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Mar 09 2008
Tomorrow may be too late! | Print |  E-mail
Society + Culture
By Ace Hoffman   

Translation

It is Now Time to Close All the Nuclear Power Plants

Ben Heine/ MWC NEWS
Ben Heine/ MWC NEWS

Yes, that includes yours. Your local nuclear power plant is on the verge of destruction. Find a local activist and ask them about it. They'll tell you.

Yes, radiation kills babies. Find a balanced, properly-funded study and you'll see.   Radiation produces direct damage to the DNA, and it produces "free radicals" which are poisonous and may cause more harm than the direct DNA damage.  Radiation causes damage deep within your cell structure (the worst place) and does so unannounced.  Radiation is odorless, colorless, tasteless, even on a microscopic, or an atomic, level.  To your body, a radioactive atom looks just the same as a nonradioactive "isotope" of that same element -- iron, calcium, potassium, whatever.  Nuclear operations produce them all (they are called "fission products").

Yes, releasing radiation into the environment is murder.

Radiation kills and nuclear power plants all leak all the time, but that doesn't seem to be enough to convince "the people in charge" (whoever they are!) that nuclear power is not an option.

Is it because they deny that radiation kills?  Yes, many "pro-nukers" (as they are called by themselves and others, but "cold-blooded murderers" is a perfectly acceptable alternative description) believe that radiation "in small doses" (an amount they define as basically any quantity below that which can easily be studied) is good for you!  They actually think radiation is like a vitamin because it "stimulates" the immune system, and if we all absorb a little plutonium, it will help us stay healthy!

In addition to being radioactive, plutonium, uranium, thorium, etc. are all extremely reactive heavy metals.  These atoms have a lot of electrons loosely held in their outer shells, so when they get inside your body, they catalyze pieces of all sorts of complex molecules you've created, which destroys them and can even make them poisonous -- and that's just the heavy metal damage, which happens constantly!

At some point in time, every radioactive atom decays into something else -- which is usually also radioactive (most "decay chains" are dozens of steps long, before a non-radioactive atom is reached).  When an atom decays, a particle or ray (or both) is usually ejected from the nucleus of the atom.  The decay particle or ray can destroy thousands of chemical bonds, thereby destroying useful molecules, including your precious, numerous, and enormous (billions-of-atoms-long) DNA molecules and other cell structures.  Also, "free radicals" are created when the decay particle or ray knocks electrons off other atoms.

Given that radiation is so dangerous, why do we still have nuclear power?

First of all, because, in denying that radiation in so-called "low levels" is dangerous at all, the pro-nukers (aka "cold-blooded murderers") also deny that radiation damage (and, for that matter, heavy metal damage) is particularly bad for fetuses, infants, children, and young adults.

Not only is it worse for them, but it's hundreds of times worse for children and infants and Thousands of times worse for fetuses.

But all this is denied by the pro-nukers (aka "cold-blooded murderers").

WHY?  Because they like to talk.  It's called "weaseling out of a situation."  If, by denying the obvious, they keep you talking about it, you won't stop them.

They'll start by telling you that everything is dangerous, everything is bad for you, everything has risk, nothing is safe, nothing is perfect, we have to make choices, we need energy.  All of which is true.  But it's a smoke-screen to hide the big picture, which is that little devil which hides in the details: RADIATION KILLS.  It destroys atoms and molecules.  It kills cells and multi-celled creatures.

Keep telling your pro-nuke friends that.  Keep telling them radiation kills babies.  There's no need to pretend it doesn't.  There's no need to pretend there is some sort of fair balance for nuclear power plants wherein the human babies they kill are balanced against the deaths of raptors killed by wind turbine blades which are difficult for the birds to discern in flight, because the blades are not swept-back, nor painted brightly so they are easier to see.

There's no need to pretend that nuclear power keeps your lights on, and otherwise, babies will die when the power goes out.  It's just not true. Nuclear power's contribution to our energy needs in the United States is only about 7%; its electricity share is under 20%; and more than a dozen states get along fine getting zero percent of their energy from nuclear power.  America has not applied even one percent  of the conservation and renewable energy solutions available as alternatives to nuclear power.

