The toll of dead and missing from Japan’s Fukushima earthquake and tsunami approaches 30,000, and entire towns are rubble. At this point, no one has died from Fukushima’s nuclear radiation, and it is quite possible that no one ever will. But radiation hysteria dominates the world’s front pages and television screens. The anti-nuclear community exults as many countries now consider shutting down or delaying construction of nuclear power plants.
While a through review of nuclear plant safety is important, be careful what you wish for. Replacing the annual electric power output of a typical one gigawatt (GW) nuclear plant will require burning five million tons of coal or its equivalent in natural gas. As much as ten million tons of carbon dioxide will then be released to warm us. In the case of coal, the most available substitute, large quantities of mercury, sulfur, and other elements will also join the atmosphere.
The primary public concern over Fukushima is the continuing release of radioactivity. Our bodies receive an average of 300 millirems of natural radiation per year from radon, cosmic rays, certain foods like bananas(potassium 40) and medical exams. The body repairs cell damage from this and larger amounts, or humanity would not exist. The most radiation exposed persons at Fukushima are some workers inside the plants who got doses in the 15 to 25 rem range.
Immediately after World War II, a joint U.S. and Japanese medical team began a 70-year study of 90,000 survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those survivors got radiation doses similar to those received by the most affected workers at Fukushima.Seventy years of studies report that the bomb survivors are living longer on average than the Japanese population as a whole with lower cancer rates. California residents are buying up iodine pills, because Fukushima radiation is being detected on our Pacific Coast. That new radiation is one millionth of the amount that the average American receives annually from those natural sources.
The energy producing fission process shut down in all Fukushima reactors. But the radioactive fission products in the active fuel, and spent fuel in the water pools continue to provide heat from beta decay. This produces about 6 percent of the heat created by the fully operating reactor. Without cooling, the temperatures in the reactor from decay heat will rise indefinitely.Normally, backup cooling is done by circulating water with diesel engines, now damaged by the tsunami.
At Chernobyl, a large steam/hydrogen explosion blew out radioactive graphite and other material from a fissioning reactor. 134 plant and emergency workers received very high radiation doses. 28 of them died within a few months. 19 more died within the next 20 years, though from causes not associated with radiation exposure. They have been parents to 14 children, all normal.
Radiation from Chernobyl spread over several countries. The Feb. 28, 2011 UN Chernobyl update states:
“In the three most affected countries, the only evidence of health effects due to radiation is an increase in thyroid cancer among people exposed as children in 1986. There were more than 6,000 cases reported from 1991 to 2005 in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. By 2005, 15 of the cases had proven fatal.
Radiation is diluted by distance and time. Media panic after Three Mile Island helped end the growth of nuclear energy in the U.S., leaving us with lots of polluting coal plants. Let’s not lose the benefits from our largest supply of clean electric energy which causes fewer injuries than any other major energy source.
ROLF E. WESTGARD, of St. Paul and Deerwood, is a professional member, Geological Society of America, and a member of the Brainerd Dispatch advisory board.
Comments (59)
Add commentThanks, Rolf
As usual, informative and interesting.
Not Quite On Target
There are a number of errors in this piece that I have seen in many opinion pieces on the topic.
The first and biggest error is the false choice of dirty nuclear power or dirty coal power. There are many other options, including one that is truly clean - conservation. We Americans live in colossal houses, drive colossal cars, and eat unhealthy diets that require vast energy consumption to produce and ship. Our current level of consumption is not a given, and indeed we should be urgently turning to conservation. Other options like wind and solar also deserve mention, and longer term, things like birth control need to be considered as part of a complete energy consumption plan.
The other conceptual error is treating the Fukushima disaster as the only disaster that can happen. The most basic principle of risk management is the calculation of (magnitude of possible harm) x (likelihood of event). While it is true that worst-case scenarios for nuclear power plants are small, the worst-case magnitude is almost incomprehensibly vast. The area surrounding Chernobyl will remain unsafe for human use for centuries, and if Fukushima had blown up in a different way, Tokyo could have been rendered uninhabitable. Yes, these scenarios are extremely unlikely, but the potential harm of an unlikely event is the part of the equation that pro-nuke activists are disingenuously downplaying.
Finally, destruction from coal can be horrendous, but we can determine fairly well what it is, and its effects are comparatively short-term. As of today, no one has designed a safe storage facility for plutonium, a rare element that is created as part of the process of using uranium-based nuclear power. It is also (at least arguably) the most toxic substance, measured in terms of the number of atoms required to kill a human. Coal is nasty, but there are established ways of cleaning its messes up, whereas with plutonium, we don't know how to store it and it lasts for millennia. That's a horrendous legacy to leave to future generations, especially when our generation has depleted so many of the immediately available resources of other types.
Nuclear nonsense.
A nuclear explosion is not possible in a nuclear power plant. Tokyo was never in any danger. And plutonium is not a big problem at Fukushima. In fact, we need to recycle the spent fuel to recover the plutonium for use as fuel.
The big problems are the fission products with intermediate half lives like cesium 137 and Krypton. With 30 year half lives they are very radioactive and dangerous for about 300 years. Also dangerous are the actinides, artificial elements heavier than uranium.
Right now the biggest problem is all that water being dumped on the reactors which becomes radioactive. My solution is to dump it into the ocean. Not so good for the nearby sea life, but it's a big ocean and dilution will take care of it.
Conservation is great, but it won't save us from oil imports or pollution from burning fossil fuels.
Rolf
Wind and solar
In 2010, intermittent wind and solar combined were about 1%, I repeat 1%, of our total U.S. energy supply and a little over 2% of our electric energy. They are not quite the scam that corn ethanol is, but they simply lack the scale and reliability to do much.
The Minneapolis Convention Center has just spent $3 million on a highly publicized roof top solar system. It should be fully operational in the next few months producing 750,000 kwh per year.
The Prairie Island nuclear plant produces over 8 Billion kwh/year, or ten thousand times the output of those 2,600 solar panels on the convention center roof. I wonder who will be cleaning the snow and dirt from them.
More Disconnect
Maybe I'm not understanding your points, because all of them seem off-target. I never said it had to be a *nuclear explosion. Fukushima had conventional explosions, as did Chernobyl, and in any event, every nuclear power plant is a terrorist target, so the possibility of an explosion of indeterminable magnitude is there.
As for Tokyo never being in any danger, that takes into account a huge list of factors that's too long to calculate. Given the correct wind direction and right-sized explosion, you could move pieces of Fukushima to Tokyo 136 miles away pretty easily, keeping in mind the measurable dose is in number of atoms. Chernobyl dosed Europe because it occurred on one of the three days per year that the wind went from east to west - normally it would have all gone east. A Lithuanian friend of mine had her cancerous thyroid removed last year.
And your comment about conservation not saving us from fossil fuels seems true - there will be a continuing need for energy - but your response seems facile. The less we use, the better, and the real question here is whether we have to use enough energy to merit the risks of nuclear. I guess you've already made up your mind, but there are a lot of foundational calculations underlying that decision that are questionable at best.
Using math
Not to belabor this, Thomas, but it's my article and comments that have the numbers and calculations, not yours.
General statements: "because all of them seem off-target."
"plutonium hysteria", etc don't cut it when you are dealing with a serious subject.
A better alternative
"Replacing the annual electric power output of a typical one gigawatt (GW) nuclear plant will require burning five million tons of coal or its equivalent in natural gas."
Or asking Americans to stop being so wasteful and start practicing conservation.
I agree eyolf. The
I agree eyolf. The desperation shown by the tar sands oil production reminds me of a meth addict sucking on the sore of a fellow addict.
We seem to be willing to go anywhere and do anything to avoid conservation of energy. What happened to all the conservatives? Have they gone extinct?
I conserve energy, Fish.
