Nuclear Power after Fukushima: It is, still, the energy of the future
Does nuclear energy have a future, in light of the events at Fukushima? Fukushima Daiichi is the six-unit nuclear-power station on the northeast coast of Japan that was hit by a powerful tsunami, preceded by one of the strongest earthquakes on record. The extent of the damage is considerable: The three reactors that were operating at the time of the earthquake were destroyed by the high-pressure steam produced by heat from radioactive decay and the explosive reaction of hydrogen inside the structures. The hydrogen was produced by chemical reactions between water and the protective, corrosion-resistant layer of zirconium alloy that normally seals radioactive material in a controlled location.
Those who design, build, and operate nuclear-energy facilities know that bad things can happen. They understand energy, shock absorption, chemistry, physics, and radiation, and they invest a great deal of time and effort to build facilities with layers of defense that can undergo a number of failures while still succeeding in protecting against public harm.
In a nuclear plant, the core contains the fuel materials that generate the heat that produces the steam that turns the turbines and creates massive quantities of electricity from tiny quantities of uranium. A single fuel pellet the size of the tip of my pinkie produces as much heat, when it fissions in a conventional nuclear-energy facility, as a ton of high-quality coal does when it is burned in a modern plant. When things are going right, nuclear-fuel pellets do not produce any atmospheric pollution at all, while burning a ton of coal releases between two and four tons of waste into the environment. In the U. S., we consume about a billion tons of coal each year to produce about 45 percent of our electricity.
Nuclear facilities have occasionally suffered core damage. Sometimes core damage is a result of design mistakes, sometimes it is due to actions taken or not taken by human operators, and sometimes it is caused by external forces that were not considered sufficiently probable to be factored into the design requirements. The Fukushima disaster resulted from that last risk. The facility experienced a natural disaster that was considered too improbable to require specific protective measures, but it has happened and may happen again.
The contractor teams that are bidding to clean up the facility estimate that it will require between 10 and 30 years to do the job right, depending on how “right” is defined. The recovery effort will cost tens of billions of dollars. Replacing the power capacity of Fukushima will require Japan to import an average of roughly 700 million additional cubic feet of natural gas per day. After evaluating the other nuclear plants in the country in light of the early lessons learned from the accident, the Japanese government decided to shut down the three-unit Hamaoka nuclear station located in an especially active seismic region. That decision brings the power deficit caused by the tsunami and earthquake to the equivalent of about 1.1 to 1.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. Some of that deficit can be made up by the reduction in power demand that is a result of a damaged industrial infrastructure and concerted conservation efforts.
There are additional costly effects. A plume of radioactive isotopes that are either gaseous or water-soluble left the facility and spread in a northwesterly direction, contaminating areas as far as 30 miles from the plant. Everyone living within a twelve-mile radius of the plant was evacuated in the first few hours after the event, but there have been additional evacuations as radiation surveys have shown that the material moved out farther in some areas. Tens of thousands of people are still living in temporary shelters and are not sure whether they will ever be allowed to return home.
Based on the announced results of the surveys, at least part of the area that has been evacuated could safely be repopulated today, although officials are understandably cautious. Even in areas where measured radiation levels are still higher than allowable under currently accepted international standards, the levels are steadily dropping as a result of an inherent characteristic of radioactive material: It loses strength over time. A major component of the radiation level immediately after the accident was iodine-131, an isotope that loses half of its intensity every eight days and is virtually undetectable after 80 days. By the time you read this article, that period will already have passed. But for the people who have been living in gymnasiums and have had no access to personal possessions for many months, the accident has already imposed a high cost. If you add in the inevitable deterioration of unoccupied structures, there is no way to ignore the widespread nature of the effects. Some individuals or even towns may never recover from the impact of this disaster.
Given the extensiveness of the damage and the expectation of still-uncounted costs, it is legitimate to wonder whether nuclear energy is worth the risk. There are plenty of other ways to generate power, and people flourished for several thousand years before nuclear fission was even discovered. As some who are opposed to nuclear energy remind us, there are only about 435 reactors producing commercial energy today. In many places around the world, nuclear-energy- plant construction stopped several decades ago, as costs seemed to go out of control and people were repeatedly told that nuclear power involved a high level of risk.
On the other hand, it remains almost unbelievable that a few obscure minerals contain so much densely packed, emission-free energy. Every kilogram of uranium or thorium contains as much potential energy as 2 million kilograms of oil. And that relatively small number of facilities does produce the energy equivalent of about 12 million barrels of oil per day. (That is as much energy as the daily out-put of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined; the total world petroleum output is about 80 million barrels of oil per day.)
So far, our economy has focused on only a narrow selection of the available options for harnessing this energy. The majority of the nuclear reactors in operation today are large, central-station electrical-power plants that produce a steady output and use ordinary water to cool the cores, transfer the heat, and turn the turbines. Though this approach works well and has proven its safety and reliability, there are other options, which offer improvements in fuel-use rates, thermal efficiency, and power-output flexibility. Uranium dioxide pellets are not the only fuel form available; advantages might be obtained if some reactors used metal-alloy fuels, and different advantages might result from using thorium or uranium dissolved in fluoride salts.
Society will not likely turn its back on a fuel source with so much potential, although the path will not be smooth, and there will be strong opposition from competitors and from the people who seem to dislike all forms of reliable power. Whatever happens in the U.S., nuclear-energy development will not be suppressed everywhere: China announced a program to review its planned nuclear expansion in light of Fukushima, but has already concluded that there is no reason to stop or even slow down its building of nuclear plants. And developers in the U.S. are working to incorporate the lessons of Fukushima into their designs. One possibility that seems to be particularly advantageous is to build larger numbers of smaller units that have an easier time getting rid of excess heat, even when the power goes out.
Any decision to slow down nuclear-energy development needs to be taken in full understanding that nuclear fission competes almost directly with fossil fuels, not with some idealized power source that carries no risk and causes no harm to the environment. The electricity that Germany has refused to accept from seven large nuclear plants that the government ordered closed after Fukushima has not been replaced by the output of magically spinning offshore wind turbines or highly efficient solar panels. It has been replaced by burning more gas from Russia, by burning more dirty lignite in German coal plants, and by purchasing electricity generated by nuclear-energy plants in France.
People have learned to accept that burning coal, oil, and natural gas carries risks of fires, explosions, and massive spills, and causes continuous emissions of harmful fine particles and possibly deadly gases that are altering the atmospheric chemical balance. We accept those risks because we are acutely aware of the benefits of heat and mobility.
With nuclear energy, the benefits are substantial and the risks, relative to all other reliable energy sources, are minor. Since Fukushima, there has been a remarkable void of pro-nuclear-energy advertising, which has been filled by efforts by the natural-gas industry to convince Americans that it has recently discovered a 100-year supply.
In my opinion, something close to the worst-case scenario for nuclear power happened at Fukushima. By some calculations, the earthquake and tsunami together hit Japan with a force that was equivalent to several thousand nuclear weapons. Looking at the photos of the area around the Fukushima nuclear station makes me, a career military officer, whistle with wonder at the incredibly successful attack that nature launched.
In the midst of all of the destruction, an important fact frequently gets lost: not a single member of the plant staff or a single member of the general public has been exposed to a sufficient dose of radiation to cause any harm. The highest dose to any of the workers involved in the recovery effort has been less than 250 millisieverts (25 rem), which is beneath the internationally accepted limit for people responding to a life-threatening accident.
The doses received by the celebrated “Fukushima Fifty” recovery workers are roughly the same as the dose that the young Lt. Jimmy Carter and several hundred other people received when responding to a December 1952 accident at an experimental reactor in Chalk River, Canada. President Carter, like many others involved in that effort, is alive and apparently healthy today.
Even after the Fukushima disaster—affecting six 30-to-40-year-old plants that had primitive control systems, inadequate backup-power supplies, and insufficient protection against the potential effects of earthquakes and tsunamis—nuclear energy has compiled a remarkable safety record. It will be an important, reliable, affordable, and clean energy source for the foreseeable future.
Disclaimer: The above article first appeared in the June 20, 2011 issue of National Review. It was not selected as one of the articles made available for free in the National Review Online, but when I agreed to write the article, I obtained the right to publish it in other venues after waiting for 60 days.
Additional Reading
Reason Foundation – The Future of Nuclear after Fukushima
Most of the evacuation zones from the 20-30 KM perimeter will be lifted before the end of the month.
As for radiation, the map to be found here shows that there is not much to worry about, except for a 5km radius from Fukushima.
http://japan.failedrobot.com/
For oil and gas, 2 things have happened since Japan has shut down a good percentage of its nuclear plants: imported costs of energy has gone up big time (33%) and the traditional thermal plants are in dire need of repairs and won’t hold for much longer.
Common sense will prevail and nuclear plants will be restarted. 2 of them have been given the green light in the last week.
If you look at NHK WORLD NEWS, you will notice that all Japan officials are old and male. Let’s hope that the next election will put an end to this.