So we can do this.  We can shut them all.

Ben Heine/ MWC NEWS
Ben Heine/ MWC NEWS

We are a country of lazy ne'er-do-wells.  We let the rich get richer off our children's future -- off our babies' lives.  Off our own cancers.  They get rich.  We get cancer.

Nuclear power is not a solution to global warming, climate change, foreign oil imports, or the deaths of raptors.  It takes far more than it gives.

Stop nuclear power.   Stop the revival.  Tell your friends it's over.  The world knows better.  Nuclear power kills babies even when it's working right, and it's the most vulnerable industry on the planet to terrorism, human error, acts of God or Nature, and every other possible catastrophic event there is.

More than a quarter century ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had Sandia National Labs prepare what became known as the CRAC-2 report (Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences).  When brought up to date for inflation and population increases, the report shows that each plant can, on any given day, cause trillions of dollars in damage and millions of deaths.   Even those numbers don't account for all of the real damage that radiation can cause.  No amount of radiation is healthy, and every accident poisons the whole planet.

But America ignored its own report!  Nowadays, a report like CRAC-2 would never see the light of day.  That's why it hasn't been updated.

Murder is murder is murder .  Murderers will lie to their grave to get away with their crime. Radiation kills and nuclear power plants leak it, and then lie about it. all the time.
Tell thm it's over.  Tell your local nuclear power plant to shut down permanently.  If it's shut down right now for refueling (about 10% of them ARE shut down at any one time, either for refueling or for unplanned repairs (all of the "planned" repairs are done during the refueling outages, of course)) tell them never to re-open.  This can be done and it should be done and it must be done or you -- millions of you, and maybe me, too -- will be the loser.  You don't want to be the next loser in this big gamble, do you?

Your local nuclear power plant is betting you don't care enough to investigate them.  They are betting they can legally hide their crimes.  Nuclear power plants can release radiation every day and if it's below the legal limit (set decades ago in a pro-nuclear environment which denied the dangers from radiation even more than today) they can say it's "zero emissions" which just isn't true.

You can't complain when your local nuclear power plant's spokesperson lies to you, to the media, or to anyone else.  If you do, the NRC will tell you, as they told me (I have this in writing): "Statements made by the public affairs officer of a NRC licensee are not regulated activities.  Therefore, the veracity of such statements will not be investigated by the NRC."

You can't complain when the federal regulators refuse to answer your questions.  If you manage somehow to get an elected official to listen to your complaint, they'll tell you that you need to talk to the NRC.  They might even help arrange that.  and you're back to square zero.

My elected official -- the one I got closest to actually talking to about nuclear power, since I almost got a meeting with him one day, a couple of years ago, which was then suddenly cancelled -- is now in jail on fraud charges and should be in jail for much worse -- attempted murder.

Nothing is more important than realizing, collectively, that nuclear power has seen its day -- a day it never deserved in the first place.  Nuclear power is not the solution to war, to famine, to the need for electricity, or to anything.  There are NO new nuclear power plants being designed in some office somewhere, which will solve ALL the problems of the previous generations of nukes.

They will all still leak, they will all still make waste, and they will all still be terrorists' and nature's targets.  You can't get around those facts, and you can't get around the basic fact that radiation kills babies in far greater numbers than any pro-nuker will ever admit.  That's why we have no choice but to call them what they are:  Cold-blooded baby killers.

Ace, an award-winning educational software developer, has studied nuclear power for more than 35 years.  His conclusions are based on thousands of interviews with nuclear physicists on both sides of the debate, as well as with thousands of other engineers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, etc..  He survived bladder cancer in 2007.

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Comments (4)
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1. 09-03-2008 17:25
Amen, Ace!
Thanks, Ace, for your continued efforts to bring sanity to this debate... The usual cast of characters is already lining up to exploit the energy problems by promoting expansion of these deadly installations... Keep up the fight!
Guest
rdotson@tds.netNOSPAM! ">Robert
2. 09-03-2008 18:37
Let the baby play with matches in the fu
I have found nuclear people somewhat unforthcoming about how much radioactivity fission creates. But it has been known since the beginning of the nuclear age how much of it accumulates when a collection of power stations operates for many individual power station lifetimes, namely, the Untermeyer and Weills rule: 
 
Delayed power/in-service power =0.1*{(t+10)^(-0.2) -0.87*(t + 20000000)^(-0.2)}  
 
What good is that? Well, we can interpret the time in seconds \\\'t\\\' as the time a man-made radioactive nucleus takes to escape. Suppose it takes ten years, i.e. 316 million seconds. 
 
It works out that the ten-years-delayed power in the escaped, diluted man-made radioactive material is 0.0002806 of the long-term average power of the reactor fleet. 
 
Since the continents\\\' upper surfaces contain ten million tonnes of uranium per centimetre of depth, and this much uranium naturally does about a million watts worth of radiating, the artificial radioactivity that our present-day trillion watts -- thermal -- of nuclear power will eventually build up isn\\\'t out of line; it\\\'s 280 thermal megawatts, as much as the top 2.8 metres of the Earth nearest our feet. 
 
That is why no-one believes nuclear waste buried much deeper than 2.8 metres can ever do any harm, no matter what happens. It would be a little like fearing that the saltshakers on the Titanic will someday make the oceans undrinkable.
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gcowan@eagle.caNOSPAM! ">G.R.L. Cowan
3. 09-03-2008 18:38
Let the baby play with matches in the fu
Chernobyl was the worst disaster at a nuclear power plant in history. It was a 1960\\\'s SOVIET designed reactor that failed to meet any reasonable safety standard that your local nuclear power plant is required to. The highest estimates given by credible anti-nuclear groups for death is 4000, higher than that given by regulatory authorities by a factor of 10. If it were two log units higher, for argument sake, then it still doesn\\\'t come close to the threat that Ace claims here for your local nuclear power plant\\\'s risk. The Chernobyl design required constant babysitting to keep it from going critical, the designs for its contemporary western counterparts required engineers to make sure that the safety systems didn\\\'t shut the reactors down due to irregularities. They also have containment vessels etc. Read the Wikipedia entry on the Chernobyl disaster. 
 
The author cherry picks and miss represents data and over represents the danger of radionclides and the impact on health caused by nuclear power plants. There have been studies that show an increase in cancer near Sellafield that people of his ilk constantly trot out as proof. The problem is that similar clusters exist at distant sites within the same region of Great Britain and have been traced to industrial practices during the world wars in munitions manufacturing. Similar studies in France have shown a statistical DECREASE in childhood cancers associated with proximity to nuclear power plants. I believe (I do not know this as a fact, which are hard to establish for anything actually having to do with reality, Ace) that this may be due to the paucity of coal fired plants in France, which, it may come as a surprise to you, emit two log units more radiation into the environment than nuclear plants. Even there, it is not deemed to be significant. It is mainly in the form of Uranium and Thorium. As an aside, during the 1950s and 1960s, uranium was mined in the Dakotas as coal, which was burned so that the ash could be processed for its uranium. If you are really worried about heavy metals, the lakes and streams of Maine exceed the EPA standards of Mercury due to effluent from coal fired plants. The total impact of nuclear mining and energy production gets completely lost if mixed in with the statistics from coal mining and energy production, even if a few plants blew up, which they won\\\'t. Mercury and other heavy metals, acid rain, carbon dioxide, uranium and thorium, all emitted with scant regulation, and the nuclear lobby is full of murderers? I believe that it is possible that Ace is under the employment of the coal industry. I do not say that this is a fact, but I honestly believe that this is possible. I will believe that he is not if he says that he isn\\\'t and take him at his word. If you honestly compare the worst case scenarios for nuclear power with the every day damage of coal, this article is both shrill and silly.  
 
\\\"He survived bladder cancer in 2007\\\" Good for you, except that there is no way to tell how you contracted this. How prevalent is bladder cancer? 
 
\\\"More than 47,000 men and 16,000 women are diagnosed with bladder cancer each year.\\\" 
 
and  
 
50% of bladder cancer patients are smokers. Many of the others have genetic risk factors. Cancer is not simple. Most of us would get it if we lived in little clean rooms and only ate the purest of everything. Just to say smoking causes cancer was able to be questioned for decades by big tobacco, and there isn\\\'t a stronger link than that. If there is a risk in the environment and someone with a shaky grasp on reality and an emotionally charged reason for believing that it\\\'s trees that cause the cancer, then pulling up all the trees won\\\'t stop the dioxin in the back yards of all the kid\\\'s houses built on the industrial land fill next to the woods from working its deadly deed.  
 
\\\"has studied nuclear power for more than 35 years. His conclusions are based on thousands of interviews with nuclear physicists on both sides of the debate, as well as with thousands of other engineers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, etc.\\\" 
 
So? Based on style and content I can\\\'t see how this helps the arguments presented, but it hurts it in my eye. It also does not stand in for support for statements provided. This is really a matter of science, not religion, so one can\\\'t claim to be a prophet and that\\\'s that. This reminds me of an advocate for \\\"intelligent design.\\\" 
 
Radiation is dangerous, thats why you should throw away your smoke detectors, they have atoms that were created by bombarding plutonium with neutrons! (I\\\'m glad they never end up in landfills) you should not travel on Jets, you get a large fraction of a chest X-ray every time you do, so if you are pregnant and you visit Grandma in Florida by plane, I guess you are a murderer. You should avoid granite and water that was flowed over it, both contain Uranium and Thorium (based on prevalence in the crust we all consumed 3 mg of radioactive Thorium today) and create radon gas, possibly in your kitchen. Don\\\'t eat sea salt, it also contains uranium and radioactive potassium (I\\\'ve detected the radiation myself, rather than just talking to this that or the other unnamed authority and then appealing to that authority to support my own authority, which would be pathetic). Especially, don\\\'t live near a coal fired plant you will be breathing in Uranium if you do. The average coal fired plant burns more than the mass of the Titanic in coal (40,000 to 80,000) a day. That\\\'s a lot of waste, any one here worried, or are we worried about spent fuel rods decaying towards harmless in sealed cask. I guess I\\\'m worried about both, truth be known, but I am hundreds of times more worried about coal. If you advocate against Nuclear than you are advocating for Coal, not wind, not solar, not tide etc. I guess if you are advocating for coal then you are an actual murderer, and not just a theoretical one. That\\\'s probably going a bit too far and seems a bit childish.  
 
I would encourage the readers here to look into generation III+ reactor designs, paying attention to increases in increases in efficiency and the dramatic decrease in waste production compared to the first three generations of reactors. This trend will continue with Generation IV reactors, and since they are being designed to address concerns of safety and waste stream they should be even better than the current plants currently being built. There are also better technologies at the point of commercialization, the best example is the fuel designs by Thorium Power Ltd, which yields a dramatic further decrease in dangerous waste produced by reactors and in the process destroys plutonium. I do not say that radioactive waste isn\\\'t a problem, but compare this with, for example, smoking or waitressing in a smoke filled bar, its fly crap.  
 
Finally I would direct the reader to look up the word Luddite.
Guest
4. 10-03-2008 02:26
This article is founded on scare tatics
It is interesting that, while at the end of the article, it is claimed that the author has interviewed thousands of physicists. Yet throughout the whole article, the only scientific tidbit is the one about how radiation does damage to the cells, which is nothing new and doesn\'t by itself says anything about exactly how much influence the radiation will have on humans or other animals. 
Instead the article focus on scare tactics (radiation kills babies!)and the \"righteous us versus the evil them\" (they lie and they are murderers!) mentality. 
While I personally do not support building more nuclear power plants, this article is one that attempt to stir up people\'s emotions rather than using logic and facts to form convincing arguments.
Guest

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