Again, this isnt a rational thinking statment from someone who knows what they are talking about.
A misconception
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Development/devsix.html
Although ongoing exposure to fossil fuel related toxic pollutants through polluted air and contaminated water and food is a daily experience, there is a widely held public belief that nuclear power presents the greater health risk. Extreme concerns about radiation are demonstrated by a common conviction that plutonium - in spent fuel and from reprocessing - can be significantly more harmful than toxic pollutants, with some people believing it is the most hazardous substance on earth. Plutonium is not very radioactive - as a long lived material with a half-life of more than 24 000 years it decays very slowly. Its radiation cannot penetrate even a sheet of paper. As it is not highly soluble in most forms, it is not very hazardous when small quantities are ingested in liquids, where the major portion passes unabsorbed through the body.
In fact, plutonium can be extremely hazardous to health only when finely dispersed in sufficient concentration and inhaled, when - as with very small particles of inhaled toxic pollutants - it passes through the lung tissue into the blood. Fortunately, a scenario to disperse sufficient amounts of plutonium, which is transported in strong structural containers, into the atmosphere to cause significant health effects in populations would be extremely difficult. By contrast, many of today's energy related toxic pollutants, including easily inhaled particulates that are the main mortality factor due to fossil fuels, have high potential health effects.
_________________________________________________________________________
Radiation exposures
The fear of radiation health effects, particularly from severe accidents and radioactive waste, is central to public concerns about nuclear power activities. A better public understanding of radiation and of the radiation exposure continually encountered in everyday life is fundamental to a balanced view of the health impacts of nuclear power.
Radiation is a fact of everyday life. Radioactive elements have been an integral part of the human environment since the universe was created 15 billion years ago. Radiation is a natural component of the air we breathe, of the earth we walk on, of the homes we live in, of the food we eat and of human tissues and bones. We are continuously exposed to cosmic radiation, particularly at higher elevations and during air travel.
On a global average, it is natural background radon gas released from the earth that accounts for almost 49% of the radiation exposure which an individual receives annually [Fig.: Annual Individual Radiation Exposure (2.7 mSv Total)]. Additional natural background exposure from cosmic radiation and radioactive materials in the earth and internal to our body accounts for somewhat more than 40%. The remaining 11% is human-made exposures almost totally due to medical diagnostic X rays and therapeutic radiation. Radioactive material from past nuclear test explosions amounts to a small 0.2% and all routine nuclear power related activities a minimal 0.006%.
Natural background radiation is location dependent. Many of the millions of Europeans living in the high radon gas locations in Austria, Finland, France, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom [Fig.: National Background Radiation Exposure - Western Europe] receive 10?20 times the global average natural background exposure received by residents of New York City, where radon gas levels are significantly lower. Even these high radiation exposures are further exceeded in some localized areas, as in parts of Brazil and India, where the individual exposure is more than one hundred times the global average and more than one million times the exposure from nuclear power related activities.
The radioactive atmospheric and ground contamination from the 1986 Chernobyl accident led to widely varying increases in individual exposures. But even for this situation, a comparison with normal daily background exposure provides some perspective. As the Chernobyl accident affected areas are in relatively low radon gas environments, the current daily individual radiation exposure - even of those living in the areas of highest contamination - is below the daily exposure levels of the many hundreds of thousands of people living in the high radon gas locations of Europe.
In fact, for the overwhelming majority of those who at the time of the accident lived in the highest contaminated areas and who will continue to live there, the accumulated total lifetime radiation exposure will be less than the accumulated total lifetime exposure of those Europeans living in high radon gas locations [Fig.: Average Lifetime Radiation Exposure]. Although still small, during a lifetime the possibility of radiation induced health effects would on average be greater for the high radon exposed inhabitants of Europe than for the Chernobyl exposed populations.
_____________________________________________________________________
Radiation health effects
The biological effects of radiation are dependent on the amount of exposure. Very high exposures can damage and kill a sufficient number of cells to destroy organs and cause a breakdown in vital body functions, leading to severe disability or death within a short time. Their effects are well documented. On the other hand, very low level radiation related health effects cannot be identified since they would occur principally as cancers late in life, leading to premature deaths by several years. They would be an undetectable fraction of the anticipated 20% of populations that die of cancer due to other causes - the 20% value itself varying by several percentage points for differing populations as a result of specific environmental, dietary and genetic influences.
To study long term health effects, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) in Hiroshima has carried out over the past five decades an extensive investigation of the Japanese survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some 87 000 people who received relatively high radiation exposures have been continuously monitored. Contrary to initial expectations of high numbers of radiation induced cancer deaths, the study projects some 600 deaths, in addition to some 16 000 anticipated cancer deaths due to other causes for this Japanese population - a 0.7% increase in the anticipated cancer death rate. The expected several-year loss in the average life expectancy will not materialize as above average health care for the survivors through early diagnosis and treatment of medical disorders, including cancer, is leading to increased longevity.
The RERF study has been used to extrapolate effects for very small exposures close to zero above the natural background radiation exposure. As exposure decreases, the likelihood of radiation induced cancer death is assumed to decrease linearly, reaching zero only at zero exposure above the background. Some scientists are critical of this type of extrapolation, assuming that a natural threshold exists for radiation effects, with very small incremental doses above a significantly larger natural background exposure posing no risk at all.
It appears no one wants a real debate...
NUKLEAR POWER KILLS FAMILIES RAWR!
really guys... do your homework on this stuff and youll find it is by far the best solution we have currently.
NUKLEAR POWER KILLS FAMILIES RAWR!
really guys... do your homework on this stuff and youll find it is by far the best solution we have currently.
Captante
Lifer
- Oct 20, 2003
- 30,354
- 10,881
- 136
Whats "sad" is that Nuclear power is the only solution we have for now because development of solar energy technology hasn't moved forward all that much since the 1970's.
Again although nuclear power isn't as dangerous as its made out to be, it still produces large amounts of highly toxic waste that somthing has to be done with & that isn't any more debatable then the fact that its more efficient then burning coal, regardless of how safely the plants themselves can be made to operate ... for that reason alone its only practical as a short-term solution.
Easily renewable & much cleaner methods of producing electricity are possible & striving to make them more practical makes a lot more sense then banking on more nuclear power plants bailing us out long-term does.
The problem is making the panels creates as much of a problem as burning coal or nuclear waste
Making reprocessing illegal was the biggest mistake the US ever made.
Increases useful use of the fuel by a factor of 70, and reduces waste by enormous levels.
There was an excellent article in the NY times science section on how the temperatures necessary for nuclear fusion can be created in microscopic bubbles using sound waves. Really cool stuff I wish I had a scanner I would post it.
I'm surprised no one mentioned anti-matter. It is the cleanest source of energy because when it combines with matter both are converted into pure energy. I wish we had a way to get it.
I'm surprised no one mentioned anti-matter. It is the cleanest source of energy because when it combines with matter both are converted into pure energy. I wish we had a way to get it.
I just dont understand why they prefer it all blown into the air we breathe rather than bury it in a mountain in the middle of nowhere...
Because they are too emotionally charged to think rationally.
You ever seen that Penn & Teller episode where they went to one of these environmentalist rallies with a petition to bad Dihydrogen Monoxide, which "when ingested in large amounts, causes excessive urination." It was great, everyone they came up to signed the petition to ban H2O without thinking twice.
Penn & Teller also interview the founder of Greenpeace, a serious environmentalist who left the organization he started because it turned a rabid anti-capitalist, socialist movement. That is a must-see episode.
IronWing
No Lifer
- Jul 20, 2001
- 73,632
- 35,405
- 136
It wasn't the environmentalists that killed nuclear power in the US for all their hoopla. It was the capitalists. The regulatory environment in the US didn't change much as a result of TMI and not at all in the fallout from Chernobyl. What stopped plant orders dead was double digit interest rates in the seventies and early eighties followed by better places to invest since. Nuclear power is too capital/time intensive for the modern quick in-quick out US investor. Despite endless government subsidies so far investors don't see a large enough return on investment to bother building new plants. As oil/gas prices continue to climb this may change but no bites yet.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 24K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter