For example, I have read reports that waste storage is in fact a critical issue already in the US as nuke waste is being stored in "hot ponds" which require artificial (powered) recirculation for cooling, and that the density of stored material at some sites exceeds original safety guidelines. Here are a few crumbs -- don't have time for a full-on search of my archives.
Bacterial Buildup in Hot Ponds Controversy Over Vulnerability of Storage Pools Pool Fire Risk? More on Storage Pools Nuclear Hot Potato (political difficulties of nuke waste) Is there a Safe Dose for Radiation? Skeptics Assert no Correlation between Low-Dose Radiation and negative health outcomes (which is not entirely unexpected from a paper published by the Society for Nuclear Medicine <wink>) Radiation is Good For You! (somewhat clumsy translation of a feelgood paper unsurprisingly appearing in an electric/nuclear industry journal). 'Hormesis' is the lastest upscale buzzword for apologists for toxics release. A Reassuring FAQ (DU is probably harmless, low dose radiation is also) NAS panel disagrees: "Even very low doses of radiation pose a risk of cancer over a person's lifetime, a National Academy of Sciences panel concluded. It rejected some scientists' arguments that tiny doses are harmless or may in fact be beneficial." Industry Collides with EPA "A 2005 study released in the science journal Environmental Health Perspectives also conducted a review of research concerning bisphenol-A and found that over 90 percent of independent studies report harmful effects of low dose exposure to bisphenol-A, while 100 percent of industry-funded studies report no significant adverse effects." (refers to a review funded by the American Plastics Council). Some Difficulties in Low-Dose Epidemiology
on the whole I find that the "hormesis" or "radiation is good for you" position tends to rely on data published in the energy or nuke trade press and/or funded by the industry. which of course makes my nose twitch with "follow the money" suspicions :-)
Here is Le Monde casting some aspersions on the French nuke-power complex:
Over the entire planet, with 440 reactors, nuclear energy represents barely 6% of the energy consumed: a share much too marginal to limit recourse to hydrocarbons and to have an influence on the climate. And it's a share in decline: the International Energy Agency (IEA), although favorable to nuclear energy, acknowledged on October 27 that by around 2030 it would be less than 5% (World Energy Outlook). Nonetheless, the atom's proponents would like to generalize the French model on a Continental, even global, scale. By keeping one nuclear reactor per million people as a guideline, that implies the construction of around 7,000 nuclear reactors in 20 years. All that to cover only around 17% of world energy usage, to remain 75% dependent on fossil fuels and to continue to aggravate global warming. Now, in any case, that will not actually happen. China is presented as a veritable nuclear Eldorado because it foresees building ... 30 reactors. Far, very far, from the thousands evoked. And that to royally achieve 4% of its electricity from nuclear power. There is more: in the next twenty years, half the nuclear reactors now operating will have been closed down.
Nonetheless, the atom's proponents would like to generalize the French model on a Continental, even global, scale. By keeping one nuclear reactor per million people as a guideline, that implies the construction of around 7,000 nuclear reactors in 20 years. All that to cover only around 17% of world energy usage, to remain 75% dependent on fossil fuels and to continue to aggravate global warming.
Now, in any case, that will not actually happen. China is presented as a veritable nuclear Eldorado because it foresees building ... 30 reactors. Far, very far, from the thousands evoked. And that to royally achieve 4% of its electricity from nuclear power. There is more: in the next twenty years, half the nuclear reactors now operating will have been closed down.
I think this is a very "hot" (you should forgive the expression) issue right now for a couple of reasons.
at any rate I think the direct "it will give you cancer" risk from nuke plant operation is not nearly so strong an argument as other socio-economic and practical arguments against the feasibility of a crash cutover to nuke power... some of which Le Monde outlines above. me, I'd prefer to see neighbourhood and town-scale power generation, from sources which aren't attractive to terrorists and don't require a highly educated, tightly coordinated elite workforce to plan, build, and operate... and don't produce materiel for nuke weapons (whether official or improvised). The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
Just a note: the article from Le Monde is an opinion page by the spokesman of the "Sortir du nucléaire" (Get out of nuclear energy) association, which is the umbrealla group for all anti-nuclear associations in France, so not a partial source either. and he uses the same stupid argument that is used agaisnt wind: "nuclear cannot solve all the problems, so let's do no nuclear at all"
Nuclear can be PART of the solution. It is less dangerous than coal, which WILL be the default solution while anti-nuclear and anti-wind militants squabble.
