Nuclear Plants Raise Leukaemia Threat
BERLIN - It has been a miserable month for the Brosowskys, a German family in the small city of Marschacht.
On Dec. 8, physicians and health researchers from the University of Mainz, 425 km southwest of Berlin, said children living within a radius of five kilometres from nuclear power plants are at higher risk of contracting leukaemia.
Marschacht, the Brosowskys’ hometown, lies only 1.5 km from Kruemmel, one of the oldest German nuclear power plants. The town is half an hour’s drive from Hamburg, 300 km northwest of Berlin.
To the Brosowskys, the report from Mainz came as no surprise. The region has long been called a “leukaemia cluster”. Since 1990, 18 cases of leukaemia have been reported among children in the vicinity of Kruemmel - three times the national average.
The authors of the study, looking at data collected between 1980 and 2003, listed 77 cases of children suffering from cancer, including 37 cases of leukaemia, in regions around nuclear power plants. The national average for similarly sized groups is 48 cancer cases, and 17 of leukaemia. That indicates twice as many cases of leukaemia among children living near nuclear power plants.
“Our study shows that the risk for children under five years of contracting leukaemia grows with proximity of their homes to nuclear power plants,” Maria Blettner, director of the research group at the University of Mainz told IPS.
“We all hope that our children will get away with it,” says Sabine Brosowsky, mother of three. “But there is always anxiety at home.”
She and her family cannot leave Marschacht. “We were living here long before the nuclear power plant was installed,” Brosowsky told IPS. “We want to still be living here well after the plant has been dismantled.”
But December brought bad news. On Dec. 16, Rambo, the family cat, had to be put to sleep. The cat had numerous tumours suspected to be cancerous.
The Mainz findings are consistent with others in France and Britain. In France, one such study in 1997, and another in 2001, showed a higher incidence of leukaemia among children living near nuclear power plants.
Jean Francois Viel, professor in public health at the France Comte university 300 km east of Paris, had found in 1997 that children frequenting the beaches at Cotentin on the Atlantic Coast, near the nuclear power plant of La Hague, or living within a radius of 35 km from the plant, suffered leukaemia well above the national average.
The 2001 study, by Alfred Spira, researcher at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research, confirmed Viel’s results. Spira, who had first rejected the results of Viel’s study, found a disproportionately high number of cases of leukaemia among people below 25 living within 35 km of La Hague.
When the sample was reduced to children between five and nine years of age living within 10 km of the nuclear facility, the cases of leukaemia were 6.38 times the national average.
In Britain, a 2002 study confirmed an older one in 1990 that the incidence of leukaemia among children of workers at the Sellafield nuclear power plant 400 km north of London was twice the national average.
As with Viel’s study, health and nuclear authorities had dismissed the results of the older study.
But the June 2002 investigation by Heather Dickinson and Louise Parker from the Children’s Cancer Research Unit at the university of Newcastle confirmed the results. Using data from 1957 to 1991, the researchers found that children of workers at Sellafield were more likely to suffer leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) — a group of cancers affecting the white blood cells — than the national average.
In their study, Dickinson and Parker claim that the Sellafield workers’ children born in Seascale (the village near the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant) ran on average 15 times higher risk of developing leukaemia and NHL, and that the Sellafield workers’ children outside Seascale ran twice the risk.
As with the studies in France and in Britain, the Mainz study has been dismissed by some as a statistical game. Minister for the environment Sigmar Gabriel, who opposes nuclear power, said he would order a review of the study, but conservative politicians criticised it as irresponsible and hysterical.
In a debate in the German parliament, the Bundestag, Dec. 16, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) representative Georg Nuesslein said “the study only shows that there is need for more research.” The CDU rules Germany in coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
“You do not eliminate automobiles because every year 130 children are killed in traffic accidents,” said CDU representative Jens Koeppen during the debate. Members of the opposition right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) argued similarly against the study.
Under a decision taken by the former SPD-led government in 2000, Germany should phase out nuclear power by 2020. But now the FDP and the CDU want to extend the life of nuclear power beyond that year.
Some statisticians have strongly criticised the study. “It is as with the Texan sharpshooter fallacy,” statistician Hans-Peter Beck-Bornholdt was quoted as saying in the conservative weekly Die Zeit. “If you shoot at random at a barn, and draw a bulls-eye around the bullet holes afterwards, you have proof of a very high probability of hitting success.”
But the federal agency for irradiation protection has called the study a key argument against nuclear power. “Given the particularly high risk of nuclear radiation for children, and the inadequacy of data on the emissions of nuclear power plants, we must take the correlation between distance of residence and high risk of leukaemia very seriously,” Wolfram Koenig, director of the agency, said at a press conference.
Eberhard Greiser, member of the experts group tasked with review of the study, has said “the correlation is evident and very plausible.”
© 2007 Inter Press Service
did we ever need nuclear power plants or oil,to generate power ?hasnt the sun,wind and the tides,been all we ever needed ? nuclear power plants are contributing to climate changes and global warming….oil is being dumped into the oceans and causing climate change and global warming.all the tragedy is the fault of the “deciders”.
“You do not eliminate automobiles because every year 130 children are killed in traffic accidents”
This is a good point - although considering the massive toll in human life, noise, pollution and massive global warming impact - getting rid of cars from all city areas, but keep the nukes, sounds like a splendid idea.
As far as the studies, assuming a large enougth sample, their validity could be tested easily enough - presumubly the carcinogen would have to travel by wind or groundwater, so if the cancer rates are uniformly concentrated around the plant, rather than concentrated down the prevailing wind or groundwater gradient, then additional questions need to be asked about the study.
But MOM, didn’t you know that nuclear power plants are safe and enviromentally clean, that hardly anyone has ever actually died because of a nuclear accident? Chernobal was a very rare and explainable accident, an old type of plant that we don’t build anymore.
Didn’t you know, there is no clear evidence that nuclear power plants cause cancers and there are better nuclear power plants coming that use nuclear waste for fuel and nuclear waste is not really a major probem and wind, solar, tidal and geo-thermal are not feasable alternatives?
Well, If you didn’t know all of that, hang around for a day or so, you will learn the lessons from at least two other bloggers who will gently and with intelligent reasoning, who write their lessons in a calm and professional mammer and teach you all you need to ever know, about how “safe” nuclear power actually is.
~~We are truly blessed, for having their wisdom.~~
Better World Links
German Infos on Childhood Cancer Near Nuclear Reactors
http://www.bessereweltlinks.de/index.php?cat=10072
yes,kem..i am always open to learning.i had asked the other bloggers before,if anyone knew of any studies done,on how or if nuclear power plants affect global warming and the climate and the ionosphere.nobody has come foward with any answers,yet.my senses tell me that nuclear power plants must give off harmful by-products and perhaps unseen emissions with climate- dangerous results.
KEM: I’ve got a raging cold, can’t sleep, it’s 3am, and you made me laugh. Nicely put…we are indeed blessed. I can hardly wait to read the [cough, cough] “fallout.”
Actually, I was being sarcastic there MOM. Nuclear power is better than burning coal. Other than that, it is perhaps the stupidest thing humanity has ever done.
Drink that quart of prune juice. You won’t dare cough.
i tend to agree with the very longwinded,ike kay….that nuclear power is not and should not be an option !i’ll take my solar and wind power-straight up,not on the rocks and with a side of water.
whew(wiping sweat off brow)..i am sure glad to hear that,kem….sometimes tongue- in- cheek humor cant be heard over the loud noise of gnashing teeth,you are right,it is the stupidest thing,the ‘deciders’ have devised.
This kinda struck me: The authors of the study, looking at data collected between 1980 and 2003, listed 77 cases of children suffering from cancer, including 37 cases of leukaemia, in regions around nuclear power plants.
1498 (that’s not a typo) cases of leukemia among people under age 15 years were diagnosed during 1981-90 and reported to the Cancer Registry Center of Taiwan. This was the period of insanely rapid industrialization. Granted, many of those cases were suspected to be from non-nuclear environmental toxins, and many of the radiologically-triggered cases might be due to Co-60 contaminated apartments (concrete use per person here on this island was obscene at the time: it was a building craze), construction of the first of three currently operating nuclear power plants began in 1972 and things were running pretty much full steam by the 80s and 90s.
Childhood leukemia rates dropped off after 1999, according to government data, but I don’t know where they’re at now. But now there’s a revived push to get NPP4 up and running, because the Taiwanese just can’t wean themselves off US$1.89/kWh.
seraphicmom,
There are no emissions from an operating nuclear power plant that contribute to global warming.
Building the plant requires concrete and steel which emit global warming gases in the manufacturing. Likewise the mining of the uranium requires diesel powered trucks. Further purification and processing of the ore may or may not emit global warming gases depending on the source of electricity. Dismantling the plant at the end of service life will also require diesel powered equipment.
On an overall lifecycle basis, nuclear power emits a little more global warming gas than wind turbines (which also use concrete and steel) and less than photovoltaic solar power generation. All three power sources are very low compared to fossil fuels.
Bill
[twitch] Time to go get some prune juice, eh, KEM?
billy,sorry,not yet convinced..and i dont believe it,every fiber of my body warns me that nuclear power plants contain some ‘unseen’ ‘unknown’ enemy……need more and better proof,billy.dig deeper,please.
I looked at the credentials of the senior author on this paper. They are impressive. She is not a Greenpeace pull data out of your a** type.
I have not been able to read the paper itself-my German is not good enough for medical statistics and I have not found a proper English translation. (Anybody got a link?)
If this paper holds up to peer challenge, it would argue that, at least, larger exclusion zones are necessary for nuclear power plants. I personally find inducing illness in children living near to a normally operating nuclear power plant to be unacceptable.
Bill
“Conservatives” say the study shows a “need for more research.” PJD says nuclear plants are “a splendid idea.”
But these opinions fly in the face of the facts. Here is a chronological list of the scientific studies mentioned in this article:
1) A 1990 British study found leukemia risk was double for kids of nuclear plant workers.
2) A 2002 British study confirmed the 1990 study, and also found leukemia risk was 15 times higher for kids living “near the plant.”
3) Meanwhile, a 1997 French study found leukemia risk was “well above national average” for kids living within 35k of a nuclear power plant.
4) A 2001 French study confirmed the 1997 study, and also found leukemia risk was six times higher for kids five to nine years of age, living within 35K of a nuclear power plant.
Now comes this 2007 Germany study, and it finds leukemia risk is double for kids living within 5K of a nuclear power plant.
Conclusion: kids are dead and dying, and nuclear power apologists are either malicious liars or deep in psychological denial. Take your pick.
Good posts Billy and I for one appreciate that.
Actually Wondering you, the best treatment I have ever found to end a cold, is to heat a pan of white vinegar and sniff the fumes, inhale deeply and be prepared to instanly clean your lungs and nasal passages out. Then drink a half cup of the hot vinegar, laced with some pure honey and two crushed vitiman C tablets. Do that three times a day. Easy on the prune juice though, one quart is enough. If you can find some plankton pills, they are truely wonderful for health, especially health of the bones and bone marrow.
Mom. I’m not a genius or a wizard, as you can likely detect. But I have always read a great deal and often pass on the words of others who I find to be credible and also formulate some opinions based upon their wisdom.
This is how I see it occurred. After WW-2, scientists were were naturally Ga-Ga over the possibilities of nuclear power, the clean benefits for using such for electrical needs. Far less atmospheric pollution from burning coal. With strong regulation, the dangers of the atomic waste produced, could be adequately handeled. Of course over the years, that swell idea and opinions turned to shit.
At that time in history, solar power was just a dream, not much was done in the area of research or development in that respect. Wind power for massive needs of course was a joke, and for some, it still is. Anyway, there was money to be made with nuclear energy, tons of money! A very few of the world’s elite, held the mineral rights for uranium. Actually, most of the uranium on the planet is controlled by the British Royal Family. That’s one way their subjects can afford to maintain their elevated life styles, which by any standard, are obnoxious for any sensible person who isn’t brain damaged from eating kidney pies.
So as like most things we see in this life, GREED prevails and damn the planet, or the low life swine who inhabit it. The elite don’t care about people, only enough to serve their needs, the rest are a liability in the books. Which is a true fact if one only wishes to have enough of the swine that are vital to serve the elite, raise crops, herd cattle, run the infastructres and maintain the peace. They don’t need a lot of Africans, Arabs, Jews, Indians, Russians, Poles, Spanish, Italians or Asians to do that. They need enough to run the restaurants and hotels, sweep the streets and clean the sewage.
Now that solar/wind, geo-thermal,tidal power are indeed viable, and very clean alternatives for electrical power, with little danger of cancers or other potential monstrous disasters, they still have to sell that uranium and coal, and they are going to do all they can to insure we continue to have nuclear and coal fired, very expensive electrical power, which can also be taxed to death.
Safety standars have been carefully established by the ‘governments’, to tell us how much nuclear radiation is SAFE. The truth is, NONE is safe. That’s how I see it MOM.
Meanwhile, it don’t really matter, because when that Arctic methane gas busts out into the atmosphere because of the global warming, we won’t be here to argue nuclear power versus solar. That may be wihtin five to ten years, maybe twenty? ___ It’s gonna happen, when is the debate.
Bob,
The British study was of the Sellafield plant. This is not a nuclear power plant. It is a reprocessing plant that for a time was operated in a very sketchy manner. It did the work comparable to our Hanford plant. Nuclear material did leave the boundary of the plant. The data from Sellafield should not be included with nuclear power plants (apples and oranges sort of thing).
Many of these studies (apparently not the one that is the focus of this article) were performed with a remarkable lack of scientific rigor. One of the gold standards of a proper scientific study is that another researcher can independently reproduce the results. Many studies fail to be reproduced. For example, the study of cancer clusters downwind of TMI was not successfully reproduced.
KEM,
Rio Tinto, Cameco, Uranium One and Areva will be very upset to find that the queen owns the uranium that they think is theirs. Let me know when you tell them.
Bill
NUCLEAR PLANTS COST MORE BY ANY STANDARD
And that’s in addition to the health as well as terrorist dangers. The other great disadvantage of nuclear power is that it is not flexible in terms of shut-down and start-up cycles. It consist of huge, single-source-fuel plants that must run at minimal levels to justify even their bloated costs, which imposes great unnecessary risks associated with construction delays and break-downs. Changing plans midstream is very costly or prohibitive.
The only reason the nuclear industry gets the press it does via the climate change concerns is the concentrated interests who manage to secure permanent federal subsidies for nuclear power.
Neither nuclear or coal power can stand on its own in competition with other sources of energy when the federal subsidies are stripped away. WHERE’S THE FREE MARKET CROWD TO STOP THESE SUBSIDIES? Well, they’re in the back room with their PR consultants working up some more literature on “free” markets and energy solutions to keep those subsidies flowing aren’t they?
Consider the following comment from Amory Lovins, who has been advocating “Negawatts” for years, taken from an interview at:
http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/10.22.2006-torontostar
“About three-quarters of all electricity we use in North America can be saved cheaper than just running a coal or nuclear plant and delivering its power, even if the capital costs of the plant were zero. It’s interesting that California, the single biggest market in North America, has held it’s per capita use of electricity flat for 30 years. And some places closer to Ontario, like Vermont, are actually sending that number downwards, because they’re saving electricity faster than their economy and population are growing. But we don’t have comprehensive, accurate measurements of how much electricity is being saved. We just know it’s a big number, and we know it’s still a tiny fraction of how much efficiency is available and worth buying.
THE STAR: And the other less risky competitors to nuclear?
LOVINS: The two competing sources that are easy to measure are collectively called micropower — not central plants, but more distributed capacity that’s at or near the customers, or at least comes in more decentralized, diversified form. Micropower is providing now between one-sixth and over half of all electricity in 13 industrial countries. Denmark is the leader with about 53 per cent last year. You’ll notice this does not count big hydro. If we don’t count any hydro above 10 megawatts, then the added micropower capacity last year in the world was 41 gigawatts, compared to 3.7 gigawatts for all kinds of nuclear — none of which was a CANDU (technology).”
I said they control most of the mineral rights BILLY, they do and they control many of the uranium mines, especially those in Africa. One can have the mineral rights and allow another company to mine the ore, take a percentage of the gross and make tons of money. For examplw some people believe Col Sanders KFCs and Taco Bell outlets are owned by Coca Cola. Actually, they are owned by the owners of an oil company.
If Paul M Smith logs on, he can supply you with the links about the Royal Family holdings.
Look, it is not a secret that nuclear power plants discharge cancer causing wastes into the air. Sometimes it’s been an ACCIDENTAL release and some of those have been hidden, or played down when discovered, as to the ammount released and the potential danger. Cancers in children and in adults who live near the plant in Eastern New Jersey are far above the norm for just one example of many.
Nuclear power is dangerous and someday we are going to see just how deadly dangerous. It is not IF it will happen, the questions are, when and where it will happen and how much land will be unfit for life for generations. ___ Anyway, worry about the methane gas too.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071221222544.htm
Billy:
“Many of these studies . . . were performed with a remarkable lack of scientific rigor. One of the gold standards of a proper scientific study is that another researcher can independently reproduce the results.”
Why don’t you read the article? It says the opposite. Both the 1990 British study and the 1997 French study were reproduced and confirmed (by independent researchers who had doubted the original studies).
Take it easy on Billy there BOB K. He’s obviously an undereducated young man who is attempting to learn. I beleive he may suffer from dylexia, alcohalism, or has a problem with reading comprehension. He’s a nice guy, who thinks Artomic Power is safe and the best alternative. Be nice and gentle with him, but do continue to help educate him, he may join the smarter people someday and offer some help.
edit please.
B Payne,
You are correct in characterizing nuclear power as steady state. In the US and most other installations it is used as baseload power and has always been intended for that use. That means, like all baseload, you run at full power except as required for maintenance and/or refueling.
If, as your post name implies, you are an economist, you will quickly recognize that for a high capital cost, low fuel cost generation technology such as nuclear this is appropriate.