I conserve energy, Fish. Anyway I can. The only exception is my classic car. But there is no way to get more than 7-8 mpg out of it. Don't drive it that often though.
Conservation
IMO the only way to get people to conserve something is to raise its price. In Europe and Asia this is achieved for oil by large gasoline taxes. This causes small fuel efficient cars and high use of buses and trains. The high use creates a demand for the kind of public transit systems you find everywhere but in the U.S.
You have a good point, Rolf.
You have a good point, Rolf. The last time gas was at $4, folks became very careful about their consumption. When gas dropped back down, they were right back in their SUVs.
A friend of mine on Norway says they are paying about $10 a gallon. It has been $4-5 in much of Europe for many years.
Raising the gas tax is fine by me because it's a consumption tax. Which I believe if fait. The more you use, the more taxes you pay.
very misleading article
this article is misleading the very real concerns about nuclear power and the waste products from it. the half life of radioctive waste and contamination is truely unkown, most areas that have known contaminates are still contaminated today and very uninhabitable. some say 100 years, some say 10,000 years truth be known is that either way its past my lifetime or my childrens lifetime. its not acceptable, we do need to get away from nuclear reactors but they know that ever snce the manhattin project failure. the profit is the only concern for corporations and govt. the nuclear plants make thousands of tons of radioactive waste products every year, stored in Yuka mountain by the govt(which is also paid for by the govt to transport, monitor and store it). the corporation charges customers for the product, then the govt charges you for the storage of waste that will as they say have a half life of hundreds of thousands of years. either way its not acceptable to me that companies charge us for creating radioactive human pesticide that is causing major health concerns for every living creature on this planet and there is no way to even nullify the massive amount of this toxic contamination that has already been created.
oh yea they're dumping 10,000 gallons of contaminated water from the nuclear reactors in japan today, this will continue to cause very real problems in the future. the ocean is not a land fill, the fish and other products harvested from the ocean will absorb this contamination and then become unusable by humans for an unknown amount of time.
then theres the millisevers and macrosevers of radiation at any level radiation has real future consiquences on all health and enviromental aspects of life.
everyone has a real concern and you should too. this will continue to cause issues until the nuclear programs of the world are all shut down. its foolish to think this stuff won't harm you when there are so many ways it effects people.
A confused chap
To start with we can precisely measure the half life of every radioactive isotope. There are so many other errors in chap's comment that it is not worth more comment. What's a macrosever?
Rolf
"we do need to get away from
"we do need to get away from nuclear reactors but they know that ever snce the manhattin project failure"
???
Understanding half life
>>>>the govt charges you for the storage of waste that will as they say have a half life of hundreds of thousands of years.<<<<
The shorter the half life, the more radioactive is the isotope. The most dangerous are the ones with intermediate half lives like strontium 90 and cesium 137 with 30 year half lives. They are very radioactive and last for about 300 years.
The ones at hundreds of thousands of years are not very radioactive and are relatively easier to store.
As to the ocean and Fukushima, that is probably the only place to dump all that radioactive water. The ocean is very big and will dilute the stuff. There aren't any good answers there, but that is my approach.
REW
Dilution
There is at least 200,000,000 tons of radioactive uranium in the world's oceans. But you can swim in the ocean and drink the water if you don't mind the salt. That's because the uranium is diluted by the volume of water.
The Colorado River contains radioactivity from the uranium, thorium, radium, radon etc in the strata of the river basin. People in LA, Las Vegas, etc drink the water. It doesn't hurt them because it is diluted. It may even good for them. To understand that you have to take the class.
REW
Never argue with idiots
I agree. You'll get no argument from me, Barnet.
My classes
There's a waiting list and I don't get paid. And they are in St Paul.
Yep; and the coal and oil
Yep; and the coal and oil plants can no way keep up with the future use of power.
We are riding a dead horse into the ground,without nuclear power, we will not have enough power to suppy are future needs.
Nuclear power may not be the best idea,but it is our only choice. Time to w a ke up.
It's estimated, and I believe
It's estimated, and I believe it, that we waste at least 30% of our energy.
That means that we could reduce energy production by 30% from our current level. Depending on transmission we might even be able to shut down some coal plants.
It also means we don't need more production we need more conservation.
A Solution to the "Power Problem"
According to "Thomas Westgard" (???), we could solve the "power problem" if only everyone:
> Lived in tiny houses,
> Drove tiny cars,
> Ate only T.W.-approved food
and
> Stopped having babies.
Yeah, that should work....
But until T.W, provides us with a list of the food we're allowed to eat, for starters we could adopt the "China Solution", where married urban couples are allowed to have only one child, a policy that was introduced in 1978 and which (according to Chinese authorities) has prevented between 250 and 300 million births so far. It's also believed to have resulted in an increase in forced abortions, female infanticide, under-reporting of female births and gender imbalance.
(Info from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy)
Good luck with all that....
<<>> Good points, jackpo.
<<>>
Good points, jackpo. We'll see what the Japanese try to do, since at least reactors #1,2,3, and 4 are apparently scrap.
From Disconnect to Dishonesty
I guess Mission's comment is an example of how low people will stoop to push nuclear power on people. Reading his comment, you would end up with some funny ideas about what birth control consists of. Just keep in mind that what he said came from him, not from me - and he advocates for nuclear power. I also note that Rolf Westgard went to the trouble of correcting other errors in other comments, but chose to overlook these baseless accusations.
Here's what I actually do advocate: People like the UN do things like educating women - not just sex ed (which is good), but 3R's basics leads women to have children later in life and choose to have fewer, all of which conserves resources, decreases child mortality, and increases the quality of life of each child. Also, condom availability, IUD's, and consensual surgical and pharmaceutical options, as is available in the United States.
As for the accusation that I want to control everything, you imagine that free choice is what we have now? The whole point here is that our government has chosen to spend trillions of dollars subsidizing oil at every stage of production, in turn subsidizing a form of agriculture that employs the smallest number of people possible and uses the most oil. $10/gallon gas might just begin to recover the hidden subsidies, like using our navy to control shipping lanes, one of the biggest subsidies to world trade that people have come to think of as "free," though of course it is anything but free. By the most conservative estimate, we spend over a trillion dollars each year on our military. So yes, let's have people pay the true full cost of the resources they consume.
The quality of this conversation seems to be deteriorating. I may or may not be back.
Thomas
Sorry Thomas, but I have no position on nuclear power, except for the obvious:
> Nuclear power has great potential to provide an alternative to oil, coal and other sources of energy.
AND
> Nuclear power also has a potential for doing incredible damage when things go wrong.
Where you came up with the idea that you were accused of wanting to control everything is a mystery to me -- I said no such thing, and I couldn't care less what you want, what you think or what 'facts' you decide to make up.
Have a nice life.
Missing Thomas
Thomas is taking his bat and ball and leaving.
By the way all our military expenses are not for oil. We can get all the oil we want the way the Chinese do - buying it. They don't have one soldier in the MIddle East.
Most of our imported oil is from this hemisphere anyway.
As to shipping lanes, the only place we could use our navy is where those Somali pirates are. So far we aren't doing much there.
Rolf
You are correct. Not all of
You are correct. Not all of our military expenses are for oil but a significant amount of our military dollars ARE spent protecting the fragile oil supply.
It's disingenuous to claim otherwise just like it's disingenuous to claim that highly profitable and established oil companies aren't continuing to get taxpayer help.
That money would be better spent finding alternatives to oil.
I don't know if those
I don't know if those radioactive particles are extra heavy or not but if they settle out near shore they could contaminate the seafood supply for decades.
I also don't know if they bioaccumulate or not but if they do they could work their way up the seafood chain getting more concentrated as they do.
"but a significant amount of
"but a significant amount of our military dollars ARE spent protecting the fragile oil supply."
Wrong.
IRAQ
IRAQ
What about Iraq?
What about Iraq?