morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) (09/16/85)
BEGIN tirade {
In article <5960@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>At risk of opening an inappropriate debate,
... and if it is like similar debates in the past it will
be rife with such gems of intellectual honesty as:
>I feel compelled to point out that even commercial nuclear power plants
>are the safest way of generating large amounts of power yet devised.
And the Blue Jays are the best team in baseball (really, they are!).
It never ceases to amaze me how certain groups manage to reconcile
the view that, for example, acid rain deserves more study because
it "really isn't well enough understood," yet dismiss out of
hand concerns of environmentalists over the effects of
continuing low-level exposure to radioctive material in the
air we breath or the foods we eat.
>All power-generation methods kill, by industrial accidents if
>nothing else, and the deaths/gigawatt-hour value
>is consistently lower for nuclear plants than for anything else.
Right. And more people have died in Edward Kennedy's car than
have ever died as a result of nuclear power.
What exactly is this wonderful bit of bafflegab supposed to
mean? Is "deaths/gigawatt-hour" during construction,
operation, ...?
We have difficulty enough in even making the connection between
such environmental debacles as the Love Canal and the health
problems observed in local populations. Nuclear power plants
*can* be expected to leak. We *do not*, at present, have feasible
means for long term storage of waste. To spout platitudes about
the safety of nuclear power versus other methods of generation
in the name of scientific objectivity is intellectual sleaze
in the extreme.
} END tiradeclewis@mnetor.UUCP (09/17/85)
In article <4@ubc-cs.UUCP> morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) writes: >BEGIN tirade { > >In article <5960@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: > >> >>At risk of opening an inappropriate debate, > > ... and if it is like similar debates in the past it will > be rife with such gems of intellectual honesty as: > >>I feel compelled to point out that even commercial nuclear power plants >>are the safest way of generating large amounts of power yet devised. > > It never ceases to amaze me how certain groups manage to reconcile > the view that, for example, acid rain deserves more study because > it "really isn't well enough understood," yet dismiss out of > hand concerns of environmentalists over the effects of > continuing low-level exposure to radioctive material in the > air we breath or the foods we eat. You are making the pretty gross implication that people in support of nuclear power have those views on acid rain. I for one, don't. Especially when you consider that this "continuing low-level exposure" due to nuclear power is swamped by the back-ground (natural) radiation. In fact, when approaching the question from a different viewpoint: 1) Gee, acid rain *seems* to be doing something bad. Let's do something about it *NOW* without doing any further study. 2) Gee, Coal powered power generation kills a lot of people. We'd better not go to anything else until we study the alternatives further. You seem to be contradicting yourself. > We have difficulty enough in even making the connection between > such environmental debacles as the Love Canal and the health > problems observed in local populations. Nuclear power plants > *can* be expected to leak. We *do not*, at present, have feasible > means for long term storage of waste. To spout platitudes about > the safety of nuclear power versus other methods of generation > in the name of scientific objectivity is intellectual sleaze > in the extreme. > >} END tirade Intellectual sleaze? We have enough trouble talking about anything without running into people who choose to completely ignore the facts because of a paranoid fear of nuclear power. The combustion of Coal (mainly for the generation of power) in the States kills 30,000 people per year. Rather than stopping one source of power that we *know* to be safer than what we have now, why not find out the *facts* about the situation and do something about the sources of power that we *know* are dangerous and are killing people now. And if you say "Solar power (or whatever) is the answer", then what will we do for power for the next 20 years? Oh God, what have I done? can.politics will be choked up for weeks! -- Chris Lewis, UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321
dennis@utecfc.UUCP (Dennis Ferguson) (09/17/85)
In article <4@ubc-cs.UUCP> morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) writes: >In article <5960@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: >>I feel compelled to point out that even commercial nuclear power plants >>are the safest way of generating large amounts of power yet devised. > > It never ceases to amaze me how certain groups manage to reconcile > the view that, for example, acid rain deserves more study because > it "really isn't well enough understood," yet dismiss out of > hand concerns of environmentalists over the effects of > continuing low-level exposure to radioctive material in the > air we breath or the foods we eat. > I certainly agree with you that, if environmentalists are concerned about the effects of continuing low level radiation exposure on us, we should by all means study that. However it seems reasonable that, rather than concentrating our efforts on nuclear power plants to begin with, we should start with the radioactive source which you, and I (and I live pretty close to Pickering Nuclear G.S.) and just about everyone else in the world receives the lion's share of their yearly dose of radiation from. The sun. ---- Dennis Ferguson ...!utcsri!utecfc!dennis
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (09/17/85)
> It never ceases to amaze me how certain groups manage to reconcile > the view that, for example, acid rain deserves more study because > it "really isn't well enough understood," yet dismiss out of > hand concerns of environmentalists over the effects of > continuing low-level exposure to radioctive material in the > air we breath or the foods we eat. Note two things. (1) Much of the acid rain comes from coal-burning power plants, the major alternative to nuclear power. (2) There is low-level radioactivity in everything and always has been; natural radioactivity is everywhere. > ...Is "deaths/gigawatt-hour" during construction, > operation, ...? Both, together. You cannot get power without operating; you cannot operate without first constructing. Look at the numbers, not the rhetoric. Don't forget to count deaths in coal mines and in coal transportation. (Uranium mines and uranium transportation aren't 100% safe either, but they are dealing with vastly smaller quantities of material for the same net power output, hence have vastly fewer deaths per gigawatt-hour.) > ... Nuclear power plants *can* be expected to leak. Dumps for stack-scrubber waste from coal-burning plants can, and do, leak. > We *do not*, at present, have feasible means for long term storage > of waste... Actually, we do: the obstacles are political, not technical. Dig out the technical references if you don't believe me. There is some dispute over which method is best, but the problem is definitely manageable. The corresponding problem for stack-scrubber wastes is far worse, because of the vastly greater volume and the almost total lack of concern about it. > To spout platitudes about > the safety of nuclear power versus other methods of generation > in the name of scientific objectivity is intellectual sleaze > in the extreme. Who's spouting platitudes now? How *else* should we compare different methods of power generation, than on the basis of which ones kill the fewest people per unit of output? Accusations of "intellectual sleaze", imputations of views I do not hold on acid rain, phrases like "wonderful bit of bafflegab", are hardly signs of scientific objectivity. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) (09/17/85)
It has been said in this forum that: >The combustion of Coal (mainly for the generation of power) in the >States kills 30,000 people. Where on earth did this come from, AECL brochures? >Rather than stopping one source of power >that we *know* to be safer than what we have now, Of course, we don't *know*, and the unfortunate *fact* is that we may not know until *long lasting* damage is done - something that cannot be said of coal combustion. We can clean up coal combustion now. >why not find out the *facts* about the situation... I couldn't agree more. In the mean time, I find the attitude of pro-nukes, which might uncharitably be characterized as "if you can't see it, don't worry about it" a bit naive. Similar statements apply to nuclear paranoids, although their paranoia is perhaps well founded in view of our unpleasant experience with the chemical industries in the past. Given our current understanding of the effects of introducing highly toxic radioactive wastes into the ecosystem, which in our less than perfect world *is* a certainty, this debate can be little more than an argument of ignorance. To dive whole hog into nuclear power or any ill-understood technology is the height of folly. ------------------------------------------------------------------- LONG LIVE DAVID SUZUKI AND THE CBC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) (09/17/85)
In article <41@utecfc.UUCP> dennis@utecfc.UUCP (Dennis Ferguson) writes: >... it seems reasonable that, rather than concentrating our efforts >on nuclear power plants to begin with, we should start with the radioactive >source which you, and I (and I live pretty close to Pickering Nuclear G.S.) >and just about everyone else in the world >receives the lion's share of their yearly dose of radiation from. > >The sun. This is the same tired old straw man argument of the pro-nukes. The issue is not the admittedly small amount of radiation that nuclear plants give off as a result of simply running. The issue is the effect of introducing radioactive *material*, either through plant spills or leakage from waste storage, into the food and water we consume. The sun may be a potent source of radiation. It certainly is not a source of plutonium in my skim milk.
