Hell has frozen over

[LePaul]

Originally posted by Redwing

He says that so far there's been 56 deaths directly related to Chernobyl. That's a UN/IAEA figure, the Ukrainian Government's commission on radiation security alone claims 34499 dead until this day, the WHO figure was around 50000 6 years ago.
I don't know which figure is true, but there's no doubt that when the IAEA Director General assessed the site in 1986 as the first western visitor his report was very much in favor of the ukranian and russian response to the accident. Until this day there's a memorial for him at the kiev institute for radiation medicine thanking him for his support.
His name was Hans Blix, btw.
All this doesn't refute the authors argument of nuclear energy being a clean form of energy, but he's definately using the most favorable figures available to make his points on reactor safety.

Hey it could be worse, according to Boroda, our favorite communist, it never happened.  Or not to the level history records.

[dmf]

Greenpeace is still around? I thought PETA had them all spyed and neutered.

[Redwing]

Originally posted by LePaul
Hey it could be worse, according to Boroda, our favorite communist, it never happened.  Or not to the level history records.

Hehe, in a recent edition of a weekly german newsmagazine there was an article about chernobyl. It concluded with what the ukranian government's plans for the 30 km exclusion zone are: Apparently there're plans for a giant outdoor laboratory for "radiation security research".
Also in that article, leading scientists in biology and nuclear research called the conclusion zone "a paradise for genetical experiments and botanic field studies."

Yep, it never happened, and there was no radiation leak. Right.

[GtoRA2]

You can check out his web page here.


He broke away from Greenpeace a long time ago.

His site is interesting, he pushes reform but reform by working with governments and compramising.

[Mini D]

Wait a minute... is he saying you should work with government to do the right thing as opposed to fighting them every step of the way?

What a concept.

[Excel1]

Originally posted by Redwing
Second he claims that nuclear energy is cheap and will become even cheaper. That's not likely. China alone is building over 20 new nuclear plants and yet even today demand in raw uranium ore exceeds production capacities. The increased demand is currently being covered by stockpiles of ore dating back into the cold war era. As soon as the stockpiles are used up a steadily increasing demand will exceed supply. That never helps in making things cheaper.

I don't think China are going to have any problems finding uranium for their nuke power stations, at least in the near future. They just signed a deal with Australia. Aussie has the largest known supply of uranium ore in the world, and I understand they are going to increase production too try and meet the new demand for Uranium. It sounds like it's going to be a lucrative
business for them from now on.

Excel

[Redwing]

Originally posted by Excel1
I don't think China are going to have any problems finding uranium for their nuke power stations, at least in the near future. They just signed a deal with Australia. Aussie has the largest known supply of uranium ore in the world, and I understand they are going to increase production too try and meet the new demand for Uranium. It sounds like it's going to be a lucrative
business for them from now on.

Excel

I didn't say the world will run out of uranium, all I said was that the price for nuclear power won't remain as cheap as it is now or drop even more as was suggested in the article.
Increased demand of any kind of natural resource makes the prices rise, not the opposite. The price for uranium ore was at an all time low only 5 years ago when it cost around $7 per lb. Today the price is at $ 37 per lb and still rising fast.

Quote:
"Current usage is about 68,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium in the lower cost category (3.5 Mt) and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for some 50 years. This represents a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so a significant increase in exploration effort could readily double the known economic resources, and a doubling of price from present levels could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time."
Source: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.htm
If there's a pro nuclear energy lobby website it's world-nuclear.org, and even they readily admit that prices will most likely remain on the rise.

[Excel1]

Redwing, I don't disagree with what you say. I think your spot on..supply and demand rulz. I was just pointing out that the Chinese have secured their uranium needs, and that the Aussies are blessed with owning craploads of uranium in a rising market, the lucky buggers.

Excel

[beet1e]

Hell has indeed frozen over - Ripsnort has Rip-n-pasted something interesting!

There was a time when the Greens took the view that anything to do with nuclear power was bad, and only lentils were good. A Green campaigner stopped me in the street about 20 years ago to ask my views. He was vague about whether he was talking about nuclear power or nuclear weapons. I pre-empted him by pointing out that all of us on this blue ball are already heavily dependent on one of the biggest nuclear reactors known to man, and pointed at the sun.

Finland recently announced that the proportion of their electrical power would be increased from 26% to 36% - story here.

The thing is that while some people remain opposed to nuclear energy, the alternatives are even worse, including being worse environmentally. Remaining dependent on oil is a dangerous game, because like it or not, the world supply of oil is finite. It will become too expensive to extract within ~30 years, and then if we continue to avoid the nuclear option, we'll have to rely on an alternative fossil fuel like natural gas. The problem there is that by far the largest resources of gas are to be found in countries not necessarily sympathetic to Western needs - Russia and Iran have by far the largest stocks of natural gas, with Qatar a close third. Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872966.html

As our learned friend jackall has pointed out in other threads, there are problems with regard to processing nuclear waste and the issue cannot be taken lightly. But as Rip's article points out, these problems are already in hand. It won't be long now before the United States is able to follow Britain's lead in getting into the nuclear fuel recycling business.

I appreciate that the cost of nuclear fuel will rise as demand for it increases, but won't there be any economies of scale as more economies turn away from fossil fuels in favour of the nuclear alternative?

[TimRas]

Originally posted by Redwing
Ok, I'm not saying this guy doesn't have a point, but there's a couple things in that article that are either incorrect or intentionally kept very vague.

He says that so far there's been 56 deaths directly related to Chernobyl. That's a UN/IAEA figure, the Ukrainian Government's commission on radiation security alone claims 34499 dead until this day, the WHO figure was around 50000 6 years ago.

Your source of the 50000 figure ?

From WHO website:
" A total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded.

As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004."
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/index.html

[Redwing]

This is all quite contradictory. There is an older WHO report from 1998 that claimed 212 dead out of only 70000 "liquidators" as they called the poor guys who cleaned the place up after the accident. The current WHO report claims around 50 dead out of 600000 liquidators.

The ippnw just recently released a very critical report on the current WHO figures.

I'm no expert in the field so I don't know who's right, all I was trying to say was that the article Rip posted states the lowest death toll figure you'll find on the incident without even mentioning that these numbers are being questioned by numerous other organizations and are even contradictory to older WHO reports, which makes it seem like the author's trying to downplay the dangers of nuclear energy. Not exactly what I'd call objective journalism.

[Edit: The 50000 figure was from an article in a weekly german magazine (Der Spiegel), just as the other 2 figures I posted.]

[eagl]

Quibbling about details aside, this article is important.  It's a major defection from within the environmental community.  That alone marks a shift in mindset within the environmental activist community.  Does anyone think he came up with this stuff by himself, or hasn't discussed this with any of his peers within his social circle?  Not likely, and he wouldn't have presented this opinion if he didn't think he had some support.

It's a major shift from thoughtless anti-technology knee-jerk environmentalism towards intelligent application of technology, with the goal of addressing real world problems with real world solutions.  Note how he gives props to conventional alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power, while pointing out that they are merely one part of the overall solution.  This is VERY important IMHO, and I think we could see some real changes as a result.  Most importantly in my opinion, we could see a resurgence in interest in basic engineering education in our universities.  Environmental groups reach a broad audience in our colleges and universities, and getting those kids interested in modern energy technologies is going to be important in the near future.  The US higher education system has discouraged rocket and nuclear science for at least 2 decades and without some resurgence, we risk falling waaay behind the rest of the world.  China, India, and Russia in particular are very pragmatic in their approach to these issues, and their universities press these study areas as desirable while the US has for a long time brushed off advanced energy science and engineering technology as the domain of the baby-killing republican death doctors.

I think it could be very important if we accept the shift in attitude for what it's really worth, and not get caught up in quibbling over the details while discussing science with non-scientists.  Take their support and run with it.

[Bruno]

Quibbling about details aside, this article is important.

The difference between 56 actual deaths linked to Chernobyl and a maximum expectation of 4000 to be linked to Chernobyl and the claim that ultimately the death toll will be as high 34000, 50000 or even 90000 is not just quibbling. It goes to the heart of the the article. Folks are willing to accept the higher numbers because they 'know' radiation is evil. They saw all the B-rated horror movies.

There are folks who  moved back into the exclusion in the after math of Chernobyl and they drink the water, eat the produce and the game. The incidents of disease and cancer in these folks are no higher then the population else where. The PBS program 'Frontline' did a 'what if' episode on dirty bombs (IIRC the title was Dirty Bomb). A fictional bomb was detonated in London. In that program they examined incidents, like Chernobyl, where populations were exposed to higher concentrations of radiation in order to come up with a worse case scenario death toll. By the end of the program it was apparent that the fear of radiation and the reaction of the public to such an incident was far more of a concern then the exposure itself.

The unfounded fear attributed to nuclear power is mostly hysteria. I am less interested in the mindset of the 'environmental community' (read as kooks) then mindset of the general public overall. Nuclear power is relatively cheap, its clean, its efficient and government has an obligation to to put out the facts in such a way as to dispel myths and disuade fear. This is where someone like Patrick Moore can help but to be fair he was never the environmental kook that the modern crop of greens are. I don't think this particularly article by Moore represents some shift in mindset by the core enviromental nut jobs. They are kooks and will continue to be so.

[lazs2]

here in kalifornia we see a lot of the environmentalist movements stepping on each others toes to get more power and their agenda in the spotlight and more of the tax dollar junk science slice of the pie.

lazs

[Redwing]

56 dead as opposed to 4000, 40000 or whatever number isn't quibbling about details. Stating that nuclear energy will become cheaper when the opposite is true isn't quibbling.

I already said in my initial post that I do think the author has a point, nuclear energy has to be kept in consideration as an energy source, all I am critisizing and pointing out is that he makes his point by exaggeration and selective usage of only those stats and figures that support his argument.

It's not a balanced article. I guess 20 years ago this guy wrote articles that also lacked any credibility.. only difference being that back then he wasn't a blind pro-nuclear- but a treehugger-wacko. To me, that's not much of a difference. I don't buy into either side's crap.