Comment: Nuke power is not green or clean, it is the cycle of death! The beginning of the nuke cycle is uranium mining which is full of CO2 and uses lots of oil! No to nuke, no to u mining and milling!
Posted: 04/09/2011 01:30:36 AM PDT
After the nuclear power disaster in Japan, I had a lot of questions about the safety of California's nuclear power plants, similarly located on fault lines.
I turned to Will Parrish, an investigative journalist for the Anderson Valley Advertiser, who is currently writing a book and conducting research on the U.S. nuclear industry. Because of the depth of the interview, I have broken it into two parts. Here are his answers to my questions:
Q: You hear all the time about how efficient nuclear power is; do you think nuclear power is green?
A: Not at all. For one thing, it takes a lot of fossil fuel-intensive energy to mine uranium, mill it and transport it. In fact, there is a uranium-enrichment plant in Ohio that requires two large hydroelectric power plants to operate, which shows just how energy intensive it is to get uranium into a form that can be used by nuclear power plants.
In fact, nuclear power is not even close to being carbon neutral. In a sense, it is dependent on fossil fuel forms of energy even to exist, because of the need for fossil fuels used in uranium mining and processing. In no sense is nuclear power a panacea for global warming.
Q: Isn't nuclear power expensive?
A: It is very expensive to operate a nuclear power plant safely. Because of the tremendous amount of capital expenditure it requires to build a nuclear power plant, nuclear power is actually the most costly form of electrical generation in common use. If you do a cost-benefit analysis and see how much energy you get per dollar of investment, nuclear power is by far the most expensive way to generate electricity. The real problem is that in order to turn a profit, nuclear plant mangers are almost invariably required to cut corners on safety.
Q: If it's so expensive to build and maintain, how do special interests make money from it?
A: They are getting huge subsidies from the government, without which nuclear power would not be profitable. For example, the Bechtel Corp. has constructed roughly half of the 435 nuclear power plants in the world -- and in almost every case Bechtel has gotten money from the government. So it's guaranteed profit for them.
Q: How much of an issue is the waste?
A: Nuclear power plants generate radioactive waste that in some cases remains toxic for 10,000s to 100,000s of years. It's extremely hubristic and arrogant to believe that somehow the societies of the future will be able to manage large quantities of plutonium, which has a half-life of 24,000 years, that are currently being stored throughout the world at nuclear power plants. In fact, the scientist who discovered plutonium, Glenn Seaborg, has called it the most toxic substance in the world. It is possible to develop a lethal form of cancer from ingesting just one tiny spec of plutonium. I've read various statistics, which I can't remember off the top of my head, but which say that a single pound of plutonium, if dispersed in just right way across planet, would kill all the human beings in the world. And yet, there are tons and tons of this stuff stored across world.
Q: What do we do with nuclear waste?
A: It is stored in large concrete casks, usually inside power plants or nearby. No one wants a huge nuclear waste dump located within their jurisdiction. One of the unfortunate byproducts of nuclear waste storage problem is that the most vulnerable populations are targeted to have waste storage located in their communities, because they lack the political voice to defend themselves.
Jennifer Parrish writes a regular column on environmental issues for the Sentinel. Contact her at gogreensentinel@yahoo.com
Read:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_17807751?source=most_emailed