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (09/18/85)
> It never ceases to amaze me how certain groups manage to reconcile > the view that, for example, acid rain deserves more study because > it "really isn't well enough understood," yet dismiss out of > hand concerns of environmentalists over the effects of > continuing low-level exposure to radioctive material in the > air we breath or the foods we eat. > It never ceases to amaze me how certain groups manage to reconcile the view that it is good to minimize the environmental damage cause by industrial activity, and yet campaign against nuclear power generation. By any measure (even radioactivity released to the environment), nuclear power causes less environmental damage than any of its major competitors. The only place where a major power generation method is preferable to nuclear power is in that when a Hydro dam bursts, only the people in the way are damaged, not their descendants. All other major sources of power create mutagens, and mutagenicity is the main reason for fearing radioactive leakage. > > We have difficulty enough in even making the connection between > such environmental debacles as the Love Canal and the health > problems observed in local populations. Nuclear power plants > *can* be expected to leak. We *do not*, at present, have feasible > means for long term storage of waste. To spout platitudes about > the safety of nuclear power versus other methods of generation > in the name of scientific objectivity is intellectual sleaze > in the extreme. I find the "tirade" from which this was extracted to be "intellectual sleaze in the extreme." The one thing one can say about radioactive waste is that people care about it and worry about it. It is highly concentrated and the worst that is likely to happen is that the concentrated dumps would be left untended and would slowly leak through local aquifers. Industrial chemical leakage, like the aforementioned Love Canal (only one of several hundred such sites in the US alone), is not concentrated, is not cared about, and is substantially more dangerous when it does leak. Such chemical leaks may soon prevent us from drinking the water of Lake Ontario. It takes a large stretch of the imagination to say that Pickering or Darlington could lead to such a problem. Let's get the problems in balance. By all means, store radioactive waste as securely as possible, but let's WORRY about industrial waste that is distributed through the air, the land, and the water we drink. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt
dennis@utecfc.UUCP (Dennis Ferguson) (09/18/85)
In article <10@ubc-cs.UUCP> morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) writes: > > The issue is the effect of introducing radioactive *material*, > either through plant spills or leakage from waste storage, > into the food and water we consume. The sun may be a potent source > of radiation. It certainly is not a source of plutonium in my > skim milk. I wouldn't be so sure that the source of much of radiactive *material* you may consume isn't the sun or the creation of the planet either, but I lack the references and inclination to take that tack. I grant that the plutonium in your skim milk is extremely unlikely to have occurred there naturally but I do wonder where you think it came from. I sincerely doubt it was from a Canadian commercial nuclear reactor since (1) none of the spent reactor fuel has ever (yet) left the containment building, there is *no* waste storage since they've yet to figure out how to store it, and (2) there have (yet) been no spills more serious than amounts of secondary coolant measured in gallons (unless there has been a `pro-nuke' coverup), absolutely containing no plutonium and unlikely to contain anything more than tritium with a half-life of a few days (it is hard to `spill' spent fuel anyway, it's a solid). These reactors have a good record so far. I just asked the refugee from AECL across the room about the situation in the U.S. It seems the problem is a little different there, and indeed, if you lived there you might be wise to move (north?). He just told me a horror story about the storage of waste primary coolant from Boiling Water reactors. I am not so blind as to assert there are no local problems with radioactive waste either, these mostly from uranium mines and nuclear processing plants. But note that these are almost always fiasco's from the '40s and '50s, are small and are something we're going to have to deal with whether we generate nuclear power or not. I can't see that we've created major new problems, at least not yet. (An interesting aside: The guy from AECL almost threw up when I told him you'd implied you felt I was `pro-nuke', but that is another story and I've gone on far too long already.) I think you miss the point (a result of fanatic-induced tunnel vision?), or I've not been clear. So let me be blunt: just what the hell is this? > It never ceases to amaze me how certain groups manage to reconcile > the view that, for example, acid rain deserves more study because > it "really isn't well enough understood," yet dismiss out of > hand concerns of environmentalists over the effects of > continuing low-level exposure to radioctive material in the > air we breath or the foods we eat. Acid rain study? What study? What about action? I've changed my mind, maybe we should study. You come on down and we'll try to figure out whether it's 2 or 3 extra cancers per 100,00 population that's being induced by ingestion of nuclear material from the Canadian power industry, whether we've reduced the average man's life by one month or two. And then we'll figure out what more can be done to reduce our exposure. This won't be easy, because as far as I can see (and you've not presented any objective information to the contrary) there's darn near s.f.a. coming out of those reactors. Then we'll head north, maybe to my home town, Sudbury (see, I'm not altogether unbiased either. I just hope my priorities are based more on rational fact than yours seem to be), and take a look at the millions of square miles of beautiful, productive forest that is already very visibly dieing and may, no, *will* become a waste land if something isn't done soon. And don't think its people versus forest because if acid rain is killing fish and trees I don't imagine it's real wonderful for people either (no studies about *that* that I'm aware of). This time we'll have no trouble finding sources actively contributing to the problem. There's a bloody big one in Sudbury and a bunch of smaller ones all over eastern Canada and the U.S. I'm tired, my posting reads like a book and I doubt that anyone is with me. But I'm not going to worry so much about the bills I *may* have to pay *sometime* in the future when there's a mean looking bill collector at the door now. Nuclear power provides extremely unpleasant prospects for the future, but as long as a single, dirty coal-fired plant remains, give me the nukes. No more. I'll send future tirades in the mail. ---- Dennis Ferguson ...!utcsri!utecfc!dennis
morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) (09/18/85)
Martin Taylor writes: >By any measure (even radioactivity released to the environment), nuclear >power causes less environmental damage than any of its major competitors. This, I presume, is another well established "fact". Considering that we have been operating nuclear power plants for less than fifty years, and storing waste for even less, I would be most interested in the evidence for this claim. Bearing in mind that we will be charged with safely storing nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years, such evidence is something I would be reluctant to bank on. >All other major sources of power create mutagens, and mutagenicity is >the main reason for fearing radioactive leakage. None approach the longevity of the most virulent nuclear wastes. >The one thing one can say about radioactive >waste is that people care about it and worry about it. It is highly >concentrated and the worst that is likely to happen is that the concentrated >dumps would be left untended and would slowly leak through local aquifers. I don't consider the Pacific Ocean, where there are at this moment leaking waste cannisters, a local aquifer. Q: What would be the effects of such contamination? A: We don't know. >Industrial chemical leakage, like the aforementioned Love Canal (only one >of several hundred such sites in the US alone), is not concentrated, >is not cared about, Agreed. >and is substantially more dangerous when it does leak. I wasn't aware that the mutagenetic "superiority" of say, dioxin, had been established over say, plutonium. Do you have a reference? >It takes a large stretch of the imagination to say >that Pickering or Darlington could lead to such a problem. Only for those of us with inflexible minds. Besides, we aren't comparing chemical dumpsites and nuclear power. We are comparing the potential effects of wide-spread use of nuclear power with alternative sources. The worst of the chemical toxins are the herbicides and pesticides. >Let's get the problems in balance. By all means, store radioactive >waste as securely as possible, but let's WORRY about industrial waste >that is distributed through the air, the land, and the water we drink. Let's WORRY about ALL waste materials, and let's not jump on a nuclear bandwagon before we know where it's going.
clewis@mnetor.UUCP (09/19/85)
In article <9@ubc-cs.UUCP> morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) writes: >It has been said in this forum that: > >>The combustion of Coal (mainly for the generation of power) in the >>States kills 30,000 people. > Where on earth did this come from, AECL brochures? Nope. A DHEW report. >>Rather than stopping one source of power >>that we *know* to be safer than what we have now, > > Of course, we don't *know*, and the unfortunate *fact* is that > we may not know until *long lasting* damage is done - something that > cannot be said of coal combustion. We can clean up coal combustion > now. But we aren't. And we can't, because the anti-nuke people leave no alternative. And it's still killing people. >>why not find out the *facts* about the situation... > > I couldn't agree more. In the mean time, I find the attitude of > pro-nukes, which might uncharitably be characterized as > "if you can't see it, don't worry about it" a bit naive. You are making a pretty gross assumption that that is the attitude I hold. It isn't. > Given our current understanding of the effects of introducing > highly toxic radioactive wastes into the ecosystem, which > in our less than perfect world *is* a certainty, this debate > can be little more than an argument of ignorance. Crap. Sounds like Ad-hominem again. > LONG LIVE DAVID SUZUKI AND THE CBC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I agree here. Though not necessarily with David's opinions in this area. -- Chris Lewis, UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (09/20/85)
> >By any measure (even radioactivity released to the environment), nuclear > >power causes less environmental damage than any of its major competitors. > > This, I presume, is another well established "fact". As a matter of fact, it is. If you ignore the propaganda (from both sides) and dig out the numbers instead. > Considering that we have been operating nuclear power plants for > less than fifty years, and storing waste for even less, > I would be most interested in the evidence for this claim. We haven't been operating large power plants of *any* kind for all that long. Nuclear is not much worse off than (say) coal in this regard. Note that we have one limited data point for waste storage for two billion years, the Oklo natural reactor. Its wastes appear to have been trapped quite effectively despite water trickling through constantly. Difficult to be sure about the details after this long, but it's a hopeful sign. > Bearing in mind that we will be charged with safely storing nuclear > waste for tens of thousands of years, such evidence is something > I would be reluctant to bank on. We will be charged with safely storing hundreds of times as much toxic waste from coal for the rest of eternity, if we don't go nuclear. > >All other major sources of power create mutagens, and mutagenicity is > >the main reason for fearing radioactive leakage. > > None approach the longevity of the most virulent nuclear wastes. Most chemical mutagens are stable, i.e. permanent. Nuclear wastes do eventually decay! > I don't consider the Pacific Ocean, where there are at this > moment leaking waste cannisters, a local aquifer. Nobody contends that all existing nuclear waste has been handled properly or disposed of safely. Nobody in his right mind talks about using the oceans for waste disposal any more. > Q: What would be the effects of such contamination? > A: We don't know. Provided it's not concentrated, we do know: not much, since life on Earth has been coping with natural radioactivity for its entire existence. > I wasn't aware that the mutagenetic "superiority" of > say, dioxin, had been established over say, plutonium. Plutonium is severely dangerous only when inhaled. Many natural substances are more dangerous when taken into the body in more orthodox ways. The numbers on toxicity are in the public literature, not that hard to find. > ... we aren't comparing chemical dumpsites and > nuclear power. We are comparing the potential effects > of wide-spread use of nuclear power with alternative sources. Since the major alternative to nuclear power is coal, we *are* worried about chemical dump sites. Where do you think stack-scrubber waste from coal-burning plants goes? > Let's WORRY about ALL waste materials, and let's not jump > on a nuclear bandwagon before we know where it's going. Let's not jump OFF it until we know where the alternative is going. Other forms of power production have waste problems too, remember. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (09/21/85)
>> Bearing in mind that we will be charged with safely storing nuclear >> waste for tens of thousands of years, such evidence is something >> I would be reluctant to bank on. > >We will be charged with safely storing hundreds of times as much toxic >waste from coal for the rest of eternity, if we don't go nuclear. > >> ... we aren't comparing chemical dumpsites and >> nuclear power. We are comparing the potential effects >> of wide-spread use of nuclear power with alternative sources. > >Since the major alternative to nuclear power is coal, we *are* worried >about chemical dump sites. Where do you think stack-scrubber waste from >coal-burning plants goes? > >> Let's WORRY about ALL waste materials, and let's not jump >> on a nuclear bandwagon before we know where it's going. > >Let's not jump OFF it until we know where the alternative is going. >Other forms of power production have waste problems too, remember. >-- After attending a video teleconference on Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect yesterday, I think Henry (>) understates the waste problem of coal burning (which is at present the major alternative to nuclear for the 21st century). There exist techniques for reducing the toxic wastes substantially (though probably not easily to the levels of damage associated with nuclear power), but the very essence of obtaining power from coal is to burn carbon and thereby form CO2. One quarter of the CO2 in the atmosphere has been placed there by us since 1850. Eight percent, since 1960. The rate is increasing. Part of this increase is due to deforestation, part to burning fossil fuel (burning wood does not contribute, because the dead trees would decay largely into CO2 in most cases). If we burn much of the readily available coal, we could increase the atmospheric CO2 by a factor of TEN over a couple of centuries. A doubling of CO2, according to the best models now available, is likely to cause an increase of about 4 degC in the global average temperature, but this increase is concentrated in high latitudes (near the N or S pole). There may be feedback effects: a warm ocean accepts less CO2 (or releases more) than a cold ocean; melting permafrost may release large amounts of CO2 now held in frozen peat. We may be looking at a 3 degC rise from just the oil and coal burned to date. This CO2 will NOT go away. It will be a permanent addition to the atmosphere, until over a period of millions of years enough vegetation is buried to replace (in the earth) the carbon that we have extracted to burn. The long-term damage is LIKELY (not just possibly) much greater from this cause alone than from any carelessly operated nuclear power system. Notice that although 3 degC does not sound like much, we are dealing with annual averages, and it is a very exceptional year that is as much as 1 degC hotter than normal. Such a change means deserts where now wheat is grown, changes in forest character, and unpredictable changes in weather patterns; it means rises in sea level that could make life very difficult for coastal towns, or lowlying areas. Vegetation changes at high levels of CO2. Leafy stuff may be less nutritious, although having a higher biomass. Some things grow better, some become badly distorted. Fred Williams gave the only long-term solution: reduce our population. Nature will do this for us one way or another, so it would be better if we planned for it. But what about the short term (50-200 years)? I think we have only one course if we are to survive: stop burning fossil fuel as soon as we can, and replace it with other forms of energy production, primarily nuclear, but including hydro, wood-burning, solar and wind. In the longer term, build solar power satellites. (Somebody, I think Fred, argued against solar power satellites on the grounds that they could become mis-aimed and flail around, thus shedding high power density beams all over the place. This is most unlikely, for at least two reasons: (1) The solar collectors and the antenna are delicate structures, unlikely to survive as a coherent alignment if the satellite were to be hit by something that affected its rotation. There would then be no power beam. (2) The projected power density of the beam is not high, not enough to cook (or bother) birds flying through it, so it wouldn't matter if there was a beam running amok -- this is both for safety reasons and for economy in the transmitting antenna. ) It takes some 50 years for a power source to become established, and 100 years for it to take a major share of the total supply load (true of all power sources so far developed by man, and probably likely to remain true). So I think we have to wait at least 50 and probably 100 years before we can rely mostly on solar power satellites (longer for fusion power). If we stop burning carbon, as I think we MUST, then we have to build up our fission power plants as fast as we can. P.S. It might interest you to know that 15 years ago, I was a strong anti-nuke, on the same grounds of difficult waste disposal that are being brought up in this discussion. Reading "Science" and other technical journals changed my mind. I suggest that contributors to the discussion also read such material. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt