Category Archives: Nuclear Energy

Choices for Producing Energy

Posted on by

I just posted a review of “Wormwood Forest” by Mary Mycio about the Chernobyl disaster, and that brought me back to the question of what is the most responsible method of producing our electricity. We all want electricity to power the fans on our furnaces, the air conditioning, our lights, our computers and printers, to charge our phones other devices, and for some to charge the batteries in their cars. Abundant and affordable electricity is crucial to our economy and the comfort many or most of us have come to expect in our lives.

Most of our electricity is produced in plants fuled by coal (about 50%) or natural gas (about 21%) and by nuclear energy (about 19%). However, new regulations are putting pressure on the coal plants. First Energy Corp recently announced they are retiring six coal-fired plants because of the stricter federal anti-pollution rules. About a third of the workers at the six plants are eligible for retirement, and another 100 or so will be able to transfer to other jobs in the company. However, that leaves about 250 people who can’t retire without a job. This is probably just the beginning of such announcements, since it won’t be economically feasible to retrofit older plants.

I’ve reviewed several books that are pertinent to the discussion. The best, in my opinion, is “The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear” written by Dr. Petr Beckman and published in 1976. On the subject of Chernobyl he would have observed the that minimal environmental effects from Three Mile Island proved that properly designed safety systems can prevent a disaster while shoddy design gives us what happened at Chernobyl. Dr. Beckman wrote that there is no completely safe way to make energy. “Energy is the capacity for doing work, and as long as man is fallible, there is always the possibility to do the wrong type of work; to ask for safe energy, therefore, is much the same as asking for incombustible fuel. He also observed that nuclear energy is “…far safer than any other form of energy.”

Back to the review of “Wormwood Forest,” the author was astonished during her tours of the Zone of Alienation created by the explosion of a Chernobyl reactor by the proliferation of wildlife. She said little is known about the radioactive animals of Chernobyl, but “What is known is that there a many, many more of them than before the disaster.” She also wrote that what she saw during her extensive tours converted her from being an “…adamant opponent of nuclear energy to ambivalent support…”at least until we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.” I’m hoping that thinking such as that spreads before we reach the economic disaster created by bad economic policy and energy shortages predicted by some of the books I’ve recently reviewed.

Recent events involving the government trying to fund development of alternative energy endorses  the wisdom of Ms. Mycio in advocating nuclear energy until we sort out what is really possible with alternative fuels. As mentioned in the review of the book “Game Over” by Stephen Leeb, there isn’t enough iron to build the windmills and towers to replace energy from carbon based production. Solar power hasn’t been proven to provide a net gain in energy, and the results of providing Solyndra over half a billion dollars in government loans only led to a delay in bankruptcy and the layoff of about 1100 employees. There isn’t enough land area to grow biofuels to replace hydrocarbon energy production, and converting food such as corn into ethanol is both inefficient and idiotic.

Solyndra isn’t the only failure involving alternative energy technology. Beacon Power, a company involved in energy storage also went into bankruptcy after receiving $578 million dollars in taxpayer-guaranteed loans. The most recent bankruptcy was Ener1, an electric battery company that was recently awarded an $118 million dollar stimulus grant. That bankruptcy occurred about one year after Vice President Biden visited the plant to highlight the progress being made by the company with federal funds.

My hope is that technology for alternative energy becomes more successful or that new nuclear power plants will be built using the lessons learned from Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Japan before we reach a precipice of economic failure driven by misguided political policies about how we make our energy.

Wormwood Forest, A Natural History of Chernobyl

Posted on by

This book by Mary Mycio was given to me by a friend who told me I would love it. He was right. It describes the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in 1986 that scattered 20-40 tons of radioactive materials across large areas of the Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. The area is designated the “Zone of Alienation,” and 350,000 people were evacuated and resettled. There are over four million people still living in areas that are contaminated with at least one curie of cesium per square kilometer. The book has detailed information about the levels of contamination of the Zone and the effects on the animals, plants, insects, and fungus. Many sections are difficult to read because of the amount of technical information. However, I’m glad I read it.

The book begins with a quote from Revelation to explain the title. The quote is about a star called Wormwood that falls on the earth “…and the third part of the waters become wormwood; and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.” Chornobyl is the Ukrainian name for the wormwood plant and Chernobyl is “…the Russianized version…”   The wormwood herb and other plants have thrived since the reactor disaster. There have been effects, such as pine trees that have grown into distorted shapes called “pine bushes.”

It was believed people would never be able to enter many areas contaminated by the disaster, but the author joined the fad of “atomic tourism” by obtaining permits to tour the Zone wearing her camouflage protective clothing and dosimeter. She writes she was shocked to discover the area “…has become Europe’s largest wildlife sanctuary, a flourishing—at times unearthly—wilderness teeming with large animals…” There are large herds of wild boars, healthy populations of wolves and lynx because of the proliferation of their prey, wild horses, and a large variety of birds. The author observes that “…very little is known about the radioactive animals of Chernobyl. What is known is that there are many, many more of them than before the disaster.

The book is undoubtedly controversial in many aspects. For example the author writes although plutonium is a heavy metal and therefore toxic, the myth that it is the “…deadliest substance known to man…” is not accurate. There are other toxins such as arsenic that win that distinction. I expect the effects on people and the various species described in the book will reinforce the opinions of those who oppose nuclear power and the general absence of longer term devastating effects will reinforce the opinions of those who are proponents. One of the author’s tour guides observed that there has not been mutant animals in the zone. He admitted when pressed that “Because with wild animals, mutants die.” Toads and frogs often develop malformations when exposed to toxins, but those are seen more often in the United States than in the Zone.

There were hundreds of children exposed to radioactive iodine who developed thyroid cancer. However, “… perhaps one of the greatest mysteries is the disaster’s impact on people.” “Samosels,” or squatters, originally hid to prevent being evacuated from the Zone. They are dying at the expected ages despite being exposed to twice the maximum dose “allowed.” “Moreover, it seems impossible to tease the health effects of radiation out of the tangle of poverty, alcoholism, smoking, poor diet, and other factors that plague public health in the the places in the former Soviet Union that were unaffected by Chernobyl and that made life expectancy—especially among men—the lowest in Europe.” It is also observed the Samosels inhale “…too little plutonium to influence their dose.”

The “involuntary park” (a term coined by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling) appears to be proving wildlife will thrive after being made radioactive by cesium, iodine, strontium, and plutonium where there is little human activity. Touring the Zone converted the author from “…adamant opponent of nuclear energy to ambivalent support—at least for giving a window of time for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels…” She describes how she believed life would be mutated if it managed to survive the holocaust, but Chernobyl showed her a different view. The ghost towns are a “…tragic testimony to the devastating effects of technology gone awry. But life in the Wormwood Forest was not only persevering, it was flourishing.”  Of course there were and are numerous media ventures to “…exploit Chernobyl’s inherent spookiness.”

There are interesting bits of historical background about the areas impacted by the disaster. For example, it is mentioned that Stalin’s forced collectivization created an artificial famine in the Ukraine that starved ten million people to death in 1932-1933. There are also bits that were fun to read. One example is that the ugly blob that formed after the reactor meltdown cooled is called the “elephant foot.” The authorities wanted to take a sample, so a machine gun was fired at the blob until a chip came off.

One of my favorite passages in the book was a discussion of the author attending a third grade class trip to the New York Hall of Science. There was a terrarium with a sign: “The Impact of Radiation on Rats.” There was nothing in the terrarium except plants, and author decided the radiation had made the rats invisible. Another passage tells a joke about a “babushka” selling apples labeled “Chernobyl.” A passerby notes that no one will buy apples from there and is told people will certainly buy them for their husband, wife, and mother-in-law.

I was interested in the author’s willingness to expose herself to the radiation levels during her tours. She writes she did not wear a cumulative dosimeter. She calculated an estimated exposure of a few hundred millirems, which isn’t much, but she judged her exposure to be “enough.”

Anyone interested in taking a tour of the Zone of Alienation around Chernobyl should read this book. Approval for a visit is obtained by sending a fax to Chernobylinterinform.

I’m going to let the author have the final say with words written in her closing. “If a nuclear disaster really is …in your metaphoric backyard…it seems best not to think about it too much. Not, at least, until many years have passed, and the bountiful evidence of nature’s nearly miraculous resilience and recovery makes the thinking more bearable.”

Electricity Generation Problems and Politics

Posted on by

I began doing research on solar generation of power for this posting, but expanded to asking how we continue to power our society in the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner. Let’s make a few generalizations. Everyone wants inexpensive energy, and we would prefer to have as little impact on the planet as possible. Some of us might even want to drive cars that are battery powered, which means the batteries have to be recharged from some source of electricity generation. Solar and wind generated electricity are “darlings,” because they don’t use those ugly petrochemicals and don’t emit carbon dioxide. However, they aren’t as dependable as plants that burn coal or natural gas. They are also unfortunately more expensive. Many consumers want to turn on their computers and feel superior because they think the energy is coming from a renewable source such as solar or wind. Some might also selfishly want the energy to be inexpensive and dependable.

This is an immensely complicated problem, but let’s begins with costs for various methods of generating electrical energy. Mark Jaffe wrote an article in the Denver Post that is a pretty good summary of the costs and dependability of various methods of energy production. The flaw is that nuclear power generation is not mentioned. I’ll attempt to summarize the excellent data in the article. Natural gas costs between 6.6 to 10.9 cents to generate a kilowatt of electricity, coal is 7.4 to 13.5, wind is 4.4 to 11.5, and solar comes in last ( in the cost race) at 14.1 to 21. The dependability is perhaps more concerning in comparing “renewable” solar and wind to oil and natural gas.  Coal and natural gas are rated at about 70-90 percent dependable. Solar and wind are rated at twenty-two to forty-two percent dependable.

Let’s try to be honest. Would you prefer to accept a less than fifty percent chance of having your home heating or air conditioning to work or your computer to be powered to be between 70-90 percent dependable, or would you be willing to accept a less than fifty percent chance of that energy being available?

Solar has especially come under pressure recently. An article in the Wall Street Journal by Yuliya Chernova reports that 8% more solar panels would be installed in 2011 than in 2010, but that increases are expected to end in 2012. The United States is about the only country that is expected to have stable or increased demand in this New Year, and that is because utilities have to install new panels to meet State mandates. Price competition for the panels, to include from the Chinese where the government directed banks to lend freely to new manufacturers, is driving companies out of business. At least seven solar panel producers, including Solyndra, filed for bankruptcy in 2011. Stock prices have of course plummeted.

And now let’s discuss nuclear power generation. I know it has been successfully vilified by those who are against anything that is titled “nuclear,” and Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the recent problems in Japan after the tsunami haven’t done anything to encourage people to advocate that source of electricity. However, let’s think about this. Nuclear power doesn’t generate carbon dioxide, and therefore doesn’t contribute to the currently frightening “boogieman” (which I don’t believe) of global warming. For those who are so selfish to be interested in costs of electricity, nuclear power generation is the least expensive method. It is also dependable so long as a tsunami doesn’t wipe out the cooling systems.

The criminal investigation of government loans to Solyndra won’t help the reputation of the solar industry. An article in the Washington Post by Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig reprinted in the Denver Post contains some troubling information. The loans that were made “…were thick with political considerations.” Thousands of memos, company records, and internal e-mails show that the government was almost exclusively worried about how the story would impact Obama’s campaign for reelection. There was rarely if ever a discussion of the impact Solyndra’s collapse would have on laid-off workers, the development of solar power, or the impact on taxpayers. The discussions were almost exclusively about “How are we going to manage this politically?” The bottom line is that senior officials pushed career bureaucrats to rush their positive decision on making the loans so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it on a trip to California.

A matrix at the end of the Washington Post article presents connections between Solyndra, the Department of Energy, several senior members of the administration, and Solyndra investors. One of those investors was the billionaire George Kaiser who was a “bundler” for the Obama campaign.

Nuclear Power in Japan

Posted on by

I posted a blog in May titled “Japanese Nuclear Reactor Disaster,” and closed with  comments that we should learn from the disaster to improve safety and not cripple our economic prosperity in decades to come by being the only country that decides not to use nuclear energy. I believe those observations have been reinforced by some recent developments in Japan. That country would seem to have the most incentive to avoid anything nuclear. Their country is the only one that has ever had nuclear weapons unleashed against it at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now a tsunami has crippled and damaged nuclear power plants leaving wide areas considered to be unsafe (at least for now).

The most recent article I’ve read about the future of nuclear energy in Japan is by David Guttenfelder of the Associated Press, and it says the cleanup of the damaged nuclear reactors will take decades. The article mentions that people who had lived near the reactors may never be able to go home, and then interestingly mentions Hiroshima and Nagasaki where nuclear weapons were detonated and are once again thriving cities. The disaster is accurately described as resulting from a tsunami that swamped not only the plant along with large areas of Japan. “Mangled trucks, flipped over by the power of the wave, still clutter its access roads.” The nuclear part of the disaster is that the damaged reactors “…will have to be entombed in a sarcophagus, with metal plates inserted underneath to keep it watertight.”

Another Associated Press article by Yuri Kageyama titled “Six months after disaster, Japan sticking by nuclear power,” gives a different perspective.  A retired mechanic is quoted as saying he would prefer “…life without the nearby nuclear power plant.” However, he then says, “It is also true we all need it.” It is a fact that Japan, just like any developed nation, needs energy.  A recent poll found 55 percent of Japanese want to reduce the number of reactors, but one person interviewed asked, “What is the alternative?” Alternative energy is expensive, and nuclear technology has become a source of pride for the nation. There is no argument that nuclear power has helped fuel the country’s prosperity for decades, and the recent tsunami-related disaster hasn’t completely overcome that legacy. Only three percent of Japanese said they wanted to eliminate nuclear power reactors completely.

Chester Dawson in the Wall Street Journal presents an interesting reason why Japan must remain “nuclear.” The sub headline to the article is “Some say Bombs’ Potential as Deterrent argues for Keeping Power Plants Online.”  The article leads with, “Many of Japan’s political and intellectual leaders remain committed to nuclear power even as Japanese public opinion has turned sharply against it…Japan needs to maintain its technical ability to make nuclear weapons…it’s important to maintain our commercial reactors because it would allow us to produce a nuclear warhead in a short amount of time.” Japan has both the ability to produce nuclear weapons-grade material and also apparently also has the knowledge to build a nuclear warhead. It also has  the missile technology to deliver a nuclear warhead. The Hayabusa test satellite, which successfully landed on an asteroid and then returned to earth, demonstrated the ability to guide ballistic missiles.

The current policy of Japan prevents production of nuclear weapons. Minister of Defense Yasuo Ichikawa was quoted as saying “We have absolutely no plans to change the existing policy based on the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, a 1967 policy banning the production, possession and presence of nuclear weapons in Japan”

There is official support for keeping nuclear power capacity. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has endorsed keeping nuclear power at least until alternative sources can be developed. That position “…stems from concern about electricity shortages, which could lead to blackouts and stifle economic growth.”   Japan’s largest daily circulation newspaper editorialized that the government should “…stay the course on nuclear power…stressing that the country’s stockpile of plutonium functions diplomatically as a potential nuclear deterrent.”

North Korea wasn’t mentioned in any of the articles, but I’m certain those who mention Japan’s need to keep a nuclear deterrent are thinking of that country.

Can Low Level Radiation Exposure Prevent Cancer?

Posted on by

Those who believe in the idea that radiation exposure is harmful at all levels would answer the question posed in the title “Absolutely not!” and they would probably add some comments that the question is absurd. I’ll be presumptuous to add they would say something such as, “Everyone knows any radiation exposure is harmful.” Those in that camp believe the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation can be estimated by linear extrapolation from effects caused by high doses, and that biological damage will occur unless the level is zero. Their position is supported by the linear no-threshold (LNT) theory adopted by the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) in 1959.

However, those who believe in hormesis (the word derives from the Greek word “hormaein,” which means “to excite”) would observe that many substances such as alcohol and caffeine that can be lethal at high levels have stimulating effects at low levels. There is compelling evidence that the same is true for ionizing radiation. I’ll mention that there is a cottage industry of investigators funded by government-sponsored research money looking for information to support the LNT theory. There are those in that industry who won’t like the information I’m relaying. You should also expect skepticism from people who have been taught (inculcated) that any amount of radiation is bad despite the fact that the world we live in and our own bodies are radioactive.

I am a subscriber to Access to Energy by Dr. Arthur Robinson, and he published a copyrighted article titled, Radiation and Health, in his May 2011 newsletter. It summarizes a paper, Is Chronic Radiation an Effective Prophylaxis Against Cancer? The paper was originally published in the spring 2004 edition of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. The abstract of that article begins, “An extraordinary incident occurred 20 years ago in Taiwan. Recycled steel, accidentally contaminated with cobalt-60 (half-life 5.3 y) was formed into construction steel for more than 180 buildings, which 10,000 persons occupied for 9 to 20 years and unknowingly received radiation exposure.

Intensive studies were performed on the health of the exposed people. It was found that, “Based on the observed seven cancer deaths, the cancer mortality rate for this population was assessed to be 3.5 per 100,000 person years. Three children were born with congenital heart malformations, indicating a prevalence rate of 1.5 cases per 1,000 children under the age 19.” For comparison with people not exposed to the radiation in the buildings, “The average spontaneous cancer death rate in the general population of Taiwan over these 20 years is 116 per 100,000 person years…the prevalence rate of congenital malformation is 23 cases per 1,000 children.” Stated a different way, there was about 3% of the number of cancer deaths for the exposed people compared to what was expected for those in the general population. Birth defects were about 6.5% of what would be expected. Deaths from cancer of people living in the buildings steadily decreased as the time of exposure increased, and had been nearly eradicated after twenty years.

One conclusion of the report was, “It appears that significant beneficial health effects may be associated with this chronic radiation exposure.” (Emphasis added). The journal that published the article was, according to Dr. Robinson, “… immediately savaged … In this case, however, the credential lovers are overwhelmed.”  He then provides a list of the 14 authors and includes their impressive credentials. Dr. Robinson then proposes that “human cancer deaths…can be reduced 20- to 30-fold by increasing whole-body radiation they receive from their environment.”

Japanese Nuclear Reactor Disaster

Posted on by

I did an Internet search to learn the status of the containment structures of the damaged reactors, and the most recent posting I could find was April 6. Most of the articles were posted in March. I’m guessing major news media outlets are losing interest because a “China Syndrome” meltdown (although the exit point from Japan would be somewhere in or near Uruguay) hasn’t occurred. So what is the impact of the disaster if the containment structures hold? There is no doubt the disaster will further add to the fear of nuclear power generation. Japan is hydrocarbon deficient, and had been generating a third of their power needs with nuclear plants. They have stepped up their importation of liquid natural gas via tankers to fill the immediate needs, but that will undoubtedly add expense to an economy that doesn’t need additional expenses.

Do I continue to advocate that nuclear power generation should be a part of our future? You bet I do, and I write that despite Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima. My favorite source of information about energy generation is Dr. Petr Beckman, who published the book “The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear” in 1976. The primary point of the book, which is still very valid today, is that there is no safe way to make energy. “Energy is the capacity for doing work, and as long as man is fallible, there is always the possibility that it will do the wrong kind of work; to ask for safe energy, therefore, is much the same as asking for incombustible fuel.” Nuclear energy is “…far safer than any other form of energy.”

I’m baffled at how casually we accept risks from activities that don’t have the word “nuclear” in their title, even when we have no control over these risks. Anyone who advocates that no risk is acceptable should cut themselves off the power grid. About 1000 people die per year in the U.S. from electrocution. If you overlook the risk of electrocution, what about the risk from mining and burning coal to generate power? There have been 819 deaths in the United States and 52,785 in China from coal mining since 1990. That doesn’t consider the risks to people from the emissions and wastes generated from burning coal. As Dr. Beckman said, there is no method of making energy that is completely “safe.” He advocated that producing plentiful energy is required to preserve economic freedom and prosperity. China, India, Korea, and Russia are not delaying construction of new nuclear reactors, but the United States and some European countries are responding to the Japanese crises by rethinking plans for nuclear facilities. France generates 75% of its energy with nuclear power, and I haven’t found that they intend to shut down their plants.

One consequence of the reactor crises is an increase in “atomic tourism.” Attendance was up by 12 percent on a recent weekend at the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas and by 20 percent at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque. A spokesman there was quoted as saying, “Folks definitely want information about nuclear reactors and nuclear radiation.” People pay $250 a person to tour Chernobyl and the nearby ghost town of Pripyat in the Ukraine. I didn’t find any indications that visits are up at the Nagasaki and Hiroshima museums. However nuclear engineer Joseph Gonyeau said that visits to his excellent and extensive web site was up by 119 percent in March. There are updates on that site about the Japanese disaster from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Japan’s Nuclear and industrial Safety Agency, and the Tokyo Electric Power Company.

The bottom line is that we should do everything possible to learn from this disaster to improve safety. We should not cripple our economic prosperity in decades to come by being the only country that decides not to use nuclear energy to produce electricity.