Hi John,
Sorry, don't agree with your suggestion that nuclear energy
is somehow less polluting than fossil fuel sources. The exact opposite is
true. As James Bellini said (in his excellent book "High Tech Holocaust",
published '86) the nuclear process creates an open-ended problem that has no
parallel in the history of technology. A single 1,000 megawatt nuclear
plant, typical of most in the US, will within a single year generate the
following:
179,000 tonnes of uranium ore as tailings at the mine
242 tonnes of refinery waste
29 tonnes of high-level waste in the form of spent fuel rods.
One tonne of mixed isotopes, producing one-fifth of a tonne of plutonium
waste.
ALL OF THIS IS RADIOACTIVE. Some of it for a matter of days, some for years,
some for millenia. There are three phases of production of nuclear energy
i.e. fissioning, activation and ionisation. The fissioning process alone
creates more than 300 different radioactive chemicals some of which remain
unstable for hundreds of thousands of years. One, Iodine 129, has a half
life of 17 million years. Much of this is contained in the spent fuel rods.
The activation process on the other hand contaminates the surrounding areas
of the plant - air, water, pipes and even the structure of the building
itself, which has a safe operating span of around 25 years. After that the
installation becomes unstable and must be dismantled. All of this, ore
tailings, refinery waste, fuel rods and eventually the plant itself must be
disposed of. CURRENTLY THERE IS NO SAFE MEANS OF DISPOSAL.
So we mothball the plants and store the waste in nuclear depositories around
the US (about 20 of them so far). The mine tailings are left to erode to air
and waterways, the rest of the residue is encased in concrete, steel or
glass and dumped in the sea, left down old mine shafts or stored in
purpose-built shelters. No container yet designed is fool-proof. All show
signs of deterioration. What will they be like in ten years, fifty years, a
century? Don't ask, we know the answer and it isn't reassuring.
The cost alone is horrendous. Assuming only a nominal dollar a day for each
site, the cost for a century or so will bankrupt our offspring, let alone
the idea of guarding some facility for the 17 million years it takes for the
Iodine isotope to decay.
Multiply all that by 95, the number of nuclear plants in the US. Add in
another three hundred or so worldwide and you can see we have an ongoing and
steadily accreting annual problem that makes fossil fuels seems almost
benign.
Enjoy your day,
Bob.
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Woolsey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2004 9:41 AM
Subject: Re: [biofuel] New to the group
> Think about it. Electric cars have the same problem as hydrogen cars.
There is no free supply of electricity. The only way to produce relatively
polution free vehicles would be to have all electrical power produced by
nuclear energy. Right now any increase in electrical energy consumption is
generally produced by coal. Net CO2 output from coal after inefficiency of
batteries and the like are taken into account is far higher than gas
vehicles.
>
> As my air modeling friend told me. Electric vehicles are just a moving the
smoke plume issue.
>
> - bfn - JAW
>
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