They just declared the area a dead-zone for decades. It is too radioactive.
Also the effects that accident has had are undeniable bad for their health.
I think you are a bit out of the loop, but then again I live there you probably do not.
Read the news carefully on NHK NEWS WORLD. Some hot spots within 5 KM. Most of the evacuated zones will be OK’d before end of month. Sorry to disappoint you.
Then again the magic threshold has not been announced. I suspect it is 20 millisieverts a year. Way, way too low and not credible at all.
If you look at this map, all areas outside 5 KM are good to go even at 20 msv a year. Do the math! I did.
http://japan.failedrobot.com/
Have an atomic day…
Chris,
And also, still on NHK WORLD NEWS, the total amount of radiation emitted during the crisis has been lowered substantially. Sorry.
Here’s the bit:
Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission has revised downward the estimated amount of radioactive substances released from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The commission now judges that 570-thousand terabecquerels of radioactive iodine 131 and cesium 137, about 10 percent less than its earlier estimate, leaked from the plant between March 12th and April 5th.
The commission put the total at 630-thousand terabecquerels in April.
Nuclear plants for civil applications are not designed to create harm to humans or the environment.
@ Chris
If you really lived there, you would have the necessary information by now to make a difference and stop the madness caused by the fear of radiation.
You know that numerous cities in the world have tenfold the radiation levels that Japan used as a baseline for its evacuation policy.
Spread the news and go home. It is time for civil disobedience.
@ Chris
For your information the recommended evacuation zone for a nuclear plant is 5 KM. This as per the IAEA standards.
Not 20 or 30 KM. 5 KM.
Nuclear plants are not nuclear bombs.
What happened at Fukushima was not “something like the worst-case scenario for nuclear power”, or anything close. Here are some of the bullets we dodged:
– The power station was a long way from the epicenter.
– The response by the doubtless sleep-deprived responders was basically sensible, and nobody seems to have done anything seriously dumb.
– The plant manager made the right call and disobeyed orders to stop using seawater for cooling.
– The PM brought the hammer down on the operators who were talking about abandoning the plant.
– Various Heath-Robinson heroics succeeded in restoring cooling in very challenging circumstances.
– The plant was well away from major population centers.
– The population stayed calm. (How would Americans respond?)
– The wind blew out across the Pacific during the worst radiation leaks.
The basic point the author is making may be right, but it doesn’t help to be dishonest about the risks.
Edmund,
And no one died from radiation and nuclear powere plants give you something other thermal plants don’t: time to react.
When a coal, hydro or gas fired plant goes, it goes !
(Don’t bring Chernobyl into this as there was plenty of time to do a proper evacuation then and also that Chenobyl was a military site. Nuclear power plants that are meant to deliver electricity pose low risk)
@Edmond,
I am interested what you believe the risks would have been if this plant had been located in Tokyo? Let’s draw this out. A nuclear power plant built 40 years ago was built on the outskirts of Tokyo. An Earthquake and then Tsunami hits the area with enough water to submerge the plant under a 40 foot wave at that location. The plant suffers the power loss and problems they had a Fukushima.
Ok, now, what does the rest of Tokyo look like? If hit by an earthquake of that magnitude followed by a Tsunami of that height, what does the rest of Tokyo look like? Will anyone have died from other causes? Will anyone have difficulty getting back to their home? If they are sill alive will they need to live in shelters outside of Tokyo for a time? Will access to the Nuclear power plant be any easier allowing for additional rescue personnel to assist with bringing emergency power generators to the site?
The point here is that while there was a bit of an extended disruption – in addition to the disruption caused by H2O – due to the caution over radiation contamination, we contend that the disruption was for a greater length of time and for a much wider area than is actually needed for protection. Can you show us numbers that disprove this contention? Can you show us how this should change decisions for placing Nuclear power in Small Medium Reactors close to population centers today? Or even the large new Nuclear designs such as the AP1000?
To sum up, the nuclear risk in Japan was the risk of an extended delay in returning to their homes – ALIVE – after the tsunami. The trade off here was a few months of discomfort for a portion of the population in exchange for energy independence on an island nation. They suffered far more for less economic benefit in WWII trying to extend their “co-prosperity” region.
David, It strikes me that evacuating millions of people from a nation’s capital right after a natural disaster would have had more serious consequences than “a few months of discomfort”.
No, I don’t have numbers to prove this, but I don’t think I’m being unreasonable.
Edmund,
This is exactly my point. The health consequences of evacuating the people from around Fukushima this time were greater than if they had been allowed to return to their homes – in most cases.
The other point that I am making – which I am not sure if you see yet – is that millions in Tokyo would have died from the buildings falling, fires, floods and general destruction from the earthquake and tsunami.
Radiation is not difficult to deal with if you use basic tools. Most of the folks could have gone home if sweeps of the area had pinpointed the exact locations of the contamination and then allowed everyone to return who live far enough away to not be affected by the fading radiation. Also, if allowed to have a choice about the risk with realistic measurements taken from Nuclear Medicine rather than from the LNT theory / bureaucratic response, many would have chosen to return and face those risks.
David, sorry, I thought your original post was meant to rebut my original one – which was complaining about the claim that Fukushima was pretty much a worst-case scenario for nuclear, which is a claim that I’ve heard a few times, and is clearly untrue. You’re not taking issue with that, right – you’re making a different point?
At this point it seems to be objectively true that people died as a result of the evacuation, and nobody died as a direct result of radiation.
(Non-bonkers people seem to disagree about there will be zero, a little or a lot of damage to people’s health long-term from radiation.)
That might have implications for how far you’d draw your evacuation radius in future. The Japanese government got a lot of criticism for not evacuating a wider area – looks to me like they struck a pretty good balance given the uncertainties at the time.
Edmund, let me propose a worst-case scenario for Fukushima:
When the original decision was made, instead of building the nuclear plants, the only practical alternative was built – coal fired power plants. In this case, more than 100 people every year would have died from the effects of the normal operation of these plants. Ironically, in this case, the earthquake and tsunami would have stopped the death and destruction caused by the plants.
You can tag many deaths on nuclear plants having been shutdown for no reasons as old people died from heatstroke caused by lack of air conditioning that electricity could have easily provided.
That is a tragedy.
David, I’d like to offer a different perspective. In any situation, you can always find some way to say that the situation could be ‘worse’, but a lot of your ‘points’ have nothing to do with the nuclear plant technology itself, or the direct natural disaster (i.e. the earthquake and tsunami).
For example,
“- The PM brought the hammer down on the operators who were talking about abandoning the plant.”
Yes, that could have made the situation, perhaps, worse, but that’s not anything inherent to nuclear technology.
“- The plant manager made the right call and disobeyed orders to stop using seawater for cooling.”
I’d like to put forward a question: It’s not clear to me that with a properly designed plant, it wouldn’t be ‘safer’ to just allow the core to meltdown and get caught in a core-catcher below the core, than to try to cool it? The worst problem at Fukushima seemed to be the hydrogen explosions, which you wouldn’t have if you evacuated all the water from the core and let it melt down.
Another big complaint by a lot of people is that because of the emergency seawater cooling, millions (or is it billions?) of gallons of slightly contaminated water ran-off into the ocean.
If they weren’t dumping all that water into the reactor, it wouldn’t have gotten contaminated and run off into the ocean.
I freely admit I’m speaking from ignorance here, but I do have to wonder if just letting it melt wouldn’t have been better in the end?
Woops, submitted before adding my summary statement:
You can always, theoretically find a way to make any case ‘worse’, but I think the reason say this is essentially a worst-case scenario is that it seems to be pretty representative, for the most part, of what a worst-case scenario will probably look like – even if you can theoretically find some way to make it worse.
As for public panic, if that were to happen in the U.S., I think that’s more reflective of poor public education about the reality of the threat. Because of our strong commitment to free speech, we allow a lot of people to spread a lot of half-truths and outright lies about the risks of nuclear radiation, that would have a tendency to make the public a lot more afraid than they would be if they were properly informed and educated.
“we allow a lot of people to spread a lot of half-truths and outright lies about the risks of nuclear radiation”
Not if I were Chief Nuclear Officer or Site VP of a facility being libeled and defamed. The antis would need to have deep, deep pockets for lawyers. They would either have to prove their crazy contentions or they, their assigns, heirs and designees, would have to shut the **** up henceforth and forevermore. And then we would talk about damages.
We could have a modern Scopes Trial – radiophobia vs. the evidence, LNT vs. Common Sense.
Edmond,
Sorry to have misunderstood your point, that there could be a more devastating nuclear accident. I guess I agree and Chernobyl shows us that it is possible to have a more risky dangerous and deadly nuclear accident.
However, the author is not being dishonest about risks. One simply has to look at the workers at Fukushima and ask if the population of Tokyo would be more highly exposed than they have been? This question – what actually happens to a person at what exposure levels and how difficult is it to mitigate those levels – lies at the heart of real risk assessment. Also, comparative risks also need to be assessed. Unless, you are proposing that we cast reason aside and simply follow the news and popular opinion to assess our risk?
The problem is two fold, internal and external. For the internal risk we have the medial treatment of cancer to compare against, for the external risk we have the range of exposure rates around the world to compare against. In both cases we find that the risks from Fukushima have been far lower than these other risks and far far below those that are known to cause fatality. So, if this had been in Tokyo…. how many would have died from Radiation? I don’t think any would have. http://xkcd.com/radiation/ It is the level of exposure over time that makes it dangerous. Small levels are easily repaired by the body as Nuclear medicine has taught us.
So, can we site Small reactors in hospitals and factories safely? Can they be sited in population centers where the energy is needed? We already site fossil fuel plants in these areas.
Nuclear is the only practical baseload, non-carbon emitting power source. Period.
To summarize a portion of Stewart Brand’s recent book “Whole Earth Discipline”, Solar and Wind are intermittent, supplying power only when its sunny and windy, respectively. Until either high capacity energy storage or through-space transmission technology is invented, this fact won’t change soon. Similar story for hydro (look at the recent effect of droughts in China on the output of the 3 gorges dam). Additionally, a nuclear power plant can product 1GW of power by occupying an area less than 1/3 of a square mile. On the contrary, an equivalent solar farm requires 50 square miles; an equivalent wind farm requires 200 square miles.
Regarding safety, nuclear is BY FAR safer than ANY fossil fuel energy source. The waste produced is densely packed into dry cask storage container roughly 18 feet in diameter and 30 feet tall. And it’s continuously monitored. Fossil fuel waste on the other hand measures in the hundreds of millions of tons PER YEAR and gets released into the atmosphere uncontrolled, including radiaoactive materials and heavy metals such as mercury, that trickle into the food supply. Air carcinogens DIRECTLY attributed to fossil fuel plants cause over 30,000 deaths per year in the US and 350,000 in China. How many deaths are directly attributed to nuclear power radiation per year? Zero. The roughly 1,000 that occur within nuclear industry are from every day accidents such as building construction accidents and car crashes of people driving to and from work. None attributed to radiation. I read somewhere recently that CANDLES cause more deaths per year than nuclear power radiation!
Finally, compounding to the comment above that when a gas fire plant goes, it GOES…other sources of energy fall into the “routine death domain” (another Stewart Brand-ism) for civilians and workers, so there is usually some sort of cost benefit analysis when an accident at these plants occur. Not so in nuclear, since accidents are few and far between. Curiously enough, when an accident does occur, including Fukushima, it is not measured in deaths (because there aren’t any caused by radiation). Instead, it’s measured in some mythical radiation scale that only means something to ~0.0001% of the population. Unfortunately, the masses latch on to scary sounding numbers and lash out against why they exist at all.
Mark …. you make a very convincing case. But something that often gets left out of the picture: the environmental, emissions, and health impacts from mining uranium (and costs and clean-up for enrichment and fabrication facilities, etc.). The US has paid out $1.5 billion in radiation related exposure claims to over 21,500 individuals as part of the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (many involved in the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle). You thus can’t say the impact of radioactive exposure related to nuclear power is negligible (or “zero,” as you suggest). The safety surrounding mining, milling, and uranium ore transport may be significantly improved today from in the past, but there is also a great deal more uranium mining outside of the borders of the US (where regulations and oversight, and documentation of health impacts, might not be as tightly controlled). There are also several Superfund sites waiting to be cleaned up (and continue to pose a public health hazard). Responsibility for contamination on the Navajo reservation is still an important concern for local residents, to take one example:
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/01/28/28greenwire-federal-appeals-court-rules-doe-not-responsibl-54810.html
(among numerous sources documenting this issue).
Whenever I hear enthusiasts talk about compact waste and zero emissions, I’m always looking for a little bit more understanding from proponents of the entire fuel cycle of a nuclear plant (including long standing and as yet unresolved waste storage, proliferation, homeland security, and public safety concerns), and not just what goes on inside of “a 1/3 of a square mile power plant.” These impacts may indeed be small (when compared to coal), but they certainly should not be entirely left out of the discussion (as you have done in your comment).
As usual, this poster seems incapable of making proper comparisons. No mining operation is without some environmental impact, good practice seeks to minimize this, but some damage is inevitable. Uranium mining is no exception and modern methods have reduced the effect of winning uranium far below the scale seen in the past.
On the other hand, the production of coal, with its dependence on open pit, and mountain-top removal techniques, has increased its footprint far above that of deep-shaft operations of the past.
The only rational way to compare these two is to look at the impact as a ratio to the amount of energy produced, and note (as you have) that coal mining outstrips uranium by several orders of magnitude in terms of impact per megawatt. Furthermore, it is possible to build breeder reactors that could convert both used fuel and DU already above ground such that further mining of uranium could be put on hold for an extended period of time.
As for what you claim are,’unresolved waste storage, proliferation, homeland security, and public safety concerns’ the issues in all these cases are political, or non-existent – the technical side has been solved long ago, mas has been reviewed in these pages many times in the past.
DV82XL wrote:
As usual, this poster seems incapable of making proper comparisons.
Was I making a comparison? I agree with you, the environmental record of the coal industry is pretty poor (and doesn’t seem to be improving with efforts to cut labor costs and go after more dangerous and harder to reach coal with MTM).
DV82XL wrote:
As for what you claim are,’unresolved waste storage, proliferation, homeland security, and public safety concerns’ the issues in all these cases are political, or non-existent.
I always thought political issues were real issues (since they usually reflect public or stakeholder concerns), and have a direct impact on opportunities and results. It seems to me many of the obstacles that led to shutting down the breeder reactor program in the States 40 years ago are still in play today: price of uranium, scaling to a larger power producing plant, reprocessing cycle and plutonium stockpile management, public acceptance of technology, absence of spent fuel reprocessing program, timeline to commercialization, financing enormous and rapidly escalating upfront costs (without significant government support and in era of increasing budget deficits), liberalization of electricity markets (favoring shorter output contracts, speculation on fuel price volatility, and power plants with lower sunk costs), changing profile of energy demand (we need more peak generation sources, or better demand management), arrangements for risk sharing in industry, lack of a carbon pricing mechanism, and more. Based on these and other issues, it looks to me that we are looking at the once through nuclear fuel cycle (with all of it’s many drawbacks and challenges) for some time to come.
EL – You still don’t understand, do you? Political issues, unlike real, physical issues, are both local and transient. That is they do not exist everywhere and they are not permanent. In fact, it is not uncommon for political issues to disappear overnight.
So what? So the US will fall behind in this one narrow subfield of nuclear technology. That is sad for the US, but it will not stop the French from proceeding with their own fast reactor program (and I personally know some of the people doing R&D in this area), nor will it stop other countries from doing the same.
More importantly, however, is that a breeder reactor program is not necessary to improve the nuclear fuel cycle. There are other technologies that can provide substantial improvements.
Is that so bad? I’ve already demonstrated that my personal lifetime material impact, assuming a once-through fuel cycle as it exists today, is trivial. These imaginary “issues” that you mention are not long-term problems. Some, such as security, have already been adequately addressed. Others, such as “waste disposal,” have been sufficiently addressed for the foreseeable future. We literally have a century or more to solve that so-called “problem” in a more permanent way. This is a time frame that greatly exceeds the lifetime of political issues.
Here is some perspective. As an “average American,” to provide the amount of electricity that I expect that I will use during my entire lifetime (assuming our electricity-use habits of the early twenty-first century) via nuclear power as it is currently used in the US today:
This will require 2.5 to 50 tones of ore, depending on the quality (that’s about 0.5 to 10 m3 of volume, to give you some perspective); most of this can be stuck back into the ground leaving it slightly less radioactive than before it was mined
The enrichment will leave 33 kg of “tails” as UF6; I and 383 of my friends could store our tails in a standard steel cylinder that is used for that purpose
Generating this electricity will create only 3.5 kg of nuclear “waste” — i.e., used nuclear fuel consisting of mostly uranium; this amount material could fit inside a standard 12 oz. (33 cl) soda can.
Just this small amount is what it takes to provide me with electricity every day of my life. This includes not only the electricity that I use at home and at work, but my share of the electricity that powers the lights and air conditioners at the stores I shop and the electricity used to manufacture the goods that I purchase. These calculations include the energy required for enrichment (using the numbers for the outdated, inefficient gas-diffusion technology), and I even included the line losses during distribution.
New designs for nuclear reactors, such as those currently being built in Europe and in Asia, are more efficient, which means that the amount of material required would be less than the numbers given above. If technology to recycle the so-called “waste” were employed, the amount of material would decrease dramatically — possibly by as much as a couple orders of magnitude.
Brian
And after 50 years, this 3.5 kg of Uranium waste would not chemically look that much different from the original ore where it was scooped to begin with.
Well, let’s burry the whole thing for a zillion years anyway.
“If technology to recycle the so-called “waste” were employed, the amount of material would decrease dramatically — possibly by as much as a couple orders of magnitude”
A new technology may be about ready for prime time – Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation.
I don’t see why, in principle, this concept couldn’t also be used to separate the dozens of isotopic components of “nuclear waste” into useful streams of new electrical generation fuel, valuable isotopes for medical research and therapy, and sources for gamma sterilization of tainted food and water.
The NYT recently ran an article “Laser Advances in Nuclear Fuel Stir Terror Fear”, of course spinning this into a fear-inspiring proliferation issue. To turn our back on this technology, as some will undoubtedly be urging, would be about as useful as Jimmy Carter’s unilateral abandonment of American spent fuel reprocessing in 1977 to stop “proliferation”. How has that worked out?
“Generating this electricity will create only 3.5 kg of nuclear “waste” — i.e., used nuclear fuel consisting of mostly uranium; this amount material could fit inside a standard 12 oz. (33 cl) soda can.”
And if you touch that soda can you will die. Not instantly but slowly and painfully.
There is no excuse for dumping waste into the earth. It is the only place we have to live. Dumping waste that will not go away for, say 500 years or more, times the number of people on this planet is over 6 billion. Do you know what 6 billion soda cans amounts to?
Nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water, because that is all it does and from one of the deadliest things you can use.
If people do not realize we need to work with the earth instead of making it a toxic wasteland, we will not have one.
Sure wind and solar come and go, but do people really need all of this “stuff”? No, they do not. And the choices are learn the lesson now before it is too late, or live in a world with even more problems.
Nuclear power plants and the mining of uranium also keep nuclear weapons alive.
There is no need for nuclear power, when you factor in the waste storage it is not that much cheaper than solar power.
Solar power does not created dead zones, lands you cannot sill.
After the two major nuclear accidents, Chernobyl the lands and farms in Britain are so contaminated you cannot grow any food there. Children that grew up near Sallafeld have Uranium in their teeth. Children in Fukushima already are testing positive for radiation poisoning.
The plume from Fukushima went right over Tokyo and into the jetstream to the US. It is still leaking today.
It is so radioactive, the Japanese Government has finally admitted to making the exclusion zone a permanent thing.
So just because YOU want cheap electricity for YOUR life is selfish reason to justify nuclear power and those millions that have suffered at its hands. It is going to be a crowded planet soon, we need to be more resourceful as people and sensible or we will go extinct.
Nuclear power is not the answer. Developing earth Friendly technologies is good for everyone. Maybe people will realize that when they realize they cannot eat money…
@Chris Noland
You are doing nothing except parroting standard shibboleths, most of which have been dismissed here and elsewhere over and over. It is clear that you have not looked into these issues with anything approaching an open mind, but have only looked for support for your own preconceived notions.
@Chris;
You know Chris, you need one good sit down with reality and reason and serious perspective patching because you sound exactly like a successful product of Hollywood’s nuke har’em-scare’em pol flicks where all nuclear reactors are over-inflated balloons a breath shy of bursting and the slightest peek at anything radioactive melts your brain or turns your goldfish into Godzilla. Yea, I’m joking — right? Be surprised how many laymen swallowed that bilge! Nuclear energy; the big bad Darth Vader! You have a morbid fixation on radioactive death, man! Really! I swear, if we listened to implacable anti-nukers, everyone who once wore radium dial watches like me — which would give picky Japanese rad counters heart-attacks — ought all should’ve been pushing up daisies long long ago. In fact the whole world should’ve been poisoned stiff long ago from all the nuclear accidents and spills they keep reporting. Get a grip! A pellet of uranium or plutonium on your lap doesn’t spell doom!
The boiling water thing sounds straight from media-egotist Michio “I can dream up how to create any doomsday scenerio!” Kaku’s lips. Hey, boiling water for energy is tried and true technology, and till we find a way to effectively convert heat or even radioation into moving electrons it’ll be the cheapest for while. And let me tell you from people I know out west, there’s NOTHING romantic or property-value enhancing about towering windmills ruining your landscape from horizon to horizon for miles and miles either they’re whirling or not. Ditto cute-sounding solar farms. Maybe that’s why the the green wealthy don’t live near them. So much for practice what you preach.
So WHAT if a soda can-sized piece of nuclear waste can kill you! Buddy boy, there are LOTS of other chemicals and pathogens just as toxic that can be stuffed that size that are regularly handled a WHOLE less gingerly and under less scrunity than nuclear materials. I rarely see folks protesting that! Must be that ole Hollywood popularity thing! The “dead zones” issue are largely political animals based on measurements and standards based on — what? What they Guess are future physiological effects? As exampled by Hiroshiima? Bikini Tests? On what live tests and populations? Rad-skittish Japan would ban (“dead zone”) living near TMI and most any mild nuclear products release, yet there are fauna and flora growing around Chernobyl and the area’s even receiving visitors. They’re not dropping dead there nor are there any headed offspring prancing about there. Maybe because that area doesn’t fit Hollywood’s “Planet of The Apes” idea of a radioactive desert “dead zone” is why few anti-nuke news reports are done over there! All that green blossoming in the shadow of Chernobyl sets sets a bad anti-nuke example! The waste thing is also a political — not technical — animal. Let’s use a little perspective. Ever been to the Superdome? It’s big but it’s tiny in the horizon and you can drive past it in ninety seconds. Put that volume 2000 feet underground and you can store all the nuclear waste ever produced in there — and so what if it’s radioactive 200000 years? You gonna build a condo down there next the magma? Since when are people otherwise concerned where their trash goes??
I want to know the non-biased scientific source where you claim Fukushima kids are “poisoned”. Like kids inhaling bus fumes is “poison”? Really. I mean people like you have absolutely NO problem! with smokestacks cluttering our lungs with god knows what particulates cutting down our lifespans yet if a gallon of mildly rad water spills deep a nuclear plant the media on your side has a cow! That you’re perfectly content to yearly commit thousands of lives to lung aliments plus in the normal course of reality to assauge your frets over a doomsday that Might conceptually happen (and hasn’t) makes this “health concern” of anti-nukers the highest bald-faced contemptable hypocrisy. And what’s “excessively radioactive” in the environment to rad-skittish Japan is the way of the world around the world if you read up on places around the world where local Fukushima rad readings are their NORMAL background! In fact a big dirty secret is the FDA and the U.N. don’t use Japanese rad standards with food imports or exports because you’d end up banning foods from any high rad background locations! Think what reasonless concern that’d raise if anti-nukers brought it up!
Nuclear energy isn’t anti-nature; Nuclear energy IS nature! It’s the very core of nature and energy and runs the whole universe and you just can’t get more “natural” than that! And if we’re ever going to travel and colonize the planets we darn better know how to use it!
Mister, I’ll close with something I mentioned this blog before. I live a spitting distance from JFK airport near where a jet crashed shortly after 9-11. Over a hundred lives got snuffed out. We could see the smoke where I live. It was an instant tombstone to those poor souls. It was just one of aviation’s infrequent nearly always lethal “worst case scenarios”, but I can bet that every family member of those victims wished that plane accidents were as bad and “fatal” as the worst case by 3x (nature caused) incident at Fukushima.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
Brian Mays wrote:
This will require 2.5 to 50 tones of ore, depending on the quality (that’s about 0.5 to 10 m3 of volume, to give you some perspective); most of this can be stuck back into the ground leaving it slightly less radioactive than before it was mined.
Yes, that’s the stuff. Care to provide a source for the claim that the ground is left less radioactive than before it was mined (after how many half-lives for radium-226)?
Many open pit mines, tailings, and sludge ponds often remain open to the environment for 30-40 years until a mine site is decommissioned. NRC provides a good overview of existing, pending, and the need for future land and groundwater remediation programs that will be needed to fully “restore” these resource extraction sites, and the caveat that “it is unlikely there will be much additional accumulation of mill tailings in the US, because foreign countries now produce uranium much more cheaply than can domestic producers” (EPA).
Care to do similar work on the claim of “no deaths” attributed to radiation? Down the road from me is Metropolis, Illinois, and a memorial to 42 workers who died of cancer and worked at Honeywell’s Uranium Hexaflouride conversion plant. $15.2 million have been paid out in compensation to workers (and their families) who “were determined to have become ill from radiation exposure while working between 1959 and 1976 or suffered residual radiation exposure between 1977 and 2009” (here). People know this record, and the many health and environmental challenges of continuing to work safely with radioactive materials. Nobody wants to hear false claims about the irrelevance of risk (or that nuclear is not as bad as coal). This doesn’t persuade anybody who is not already a supporter of the industry. They want to hear about lessons learned, and how the environment and public health are going to be better assured with a mindful vigilance in the future (and with best in practice technology, and adequate regulation and stringent oversight).
@EL
Please do not tell me that you believe the existence of politically motivated government payouts is evidence of real harm. There were issues in the early days of uranium mining, but just because the natural gas industry sponsored Clinton Administration decided to make some very public announcements about their decision to use your money and my money to buy some additional support is not evidence of harm. Instead of pointing to stories out of the advertiser supported news media, how about reading some of the studies that have shown how tiny the risk is from low levels of radiation exposure? How about listening to the people who have lived in places like Port Hope Canada for their entire lives without any measured health effects from their long association with uranium mining and processing because they too moderate safety precautions.
I could not care less what people want to hear. The truth is that the only alternative to increasing the use of nuclear energy is to continue to depend on burning far less safe and less environmentally friendly fossil fuels. Popular “renewable sources” are simply to weak and unreliable to pick up much more share of the load than they already have.
@EL – The problem with trying to tar nuclear by demanding that front-end and back-end emissions be added to its environmental burden is that most if not all other sources of energy fair worse if these are considered for them as well. This is also true of wind, solar and hydro if one cares to look deeply enough.
Mining iron, cobalt and copper particularly from open-pit sources for wind generators, is hugely damaging to the local environment, and refining and winning these metals is very energy intensive as well. It is also true of PV production if one cares to look deeply enough, and CO2 emissions from both the concrete, and rotting vegetation as well as other negative factors must be charged against hydro as well.
In fact this is a sterile exercise that has been done over ad infinitum over the past several years on many forums and blogs, and it doesn’t matter how deep you go, right down to the farts of the workers if you must, but nuclear always comes out ahead.
This is a dead end.
Yes … I know the Port Hope situation all too well (it was the anticipated impact of uranium mining and the proposed open-pit Kiggavik mine by Areva that got me interested in topic of nuclear power, and nuclear issues in Canada in general). The Walrus Magazine (a prominent national interest magazine in Canada) has a pretty good summary:
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2008.03-environment-radiation-pollution/
Temporary shutdown of Cameco UF6 facility in 2007 after groundwater contamination. Radon levels in local schools 125 times allowable limit. Homeowner audits not shared with public (but dealt with on private case by case basis). Back-log of remediation efforts on low-level radioactive waste 30 years overdue (and temporarily parked near playgrounds and schools). And a disputed cancer incidence study, which “actually shows higher than normal rates of leukemia and childhood cancer deaths, as well as significantly elevated incidences of brain, lung, and colon cancer for certain time periods and demographic groups” (according to Ontario epidemiologist Eric Mintz). The health and well-being of seniors living in the scenic waterfront community is not disputed, or the advantage of universal health care in Canada to significantly reduce mortality rates, but if you were a kid attending school in Port Hope from 1976-1985, I would be getting regular check ups. Farley Mowat, one of the more prominent “local residents” in the town (and a Canadian national icon), has few kind words for Cameco (here and here).
EL – There’s a little concept called “Conservation of Mass.” You might have heard of it.
Let’s do a little thought experiment. I dig up some rock and remove the slightly radioactive uranium from the rock. Thus, it is not difficult to see that rock minus uranium is less radioactive than rock with uranium. It’s something that even a child can understand.
In terms of public health impact, I’ve removed a source that will ultimately decay into radon, which seeps up through the ground and into the basements of homes and gives the EPA fits.
So you don’t have any examples to share (or case studies to cite) on the success of remediation efforts to restore mining or milling sites to a condition less radioactive than before the ore, tailings, and waste rock was dug up in the first place. Why bury the tailings at all if your thought experiment is correct, and human cognitive development is sufficient to understand the basic (space, number, and quantity) elements of your argument?
EL – I’m sorry that common sense is not one of your strong points.
Perhaps you can explain to me how
(1) the mined material can become more radioactive after some of its radioactive components have been removed, and
(2) why anyone would want to bury the tailings of a mine for non-radioactive materials (e.g., copper, gold, iron, etc., etc.).
Nothing that you have brought up is specific to uranium mining. I merely pointed out that, for a uranium mine, the tailings are less radioactive than the original ore. I don’t need references for this, since it’s common sense!
I’m going to start deducting two points from my estimate of your IQ for each one of these completely stupid comments that you post here. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and start at 100. You’re now down to 98.
Sure thing:
1) Perhaps taking uranium ore from a natural deposit, where it has relatively no direct exposure to human activity, removing overburden and milling a small percentage of it, and relocating the rest to near a water source, behind a poorly engineered dam, or leaving it exposed to the air for the wind to blow around has something to do with it? The EPA seems to think there is a problem, or else there wouldn’t be Superfund sites for clean up of uranium mill tailings, or the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) of 1978?
2) Did someone recommend this as a preferred method for tailings management from “copper, gold, iron, etc., etc.” mines?
Is it possible to get past the BS and actually explore if there is any merit to your assertion: “most of this can be stuck back into the ground leaving it slightly less radioactive [and thus less dangerous to human health] than before it was mined.” If you have some actual evidence for this claim (and tangible proof of these benefits), I’d like to see it.
@EL-
No one will argue that past practice in just about any type of mining left a great deal to be desired, and uranium mining was no different. The current clean-up efforts are dealing with mine and mill tailings that were created in the 50’s and 60’s these projects cannot be used to claim that current practice will leave the same problems.
Current international standards (as practiced in the U.S. and Canada)state that current disposal sites minimize the concentration of 226Ra in land averaged over any area of 100 m2 such that it shall not exceed the background level by more than 18.5 Bq/kg, averaged over the first 15 cm of soil below the surface, and 55.5 Bq/kg, averaged over layers of soil 15 cm thick at a depth exceeding 15 cm below the surface. This is hardly a weak standard, and compared to coal mine tailings which average in the range of 400 to 1200 Bq/kg,(and are NOT controlled)is damned good.
DV82XL – Notice that EL is using the usual anti-nuke tactic of taking the worst case and presenting it as the average situation. This is often combined, as it is here, with the tactic of ignoring everything the opposition says and constantly changing the subject.
Mining practices of two generations ago have nothing to do with mining practices today. He or she also conveniently ignores that the vast majority of uranium mining in the US today is in-situ recovery, where the ore is left in the ground and only the minerals are recovered. Thus, there are no mine tailings or waste rock to dispose of.
New estimate: 96
Thanks DV82XL … that’s very helpful.
Areva, in it’s Kiggavik open pit uranium mine proposal in Nunavut, states only: decommissioning and reclamation strategies will take an estimated five years (after 17 year mine life) and “return the land to a stable, self-sustaining condition suitable for traditional uses that is as close as practical to its natural state” (p. 2-57). Post-decommissioning monitoring plan “will be developed in consultation with regulators and stakeholders” (p. 2-61). And in general, reclamation and decommissioning strategies that ensure long-term protection are “an integral part of initial facility design and ongoing operations” (p. 1-14) Nowhere, however, is an international standard or a specific remediation target provided. It’s worth nothing that “as close as practical” and “in consultation with regulators and stakeholders” is not an assurance that this standard will be applied to Kiggavik (Nunavut has it’s own laws, delegated and overseen by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, that often apply to these matters). Kiggavik has been undergoing an environmental impact review assessment since 2010, and this international target (18.5 Bq/kg above background level) seems pertinent to these discussions. Do you have a reference where this international standard is described?
I’m also curious, in cases such as Kiggavik, do you feel it is warranted to have a tougher standard … largely because of the prevalence of subsistence hunting in the region, and the importance of “country foods” to local diets and traditions (which can be as high as 70% of local nutritional needs). Caribou are particularly vulnerable to bioaccumulation of radionuclides because lichens, their only food source, “accumulate atmospheric radionuclides more efficiently than other vegetation due to their lack of roots, large surface area, and longevity” (here). Numerous other studies have looked at the same (here and here). You may be aware that much of the uranium mined in the 40s (and used in the Manhattan Project) was mined at Port Radium in the NWT. The mine site was in operation from 1930-1982, and clean-up is on-going to this day (here). So the issue has a great deal of sensitivity for local residents (who are already well aware that full clean up of these sites can take decades, if not generations … particularly when the expense of working in remote northern locations is a factor).
If you have something substantive to add … please do so!
@EL – First of all I am not impressed by references to publications like Walrus Magazine which is not a “prominent national interest magazine in Canada” except perhaps in their own minds, nor does the opinions of a fiction writer and attention whore like Farley Mowat carry any weight in a scientific discussion.
While the Eric Mintz report:
http://www.porthopehealthconcerns.com/mintz_report.htm
cannot be dismissed out of hand as the product of a scaremonger, it should be noted that Dr Mintz believes that current confidence thresholds for determining statistical significance of radiation induced cancers is too high, and that incidence, rather than mortality should be considered as the critical indicator. This opinion is not shared by the overwhelming majority of radiation epidemiologists, nor is Dr. Mintz recognized as a specialist in this area. Thus his is a minority opinion and must be seen as such.
Mine tailing regulation in Canada is the product of several overlapping laws: the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, the CNSC’s Managing Radioactive Waste P-290 regulations, the terms of the individual Waste Facility Operating Licence, Environment Canada’s Canadian Water Quality Guideline for Uranium for the Protection of Aquatic Life,(among others) and various Provincial, and municipal regulations and by-laws. Canada is also bound by international treaties’ (from which the standards I quoted upthread come from)
see:http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/te_1403_web.pdf
and bilateral agreements with the U.S. on these matters. Details can be found in the publication Developing an Operation, Maintenance and Surveillance Manual for Tailings and Water Management Facilities.
http://www.mining.ca/www/media_lib/MAC_Documents/omsguideeng.pdf
However the upshot is that the current policy in force in this country is that a stabilized site will not expose the public to any more than 1 mSv/yr, which is again in line with international standards.
This is not the place for a lesson on Canadian civics, but some points need to be made in this regard. Mining in Canada is a Provincial matter EXCEPT in the case of radioactive minerals which is under Federal jurisdiction. Provincial regulations can augment, but not supersede Federal in this case. Territories are not Provinces, but are subordinate to the Federal government in all matters. The Nunavut Impact Review Board is responsible for making recommendations of potential impacts of proposed development in the Nunavut Settlement Area. It is not in their mandate to comment on national standards, only to determine if the probable benefits of some undertaking exceed the impacts. Given this it is not surprising that a discussion of standards do not appear in their documents.
On a personal note, I make it a policy NOT to comment on the internal affairs of other countries, simply because I lack the sort of detailed knowledge to do so, and because it is really none of my business. I would suggest you do the same.
oops … this one has correct formatting!
Before the pot starts calling THIS kettle black, you might wish to know I’ve lived most my adult life in Canada, have an advanced degree from a Canadian University, teach in the US and Canada, and am currently completing a PhD based on 10 years of work with Prairie (SK and MB) Fist Nations political organizations and communities (unrelated to energy issues). The next time you post on US, Japan (“Fukushima”), French, India, or Chinese nuclear issues (much less renewable energy or other matters “external” to Canada) I’ll be sure to remind you of your self imposed posting criteria and topic limits. It also seems reasonable if Canada has bilateral agreements with the US on uranium development, military, environmental monitoring, clean-up, trade, and technology sharing … there is a clear basis (besides plain old human interest and better relationships between neighbors) for an open dialogue about national energy issues, the environment, and nuclear power and concerns. Not sure how far we would get on a site like this if everyone was limited by national citizenship to talking about nuclear power independent of global and environmental energy issues?
Turning beyond the personal, and back to the substantive … I think it’s entirely fair to ask if Canada has not cleaned up some of it’s uranium mining and processing sites for some 40 years (Port Hope), or 30 years (Port Radium), how is anybody to take at face value the legal requirement that mining wastes need to be cleaned up in a timely manner to an international standard (as reflected in Canadian bilateral agreements with other countries, and internally adhering to it’s own regulations and by-laws … territorial, provincial, federal, or otherwise)? It goes without saying, the same could be said of the US too, and the long standing backlog of uranium mine, milling, and enrichment sites awaiting clean-up under state, Superfund, UMTRCA, and other programs (as you suggest). You may think these are trivial matters (and that the public should ignore these failed environmental benchmarks), or that a small amount of low-level radiation never hurt anyone, but as Eric Mintz’s work seems to indicate, this is clearly not the case (and there is a substantive difference between cancer “incidence” and “mortality” among most epidemiologists). The difference is typically identified as health care, and the quality of health care can significantly impact cancer outcomes (or “mortality” statistics). Based on what you have said, I would hazard to guess you don’t live near any of these sites (awaiting taxpayer funds and a remediation plan to begin clean-up of radiological hazards already four decades overdue), and that you also don’t get a large percentage of your nutritional or medicinal needs from local plant and wildlife resources that are sometimes adversely impacted by these developments (during their production phase or long afterwards)?
If we’re going to turn nuclear into a larger share of baseload and low-carbon power generation, I’d like to know we can do this safely, and that we aren’t going to continue to turn our backs on costly and long overdue waste disposal and clean-up projects that will remain a fundamental part of the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle for some time to come (taking Kiggavik as an example … Port Hope, Port Radium, Piñon Ridge or Lincoln Park in Colorado, or the Navajo Reservation as another). We can move production to low density areas of the map (away from major population centers), outside of the US and Canada, and to places where environmental standards and regulatory oversight may be minimal (for a number of different reasons). Or we can do it right. It’s my hope we can do it right, and not simply move the problem from one site (a coal seam in Appalachia), and relocate it to another (e.g, aboriginal and remote lands in Asia or the Arctic). Everyone deserves to have their voice heard, and this is a debate worth having (but the policy outcome may not always be beneficial to all parties, and may pose significant challenges to some communities in the long-run, which is why this topic deserves debate and a full hearing). Here’s hoping you can see this, and stop trying to shut down debate with ad hominem attacks against your critics (regardless of whether they are informed about these issues or not … reside in Canada or elsewhere).
@EL – You point to the lack of a timely clean up. Can you explain what the health effects of those delays have been?
You also rightly point out that many times the difference between incidence and mortality is a result of health care and the quality of that health care. I am quite confident in the ability of nuclear energy to bequeath a great deal of wealth that will be spread widely across a large population and not concentrated into the hands of the lucky few who happen – through luck or avarice – to control large quantities of accessible fossil fuel resources.
A wealthy society has the resources available to invest in many things, including better health care for all. One that overly restricts the development of wealth producing technology out of unreasoned fear does not. One that wastes an incredible quantity of resources cleaning up sites that are already adequately clean in terms of not harming any people or animals also has less to spend for education, health care, and other beneficial activities. Instead those resources are frittered away carting dirt from one place to another.
Here is a link to an article I wrote long ago about one of the most egregious examples of an irrational, fear induced clean-up that wasted a significant quantity of resources with no benefit to humans or to the environment. Just imagine about how many hospitals could have been built and maintained for the amount of money invested in this clean-up.
https://atomicinsights.com/1996/11/how-clean-clean-blasting-out-frozen-soil.html
@EL – First of all I am a Canadian – you are not. Nor does it seem by what you write have you bothered to learn and understand the fundamentals of our political system, or the history or current state of uranium mining and nuclear energy in Canada.
Typically, like most antinuclear zealots arguing the uranium mining issue, you are trying to imply that past practice in the industry is an indication of future problems. Uranium mining/processing cleaned up its act over twenty years ago, but like many other mineral industries, past practice has left areas that need environmental remediation, and this is being done. In fact no one would have given a damn about Port Hope if there had not been a clean-up. Yet there are several populated areas on the planet with higher natural radioactivity than that town.
I am unimpressed by your activities with First Nations political organizations. This group has shown themselves to be skilled and hard-nosed negotiators in recent land claim settlements, and are as quick to enter into mineral rights agreements when it suites them, as they are to cry at what a raw deal they got in the past from the mining companies. This is not to say First Nations don’t have outstanding issues with the Crown, but one has to see the difference between existing situations and negotiating points, and there is nothing about uranium mining on Treaty Lands that they don’t now have the last word on.
The point is that you cannot drag this red herring of past practice through every discussion of nuclear energy’s future (the topic of this thread) and ignore the substantive changes that have occurred in every area of concern from mining to waste disposal simply because they do not apply. If you have technical issues with current practice, and can back this up with good sources, we can talk, but this endless retreat to past mistakes, when the have been recognized and corrected is sterile, and only underlines the lack of real arguments that you can bring to the table.
“The next time you post on US, Japan (“Fukushima”), French, India, or Chinese nuclear issues (much less renewable energy or other matters “external” to Canada) I’ll be sure to remind you of your self imposed posting criteria and topic limits”
As a mater of fact you are welcome to do just that. You may also look at comments I have posted to this site in the past for evidence as well, as I am sure that you will find none.
However note, that I wrote that I make it a policy NOT to comment on the internal affairs of other countries, only. Your pathetic attempt to try and widen my statement to include all nuclear issues is just another indication of the sort of intellectual dishonesty that has become a hallmark of your comments here.
EL – The largest concentration of Superfund sites is in the counties surrounding Silicon Valley, in California, a consequence of the semiconductor industry. This legacy resulted mostly from the manufacture of computer chips; although, the manufacture of solar panels share the same problems, with the size of the problem being amplified by an order of magnitude or more due to the shear volume of the material involved. This still would be a problem in the US today, except that we have exported the manufacture of computer chips and solar panels to China, where they have far less stringent environmental regulations.
Tell me, Mr/Ms. pot/kettle, do you post comments on solar energy websites decrying the environmental devastation of their industry?
From what you have written, Mr/Ms. PhD candidate, I gather that your training is not in epidemiology. Thus, I suggest that you refrain from trying to lecture us on this topic. You’re way out of your league here.
For what it’s worth, the socioeconomic factors that influence rates of cancer go far beyond just access to health care, as any first-year student in epidemiology could tell you. Thus, while quality of health care can make a (slight) difference between incidence of cancer and mortality, that difference is usually quite small compared to the overall trends, and it is rare that looking at incidence leads to significantly different results than examining mortality.
Your arguments become weaker and more emotional with each comment that you post.
@Brian –
Note too that EL neatly avoids answering the point I made up-thread that Dr.Mintz was offering an opinion, not even a fully formed hypothesis and certainly nothing in Dr. Mintz’s critique of the Port Hope Mortality Study indicates he intended anything other than offering an opinion on the matter.
Typical of this poster (and antinukes in general) he is attempting to imply greater weight to documents that support his view than the author’s themselves intended.
What irritates me most is the insult to the collective intelligence of those that regularly comment on these pages in believing he can get away with such.
DV82XL – Well, I hope you don’t think that I missed your point. I agree with what you have written here.
In my opinion, Mintz does bring up some valid points about some weaknesses in the methodology used in the report. This is not unique, however, since many studies in this field are open to reasonable criticisms, mostly because of the availability of data, which the researchers often cannot control.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the opposite conclusion has been proven, or even supported, and this is where almost all anti-nukes abandon logic.
This is a tactic that is typically employed by creationists against evolution. They think that if they discover some tiny flaw in the way things fit together that it immediately invalidates evolution and proves that there must have been some sort of biblical-style creator. It has always amazed me how similar this is to the thinking and tactics of anti-nukes.
As I wrote up thread. I am not dismissing Dr. Mintz as a crank, but one must weigh his contribution to this argument for what it is worth, and keep in mind his is a minority opinion.
As one who has made a minor career of picking holes in radiation studies myself, I readily admit that Dr. Mintz raises some interesting points that are worth exploring in the larger context of radiation epidemiology, however these ideas have little value in the absence of solid research to determine if they are valid to the Port Hope study, or to any field study of this sort.
In fact one wonders if presenting them in a specific critique of a mortality study was right place, rather than as a paper submitted to the Int J Epidemiology or some other peer reviewed publication. Since he did not, then I am inclined to see their inclusion in his critique of the Port Hope study as inappropriate and this was likely the reason his report was dismissed by Health Canada and the CNSC.
test …
(Part I) … for some reason not showing up in wordpress
Eric Mintz has done this for Port Hope. EPA, together with IHS, and qualified epidemiologists have invested in a five year plan to do the same on the Navajo Reservation. EPA’s TENORM (Technical Report on Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials from Uranium Mining) is another effort along these lines. Vol. II identifies tribal lands (and waste concentrations near building and home sites, suburban subdivisions, and the like) as being at the greatest risk for health impacts from mining and milling wastes: “It appears that those living on western Tribal lands appear to be most at risk as potential residents on or near abandoned uranium mine sites, or from the frequent visiting or passing through contaminated sites” (VII – pg. 7-1). An estimated 800,000 people live within 5 miles of a mine site in the States, and 10 million within 50 miles. “The highest watershed mine density is in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming … [and] Several watersheds have more than 100 uranium mines” (VII, pg. 2-4). Local grassroots groups and legislators (Sen. Tom Udall, Rep. Ben Lujan, and others) have all sought amendments to Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in the States (here and here) to modify time frame (to 1990), exposure guidelines, medical conditions covered in future compensation claims, and research program to study the “epidemiological impacts of uranium mining and milling among non-occupationally exposed individuals.” So as a direct response to your question, we simply don’t yet know what the full impact of delays in clean-up of these sites will be. IAEA suggests something similar, we know a lot about exposure and dose levels at mining and milling sites, but not much about human uptake of radionuclides, and there is little research or “few articles that set out to quantify the level of harm to the biosphere caused by uranium mining and milling residues” (p. 6).
@EL – any comment that includes more than one link will be put into moderation until I get around to logging in and approving them. That does not always happen as quickly as I would like, I do, after all, have a day job.
(Part II)
At Port Radium in the Northwest Territories, however (as with many mine sites awaiting decommissioning and reclamation) we have a specific quantification of the problem: 1.7 million tons of tailings were produced during the operation of the mine (1930-1982), and half of this (800,000 tons) ended up in Great Bear Lake (where there is direct access to the environment and zero containment) and is subject to no remediation plan. “That’s a little hard to swallow,” said Deline’s Chief, and President of Deline Land Corp is quoted: “a lot of studies were rushed.” Previous epidemiological research confirms elevated rates of lung cancer from occupational exposure to radon during operational life of the mine, which certainly offers little comfort to local residents. It’s worth noting Dene Land Corp opposes further uranium development until outstanding remediation issues are dealt with (as do many communities in the north … BC and Labrador both have active moratoria, Lutsel K’e, and Nunavut until last year). Diamond, Gold, Copper, and even rare earth minerals (which have some of the same environmental remediation concerns) in the region seem to have far fewer of the occupational or long-lasting environmental, health, and financial impacts (or historical legacy) as uranium development.
Presumably, there is a reason why decommissioning and remediation of mining and milling sites needs to take place. When this is delayed, it is reasonable to assume any associated health risks for exposed populations increases (and not decreases). In 1959, Canada’s Energy Minister, Gordon Churchill, said:: “there are no special hazards attached to the mining of uranium that differ from other mining activities.” Based on the prevalence of public health concerns, radiation dose estimates (and risk projections), and compensation claims from communities involved with this industry over the last half century, we know this is not the case. If the risk is small, as some here suggest, why not amend RECA to include compensation claims later than 1971, and under expanded exposure and qualifying illness guidelines?
@EL–
You have chosen to ignore what has been written in response to your concerns up-thread and continue to post the same arguments. It has been pointed out that this is a thread on the future of nuclear energy, that there is broad agreement that uranium mining practices in the past were less than optimal in respect to environmental concerns, that there are remediation programs currently being executed, yet you persist on restating the same stale positions.
There is little good to be said about coal mining in the US and Canada, but today, in those countries, past practice like working boys as young as six for fourteen hours underground, poor ventilation leading to Black lung, and economic slavery via company stores, is no longer the norm there. There would be no point bringing those excesses up as reasons to stop the use of coal. Why then do you insist on using similar arguments to object to contemporary uranium production?
At any rate, the broader issue of remediation of any sort of mining falls under different government policies than those pertaining to nuclear energy, and in comparison to other areas that need work in this regard, those involving uranium mining are relatively minor. As well moratoria on uranium mining enacted in the jurisdictions you mentioned have little to do with concerns about tailings, and much to do with objections to nuclear technology in general.
What is sorely lacking in the stand you are taking, are arguments based on current practice, and how they compare with those of coal production today and in the foreseeable future. If that is done then it is clear that health and environmental impacts of uranium production are less, and by several orders of magnitude. If you have information to the contrary, we would be happy to entertain it, otherwise you are making no points valid to the thrust of the lead article.
Frankly it looks to me as if you are just using this as an opportunity for the sort of hollow polemics that are used by antinuclear zealots to avoid addressing substantive arguments that support the need for the continued growth of nuclear energy.
Yes, some examples of newer mining practices would be helpful in making a case for lower environmental and health impact from uranium mining today. You have stated this is the case, but not described any of the differences (or provided actual case studies).
– It’s definitely important to have remediation goals. But as I’ve stated, many of these go unfulfilled or are delayed by decades or more. It seems we’ve mainly moved mining to locations where environmental standards and oversight are low (Kazakhstan, Namibia, Russia, Niger, Uzbekistan, etc.). We don’t do open pit mining anymore in the States (or very little of it), and newer mine sites in Canada are awaiting clean-up (Gunnar and Lorado mine sites) or are still in production (so it remains to be seen if these promises will be fulfilled).
– We have better management standards for radon exposure at mining and milling worksites: better ventilation and use of water to suppress airborne dust. This has helped minimize worker exposures, but not necessarily minimized environmental damage. We’ve dealt with environmental issues mainly by locating open pit mines, like the proposed Kiggavik, away from densely populated areas (Nunavut has a population density of 1 person/63 square kilometers or 23 square miles). The same for many other areas of Canada and Australia (with major uranium mining activities). This doesn’t mean that environmental damage is no longer a concern (and has been dealt with through newer technologies), only that it impacts a smaller population, and may present a more significant long term risk to future populations if they were to move into the area.
– And we have in-situ leaching (or underground injection) for low grade ores (which seems to be the preferred method these days). Again, worker exposure to radiation hazards is minimized by this technology, but not environmental damage. The comparison with coal mining is apt here. We’ve significantly reduced the immediate health risk from coal mining by sending fewer workers underground, using more machines, and mountain top mining for hard to get to coal. This doesn’t mean we have significantly minimized the environmental damage from coal mining (when we’ve actually increased it). I’m not a fan of in-situ mining for uranium, and there are significant long-term environmental impacts from this type of approach. There has been severe contamination of groundwater and surrounding lands from in-situ mining in Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. EPA has found the same in Texas, Wyoming, Nebraska, and elsewhere. USGS has found: “To date, no remediation of an ISR operation in the United States has successfully returned the aquifer to baseline conditions.” And Native American groups continue to be adversely impacted by such practices (Oglala Court Case against NRC for environmental threats from in-situ leaching).
So yes, I’d like to know about these newer practices, and how populations (such as those near the proposed Kiggavik open pit and in-situ mine) can be protected on a long-term basis from these environmental impacts. Particularly if we are going to be expanding nuclear power generation to beyond the rather modest 6% of global energy production we have now.
Studies of uranium miners show:
–Risk of getting lung cancer from working in a current uranium mine is low because current radon exposures are low and therefore the risk is low.
–Uranium mine workers have lowest accident/injuries in all of mining industry in Canada.
–Workers are as healthy as the general population.
Studies of members of the public show:
–No evidence that environmental radon exposures, associated with uranium mining, milling, or processing, have impacted the public.
–Another possible health effect could be inhalation of the heavy metal uranium – but no evidence of an impact attributed to uranium exposure in public
http://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/pubs_catalogue/uploads/20081121_UMM_Presenation_Swiss_Nuclear_Forum_e.pdf
As for current pratice in Canada with examples you should read: Environmental Impacts of Different Uranium Mining Processes. (with examples and case studies)
http://environment.gov.ab.ca/info/library/8178.pdf
Again your claim that there are “long standing and as yet unresolved waste storage, proliferation, homeland security, and public safety concerns,” is simply untrue. All of these have been addressed. It is only those that do not wish to see nuclear energy develop that try to assert that this is not so.
The onus is on you to show that this isn’t the case and if the only examples you can bring to the table are 40 and 50 years old your acusations look unfounded, and of no cosiquence to the current state of the field.
this has been a great tragedy! A tragedy in which no one was killed and no one subjected to injuries, nuclear accident yes not in one but three reactors but none from the population exposed to radiation, none from workers to damaging doses. The robustness of safety is demonstrated. The economic loss and the evacuees misery no way undermined. The safety performance of nuclear power per kwh of electricity generation has been,accidents included, much better than other technologies, dominantly coal. The real issue post Fukushima is to install public confidence and the article does it excellently.
I concur wholehearedly sudhinder thakur, and the only REAL answer to your summation is outright non-holds barred advertising campaigns (yes, compare how many deaths resulted with each power source!), period. Forget relying on media or cable “science shows” to do the public education for you. You have to stand on your hind legs and do the heavy lifting yourself. It’s RIDICULOUS that gas and oil have such rigorious ad campaigns and nukes — the answer — has Zero. Really — how the hell does one expect the public to get the facts? By religion??
James Greenidge
Queens NY
[blockquote]It’s RIDICULOUS that gas and oil have such rigorious ad campaigns and nukes — the answer — has Zero. Really — how the hell does one expect the public to get the facts? By religion??[/blockquote]
This is the question we should all be asking. The lack of outreach is conspicuous by its absence, and there is no reasonable explanation of why this is so.
“The lack of outreach is conspicuous by its absence, and there is no reasonable explanation of why this is so.”
Having worked in the nuclear electrical generation business since 1980, my inescapable conclusion is that this lack of marketing and PR savvy is based in the unfortunate fact that the reins of power in this field are held mainly by conservative utility manager types, who were promoted more for their ability to maintain a comfortable and subdued status quo than to forge visionary but risky new initiatives.
With a few exceptions – Entergy has been forced, more out of necessity than desire, to engage in an increasingly aggressive PR campaign to retain use of several of their most profitable assets – these guys are clueless at effective marketing. They came up through technical or legal ranks, and to promote nuclear aggressively would implicitly point to the inherent drawbacks of their large fossil fleets. On the bright side, Entergy has recently announced they will be hiring Rudy Giuliani to help make their case for Indian Point to New Yorkers.
Pioneers like Rod and Kirk Sorensen, unless they have the deep pocket financing of a Bill Gates behind them, are often forced to start their own companies on a shoestring, or maybe just put some of their dreams on ice.
The VC boys who might provide the seed money have largely been scared off by the difficult, prolonged, and litigious licensing prospects of any nuclear innovation – exactly the thing, that if properly promoted, might turn the tide of public opinion in a positive way. Because of the risk-intolerant attitude of too many in our society, there are always better possibilities for a quicker return on investment on any number of other less regulated startups.
So who is regulating the daring, inspiring, innovative, pioneering, but highly risky, privatization of space travel? No one? Maybe that is why it is progressing so rapidly both in technical achievement and in capturing the imagination of the public.
Oil and gas have great ads one after the other on CNN. So nuclear folks, CNN is where it’s at.
Baby steps.
Why the Uranium market may Change. Regardless of the consequences of Fukushima, GE is running with an improved SILEX laser proccess for Uranium production. Abundant fuel with no US reactors to use it? The Media coverage of Fukushima only served to drive new reactor development for better reactor design. The fact remains no other energy can handle the peak loads like nuclear. And fission nuclear may soon compete with fusion nuclear of modular 1 MW design. Nuclear is way far from over!!!
Until a nuclear weapon hits America and upper class white people have to deal with radiation, then it will stop.
Chris – I am not “upper class” but I have been working long enough to have joined the upper income brackets of the middle class. I am quite comfortable in dealing with radiation. It is pretty simple stuff as long as you have reasonably good detectors and understand how to apply the principles of time, distance and shielding to control doses to a safe level.
Weapons and reliable energy are two separate topics, except for the fact that during the 18 years of the Megatons to Megawatts program, power producing reactors in the United States have destroyed the material that used to be the active component of several tens of thousands of weapons.
Chris Noland:
It might interest you to know that (as I understand it) nuclear power plants are not necessarily needed to build a nuclear bomb. The first nuclear power plant here in the U.S. did not come online until 1957, and we had nuclear bombs long before that. Do yourself a favor and check the articles at http://www.depletedcranium.com.
Nuclear power plants in general make miserable breeders for weapon-grade Pu. In the past the U.S.S.R. and the U.K. deployed dual-use reactors, but these were found to be not worth the trouble.
At any rate countries that have operated nuclear weapons programs in the post NPT era have all used dedicated facilities to produce Pu-239, thus the point is somewhat moot.
I have no expertise in the nuclear technology field or physics here, but as a pro-nuke person and a supporter of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) development by Kirk Sorenson and Flibe-Energy, I can’t help but think about how tragic it was for the U.S. to abandon thorium-fuelled molten salt reactor technology back in the the 1970s when Alvin Weinberg was promoting it (and got fired for it). If we had not done so, then perhaps the nuclear safety issue would not exist today — at least not to the extent that it does.
If today’s plutonium-producing reactor technology was needed back in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s for the Cold War, why couldn’t we have built both types of reactors? Why couldn’t we have built some of the plutonium-producing reactors for military use while developing and building molten salt reactors for civilian use? Yes, I know Fukushima was built back in the late sixties before molten salt reactors were a commercial reality, but at least we would probably have LFTRs around today here in the U.S. to dispell some of the fear resulting from what happened there.
As we cope and live today with the consequences of the decision to abandon molten salt reactor technology back in the 1970s (including the back-and-forth arguing between the pro- and anti-nukes), I can only shake my head and wish we could go back and change history. For the anti-nuke neo-Luddites today, the nuclear issue has become too much of an emotionally-driven one for them to listen to the voices of calm, rational thought and reasoning. One can only hope that there aren’t too many of them among our elected leaders in Washington.
This may be the wrong story to ask this on but I have a question. Why is enriching uranium from 0.7% U-235 to 1% U-235 so much more energy intensive than enriching uranium from 1% U-235 to 10% U-235?
Everything I have read regarding cost benefit is taking a misleading approach. If you were an insurance company insuring against losses you would take the industry since its inception, look at the cost of Chernobel, Fukishima etc. Average the losses over the time period and have a number, a cost to be amortized over the life of any given plant you are to insure. This cost together with the normal operating cost, fuel prices, labor, repairs, long term storage of contaminates, lawsuites (check out Los Alamos National Labs legal budget) etc. All known costs. On the revenue side factor in the shut down losses due to accidents, public opinion (eg. Japan, UK, Germany are all taking plants off-line) increases due to rising energy costs etc. Nothing easy in any of this, lots of wiggle room. But if Fukishima cost estimates of $500 billion over 30-40 years plus Chernobyl clean-up costs are increased by loss of land, fish, lives, etc (uncalculable ? what is the value of a 4th generation fisherman losing his/her lifestyle?? I think not….make an estimate, put a number on it, or range of value) then you have a serious number in the billions to add to the current cost of each of the worlds 400 plus nuclear plants. When we look at alternatives such as oil, of course we average the cost of the gulf spill, loss of revenue, loss of life, Exxon Valdez etc to the cost of oil as we add to the revenue or benefit side the increases in oil prices, the benefit of coversion to gas etc etc. It is all in the mix. A giant spreadsheet to be sure, but ultimately manageable. All subsidies are just numbers on the cost and benefit sides. They do not disappear. Again, we need to think like an insurance company that is going to pay for all losses. So where is this number????