Nuclear Industry’s Latest LIES

Nuclear Industry’s Latest  LIES – theme for April 2013

Nuclear Lobby Lie:  Nuclear power plants have prevented 1.8 million air pollution deaths and a future build out could save 7 million deaths by 2050. (Mining.com 2 /4 /13)
This theory they get from comparing air pollution deaths from coal burning to those estimated from nuclear power plant air emissions, and their estimate of deaths from Chernobyl and Fukushima. Their estimate of Chernobyl and Fukushima caused deaths to 2050 total  4,900 .
FACT: for accidents at :

•  Chernobyl 2009 New York Academy of Sciences estimated 985,000 deaths (and rising)
• Fukushima Arnie Gunderen estimates 100,000 deaths by 2060 and beyond
• Mayak, Russia   a 1992 Institute of Biophysics at the former Soviet Health Ministry   found that 8,015 people had died within the preceding 32 years as a result of the accident, and rising death toll- (how many since 1992?)
• Three Mile Island – number of deaths never properly investigated, but  the number of cancers within 10 miles of TMI rose from 1731 to 2847 between 1975-79 and 1981-85. A 64% increase.

Now we haven’t even mentioned the deaths from other nuclear accidents  - Chalk River 1952 and ’57, Windscale 1957, Tsuruga 1981, and many lesser commercial and military nuclear accidents.  Nor did we count atomic bombs, bomb testing, and depleted uranium weapons, all of which projects require nuclear reactors from the start. Yet already, we have a death toll of 1093, 015  - long before 2050.
Nuclear Lobby Lie:  people are exposed to more radiation from bananas than from Fukushima.
FACT The potassium-40 n bananas is a particularly poor model isotope to use, because the potassium content of our bodies seems to be under balanced control.When you eat a banana, your body’s level of Potassium-40 doesn’t increase. You just get rid of some excess Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero.
Nuclear lobby lie:  we get a higher exposure from background radiation (when we fly, for example) and or x-rays then we get from nuclear accidents.
FACT:   there was exactly zero background radioactive cesium or iodine before above-ground nuclear testing and nuclear accidents started.

 Cesium-133 is the only naturally occurring isotope and is non-radioactive; all other isotopes, including cesium-137, are produced by human activity.  The only naturally occurring isotope of iodine is non radioactive iodine-127.  Most derived radioactivity on Earth is man-made: an unwanted long-lived byproduct of early nuclear tests and nuclear fission accidents.
The concept of “background radiation” is largely a misnomer. Most of the radiation we encounter today – especially the most dangerous types – did not even exist in nature before we started tinkering with nuclear weapons and reactors.
Nuclear Lobby Lie;  nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, solves global warming.
FACT : nuclear power emits  CO2 emissions in construction, mining, and manufacturing operations. Every aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle—mining, milling, shipping, processing, power generation, waste disposal and storage—releases greenhouse gases,
Assume a 2% growth in primary energy demand per year over the next 35 years, and that demand will double to some 24,000 Mtoe.  Even if nuclear power were emission free, to achieve this means  means building 11,000 reactors, on average, about one a day.
Furthermore, as climate change causes sea level rise. and extreme weather events – nuclear reactors are especially vulnerable. Droughts and water scarcity, rising water temperatures also will severely affect nuclear reactors.

http://nuclear-news.net/2013/04/23/emergency-declared-at-u-s-nuclear-plant-after-lightning-strike-venting-of-unit-1-primary-containment-normal-radiation-levels-reported/