Nuclear is not "good", but it is less bad than coal-fired power, and thus any use of nuclear should be targetted to displace coal, not to prevent renewables from taking the share they deserve. Let's not forget where the real danger lies today. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
You are quite right--I should have included links. But at present I am traveling and do not have the time to spend online to go hunting them down. However I can give you some leads. Some of my remarks are based on information I acquired by talking to people in UNSCEAR and Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF). You can also check out the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Also the Centers for Disease control has a good website with relevant, academically-respectable links (as opposed to hysteria-promoting ones). See also http://www.oversight.state.id.us/radiation/radiation.htm
I exclude the extreme points of view at both ends of the spectrum because their information tends to be distorted and faith-based. The hormesis people may have some valid observations, but there are members of that group who have got religion. Greenpeace and its kin, while having done some good deeds in their time, also take a religious view and make assertions that do not hold up in the real world. The assertions of the Le Monde writer do not hold up in the real world. She is an anti-nuclear activist.
See NAS's "Issues in Science and Technology" article on nuclear power by Paul Lorenzini.
Speaking of the real world, let's talk about risk from low-dose radiation. We in the US receive about 360 millirem per year on average. Of that, 300 millirem comes from natural background radiation and the rest from manmade sources--mainly medical. Some medical treatments bombard patients with millions of millirem. Although the Environmental Protection Agency enforces a rule that no nuclear facility can expose a person living on its boundary 365 days a year to more than 15 millirem per year and eating nothing but food grown on the site and drinking only from wells there. In the real world, practically nobody lives on the boundary of a nuclear site. In the real world, people live in places like Ramsar, Iran, getting an exposure from a radium-laced geological formation of 70,000 milllirem per year. They do not show symptoms of radiation poisoning, do not have a higher rate of birth defects, etc. In the real world, people who live in NE Washington State get an annual exposure from soil and rocks of 1,700 millirem per year and health effects have not been found. The land under Chernobyl is a former swamp without much natural radioactivity. The accident increased the level to 300 millirem/year, which is half what people living on granite in Finland are getting.
DNA evolved against a much higher level of radiation than exists on earth today. Some creatures have more efficient DNA repair mechanisms than others--there are certain bacteria that thrive in radium springs and nuclear waste pools. Our DNA is repairing destruction from cosmic rays, rays and particles from soil and rock, etc., all the time. The linear, nonthreshold hypothesis holds that an exposure to human tissue of even a single ionization is damaging. This is not a real-world assumption. Below five rads it is impossible to tell what effect radiation is having. If you go to the Health Physics Society website, you can find info on real-world observations.
As for exposures to low-level radiation having consequences in second generations, this has been studied for many decades by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, a joint project of Japan and the US that has been following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors and their children and grandchildren. Thus far, the rate of cancer among the first generation is three percent higher than among the control group. Thus far, no detectible birth defects attributable to exposure have appeared. They do appear in offspring of irradiated mice but not in humans. Medical studies of Chernobyl have also monitored the exposed population and concluded that a predicted increase in the rate of birth defects did not occur. Unfortunately, heavy industry in the region, uncontrolled pollution, and poor lifestyle have probably contributed to a steady increase in birth defects and cancer over the past several decades (the upward trend began long before Chernobyl). I refer you to the IAEA, UNSCEAR, and WHO websites for details. Not many Chernobyl survivors will live long enough for cancers to manifest because of the high rate of alcohol abuse and smoking.
The latest National Academies of Science report from the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation panel VII has taken the conservative view. In essence, the conclusion is that since we cannot know at this point what happens below five rads of exposure because of so much background noise, we will assume than even the smallest trace of radioactivity causes harm to humans. Therefore any facility should try to maintain exposure at a level as low as reasonably achievable.
In the real world, nuclear technology has improved steadily, just as computer technology has. The nuclear industry--which I think has made some really stupid mistakes in the US--has been upgrading and working on human engineering. The safety standards for US plants are the strictest in the world--probably unrealistically so. Nuclear energy in the US is now slightly cheaper than coal, and would be the cheapest resource of all if coal-fired plants were required to isolate their toxic and carbon emissions. The reason that so many new nuclear plants are being built in Asia is that they will be an inexpensive form of energy. Utilities in the US want to add more nuclear plants because economically they make sense. I refer you to the US Energy Information Agency, the World Nuclear Association, and IAEA. Some of these sites have tables comparing risk from various forms of energy generation. As you no doubt know, several years ago the EU decided that nuclear power was the safest large-scale, baseload form.
You will also find links on the Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy website, ecology.org. It is true that they have an agenda, but their sources of information are respectable and nonpartisan.
As for neighborhood generation, an admirable concept, Toshiba has a small reactor with many safety features. I don't have time to go into it now--sorry.
Finally, Jérôme is right. We need nuclear power. Over a billion people depend on it for all or part of their electricity. Populations without electricity have a life expectancy of 43 years.
