The Reality of Nuclear Power

[Drew Richards]

The Reality of Nuclear Power
We have created our own Dooms Day device against the Planet
By Drew Richards

For those of you who have made up your minds, have closed minds to reasoned arguments or those that believe a mystical being will come down and save us at the last minute...you might as well stop reading now and go back to your lives.

If you are Anti-Science and do not believe in the validity of conclusions derived from Hard Science's such as, Chemistry, Physics, Geology, why do you even bother going to school or let your kids go to school? Why go to Doctors, Pharmacists, heck why bother even leaving your homes...You might as well go back to your lives too.

If you are a paid spokesman for the Power Industry or just a "true believer" in Nuclear power, planning on using the Straw Man argument that no one has died YET from Nuclear Power...Go Suck on a Fuel Rod...that is the same syllogism logic that the Tobacco Industry used on the American Public for years...In plainer words you are full of (*&%^ and only care about immediate Wealth gained not about Life nor have a concern for the future capabilities of sustained Life on this Planet.

The Measure of Safety and Efficiency in any form of Power Generation is NOT measured Solely on how many have died...SO FAR...there is more to the cost that the public must bear than just someone's death and there is more at stake than a few years of power generated from Nuclear Fission. Power generation as well as in all industries, we should be focusing on creating a zero sum damage to the environment and the planet, so that it will be able to sustain life indefinitely...I know some of you are only going to live 100 years and you don't really care what happens after you are dead...

The True Stake, the One Pro-Nuclear and Climate Change deniers tiptoe around is the fact that Radioactivity from a Nuclear Plant explosion or multiple explosions...and the Tens of Thousands of Tons of Waste we have to store from this method of power generation; once accidentally released, CANNOT BE CLEANED UP and can potentially over time and dispersal kill ALL life on this planet not for a few years not even for a few hundred years, or even tens of thousands of years but, for 300,000 years or more.

Decay chart not displaying please refer to below Link:

Chart from http://www.CCNR.org/decay_U238.html

The chart given below lists all of the decay products of uranium-238 in their order of appearance. Uranium-238 is also referred to as ''depleted uranium''.
Each radioactive element on the list gives off either alpha radiation or beta radiation -- and sometimes gamma radiation too -- thereby transforming itself into the next element on the list. When uranium ore is extracted from the earth, most of the uranium is removed from the crushed rock during the milling process, but the radioactive decay products are left in the tailings. Thus 85 percent of the radioactivity of the original ore is discarded in the mill tailings.
Depleted uranium remains radioactive for literally billions of years, and over these long periods of time it will continue to produce all of its radioactive decay products; thus depleted uranium actually becomes more radioactive as the centuries and millennia go by because these decay products accumulate.
The horizontal bar beside the name of each decay product indicates the "half life" of that particular substance, measured on a logarithmic scale (each half-inch to the right represents multiplication by a factor of one thousand).
Lead-206, the last element on the list, is not radioactive. It does not decay, and therefore has no half-life.


What is the ''half-life'' of a radioactive element?

The half-life of a radioactive element is the time it takes for half of its atoms to decay into something else. For example, the half-life of radium-226 is 1600 years (as indicated on the chart given above). Therefore, in 1600 years, one gram of radium-226 will turn into half a gram of radium-226 and half a gram of something else (the radioactive decay products of radium). After another 1600 years have elapsed, only a quarter of a gram of the original radium-226 will remain.
The quantity of any radioactive element will diminish by a factor of a thousand (1 000) during the span of 10 half-lives. Thus, in 16 000 years, one gram of radium-226 will decay into a milligram of radium-226 and 999 milligrams of other decay products. Similarly, in 760 000 years, one gram of thorium-230 will be reduced to a milligram (because of the 76 000 year half-life of thorium-230, which is indicated on the chart above).

Not even if we burned all the Coal in the world can it boast the potential of killing all life forms on the planet for 300,000+ years. With respect to the pollution created by Coal to the air, water, and ground, the planets equilibrium would eventually kick in and Life would begin again, Life on this planet...not necessarily humans (but I believe a few would survive) but life, could and would survive a dramatic climatic shift and a return to planetary equilibrium...That can not be said or happen with the potential for High Planetary Radioactivity from accidental radioactive releases. Or are you also not taking into account that if an area is contaminated and no one can maintain Nuclear Power plants cooling ponds or radioactive waste storage that they will eventually breach, leak and potentially explode adding more and more Toxic levels of radiation into the atmosphere and the Planet.

