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Hundreds of Thousands Protest Against Nuclear Energy Across Germany
The biggest anti-nuclear protests Germany has ever seen
Over 200,000 protesters took to the streets in Cologne, Berlin, Munich and Hamburg to pressure the government into abandoning nuclear energy generation. The protests add to the pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Anti-nuclear demonstrators during protest action in Berlin March 26, 2011. Hundreds of thousands marched Saturday at anti-nuclear demonstrations organized in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne. They were the biggest anti-nuclear protests Germany has ever seen. (REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynsk) BONN, Germany -- Around 210,000 demonstrators in Cologne, Berlin, Munich and Hamburg vented their anger at the government's nuclear policy on Saturday, supported by Germany's umbrella union body, the DGB, as well as politicians from the opposition Greens and Social Democrats.
Alarmed by the nuclear crisis in Japan, environmental and religious groups as well as unions organized the demonstrations, which kicked off in Cologne's city center, where nearly 40,000 people turned up to support the cause.
Around 90,000 people took to the streets in Berlin while in Hamburg, organizers counted around 50,000 demonstrators and in Munich the figure was estimated at 30,000.
Organizers said they were the biggest anti-nuclear protests Germany has ever seen.
"The government must now respond with plans to switch off all atomic reactors," they insisted.
Nuclear reactor Bildunterschrift: The government insists on nuclear energy as a transition technology
Speaking at the demonstration in Berlin, the head of the DGB union group, Michael Sommer, told the crowd: "We have to wean ourselves off nuclear energy in an orderly fashion."
"And to those in the nuclear industry and those who support atomic energy, let me say this: We've had enough of your lies, of your assurances and of your playing down of the dangers," he added.
Economics minister under pressure
Meanwhile, Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle remained under fire for comments he made last week about Berlin's nuclear policy turn-around, with Social Democrat Sebastian Edathy calling him a liar and demanding his resignation.
On Thursday, minutes surfaced of a meeting between the head of the Federation of German Industry (BDI), Werner Schnappauf, and Brüderle in which the minister described the government's decision to suspend a plan to extend the lifetimes of German nuclear reactors for three months as "not rational."
He also hinted in the document that the move was politically motivated because of two crucial elections on Sunday in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
Schnappauf resigned after the document was published, whereas Brüderle insisted in parliament that he was misquoted.
Industry split
Business representatives are divided on the nuclear issue, with the head of the influential German Engineering Federation, Thomas Lindner, warning against a hasty retreat from nuclear energy.
demonstrations in BerlinBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Fukushima has made nuclear-phobic Germans even more determined
It would be pointless, he said, "if 80 percent of reactors were switched off and we have little wind and cloudy skies," he told the weekly newspaper "Euro am Sonntag," referring to nuclear opponents' calls for Germany to generate more of its power through wind turbines and solar cells.
Carmakers Volkswagen and Daimler, however, are more relaxed about the issue, according to a report in the weekly business magazine Wirtschaftswoche.
"By the time we've switched to electric cars on a large scale we will have alternative energy sources in place," VW was quoted as saying.
Radiation spreads in Japan
In Japan, radiation levels have soared in seawater near Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, officials said on Saturday.
Engineers are still struggling to stabilize the power station two weeks after it was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami.
Tests on Friday showed levels of iodine 131 in seawater 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the coastal nuclear complex had spiked to 1,250 times higher than normal, but were not considered a threat to marine life or food safety, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.
Two of the plant's reactors are now seen as safe, but the other four are volatile, emitting steam and smoke. The nuclear safety agency said on Saturday that temperature and pressure in all reactors had stabilized.
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31 Comments so far
Show AllWe know without a doubt that uranium based reactors are a disaster waiting to happen.
So why is there no discussion of thorium based reactors that have enormous advantages over uranium reactors ?
One possible answer is that thorium reactors do not produce a plutonium by-product that can be used for making nuclear weapons. Einstein was in favor of thorium reactors because the process would not contribute to making nuclear weapons.
China and India are ready to develop thorium reactors.
Read on, and for more information just Google thorium nuclear reactors.
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/print/348/new-age-nuclear?page=0%2C1
"What if we could build a nuclear reactor that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? And what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium."
