After Death, Residence Halls at the University of Vermont Will Have Dangerous Fossil Fuel Waste

[NNadir]

Detectors.

http://www.wptz.com/news/4150080/detail.html">UVM Orders Carbon Monoxide Monitors For All Residence Halls

BURLINGTON, VT. -- The University of Vermont is ordering that carbon monoxide monitors be installed in all residence halls, after an off-campus accident Sunday in which one person died of carbon monoxide poisoning and seven others were injured, two critically.

The privately-owned, off-campus Redstone Apartments, where the accident happened, will also be fitted with the monitors. The apartments are owned and operated by Novarr-Mackesey of Ithaca, N.Y., on land leased from the university.

According to UVM spokesman Enrique Corredera, roughly 200 students will also not be allowed to return to the 11 buildings in the complex until the work is complete.

Jeffrey Rodliff, 23, of St. Johnsbury, Vt., died in the accident. Four of the tenants injured are UVM students.

In other news, the dangerous natural gas industry, exploiting a fantasy about tritium - not one atom of which is shown to have injured anyone in Vermont, has won approval from the Vermont legislature to import more of the toxic deadly gas into the state.

[kristopher]

1. Actually all the nuclear and fossil fuels are imported and they want to change that...

From the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG)

Repowering Vermont: Replacing Vermont Yankee for a Clean Energy Future

CleanEnergy Report VPIRG

We are on the edge of making the biggest decision about Vermont’s energy future in the past 40 years. The choice to repower Vermont with renewable energy resources or commit to an additional 20 years of Vermont Yankee will determine the legacy we leave future Vermonters.

Closing Vermont Yankee and moving forward with energy efficiency and local renewable energy would cost Vermonters 47–50% less, between 2012 and 2032, than relying on Vermont Yankee at predicted market prices. Replacing Vermont Yankee with local renewable energy resources would also add tens of millions of dollars to our state tax base and support the creation of hundreds if not thousands of new jobs.

The way that electricity is being produced, distributed and even used is undergoing monumental change. Wind power and solar power, which were once fringe energy sources, are now being talked about as main stays of our energy future. Massive coal and nuclear plants are increasingly seen as symbols of the past and not compatible with a smart energy grid. Clean technology is moving fast to develop large scale energy storage and advanced batteries for plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, and our traditionally slow-to-change utility industry is running to keep pace.

The old ways of generating electricity— oil, coal, and nuclear—have created unsustainable environmental and economic costs. Continued reliance on these old technologies will only worsen the situation we face in years to come and we cannot simply pass these costs on to the next generation.

Globally, our climate is in jeopardy from increased greenhouse gas pollution and collectively, Vermonters emit approximately 8,000,000 metric tons of global warming pollution every year.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor has generated more than 1 million pounds of radioactive waste which is stored on the banks of the Connecticut River and will remain radioactive for more than 100,000 years. It is estimated to cost millions of dollars every year to protect the waste and it will cost an estimated $1 billion dollars to decontaminate and decommission the reactor site.

All of the nuclear and fossil fuels used in Vermont are imported to the state. In an age of increasing supply constraints and market volatility, this is an untenable economic, political and social situation.

Repowering Vermont lays out two clear and achievable visions for replacing Vermont Yankee with local renewable resources. The first,moderate, scenario was designed to meet our traditional electricity demand and anticipates a slow transition to more electricity being used in our transportation sector. The second, strong renewable energy growth, scenario sought to identify how much renewable energy could be built in Vermont over the next two decades. The results exceeded all of our expectations. Vermont couldmeet well over 100% of its future electricity demand, including complete electrification of our transportation sector, with in-state generation and existing levels of regional hydroelectric power.

Go here to download full report: http://www.vpirg.org/repowervt

[NNadir]

3. Ralph Nader's denizens were frauds and liars in the 1970's; they were frauds and liars

in 2000, and they are frauds and liars now.

When PIRGS aren't embezzling money from college students - unaudited - the membership is mostly employed failing science courses.

The vast circle jerk of self referential denialists in the fossil fuel funded anti-nuke industry has not ONCE in it's tritium obsession, produced EVEN ONE person who has a tritium burden in his or her flesh that is comparable to the potassium-40 burden that every living thing on earth has because potassium is naturally radioactive.

I personally couldn't care less about anti-nukes citing one another. They're full of shit, and their actions are not amusing since they kill.

The vandals and destroyers in PIRG couldn't care less that particulates from wood burning and coal burning are a regular feature of post mortem examinations of lung cancer, emphysema and COPD victims around the world.

They are oblivious and denialist in realizing that nuclear power need not be perfect to be vastly superior to all the stuff they don't give a fuck about because when they might have been taking science courses they were busy handing out leaflets like Moonies.

Have a nice "rototill the mountain ridges with trucks to serve my fantasy" kind of day:

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Is this true?

"About 1,500 people die annually due to accidental carbon monoxide exposure, and an additional 10,000 seek medical attention."

Certainly, they must mean uranium monoxide.

--d!

[NNadir]

4. According to the CDC, carbon monoxide poisoning contributed to the deaths of 16,447 people between

1999 and 2004.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5650a1.htm">Centers for Disease Control: Carbon Monoxide--Related Deaths --- United States, 1999--2004

During 1999--2004, CO poisoning was listed as a contributing cause of death on 16,447 death certificates in the United States. Of these, 16,400 (99.7%) deaths occurred among U.S. residents inside the United States, and 2,631 (16%) were classified as both unintentional and non--fire-related deaths. For the period 1999--2004, an average of 439 persons died annually from unintentional, non--fire-related CO poisoning (range: 400 in 1999 to 473 in 2003).

Of course, NOT ONE of these deaths is as important as a tritium atom reported by an anti-science scare monger, but unlike their irrational fears, these deaths are real.

[kristopher]

5. 439 annual unintentional, non-fire related CO2 poisonings

And if you go to any nuclear industry website you'll find they list the total number of deaths from Chernobyl at about 500 deaths. While the specific failure that resulted in Chernobyl isn't a risk, the complexity and human component of nuclear power ensure that the public is well advised to regard the potential for such failures as these with great caution. What is particularly troubling is the lack of transparency and the attempts to hide information that reflects negatively on the nuclear industry worldwide.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Volume 1181 Issue Chernobyl
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Pages 31 - 220

Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health

Alexey B. Nesterenko a , Vassily B. Nesterenko a ,† and Alexey V. Yablokov b
a
Institute of Radiation Safety (BELRAD), Minsk, Belarus b Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Address for correspondence: Alexey V. Yablokov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, Office 319, 119071 Moscow,
Russia. Voice: [phone]; fax: [phone]. [e-mail]
†Deceased


ABSTRACT

Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas—comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination—revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

In all cases when comparing the territories heavily contaminated by Chernobyl's radionuclides with less contaminated areas that are characterized by a similar economy, demography, and environment, there is a marked increase in general morbidity in the former.

Increased numbers of sick and weak newborns were found in the heavily contaminated territories in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia.

Accelerated aging is one of the well-known consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation. This phenomenon is apparent to a greater or lesser degree in all of the populations contaminated by the Chernobyl radionuclides.

This section describes the spectrum and the scale of the nonmalignant diseases that have been found among exposed populations.

Adverse effects as a result of Chernobyl irradiation have been found in every group that has been studied. Brain damage has been found in individuals directly exposed—liquidators and those living in the contaminated territories, as well as in their offspring. Premature cataracts; tooth and mouth abnormalities; and blood, lymphatic, heart, lung, gastrointestinal, urologic, bone, and skin diseases afflict and impair people, young and old alike. Endocrine dysfunction, particularly thyroid disease, is far more common than might be expected, with some 1,000 cases of thyroid dysfunction for every case of thyroid cancer, a marked increase after the catastrophe. There are genetic damage and birth defects especially in children of liquidators and in children born in areas with high levels of radioisotope contamination.

Immunological abnormalities and increases in viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases are rife among individuals in the heavily contaminated areas. For more than 20 years, overall morbidity has remained high in those exposed to the irradiation released by Chernobyl. One cannot give credence to the explanation that these numbers are due solely to socioeconomic factors. The negative health consequences of the catastrophe are amply documented in this chapter and concern millions of people.

The most recent forecast by international agencies predicted there would be between 9,000 and 28,000 fatal cancers between 1986 and 2056, obviously underestimating the risk factors and the collective doses. On the basis of I-131 and Cs-137 radioisotope doses to which populations were exposed and a comparison of cancer mortality in the heavily and the less contaminated territories and pre- and post-Chernobyl cancer levels, a more realistic figure is 212,000 to 245,000 deaths in Europe and 19,000 in the rest of the world. High levels of Te-132, Ru-103, Ru-106, and Cs-134 persisted months after the Chernobyl catastrophe and the continuing radiation from Cs-137, Sr-90, Pu, and Am will generate new neoplasms for hundreds of years.

A detailed study reveals that 3.8–4.0% of all deaths in the contaminated territories of Ukraine and Russia from 1990 to 2004 were caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The lack of evidence of increased mortality in other affected countries is not proof of the absence of effects from the radioactive fallout. Since 1990, mortality among liquidators has exceeded the mortality rate in corresponding population groups.

From 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators died before 2005—that is, some 15% of the 830,000 members of the Chernobyl cleanup teams. The calculations suggest that the Chernobyl catastrophe has already killed several hundred thousand human beings in a population of several hundred million that was unfortunate enough to live in territories affected by the fallout. The number of Chernobyl victims will continue to grow over many future generations.