didn't keep records. There was a reason for that. Who wants to admit the real death toll?

Another Chernobyl is inevitable sooner or later.

But regardless of Chernobyl (a low probability event), I wouldn't want to be living in a city where there was a small accident (a high probability event) involving accidental release of radioactive gas into the atmosphere (happened at Lucas Heights in Sydney), or similar into the water supply, because I am smart and I know that will increase my risk of cancer or of passing on genetic defects.


Posted by: Anon1   2004-06-07 11:59:21 PM  

#5  anon1 - you usually post sensible stuff, but I fear you've taken the no-nuke bait on this - my minor was in radiation physics. These are exaggerated, out-and-out fabrications and pure bunk. No energy production is without hazard, the fact that the workers stay employed and don't die of radiation poisoning should give a clue - with all due respect....
Posted by: Frank G   2004-06-07 11:42:14 PM  

#4  Yawn! You don't refute my arguments, you don't produce relevant facts. You attribute stements to me I never made, and then you substantiate the statement I did make - "France has never had a serious nuclear accident".

Enough! Come back when you have a cogent argument. Multiple posts empty of content is just a bore.
Posted by: Phil B   2004-06-07 11:37:44 PM  

#3  Phil B: I don't appreciate your ad hominem attack. Calling me a dimwit doesn't advance your argument.

Only facts and logic score points.

Relative safety and relative expense is exactly what I'm arguing. I think on balance that the relative lack of safety and expense of nuclear reactors make them a bad choice.

I think it was you who made out the French never had any accidents. You were wrong.

The reportage of accidents here is accurate.

There is no safe dosage level of radiation. Though the health effects of carbon pollution also cause people to die, they do not remain a problem for hundreds of thousands of years.

Global warming cannot be stopped now anyway, so using that as an argument against fossil fuels is redundant.

The argument for not using fossil fuels due to it causing us to give money to the people who are trying to kill us (Islamic Fascist states) IS relevant however.

I want us weened off Saudi Skag as much as the next person. But there are other alternatives to Nuclear power. They are also expensive but on balance I find the price paid for those alternatives is less both socially and in dollar terms than that paid for nuclear power.

Davemac: as you can see from the simple and factual list of some accidents at French reactors, this is not an exaggeration.

You will note that there are other more extensive lists which detail the thousands of accidents both minor and mid-level (if you take Chernobyl as major) that occur every year at nuke reactors.

You cannot guarantee against human error, faulty equipment, exogenous events or the impact of time (ie: 1000 years down the track you don't know what society will be like).

The same problems exist for other fuel sources but the difference is if you get a problem with ANY of these other fuel sources, it ceases to be a problem at worst case within a couple of decades.

There are parts of Russia that have been fenced off as uninhabitable for millenia. Do you think those fences will stay up? No! of course they won't. Future generations will suffer.

They will pay the cost. But you are short-sighted and think only of now now now.
Posted by: Anon1   2004-06-07 11:24:42 PM  

#2  I teach operators in the Nuclear Industry and we use a lot of these events (accidents, catastrophe, meltdown - hah, the usual buzzwords!)as examples. Most of the crap you have here is an extreme exaggeration of what actually happened. Which is what happens when you download some anti-nuke stuff. Worse liars than the Global Warming crowd.
Posted by: davemac   2004-06-07 11:12:40 PM  

#1  Wow! I am shocked nuclear power is not totally safe! (/sarcasm).

Look you dimwit nobody argues that nuclear power is totally safe. Nothing is totally safe. The issue is its relative safety compared to the alternatives. Even if all the accidents and deaths you cite are accurate, and the relationship between long term exposure to radiation and cancer is a lot more complex than you imply, A quick calculation using this source makes nuclear power between 4 and 5 orders of magnitude safer than the only feasible alternative fossil fuels. That means that for every person nuclear power kills, the alternative kills between 10,000 and a 100,000 people.

It really burns me that greenie dimwits like you are murdering millions of people.
Posted by: Phil B   2004-06-07 10:52:01 PM  

00:00