Nuclear Recycling Fails the Test

[Pharm Girl]

The key to recycling is being able to reuse materials while reducing pollution, saving money and making the earth a safer place.
On all accounts, nuclear recycling fails the test.

Over the past few years, attention to the recycling of nuclear power spent fuel has grown. Fears of global warming due to fossil fuel burning have given nuclear energy a boost; over the next 15 years dozens of new power reactors are planned world-wide. To promote nuclear energy, the Bush administration is seeking to establish international spent nuclear fuel recycling centers that are supposed to reduce wastes, recycle uranium, and convert nuclear explosive materials, such as plutonium to less troublesome elements in advanced power reactors.

Advocates, such the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, argue that used fuel at U.S. power plants contain enough energy “to power every U.S. household for 12 years.” Heritage points out that nuclear recycling “can be affordable and is technologically feasible.
The French are proving that on a daily basis. The question is: Why can't oui?”

The key to recycling is being able to reuse materials while reducing pollution, saving money and making the earth a safer place.

Nuclear Recycling and the Environment

In order to recycle uranium and plutonium in power plants, spent fuel has to be treated to chemically separate these elements from other highly radioactive byproducts. As it chops and dissolves used fuel rods, a reprocessing plant releases about 15 thousand times more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear power reactors and generates several dangerous waste streams.

If placed in a crowded area, a few grams of waste would deliver lethal radiation doses in a matter of seconds. They also pose enduring threats to the human environment for tens of thousands of years.

[Captain Cannabis]

how does it compare to coal burning powerplants

[Pharm Girl]

In Europe reprocessing has created higher risks and has spread radioactive wastes across international borders. Radiation doses to people living near the Sellefield reprocessing facility in England were found to be 10 times higher than for the general population.

Denmark, Norway, and Ireland have sought to close the French and English plants because of their radiological impacts. Discharges of Iodine 129, for example, a very long-lived carcinogen, have contaminated the shores of Denmark and Norway at levels 1000 times higher than nuclear weapons fallout.

Health studies indicate that significant excess childhood cancers have occurred near French and English reprocessing plants Experts have not ruled out radiation as a possible cause, despite intense pressure from the nuclear industry to do so.

Nuclear recycling in the U.S. has created in one of the largest environmental legacies in the world. Between the 1940’s and the late 1980’s, the Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessors reprocessed tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel in order to reuse uranium and make plutonium for nuclear weapons.

By the end the Cold War about 100 million gallons of high-level radioactive wastes were left in aging tanks that are larger than most state capitol domes. More than a third of some 200 tanks have leaked and threaten water supplies such as the Columbia River. The nation’s experience with this mess should serve as a cautionary warning.

According to DOE, treatment and disposal will cost more than $100 billion; and after 26 years of trying, the Energy Department has processed less than one percent of the radioactivity in these wastes for disposal. By comparison, the amount of wastes from spent power reactor fuel recycling in the U.S. would dwarf that of the nuclear weapons program – generating about 25 times more radioactivity.

[Slipknight]

I guess anything nuclear is only good for death and destruction huh?

[Captain Cannabis]

pretty impressive fear mongering nonetheless

[The Rev]

They should recycle spent fuel rods like they recycle spent farm animals: grind them up and feed them to farm animals.



The Rev

[Pharm Girl]

Originally Posted by Captain Cannabis

how does it compare to coal burning powerplants

Impact of Coal vs. Uranium Power Plants

Currently our country, and especially California, is confronting a serious energy crisis. Newspaper headlines warn of blackouts and tremendous rate increases. The cost of all we buy will increase in an effort to cover the added expenses. They only way to control this shortage of fuel are to produce more, conserve and control the amount of energy we use or a combination of conserving and increasing production.

In the United States two major sources of energy are coal and nuclear power. There are coal power plants and nuclear power plants. Both of them were built for the same purpose, to supply energy to the world.

Some would say that coal is better, more efficient and safer than nuclear power. But then again, many people believe that nuclear power is the power of the future and what we are going to be relying on.

What is coal??

Coal is a natural resource of Earth. “Coal is a combustible, sedimentary, organic rock (composed primarily of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen) formed from vegetation.” “Large coal deposits only started to be formed after the evolution of land plants in the Devonian period, some four hundred million years ago.” (The Origin) Vegetation was consolidated between other rock strata forming coal seams. Then the vegetation was “altered by the combined effects of microbial action, pressure and heat over a considerable time period.”

Today the supply of coal has decreased significantly and it is acknowledged that there is not enough coal to last forever if the current consumption rate continues. Each year the world uses coal with little consideration of how much if left and how much longer it will last. Consumption rates of global hard coal throughout the world were 2,721 megatons (mt.) in 1979, 3,579 mt. in 1989, and 3,465 mt. in 1999.

What is Uranium??

It is believed that when the earth was forming and was only particles of dust floating in space coming together, nearby stars exploded and let off uranium. The earth’s gravity pulled in the uranium and it was mixed together with the dirt and other particles. That is how we have uranium today.

How is coal converted??

Turning coal into power is not as complicated as the conversion of uranium. The first step is to break the coal into many small pieces. “Pulverized coal is blown into the furnace where it burns while airborne”. Next, water is heated to boiling temperature while under extreme pressure. “Water flows through tubes that run through the furnace.” Finally, the steam from the pressurized water is forced out through big turbines. “This pressurized steam blasts through a turbine, which turns a generator to produce electricity”

How lethal is Uranium??

While the amount of uranium needed to produce electricity is much less than the amount of coal needed to produce an equivalent amount of electricity, there is concern about the safety of the environment whenever radioactive material is used. “Just 1/70th of a teaspoon of nuclear waste can contaminate a 25-acre lake to a point where fish are unsafe to eat.”

Thousands of tons of spent fuel from commercial reactors is stored in racks submerged in cooling ponds or “swimming pools” at each reactor site.

Finding safe sites to store radioactive waste is a problem. Nobody wants a disposal site in their backyard. In addition to nuclear power plant waste, the world is dealing with radioactive military waste.

There are 70 million gallons of highly radioactive military waste that is stored temporarily in Washington State, South Carolina, and Idaho.

If a nuclear power plant exploded or had a meltdown, the results would not be a worldwide disaster. The effects of a meltdown would be “land contamination out to two hundred miles”, “latent cancer deaths up to one thousand miles from the reactor” and “restrictions on milk and cattle consumption out to one thousand miles”.

[. at the end]

And what energy should we focus on today? Fission or Fussion? H2O? Please provide a better alternative. While, enviromental protection and conservation is very important, we cannot halt the world to do it.

[Pharm Girl]

Originally Posted by . at the end

And what energy should we focus on today? Fission or Fussion? H2O? Please provide a better alternative. While, enviromental protection and conservation is very important, we cannot halt the world to do it.

Indeed, we can't halt the world BUT the world can halt us!

[. at the end]

Well, then come up with a solution? Alternative energy sources is avaliable, but it isn't as ready or as developed enough to meet current energy demand. While I agree with you on this issue, I also like to caution against a rushed-change. We little hu-mans, has always prevailed, and it would be better for us to invest in alternative energy and research before we rush head first into shit we don't know.

Its kind of like taking drugs, know what you are switching to before you switch.. or eg. with opiates it may leave you in a lot of withdrawal.

[Flamingnun]

Originally Posted by Pharm Girl

and convert nuclear explosive materials, such as plutonium to less troublesome elements in advanced power reactors.

How do you convert an element?

[verklingen]

alchemy. what are you, daft?

[JcP]

Originally Posted by Flamingnun

How do you convert an element?

changing it to a different isotope.

[Flamingnun]

touche

[Center]

Who cares. We NEED energy. Nuclear Power ftw. Realism > Idealism.

[JcP]

unless we are investing in truly clean and renewable energy (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc), we're going to fuck this all up regardless.

nuclear power is fine for a stopgap, but it is NOT the solution.