We are seeing proof of this right now from the lands and waters around Chernobyl still radioactive after 25 years and now from the lands, waters and ocean contamination at Fukushima, Japan. Or hey, why don't you try taking a stroll through our own nuclear bomb testing grounds at white sands missile range in New Mexico, where even 66 years later hundreds of square miles are lethal to organic life. Or take a trip to a few of the hundred+ square mile dead zones in our worlds Oceans that are chemically or radioactively lethal due to illegal dumping.

For those of you willing to weigh a reasoned and logical argument against your knowledge, faith and belief then please allow me to continue.

So lets begin...

The Nuclear Industry claims that Nuclear power generation is a low cost, cheap form of electrical power generation...

In point of fact it costs More to build and maintain a Nuclear facility than any other type of power generation station.

Why does it cost more you ask? There are a few reasons:

Because the Private Industry Knows the dangers and liabilities of Nuclear Power and will NOT pay for the building of Nuclear power plants NOR will they Insure them against catastrophes. WE I mean YOU the American Public must foot the entire bill to build and insure these power plants. Then a Private company will come in and Lease or Purchase over a duration of time usually a 20 year purchase contract, the power plant to sell electric power to their customers...namely US. We then get the luxury of paying for our electricity and nuclear waste packaging and storage from our own investment. So we the American Public in reality get to pay twice for the creation of this facility and it's power...funny I don't remember ever getting a dividend from the creation or power generation of a Nuclear Power plant...did you?

We still, even when the power plant is in operation have to pay the liability and catastrophic insurance for accidents and the costs for containment and Storage of Nuclear Waste by-products because...the industry itself does not.

Electric Customers have paid $24 billion into a fund Congress established in 1982 to pay for such storage. The charge – a penny for every 10 kilowatt-hours – would typically add up to about $11 a year for a household that received all its electricity from nuclear plants.
Users pay as taxpayers, too – for dry storage.

Utilities that have run out of storage space in pools successfully sued the federal government for breach of contract, because it failed to keep to the 1998 deadline to establish a long-term storage facility. By law, the money for dry casks cannot come from the nuclear waste fund, and must come from the federal budget. So we get to pay again to cask and store a Private Companies Nuclear Waste.

Guess they know a sucker when they see one...in reality they just have a great and very wealthy lobbying body.

It is estimated that presently in 2011 there is 71,862 tons of Hot Nuclear Waste material in the USA. Most of the waste is stored in cooling pools similar to those at Fukushima, but capacity is full—in some cases, experts say there's four times as much waste as the pools were designed to handle. Meanwhile, the amount of waste keeps growing at the nation's 104 operating reactors at a rate of 2,200 tons every year. And there's no long-term storage solution in sight.

Typically, waste must sit in pools at least five years before being moved to a cask or permanent storage, One cask model, selling for $1.5 million, (that is per cask folks) places spent fuel inside a stainless steel canister, which is placed inside an "overpack" – an outside shell composed of a layer of carbon steel, 27 inches of concrete and another layer of carbon steel. When in place, the system stands 20 feet tall and weighs 150,000 pounds, at the National Academy of Sciences report on Nuclear Waste containment and Storage, Scientist Kevin Crowley said No cask is totally invulnerable, but the Academy report found that radioactive releases from casks would be relatively low in frequency and have a localized affect...I did not see in the report where it mentions the level of radioactivity or it's lingering Half-life, Nor did I find the report mention the environmental impact if it was breached and leaked into one of our Nations Aquifers...

Great! You say, see no problem the Industry has it covered and I am an idiot or a chicken little right?

The problem is casks have a storage containment life of roughly 100+ years and then the radioactive material and the old cask need to be RE-Casked...And we have seen how the Chemical Industries have been SO perfect and above board on managing THEIR chemical waste products right? NOT HARDLY. Or the fact that we and other Chemical and Nuclear Power producing Nations used to just Dump all their Chemical and Nuclear waste in to the deep ocean creating miles of Toxic or Hot Radioactive dead zones where not even microbes can survive and the dead zones from these early ocean dumping are still growing daily and may be, in my opinion, the major cause of global climate change and increased releases of CO2 into the atmosphere...IF we tip the balance of our oceans ecosystem you can kiss your... goodbye, there will be no human interventionist way to save our Planetary Ecosystem.

Here is the big issue with the waste that the Industry fails to mention to the Public...

