Relative dangers of nuclear power

[moot]

Also I only remembered this now - can't nuclear waste be burnt by the latest generation of reactors?

[saggs]

I keep coming back to these statistics;

The US Navy has operated nuclear powered ships since the 50's.

The US Navy is currently operating over 80 nuclear ships.

All without a single fatal reactor accident.



France gets over 70% of it's electricity from nuclear, with something like 50 plants.

Japan gets about 40% of its electricity from nuclear, and operates 53 nuclear plants.

All without a fatal accident.

There has to my knowledge never been an accident or significant radiation leak from the casks storing spent fuel rods either.


Meanwhile how many coal miners or oil rig workers have died in the last 50 years from accidents or black lung?  Also how many acres of environment have been forever altered by hydroelectric dams? (just look at what the Chinese are doing to the Yangtze river now, displacing millions of citizens, and flooding millions of acres of amazing scenery/ecosystem)

Personally I'd much rather like my survival odds working at a nuclear plant, then in a coal mine or oil platform.

Just because some irresponsible Soviets mismanaged a poor design back in the 80's, does not mean that kind of accidents is the norm or just "waiting to happen".  It is in fact the exception to the rule.

[warhed]

Also I only remembered this now - can't nuclear waste be burnt by the latest generation of reactors?

There are multiple way of dealing with it.  I'm not educated on any of those types of reactors though.  I do know they were testing a bacteria that ate through spent fuel, and pooped out super concentrated waste, thus even further minimizing the amount we have.  The reason Yucca mountain isn't an even bigger issue at this time, is the fact we just don't produce that much spent fuel.  

[Gh0stFT]

warhed quick question, some nuclear physicist just mentioned on TV a meltdown in Fukushima would be 3 times as hard as chernobyl
because of 2 main points.
1st. in Chernobyl there was a fire and big explosion, the radiation particles went up to 15km in the air spread around
whole europe. A meltdown without an explosion in Fukushima would be more intense, you would need an evacuation zone of min. 100km.
and 2nd, the Fuel rods at Fukushima are much older then Chernobyl = much much more radiation.
What do you think about this statements?

[warhed]

warhed quick question, some nuclear physicist just mentioned on TV a meltdown in Fukushima would be 3 times as hard as chernobyl
because of 2 main points.
1st. in Chernobyl there was a fire and big explosion, the radiation particles went up to 15km in the air spread around
whole europe. A meltdown without an explosion in Fukushima would be more intense, you would need an evacuation zone of min. 100km.
and 2nd, the Fuel rods at Fukushima are much older then Chernobyl = much much more radiation.
What do you think about this statements?

I don't even know where to begin.  In Chernobyl, graphite was exposed to air after the operators kept surging power, once the graphite met air, it exploded.  Nuclear fuel was carried in that explosion.  There was no containment building.

In the Japanese plant, there is a very large secure structure around the reactor vessel.  Even in the case of a meltdown or explosion (Containment buildings are designed to take the impact of a 747), radiation and contamination will not be released through an event.  A meltdown in no way causes an explosion.  It is just that, the fuel becomes so hot due to lack of coolant, it melts, essentially turning into lava.  The reactor vessel would not be able to contain it, and it would flow down towards the earth.  It would still have to pass through the containment building, and the foundation that rests on as well.  The worst case scenario in that example would be the melted nuclear fuel coming into contact with ground water, contaminating it.  

There was no chance of a nuclear explosion at Chernobyl, and no chance of one in Japan.  A nuclear weapon is around 98% refined fuel, a nuclear power plant is around 0.02% refined.  Nuclear fuel is not concentrated enough to explode.  

People are evacuated in any natural or unnatural disaster, whether it be a tsunami, earthquake, nuclear power plant event, gas line explosion, train derailment, asteroid impact, etc.  

I'm not sure where this physicist you mentioned gets the idea of there being an explosion because of the meltdown.

[warhed]

For a little context of what goes wrong when Coal goes wrong, follow this link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill
Now add on the poisons Coal power produces and emits to the environment.

[Sonicblu]

[quote
What I personally put in first place right now for replacing coal, and possibly wind and solar (IMO wind is way too weak, solar might take too long to become efficient and non polluting enough), is thorium fission.
That's just incredible, but I'll read it.
[/quote]

Isn't solar power nuclear power, if we stand in the sun without taking precautions we will die of radiation poisoning.

I would argue that it is safer because of the precautions we take with it. It took some catastrophes so we can learn how to make it safer. Millions die from sun radiation and we don't cry foul on the sun, we learn to take better precautions. I think there are more reasons than the deaths attributed to nuclear that make it a better way to go than fossil fuel. I also believe that we should take reasonable precautions with fossil fuels and burn them as necessary.

Energy production and the control thereof will be the next great war.

[Wolfala]

How can anyone bring up Chernobyl and Three Mile Island as examples of why nuclear power is not a good idea?  Archaic designs.  Chernobyl was just a terrible design with a horribly unsatisfactory level of reliability to begin with.  TMI was probably a combination of that and employees that were not properly trained.  So much has changed in design, understanding, training, that it would take a 500-year type event like a 8.9 magnitude earthquake to force the plant into 3rd or 4th level safety systems to control the reaction.  

TBH, I think the main reason people are anti Nuclear is because of the connotation with the word "Nuclear".  If you called them High Temperature Steam Generators it would be a different story.

I agree that there is a lot of junk science in the world around carbon emissions.  But, I have been seeing similar studies to this one for the past 20 years -- well before the whole global warming hysteria.  You'll note that this study doesn't include any affects of global warming, by the way.  This sticks to the nasty pollutants that nobody disagrees are toxic.

