The Nuclear Goliath: Confronting Industrial Energy

The reality of cashin a bad check...

We are about to invest 10's of billions on 'old nuclear designs' that will not solve our waste or energy problems - period. 

Again - I am NOT against nuclear energy... just the way we are doing it.

 

Frank Joseph Smecker;
Lately, many may have heard the affable radio jingles for nuclear energy as a clean and reliable candidate to supplant the U.S.'s reliance on foreign fossil fuels. This is sheer, malignant propaganda. Nuclear energy, along with its requisite mining, is not only unsustainable to a high degree, but is, in all aspects, violently rapacious as it dissolves the planet's fecundity and ultimately encumbers the creation of life for generations to come. It is imperative that nuclear is removed from the lexicon of domestic energy policy and that we, as a people, consider alternative energy options while significantly reducing our consumption levels.

 

From its inception through mining processes to enrichment, fission, and post-fission, nuclear energy supplies the human race with more destructive waste than energy. A typical 1,000 megawatt plant produces roughly 500 pounds of plutonium and 20-30 tons of high-level radioactive waste annually. There is no known safe and secure way to dispose of the waste. The rate of decay of a radioactive isotope is called its half-life (e.g., the half-life of Plutonium-239 is 24,000 years). The hazardous life of a radioactive element--that being the amount of time needed before the element stops posing a significant risk to people's mortal health--is at least 10 half-lives; that means plutonium-239 will remain deadly for at least 240,000 years.

 

 

Answer to CO2 or coal? Think again...

Considering as well the mining of uranium, fuel enrichment, and plant construction combined to culminate an operating facility, the equivalent of 34-60 grams of CO2 are emitted per kilowatt of energy (from each operational facility).

 

In 2007 the U.S.'s total generation of energy from nuclear fission was 806.5 billion kWh (kilowatt hours).

 

That equals anywhere from 27,421 billion to 48,390 billion grams of CO2 released into the atmosphere in that year alone.

 

The global emissions are much starker, ranging anywhere from 90,429.8 billion to 159,582 billion grams of CO2 released into the atmosphere. Once again, these numbers will only climb drastically with demand.

 

In order to replace the entire world's fossil fuels, more than 2,000 new nuclear facilities would have to be built--an endeavor that would assail the ecology of the planet and its people.    

 

In addition, the deleterious effects of uranium mining imposed on the environment have been felt worldwide--from Saskatchewan all the way to Rum Jungle in Australia, which is perhaps the world's worst case of negligent mining.

 

It is, by far, the indigenous peoples of the world who have most felt the encroaching and damaging effects of the nuclear industry. The aboriginals of Australia, perhaps the oldest human cultures of any still in existence, are threatened daily by the encroachment of uranium mining and the deadly legacy of uranium tailings.

 

In the U.S., the land surrounding Yucca Mountain (a proposed nuclear waste repository and current weapons testing site) is not U.S. territory, but legally belongs to the Shoshone Nation (despite U.S. gold-mining in the area, which is destructive of the land and people).

 

In Canada, ten lakes within the Lake Huron region are now radioactive waste sites due to uranium mining. Uranium mined from Elliot Lake in Ontario was used for U.S. nuclear weapons and the area is now infecund, emitting dangerous levels of radiation, immiserating the Northern Ojibwa peoples.

 

Amid the pandemonium, environmental protection measures have yet to be effectively administered throughout the world's mines. Rehabilitation costs (estimated to be in the millions of dollars) are paid primarily out of the pockets of taxpayers. It is apparent that nuclear energy is not only far from being a safe and "green" form of energy; its entire (anti-) life-cycle is culpable for pervasive damage to the natural world and its complex animate beings.

 

PLEASE - Read more if you can stomach it from Frank Joseph Smecker Petroleumworld
http://www.petroleumworld.com/sf09040501.htm