wind power more deadly than nuclear

reply to post by Aggie Man


This is a good point - comparing nuclear power to existing forms of power is a far better comparison.

The problem is going to be rather obvious, though - a huge portion of our power comes from fossil fuels - an extremely disproportionate amount. It becomes almost impossible to attribute deaths to any particular form of power and reduce it to a percentage statistic that holds relevant. If we were to overhaul our energy industry and get 60+% of our power from nuclear sources, you have an exponential increase in the number of people and networks involved in supporting that infrastructure - which may change accident rates considerably so that there is little difference with regards to "what power source kills more?"

However - one can make a relevant comparison to the design and operation of a nuclear power plant versus a more traditional coal/oil/gas power plant. The "worst case scenario" for each can be compared across plant operation, impacts of disaster (earthquakes and the like), and the supply chain (what happens when that train full of a week's worth of natural gas derails versus a week's worth of uranium from a reactor). The relative rates of accidents and failures can be compared, as well as the number of plants necessary to meet power requirements.

www.ornl.gov...

Former ORNL researchers J. P. McBride, R. E. Moore, J. P. Witherspoon, and R. E. Blanco made this point in their article "Radiological Impact of Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants" in the December 8, 1978, issue of Science magazine. They concluded that Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations. This ironic situation remains true today and is addressed in this article.

Using these data, the releases of radioactive materials per typical plant can be calculated for any year. For the year 1982, assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons of thorium that year. Total U.S. releases in 1982 (from 154 typical plants) amounted to 801 tons of uranium (containing 11,371 pounds of uranium-235) and 1971 tons of thorium. These figures account for only 74% of releases from combustion of coal from all sources. Releases in 1982 from worldwide combustion of 2800 million tons of coal totaled 3640 tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of uranium-235) and 8960 tons of thorium.

Forget building nuclear reactors out of glow-in-the-dark paint - just sift through some slag and fly-ash. I'm going to be the next radioactive boyscout... or Dr. Strangelove.

All studies of potential health hazards associated with the release of radioactive elements from coal combustion conclude that the perturbation of natural background dose levels is almost negligible. However, because the half-lives of radioactive potassium-40, uranium, and thorium are practically infinite in terms of human lifetimes, the accumulation of these species in the biosphere is directly proportional to the length of time that a quantity of coal is burned.

Although trace quantities of radioactive heavy metals are not nearly as likely to produce adverse health effects as the vast array of chemical by-products from coal combustion, the accumulated quantities of these isotopes over 150 or 250 years could pose a significant future ecological burden and potentially produce adverse health effects, especially if they are locally accumulated. Because coal is predicted to be the primary energy source for electric power production in the foreseeable future, the potential impact of long-term accumulation of by-products in the biosphere should be considered.

This is a very good point. Containment of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants is -absolute-. No one really pays attention to where all of this stuff is getting littered about - nor is it practical to reasonably contain and manage such vast quantities of wastes.

Consequently, the energy content of nuclear fuel released in coal combustion is more than that of the coal consumed! Clearly, coal-fired power plants are not only generating electricity but are also releasing nuclear fuels whose commercial value for electricity production by nuclear power plants is over $7 trillion, more than the U.S. national debt. This figure is based on current nuclear utility fuel costs of 7 mils per kWh, which is about half the cost for coal. Consequently, significant quantities of nuclear materials are being treated as coal waste, which might become the cleanup nightmare of the future, and their value is hardly recognized at all.

How does the amount of nuclear material released by coal combustion compare to the amount consumed as fuel by the U.S. nuclear power industry? According to 1982 figures, 111 American nuclear plants consumed about 540 tons of nuclear fuel, generating almost 1.1 x 10E12 kWh of electricity. During the same year, about 801 tons of uranium alone were released from American coal-fired plants. Add 1971 tons of thorium, and the release of nuclear components from coal combustion far exceeds the entire U.S. consumption of nuclear fuels. The same conclusion applies for worldwide nuclear fuel and coal combustion.

... This guy would crap his pants to know the debt has, in such a short time, more than doubled. In either case - the point stands. More radioactive material is released willy-nilly through fossil fuel combustion than the entire world uses to fuel its nuclear power plants.

It also means there is considerable value in the waste materials from fossil fuel combustion - and considerable consequence for not recognizing the hazards such wastes pose.

Anyway - I'm past the 3-paragraph limit from this source, just highlighting a number of the important points.

We could power the nuclear industry for decades off of the uranium and thorium inherent in coal wastes, provided a reasonable means of recovery were developed. Current mining of fissile materials need not be expanded.

Risks of melt-downs are pretty much non-existent. Even in the most extreme cases - such as Japan's recent disaster - exposure of the reactor core was never a real threat, and a 'true' melt-down was never a practical concern. The plant's design prevents that from happening even in the absence of all controls.