written 13
February, 2018
published 18Mar18
Nuclear
power is unsuited for a populated planet for three reasons; radiation, waste,
and economics. This article will talk
about radiation.
Nuclear fission
of a radioactive atom produces two smaller pieces (daughter products) and radiation
of energetic debris consisting of gamma rays, beta and alpha particles, and
neutrons. The bombs dropped on Japan
were detonated at altitude to maximize the blast damage. The radiation damage was from gamma rays,
which irradiate the entire body. Biologists
were not involved in the development of the atom bomb, so radiation devastation
was unexpected. Radiation deaths
continued long after the armistice, but this information was overshadowed by
the enthusiasm of using the bomb to end the war.
Three years
later, a detailed study examined the health impact of radiation. Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated
and people had moved, it was difficult to track effects accurately, but damage correlated
inversely with radiation dosage. One conclusion,
which ignored long-term results, was the idea of a "safe" level of radiation
exposure with no cause for concern.
External radiation
exposure from a single blast differs in effect from long-term exposure to radiation
from material ingested by breathing, drinking, or eating. Radioactive isotopes concentrate in different
parts of the body and decay at different rates, some long lasting. Internal beta and alpha exposure is very damaging,
increasing the likelihood of disease, cancer, and genetic mutation.
Physicians for
Nuclear Responsibility have campaigned for decades against the idea of a safe
level for ingesting radioactive material. However, the idea of a "safe" level
is important to governments and corporations that build nuclear power plants,
because all aspects of the nuclear process release radioactive material into
the environment. The fiction of a safe
level means that no one takes responsibility for the health problems associated
with radiation, cruelly prioritizing profits over health. Nuclear power technology developed from a
physics of unity, where every part has power.
Dualistic economics ignores that actions have consequences, but since reality
is whole, no action can be ignored.
The three
worst nuclear power accidents released untold amounts of radioactive material
into the environment. At Three Mile
Island, the reactor experienced a partial core meltdown in 1979, which vented contamination
to the surrounding area for over 12 hours. Onsite radiation instruments quickly went off
scale and couldn't measure how much radioactive material was released. To this day, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) states that only low amounts were released, and no people were
harmed. The many reports of health
damage were dismissed as hysteria.
Recent studies by independent investigators indicate the NRC understated
the radiation exposure by a factor of 1000.
At Chernobyl,
in 1986, the graphite core burned for more than a week, consuming over 5% of
the nuclear fuel. As there was no
containment structure, a radioactive plume spread across western Russia and much
of Europe. The Chernobyl area is still contaminated,
and requires constant investment to keep it contained.
The 2011 Japanese
earthquake and resulting tsunami led to the core meltdown and containment
breach in three of six reactors at the Fukushima complex, and an explosive
release from a spent fuel pool. The
contamination of air, land, and water by highly radioactive hot particles was
widespread, extending to Tokyo, 150 miles away. Japanese authorities raised the
"safe" level of radiation by a factor of 150. Contaminated water continues to flow into the
Pacific Ocean, but the US government has never measured radiation in the ocean
or the air off the west coast.
While large contaminations
due to accidents have been rare, reactors are aging and growing more vulnerable
to failure. Even normal reactor operation
releases radiation into the environment.
The mining, refining, and enriching of uranium fuel releases radioactive
material. Mountains of radioactive mine
tailings sit next to the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for
millions.
The
efficiency of a uranium reactor core is reduced by contamination from the
daughter products of nuclear decay.
Within a few years, when as little as 10% of the uranium has been
consumed, this "spent fuel" is removed to cooling pools, and fresh
fuel rods are installed. Even though
most of the uranium is still useful, it is expensive to reprocess the spent fuel
by removing the daughter products, and reconstituting fresh fuel rods. Everywhere this has been tried, massive radioactive
environmental contamination has resulted.
Every
reactor has a designed life span, after which, it must be decommissioned, and
the site cleaned of radioactive material.
There are 449 large commercial power reactors in operation globally. Another 150 have been shut-down, but only 17 very
small plants have been completely decontaminated. The decommissioning of all the rest will
introduce massive amounts of radioactive material into the environment.
Dualistic
economics, and the fiction of safe levels of radioactivity, guarantees that.