Spent nuclear fuel is about 95 percent uranium. About 1 percent are other heavy elements such as curium, americium and plutonium-239, best known as fuel for nuclear weapons. Each has an extremely long half-life – some take hundreds of thousands of years to lose all of their radioactive potency. The rest, about 4 percent, is a cocktail of byproducts of fission that break down over much shorter time periods, such as cesium-137 and strontium-90, which break down completely in about 300 years.

That is 300 years just for the weakest radioactive particles to half-life degrade to a safe level...The MAIN waste product 95% takes upwards of 300,000 years to half life degrade to a non-dangerous radiation level...And the Industry just keeps sticking it into the ground pretending it does not have any potential for disaster...One cask leaking into a Major US aquifer would contaminate, poison and kill a very large amount of the populous if not ALL life that it comes in contact with... and it would Continue to kill for 300,000 years! hey even Coal can't brag about their potential for death for 300,000 years. I would live with Coal power and Coal Pollution any day over a potential for everlasting total annihilation of all life on the planet from radiation contamination. Although there are proven valid alternatives I will discuss later in the article...

Again Look at the chart... http://www.CCNR.org/decay_U238.html



Oh, bull you say, radioactive releases and contamination.. it can never happen we have Regulations in place to prevent it or it will be so minimal and localized...it won't affect Humans or the Environment...

YEAH and the Love Canal was a great place to live...and Die...

The Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, which became the subject of national and international attention, controversy and eventual environmental notoriety following the discovery of 21,000 tons of Toxic Chemical Waste that had been buried in 55 gallon drums beneath the neighborhood by Hooker Chemical that breached and accidentally Leaked into the Aquifer and surrounding soils and ground water sources. Love Canal officially covers 36 square blocks in the far Southeastern corner of the city, along 99th street and Read Avenue. To this day the entire affected area is still percolating dangerous chemicals and considered dangerous to human habitation...even after the "Federal Clean Up" has been considered complete. The American Public were stuck with the Price of relocation of 800 families and the cost of their homes and the cost of the clean up...Hooker eventually through the courts only paid the US Government initially $129 Million up to $223 Million for an estimated 1.2 Billion dollar clean up and relocation effort. Hey greed is good, apologize after the fact and get a slap on the wrist...If we are still alive to complain.

The Nuclear Industry claims they are the only source of power generation that can handle providing power to the Nation and the World...

Lets take a look at what is possible TODAY and what we should be doing now to get off Nuclear and even Coal generated power.

Smart Grid. Duke Energy. A leader in ideals!

About 10 years ago I had the honor to work with some Duke Energy Engineers discussing my field of expertise for perspective employment to create for them a Data Network Operation Centers and Command and Control. While most of our discussions were pertaining to NOC operations and new forms of data transmission over power lines, we ended up many times discussing their designs and ideals for "Smart Grid" power management which when mapped out is precisely the same designs utilized in ATM OC-48 unfolded Ring redundancy in data transmission.

Sadly I do not think it ever went past the test bed phase due to the "new" costs in equipment and installation of equipment to create a fully redundant grid. But the fact of the matter is they proved their proof of concept design and that not just a small area but the Nation could be redesigned to transmit power along a smart grid much more efficiently to the scale of 300% more efficient...and with next to zero black outs due to the redundant nature of the grid. In addition this "Smart Grid" was designed to be 90% underground and EMP protected.

Writers note: I have been informed that Duke Energy is still the leader in Smart Grid Technology and they are still attempting small local implementations additionally utilizing a solar power backup frame for smart communication command and control for power management...

***There is the first piece of the puzzle a Smart Grid Nationwide that all power generation enters.

The current power brokers of Nuclear and Coal claim that new emerging technologies cannot compete...This is just a fallacy. Their primary premise that they frighten the public with is that "there is no reliable storage medium" (deep well batteries) for when the sun or wind or waves are not active...therefore in their eyes you will have no electricity.

In the first place, even if these partial operating solutions Solar, Wind, Wave do not have a current reliable deep storage system really does not matter. What matters is the fact that adding their power to the grid now reduces the need for dangerous and environmentally detrimental power generation from Nuclear and Coal.

Secondly they mumble or attempt to disparage CURRENT 24 hour power generation created by Hydro and Geothermal that we could be tapping into in a vastly larger percentages thus again removing the need for so many Nuclear and Coal burning power plants.

Finally and the most critically important to many of us...

There are greater alternatives already being tested and one combination I have not seen yet but would like to see built as a proof of concept.

If you combine new technologies together you can operation 24/7 365 to generate electrical power AND CLEAN THE ENVIRONMENT AT THE SAME TIME!!!

Some examples of new innovation and still cost prohibitive innovations due to the Power lobby push to remove tax rebates and incentives for alternative power and home alternative power generation.

Combined Geo-Thermal

Pressure injecting waste water into geothermal generators to destroy and sterilize the waste and generate power from the steam produced...As a secondary they could collect the hydrogen and methane and run it as a secondary generation source. This is like all Geo Thermal power generation 24/7, it just adds the addition of processing human waste and a secondary power generation capability.

Solar Thermal

Currently MIT has shown a proof of concept that they can, by using a auto focusing 8 foot parabolic mirror array in combination with water and a steam engine produce more than enough electrical energy than a home can utilize and in addition send power back to the grid...This at a reasonable initial investment with no need to cover a vast area with solar panels. the single parabolic mirror array is self standing. Yes without a storage system they would lack power without active sunlight but again...they are reducing their need and consumption of grid power and actually adding incrementally to the power grid.
Add the addition of even the current battery technology and you could be off the Grid for good.

Wind Technology

Advanced wind turbine designs are now much more efficient and not as cost prohibitive.
Too bad all the tax incentives have been removed for the home owner.

Solar Nano Technology

Solar Panels started out at a poor 3% photo-voltaic conversion rate. Using Deep-well acid batteries for storage.

Current Nano voltaic cells are producing 30% photo-voltaic conversion...While still not a superior technology deep-well batteries are greatly improved and much cheaper now from $150-300 each, rather than their original price of $1500 per battery...if there were tax incentives and rebates again it would allow most home owners to add this as a combined system with the current power grid reducing their power costs by 65% and pay for itself over a period of 3-7 years.

The newest Kid on the block and the one that has Nuclear and Coal wetting themselves are the new combined hybrid Hydrogen-Methane Waste Water Treatment generation plants and Hydrogen Desalination Plants.

You see at first we had an extremely cost prohibitive problem with water Hydrolysis requiring Platinum Plates and EXTREMELY Dangerous High Pressure storage of Hydrogen for the generation of power. This is not the case today.

Today there are many companies world wide such as MARIETTA, GA's GridShift Incorporated, that have developed a new water electrolysis technique that can produce hydrogen at a cost of $2.51 per kilogram. This breakthrough technology is half the cost of current hydrogen production and effectively makes hydrogen a more affordable alternative than gasoline at an equivalent cost of $2.70 per gallon of gasoline.

Over 90 percent of today's hydrogen comes from steam-reformed natural gas, which produces large amounts of carbon dioxide along with the hydrogen. Hydrogen made by current electrolysis methods is low-rate and typically uses platinum catalyzed electrodes that are prohibitively expensive. GridShift's and other companies new water electrolysis techniques use no precious metals as catalysts and when coupled with a solar array or wind turbine, it has a zero carbon-footprint. GridShift's new method for hydrogen generation produces four times more hydrogen per electrode surface area than what is currently reported for commercial units today.

Ok so there is the first part of hydrogen processing...additionally Taiwan National Power have produced a catalyzer and storage facility that maintains a LOW 10 PSI in the hydrogen storage tanks and high compressing it just before ignition producing a SAFE power generation system that could very well be used by anyone, anywhere there is access to water...

Bio-Reactors
Bio-Mass to Hydrogen
and / or
bio-Mass to Methane

If you combine simple hydrolysis with a bio-reactor waste treatment such as Nanologix uses for Welch foods in PA you have a safe BioMass reactor... Nanologix’s patented renewable hydrogen production method instead of using the traditional energy wasting methods requiring natural gas or electrical power instead creates Hydrogen out of waste water and other biomass using bacteria in a Hydrogen Bioreactor. The natural bacteria eat the hydrocarbons in the waste and exhale hydrogen and methane gas. Not only does this truly create hydrogen energy, it also cleans the water. The Hydrogen and methane can be converted to mechanical or electrical power on site and therefore solves the problem of storage and transportation.

So, in simple words, you are not only cleaning up the waste generated but also producing energy efficiently and economically with this new technology. Would it not be a great idea if we could power our homes with the garbage we throw out every day?

In Taiwan today they use waste treatment Bio-mass reactions to produce both Hydrogen and Methane from human waste and waste water products.

Not to mention this Operates 24/7/365 days a year...and no large separate energy storage system is required...

Now lets combine that on a grander scale a County, State, National Scale...and throw in SOLAR panels or SOLAR Thermal to reduce the additional startup cost of initiating the generating the power...

If we as a people really want to make a difference and protect ourselves from an environmental catastrophes we would demand ALL Water and Waste Water Treatment plants be converted to COMBINED Waste Water, Hydrogen and Bio-Mass Methane treatment and generations plants...This would be the FIRST step in creating CHEAP hydrogen fuel cells for the transportation industry!

We get the added benefits that the byproducts from these processing plants are:

bio-degradable solids rich in nutrients utilized in agriculture
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Methane
Clean H20 reintroduced into our water supplies or rivers...!

Just think of it...Clean Rivers you could drink from again...and we get the added Electrical Power we need!

***This is the first step for cheap hydrogen fuel cells Implementation for transportation needs that can be shipped to filling stations nationwide...and produced at a fraction of the current cost to produce Hydrogen.

***On a side note for your own knowledge...current Waste Water treatment cannot filter out many of the dangerous complex pharmaceuticals currently entering our water systems...and some dangerously pervasive bacteria; the newest technology to combat this is super oxygenation treatment to water in a compressed vacuum. This can also be done easily at this plant since we are already separating the Hydrogen from the Oxygen we can re-inject the Oxygen into the outgoing water pressure tanks as a last process to guarantee the water is absolutely clean leaving the plant...

CLEAN WATER BYPRODUCT WOW WHAT A CONCEPT...

My god folks don't you see...this goes even further...

The greatest resource we have on this planet is H20 in one form or another...currently with the alleged increase of temperatures and melting of the North Polar Ice Caps we can expect the potential of desalination of our seas to increase, also an increase in violent weather patterns with increase sea levels...In addition there is already a world wide shortage of Potable water with the US being the Fourth largest holder currently of clean ground water...We can do better...we can make ALL our water Potable...We can combat this and work with it...by returning salts back to the Ocean as needed through the Desalination and Hydrogen Generation Power Plants and/or STORING the Sea Salts in Salt mines when not needed with no adverse affects to the Environment now or in the future! We would be working with Nature to assist in equilibrium of the aquatic ecosystem and gaining clean water and the Electrical power we need...

As a Symbiotic Species rather than a Parasitical Species we could build Hydrogen/Methane Waste Water Treatment Power Generation Plants miles from the flood plains and Desalination/Hydrogen Generation plants miles inland from our coasts rendering them safe from flooding and disasters and if one occurs instead of an Oil, Coal Ash or Radiation Spill...we would have a Water, Waste Water or Salt Water Spill...we can recover easily from these...

So when people come to you and claim Nuclear Power is currently the only alternative we have for power generation... or that it is the cheapest power generation source, or it is the only reliable CLEAN power generation source you can look them straight in the eye and say...

Y O U L I E !

May you always find water and shade...Drew.

Bibliography:
AEC Atomic Energy Commission
ERDA Environmental Research and Development Agency
Associated Press
National Academy of Sciences
US Department of Energy
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Special thx for CCNR.org for a clear half-life break down chart.
Nanologix press releases
GridShift Press releases
Taiwan National Power Press Releases

[girl gone mad]

1. DU's new team of nuclear physicists,

who managed to get through college without learning that radioactive elements undergo radioactive decay, and who don't seem to understand that radioactive decay is itself a nuclear process (fission, as it were, in the case of heavy isotopes), will be along shortly to reassure us that any and all negative outcomes are, to an infinite degree of absolute certainty, impossible.

[fascisthunter]

3. lol... yeah, well I gave up on them

and placed their propagandistic spin on ignore. DU is a nicer place for it...

[deaniac21]

2. Say what you will about nuclear power but I still love the sun and

I will miss it when it's gone.

[fascisthunter]

4. Too Many have a Death Wish

[bananas]

5. Very good article - welcome to DU!

[KT2000]

6. Thank you so much for this

It appears that our problem of energy is really a problem of powerful interests. Their greed will doom us all unless we figure a way around them.
Hanford is leaching into the Columbia River and it will never be cleaned up.

[KT2000]

7. Kicking this!

This one should not sink! :applause: :kick:

[Drew Richards]

8. Update for readability

Here is a cleaner version

Have not yet figured how to replace old one without deleting journal sorry.

http://drewrichards2000.newsvine.com/_news/2011/03/28/6363786-the-reality-of-nuclear-power