Electricity provides me
with lights and heat in my home. Where does all this power come from? Should I
care about where the power comes from? In 2011 an earthquake off the coast of
Japan caused a tsunami that destroyed a nuclear power plant. People around the
world became very alarmed and scared, because they feared radiation from the
destroyed nuclear power plant. Nuclear
power uses fission, the process of a nucleus of an atom splitting, to produce
heat to generate power. Many people including Professor David McKay (Chief
Scientific Adviser for Department of Energy and Climate Change) support nuclear
power. Professor McKay says that nuclear is along with renewable power sources
is the best way to go (Mackay, 2009). It’s cleaner than
fossil fuels and has more power than renewables (Mackay, 2009). Everyone from miners
of uranium to anyone within fifty miles of a plant is in danger of radiation
sickness and various forms of cancer (if there is an accident). Besides possible
contamination of millions of people, nuclear power kills hundreds of thousands
of fish each year (NRC, 2011). Lastly there is no
safe way to store the waste product of nuclear power. Nuclear power is not an
option for the American people. We have a responsibility to ourselves and to
our future generations to steer far from nuclear power.
Nuclear
power uses uranium fission to produce heat in turn that heat produces
electricity for us. Roughly 20% of the U.S. depends on nuclear power (NRC.org,
2012).
Those that support nuclear power claim that it’s clean (Moore, 2006). The uranium
required for the nuclear industry is found within the Earth’s crust and must be
mined. “Radiological exposure is of particular importance in uranium
mining…workers at Ranger wear radiation dosimeters to measure the dose received
due to external irradiation” (Gulson, 2004). So miners in these
mines are required to wear specific equipment to monitor how much radiation
they are exposed to over time. This in
itself should raises safety issues. These men wear both a dosimeter on their hips
that measures the external exposure and a dosimeter on their chest or shoulder which
measures the radiation they may be inhaling. If nuclear power is so clean, then
why must we take so many precautions just to get the uranium out of the ground? From the mine, uranium is shipped to the
power plants to be used.
The
power plants receive its clean uranium from the mine. How do they use it? They
use the uranium in fission, which means the atom is split into multiple parts.
The fission produces heat, is used to boil water to produce steam which in turn
moves a turbine and generates electricity. Where do they get the water from?
Nuclear power plants are located near a water source such as a river, stream,
or ocean. Water is sucked into the plant, boiled to form steam used to move turbines,
and then put back into the water source. Power plants have to put large metal
nets to catch the fish and other objects from being pulled in, this is called
impingement (NRC, 2011). In 1988 impingements
killed 315,840 adult fish and 12,221,440 fish eggs. Then the water is put back
into the water source. The water is not
irradiated. However, it’s put back in the water source at a much higher temp
then the original water (Teixeira, 2009). This is a
detrimental thing to our ecosystems. Animals and plants are sensitive to water
temperature. The local ecosystem experiences diminished diversity of smaller
life forms that in turn fish depend on because of the hot water (Teixeira,
2009).
In Brazil, a study was done on the water discharge of a nuclear power plant
into the ocean. This study recorded an increase of 8°C, (15 °F), caused by the
plant (Teixeira, 2009). This change in temperature
was shown to reduce the amount of species in the area. In addition to the
thermal discharge, there is chlorine added to the water, which affects the
marine life further. Another study on phytoplankton had the same results, showing
a dual impact of thermal and chlorinated water to hurt the area around the
power plant (Chuang, 2009).
Now that the uranium has been mined and then forced to
split, what happens to the products left over? Nuclear fuel under goes fission it
splits into two different isotopes. These isotopes splitting are what cause the
release of heat. After they have split they are considered waste, because they
are no longer usable. Some of these isotopes have short half-lives, while others
have extremely long half-lives. Radioactive waste cannot be destroyed. There are two levels of nuclear waste: low level waste
and high level waste (Rosenfield, 2011). Low level waste has
shorter half-lives and poses a threat due to the large amounts of it. High
level waste has either longer half-lives or is more radioactive or both.
“High-level
waste present a more severe exposure because they are usually high temperature,
highly radioactive, and extremely long lived. High level waste is extremely
dangerous to human and animal life, particularly if subjected to direct
exposure…High level waste also represent an indirect exposure hazard from
possibility of leaking into ground water in rivers where they could enter the
food chain, and also from low levels of radiation that will irradiate the
environmental media surrounding the storage site during normal operation.” (Rosenfield,
2011)
Many years ago the U.S.
would take this waste, seal it in large drums and dump it into the ocean. There
are roughly 89,000 containers in the ocean (Agency, 1980). This practice was stopped. Each power
plant in the U.S. produces twenty metric tons a year (Rosenfield, 2011). There are over 136 nuclear reactors in
the US, with over 100 of those producing power (NRC.org, 2012). I did some very
quick math; with 100 plants in operation producing 20 tons of waste a year. That
equals 2000 tons of waste a year. How are we storing this radioactive waste? The
spent fuel rods are stored in giant pools of water; about 20 feet of water on
top and surrounded in concrete to protect anyone from harm (NRC.org, 2012). There these fuel
rods sit forever (or as long as these pools hold out.) During the disaster at
Fukushima, Japan at least one of these types of pools exploded. Dr Arjun
Makhimijani stated “The apparent occurrence of spent fuel accidents at
Fukushima significantly undermines the NRC’s conclusion that high density pool
storage of spent fuel poses a “very low risk” (Arjun, 2011). Dr Makhimijani
continued on to say that the United States pools are packed more tightly than
Japan’s posing a larger risk. As for the fuel itself, there is no safe place to
store it. The power plants must store it at their sites above ground in giant
concrete casks (NRC.org, 2012). For a number of
years, high-level waste products were stored at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. When this facility was closed, nuclear power
plants were forced to store their spent fuel rods onsite. As of right now,
there is no safe way to store spent nuclear fuel.
“At present a
large quantity of high-level nuclear waste has already been released into the
environment from nuclear power plant accidents (i.e. Chernobyl) and from
willful dumping of said waste into the environment.” (Rosenfield,
2011)
A very little known nuclear facility in Hanford,
WA is the site of the most expensive and most contaminated site in all of the
US. Just a quick rundown of the contamination:43 million cubic yards of
radioactive waste, 130 million cubic yards of contaminated soil, 475 billion
gallons of contaminated water slowly making its way to the Snake River, over 80
square miles of contaminated land, and over 200 radioisotopes released into the
air. It costs the US taxpayers $1.8 billion a year and has been closed since
1989. Hanford was a site for the testing of nuclear weapons and had 8 reactors
on site. Though they were not providing power to the public, it is an example
of what happens to waste of nuclear reactors. Most of the contamination comes
from storage tanks that store nuclear waste, and are prone to leakage (Rosenfield,
2011).
Nuclear power, and its clean energy, has
a very dirty past of terrible accidents. A nuclear power plant can lose control
of the fission reaction. If the fission is not kept cool, it can heat up and a
meltdown occurs. In nuclear history there have been no recorded total melt
downs, but there have been several partial meltdowns. There have been 22
nuclear power plant accidents since 1952 (Sovacool, 2008). In 2011 in Japan a
partial meltdown occurred. This meltdown was due to an earthquake that caused a
tsunami. The reactor’s cooling water was compromised and the reactor began to
meltdown. This meltdown released many harmful radioactive particles into the
environment. The sea water, air, and ground were all affected. The Japanese
government evacuated residents in a 50 mile perimeter around the plant and none
of these residents have been able to return. In 1979, the Three Mile Island facility
in Pennsylvania experienced a partial meltdown which cost taxpayers $2.4 billion.
Fortunately, no one was killed. Now there is still a reactor there, buried
under ground for the rest of time. Let’s not forget the most famous nuclear
reactor meltdown of all, Chernobyl, Russia. In April 1986 a steam explosion
results in a partial meltdown. 56 people died, over 300,000 people permanently evacuated
their homes, 7000 people developed cancer, and the total cost was $6.7 billion (Sovacool,
2008).
The effects of the meltdown in Russia are still being tallied to this day. The
site has been abandoned and I doubt anyone will ever return. There is no safe
way to fight a meltdown and or clean up. The brave people who fight and cleanup
for us are the ones that are exposed to the radiation in the worst ways. Many
of these men have been hospitalized and many have died due to the effects of
radiation.
There are hundreds of reasons that America should not
invest in nuclear power. I have failed to mention that a nuclear power plant in
just three months can be ready to produce weapons of mass destruction; we will
never forget the bombing of Japan. It is not the power of the future. When
supporters of this clean power tell us how clean and good it is for us, don’t
listen. Nuclear power is not clean. From the mining pits to the reactors, to
the waste sites, and possible meltdowns there is nothing clean about nuclear
energy. We have great reason to be afraid and alarmed when our government
announces a new nuclear power plant, in Georgia, which was announced on
February 9, 2012 (Mufson, 2012). So the next times
you go to flip on a switch or charge your laptop, remember that you could be
supporting nuclear power.
Works Cited
NRC.org.
(2012). Retrieved from http://www.NRC.gov: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating.html
Agency, E. P. (1980). Factsheet on Ocean Dumping
of Radioactive Waste Materials. Washington D.C.: Enviromental Protection
Agency.
Arjun, M. (2011). Declaration of Dr. Arjun
Makhijani. Takoma Park, MD: Institute for Energy and Enviromental
Research.
Chuang, Y.-L. (2009). Effects of a Thermal Discharge
from a Nuclear Power Plant on Phytoplankton and Periphyton. Journal of Sea
Research, 197-205.
Gulson, B. L. (2004). The Effect of Exposure to
Employees from Mining and Milling Operations in a Uranium Mine on Lead
isotopes- a pilot study. Science Direct, 267-272.
Mackay, D. (2009, October 4). The future is green,
the future is nuclear. Times online.
Moore, P. (2006, April 16). Going nuclear. A green
makes the case. Washington Post.
Mufson, S. (2012, feb 9). NRC approves construction
of new nuclear power reactors in Georgia. Washington Post.
NRC, U. (2011). Generic Environmental Impact
Statement for License Renewel of Nuclear power Plants. Washington DC: US
NRC.
Rosenfield, P. E. (2011). 10-Nuclear Waste and
Tritium Releases. In P. E. Rosenfield, Risks of Hazardous Waste (pp.
115-126). Boston: William Andrew Publishing.
Sovacool, B. K. (2008). A Perliminary Assesment of
Major Energy Accidents 1907-2007.
Teixeira, T. P. (2009). Effects of a Nuclear Power
Plant Thermal Discharge on Habitat Complexity and Fish Community Structure in
Iha Grande Bay, Brazil. Marine Enviromental Research, 188-195.
