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- Thread starter CDL.TO
- Start date
urbandreamer
recession proof
Keep up the work Greenpeace! My Hamilton investment never looked safer.
Brian69
Not the Messiah
Irresponsible shock tactics by Greenpeace, though I'm not surprised. There's a huge difference between a CANDU reactor and that poorly constructed and maintained mess that was the Chernobyl station. It makes about as much sense as comparing the Red Wings organization and player quality to the Leafs organization and player quality. (and I'm a lifelong Leaf fan)
H
Hydrogen
Guest
Interesting. How many kilometres away does one have to be for safety once the Leafs organization finally implodes?
EnviroTO
Senior Member
By no means? How many people have died at Pickering, Darlington, and Bruce so far? It produces more than 50% of our current output and electricity still seems affordable.
The radioactive materials already existed naturally. They mined them, purified them, and used them. There is really no reason that the materials couldn't be un-purified and put back in the earth in a state less radioactive than they were originally. As nuclear power REMOVES some of the energy from radioactive materials there is no reason that radioactive waste can't be made less dangerous than what existed in nature originally.
The health implications of allowing people to come and go from Toronto as they please to places all over the world and possibly bringing back the next big virus or superbug is significant as well. SARS already hit us once... have we not learned our lesson. For safety we should prevent all travel and sell it by playing Hollywood thrillers about disease epidemics and people in bio-hazard suits handing out flyers.
Mongo
Senior Member
Coal Ash is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste: Scientific American
Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash—a by-product from burning coal for power—contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste.
At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels. [note added -- since a coal-fired plant produces far more fly ash by weight than a nuclear plant produces nuclear waste, the total amount of radiation in the fly ash is much greater, despite its lower concentration]
Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas.
In a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his colleagues looked at the uranium and thorium content of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. To answer the question of just how harmful leaching could be, the scientists estimated radiation exposure around the coal plants and compared it with exposure levels around boiling-water reactor and pressurized-water nuclear power plants.
The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the coal plants.
[end quote]
Greenpeace wants all nuclear plants shut down. But what are the alternatives? Wind, biomass and geothermal? Only a tiny fraction of what would be needed -- not to mention more expensive (and intermittent in the case of wind power). Hydroelectric? Insufficient to cover the loss, distance from consumers means expensive transmission lines, reservoirs create large quatities of greenhouse gasses (from rotting vegetation), temporary fix since reservoirs silt up. Coal? Releases more radiation than nuclear, strip-mining very environmentally destructive, big health issues for miners.
Most likely, Greenpeace wants us all to accept much lower living standards due to much lower electricity production. Some of this can be made up by increased efficiency but not all (industrial processes such as steel- or aluminium-making need LOTS of electricity, and are already close to maximum efficiency).
Bottom line (in my opinion): Nuclear is actually the best source of electricity, all factors considered, of those currently feasible, and Greenpeace's campaign of stirring up fear is wrong-headed and probably mendacious.
Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash—a by-product from burning coal for power—contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste.
At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels. [note added -- since a coal-fired plant produces far more fly ash by weight than a nuclear plant produces nuclear waste, the total amount of radiation in the fly ash is much greater, despite its lower concentration]
Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas.
In a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his colleagues looked at the uranium and thorium content of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. To answer the question of just how harmful leaching could be, the scientists estimated radiation exposure around the coal plants and compared it with exposure levels around boiling-water reactor and pressurized-water nuclear power plants.
The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the coal plants.
[end quote]
Greenpeace wants all nuclear plants shut down. But what are the alternatives? Wind, biomass and geothermal? Only a tiny fraction of what would be needed -- not to mention more expensive (and intermittent in the case of wind power). Hydroelectric? Insufficient to cover the loss, distance from consumers means expensive transmission lines, reservoirs create large quatities of greenhouse gasses (from rotting vegetation), temporary fix since reservoirs silt up. Coal? Releases more radiation than nuclear, strip-mining very environmentally destructive, big health issues for miners.
Most likely, Greenpeace wants us all to accept much lower living standards due to much lower electricity production. Some of this can be made up by increased efficiency but not all (industrial processes such as steel- or aluminium-making need LOTS of electricity, and are already close to maximum efficiency).
Bottom line (in my opinion): Nuclear is actually the best source of electricity, all factors considered, of those currently feasible, and Greenpeace's campaign of stirring up fear is wrong-headed and probably mendacious.