And:
http://www.thoriumenergy.org/lftradsrisks.html
Various advantages outlined in this article, such as :
"Safety--LFTRs are designed to take advantage of the physics of the thorium cycle for optimum safety. The fluid in the core is not pressurized, thus eliminating the driving force of radiation release in conventional approaches. The LFTR reactor cannot melt down because of a runaway reaction or other nuclear reactivity accidents (such as at Chernobyl), because any increase in the reactor's operating temperature results in a reduction of reactor power, thus stabilizing the reactor without the need for human intervention. Further, the reactor is designed with a salt plug drain in the bottom of the core vessel. If the fluid gets too hot or for any other reason including power failures, the plug naturally melts, and the fluid dumps into a passively cooled containment vessel where decay heat is removed. This feature prevents any Three Mile Island-type accidents or radiation releases due to accident or sabotage and provides a convenient means to shut down and restart the system quickly and easily."
And:
Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html
"A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium.
"Uranium-233 is a fissile artificial isotope of uranium, part of the thorium fuel cycle which has been used in a few nuclear reactors and has been proposed for much wider use as a nuclear fuel. It has a half-life of 160,000 years.
Uranium-233 is produced by the neutron irradiation of thorium-232. When thorium-232 absorbs a neutron, it becomes thorium-233, which has a half-life of only 22 minutes. Thorium-233 decays into protactinium-233 through beta decay. Protactinium-233 has a half-life of 27 days and beta decays into uranium-233; some proposed molten salt reactor designs attempt to physically isolate the protactinium from further neutron capture before beta decay can occur."
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"The United States produced, over the course of the cold war, approximately 2 metric tons of uranium-233, in varying levels of chemical and isotopic purity.[3] These were produced at the Hanford Site and Savannah River Site in reactors that were designed for the production of plutonium-239.[4] Historical production costs, estimated from the costs of plutonium production, were $2-4 million / kg. There are few reactors remaining in the world with significant capabilities to produce more uranium-233."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233
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Yeah, I feel so much better knowing Thorium decays after 27 days, into uranium that only has a half life of only 160,000 years.
There are multiple proposed designs for future thorium reactors.
The "clean-up the waste" design is the one being pursued at CERN which utilizes a particle accelerator (which CERN happens to have) to sustain the chain-reaction and will not produce long-term dangerously radioactive isotopes.
However, because of the need for the particle accelerator, this design may be more expensive and further off than others, I really don't know.
-matti.
I'm for development of thorium reactors as well. But they are not quite as "around the corner" as you make them seem. But I too think it is important that we bring up thorium systems every time the need to close nuke plants is discussed. We should stress the following:
1. Thorium reactors can potentially "clean-up" the mess from current reactors AND weapons by reducing their long-term wastes and man-made isotopes to naturally occuring isotopes with a danger-period of several centuries, not tens of millenia.
2. Thorium reactors will require much investment and research to become feasible, but ridding the earth of the scourge of high-grade radioactive waste 20 centuries sooner will be worth it.
3. Thorium reactors will generate energy as they clean up the uranium/plutonium mess. But they still suffer from the same cost/benefit and net energy problems of any atomic reactor generation technique, just less so. Renewables are STILL the sustainable way and the wave of the future. Thorium represents the best possible CLOSE of the Atomic Age, not a new beginning.
-matti.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#Dangers_and_biological_roles
"Powdered thorium metal is pyrophoric and will often ignite spontaneously in air. Natural thorium decays very slowly compared to many other radioactive materials, and the alpha radiation emitted cannot penetrate human skin meaning owning and handling small amounts of thorium, such as a gas mantle, is considered safe. The decay of thorium does, however, create radon gas so caution should be exercised when thorium decays in closed spaces. Exposure to an aerosol of thorium can lead to increased risk of cancers of the lung, pancreas and blood, as lungs and other internal organs can be penetrated by alpha radiation. Exposure to thorium internally leads to increased risk of liver diseases."
------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#Thorium_as_a_nuclear_fuel
However, unlike uranium-based breeder reactors, thorium requires a start-up by neutrons from a uranium reactor. But experts note that "the second thorium reactor may activate a third thorium reactor. This could continue in a chain of reactors for a millennium if we so choose." They add that because of thorium's abundance, it will not be exhaused in 1,000 years.[26]
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"Thorium, as well as uranium, can be used as a nuclear fuel. Although not fissile itself, Th-232 will absorb slow neutrons to produce uranium-233 (U-233)a, which is fissile (and long-lived). The irradiated fuel can then be unloaded from the reactor, the U-233 separated from the thorium, and fed back into another reactor as part of a closed fuel cycle. Alternatively, U-233 can be bred from thorium in a blanket, the U-233 separated, and then fed into the core.
In one significant respect U-233 is better than uranium-235 and plutonium-239, because of its higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed. Given a start with some other fissile material (U-233, U-235 or Pu-239) as a driver, a breeding cycle similar to but more efficient than that with U-238 and plutonium (in normal, slow neutron reactors) can be set up. (The driver fuels provide all the neutrons initially, but are progressively supplemented by U-233 as it forms from the thorium.) However, there are also features of the neutron economy which counter this advantage. In particular the intermediate product protactinium-233 (Pa-233) is a neutron absorber which diminishes U-233 yield"
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a. Neutron absorption by Th-232 produces Th-233, which has a half-life of about 22 minutes. This undergoes beta decay to form Pa-233 (half-life 27 days), most of which forms U-233 by further beta decay. Around 11% of the U-233 is converted by further neutron absorption to U-235, which is the fissile isotope of uranium used in conventional nuclear reactors. [Back]"
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html
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So Thorium turns into uranium-233 but can be fed back into the reactor in a closed system.
What happens when the reactor is breached?
Thorium itself is cancerous if inhaled. It also turns to radon over it's life time. It's the reactor that turns it into uranium-233 with the half life of 160,000 years.
------ Radon ---------------------------------------------------
"Radon (play /ˈreɪdɒn/ RAY-don) is a chemical element with symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas, occurring naturally as the decay product of uranium. It is one of the densest substances that remains a gas under normal conditions and is considered to be a health hazard due to its radioactivity. Its most stable isotope, 222Rn, has a half-life of 3.8 days. Due to its intense radioactivity, it has been less well-studied by chemists, but a few compounds are known.
Radon is formed as part of the normal radioactive decay chain of uranium. Uranium has been around since the earth was formed and its most common isotope has a very long half-life (4.5 billion years). Uranium, radium, and thus radon, will continue to occur for millions of years at about the same concentrations as they do now.[1]
Radon is responsible for the majority of the public exposure to ionizing radiation. It is often the single largest contributor to an individual's background radiation dose, and is the most variable from location to location. "
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"According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, radon is the second most frequent cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking, causing 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States.[3]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon
Once again, check out the CERN accelerator initiated design, it is cleaner.
Yes, I need to check out the CERN design.
And keep in mind:
It is not a perfect solution. For instance, it may well prove to be too difficult or expensive to institute in time before Peak Energy plays its game.
The main benefit I see is the ability to rend current long-term dangerous wastes into shorter-term wastes, thus allowing us to mitigate the Atomic Age's damage to the ecosphere.
As for electricity generation, I see that as a likely side-effect that creates the immediate excuse for the expense.
Renewables and conservation -and really other means than generating electricity to fufill society's needs- are the main story here.
Nukes, whether their decommissioning or the temporary use of thorium reactors, is really a small part of the whole.
-matti.
Sundome,
There are several different approaches to thorium fueled reactors. They all depend on converting the thorium with neutrons to uranium-233. The uranium-233 is then the fuel that is fissioned as a source of further neutrons.
When uranium-233 fissions it does create fission fragments, just like uranium-235 does in a uranium based reactor. The big difference with the waste is that using the uranium-233-thorium cycle you do not create any significant amounts of plutonium or the other transuranic elements cerium and americium. It is the plutonium, cerium and americium that makes used nuclear fuel a storage problem for thousands of years instead of hundreds of years.
All of the reactors in Canada are CANDU reactors and are really quite different from those in the US or Japan. A CANDU reactor can run on the thorium-uranium233 cycle but it requires the fuel to be reprocessed to do it. The Canadian reactors currently operate on uranium based fuel because it is less expensive and does not require reprocessing.
India is pursuing thorium based reactors but I do not completely understand their approach.
China has just announced that they are going to develop the liquid fluoride salt thorium reactor. This type of reactor is very different from any of the reactors in use today although a couple of prototype reactors were operated at Oak Ridge between the the 1950's to the 1970's. These liquid fluoride (salt) thorium salt reactors (LiFTR) do have many potential advantages over our current reactors but the concept is not mature.
The best place to learn about LiFTR reactors is to go to the website www energyfromthorium com and try one of the videos linked there. Probably the best is Kirk Sorenson's talk at Google. (Make sure you get the one on LiFTR, he has given a couple of talks at Google).
Bill
Thank you for this post!
There has been a thorium reactor in germany, you know?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300
Here a citation:
"On September 1, 1989 the THTR-300 was deactivated due to its ever rising cost: in August, 1989, the THTR-company became almost bankrupt after a long shut down time due to broken components in the hot gas duct. It had to be bailed out by the government with an amount of 92 million Deutschmark[3]. Also, increased public scrutiny following both the Chernobyl accident and the THTR-300 fuel pebble event of May 4, 1986, in which a fuel pebble became lodged in a fuel feed pipe to the core and some radioactive dust was released to the environment, played some role in the decision for shut down."
Why would I build a reactor based on outdated expensive technology if its cheaper safer and ecologically more sensible to build renewable energy plants?
The USA has perfect prerequisites to build concentrated solar power plants. why would anybody in his right mind go for thorium instead?
"radon"
Burning coal for electricity gives off a lot of radon as well as other radioactive elements. A coal plant gives off more radiation than a nuclear plant.
And thorium is not released from reactors making the lung exposure issue irrelevant.
But with coal there is also the problem of coal fly ash containing radioactive elements. Actually the thorium in coal fly ash could be extracted and used in reactors.
There are many pros and cons of thorium reactors, but nearly all energy production has various drawbacks. It is a matter of which are the least harmful.
Etc
It says here that radon comes from Uranium:
"Radon (play /ˈreɪdɒn/ RAY-don) is a chemical element with symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas, occurring naturally as the decay product of uranium. "
I just went through the whole article, nothing about coal plants.
Looks like people usually get it from background radiation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon
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Another search of Radon and coal says that yes some of it does get in the mined coal and goes into the atmosphere from there - as well as other radioactive material such as Uranium which gets in the coal.
Somehow I don't think it's the same as having something the wholly turns to Radon.
It happens because coal ore and even fuel often have radioactive elements mixed in with the carbon we are trying to burn.
Radioactive elements are common and not always as deadly as the sort of stuff used in reactors and weapons.
Good points.
But we should be wary of presenting this as a choice between nukes and coal. That is the territory of the cyberflacks.
Coal is peaking either now, soon, or in the not-too-distant-future, depending on whether you think in terms of volume peak or net energy peak, and who you ask to run the numbers.
Renewables and drastically lower usage rates will be the main story of 21st century electrical generation (and hopefully beyond).
-matti.
KIck ASS!!
Go Germans!
Good for the DGB too! (Unions that do something other than look out for their own pocketbooks! Pay attention Teachers and Gov. Workers.)
This pressure is what is going to get the decommissioning job done.
Yes, go Germans!!!
This is really an example to be emulated.
The German people seem determined to not let their elected representatives stray from the wise path.
We USAns could learn much from this example.
Sundome:
Surf a little deeper.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html
Introduction
"Coal is largely composed of organic matter, but it is the inorganic matter in coal—minerals and trace elements— that have been cited as possible causes of health, environmental, and technological problems associated with the use of coal. Some trace elements in coal are naturally radioactive. These radioactive elements include uranium (U), thorium (Th), and their numerous decay products, including radium (Ra) and radon (Rn). Although these elements are less chemically toxic than other coal constituents such as arsenic, selenium, or mercury, questions have been raised concerning possible risk from radiation. In order to accurately address these questions and to predict the mobility of radioactive elements during the coal fuel-cycle, it is important to determine the concentration, distribution, and form of radioactive elements in coal and fly ash."
Lots of interesting reading online on the possibilities of thorium reactors. And of course they would not contribute to global warming.
Mercury emissions from coal burning and of course global warming gasses are well known. But the radioactive pollutants resulting from burning coal have been mainly swept under the rug.
Interesting, that coal burning does put thorium in the air which can be harmful if inhaled.
Finally we see some admirable "white" people. I was beginning to think that there weren't any.
Nice to see intelligence (not to mention interest) in the younger generations (regarding discussion of current nuclear use and alterantives).
Those of us from earlier generations lived through the horror years of continuous nuclear 'accidents' - lost bombs, plane crashes, SNAP SNAFU's, submarine 'incidents' - and all that fall-out. We were given iodine tablets at school every day, and they collected our baby teeth to measure our radiation levels (Strontium-90, I believe a decay isotope?) and we learned quite a lot about nukes (of all kinds) compared to present-day grade and high school education curricula (?). Amazing how much you remember when you learn about it at an early age... I'm probably getting too old to learn much anymore... so GO guys (matti, gonzo, et al) - lead on! Great comments, and thanks for the research!
armybrat:
Thanks for the thumbs up on comments, but I am approaching 64, yet have not given up on learning more.
Solar, wind and hydroelectric are the cleanest forms of electricity. But thus far solar and wind are limited and solar is very expensive. Germany subsidizes solar but even with the subsidies I seem to recall that solar only supplies about 20% of their electrical energy.
Natural gas is cleaner than coal but still contributes to global warming and can't compete with coal in terms of price. A surprising item from recent history is that ENRON actually built a gas/electrical plant near Bombay to sell electricity to India, but the UNOCAL pipeline across Afghanistan was never built to supply that plant with cheap natural gas from Turkmenistan. The plant is currently rusting.
Another interesting thing about thorium reactors is that they can make use of waste products from uranium reactors and render the waste much less toxic.
Time will tell on thorium technology, but it appears to be a huge improvement over uranium reactors and does not contribute to nuclear proliferation or global warming.
Never dull moment on mother earth.
The thorium reactor idea is nonsense. (see my other post). Also, its not true that solar energy is expensive:
"Investors such as venture capitalist Vinod Khosla expect CSP to continuously reduce costs and actually be cheaper than coal power after 2015."
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power
CSP plants are cheaper than any other plant with exception to coal, and that only if you dont take the costs of global warming into account.
CSP plants produce lots of energy, 24 hours a day (yes really) and all that without burning any fuel.
Nuclear power was by far the more subsidised energy in germany. If renewable energy would have been as subsidised as nuclear we would have 80% renewables by now. Germany subsidised Nuclear energy with 80 billion euros until today and the public will have to pay for the waste storage for millions of years.
When nuclear power started in the 60s its growth was way slower than renewable energy grows right now in germany.
How thorium fuel got to be the nuclear energy panacea soup d'jour on this thread, under the story about 200K people marching and demanding that nuclear energy in their country cease, especially with widespread knowledge that thorium frankly isn't, is mind boggling to say the least (if not emphatically misleading:)
http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/thorium2009factsheet.pdf
It's funny, I thought we were rationally discussing the POSSIBLE role of POSSIBLE thorium-reactors in attempting the best POSSIBLE closing of the Atomic Age.
But I guess we were really presenting a "panacea soup d'jour" for some sort of trollish reason.
It is amazing to see how such things happen to one.
Thank you for your helpful post and link.
-matti.
But radiation is good for you.
The more AnnCoulterrads you can ingest or accumulate the better not only your own life will be, but also those of your children and environment. Best taken alone or with Kool-Aid or at tea parties.
Ann Coulter is toxic with or without radiation.
Bill
And in America, there was a meeting to discuss the dangers of the USA's oldest nuclear power station.
Fifty people showed up.
Fifty.
http://tinyurl.com/4bb7tux
But whose fault is it?
The people who didn't show, or the organizers who didn't entice them?
Blaming the idiot populace is one way to gloss over poor organization.
No one is for nuclear power -unless they are getting a cut of the cash- once they know the facts. Why don't USAns know the facts in the same numbers as the Germans?
I believe the German People's superior racial characteristics have been abandoned as an answer some time ago...
-matti.
Chernobyl photo essay:
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl