jonw@azure.UUCP (Jonathan White) (04/11/84)
Both Sam Hall and Martin Taylor have disputed my claim that nuclear power is more polluting than coal. Here is my source for that bit of information: "A recent study by Robert O. Pohl, professor of physics at Cornell University, evaluated possible health effects from thorium 230, the isotope in the tailings piles [of uranium mills] which will decay to radium, radon, and other radioactive products. The decay product radon is a gaseous substance which can escape the piles and disperse throughout the world. The thorium in the tailings piles has a radioactive half-life of 80,000 years, which means that although nuclear plants will produce power for only about 40 years, the effects of the mill tailings will remain for thousands of future generations. Pohl's conclusion: the health effects of mill tailings alone from a nuclear power plant are greater than all the effects--including those from air pollution and occupational accidents--associated with the operation of an equivalent coal-fired plant. (The Menace of Atomic Energy, p. 86)" In case anyone is interested in checking out the source of the above information, I will reproduce the footnote: Robert O. Pohl, "Nuclear Energy: Health Effects of Thorium 230" (Physics Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., July 1975), pp. 2-4. Martin Taylor made vague reference to an AAAS symposium "about 3 or 4 years ago" that produced some pro-nuclear information. Is that to say that the AAAS has formally endorsed the findings you cited, or merely that papers presented by industry or government scientists contained those findings? I'm a bit skeptical of the methodology used in some of these studies. For example, the first draft of the Reactor Safety Study, released by the Atomic Energy Commission (Aug. 1974), used "reliability estimating" techniques developed by the aerospace industry to determine the likelihood of an accident. The main problem with this was that the aerospace industry had already abandoned those techniques as a means of providing exact reliability estimates. (As many as 35% of the failures in the Apollo program had not been identified as "credible" before they happened.) And when I read stuff like this, I really get skeptical: As for the worst conceivable accident (the one-in-a-billion chance), the worst that could happen to a nuclear plant is to be blown up by an H-bomb. This would make an area about the size of France uninhabitable for quite a few years. With coal, the worst possible accident is that the entire planet becomes uninhabitable because of the greenhouse effect, that could (the one-in-a-billion chance) turn Earth into another Venus. First of all, I don't think it is reasonable to assign statistics like "one-in- a-billion" to the possibility of a reactor being hit by an H-bomb and then go on to talk about the damage resulting from only one explosion. If there's going to be one H-bomb explosion (from a non-terrorist source), there will soon be many more. Besides, the chance of a catastrophic accident due to core meltdown is much greater than a reactor (U.S., anyway) being bombed. Keep in mind that the 1975 accident at Brown's Ferry, which shut down the world's two largest reactors for over a year and almost resulted in a core meltdown, was caused by a worker with a four inch candle. If a well-meaning worker with a candle could cause this much damage, what do you think a determined terrorist could do? Second of all, you are comparing a one-shot accident to the world-wide long-term use of coal, which provides four and one half times as much electricity as nuclear does in the U.S. You are also not allowing for advances in conservation, alternative energy, and cleaner ways of using coal. The bottom line is this: if nuclear power is as safe as government and the nuclear industry would have us believe, why then does industry continue to insist on the limited liability provided for in the Price-Anderson Act? No other industry has (or needs) this type of taxpayer-provided insurance. Why should we pay good tax money so that we can be subjected to a dangerous and unnecessary technology that couldn't last even one day in the free market? There is plenty more to say and I don't have the time to say it. I suggest all interested parties read "The Menace of Atomic Energy" by Ralph Nader and John Abbotts, published by W.W. Norton and Co. Jon White [decvax|ucbvax]!tektronix!tekmdp!azure!jonw
abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles) (04/26/84)
x The original article by Jon White quotes a physicist at Cornell who claims that the tailings from uranium processing pose a health problem. But the tailings are nothing but the original ore which has not been chemically or nuclearly altered. Thus, any health effects from that ore would be no different from the ore lying in the ground with the exception of dredging it up, grinding it into pieces and re-burying it. I don't feel that that is obviously dangerous. Merely quoting someone who thinks it is dangerous doesn't convince me that it is dangerous, either. I suspect that Jon White himself doesn't understand the physics of nuclear power, or any physics at all. That's perhaps why he offers quotes of others which don't make too much sense.