The Hoax of Eco-Friendly Nuclear Energy

[flashl]

Money Is the Real Green Power: The Hoax of Eco-Friendly Nuclear Energy

Karl Grossman | February 3, 2008 | Extra!

Nuclear advocates in government and the nuclear industry are engaged in a massive, heavily financed drive to revive atomic power in the United States-with most of the mainstream media either not questioning or actually assisting in the promotion.

“With a very few notable exceptions, such as the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. media have turned the same sort of blind, uncritical eye on the nuclear industry’s claims that led an earlier generation of Americans to believe atomic energy would be too cheap to meter,” comments Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “The nuclear industry’s public relations effort has improved over the past 50 years, while the natural skepticism of reporters toward corporate claims seems to have disappeared.”

The New York Times continues to be, as it was a half-century ago when nuclear technology was first advanced, a media leader in pushing the technology, which collapsed in the U.S. with the 1979 Three Mile Island and 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accidents. The Times has showered readers with a variety of pieces advocating a nuclear revival, all marbled with omissions and untruths. A lead editorial headlined “The Greening of Nuclear Power” (5/13/06) opened:

Not so many years ago, nuclear energy was a hobgoblin to environmentalists, who feared the potential for catastrophic accidents and long-term radiation contamination. . . . But this is a new era, dominated by fears of tight energy supplies and global warming. Suddenly nuclear power is looking better.

Common Dreams

[wtmusic]

1. The first reply at commondreams debunks everything printed here

"Nukes add to greenhouse - Yes, uranium mining, construction, transport and other operations involved in nuclear power consume oil. So do similar operations involved in solar, wind, or any other form of power production. But the greenhouse gas released due to nuclear power is essentially zero compared with what it replaces: coal. And solar and wind cannot now replace coal for always-available, baseload power generation. Maybe in the future we will have economical power storage and we can get nearly all our electricity from solar and wind. But for the moment, each time a utility planner in the US, China or India needs to add a GW of baseload capacity, the choice is basically coal vs. nuclear.

Let’s be clear about this: The fact that nuclear power is close to zero greenhouse gas emissions is no “myth.” In fact, let’s be really clear: calling that a “myth” is a lie. Compared with its major alternative, coal, nuclear is very Green.

Greens for hire - Oh, I am so sick of this fraudulent cui bono muckraking, as if the motives of anti-nuclear activists are above reproach or as if we can’t have an honest discussion about the costs, benefits and risks of various energy options without asking whether someone might have some hidden motives.

Scarce high-grade fuel - Grossman appears to display his ignorance here, since all uranium ore contains the same ratio of U-235 to U-238; high-grade ore is not the same as “enriched” uranium. “Proven” reserves of high-grade ore are as low as they are in part because demand has been low the past few decades. We don’t know what we’ll find if the price rises; there is probably more uranium available than current proven reserves indicate. But it is generally understood that nuclear power, on the scale needed to address the global warming problem along with global economic growth, will need to move beyond the once-through uranium cycle to reprocessing, plutonium breeder technology and possibly thorium.

Grossman says plutonium reactors can explode like atomic bombs. Not really. There is no compression, so at worst you can have something like a meltdown, which won’t happen unless certain conditions are created. It’s the same sort of control problem as with a uranium reactor.

Blaming Jane Fonda - Grossman cites sketchy sources claiming that TMI and Chernobyl have resulted in many deaths, contrary to better information which is readily available, such as the WHO survey.

Staggering numbers - Yes, a worst-case nuclear meltdown disaster can cause a lot of damage and harm. Similar numbers can be cited for possible dam failures and other disasters. The question is, how likely is it? Here is a number for you: Zero. That’s how many times in history a nuclear power reactor with a containment dome melted down and broke through the containment.

Ignored alternatives - Who’s ignoring what alternatives? Solar power is not available at night, and wind is not available on calm days. Gas is rising in price and is needed as a portable heating, cooking and transportation fuel. For a new GW power plant, the choice is usually nuclear vs. coal. If we’re going to get rid of most of our coal-fired power plants any time soon enough, we are going to need nukes."

Thank you, Mark Abram

As usual, antinukers long on hysteria and short on facts.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. The anti-nuclearists have no case

It is easy to find scientific information about nuclear energy. The scare stories just don't hold up. I understand why people would be scared of it, but they have been fed misinformation for 30 years. Chernobyl, Cheney, "too cheap to meter", and and other hot-buttons are pushed over and over.

And the "heavy financing" of pro-nuclear information is utterly dwarfed by corporate greenwash. If you watch Keith Olbermann, you will see several advertisements for "green energy" between the erection medicine and Dennis Hopper Ameriprise ads.

There are actual problems with nuclear development that need to be addressed: mainly high initial start-up costs, proliferation, and the need for tight regulation. But what people fear is not a technical problem in a properly implemented nuclear fuel cycle. In fact, there are few problems remaining except for human error and political/financial corruption.

Selective attention and concern are also too common. Coal contains 5-40 (avg. 14) parts per million of radionucleides, mainly uranium and thorium. In one year, a gigawatt coal-burning plant puts an average of 50 tons of the stuff into the air. And there are thousands of coal plants in operation. It is estimated that, yearly, there are 500,000 to 2 million deaths from the NON-radioactive output of coal, plus about 2000 deaths of miners. Yet it barely raises an eyebrow.

Seawater, likewise, contains an average 12 PPM of U/Th material. It can be extracted, and within two to four years, these methods will be competitive with uranium mining.

There is a corpus of hundreds of thousands of pages of anti-nuclear writing, most of it repetitive, with which to bury all other voices, and a number of anti-nuclear activists share the zeal of anti-choice activists. It would take much more writing from me to properly make the case. So I will urge you take a look at the issue yourself, dispassionately. Avoid ALL propaganda, pro- and anti-. Seek conflicting points of view, again from all sides. You may still oppose nuclear energy, but you will be informed. And while I advocate for nuclear energy, having a well-informed society is a much higher priority. Any particular "flavor" of energy has its risks and rewards, but intelligence is an absolute benefit.

--p!

PS: It usually takes about ten minutes for someone to accuse me of being a "paid shill". I am currently disabled, bankrupted from medical expenses, and on Social Security. So if you DO know anyone with deep pockets looking to make me a paid shill, please pass along my username so they can contact me by e-mail. My rates start at $65 per hour but I give substantial volume discounts.

And yes, I DO strongly support the development of all other newer forms of energy generation, particularly tidal and deep geothermal. I worked for a solar/wind start-up in 1979. It isn't a matter of either/or, but of both/and.

[jeanruss]

3. atomic suicide

Read Walter Russell's "Atomic Suicide". Russell was a20th century American genius who was thew true founder of plutonium. He explains why Nuclear power and its waste are incompatible with ALL life forms.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Nearly all the plutonium used in nuclear reactors is

taken from nuclear warheads. The stuff is used to make energy. The by-product has one-millionth of the radioactivity of the plutonium -- or less.

Meanwhile, if nuclear material is "suicide," what do you propose to do about burning coal? And what about cadmium? Unlike plutonium, it NEVER gets any less toxic. Yet it will be the main component of next-generation photovoltaic cells -- and the solar industry is planning to grow 1000 times as large in the next 25 to 40 years.

I'm sure Walter Russell was a great scientist and a sincere man. But reading one book written by one person is not a good way to get informed. We may not know everything, but we do know a whole lot about the effects and the physical properties of nuclear material, and most people overestimate its riskiness by a factor of hundreds. The best sources of information are peer-reviewed scientific papers. Most of them are abstracted into brief summaries that even lay people can understand. It's far more reliable than the word of any advocate or activist (including me).

--p!

[arendt]

4. Let me share a story...

I went to a town-meeting of my Congress-critter on the subject of energy. He brought his energy policy team.

My biggest issue with nukes is waste disposal. I was interested in the pebble-bed reactor design. Here is what the energy policy people said:

"We don't think pebble-bed is terrorist-proof enough."

----

What is your take on that? If pebble-bed isn't terrorist proof enough, what is?

BTW, where are the containment ponds for the current spent fuel? Are they inside the reactor containment domes?

What do you have to say about the legitimate concern that increased nuke plants means increased opportunities for a) material theft for dirty bombs; b) targets for terror attacks - not just the reactor, but the entire system?

----

Another observation. At this same meeting, an older guy got up and ranted for ten minutes - said he used to be a nuclear engineer and was now out of work. No offense, but the pro-nuke side has as many cranks as the anti-nuke side. So, its best if responder #1 to this thread refrain from calling names unless he wants the thread to look like GD-P.

One more thing. Its just amazing how proposals for subsidies for alternate energy go nowhere (they get publicity, but they either don't get enacted or get minimal funding), but the nuke industry can get a bill for $25 B and government-covered liability introduced faster than you can say "General Electric lobbyist".

That's my $0.02.

arendt