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 Posted Thursday, March 25, 2010 |
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Last Login: Tuesday, March 29, 2011
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As much as I hate coal and understand the terrible consequences of continuing to burn it, I also feel nuclear is, in its own ways, even more terrible. Over the past century humans have released billions of curies of man made radiation into the environment -radiation which damages the DNA of living things, causes mutations, cancers, birth defects, diseases and a host of horrors, not to mention the opportunity for rogue nations to get their hands on nuclear bomb materials. If we continue to bombard our gene pool we will see far reaching consequences more terrible than we can imagine. Cancer is the second largest killer in our country. Where is all this cancer coming from? Does anyone know? Does any one care what the cause is? We're so caught up in trying to find a cure, we are ignoring the real problem: what's causing all this cancer? Yes, coal is responsible for some of it, but we cannot allow another generation of nuclear plants to come online.
Fifty years after the first reactors we still have no idea where the 60,000 tons of deadly highly radioactive spent fuel will go. . .. and who will care for it for thousands of years. .. Is no one thinking that this is inter-generational injustice? Condeming future generations to take care of the deadly poisons we created from which they recieve no benefit?
I want Sierra Club to live up to its anti-nuclear legacy and speak loudly and clearly against this nuclear "renaissance" - or rather this Frankenstenien monster that just won't die.
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| Posted Thursday, June 24, 2010 |
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Last Login: Thursday, June 24, 2010
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| Yes, I so agree. I have heard a lot talk about nuclear power being our answer for more and 'better' energy production!!! Oil,coal,fracking,nuclear...we are so much smarter than this this now. I do not understand how those who profit from these unethical ventures are allowed to continue. I've seen wonderful alternatives. In Obama's incentive package was a whole lotta $ slated for new nuclear power plants. We haven't truly figured out what to do with the waste it produces and I don't feel that a truly ethical, moral solution is possible. Madness I say! A lot of people want nuclear- here it comes, if we don't get out in the streets and show people the wonderful alternatives.
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| Posted Wednesday, August 04, 2010 |
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Last Login: Thursday, January 27, 2011
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Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS), has a report on why nuclear energy is not the answer to global warming: http://www.neis.org/Campaigns/YCNGW/its_the_water_stupid.shtml
People are just beginning (perhaps partly due to the BP oil well blowout in the Gulf) to think about the interdependence of energy and water - the amount of energy needed to supply, purify, distribute, and treat water and wastewater for various uses and the amount of water needed to produce different kinds of energy, such as electric power and fuel. Although the earth has as much water now as it ever did, less of it is fit for human consumption, due to a growing list of pollutants that defy treatment, including tar sands, acid mine drainage, radioactive waste, mercury and other particulates from the burning of coal, coal ash, pharmaceuticals, synthetic fertilizers, and herbicides. The extractive fossil fuel industries (include nuclear in this due to mining of uranium or thorium) and chemically-dependent industrial agriculture are the biggest threats to water quality and the biggest consumers of water. Mountaintop removal mining kills life in rivers; agricultural runoff contributes to algal blooms, oxygen-depleted water, and dead zones; discharges from nuclear power plants and coal plants include thermal pollution.
It is high time that we move forward with an emphasis on energy efficiency and energy conservation, with careful use of community-based renewable solar, wind, and geothermal energy, not an energy policy of fossil fuels from ever riskier sources (whether from domestic or foreign sources), and ethanol/biofuels that compete for land and water with the growing of food, wildlife habitat, and open space. It's high time that we recognize how we are changing life on earth at its most basic cellular levels not only through radioactive waste, but through the plastic now in all five oceanic gyres, photodegrading, entangling or starving marine life, and getting into the food chain. Check out http://5gyres.org
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| Posted Thursday, January 27, 2011 |
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Last Login: Thursday, January 27, 2011
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Hi, Susan-
I was deeply disappointed by President Obama's continued reference to "clean coal" and nuclear power in his State of the Union address. I, too, am greatly concerned about the increase in respiratory illnesses, heart disease, and cancers. The pollutants from extractive industries, particulates from coal-fired power plants, plastics in all aspects of our lives, all are disconcerting. We need to create the alternative we want to see by starting at the local level, with local food, energy efficiency and use of community-based solar, wind, and geothermal energy, working with our neighbors and local legislators to change energy policy.
Images are very effective - edible landscaping, solar hoop houses, recycling of building materials (creative reuse warehouses!). I love the Solar Electric Light Fund's you-tube videos of the work being done in Haiti and elsewhere to power schools, clinics, and homes with solar energy. Engage your neighbors through film & board game nights, perhaps. There are lots of good films out there. "Forks over Knives" shows the relationship between diet and disease...some of those cancers may relate to the "cheap" highly processed food Americans are eating.
