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Same Old from the Nuclear Gang after Fukushima
Wishful thinking about energy generation has apparently induced both temporary blindness and long-term amnesia.
The nuclear industry has promised the world cheap, safe, and clean energy for over 60 years.
As the Japanese government continues to extend its nuclear evacuation zone around the Daiichi nuclear complex in Fukushima, the pushers of nuclear power--including President Barack Obama--still demand that Congress approve ever-larger subsidies for new reactors.
Wishful thinking about energy generation has apparently induced both temporary blindness and long-term amnesia about the history of nuclear "mishaps."
In 2009, the government subsidized the nuclear industry with $18.5 billion in loan guarantees, which failed to anticipate the total costs of "the next generation of plants." The Nuclear Energy Institute--the industry's lobbying group--now wants $20 billion more in loan guarantees to get the so-called "nuclear renaissance" underway.
Before ramping up funding for the nuclear gang, lawmakers should look beyond the current catastrophe and into some of the numerous U.S. nuclear accident reports.
In 1999, The Washington Post reported that "thousands of workers were unwittingly exposed to plutonium and other highly radioactive metals" at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant in western Kentucky. The uranium workers "inhaled radioactive dust while processing the materials as part of a government experiment to recycle used nuclear reactor fuel"--a failed experiment that lasted 23 years.
In July 2000, wildfires near the Hanford facility in Washington spread to highly radioactive waste disposal trenches, raising the fear of airborne plutonium radiation levels in Seattle.
Compare those "little accidents" with the Chernobyl catastrophe--Fukushima has now reached that level--or the folks who got cancer from the Three Mile Island "mishap." What steps were taken to prevent further incidents following the numerous "little" leaks, fires, and "mishaps" that occurred routinely at the Rocky Flats and Hanford nuclear installations?
In 1981, PBS aired a documentary we made, Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang. In it, we documented how government officials obfuscated their failure to provide the "cheap, safe, and clean" energy they promised.
Jacobs reported on how the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and its successor three-letter agencies lied about, distorted, and even classified official reports on the health impacts of low-level radiation.
In the film, we interviewed Sergeant James Gates, who was present at early nuclear weapons test sites. He described how men positioned near the government's test site in Nevada covered their eyes during a blinding nuclear explosion. Gates said: "the blast threw me 15 feet into the air. It made all of us sick." In 1978, he had terminal cancer.
Jacobs interviewed "downwinders" who described how hot hailstones pelted them after atomic tests in Nevada. In the 1950s and again in the early 1970s, he inspected the government's claims. In his award-winning articles featuring interviews with "downwinders" in St. George, Utah, a city in the path of the tests' fallout, Jacobs found inordinate numbers of cancer cases and a nuclear-nervous public.
He described how he surreptitiously acquired a classified document from a public health office in Las Vegas revealing how the Atomic Energy Commission knew "low-level radiation" constituted serious health hazards. Later, he found declassified internal memos indicating why the government classified the health report: to keep the public from having to choose between nuclear tests and not getting cancer.
In 1977, Jacobs' doctor and his friend Linus Pauling (a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry) concluded that Paul, a non-smoker, developed lung cancer during his exposure to "low-level radiation" around the Atomic Test Site.
After 60-some years, the words "cheap, safe, and clean" sound more like an ad for an electric toothbrush than a believable promise from the nuclear gang.
The authors won an Emmy in 1981 for their documentary Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang.
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57 Comments so far
Show AllIf money is the bread of "government and industry" safety; where does that leave the safety of the people? Tony
Here's what i just posted on yesterday's thread:
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If any sort of "true cost accounting" were used, there is no way these things would ever be built.
Even without catastrophic "No one could have imagined an earthquake / tsunami / tornado / human error / design flaw" "accidents," the costs for GENERATIONS of dealing with the waste are simply not accounted for. That's how they come up with their phony $/KwH figures.
And they KNOW this. Maybe not in the front of their minds every day, but it's not like it never crossed their minds, or no one ever pointed it out to them.
Reducing cost accounting to the minimum dollar figure you can get away with, incentivizing the "externalization" of whatever costs you can get away with, playing our "representative democracy" like a fiddle, they are living in a capitalist fantasy world, with very real consequences for all of us.
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Landau and Willis' article goes into some of these real consequences for all of us. Accounting for all the deaths, cancers, wastelands, created by the entire life-cycle process of mining, transporting, processing, storing etc. is never going to happen while the capitalist foxes are not just guarding the nuclear henhouse but designing every system in our political economy. Nuke profiteers Westinghouse and GE have become major owners of mainstream media, gosh i wonder if their interests ever distort the news?????
ww; I find it interesting and most distressing that this country and I'm starting to think, a good part of the world is starting to think that USA'ns are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and wont mount any kind of cohesive protest of where the country is headed. I think many, many see the end result and just want to get it over with. My feeling is that all empires get to this point; biggest clue? How they treat their own people; that is the last stage. Tony
"American's are psychically numb." Helen Caldicot, after giving a few lectures in the US, spring 2011.
Obama, no doubt, knows the truth; but in every instance of his policy determinations what trumps all other concerns is profit, the naked interests of big money. We all know that politicians routinely sell out; but what makes the current case remarkable for its dire sociopathic implications is the nature of the times, themselves. MANY prophecies speak about End Times, Earth Changes, A Pole Shift, or the Final Phase of a previous (Pisces) Age. The "concordance" among these prophetic views is remarkable.
And who in this forum can DARE say that environmental castastrophes are not on the rise? Sure, every one of them HAS happened before, but hardly with a frequency like what we're witnessing.
Quake to Haiti... a million made homeless
Quake to Chile
Iceland volcano waking up
Heat wave to Russia... nuclear weapons had to be moved, lest sparks set them off
Massive floods to Pakistan... 4 million made homeless
Massive floods to Australia
Quake to New Zealand
Massive quake to Japan... how many million ultimately relocated?
STUPID puncture wound (via off shore deep oil drilling) to the US Gulf of Mexico (this one largely manmade, yet the ecological implications will remain profound well into the future)
Fires to Texas
Massive tornado outbreak to US deep South
Unprecedented winter storms to US Mid-West & North East
War, War and More War (human ignorance igniting wounds that mystics link with climate disruption)
ETC.
There is a very real relationship that exists between human behavior and how the natural world responds. The most obvious of these correlations shows up in what can be measured through tools used by climatologists. The more obscure relationships are understood by mystics, Yogis, prophets, and natural seers.
Besides the costs--human, financial & ecological--of these rapidly occurring events, is the worth of the U.S. dollar. Whether the debt ceiling is once again lifted, or not, the integrity of our currency is being increasingly seen for the fraud that it is within the global marketplace. What will this net loss mean to our citizens' quality of life given the other troubling fact: that our national ethos, under thrall to corporate control, has managed to simultaneously ship far too many good jobs overseas (to lower paying labor pools, or areas without any potentially costly environmental regulations in place).
So the $ scene is tainted.
Nature in so many pivotal ecosystems is tainted (which does not bode well for the intricately interlocking webs of species).
And then there is that war thing, an item that cannibalizes about half the US budget... and at a time where more and more are falling (or being pushed, via specific policies) through the cracks? And aid, every which way, is being cut. Hello, Chicago School! And HELL TO YOUR damned "Disaster Capitalism" model, at last aimed at the homeland.
Corruption. Lack of foresight. No meaningful programs, policies, or funded green energy incentives, criminals in high places endlessly rewarded for their graft, corruption, malfeasance, and sheer depraved indifference to life. And Obama doesn't notice all this? Purports not to know about the likely cancers that will emerge as a DIRECT result of the catastrophe in Japan, but still pushes for nuclear? Knows about the dead sea life washing up in the Gulf, and is still allowing offshore oil drilling?
The man does not have a bone of decency in his entire body. IF this world manages to survive, his daughters will know the price of what their amoral father put his signature to. Ditto the Bush twins. The hour is late... leaders have no right to sign mankind's death sentence just to appease their transitory corporate sponsors.
SR; Sad and depressing but you answered my question. Tony
'And who in this forum can DARE say that environmental castastrophes are not on the rise?'
o/ hi again. I'll dare, not that it's much of one, refute your claim. There are more people than there used to be, more media, so of course we're going to hear more about these disasters. What you're doing is taking the role of a chicken little shouting out that the sky is falling. There is no way to tell how many disasters happened when no one was around to record it (or if everyone who saw the event died when it happened, or didn't know how to write because the concept hadn't been needed for their societies). To be sure there are going to be more extreme weather events thanks to Global Warming, but that doesn't mean that such events have never happened before, or that they haven't happened more frequently. We're talking about a planet that's been orbiting the sun for the last 4.5 billion years.
That being said, I do agree that the leadership and the PTB don't have any concept of decency at all. Why should they? They have all the money and the power to ignore anything that doesn't threaten their lives at that moment.
SAT: You're full of ca-ca, and the reason I take THAT attitude is two-fold: I have already heard this empty argument by others (your cronies?) in this forum and taken the time to answer it. Second, written history certainly goes back far enough to chronicle events of the type of magnitude now seen on a REGULAR basis. So pretending that no such records exist is right up there with Rumsfeld explaining that there are certain unknown knowns, or whatever the exact nature of his preposterous verbiage intent to smoke-screen the public. It's also straight out of the Clinton, "Depends on what IS means" playbook, too. Shame on you!
Like Krakatoa wasn't known?
The idea of there being more people is a ridiculous side-lining of the argument.
People tend to live along coastlines and in cities. These patterns of residence go back more than a thousand years.And we certainly know of major earthquakes that took place. These are often significant archaeological sites precisely because they were so rare!
Even in our own lifetimes, while we know there have been OCCASIONAL tornado outbreaks of a severe magnitude, along with major quakes... as my LIST explains, these types of thing CERTAINLY did not take place within a time span of just over ONE year.
Anyone who wants to convince people that things are "fine," and "pay no attention" to the woman raising alarms either thinks humanity deserves to die, could care less about summoning the awareness that might help to turn things around, or works for a government agency that, like so much of our captured media, wants to convince people to succumb to a false sense of calm. It's pure authoritarian, in that its subliminal text reads: "Trust in authority. They know what's best for you and are taking care of what needs to be done." (In actuality, they depend on people NOT raising any alarm bells so as to continue on the eco-rampage they're intent upon. So your argument is a shell game that essentially reinforces the current trend of rapacious big business not being held accountable for the incredible damage it wreaks.)
The high levels of alcohol, drug, and anti-depressant usage grant further testimony to my message... that people are being PURPOSELY led into a hypnotic, somnambulistic, delusional state. Led to the slaughter, part of the process is reinforcing that there is nothing to worry, or be worried about. SURE!
And so, your little sublimnal nod to leadership's malfeasance is as short-sighted as your post. As if wealth can protect the moguls from the radiation that's now escaped into the global atmosphere. Sure, I know, your buds will show up and try to tell us that East is West and West is East insofar as obscurring the levels of toxic exposure, and/or amending them (as has the Japanese goverment) for the same purpose: to keep the pack quiet, thanks to the ARTFICIAL inducement of calmness where that response is hardly warranted.
The line about the age of the planet is a favorite used by the climate-change denial crowd. Wonder if you're among that fraternity of liars? What counts is NOW... not whether or not dinosaurs swam through floods. I wonder what other IRRELEVANT "arguments" you'll pull out of your sleeve. Or which anal retentive facts- checker will show up to try to try to deceive readers by finding some obscure example as if a morsel of scant data can stand up in the face of what's OBVIOUSLY taking place. "Don't believe your eyes... trust in this little anomalous factor!"
When you hear over and over again, that this flood or that tornado outbreak, or this tsunami represents a once in 500 year event (or perhaps once in a century), and these events start barreling in back to back... then you CANNOT in good faith PRETEND that something very unusual isn't going on. It may be called global warming, climate change, the Revenge of Gaia, End Times, Earth Change (as prophesied), or something else... THE FACTS ARE IN PLAIN SIGHT.
The floods in Australia were described as APOCALYPTIC as were those that took place just weeks before in Pakistan. So, too, was the description of the event in Haiti. So if your argument is that 55,000 years ago these things took place but cavemen proved poor journalists, stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
Why do you assume that every time someone disagrees with you it has to be yet another screen name of some nefarious group that's out to get you?
Written history only goes back 5000 years, and even then most of what was written down has been lost. Krakatoa had witnesses to the event the last time it blew (1800s I think), and before that there was an earlier eruption that was also noticed and written about by people who lived further away. Humans have been on this planet for at least 125 thousand years and you want to argue that the conditions of the climate are more disastrous for our species than all the other climate catastrophes that have happened over these last few months? Don't be ridiculous.
People have lived near the coasts for the whole of our species' existence, not a few centuries, but more than a hundred thousand.
"Anyone who wants to convince people that things are "fine," and "pay no attention" to the woman raising alarms either thinks humanity deserves to die"
Where the fuck did I ever say something like that? I'm not saying things are fine, I've never advocated 'trusting the authorities', but I've also never recommended trusting that the stars are controlling you either. The article is about a man made disaster, climate change is another man made disaster. But you're going to far when you want to claim that a bunch of ignorant goat fuckers from a few thousand years ago 'predicted' these sorts of things. That's crap, and you know it. The predictions were the same old vague 'prophecies' that are always made again and again. Which do nothing to help us at all. It's the idea that there's a magical invisible sort of noodly unknown thing that is directing our lives so just sit back and enjoy the ride.
That's the main problem I have with your fatalistic claptrap. You're just saying that the ancestors knew more, when it's quite obvious that they didn't. But thanks for the chuckle again. Wanna talk about the towers falling again?
Because I can't prove that the handful of YOU who constantly try to diminish the value of my spiritual beliefs are not from the same group... your identity gets to remain in the shadows. Whereas mine does not.
However, when the SAME EXACT words and "arguments" are tossed my way, again and again, naturally it would indicate they are coming from the same minds. The arguments aren't even sound or good, in most cases, so it's hardly about them saying (or sharing) something that's widely believed OR even TRUE.
It's very convenient for you to use the LIE that I bring this situation up only with "anyone doesn't agree with me." I have had very enlightening debates with posters who I know to be real and authentic. There's usually respect shown on both our ends. Your little group instead intends to demonize me, and uses very specific forms of character assault. I keep a record. Unlike some of the INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY experts who frequent this site, I am yet to figure out HOW to work the archives, so that I can actually pull up specific posts that use the SAME verbiage, similar ad hominen attacks, and generally reflect a very definite PATTERN. I could make a more compelling case with that tool at my disposal.
"Fatalistic Claptrap" is a false castigation, not to mention allegation. I have related EXACTLY what's been going on in terms of RECENT climate events. The truth is inconvenient to you, or whatever agenda it is that you SERVE. My stating it does not in any way make it other than what it is. I hold no respect for those who demonstrate beliefs similar to the ones used centuries ago to BURN women of my sensibility... to death. Threatened by an understanding that goes beyond religious orthodoxy or even what science at this particular moment deems to be true... you cannot TOLERATE this point of view. You are the one conflating the issues... by trying to say that Earth has gone through massive changes in ages long ago. The only ones who bring up that argument are those who want to derail the SCIENCE of climate change. Why would you argue against that which could lead to far more life-affirming technologies?
YOU ARE A FRAUD. And because you want these matters to appear as some form of "regular occurrence," when they are DESIGNED TO BE WAKE-UP CALLS, suggests that you are to truth what hot dogs are to nutritious food.
"YOU ARE A FRAUD. "
I'm not the one who makes a living by selling Astrology, dear...
What's your line Saturnalia, a paid shill for the Koch brothers or ExxonMobil perhaps?
No, give it time, eventually you'll have a disagreement over something else with the mystic kook and you'll be doing the same thing I am.
Some of the what she says is good, but I see no reason to buy into the religious claptrap that's sold by anyone. Be it the fundy economic dogma of the corporations, or the fundy crap flung by the 'true' religion(s). She said yet something else that has no proof, just an assertion that the end of the world was here, I disagreed and she went off the deep end. I followed. grin.
(Inhaling) a single microscopic isotope of cesium 137 or plutomium can ealsily cause cancer. Those deadly isotopes are like an isotope of oxygen. It enters a lung and is absorbed into the blood stream just like oxygen. Then it travels throughout the body and can lodge in the brain, liver, spleen, bone marrow, anyplace, and radiated for years and alter body cells. Five to fifteen years or more years later the person finds they have cnacer.
Inhale one speck?. It would be highly unlikely for a person to inhale (just one) and those specks do not evaporate, they are deadly for hundrds and thousands of years for Plutonium.
Many people have cancer and don't even know it yet. Half a million people in the US died of cancer last year, millions more are presently being treated for cancer. That (epidemic) began about 40 years ago. How long have we had a large number of nuclear power plants?
Thank you, Wayne. I cannot stress enough the fact that there are people paid to post on this site who do not represent our (or humanity's) best interests. They may be true believers of the particular crud they disseminate on this site, but that hardly makes it either true or ethical.
Anyone with HALF a brain knows that it takes TIME for radiation exposure, especially of the chronic sort, to wreak its deadly (Cancer) effect. Second, as other CD articles and sources have explained, government agencies have a way of HIDING this information, or doctoring it up for public "consumption." Then, too, when you've got a nation with such poor EPA enforcement, with its drinking water suffused with all sorts of chemical and drug effluents, and its food processed with pesticide residue (when it's not genetically "modified"), it becomes very difficult to isolate ONE factor and prove that it's the KEY factor responsible for a general decline in a population's health.
Many of us in this forum understand that sugar and corn syrup are wreaking havoc on children's bodies. It's evident in the high rates of obesity and Diabetes. Establishing the link--beyond a reasonable doubt--is another matter since our legal system grants the PRESUMPTION of innocence to all those Corporate Persons... each a predator in its own right!
What's relevant--to understand the depths corporations will go to to obscure evidence-- was seen in the Big Tobacco trials. Many executives lied under oath. They knew full well of the addictive properties of nicotine, yet chose to beef them up in order to create more "consumers." Profit, ain't it grand? (Said facetiously)
I have NO tolerance for those that come to this forum and either play "Columbo," introducing nonsensical hearsay to create unreasonable doubt in some readers, or those who have some training in dis-information tactics, and work them into their postings. I have grown far more keen to these types of inversions of language and scholarship, and how thoroughly they have embedded themselves into this forum. It's a damned shame that possibly ten people manage to use all sorts of screen names to give the FALSE impression that their views are more widely held. This is the type of reinforcement of message that Bernays, Barnum, Goebbels, and Orwell fully understood for its dangers... it is like RADIATION speweing across OUR air waves and tainting the printed page.
Course if your over 40, especially if you live on the west coast you already have a decent amount of ceseium courtsy of the US Navy testing atom bombs in the bikini atolls! It came both from air and in the mike we were forced to enjoy at the time!
So why should mine be the only gereration to be special?
>^^<
Thanks SR, for fighting the good fight. Know, for a certainty, that TRUTH does not ALWAYS express itself through the linear/rational/statistical route. Most of us out here, I would guess, have had ENOUGH of "lies, damn lies, and STATISTICS". I always look forward to your comments. They are not in vain. I've read about how the " the god of science" has feet of clay (on the larouche website, of all places; A "Kepler vs Newton" theme, wherein the reigning oligarchs of that time took paolo sarpi's advice and "ham-strung" science, thus giving birth to the "liberal" movement; ie. allowing their "human cattle" to develop science & technology enough to be useful to the oligarchs, but not to accurately lead to the discovery of TRUTH). One sometimes has to go to "disreputable" sources to get a different take on things. I am somewhat of a "technologist", but only a "derivative" one. To me, PEOPLE are the "pearl-of-great-price/value" (because they are the "prayer/meditation machines"; the only lifeform granting the soul that privilege), and whatever enables MORE of them to live will get my endorsement. If somebody, one day, proves to me that MORE people can live on this continent if we lived as american indians, then I will heartily throw myself behind a "return-to-become american indians" movement. As of now, technology seems to advance the numbers of people.
It occurs to me that this may imply an endorsement of nukes. It does not. The inherent creative power of humanity is astounding and there are at least a dozen or more technological pathways forward to energy abundance/production/distribution/efficiency. I've also read that closer cooperation with the faerie race ( yes;seriously) would enable this world to become a paradise, supportive of 25 billion people in comfort & security. I'm trying to get a more expansive response from the writer of this remark. In fact, I would encourage anyone with any "insight" into this matter to please speak up. It's important at this time.
Wayne,
All i have to say is way to go. I am unfortunately not well informed on the scientific terminology and minute details of the nuke industry as yourself. It is some what comedic to have so many people on the defense of nuclear tech. All the people that say we cannot power our modernized nation/world with clean tech ( wind, solar, geo thermal, tidal, ect) is as my mom would say, "full of shit". What investments have been made in these technologies? If we were to invest and I say invest with such angst because as we all know money is only a blockade to what is really essential (food, water, housing, ect) Lets say IDK the defense budget of the US. What could we do then ? For anybody looking for a alternative view to our world/society I highly encourage the Zeitgeist series, both Addendum and Moving Forward are truly phenomenal.
Sincerely,
George
I have already posted about ten comments about this subject on other threads here durng the past week and hope no one is getting tired of my opinions about the issue, as I an going to write again.
First of all; what happend at Fukushima can happen anywhere a nuclear power plant is located. Likely? __ No, but possible. Earthquakes are not isolated to Japan and here in the US we suffer from devasting tornadoes. Last week four nuclear power plants were very close to massive tornadoes and two lost their primary power. One in Arkansas and one in Alabama. A tornado hit on a nuclear plant could easily result in loss of power and the backup power and or destroy a spent fuel pond, creat havoc for millions and steralize thousands of square miles of irreplaceable land.
The $20 billion loan the nukers are asking for should be put into developing clean (geo-thermal) energy without the radio-active poisons. It would be no unsurmountable problem to replace the 20% electrical power nuclear enegy now provided with geo-thermal and in less than five years time shut down every nuclear power plant in the US. I favor solar power also but the technology for full time electrical power from solar is still not adequate.
We should develop geo-thermal immediately and continue to develop solar and President Obama could fufill (his promises) of creating millions of good paying jobs. We also need to repace the coal fired plants which in the long run are just as deadly for life and the planet as nuclear, it just isn't as noticable as when a nuker has a serious accident or a core meltdown.
There are several of our nuclear plants very close ot dangerus earthquake fault lines. The plant in Arkansas is a prime example. It is very near a fault line where earthquakes of magnitude (8) and (8.2) have occurrred in the 1800s and that plant is designed to withstand a (6.5) quake; that's the reactors, not the spent fuel rod pond which is just as potentially dangerous as a core meltdown.
That's my opinion but I can't afford any lobbyists.
WAYNE: Please don't stop posting or telling the truth, or the "floor" will be ceded to those with nefarious agendas. Because so much of the mainstream media is "captured" by corporate interests, an operation like Fox can LIE constantly; yet people will naively assume that it has credibility since it paints itself as an established, reputable "news" organization. Our media is awash in lies and not enough people are getting the untainted FACTS on many items that hold direct impact on their lives.
It makes me sad (and sometimes outraged) to see creeps who reflect the Fox "news" ethos trying to push their agenda onto this site, too. These authoritarians will stop at nothing. They want total control. Many men think the whole female reproductive "thing" is a mere side issue; yet they'd HARDLY assume so cavalier a stance were it their bodies facing a complete lack of control. Schools are being taken over under the guise of the business model's version of success. It is one as uniform (to children's minds) as the assembly line is to auto parts. Nature is being forced to line up and deliver... that's what factory farms for hogs/cows/chickens, tree farms, and even inroads into forcing unnatural genetic combinations (genetic engineering) is all about. Everything is becoming ENSLAVED and forced to conform to an anti-life (anti-nature) model. This as homage to mammon, or what some in the forum, see specifically as capitalism. (Capitalism is its tool, but I don't think it defines the real Essence of this dark power that's arrogating to itself, control of the world. One of the best weapons against its rapacious reach is seen in the brave incentive taken by Evo Morales to enshrine NATURE'S entities as legally-protected interests. AMEN! to that).
I've shared these examples to reinforce the truth: that TRUTH is largely NOT getting "out there." CD is one of the last frontiers where items seldom seriously debated or discussed in media get heard. While the Right grants no such opportunity to the TRUE Left, a site like this, which leans Left opens its doors... and the result is a number of dangerous pretenders (who wish to control the discourse) among us. Generally when I speak openly about this, they do their best to attack me and discredit my work. Since they do likewise to luminaries like Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader, I guess I should accept that I'm in good company.
In times when lies rule, those who speak truth become dangerous.
My intro to nuke power was in March 1979 as a student engineer visiting a ComEd nuke plant under construction. It was the week after the release of the movie 'The China Syndrome'- which the lead project manager / 'engineer' there declared as 'Preposterous- Something like that couldn't happen in a million yrs' - as he tried to wow us w a bunch of tech terminology & stats. Less than 2 weeks later 3Mile Island melted-down. 7 yrs later most of Europe was irradiated [40% of which still has significant radioactivity] when Chernobyl blew-up- which is just a few miles north of Kiev & is on a lake that's connected to a river which flows past Kiev- emptying into the Black Sea. 25yrs later its still dangerous for people to live any-where near there & 80% of children born in Belarus since 1986 are unhealthy.
Setting nuke industry salesmen / politicians like Obama [who ironically stated a yr ago {as he OKed deep-sea drilling} that 'Major blowouts & spills don't happen any more due to current technology' - less than a month later BP flooded much of the Gulf w oil - which they now claim just magically 'disappeared' as they used toxic chems to sink it below the surface {thus we went from 'Drill Baby Drill' to 'Spill Baby Spill'] to the side- I'll focus on so-called 'green environmentalists' who are hyping [fission] nuke power as a so-called 'green' solution to climate-change- George Monbiot in particular. Monbiot in a recent debate on DemocracyNow! claimed that even in the wake of Fukushima- [fission] nuke reactors [fusion reactors- especially cold {but even hot} fusion are theoretically much safer as they significantly address the 3 main dangers of fission reactors IE: melt-down & radioactivity release {ala Chernobyl / Fukushima}, nuke weapons proliferation, & highly radioactive waste lasting eons] as the way forward- due to climate change. He then repeated the standard nuke industry line [lie] that 'No one died at 3Mile Island' but even more incredibly 'Only 50 people have been shown to have died from Chernobyl'.. He totally dissed the recent Russian study that 1,000,000 & counting have died from Chernobyl- which may sound a bit high- but even the IAEA's low ball estimates says at least 4000- which may reach 10000. And reliable info says that 60,000 - 100,000+ 'liquidators' have died since 1986 w 170,000+ disabled - EXCLUDING the General Population! Listening to 'greens' like Monbiot you'd think that exposure to CO2 [a naturally occurring gas associated w life itself], is more dangerous than exposure to highly radioactive / toxic DU, U235, Pu239{so dangerous that God in his infinite wisdom didn't even put it here on Earth- its only produced in nuclear reactors in combo w U238- & is the preferred material for thermo-nuclear weapons {Thus Obama saying he's against nuclear proliferation while hawking fission nuke power- is double-talk], Cesium, Iodine, etc!!! Plus uranium [like nearly all types of] mining is a very dirty biz, just ask indigenous folks in Niger, Australia, SW tribal areas in the US, etc- whose lands are polluted by mounds of radioactive residue from uranium mining.
Many dismiss solar & wind as too costly to integrate into the infrastructure. There's several problems w that view- first there are other forms of clean energy besides solar & wind IE: tidal, bio-gas, geothermal, highly efficient catalyst driven hydrolysis, etc. IE: A prototype of a system called Salter's Duck converted tidal power to mechanical power at up to 90% efficiency & changed that to electrical power at up 90% efficiency [total efficiency- 80%]. Even if in practice that falls to 1/2 the max [IE: 40-45% efficiency] that's on par w hi-efficiency diesel engines! But even though the prototype was tested in the 1980s- this technology has been ignored & suppressed [I wonder why]. Bio-gas [which I have some practical knowledge of] addresses 3 main issues - producing both methane [the cleanest burning hydro-carbon] & organic fertilizer [petro-chem fertilizer & pesticides are ultimately destructive, toxic & are made from oil], as well as organic waste processing. But most green energy discourse focuses only on solar & wind [usually in context of the grid] & perhaps bio-fuels. The problem w bio-fuels, as they are currently being rolled-out, is that they incentivize using food crops & fertile lands [even clear-cutting old growth rain-forests- a very counter-productive activity] to fuel affluent white folks' cars in the US & EU [allowing them to feel good about lowering their so-called 'carbon-footprint']- rather than feeding hungry folks in Africa & the so-called 3rd World. For me this is a non-starter & better approaches to bio-fuel production are needed. Returning to the costs of solar & wind vs oil, coal, gas, & ESPECIALLY Nuclear- the later are all subsidized [all nuke are plants subsidized &/or run by Gov'ts - BAR NONE]- & if you don't account for this you can't make a fair comparison. Further I remember the color TV, VCR, electronic calculator, PC, CD burner, etc were all very expensive when first marketed- but within a few yrs all of their prices fell drastically even as their performance & reliability improved. Plus most people talk in terms of complex solar-arrays & wind-farms [IE: relative to the grid & meter] BUT- the best approach for wind & solar [& even bio-gas digesters] may-be to scale down to the individual home, neighborhood, & community size- leading to greater independence from the power structure. And how about using solar water-heaters & ovens for cooking when & where feasible.
Last but not least we need greater efficiency & a less wasteful / polluting & more cooperative life-style. This includes not just more efficient / less polluting cars, but even moving away from a family of 4 - 5 owning 4 - 5 cars instead of 1 - 2; Detroit rolling-out new [only cosmetically so] model cars every yr - instead of every 5 - 10yrs or even every 10 - 20yrs; & increasing gas mileage to say +40-50mpg & up. Or urban areas incentivizing public over private transport [Note: Detroit's Car Makers & Big Oil rolled-out a plan to curtail public transport across the US back in the 1930s, 40s, 50s - especially targeting electric buses & trolleys]. And also more energy efficient homes, buildings, factories, etc. We are even going to have to look at our diet- the SAD meat-centered diet is a BAD diet- both from a personal health stand-point & from negative environmental impacts. This includes where & how food is grown, stored & transported. Finally western consumer society has incentivized being wastefully self-centered- so we're going to have to change our wasteful [in the name of convenience] mind-set & life-style.
Great post Nixakliel
However for the record, before Bill or some other nuker jumps on it and tries to make all of your excellent points invalid, plutonium has been found in a very few areas of Earth in "trace" amounts,__ prior to humans developing it by the tons.
Response to: 'The authors are really confused. The accidents they cite as a reason not to have nuclear electric power plants are all from our nuclear bomb making programs. Nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors are not related regarding safety etc.' -AND- 'It's common practice among antinuclear authors to conflate the issues of nuclear weapons manufacturing and testing with commercial nuclear power. It doesn't wreak of integrity but it serves their purposes....'
My Response: Pu239 is so dangerous [it's not only very radioactive & toxic but also potentially flammable in the presence of WATER - EVEN at ROOM-TEMPS] that God in his infinite wisdom didn't even put it here on Earth [I'll note Wayne's 'technical correction' that 'natural' plutonium has now been found in 'minute traces' in the eco-sphere]- ITS ONLY PRODUCED in NUCLEAR REACTORS in COMBO w U238 [this is the main idea behind fast breeder reactors]- & is the preferred material for making sophisticated thermo-nuclear weapons. Further- Most if not all countries who got nuke weapons after the so-called Big 5 [US, Russia, UK, France & China]- did so under the guise of so-called 'peaceful' nuke progs - including uranium enrichment & even fission reactors 'theoretically' for potential power generation. This is why there's so much hoop-lah over Iran's uranium enrichment prog. So-called 'legitimate civilian' enrichment falls in the 5% -20% range - nuke weapons require +80% - +90%. In between is a lot of gray area- its all a matter of INTENT & where you decide to quit. Thus Obama [& anyone else] saying he's against nuclear weapons proliferation while shamelessly hawking fission nuke power- IS ENGAGING in DOUBLE-SPEAK. And the body or environment neither knows nor cares if it gets contaminated / poisoned from radio-isotopic substances created & released in a thermo-nuke explosion or from a Chernobyl / Fukushima type explosion / meltdown. Bottom line- fission nuke reactors are a HELL-UHV-A WAY to BOIL WATER.
PLUS - A main reason why we got fluoridated water has little to do w public dental health but a lot to do w uranium enrichment. In order to separate U235 ['good' for making both nuke bombs & fuel] from U238 [not good for making bombs] you have to enrich it by creating U-F6 gas using large amounts of fluorine & spinning that gas in a hi-speed centrifuge [U235 & U238 can't be separated via standard chemical means]. After processing there are large amounts of fluorine bi-products [often quite toxic] left over as waste. Guess what they decided to do w it? They dumped it in the water - then claimed that it was 'good' for the public's dental health.
Another idea hyped by [fission] nuke proponents is that spent fuel reprocessing is the way forward for dealing w spent fuel - citing France's nuke prog as the model. I happen to have had a conversation w a long-time non-technical Manager of EDF [EDF & AREVA are France's main Nuke Corps - 80% of France's electricity is produce via nuke power] who told me that only 15% -25% of France's fuel has been effectively reprocessed - that the vast majority of it has been / has to be stored [ala spent fuel pools]- AND ITS BECOMING A BIG PROBLEM BECAUSE THEY ARE RUNNING OUT OF STORAGE SPACE. Plus reprocessing spent fuel incurs potential proliferation risks - mainly because P239 can be / is extracted in the process [yet another potential connection between nuke weapons & nuke reactors] which is why the US Gov't's 'official' policy has to-date been to refrain from & discourage it.
mkb29
Where could I begin with you?
1. Refute your points with facts, thereby hoping that as a more informed person you would acknowledge the long lasting poisons and industry lies that are part and parcel of this debate.
2. Use wisdom gained through experience and recognize that any attempt to school you is wasted effort. A mind is a terrible thing to waste...a closed mind is a done deal.
Done with you....
deleted
Corporations are beginning to abandon the Democrats and Obama. "Anonymous" organizations have formed to fund the Democrats (today's NYTimes) so Dems won't need to rely on corporate bribes. Maybe now the Democrats could start acting like progressives, defund nukes, end oil subsidies and invest in green energy alternatives.
"Maybe now the Democrats could start acting like progressives, defund nukes, end oil subsidies and invest in green energy alternatives."
Perhaps, without the need to go begging for money, they'll pass single payer health care, campaign finance reform, and raise the taxes of the uber-rich. Maybe they'll stop supporting dictatorships and occupying oil rich lands. They could even stop enabling the Israeli crimes against Palestinians and usher in a world of true global democracy....
(Long Steve Martin pause here)
Naaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.
Today the American Assoc Of Firefighters Union wrote that no more dues money was going to any Federial (Democrats) only state elections on a case by case basis.
They wrote they were tired of funding ass's who didn't support Unions and Workers in generial!
>^^<
Thank you ezeflyer. That is about the only good news I have read in the past few months, other than "Gabby" Giffords has made great strides in her on going recovery.
Oh; and the gulf seafood is now "perfectly safe" to eat and BPs oil has "disappeared" and the radioactive milk is safe to use, Donny Trump is an American citizen, McDonalds is hiring and the governor of Texas drank a quart of prune juice at a prayer meeting and lost 160 pounds while coughing.
Maybe things aren't as bad as it sometimes seems.
I've been bringing myself up to speed on thorium molten salt reactors - but I've got a question for the fellow who brought up this topic... If they're so much safer to operate & significantly less of a weapons proliferation risk [though U233 can & has been used to make nuclear weapons] than PWR or boiling water nuke reactors, & they are so flexible when it come to scalability, & there are / have been actual working models- why in the world have they not been rolled-out for power production - or even being pushed in this current so-called nuke power renaissance [in the name of combating climate change]? Is it solely because they are 'less compatible' w a NUKE WEAPONS Prog than PWR / boiling water reactors??? Or is / are there other major technical obstacles &/or considerations involved?
The authors are really confused. The accidents they cite as a reason not to have nuclear electric power plants are all from our nuclear bomb making programs. Nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors are not related regarding safety etc. We did and are still making dumb decisions about our bomb making programs. These decisions and pressures continue to result in accidents but are not related to nuclear electric power production.
JT,
It is a common practice among antinuclear authors to conflate the issues of nuclear weapons manufacturing and testing with commercial nuclear power. It doesn't wreak of integrity but it serves their purposes. They aren't confused-they know exactly what they are doing.
The environmental abuses during the cold war were horrific and were frequently hidden behind the cloak of secrecy. Hanford and Rocky Flats are probably the best known examples from the manufacturing aspect but they are certainly not the only ones. A frequent CD poster, minitrue, speaks from first hand experience of some of the profound abuses during above ground weapons testing.
Bill
Why is it YOUR JOB to defend nuclear power? Who do you work for?
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl
Stiv,
I do work in the nuclear industry. To the best of my knowledge, my employer does not know of my posting activities. I don't identify my employer because my posts do not always agree with the corporate interests and free speech can extract a high cost. I am not paid to post.
I post as I do because I believe that global warming is the greatest threat to humanity's continuance. I do not believe that wind, solar, geothermal and tidal generation can adequately replace baseload fossil electric power and maintain an advanced civilization.
If I had a magic wand, nuclear power plants would look very different than they do today. Today's nuclear power plants are uranium fueled and water cooled, but not after my pixie dust. I work for change within the nuclear industry but CD is not the forum for that.
The Chinese government has started to invest in an alternative nuclear reactor design based on thorium in the form of fluoride salts. This is a type of reactor that was pioneered and prototyped in the US in the 1950s' and 1960s' but was canceled (at least partially) because it was not compatible with the weapons program. Other than being a huge paradigm shift, I don't know of a downside to this technology compared to the uranium fueled, water cooled reactors of today. This technology is, even under Chinese sponsorship, at least 10 years away from commercial deployment.
I do not believe that we can wait 10 years for the development of the thorium salt reactor. The threat of global warming is too immediate. I, therefore, fully support the deployment of modern state of the art reactors in the US and abroad.
Bill
Why is it YOUR JOB to defend nuclear power? Who do you work for?
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl
Hey (mkb29) you asked__ "What is a single isotope of cesium 137 or Pu?"
"Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary ( ī ' sə-tōp ' ) n. One of two or more atoms having the same atomic number but different mass numbers". .
A single microscopic speck or (isotope) of cesium 137 or Pu is radio-active and they emit alpha radiation. Continious radiation on any body cells will alter the cells and they may become cancerous. It's like a continious X-ray on any body cells it is near. And that bombarding radiation contimues for as long as the person lives.
That fact is a long time, well established scientific, medically (proven) fact, it requires no proof from me that a single isotope of either of those elements that is lodged in the body that cancer may result. Once body cell become cancerous they often break off and travel to other parts of the body to set up a new cancer factory. Your denial of it is unsound, irrational ranting when you rant about it.
Do you understand? Well, I really don't care if you understand or not. Do as you so please, I won't question your honesty or integrity. Your ignorance? That is an entirely different matter and one does not have to be an enviromentalist or liberal minded to be intelligent.
Wayne,
Plutonium is an alpha emitter. Cesium-137 is a beta emitter.
All atoms with the same atomic number are the same chemical species. (i.e. all plutonium has an atomic number of 94).
Atoms of the same chemical species can have different numbers of neutrons. If you add the atomic number to the number of neutrons you have the isotopic number. (Plutonium with 145 neutrons is Pu-239 (94+145=239). Plutonium has several different isotopes:
Pu-238 is used as a heat source in satellites. It used to be used in pacemakers.
Pu-239 is used in weapons. It also can be used in a reactor.
Pu-240 messes up a nuclear weapon. It also makes plutonium difficult to process.
Pu-241 doesn't last long enough to use in a weapon but works well in a reactor.
When an atom undergoes radioactive decay, the atomic number changes. A plutonium atom that decays is no longer plutonium. When a cesium atom decays it is no longer cesium. (With beta decay, the atomic number goes up by one. With alpha decay, the atomic number goes down by two.)
Bill
Yes Mr. Bill, I appreciate the correction on the cesium137, I know it emits beta radiation, just was not careful enough with my words there, added the cesium 137 to the paragraph which was primarily about Pu. Are there any other errors you wish to discuss?
One thing I have learned about debating on a website is never ever make a mistake with words use or leave out a few. If the debate is with a pro nuker or a global warming denier they will jump all over it.
It sounds as if you are trying to say it is not harmful to inhale or eat any of either of the isotopes? Is that what you are saying? I am sure you aren't that stupid, but am not positive.
Gereralizations about things that can easily be fact checked are and open invite anywhere on the internet to get burned! It's just as easy to get it right as wrong.
And for my fact; you have a much greater chance of getting cancer from the sun than any isotope of anything!
That's a fact you can take to the bank!
>^^<
Hey Bill, you didn't mention that Cesium has at least 39 known isotopes, which is more than any other element except Francium. The atomic masses of those isotopes range from 112 to 151.
And (Mr. Catz), you wrote, "And for my fact; you have a much greater chance of getting cancer from the sun than any isotope of anything! That's a fact you can take to the bank!".
Is that a fact, which bank? Out of half a million who died of cancer in the US last year, how many died from sunbeams and how many died due to internal cancers caused by unknown reasons? Do you know? Melanoma of course can quickly spread to any part of the body.
Most (by far) of children up to the age of eighteen who developed cancer or died of it were not cancerous from skin cancer, it was internal or lukemia. Cancer in children is now the highest cause of death from disease and 50 years ago it was fairly rare in children. Cancer from skin cancer due to sunbathing is most common in mid aged or the elderly.
We know sunbathing can over time cause skin cancer and we also know inhaling radioactive isotopes can over time cause cancer anyplace in the body. We also know cancer has exploded since nuclear power plants have been used, sunbeams have always been here. No one knows exactly how many have developed cancer from radioactive isotopes in the body or from sunbeams. We know both can cause cancer. With skin cancer it is "assumed" it was due to the sun, with other cancers it normally is (just cancer). If a person has lung cancer and smokes it was cigarettes or non smokers asbestes or whatever. The doctors don't look for radioactive isotopes.
We know radioactive isotopes are very dangerous stuff and that we could replace nuclear power plants, we cannot replace our sun, but we can wear a hat, sunglasses cover our skin and never go outdoors during daylight. Those things don't help with injested radioactive isotopes.
Another thing we know is DU is just a deadly as radioactive isotopes from nuclear power plants and in the now DU polluted Iraq the cancer rates and other deadly medical maladies have soared and more than 80.000 Gulf War vets are suffering from many different diseases including cancers. Those are still young people. DU is just another form of radioactive poison developed in inuclear power plants.
Finally Mr.Katz, I don't know what your point is or was, but am delighted you brought up sunbeams, as they are another form of radiation which can cause cancer, just as radioactive isotopes do. Take your pick, wear clothes or a filtered mask.
Or is it Ms or Mrs Katz?
Wayne,
My post was intended to be informative. It does not speak at all to hazard. I was responding to a factual error in your earlier post.
When there is a factual error in a post, the reader does not know whether the author has faulty knowledge or if it was a mere typo. I will ignore typos and omitted words if the intent of the author is clear. If I wish to engage the author on a matter of substance in his post, I may clarify or challenge the error. Harping on posting errors for the sake of belittling the author is counterproductive (I do, however, have an especially sharp pen reserved for some editorialists who intentionally distort truth such as Harvey Wasserman.)
I have found in discussions on CD that passion frequently outruns both facts and knowledge. I will challenge information that does not pass the bullshit test (such as stillbirths and two headed calves from Three Mile Island).
I do not think that nuclear power is a perfect technology. There are better and safer (and less expensive) reactor designs than the water cooled reactors we currently use. It can't be used in a light water reactor, but thorium is a preferable nuclear fuel to uranium.
I do think that we need to expand electricity production in the developing nations if we wish to avoid a Malthusian solution to population growth. I do think we need to replace fossil fuel based electricity domestically and avoid it in the developing nations. I do not believe that a reliable and affordable electrical system can be based on wind and solar.
Bill
Thank you for a very decent reply (Bill).
I percieve that you are a fine person who happens to believe nuclear power is our best bet and I will not berate or insult you for having that opinion, although I respectfully disagree.
I don't favor wind power at all except for a business or a hotel, farm and family home if desired. In time I do believe solar is the best bet, but a great deal of new technology has to be discovered or figured out before it is viable and the best bet. Many solar farms and or towers are already very effective but it is not ready to replace much of our energy needs.
In the meantime I favor (geo-thermal), to replace every power plant in the US, nukes, coal and oil fired. Geo-thermal is readily available, very cost effective in every way and is a well proven method of producing electrical power. Naturally there are engineering and technical problems with geo in some locals but those are not problems that cannot be solved, just like problems building a space station, or a project like the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the Panama Canal, Hover Dam, the trans continental railrways or the tunnel connecting England and France. In fact any engineering problems with developing geo would be much simpler and easier to solve.
Will we ever have geo-thermal? __ No! __ We will continue to destroy the planet, that's where the money is.
I've been bringing myself up to speed on thorium molten salt reactors - but I've got a question for the gentleman who brought up this topic... If they're so much safer to operate & significantly less of a weapons proliferation risk [though U233 can & has been used to make nuclear weapons] than PWR or boiling water nuke reactors, & they are so flexible when it come to scalability, & there are / have been actual working models- why in the world have they not been rolled-out for power production - or even being pushed in this current so-called nuke power renaissance [in the name of combating climate change]? Is it solely because they are 'LESS COMPATIBLE' w a NUKE WEAPONS Prog than PWR / boiling water reactors??? Or is / are there other major technical obstacles &/or considerations involved?
Nix,
There are a host of reasons that Liquid Fluoride Thorium Salt Reactors (LFTR) have not been adopted. Some are political, some technical and some economic.
The nuclear industry is, like all industry, in business to make money. The cost of developing and licensing an alternative paradigm reactor is very high and has a long horizon. This means a lot of negative cash flow for a long time and this is not a favorite thing for a company to do. This probably eliminates the traditional profit motivated company from pursuing it on their own nickel.
Fueling a LFTR is, after the initial construction, very inexpensive. With the most popular design concept, the utility would need to buy a couple of pounds of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride and a couple of hundred pounds of thorium fluoride a year, probably less than $50,000 per year once there is a conventional market established. This contrasts with several million a year for regular nuclear fuel. This may be attractive to the utilities but the nuclear companies are not making any serious money.
Nuclear reactors are the dream machine (or nightmare if you are opposed) for a mechanical engineer. They were and continue to be developed by mechanical engineers with the requisite nuclear training. LFTRs are chemical engineering machines. To a layman this sounds like a silly problem but the two engineering disciplines look at issues very differently and speak different languages.
Recycling is an option with water cooled reactors. If it is done, it is performed as a separate function remotely from the reactor. Recycling is integral to most LFTR designs. This complicates the design with complex fluid flows.
There is a whole list of further issues that I don't have the time or space for here. The best source of technical information on LFTRs is energyfromthorium.com
Bill
WayneWR,
You wrote:
'A single microscopic speck or (isotope) of cesium 137 or Pu is radio-active and they emit alpha radiation. Continious radiation on any body cells will alter the cells and they may become cancerous. It's like a continious X-ray on any body cells it is near. And that bombarding radiation contimues for as long as the person lives.'
I should point out that the relevant biological and radiological half-lives affect the
health hazards of radioisotopes. e.g., Cesium-137 has a radiological half-lofe of 30 years, but a biological half-life of 70 days. So it's problematical whether significant danger exists for the persons lifetime.
John
You make me think of a question. If someone has inhaled only one atom of radioactive waste (unlikely only to do so, but let's say it's possible) what happens to that particle after the half life is over?
I'm not sure, but isn't the half-life an estimate? Not all particles of the stuff will decay in that time period, only half of them are expected to be gone. Also, just because it's a half-life and it decays into something else, does that really imply that the thing it turned into was safe? I'm not sure about that at all. Even lead will poison us if we're exposed to too much of it.
"So it's problematical whether significant danger exists for the persons lifetime."
You hope, hope lots, indeed it's almost like you're praying that that statement is accurate. Why don't we see the studies of the soldiers who were exposed to such particles in the early atmospheric tests of the atomic bombs? Perhaps that would give you an indication of what is or is not significant danger. Of course most of them are dying or have already died; and of cancers. If the studies were done honestly, I doubt we'll see them until another century has passed and the liability for the government can be sloughed off and ignored.
Saturnalia,
You wrote:
'You make me think of a question. If someone has inhaled only one atom of radioactive waste (unlikely only to do so, but let's say it's possible) what happens to that particle after the half life is over?
'I'm not sure, but isn't the half-life an estimate? Not all particles of the stuff will decay in that time period, only half of them are expected to be gone. Also, just because it's a half-life and it decays into something else, does that really imply that the thing it turned into was safe? I'm not sure about that at all. Even lead will poison us if we're exposed to too much of it.'
To answer the second question first, the daughter of a radioisotope may or may not itself be radioactive. Polonium-210 decays to lead-206, which is stable (not radioactive). But Radium-226 decays to Radon-222, which is quite radioactive.
Lead is considered a toxin, and some lead isotopes are quite radioactive. The lead apron that the dentist places over his patient emits alpha and gamma rays.
But the idea is to provide shielding against the more intense X-rays.
Regarding the first question, measurements of half-life have been made to very high accuracy. For each radioisotope, the half-life is as much a property as boiling point, density, valences, heat capacity, etc. But radioactive decay is a stochastic (random) process, and as such, the "Law of Large Numbers" prevails. Suppose that you eyeball the digital display of a counter connected to a radiation detector. And the radioisotope is moved closer and closer to the detector. You will see that at first, the randomness of the counts is quite evident. It would put you in mind of raindrops hitting a windowpane during a very light rain. But as the source is moved ever closer, the counting looks VERY smooth and steady. At high enough count rates, the precision is better than any ordinary clock.
'"So it's problematical whether significant danger exists for the persons lifetime."
'You hope, hope lots, indeed it's almost like you're praying that that statement is accurate.'
I cannot respond to claims of knowledge of my innermost thoughts.
John
Well JT, good to see you here, it offers others like Webwalk, Ezflyer and Siouxrose the opportunity to reply and shoot you down in flames and post links for excellent, credible articles. Here are a few of the flip sides to your (nukes are safe) coins.
Cancer rates world wide have risen dramatically since nuclear power plants have circled the globe. Whenever we hear that a nuclear plant had to "release some gas" into the atmosphere for "safety" reasons due to "some little problem", it means deadly radio-active poisons were released into the air. It happens all too often and is not widely publicised and whenever it is it is downplayed as not a significant problem.
There have been many nuclear (power plant) accidents whch released deadly, (long life) poisons into the atmosphere and or the waters, rivers, lakes and aquifers from (nuclear power plants).__ Just Google nuclear accidents and read for a week.
Here are some links for articles about cancer in the US.
http://www.ratical.com/radiati...
http://www.ratical.org/radiati...
http://www.ieer.org/comments/b...
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko recently said
"Ultimately safety rests with the (plant operator)," he said. "It's our job to make sure they get there. Three U.S. nuclear power plants in South Carolina, Kansas and Nebraska need increased oversight from federal regulators because of safety problems or unplanned shutdowns".
The main threat to humans comes from (inhalation), but it isn't good to eat any either. While it is difficult to create airborne dispersion of a heavy metal like (plutonium), certain forms of Pu, including the insoluble plutonium oxide, at a particle size less than 10 microns (0.01 mm), are a serious medical hazard if inhaled and they can easily circle the globe as windblown deadly dust.
If inhaled some of the deadly isotopes will be trapped in the lungs and readily transferred, first to the blood or lymph system and later to other parts of the body, notably the liver and bone marrow. It is here that the deposited plutonium's and cesium alpha radiation may eventually cause cancer.
Gas-phase plutonium oxide cluster ions and initial actinide ion ...
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000AIPC..532...65G
http://articles.boston.com/2011-03-21/news/29351750_1_fuel-rods-nrc-nuclear-power-plants
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2060880,00.html
"Federal officials have underestimated the potential danger posed by radio-active spent fuel storage pools at the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee nuclear power plants", the Massachusetts attorney general charged, underscoring five years of legal challenges the state has waged to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to examine the risks more thoroughly."
There are no safe nuclear power plants. There are no safe automobiles, aircraft ships, boats, buses, trains, lightening bolts, skate boards, power saws or bathtubs. Of those, only a nuclear plant is capable of killing all life on Earth. __ Is it likely? __ We may soon find out.
Still here Sue, you keep kickin too. This is a great website, am glad I found it.
We are all "downwinders" now.
Iodine 131 in Washington state milk.
Cesium 137 in Vermont milk.
Strontium 90 in Hawaii milk.
There should be a nation wide network of radiation detection set up by now. Fukushima is supposed to last months or years.
The largest threat to national security is not terrorism or some third-world country, but rather the nuclear power industry.