 

I used to live in Morro Bay.  There was an old PGE coal fire plant there.  It wasn't publicized, but if you could prove you leaved a certain distance from the plant, they would pay for you car to be repainted on a regular basis.  Hard to argue that the kind of crap that ruins your cars paint job is safe to breathe on a regular basis.  Were there protests about that?  Nah.  The Abalone Alliance was too busy killing the nuclear industry -- thereby assuring fossil fuel's dominance for another generation.

 

Is this study precisely accurate?  Who knows -- I have seen some who argue it low balls the deaths.  But it is clear that fossil fuel deaths are MUCH higher than deaths from Nuclear power, which is my point.  Hysteria about nuclear stands a good chance of scuttling the one true hope we have in the short run for cleaner power.

[AKH]

What health effects?  No one in the U.S. has died from radiation exposure at a plant.  Not workers, not people living close to a nuke, no one.  Where are all these horrible health effects?

Really. Well, I suppose that depends on your definition of 'plant,' doesn't it?

Brain tumor risk among United States nuclear workers.
Alexander V.
Enviro-Medicine Associates, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112.

This review of ten carefully conducted cohort mortality studies of U.S. workers in the nuclear industry published during the past decade finds a significantly increased brain cancer risk. There is a high degree of consistency between these studies, as eight out of ten cohorts, individually, show comparable increased risks. A sensitivity analysis that selects the studies of highest quality yields similar increased risk estimates from brain cancer, no matter how the studies are grouped. Those index studies that provide radiation dose exposure information show stable excess brain cancer risks of 15% at cumulative doses of less than 5 rem. There are no obvious environmental or geographical confounders likely to explain this consistently observed excess brain cancer risk. Occupational chemical exposures may contribute to this excess brain cancer risk among nuclear workers, but the only apparent common factor in ten cohorts with quite diverse work environments is the potential for exposure to ionizing radiation. Overall, these index studies of more than 78,000 workers followed for an average of 21 years, with more than 1.6 million person years of observation, establish that there is a statistically significant 15% excess risk of brain cancer for workers in the U.S. nuclear industry who have low-dose average cumulative radiation exposures.

You want more, or would you rather keep your head in the sand?

[Yossarian]

Really. Well, I suppose that depends on your definition of 'plant,' doesn't it?

How would you define it?

[saggs]

Really. Well, I suppose that depends on your definition of 'plant,' doesn't it?

You want more, or would you rather keep your head in the sand?

How come there aren't tens of thousands of Navy submariners, and carrier personnel with brain cancer then?  I mean they not only work in close proximity to a reactor, they also eat, sleep and relax around one.  In fact they can't get away from it for 6 months at a time.

If there are such nasty health threats from nuclear reactors you'd think it would have surfaced by now given the Navy has been operating them for 60 years.

Meanwhile the health threats from coal mining, and coal and gas fired generators are real.

The title of this thread is

Relative dangers of nuclear power

Now I'll admit that it has it's dangers, and we must be very careful and cautious with it.  Nothing is perfectly safe after all.  But from a "relative" standpoint (relative to other means of electricity production) nuclear seems to be relatively safe.

[warhed]

Really. Well, I suppose that depends on your definition of 'plant,' doesn't it?

You want more, or would you rather keep your head in the sand?

I am aware of that study, I am also aware of studies showing the exact opposite.  
I am also personally aware of the dose I receive at the plant.  I am however, not aware of the radiation dose I receive outside the plant.  Natually occuring radiation such as bananas, granite, TVs, cell phone signals, microwaves, the sun, flights on airlines.  A businessman who flies 5 times a year will receive more radiation than I will one year at a plant.
There have been no studies definitively link any elevated cancer risks soley to being a nuclear worker.  All the studies showing otherwise have not been able to show an increase over populations not working in a plant.  
One chest Xray at the hospital will give you a larger dose than the average worker receives at a plant in one year.

[warhed]

By the way, the study you linked itself admits, "...Occupational chemical exposures may contribute to this excess brain cancer risk among nuclear workers..."

The only thing that series of studies concludes, is there is an increase in brain cancers among nuclear workers.  It absolutely never once implies that any of that is due to excess radiation doses received at the plant.  And if it did, I would love to find how they linked regular doses we receive to brain cancer.  Perhaps you could find that link for me?  

The fact of the matter is, nuclear workers, at least in the U.S. do not receive very much more radiation than any other person.  It is closely monitored by a variety of methods.  Every year I get a report of my personal dose from the previous year. 

I have family in California, a round trip flight exposes me to more radiation I receive at the plant in one year. 

[warhed]

In Taiwan (in the early 1980s), 180 apartment buildings were built with recycled steel that was accidentally contaminated with Colbalt-60. The buildings' occupants, 4,000 people, lived in them for more than 10 years before their radioactive state was discovered. The amount of radiation they received ranged up to more than 1,500 mrem per year. (Colbalt-60 has a half-life of 5.3 years.) The cancer mortality, over a 20-year period, in the radiated occupants was 97 percent less (3.5 deaths per 100,000 person years) than that of the general population of Taiwan (116 deaths per 100,000 person years). Even the incidence of congenital heart malformations in the children they bore was reduced. This carefully done study shows, as its authors put it, that "chronic radiation [far above EPA limits] is an effective prophylaxis against cancer."

I have seen hundreds of studies stating I am at lower risk to cancer BECAUSE of my work at a nuclear power plant.  1,500 mrem a year for me would be about double what I would expect during a refueling outage.  While the plant is running (I don't work at running plants, I only work refuel outages), I would receive a fraction of that.

The story is also comforting as I once had a speck of Cobalt-60 embedded in my skin on the last day of a refueling outage.  It stayed with me for around two weeks before my body rejected it.

[warhed]

Read up on Radiation hormesis for a little more insight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis