Greenpeace Issues “Top Ten” against nuclear power
September 18th, 2007
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And I’ll respond to each and every one of them..
It seems that the loonies at the psuedo-environmentalist organization Greenpeace have issued a “Top Ten List” of reasons why nuclear energy is bad bad bad. This is pertaining to Canada especially, because of the decision to build more nuclear power plants in Canada to reduce carbon emissions and to help with the shortage of energy which Canada, like most of the world, is increasingly dealing with. The group wants to promote “Green” energy, a rather vague term, considering they have not actually been able to provide any alternative to nuclear energy except for “conservation” and “decentralized generation.” Both of these, of course, are fine, but they can only do so much. Even with all the conservation efforts around the world, the need for energy continues to increase.
And as mentioned here before, “renewables” like wind and solar can barely hope to fulfill even a tiny percentage of power generation, despite billions upon billions spent on this tiny sliver of energy generation. To Greenpeace, “Green” energy apparently means “You turn green from breathing in the fumes” because as things stand now, less nuclear energy means more coal-fired power plants. Granted I may not be the most objective source on the matter, because I have a vested interest in nuclear power – I breathe. And as far as I am concerned, I really don’t care what Greenpeace thinks. I want more nukes for some rather selfish reasons: I don’t want to die choking on smog; I like electricity; I live near the coast and don’t want to be underwater; I like the earth and would rather not see it destroyed..
So here are their top ten and my responses. (My favorite is the one about how nuclear power plants cause more coal pollution, because sometimes they need to be closed for maintenance – yeah… so if we close them completely then what?)
Fuel Cycle:
Source: Wikipedia
This is one thing that the pro-nuclear movement agrees with, in part. Nuclear energy does produce waste and that is a problem. But it is not an insurmountable problem. With research into transmutation of waste, reprocessing and higher efficiency reactors waste may nearly eliminated. In the nearer term, there are means by which it can be recycled or safely stored. These issues are not without solutions and have been well thought out and accounted for. The difficulties with dealing with waste are a small price to pay for the huge benefits.
The waste from mining of uranium is not man-made, but is naturally occurring minerals which would be found in the environment. Radon gas, for example, is produced whether or not the uranium is mined or left in mineral deposits. Also, radon is found in many basements and thorium is used in lantern mantels, welding rods and camera optics.
2. Nuclear power limits clean energy
A dollar can only be spent once and every dollar spent on nuclear is a dollar not available for green energy and conservation.
Well, that depends on if you consider nuclear energy “unclean.” But obviously spending money in one place limits its use elsewhere. However, the cost to benefits ratio of nuclear power is huge. A single nuclear power plant can generate gigawatts of energy.
However, despite billions upon billions of dollars spent on wind and solar energy, they still do not generate more than 1% of the energy in
If it is the policy of Greenpeace to sink tremendous resources into concepts of “green energy” which have no hope of generating more than a tiny proportion of power, then it shows what the real agenda is. The only reason the industry is “dying” is because of the idiotic missinformation and unwavering opposition to nuclear energy by Greenpeace and other ECO-STUPID organizations.
Safe nuclear power is a myth. Human error or technical failure could cause a meltdown at any of
The bottom line is that a
The fact is that the civilian nuclear energy industry in the US and Canada has a decades long record of impeccably safe operation, with even the “worst” incidents of reactor malfunctions never even coming close to putting lives or the environment in serious danger. And liability protection has much more to do with all the baseless lawsuits about nuclear plants causing harm to someone in the area.
The Chernobyl Reactor:
4. Nuclear power plants are a terrorist target
Nuclear power plants are attractive targets for terrorists because of their importance to the electricity supply system, the severe consequences of radioactive releases and because of their symbolic character.
Actual test of containment structure material:
As are skyscrapers and chemical plants and dams. Terrorists would love to attack any major infrastructure, but nuclear power plants are also more resistant to attack than almost any other target. The containment domes of nuclear plants are purpose-tested for collision with large near-supersonic aircraft. The structure is designed to, at very worse, collapse-in and bury any hazards.