-Sue in Illinois
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| Posted Tuesday, March 15, 2011 |
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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: Sunday, March 27, 2011
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Sorry to say, the premise of this post, and the recent post of Executive Director Brune, is WRONG.
Nuclear reactors CAN BE a clean, renewable, safe way to meet our energy needs.
To reject that idea is the same as saying that we must accept many more years of life lost for the next century because of the increased use of coal to generate base load energy.
A rough comparison of coal versus nuclear years of life lost for the period from 2000 to 2005 is shown below.
The real tragedy is that the US knew how to make safer nuclear plants back in the 1960's but that technology did NOT make plutonium for bombs, so ...., of course we didn't pursue it then. Atoms for peace? Really?
Molten salt reactor technology was safer then and is being developed for use in India and China now, far too late to help the Japanese people, but consider their advantages:
* no power failure problems for coolant systems
* no loss of coolant issues
* no exposure of fuel rods
* no generation of explosive hydrogen gases in containment buildings
* no explosions
* no radiation releases
* no meltdowns ....
So, "Don't let Japan's nuclear tragedy happen here -- or anywhere! -- again!"
Eliminate boiling water reactors and switch to proven molten salt reactor technology as soon as possible.
Cheers - Mike Carey
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Health Risks of Nuclear Energy vs. Coal
Wiki data 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
2000 to 2005
coal TWh increases from 3 to 4 per year
1998 health risk analysis (Years of Life Lost)
coal years of life lost per TWh 138
nuclear years of life lost per TWh 9.1
YLL comparison 2000 to 2005
avg coal TW 3.5
total coal TW 16.5
YLL coal (138x16.5) 2277
nuclear YLL (10x16.5) <165
Delta YLL Coal vs. Nuclear >2000 additional years of life lost
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| Posted Thursday, March 17, 2011 |
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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: Thursday, April 14, 2011
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The life cycle of Uranium and the nuclear industry as a whole, are reasons enough NOT to advance energy production in this field for any country.
It carries the same type of mining systems that coal does, resulting in enviromental damage.
It is a finite resourse that is at, or past, its peak and would require programs to replace it within the coming century.
The Nuclear power plants require 10's of millions of dollars and 6 to ten years of construction time for it's 30 year expected life.
The only sure action for a disaster is evacuation from the area.
The advent of multiple "events" over the past 40 years shows that the technology is not well enough known.
The health problems relating to the mining of uranium are immense.Because uranium ore emits radon gas, uranium mining can be more dangerous than other underground mining, unless adequate ventilation systems are installed. During the 1950s, many Navajos in the U.S. became uranium miners, as many uranium deposits were discovered on Navajo reservations. A statistically significant subset of these early miners later developed small cell carcinoma after exposure to uranium ore. Radon-222, a natural decay product of uranium, has been shown to be the cancer-causing agent. Some American survivors and their descendants received compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990.
In January 2008 Areva won the Public Eye Awards: negative awards for irresponsible, profit-driven environmental or social behaviour. The French state-owned company mines uranium in northern Niger where, according to the Public Eye Awards, mine workers are not informed about health risks, and analysis shows radioactive contamination of air, water and soil. The local organization that represents the mine workers, spoke of "suspicious deaths among the workers, caused by radioactive dust and contaminated groundwater.
Despite efforts made in cleaning up uranium sites, significant problems stemming from the legacy of uranium development still exist today on the Navajo Nation and in the states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Hundreds of abandoned mines have not been cleaned up and present environmental and health risks in many communities
Finally is the disposal of waste. since the process does produce waste to begin with, it is moved down the list of useful alternative sourses of energy. The waste from the Nuclear industry is very toxic to the enviroment and its inhabitants and much has a 1/2 life of thousands of years.
To date NO permanent solution has been found for the final storage of this radioactive waste. the NRC has been working on this for 40 years +..what do you think?
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| Posted Friday, April 01, 2011 |
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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: Sunday, May 15, 2011
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Susan, You are so right. We want to try to put a referendum on the next elections ballot to decommission at least the California nuclear reactors. I'm not sure how to get all the signatures or what is needed yet and it will be extremely hard to fight the nuclear power industry. Any suggestions?
marieh
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| Posted Friday, April 01, 2011 |
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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: Sunday, May 15, 2011
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Willard Bush, I think your post was eloquently said. You are so correct.
Marieh
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