France, where approximately 80% of the electricity is nuclearly generated, does do some load following with some of their plants. This is a necessary consequence of the high penetration of nuclear in their generation fleet and almost complete lack of fossil plants.
You cite Lovins. He has long been a proponent of conservation. “Negawatts” is his cute phrase for it. He also advocates cogeneration which can boost thermodynamic efficiency by using the reject heat. His cute phrases here are “distributed generation” and “microgeneration”. Who can fault conservation; it ranks with mom and apple pie. Cogeneration is fine but it still consumes fossil fuel (usually natural gas).
You decry nuclear subsidies. If all subsidies and constraints are removed from power generation, coal would rapidly expand for baseload. Coal, unlike other fossil fuels, is not in short supply. It is far cheaper than gas or renewables. It is less capital intensive, has a shorter lead time and lower licensing risk than nuclear. It is only because of an anticipated tax on coal (carbon tax or cap and trade) that nuclear is being serious considered.
Regards,
Bill
“Oh look at little Davey, he must have grown a foot!”
(Little Davey has a foot growing out of the top of his head).
- - -
This story is old hat, not really news to the rest of us, except for the fact that some other country’s eminent scientists can publish it without fear of government reprisal.
Great post KEM and Billy, our two resident radioactive debaters (and both are fine gentlemen with diverse knowledge and perspective. They are also friends to boot. Many posters could learn a lot watching these two converse.)
I look forward to another fascinating and entertaining thread.
B Payne,
Just found on another blog an interesting quote regarding Avory Lovins. Thought I would share:
” Lovins is NOT respected by enviros who know
science. Those in real (as opposed to those in Lovins fantasyland) scientific disciplines respect fact-based peer-reviewed papers over speeches by motivational speakers like Lovins. He gets paid $20K per day to speak to fossil fuel corporations and WalMart. The corporations do not often act on his suggestions because they are not practical or useful.
Environmental scientists do not think that advocating for fossil fuels as Lovins does helps prevent greenhouse gas emissions and habitat destruction.
Someone who used to work with Lovins describes him as a fantasist. His calculations do not hold up to scrutiny.
He has mislead huge numbers of innocent, well-meaning people with his bafflegab. Since they tend to have a phobia about science they are not inclined to check his calculations and his claims. And he has supported damage to the environment. If you go to RMI you will notice all the SUVs parked there.
The most environmentally destructive propaganda spewed by Lovins and his acolytes keeps people from understanding that we have two choices for large scale energy production: burning more and more fossil fuels or turning to nuclear power and its usefulness as a generator not only of electricity but also of hydrogen for fuel cells, synthetic fuels, etc. No, Lovins prefers burning more coal and more natural gas.”
I have read some of Lovins stuff and he is pretty slippery with statistics. For example he combines natural gas plants with solar/wind and calls it low/no CO2 source.
Natural gas is a low CO2 source only by comparision with coal and oil.
Regards,
Bill
In the US (and most of the world) there are some ways to die that get the corporate media and people up in arms. An occasional nut job, serial killers, terrorism, etc.
Big killers like tobacco, automobiles, coal and nuclear industry get a relative pass. For example, we knock off more than the 911 deaths about every month in automobiles. These deaths could be reduced substantially for a tiny fraction of what we have spent on the so called war on terror which is unlikely to reduce terrorism at all and has INCREASED deaths more than the dreams of the nastiest terrorist.
Welcome to America where being mentally deficient is not required for leadership, but it sure helps!
Its a cancer cluster alright. No debate about that, but why do similar studies in Illinois, Spain and elswhere find nothing? It needs to be studied to death. Is it ongoing? Was there a one time release? Is something being concentrated in food from kitchen gardens or local game? A fuel or waste spill? Finding a more specific cause than mere proximity will lead to better prevention in the future.
Maybe sites for future plants need background radiation evaluations. There is an old story about the PA nuke worker who set off the detectors reporting to work. He washed his work clothes and they picked up a little radon while hung up to dry in his basement.
We live in a technological civilization with a large population. Everything carries a risk. Nuclear power has numerous risks including cancer clusters, mining and mine tailings, potential regional disasters, waste and reprocessing, and terrorism. Burning coal is now destroying the local and regional environments where it is mined, causes air pollution, mercury in fish, acid rain and associated risks, and is the largest source of CO2.
Can we compare the effects of mercury contamination on children everywhere to occasional, possibly preventable cancer clusters?
Nuclear is the only technology on the shelf that can replace the colossal amounts of power produced by coal. Power to light cities, run factories, railroads, pump water, melt steel, make aluminum…and replace oil for CO2 free autos and home heating, and the new technology coming in a few years will reduce or eliminate some of the risks. Coal and oil have to go. The environment cannot absorb any more CO2.
Will sequestration become practical? Somehow convert the smokestack gases into huge blocks of dry ice (easy enough) and somehow sheath them and drop them into the ocean? Has anyone run any trials? Where do you put the sequestered CO2 from a coal fired plant in the heartland that uses three railroad trains of coal a day?
Aside from the US and maybe Germany, most of the rest of the world seems to have made the decision to go nuclear. India has made the decision for energy independence as much as for GHG reduction.
There is a third choice. Severe conservation and rationing of fuel and electricity until something better comes along, essentially shutting down the economy until wind, solar and tidal power… are gradually put in place. We might have to do that anyway. Even if we could schedule total replacement of fossil fuel power all over the world with nuclear and other non-GHG sources by 2025, it would probably be too late to maintain a healthy climate and an economy that resembles what we have today.
I have a problem with the zero tolerance for human error that a nuke plant requires to not be a hazard to life around it. Aviation is a similar critical industry, in which we relied on a corrupt government agency to act in our behalf as a custodian of public safety and it is not without mishap. Tens of Thousands have been killed by Aviation since it’s implementation. That’s why the Air Line Pilot’s Association refers to FAR’s (Federal Aviation Regulations) as having been written in blood. IOW, regs were not implemented until somebody died.
We just can’t do that with nuclear power.
With high yield plants like Chernyobal and low yield plants like TMI, millions have been exposed to unknown quantities of life threatening radiation.
A containment vessel, which houses the reactor, is not completely airtight, contrary to popular belief. Neither is the pressure vessel of a Boeing aircraft. Both are full of holes: they have to be to permit function. In the case of aircraft, what produces pressurization so you can breathe is a constant flow of air through the aircraft which leaks out through door seals, bulkheads and other accidental unknown openings in the fuselage structure. Airplanes are not water tight! They do not float long. Old aircraft are sometimes very difficult to pressurize and we used to have to take one engine to high power in decent with the speed brakes extended to descend and keep everybody breathing (B727-100’s). With a new aircraft this was not a problem.
I worry that old containment vessels of nuke plants can never be 100% air tight. They have to vent when a low pressure system comes into the area. This means that the plant is relying on a filtering strategy not to get radioactivity out into the ambient air. When I lived next to the sister plant of TMI we were told how safe the thing was. But radiation in “trace” amounts was discovered in the streams and we found out about it because we had independent media that the people could trust.
The Nuke plant was shut down because it was unsafe. I repeatedly flew through the steam cloud coming out of the cooling towers as a student pilot sowing my oats (great fun!) before it was taken off line. (it was a “safe” plant, remember?)
Then I would land and live downwind of the dam thing.
Nice knowing you.
But forget it. None of this every happened (and I never speed when driving.)
Note to NSA, FBI, DHS etc: the above, as all my posts are, are just fiction for entertainment value only.
pac “gulp” plyer
Additional point: To say there is no “global warming” aspect to a nuke plant is wrong. The amount of thermal energy coming out of those cooling towers will rock your world! It’s like a miniature thunderstorm of heat energy since most of the energy of a nuke plant is unused waste heat.
Bill is kinda right, after a nuke plant is built it puts out no greenhouse gasses (at the plant anyway; but uranium mining and enrighment does)
Think THERMAL footprint, not just greenhouse gas. Solar is the answer imho. It is truly zero emmissions of any kind once it is set up. Solar on top of everybody’s rooftop in the southern states would do the trick.
This is what so frightens the Oil Crime families of the U.S. and the Uranium mining stock holders (royal family).
They can’t control the source of solar power and monopolize it the way they do with nuke resources. Pegging the dollar to Uranium is next on their list of dastardly deeds.
pac
Wow, now that is what I call educational posting. Thank you Pacplayer for the lessons.
BTW, I never did like the 727, too tail heavy during landings for one thing.
I do hope you all could see that Billy is undereducated. In comparrison, I have a pre- school education. Billy and I are the type of friends who stay as far apart as possible, but I do like him and he obviously is a very nice man. I do wish he was in the field of promoting solar power. He is the type of person we need at the top end there to elemiate the need for fossil fuel and nuclear power plants.
They’re coming to get you Pac. It’s too late for excuses.
bbr,
I agree with you additional studies are warranted. Just looking at the CV of the author, I am convinced she would not do shoddy or intentionally biased work. I don’t believe that cancer clusters are the norm for nuclear power plants, however.
The navy did a long term study of shipyard workers who worked on refueling nuclear submarines. They were healthier than the control group who worked elsewhere in the shipyard.
Likewise, there is no known adverse health effects from working at a commmercial power plant in the US, but I doubt it has been studied in the detail of the navy study.
That said, it is known that children and fetuses are much more sensitive to radiation injury than adults. Most of the documented cancer from the Chernobyl accident was children (4000+ cases of childhood thyroid cancer, 10 of which were fatal).
Regards,
Bill
pac,
What sister plant to TMI are you referring to? The reactor with the accident was TMI-2. TMI-1, the adjacent reactor, was, after a couple of years, returned to service and is currently operating.
The steam coming off the cooling tower is chilling the ‘cold’ loop. On a PWR like TMI, this loop is not radioactive, unless there is a leak in the steam generator. I believe a steam generator leak will result in a shutdown of the reactor pretty quickly. Your biggest risk in flying thru the steam would be busting regs (it ain’t VFR in there) and carb ice.
A nuclear plant does give off a lot of heat. For a given amount of power, say 1000 Megawatts, a nuclear plant will give off more heat than a coal plant of the same size. The nuclear plant is about 30-35% efficient whereas a modern coal plant may be as much as 45% efficient.
Basically the steam going into the turbine is hotter for a coal plant than for a nuclear plant. This makes the coal plant more thermodynamically efficient (unless it has to power a bunch of scrubbers, baggers and sequestering equipment which will blow the efficiency).
The heat from a process plant does not seriously contribute to global warming. If the heat from the plant and other sources cannot be radiated to space because of GHG, then you have global warming.
Keep flying.
Regards,
Bill
He’s mad at me.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY EXPERT
Did you you hear the joke about the know-it-all Energy Efficiency Expert?
No, why?
He did experiments on the conduction of energy by peeing on himself. Everyone else could see it, but only he could get that warm feeling it gives up in the heat transfer.
This plant is in Germany, which has a more inclusive Health Care system that the US does.
I remember a movie of coal miners where the company doctor never diagnosed anyone with black lung but this girl’s father was sure he had it.
All those families with children in the US who cannot afford Health Care. I wonder how many of them live near Nuclear plants.
If one never gets to a hospital then one never officially had Leukemia.
Think of it, the rents would be cheaper down wind of of a Nuclear plant.
Looked up some of the symptoms of Leukemia on Wikipedia - anything from strep throat to pneumonia to west nile could account for some of them. If you check the ears, chest and throat and nothing else it could easily be written off as something else.
* Fever, chills, night sweats and other flu-like symptoms
* Weakness and fatigue
* Swollen or bleeding gums
* Neurological symptoms (headache)
* Enlarged liver and spleen
* Frequent infection
* Bone pain
* Joint pain
* Dizziness
* Swollen tonsils
You are absolutely correct VAUDREE, excellent points. That’s also some of the symptoms of radiation poisoning or PTSD. Also, when the government does the testing of military people, like Billy mentioned with the Navy troops, I have a little trouble with believing their conclusions. They sure did mess with the Agent Orange victems for as long as they possibly could.
i’m guessing that burning of fossil fuels has been responsible for 100000s time more cancer that nuke plants, but the ratio is sure to change a lot, ’cause nukes are the only alternative to massive depopulation / though both are likely.
smoke was discovered to cause cancer in the 1400s +/- so why do we homo sapiens still smoke cigarettes and eat smoked food?
(Question for the day, list all republican congressmen and senators who wouldn’t sell your grandmother for dog food if they could make a profit?)
RE: Billy_y4 December 28th, 2007 10:38 pm
When you post easily disputable information you KNOW I’m going to have something to say, for instance:
“Most of the documented cancer from the Chernobyl accident was children (4000+ cases of childhood thyroid cancer, 10 of which were fatal).”
I know we trust different information sources, so I’ve included a link to one of those you accept (with a summary), and then a rebuttal of that from one of mine. Even if the truth lies somewhere between then nuclear power generation is still too risky/deadly.
First the government UN study:
http://www.physorg.com/news6243.html
Sept 2005—Fairly comprehensive study by 8 UN organizations & 3 countries. Still 4,000 eventual deaths, 50 immediate, 350,000 relocated, and costs in the hundreds of billions.. 60 k diameter ‘unlivable’ area
Next the Greenpeace study:
Yet Greenpeace says the UN/IAEA study is a flawed whitewash:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/releases/whitewashing-chernobyl-s-impac
However, these conclusions are not substantiated by reports upon which the digest is based. Indeed they are contradicted by them. Often, research has been omitted and where scientific uncertainty exists, the authors simply conclude that there is no impact. A more careful reading of the 600-page report, as well as previous published research by UN-bodies leads to very different conclusions. For example:
* The World Health Organisation refers to a study of 72,000 Russian clean-up workers of which 212 died as the result of radiation. The total number of ‘liquidators’ (in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine) is estimated at some 600,000;
* The number of 4,000 deaths relates only to a population of 600,000, whereas radiation was spread over most of Europe. The IAEA has omitted the impacts of Chernobyl fall out on millions of Europeans;
The IAEA states today that previous researchers who have estimated the number of deaths up to hundreds of thousands have exaggerated the impacts. This is not correct.
The WHO rightly refers to 2 different methodological approaches to assess the health impacts of radiation:
* The first - the scientifically most accepted approach - is based on the standards set by the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) and which assumes that there is a linear relationship between radiation dose and effect, without a threshold. This means that if a very large population is subjected to a very low dose, the collective impact can still be very serious. In the case of the Chernobyl accident, this leads to estimates long term fatality estimates in the hundreds of thousands.
* The other approach is based on epidemiology and tries to report the actual number of casualties and use statistical methods to estimate the total number of casualties for a population. This approach is valuable in well controlled situations, but can become very problematic in complex situations such as in Europe, where were it will be absolutely impossible to relate individual cases cancer e.g. in Belgium or France to Chernobyl fallout.
RE: bostonbound2 December 29th, 2007 12:16 am
Good question of the day, bostonbound2, and reminded me of a funny movie called “Eating Raul”,; ever see it? LOL, LOL
Hey KEM,
You still with us?
For anyone who wants an earfull/eyefull give a look at this CD article:
David Michael Green:
You’re Damn Right I’m Angry. Why Isn’t Everybody?
Yes Paul I’m still here and delighted to see you arrive, how about the facts on the British Royal Family ownng the uranium mines and other such goodies?
Have you met PACPLAYER? You two would have a swell time hoisting a few and talking politics and world affairs. Don’t go where he lives though, the place is crawling with poisonous snakes and crazy drivers who think God is riding in the seat next to them, Some will attempt to run a high speed train crossing if they have the devil on their back. If they just squeak by, they lose the devil. They make it and the devil is gone. Scary if you are in a taxi or a bus and the driver thinks he has a devil on his back.
Billy isn’t talking to me tonight PAC.
Actually, he hates me, but he hides it.
He didn’t respond to the facts in my links either.boo, hoo, hoo.
Hey KEM,
I don’t know where I saw it, or the link, but I remember seeing the Queen of England has $5 billion in uranium assets. When I find it again I’ll be sure to e-mail it to you, ok?
I found something about it in an article by our good friend Dr. Leuren Moret:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/070306poison.htm
In addition, Dr. Katsuma Yagasaki, a Japanese physicist at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, estimated that the atomic equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs has been released into the global atmosphere since 1991 from the use of DU munitions. He said it is mixed in the atmosphere in one year.
DU PROFITS
As if Busby’s report is not bad enough, a new book by a leading scientist notes who is making billions from nightmare armaments.
Dr. Jay Gould revealed in his book The Enemy Within that the British royal family privately owns investments in uranium holdings worth over $6 billion through Rio Tinto Mines in Australia. The mining company was formed for the British royal family in the late 1950s by Roland Walter “Tiny” Rowland, who was known as the queen’s banker and the master financial manipulator behind billionaire Robert Maxwell’s fortune.*
The Rothschilds are also profiting enormously from their control of the price and supply of uranium globally.
The ubiquitous Halliburton just recently finished construction of a 1,000-mile railway from the mining area to a port on the north coast of Australia to transport the ore.
The queen’s favorite American buccaneers, Dick Cheney and the Bush family, are tied to her through uranium mining and the shared use of DU munitions in the Middle East, Central Asia and Kosovo.
The role that such diverse groups and individuals as the Carlyle Group, George H.W. Bush, former Carlyle CEO Frank Carlucci, Los Alamos and Livermore labs, and U.S. and international pension fund investments have played in proliferating depleted uranium weapons is not well known. God save the queen from her complicity in turning planet Earth into a death star.
Leuren Moret is an international expert on the environmental
effects of depleted uranium and has worked at two U.S. nuclear
weapons laboratories.
LOL!
Yep, Kem you nailed it. You have to hoist a couple just to deal with the shear insanity of it. Oxcarts pulling out into traffic, Huge buses passing each other around blind corners, landslides, people drying huge crops of rice on the edge of the highway, kidds playing paperkickball and basketball between cars passing… tricycles jerking out in front of you, Huge dumptrucks breaking the road into pieces, spatially challenged pedestrians putting their foot under your tires and lurching out under your fenders….. then at night, half of the vehicles have No Lights Whatsoever. If you didn’t have a couple, you’d be a nervous wreck and crash! Paul’s posts give a real balance to the discussion. And Kem is right not to trust the fox (US Navy) to conduct it’s own investigation of the chickenhouse (Nuke Subs) and conclude in a study that they are safer than other posts.
Bill good points. Most thunderstorms from the sun’s heating must surely put out many times the heat signature that a cooling tower of the cold loop does. So where is the hot loop? A river, the ocean? I read that France’s grid was in trouble during the hot summer a few years back because the plants had to be throttled back since the rivers/cooling ponds were all above 90 degrees and this was not enough efficiency to run the reactors at rated power. But a heat source is a heat source, whether or not it produces the gases that prevent themal radiation into space. To build thousands of these menacing terrorist targets that all heat up the aquatic areas around them seems not as good a solution as solar.
Now I gotta go. My swollen gums and tonsils are making me dizzy.
Why don’t they put the plants in the cities to raise steam for all the big cities like seattle and new york who use steam to heat all the sky scrapers? If its so safe why not have one for every town to use? Heck if its free heat, make steam to heat all these homes we have and heated sidewalks, why waste it? I know Seattle will burn all sorts of fuel to make steam if there is a shortage of any one fuel for Seattle Steam Co. including coal, wood, oil and natural gas, heck they probably use trash too, but, I don’t know if they can do pellets yet. Aren’t these reactors safe or are they afraid to get caught releasing, in public?
PaulMagillSmith - nice post! I’m getting that book.
No one on either side has mentioned cfc-114 which is released as a by product of the enrichment process. It is a far greater heat trapper and ozone destroyer than C02. Pretty nasty stuff. No one has mentioned the fact that the industry worldwide has been lucky in that it takes 10 years pathologically for cancer to show up in one’s body. In other words, by the time someone becomes aware of a “lump” or symptoms… it is often many years past the time of exposure to the carcinogen, thus there is little way to draw a direct link.
Regarding Three Mile Island, I may be wrong but I believe the reactor was only open 3 months prior to the partial meltdown. Heed the bathtub curve- the dangerous times of heavy machinery screwing up in the beginning of operation or when the machine/ parts are old and used. As the US NRC approves license extension after license extension 48 so far … we are at that other end of the curve or will be soon. An accident is an inevitability not a possibility. May no one else get hurt.
Regarding Amory Lovins, the guy is one of the smartest, most informed men I have ever met. He is running on more cylinders than most of us. My experience is that much of what comes from the mouths of anyone pro nuclear is not necessarily their own words but is a rehashing of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the International Nuclear Power Organization, World Nuclear Association, or any of the Public Relations firms representing the above, ie Hill and Knowlton or Burson Marsteller, of course casEnergy( JP Moore et CT Whitman).
I do not understand how or why no one has litigated the case, - the National Academy of Science in the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII report stated that all radiation even in minute doses can lead to cancers in solid organs- How can reactors used for commercial purposes be allowed to continue to regularly release minute quantities into the atmosphere
as noble gases without being held accountable?
Healthy and happy New Years to all.
I met Amory Lovins 18 months ago at a conference here in Taiwan. Of course, he was pushing his book “Natural Capitalism” and all, but the presentation he gave and the talks afterwards left me with a very different impression than the one given by our dear friend (hey, I mean that sincerely!) Billy_y4.
The focus of his efforts is indeed conservation. Efficiency. And he doesn’t deliver his message from an entirely “use less” perspective: his message at the conference was undeniably about saving money, and he had the case studies, examples, success stories and data to back it up.
Whether we get our energy from coal, nuclear, solar, LNG, or farting cows, the fact still remains that we waste far too much energy, far more than we need to in order to accomplish what we set out to do. I live in Taiwan, a place where open windows and air conditioners running full blast are considered…well, to be honest, the idiocy of that combination is not actually considered at all. That’s the big problem with conservation: people just don’t think about it, and so it doesn’t get addressed. Even something as simple as turning off the damned light when you leave a room is a basic part of wise energy use that far too many people fail to make part of their instinctive behaviour.
Lovins’ presentation went miles beyond such simple measures, and they made sense: economic sense most importantly, as the audience was largely comprised of industry CEOs here in Taiwan. But I can certainly understand how members of an energy sector that prides itself on producing “clean” (you all know I don’t mean that, right?) energy at low (read: heavily subsidized) prices to consumers would not extend considerations to an individual who might negatively affect their bottom line. Yeah, Billy_y4, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you are part of that machinery. But I still think you’re a smart guy.
jungleboy: I tried to imagine replacing the 1000 MW coal fired unit called Big Allis located on the East River in Queens with a nuke (or nukes) complete with cooling towers, and using the waste heat for industry and heating. The French might be audacious enough to try it, but I don’t think the Americans never would. Not that close to NYC.
There are blue sky plans for “Generation IV” reactors that integrate them with hydrogen production, and refineries, chemical plants, factories… that could use the waste heat.
gfv: The same reason we burn coal even though it releases minute quantities of mercury that are concentrated in the top predators of the marine food chain - the tuna and other large fish we eat.
Every country in the world that permits nuclear power takes on the responsibility for studying every possibility, and looking for concentrations of any possible element and any sort of cancer cluster or other anomaly. There also needs to be full disclosure to the press and the IAEA.
I thought CFCs, including 114, were pretty much phased out at least 15 years ago. The uranium industry was given a waiver to use up their stock, but production was stopped. Not sure. I would think the Aussies would be really PO’d if we were still using 114.
I thought the “idea” was to build nuke plants and then go bankrupt, have the government do the bailout, so the tax payer pays for it. Then they can sell it off to the next company or corporate identity and produce free money to line their pockets and all the real cost is offset. Isn’t it right that the cost of building a plant is far more expensive than the energy produced in the first 10 to 15 yrs almost to the point of no return?
I LOL too with your descriptions PAC. What scared me the most was, when you come to an intersection on two double lane highways and no traffic light or stop signs, the first guy to blink their headlights, had the right of way. KA-BOOM! Is it still like that?
Those are good posts Bbr-001 and Jungle boy, I didn’t know about that.
re - That’s also some of the symptoms of radiation poisoning or PTSD.
True. Last I looked at the stuff, they still used the DSM-IV - don’t know if they went into the DSM-V yet (or what they changed if they did). The problem with the DSM’s is that they list symptoms and many different things can produce each symptom. PTSD seems to be diagnosed whether the symptoms are due to emotional trauma or - er - poisoning.
One notes the the DSM-IV criteria for Depression has the following disqualification - but not PTSD:
D) The symptoms are not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., hypothyroidism)
As far as I can guess, one doesn’t end up with leukaemia as a result of a PSTD caused by emotional trauma.
Though, there is no law saying that one can’t be both poisoned and emotionally traumatized - but whose up to sorting it out!
Sue on another board had a British article that said that ear damage caused by being too close to an explosion could result in PTSD symptoms.
PS. Thanks
BTW - the DSM-IV used to list symptoms for Caffeine Intoxication - something to put up by the coffee machine in the lunch room - anonymously. :evil
Everyone else - PTSD criteria
http://www.rattler-firebird.org/va/ptsd/diagnosis.php
Read somewhere that the brain files memories by emotion - that even a chemically induced emotion will make memories consistent with the fake emotion more available than memories inconsistent with the fake emotion.
jungleboy says: I thought the “idea” was to build nuke plants and then go bankrupt, have the government do the bailout, so the tax payer pays for it. Then they can sell it off to the next company or corporate identity and produce free money to line their pockets and all the real cost is offset.
Sounds about right - except for the government being in sole possession of it for very long if at all. Neo Cons hate crown corporations with a passion so it will be a public-private partnership where they look for a new “partner” before the other one bails out and then sells their share to the private “partner.”
crown corporation=government owned
Manitoba Hydro has hydro electricity (which is less toxic than nuclear and coal) but needs grids to sell it more efficiently to other provinces. We already sell quite a but to California. We charge California more than we charge ourselves and it helps pay for our health care. The present leader of the Manitoba PCs (Progressive Conservative Party) is on record for helping Ontario privatize their hydro electricity holdings but he says that we should trust him when he says he won’t touch Manitoba Hydro.
jungleboy says: Why don’t they put the plants in the cities to raise steam for all the big cities like seattle and new york who use steam to heat all the sky scrapers? If its so safe why not have one for every town to use?
I think either Greenland or Iceland do something like that - can’t remember which one - tend to get them both mixed up. Looked it up - it is Iceland and geothermal power. The Current - Part II:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2007/200702/20070207.html
Looked up Amory Lovins (did not know who he was) and he seems to be the CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute. David Suzuki seems to approve of him:
The terrible part of this looming catastrophe is that people have been working on solutions for years and have developed concrete steps to massively reduce our energy use, while stimulating whole new industries and technologies that are more efficient and affordable. Indeed, Amory Lovins’ Rocky Mountain Institute has released a massive study showing that the United States, the greatest user of oil in the world, can reduce its oil needs by at least 50 per cent while saving money and halting its dependence on foreign energy.
(link for reference only)
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/Dr_David_Suzuki/Article_Archives/weekly10280501.asp
There is also a David Simms article on rabble that seems to portray Lovins as a credible expert:
Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute has maintained, for several decades now, that the cost of a unit of energy gained through conservation beats all other contenders and that conservation presents a vast pool of untapped energy.
http://www.rabble.ca/modest_proposal.shtml?sh_itm=bb2f0f8202330c396cd24ad08aeaf7e6&rXn=1&
Since both David Suzuki and rabble tend to be hard to please - that they each consider Lovins someone we should be listening to is quite high praise.
Note to self: Why or why did I get the little one Superbad for Christmas!
PaulMagillSmith - re Carlyle group - lets not forget that the Bin Ladens belong to the Carlyle group - along with former Premier and Canadian Ambassador to the United States Frank McKenna, Peter Lougheed (former Premier of oil rich Alberta) and John Major (former British PM). I liked the Bin Laden connection because there was a Carlyle group meeting on the morning of September 11, 2001. Looked up McKenna for the spelling because there was a question as to whether McKenna could further Canada’s interests with the States if he was part of the Carlyle group - and found the others.
I wonder what kinds of connections we’ll find out with Karlheinz Schreiber as to the mix of big money interests and politicians.
“This is a good point - although considering the massive toll in human life, noise, pollution and massive global warming impact - getting rid of cars from all city areas, but keep the nukes, sounds like a splendid idea.”
Tell that to the parents of kids with leukemia and other cancers from nuclear plants.
KEM:
THAT’S what the blinking lights mean? Damn, no wonder I have so many close calls!
Seriously.
Thanks Kem!
Oh my gosh PAC, that did crack me up.
BTW, buses have the right of way___ always! Don’t even think about the lights with them.
KEM and PAC,
Sounds like the way things are here (Taiwan). Apparently, they’ve simplified it down to a single equation: p=mv. It’s doubly weird being a pedestrian here.
This is very interesting…….. Nuclear power plants have no emissions ….. or do they? Cooling water is isolated using a primary and a secondary loop, radioactive materials are stored securely in a way that there are no emissions / leakage……… This doesn’t make any sense to me at all……… What gives here? What is going on that we are NOT being told about? My inclination is to suspect that either someone with an anti-nuclear agenda is playing fast and loose with the statistics (”lies, damn lies, and statistics”), or someone is lying about emissions and covering up leakage. Either is equally likely to be the case.
Interesting to note that someone claimed that nuclear plants emitted NO greenhouse gasses. This is a rather absurd comment in light of the fact that huge amounts of greenhouse gasses are produced in construction, decommissioning, mining, processing, shipping, and various other activities in support of nuclear power. The fact that the plant itself does NOT emit greenhouse gasses as a result of operation really is meaningless. Just because we remove the CO2 emissions, smoke, etc…… to another place and time does not mean that they are not being produced as a result of nuclear generation.
I personally am deeply and fundamentally opposed to any nuclear (atom splitting) activity for any purpose…….. But I DO NOT TRUST PEOPLE WITH AN AGENDA weather they are on the same side as I or the opposite. I want truth and nothing but truth weather it is palatible or not.
Howard
Paul,
In my earlier post, I was trying to make a point that children are more vulnerable than adults. I was not trying to minimize the death or injury from Chernobyl. Childhood thyroid cancer is normally quite rare so the 4000+ cases of it in the vicinity of Chernobyl is clearly assignable to the reactor accident.
These children were obviously not at the reactor site or involved with the cleanup. All of the prompt death and most of the subsequent death ascribed to Chernobyl was among the operating, emergency and cleanup personnel at the reactor.
If you are interested, a Ukranian photojournalist has traveled by motorcycle throughout the evacuation zone and has documented it. see www.kiddofspeed.com. It is an amazing and depressing set of photographs.
Regards,
Bill
Pacflyer,
The terms “cold loop” and “hot loop” refer to radioactivity, not temperature. The temperature difference between the two loops is only a couple of degrees in the steam generator.
The “hot loop” is the water circulation inside the reactor vessel which picks up heat from the nuclear fuel. It is normally a closed loop of water. It is exposed to an intense field of neutrons inside the reactor and thus has induced radioactivity. It circulates through the “hot side” of the steam generator, which is actually just a heat exchanger.
The “cold loop” circulates through the “cold side” of the steam generator to pick up the heat from the reactor and to boil to steam. (The cold loop operates at a lower pressure than the hot loop; therefore the cold loop can boil and the hot loop cannot.) The steam from the generator goes to spin the turbine for power generation. The water and steam in the cold loop are not normally radioactive.
The steam coming out of the turbine has been chilled in the turbine but, for thermodynamic efficiency, it is desireable for it to be lower. That is where external cooling by a cooling tower comes in. The cold loop is routed through another heat exchanger, this time in the cooling tower where water is sprayed on the outside of the cooling coils. The cold loop is, like the hot loop, normally a closed loop. After cooling and condensing back to water, the cold loop is pumped back to the steam generator.
Not all power plants use cooling towers. Some use river water (such as the French plants you alluded to), some use air cooling fans and some use ocean water.
The “hot loop” and “cold loop” designations apply to PWRs (Pressurized Water Reactors) such as TMI. It is not an accurate description of a BWR (Boiling Water Reactor).
The power reactors in the US are a mix of PWRs and BWRs, majority PWRs. Asking which is better among nuclear nerds is like asking is Ford or Chevrolet better at a NASCAR rally.
BTW, where are you?
Regards,
Bill
gfv,
I believe Freon is still used in the diffusion based enrichment plant in Paducah Kentucky. It is not a byproduct but it is used extensively in refrigeration systems. USEC, who leases and operates the plant is planning to shut this plant down after they get their new centrifuge enrichment plant on line.
Bill
Stonefoot,
You said: “I personally am deeply and fundamentally opposed to any nuclear (atom splitting) activity for any purpose..”
Out of curiosity, would you shut down those reactors which make medical isotopes? There are several hundred thousand diagnoses and treatments that use radioisotopes per year in the US.
Bill
Kem,
Not dissin’ you man! Fighting a cold and had to crash.
Regards,
Bill
thewonderingyou - I’ve seen Taiwanese Parliament fights set to music and see it as an improvement over the kissing up to the President which goes on in Washington.
I can’t go into a store without getting a bit tipsy from doing so - so it’s safer for everyone if I just ride a bicycle. I thought the rule was first at the intersection was the first to go.
Bill says: Out of curiosity, would you shut down those reactors which make medical isotopes? There are several hundred thousand diagnoses and treatments that use radioisotopes per year in the US.
Why should one have to make the choice between health care and nuclear safety?
Discussion of Chalk river in Question Period began on December 5th. Scroll down, click on date on calender and put “chalk” in your edit/find:
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/housechamberbusiness/chambersittings.aspx?View=H&Parl=39&Ses=2&Language=E&Mode=1
They turned it off for maintenance and “realized” that it needed more than that. They got one of the two back-up things up before turning it back on. They need to get the second one back up in about 100 days.
From Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North, NDP):Mr. Chair, first let me say that we certainly recognize the very serious nature of the issue we are dealing with, and in fact the historic situation we find ourselves in, given the Chair’s indication that this procedure has not been used since World War II.
I think we all recognize that these very serious circumstances require our serious attention, and we are appreciative of the opportunity to have all these witnesses before us.
For all of those Canadians who are watching, there is a clear recognition that patient safety is being jeopardized by the loss of this reactor at Chalk River and the fact that Canada can no longer produce isotopes.
There is a recognition that Canadians are suffering because they do not have access to necessary treatment or the necessary diagnostic tools. However, there is clearly also an understanding that we are dealing with a very serious situation and the possibility of a nuclear accident.
My overall assessment of the situation is that it is a terrible shame that we have to come to a point where we have to choose between the health and safety of people and the possibility of putting at risk the workers working in a nuclear facility. That is what we have been listening to and that is why this debate is so serious. That is what we are here to ask questions about and that is what I intend to do.
This bill suggests that there is a need for a 120 day period of bypassing the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in order to ensure that the reactor that has been working at Chalk River for many years continues to work and produces the isotopes.
This bill suggests that this item, a pump, needs to be added to the mix. It also seems from all of the questioning today that there has not been that kind of pump at play for many years. My question is, what has changed? If we have been operating for many years without this extra requirement that the CNSC is suggesting is needed, why is it more dangerous now than it was for all of those years? That is a very fundamental question to this whole issue. I do not know who is best to answer. Perhaps Ms. Keen could start and then AECL should answer. Then I have a few questions for the government.
That’s not good BIll. Try the vinegar treatment and pick up some plankton pills at a health food store. Jacques Costeau got us on those. I haven’t been sick for over 25 years and can still cut wood with the best of them. Can’t see for shit when reading though, might go to Taiwan where PAC is and get a job driving a cab, all you need is a horn and be a register nutcase. I can do that.
STONEFOOT, I knew what you meant by splitting atoms, we got to be careful with our wording here when Billy is up, he’ll knock any errors we may print. He really is a very smart cookie BTW.
Just Google atomic accidents HOWARD, or (radioactive waste project), or atomic waste. There are thousands of articles on the subject and we have to determine which ones are the most sensible, __ and very importantly who wrote them. I always tend to take those published by government sources and the AEC with a few grains of salt.
The article here is a pretty good indicator there is a serious problem with nuclear energy and solar /wind / geo-thermal are highly feasible, affordable and perfectly safe from any atomic waste. The uranium ore is there for the mining and that’s where the money is. Screw the planet, gotta have those Rolls Royce and Mercedes limos, jeweled crowns and shit like that.
After I submitted that post there was no blue edit word. the ‘mispeled’ word there was register with a missing -ed.
Seriously PACLOAYER, I read your post on the other thread. Those plankton pills heal nerve and bone ailments also. It cannot harm you. Whale sharks live 150 years and are sexually active all of their lives. They only eat plankton. And chunks of plastic and DU now of course.
http://whyplankton.com/
There are links in that links screen to read about it and even order it.
VAUDREE, you may like to read that link also and click on the health benefits icon. Pretty neat stuff.
On the right away for bicycles? In Taiwan they have ZERO rights, just slightly above pedestrians. That is not a joke either. The safest thing to ride over there is a DZO.
KEM,
that’s nothing. When I when to Shanghai about seven years ago, interspersed between the scores of pedestrians were hundreds of bicycles on the major highway to the city. They used to physically hit them at the stoplights if they didn’t move right away with the hotel limo if they got in the way on the way to the layover from the airport. We used to yell at the driver to slow down! and quit hurting those poor old men on bikes. As he spoke no English at all, much more of this went on. We complained to the hotel management who was very amused at our concern for mere peasants, said he’d fire the driver, and then the next trip the same dam guy was behind the wheel again.
I’m sure I don’t won’t China running the world.
BILL:
My home base is a pacific island known only to me as Volcania. It it there that I built my submarine boat. In it is a source of power that the evil men of that “hated nation” would like only too much to posses.
Better for them to think of me as a monster than know my real mechanisms.
They will never know the secret of my submarine boat!
Sorry KEM,
I forgot you were in Nam,
You saw this chit already.
Happy New year you guys.
pac “nemo” plyer
Vaudree,
I wasn’t addressing the safety deficiency at the NRU reactor at Chalk River specifically when I posed my question. I will admit that the recent flapdoodle did bring the question to mind.
Stonefoot had made a pretty absolute statement and I was wondering if he really meant what he said.
I think the resolution at the NRU reactor is appropriate: Turn the reactor back on for 120 days and get ready to fix the deficiency after that time. Fire the head of AECL who was a nontechnical political appointee. Investigate the safety culture at Chalk River and perhaps roll additional heads.
The NRU problem does create an amusing situtation: The MPs actually voting on whether a specific nuclear reactor can be safely operated for 120 days. I don’t know the background of the Canadian MPs but I doubt there is one scientist or engineer competent to answer the question in the bunch.
Kem,
Nuclear reactors used for medical isotope production have pretty much the same waste steams that power reactors have if the country has a policy of fuel recycle (like France, England and Japan). The wastes are no more, and no less, deadly and pose the same disposal issues.
Medical isotope production reactors are lower power than power generation reactors and there are less of them so there is, volumetrically, less waste to deal with.
Medical isotope reactors do not operate at high temperature or high pressure so in that regard they are quite different from power reactors and thus siting issues are different but the waste issues are not.
Regards,
Bill
To pac (and KEM in a roundabout way),
I’m really very sorry to everybody for this completely off-topic post, but HEY, WAIT A MINUTE: pacplyer, are you really here in Taiwan? I mean, your Volcania base sounds like the sh%t, and I’d love to tag along for a spin out to Penghu some weekend in your supersecretsubmarine (though we both know it runs on 維士比!), but damned if it wouldn’t be a treat to know I’m not the only ex-pat (bald-faced presumption on my part, yes) posting to CD from this lovely little island. Please tell me it’s true! We oughta get together and go protest in front of AIT some time! HA!
Oh, and KEM: if you wanna be a cabbie in Taiwan, you also gotta learn to chew betel nut. Sorry. Thems tha rules.
I’m scared to death of kraits and I’m not going there. I was struck by a cobra one night in Ubon Thailand, while walking across the dark and wet ramp to our C-130. Luckily I was carrying my raincoat draped over my arm and the snake hit the raincoat. Then one day in Taiwan, at CCK, I saw a banded krait slithering under my bed. Thankfully we only stayed on Taiwan for a month before spending the next 55 days in Vietnam, we kept that rotation up for 18 months and the Vietnam time did not count in our records as a Vietnam tour.
The first day I was on Taiwan , we were on a nice big fancy coach going from Taipai to CCK and the driver went around a stopped car, drove up on the sidewalk and hit a woman on a bicycle and sent her flying, he never slowed down and didn’t stop. I rode most of the six hour trip through the mountains, sitting on the floor between the seats, drinking mixed drinks, cans of Coors with two shots of VO mixed. The bus hostess was absolutly beautiful, she got better looking with each can of Coors.
Billy_y4 says: I think the resolution at the NRU reactor is appropriate: Turn the reactor back on for 120 days and get ready to fix the deficiency after that time. Fire the head of AECL who was a nontechnical political appointee. Investigate the safety culture at Chalk River and perhaps roll additional heads.
Actually, there is a little bit more to it than that. One reason that Harper wasn’t putting funds towards repair was that he was planning to sell it to private interests (discretely and quietly). Harper knew about these problems for a while and refused to act until the appointee made a decision not to start up the reactor because of safety concerns.
Billy_y4 says: The NRU problem does create an amusing situtation: The MPs actually voting on whether a specific nuclear reactor can be safely operated for 120 days. I don’t know the background of the Canadian MPs but I doubt there is one scientist or engineer competent to answer the question in the bunch.
It is not quite that bad. They did get to ask questions of specialists before voting and there is an important difference between MPs and Congresspersons - which is relevant to this case. (I’ll be brief and ignore rare exceptions, but if you know this already don’t roll your eyes too much.)
In the US, the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense are not Congresspersons, but in Canada the Minister of Defense, Minister of the Environment and Minister of Health are all MPs from the ruling parties. Those MPs in the governing party who not Cabinet Minister are called Backbenchers. Furthermore, the three opposition parties each have Shadow Cabinets, but instead of a Ministers they have Heath Critics and Environment Critics.
If you are a Minister or a Critic, you are supposed to read up on the subject and be your party’s expert on the subject - MPs do a lot of reading.
Both the Minister of Health (Margaret Thatcher fan) Tony Clement and the Minister Natural Resources Gary Lunn and/or the Minister of the Environment - Rona Ambrose (February 6, 2006-January 4, 2007) and John Baird (January 4, 2007-Present) - should have been informed about what was going on with Chalk river and nipped this situation in the bud.
There is information that the Ministers have that they don’t share with the Opposition. While the Opposition does try to find that information out in other ways, sometimes that takes time. Sometimes they ask questions in a way so as to attempt to get the Minister to slip up and give them a clue where to look. (For example, the Opposition knew about Maher Arar because Arar’s wife contacted all the parties (and discovered he was in Jordan before being brought to Syria), but the Opposition did not know about Almalki (another detainee) until Arar was released.)
Non-MPs speaking before the vote:
Ms. Linda J. Keen - President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
Mr. Barclay D. Howden - Director General, Directorate of Nuclear Cycle and Facilities Regulation
Mr. David F. Torgerson - Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer and President for the Research and Technology Division AECL
Mr. Brian McGee - Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer
Who is in charge of looking into Nuclear Reactors in the US? Who owns them? And do the people who own them make financial donations to political parties? The first question I don’t know the answer to. The second, I am guessing some private enterprise. The third is rhetorical.
Private companies seem to find it cheaper to buy politicians and lobby against stricter standards than to actually improve safety.
PS. I didn’t know how Medical isotope reactors differed from other reactors.
re - plankton - seems like it would be hard to chew, I want to be sure it works
Did I tell you I was cheap! I don’t even change the tap Brita until I am sure that there is no other cause for my symptoms. If I am drinking less and can’t seem to perk up no matter what I do, then it is probably time to change the Brita. Got to try something, though.
Starting the year off with a new Brita (ie with the illusion that life has just gotten better) - may you all live under the same illusion and may this illusion become reality! Think of it - this will be the year you get rid of Bush!
re - cabbie
It is a dangerous job where you tend to get ripped off a lot. I remember looking out the door and listening to a cab driver arguing with a cop. Seems as if the cab driver had picked up a drunk, drove him home and the guy said that his sister had the money and when she refused to pay, the cabbie phoned the cop (judging by what I could make out of the conversation). The cop was lecturing the cabbie on picking up drunks. Can you even survive as a cabbie if you refuse to pick up drunks?
re - said he’d fire the driver, and then the next trip the same dam guy was behind the wheel again.
Sorry for butting in, but there is a metaphor in there somewhere.
Did we all ever get off off the subject? WOW.
Hi Bill. Hey, you are so serious this time. Take it easy bud, we all know that the nuclear power, DU, global warming and the resulting methane gas is gonna kill us all pretty soon, relax and enjoy life for a few years.
I love that submarine bit. I believe him too, and I think Pac may have been an airline pilot?
You don’t chew the pills Vaudree.
Put at two inch long piece of copper tubing in your Brita pitcher and it will kill any microbes in the water.
We can get off topic now, this thread is pretty much history already.
Vaudree,
Thanks for the backgrounder on the Canadian parlimentary system. I had read that AECL might be spun off.
In answer to your questions: The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Agency) is the commercial power reactor watchdog as well as for all the research reactors in private hands. This is an apolitical independent government agency.
The DOE (Department of Energy) operates some reactors outside the purview of the NRC. The naval reactors are in this category. So were the weapons production reactors before they were shut down. The DOE leadership is political and subject to policy shifts with changes in the administration.
For better or worse, the DOE does its own policing for proper and safe operation. Naval reactors are under the DOE but are also still under the influence of the ghost of Admiral Rickover who was a safety and training fanatic.
Most of the power generation reactors are in the hands of publically traded private companies in the US. Some are owned by independent government corporations. Particularly the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) is a major nuclear power operator as a government corporation.
The US has the best government money can buy and nuclear power is no exception. Lobbying and contribution influence is rampant. The major lobbying organization for the nuclear power industry is the Nuclear Energy Institute (www.nei.org). They are very good at spinning but are basically honest and open about who and what they are. Their website is an excellent information source for the industry. I don’t believe that NEI actually functions as a conduit for campaign contributions.
Regards,
Bill
Bill says: I had read that AECL might be spun off.
Seems as if it was already spun off according to Ole Hendrickson: From the Harper government perspective, the real crisis was that a big Canadian corporation — MDS Nordion — was seeing its revenues decline and its markets put at risk. It does not want the public to know that tax money is being diverted into corporate profits. Costs of medical isotopes and medical diagnostic procedures for consumers around the world are paid by Canada’s taxpayers.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited — a heavily subsidized federal crown corporation — does the dirty business of isotope production. MDS Nordion does the clean business of sales and distribution.
http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature7.cfm?REF=650
And there has also been a resignation - which is officially unrelated to this whole issue:
AECL head resigns amid isotope controversy
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071214/aecl_head_071214/20071214/
Bill says: Some are owned by independent government corporations.
The Canadian term for those is “crown corporation.”
Here, some building take gas heat and some building take hydro electric heat. We are told to try to use less electricity so that we can sell it to the Americans. Nuclear for electricity is more east and west of us and, even there, not used very much. We have 100,000 lakes (7 named for the Queen’s grandchildren) and a small population.
Thanks for the info!
Everyone - permission to do the old Premier=Governor / MP=Congressperson thing - even if you know it and I am responding to you - other people reading may not - and it makes it more likely that everyone eventually will. If I do it automatically, I avoid having to backtrack.
If someone puts a question to me, if I can’t find an answer on cbc.ca, ctv.ca, rabble.ca, straightgoods.com or wikipedia. Other than that, my expertise involves having Hansard bookmarked and knowing how to find every MP’s webpage.
Definition of Question Period: The Opposition ask questions which sound more like allegations and the Prime Minister and his Ministers pretends to answer them while making insinuations of their own. You can watch it live on cpac.ca but I usually just watch it on Newsworld.
In the UK it is called Prime Minister’s Questions
In Australia it is called Question Time
And I forget what they call it in Germany, but they do the same thing - except that they walk calmly to the front before ranting, raving and waving their arms.
I would like to see Condi, Dick and George live with something like that.
RE: Brita - I use the Brita tap rather than the Brita jug because that way I don’t have to inhale so much chlorine. And no one believes me but hot water emits noticibly less chlorine than cold water does. Running cold water for a long time doesn’t make me too dizzy - though it affects me more than draino fumes (which I seem able to handle) - so, except for using the tap Brita I don’t. It is not that big of a deal to put a little bit of hot water in the bathtub and let it cool. Besides the Brita, the only other time cold water is used in the winter is when my son takes a shower.
How would your metal thing work with one 2L measuring cup, three koolaid-size jugs, one gulp cup and half a sour cream container full of water (latter for nuking eggs)?
I use Nature Clean veggie wash for dishes, Nature Clean Laundry soap for clothes and floor, soak any clothes with a trace of airfreshioner on it with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide for eight hours before washing, use Royale asswipe, and drink plenty of green tea and orange juice. So I am taking care of my health.
I want to thank Bill for his depth and substance to the subject. As always, I learn a great deal every time from him. I think the great mix we have here at CD makes it very informative and entertaining as well. And thanks to Vaudree for not quoting me and using “re” instead. I hope you are feeling better buddy.
But that Kem Patrick….. drinking in the isle of a bus, on the floor, looking up the short skirt of a cute little hostess!!!
Ahhhhhh brings back memories……
I was golfing with a co-worker with the customary four female assistants: the caddie, the umbrella girl, the scorekeeper, and the drink girl one day on a typical S.E. Asian ex-pat day when I erred deep into the jungle off the fairway. The umbrella girl accompanied me into the rainforest since I was just drunk enough to try and play through. We found several balls just like mine that she dutifully picked up and retrieved to me. Then this gorgeous thing pressed close to me and smirked into my ear “would you like me to polish your balls for you sir?”
For the first time in my life I was completely speechless.
RE - The US has the best government money can buy
Which is why I think Americans should be paying attention to the Karlheinz Schreiber pre-inquiry. The more we know about who is buying who the more we can put a stop to it.
In honour of New Years - this one’s for -er - he who is “drining in the isle of the bus”:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cxdMFRwztl4
And this one is something you will never hear a President say
http://youtube.com/watch?v=90f9Qm60tU8&feature=related
I’m pro nuke, but I have to correct the posts saying the French recycle their waste. They don’t really. They reprocess for a second pass throught the reactor, but they still end up with the million year disposal problem.
They plan to build fast reactors that will run on a mixture of DU and this waste. The very final waste will only be fission products and dangerous only for a couple hundred years. They have already built one reactor for this purpose, but it didn’t work out. (India is building one now.)
Another post had construction of a reactor consuming more energy than the reactor will ever make. How many 0’s is that off? Millions? Billions? Its solar cells that have that problem.
How long did they stay polished? I had to quit playing golf about seven years ago and I had a three handicap.
I lost my ball.
Hey Vaudree, you were complaining aobut being brain damaged yesterday and today you say you take good care of your health.
Vaudree. Seriously, open that link I offered and then click on the health benefits, plankton repairs damaged brain cells etc, it is nature’s perfect medicine, the fountain of youth. I was a total idiot when I started using it and now I’m a half wit. Just run ten glasses of water, put them in to a glass pitcher and drop in a piece of pure copper, __ not a penny. It wlll kill any dangerous microbes, and it will not harm you in any way. Pay attention and read that three times.
Nite everyone. ___ She had perfect legs.
Kem, there’s no contradiction. Though changing the Brita does make me feel less so since I can think a bit better again. I started thinking it was the new base line (ie as good as I was going to ever get), but it was just the Brita needing changing.
I once went some place and a few days later when I was back to normal again I could not chew apples without hurting the back of my head. Thus, getting back to normal doesn’t always mean that I will get back to the way I was. Sometimes there is a new normal that isn’t as good as the old normal.
Eventually, the problem got worse to the point that any chewing that involved the bottom set of teeth caused pain and I was getting to the point where I would have to either complain about it or give up hot crossed buns. Still can’t eat raw apples but can eat hot crossed buns again. There was never any pain with the two other kinds of chewing (using fingers or tongue instead of the bottom teeth) but you can’t get away with that for hot crossed buns enough. OK, I’m a suck.
I am taking care of my health the best I can now. Avoiding unnecessary exposures IS taking care of one’s health. I try not to get sick without a good reason.
I never wanted to be a house wife. I wrecked my health by avoiding being one as long as possible. And some things I don’t get as much out of as I used to but I still get something out of them - bits and pieces.
I do have a bit of the Archie Bunker problem of substituting words that sound similar sometimes. You know like when Archie Bunker said: “Patience is a virgin” - instead of “virtue.” Ok, not as bad as that.
Damnitttt, read that link on Plankton!! You do have a big problem, you are in such a hurry to talk, you don’t listen to others. Your’re a nice kid though.
i want to bring up the nuclear issue again.common sense dictates that it is impossible that nuke plants have 0 emissions.the most pervasive climate warming threat in the world today is emr electomagnetic radiation.the greatest threats are invisible.is it at all possible that even minute traces of polonium 210,could be emitted by plant by=product ?seems u.s.a. found a way to get revenge on france.
nayoibi,
I believe the most powerful global warming threat today is from greenhouse gases, not electromagnetic radiation. It is true that global warming gases are invisible. They also are generally tasteless and nonirritiating in low concentrations.
Scientific consensus would say that most global warming is caused by carbon dioxide and methane. There are other trace gases involved but these 2 are the most important.
There are natural sources of carbon dioxide but the main man made sources are fossil fuel consumption and slash and burn ag