Nuclear power plants offer inherent safety features, such as multiple layers of defense and fuel which is encased in strong zirconium tubes, inside a pressure vessel, surrounded by water, within a containment structure, covered by massive steel-reinforced domes.
In the 1980’s
5. Nuclear power is unreliable and dependent on fossil fuel
Coal and nuclear stations work as a dirty tag team in
After undergoing $2 billion dollars in repairs, two reactors at the
I LOVE this one – in other words, the reason that smog increased is because nuclear plants had to be closed, in part because there was opposition to upgrading and replacing aging plants. Had there been more nuclear plants to pick up the load, maintenance and refueling would not be an option, but due to opposition, coal is still the main energy source for power generation. And yet, despite shutting off nuclear plants being the problem, these clowns think the answer is to shut them down for good. It reads like an article from The Onion.
But compare this to wind or solar energy or other “green energy.” If it’s a high power demand day and there is a stalled weather front, wind power is useless. In the winter and at night, solar power is nearly useless.
This is one of the dumbest things on the list. It amounts to “Well, nuclear power plants are bad because if you shut them down, then we have more pollution. It’s idiotic on so many levels it’s almost comical.
(Some have brought up issues of enrichment, transportation and fabrication of fuel as well as building nuclear power plants as the “secondary carbon footprint” of the technology, but statistics indicate that nuclear energy is lower in secondary CO2 than almost any other power source)
Nuclear technology can be used for peaceful purposes or to make nuclear weapons – although nuclear power plants are generally not well suited to this. However, chemical technology can make deadly weapons or life saving drugs, fertilizers and other useful products. Bioreactors can make penicillin or anthrax.
For nations that cannot provide security to nuclear facilities, there are some concerns, however, the IAEA and others have instituted comprehensive solutions to these, which work, when done properly.
Additionally, new technologies like Thorium Cycle Reactors promise to reduce or eliminate this threat. And even with a reactor, the extraction of plutonium and fabrication of weapons is no easy task.
Of course, for major industrial nations like
7. Nuclear plants emit radioactive emissions
Nuclear stations release radioactive pollutants into the air and the water. Radioactivity can be absorbed by living things through air, water and food. Exposure to radioactivity increases the risk of cancer and having birth defects.
Canadian reactors release levels of radioactive tritium at levels that are considered hazardous by European radiation protection standards. Because there is no fail-proof way of isolating radioactive waste for amillion years,
Nuclear plants do emit radiation. Tiny, minute, often undetectable amounts. As do all granite buildings. Bananas, Brazil nuts and sea water all emit radiation as well. Compared to the background radiation in most areas, the radiation emitted by the entire nuclear power industry is negligible.
A single dental X-ray, a coast-to-coast flight in a jet plane, living in Colorado or cooking with natural gas for a year all expose a person to more radiation than they are likely to receive in a year of living next to a nuclear power plant.
The claims of tritium release cannot be substantiated from any credible sources.
The claims that waste will destroy the world have already been addressed here and elsewhere. With better technology, nuclear waste may become a thing of the past. Some experimental reactors only produce a few pounds of waste a year, most of which will be completely safe in 100 years or less.
(DrBuzz0 uses a tritium filled keychain to help find his car keys in the dark)
8. Nuclear power is expensive
Every nuclear plant in
Worse, the costs of any serious nuclear accident or impacts of radioactive pollution from nuclear waste will be borne by society and not the nuclear industry.
The cost of building a nuclear power plant is high, partially because each plant entails a massive fight with anti-nuclear groups and repetitive, unnecessary red tape. If the process were streamlined and designed to encourage building, the cost would be on par with that of other power plants.
Once built, nuclear power is very competitive, only consuming a relatively small amount of fuel. And waste treatment costs of $24 billion cannot be sourced to any credible reference.
The cost of nuclear energy pales in comparison to the billions upon billions of dollars which are sunk into “green energy” with only tiny payback. Building a nuclear power plant is the best way to economically produce many gigawatts of electricity without CO2 emissions.
9. Nuclear power is unpopular
After decades of cost over-runs, poor performance and mounting stockpiles of radioactive wastes, Ontarians are rightly skeptical of nuclear. In poll after poll, Ontarians rate the nuclear power just above coal-fired generation in their energy preferences. Polls also show that Ontarians believe that Ontario’s electricity plans are being written at the behest of the nuclear lobby and do not fully develop Ontario’s green energy potential.
Yes, nuclear energy has a big image problem. Thanks a lot. I blame YOU for that and all the bad science put out by pseudo-environmentalists.
This means nothing other than the heavy-handed scare tactics of anti-nuclear groups have managed to misinform and scare the public.
The fact that something is unpopular does not make it invalid. There was a time when most people thought the world was flat. This page exists to help inform the public of the facts. Greenpeace and the rest of the eco-stupid movement also puts out information to the public. It’s just the quality of that information that I take issue with, and also the fact that much of it is just plain false.
10. Nuclear power is slow to build
The expert consensus is that climate change must be stopped within the next 10 years to avert the worst impacts. New nuclear reactors take 10 – 15 years to build and cannot contribute to stopping dangerous climate change. Due to the long lead times involved to build new nuclear stations and the declining performance of Ontario’s ageing reactors, recent energy modelling by the WWF and the Pembina Institute shows that Ontario’s current nuclear mega-project energy strategy will keep Ontario dependent on coal until as late as 2017. To phase out coal in the near term,
Which is why we need to get building NOW! We should have been building nuclear plants yesterday and the longer we wait the harder it will be.
Building a reactor can be done much faster, if the proper initiative is taken and policy decisions are made. However, while building nuclear plants to reduce coal usage may take years to eliminate the problem, building wind farms and solar generating stations will NEVER EVER solve the problem.
Right now, even as wind power is increasing in power output faster than ever before, power companies are breaking ground on new fossil fuel plants. Why? Because more power is needed and the “green” energy pipe-dream of Greenpeace and others has no hope of a prayer of a chance of changing that. This vague idea of “local generation” offers no real solution, since no untapped “renewable” sources have any realistic potential of producing energy.
Upgrade the old reactors and keep them running as efficiently as possible. Approve and build new reactors, or spend the money on windmills and watch the smog increase as coal fills the majority of the need for electricity. Those are the options.
Links:
Nuclear is Our Future
Health Physics Society
Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy
World Nuclear Association
NEI Nuclear Notes
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Good Science, Nuclear, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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March 16th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Mat said:
Radiation releases have not been at a level sufficient to harm the public, plant workers need to take care but members of the public have yet to be endangered (except of course by the fear people like you are spreading, at Chernobyl the anti-nuclear movement caused more damage than the accident).
Mat said:
Yes, otherwise your argument against nuclear power is invalid.
Mat said:
No, you’re railing against it because you don’t understand it (or much else of basic science).
Mat said:
Maybe you are, that doesn’t mean the rest of us are.
Mat said:
Because the geologists did not think such a powerful earthquake or tsunami would occur in that location.
Besides, the power plant survived the earthquake just fine (the nuclear industry also has a much better record of learning from its mistakes than most other industries, a tsunami wiping out an emergency generator at a nuclear power plant will very likely never be repeated).
Mat said:
There will always be unforeseen events, it’s just that nuclear has a better record of handling them without mass death than most other technologies.
Not to mention that coal power plants which are what you get when you oppose nuclear kill more people than even the worst nuclear accident possible as a part of normal operation.
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March 16th, 2011 at 9:48 pm
Mat said:
I have read the levels measured and at this point it looks like a few workers may be exposed to as much as half a to one sievert. The public exposure may be as high as a few hundred microsieverts to, in a few extreme cases, a few millisieverts.
This has no measurable effect on health.
Mat said:
They are built to withstand a hit by an aircraft.
They are built to withstand an earthquake up to 8.2 on the Richter scale and would do so with no major systems damage,.
They withstood a 9.0 with no major damage. A huge testament to their design. If it had been just the quake they would be fine.
They withstood the quake fine. They would have been fine if there had been grid electricity, but the quake knocked that out. They would have still been fine except the tsunami destroyed all the auxiliary generators. They may have still been fine if they had been able to use tap water pressure to feed the cooling. The quake knocked out water service too.
They could also withstand a 6 meter tsunami. This was over seven meters.
There is a limit to how strong something is built based on the criteria for what is considered to be a likely versus highly improbable threat. It was considered highly unlikely that an earthquake stronger than any in Japanese history would strike, followed by a huge tsunami.
Hence, the reactors were not intended to survive such an uncommon occurrence without severe damage. Well they did survive. They’ve held, containment is maintained, even despite reports of cracks, there are only some minor venting releases.
Meanwhile every other piece of industry in the area has been destroyed.
Mat said:
And if it doesn’t work? What happens when the once a millennium quake happens that destroys a plant completely and breaches containment? **** happens and maybe even people die. It’s a shame, it really is, but that happens in any industry.
While everyone was focused on this, at least one major dam broke in Japan and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. Every year dams break and sometimes they kill hundreds. On occasion they kill thousands. Once in a great while, hundreds of thousands.
Every year there are gas explosions and every year people die. It’s the nature of the beast. When gas mixes with air it creates a fuel-air bomb. It blows huge craters in the ground and levels whole sections of cities.
The big issue here seems to be that people have come to believe the myth that a nuclear power plant can somehow trigger a global disaster or somehow create a much worse regional one than other forms of energy. That’s just not true.
People have bought into this myth with such faith that now North Americans are worried about it effecting them. That’s absurd.
If right now all efforts to cool the cores stopped, all efforts to keep the fuel ponds filled ceased then in a couple of days the cores would completely melt and the reactor vessels might not hold them. They’d melt into the dry well. The ponds would empty and some of the cladding would catch fire. Radiation would be released. And, in the end, fewer lives would be lost than have been lost in refinery explosions.
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March 17th, 2011 at 1:06 am
Nick P. said:
I actually really appreciate the candor displayed in this comment. You are absolutely right that we just need the better answer, not the perfect answer.
With this in mind though, I’d just like to make sure that my point isn’t lost in the confusion here; I think events like this serve as warning, and we’d be fools not to heed them. I don’t think this particular incident is an end-of-the-world event, or even another Chernobyl (to the likely surprise of many in this forum, I have a thorough understanding of what makes modern LWR fundamentally different than graphite moderated reactors.)
But I do think that it shows us that no matter how well we plan, and how many bases we cover with triple redundancies, sometimes things just fail. My concern is what COULD happen, not what HAS happened.
I just ask you guys to play devils advocate with me for a moment- what happens if radioactivity reaches our groundwater or other water sources because of a leak in storage facilities or some other unforeseen event? I feel like the way the pro-nukes (and people in many other fields too) look at this is all backwards; rather than playing out the 1 in a million scenarios to reason whether or not something is viable, they just set up a redundant protections to “make sure” it never will. There really is not way to make sure, so we need to be ready to deal with the consequences of that. Say what you want, but after a dam breaks or a coal/oil/natural gas plant has a fire, people can actually go in and repair the damage without fear of death. First responders at nuclear events like these are essentially on suicide missions. Abandoning entire areas for decades after a meltdown is just not a viable option (which could be entirely likely if Cesium 137 is ejected all over the area.)
It comes down to this: one large unforeseen event can equal a completely uninhabitable area for years and years. And this is with our fuel and waste spread out in small concentrations and relatively minor events. What about a large concentration and a major event we don’t predict???
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March 17th, 2011 at 1:16 am
drbuzz0 said:
Again my point: I see a lot of reasons why you’re saying the design was right, but we just couldn’t have predicted. Fine, I agree! That’s why we should realize how dangerous it truly is. We just can’t see what might happen. And if you think we’ve seen it all now you’re absolutely incorrect. This is an important fact to grasp.
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March 17th, 2011 at 1:20 am
Mat said:
Then, bluntly, the reactor is the least of our problems, just as the ones in Japan are essentially rounding errors when calculating the death and injury toll. Anything of the magnitde you are describing (ie. substantially more powerful than a Richter 9 quake) is getting into asteroid strike territory.
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March 17th, 2011 at 1:21 am
Mat said:
And there is one thing we can quite easily predict as a consequence of abandoning nuclear: rising energy costs, which will force more people to choose between eating and heating (pretty uch 100% probability). Care to have those deaths on your conscience?
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March 17th, 2011 at 1:34 am
Mat said:
That is where you are wrong. You are wrong because you are making assumptions about the type of impact you think could happen without any plausible mechanism on how it could. Like most you see the terms nuclear, and radiation and make sweeping assumptions that are not grounded in a complete understanding of the field. You are basing your fears on ignorance, and that is never a good idea.
While I am not singling you out personally here, too many posters have come out swinging against anyone that suggests that this event is not all that bad and tries to show why by discussing the science. It is pathetic to see so many posts that, in essence state something along the lines of: ‘I’m don’t know much about this subject, but I’m angry at those that claim to be knowledgeable because they are suggesting that this event isn’t as bad as I fear it is.” The worse then accuse us of being in the pay of the nuclear industry.
Even in the case of Chernobyl it is not clear if the exclusion zone was all that necessary, although I will add that this is in hindsight. The point is much was learned from that event and the truth (not the propaganda) is that the impact on the environment outside the plant’s immediate vicinity was rather mild. This would be the case in Japan, even if there was a total meltdown as well.
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March 17th, 2011 at 1:49 am
Matthew said:
The earth sees earthquakes of this scale on average once every 8 years, with 5 events of 8.5 or larger occurring in the last 7 years.
I’m only saying we can’t guess what might occur simultaneous to them. Tsunamis? Sure. What else?
We didn’t design a reactor for such events? We put a reactor that’s dependent on a diesel generator (obviously rather hydrophobic) right next to the ocean? Really?
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March 17th, 2011 at 1:59 am
DV82XL said:
Do I have to? Is the burden of proof on me? I would think that it would be on the industry introducing potential danger to citizens and the environment. Isn’t this the way business works???
I suppose if we knew the mechanism, we would make safety systems for it, right? Nope. Earthquakes and Tsunamis (both well known mechanisms) were clearly ignored.
DV82XL said:
I really do hope you’re correct.
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March 17th, 2011 at 4:49 am
@ Matt,
Energy is not produced in a vacuum. If these reactors had not been built, the energy they have produced would have been produced by something more damaging to public health and the environment.
“Nuclear energy need not be perfect to be better than all its alternatives. It simply needs to be better than all its alternatives. Happily, it is”
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March 17th, 2011 at 5:30 am
It’s cute that you cut out the most important part of my point when quoting me.
…
I was going to go through the last several comments to do a detailed response to all of them, but having been on my feet for ten hours in a factory tonight I find my give-a-sh17 to be severely broken.
However I will make a few drive-by comments real fast:
Radiation in the ground water? Depending on the permeability of what it’s flowing through water moves in an aquifer at a rate of about 50 feet PER YEAR. So if somehow a nuclear plant has a core that melts, BURNS THROUGH THE 20-ODD FOOT THICK concrete base-mat, plows straight into the ground China Syndrome style and then automagically becomes water soluble when it hits the water table we would have about a hundred years before that water would reach a well a mile away. In the mean time most of the really worrisome fission products would be decayed away before then and the ground itself would probably keep doing what it always does to water flowing through it: FILTERING STUFF OUT.
Color me unimpressed by the severity of such an event, much less its likelihood.
…
And plan for the absolute worst case scenario? What, so I’m supposed to assume (AND DESIGN FOR) asteroids, volcanoes and the Rigellian flying-saucer armada along with a fleet of Valkyries will all hit every every single reactor in the world at once? As if I’d be giving a crap about nuclear reactors then… We can ALWAYS one-up each other by imagining a worse scenario than the last, but any SANE risk analysis has to set some sort of threshold of what is actually likely to occur and put it in PERSPECTIVE with everything else. What annoys me to no end is that I’m daaaamn sure you and your ilk don’t apply this level of worryworting to everything else that might negatively affect you AND HAS A MUCH GREATER CHANCE OF DOING SO.
Do you have a rail line anywhere near you? I guarantee that it probably frequently ships tanks full of all sorts nastiness like petrochemicals, LNG, chlorine and much more on a regular basis and a single derailment could kill thousands and contaminate many square miles with residues which depending on the chemical in question will hang around FOREVER (mercury doesn’t have a half-life!) until someone cleans it up.
Let me reiterate what I said before:
Your typical coal plant IS putting out enough crap to cause numerous people to succumb to respiratory illnesses each year. Gas plants and infrastructure can and DO explode on a regular taking out whatever poor SOB happened to be nearby. Nuclear has it’s issues, but as compared to everything else events involving it are RARE.
The idea of another Bhopal scares me a hell of a lot more than another Chernobyl does. Whilst on that topic I’ll even go as far as to say that if someone offered me a deed to 100 acres of prime Pripyat real-estate I’d be all over it. Contaminated and uninhabitable for decades my aching back end.
Comparison of deaths-per-terrawatt-hour between power generation sources, for your viewing pleasure:
Energy Source——————-Death Rate (deaths per TWh)
Coal – world average———–161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China———————278
Coal – USA———————–15
Oil———————————36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas———————–4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass——————12
Peat——————————–12
Solar (rooftop)——————–0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind——————————-0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro——————————0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro – world including Banqiao)-1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear—————————-0.04 (5.9% of world energy)
(Annoying dashes added to preserve some semblance of original formatting. Comment preview shows this didn’t work that well but at least it remains readable. PS DrBuzzo: Do any sort of forum codes like bold or italicize work in the comments? I’d like to know before I fill a comment with broken codes that make me end up looking like a fool)
…
You know what? I said I just wanted to make a quick point or two and I just spent a half hour FURY TYPING. I’m done for now and let me put my final point on this:
What’s happening in Japan? Awful! I plan to go give money to the Red Cross or some such when I get my next paycheck.
What’s happening at Japans nuclear plants? Nothing I’m going to lose any sleep over.
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March 17th, 2011 at 6:56 am
Preview should give you a pretty idea of what works and what doesn’t.
<b>, <i>, <em> and <a> all work as far as I know.
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March 17th, 2011 at 11:30 am
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March 17th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Nick P. said:
Like many average people, using the mindset I am so belaboring as problematic, you fail to address possibilities that are harsh realities. Do I think that a 20′ wall of concrete would get burned through? No. Do I think that concrete fractures creating macroporosity and fissures? Yes. Obviously that would be the problem I am thinking about. You think concrete doesn’t crack? That my friend is what’s cute.
Thanks for the lesson in hydrology, though I find the 4 year degree I hold in said field to be much more informative. You may think you’ve touched upon some profound idea but I regret to inform you otherwise. Groundwater contamination was one of the major issues of the Yucca mountain storage facility. Initial DOE documents predicted water transfer from surface to zone of saturation to take 9000-80,000 years(!). Of course this would be lovely except for actual carbon isotope studies have shown it takes as little as 2 weeks (oops!)
Additionally, fractures and fissures in the aquifer itself (I suppose you don’t think those exist either?) will dramatically increase diffusion through the groundwater. And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen a ton of studies about Uranium, Cesium, etc. transport through groundwater. Hopefully, being heavy metals, they move slower than groundwater, but what if like MTBE they move faster?
Filter it out, eh? That’s funny if you think that-
a) it’s economically feasible to filter water on that scale
b) everyone with a well in the region will participate. With my experience in remediation I would flat out tell people they had PAH’s in their water and they would continue to pump. And that’s something you can actually smell and see! Something invisible? Forget it. People will pump it, spread it all over their land, and then you have radioactivity making its way everywhere.
Lastly, if you could please provide me with your source on deaths/ TWh? I’m extremely curious to understand how solar and wind could have higher ratios than nuclear. (The mining for metals maybe?)
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March 17th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Wind power has a higher death rate because it involves maintaining lots of moving thing on the top of large towers and people sometimes fall off or get cut by the blades. Not all that many people but wind power doesn’t produce much energy.
Roof top solar deaths would mostly be from falling off the roof when installing them, not many but solar doesn’t exactly generate much energy.
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