[ RadSafe ] "Is Nuclear Energy the Solution ?" Thank you Delhi radiation incident

Sun Apr 18 05:43:34 CDT 2010

Dear George,

I could not resist congratulating you on your point by point lucid response to the editorial.

You rightly pointed out that often people are misguided by the perceived harm of any thing nuclear!

 I  have been away from the crowds of Mumbai for the past few weeks. I am in  my   home town in Kerala, a State known as "Gods own country", in the south west corner of India. Over 100,000 people live here in an area where the average natural background radiation is over four times the normal.  Health Physics Journal has published an epidemiological study on the population of  the high back ground radiation area(HBRA). It concluded that there is no excess cancer in the population living in the HBRA.

Before starting my vacation I decided that I will have nothing to do with radiation  during one month or so!!. That is not to be.

 A few persons  working in  scrap metal industry in Delhi received high radiation doses from a few ophaned Co-60sources presumably imported  into the country. I saw reference to the incident in the Radsafe list. I shall send a technical report as soon as I collect enough authentic material on the incident. I am in touch with the main  players in the drama. 

One of the victims ( owner of a scrap shop)is exposed heavily. He is in  the ICU and is suffering from clearly   identifiable   symptoms of acute radiation syndrome. Seven others have high doses to their extremities. The sources are from  industrial applications of radiation and are of a few Ci strength. I am yet to get more details

I made myself available to a few senior journalists as a part of the professional duty, I was Director, Information and Technical services Division, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.

I wrote one article which can be accessed at

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2010041551311400.htm&date=2010/04/15/&prd=seta&

________________________________
From: George Stanford <gstanford at aya.yale.edu>
To: Peter Bossew <Peter.Bossew at reflex.at>
Cc: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Sent: Sun, 18 April, 2010 1:28:32
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] "Is Nuclear Energy the Solution ?"

Peter:

    This sort of misinformation is all too common.  The "editorial" can be found in more-readable form at
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2773373/>.
Here is the second paragraph, with comments interspersed.

> "We should all know that: first, investments in nuclear power are risky as indicated by the fact that Wall Street has chosen to stay clear;"
    Comment:  The perceived risk is not due to technological uncertainty, but to regulatory and political uncertainties.

> "second, nuclear power plants are stated terrorist targets . . ."
    Comment:  For a terrorist who wants to do damage, there's a plethora of targets that are far more attractive than a nuclear plant -- the Trade Center being just one prominent example.  Nuclear plants add nothing to the terrorist risk, which will exist as long as terrorists do.

> ". . . and carry serious risks of their own;"
    Comment: Those risks are perceived, not actual.  The "worst Western nuclear-plant accident" (Three Mile Island) killed nobody.  An accident last August at a Russian hydro-power plant killed more people than the Chernobyl accident did.  The safety record of the civilian nuclear power industry is unexcelled.

> "third, nuclear power will not reduce our dependencies on foreign energy as is sometimes claimed;"
    Comment:  What nonsense!  Electricity (from wind, solar, or nuclear) can be used to make hydrogen or carbon-neutral synthetic liquids, such as jet fuel, diesel fuel, and gasoline.  Carbon-free nuclear energy could also be used to extract oil from the large oil-bearing shale deposits in the western states.

> "fourth, nuclear-generated electricity does not compare favorably with electricity derived from either the combustion of fossil fuels or renewable sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, wave, and tide, . . . "
    Comment: Electricity is electricity, regardless of how it is generated.
    But if the intended context is economic or environmental, the statement is clearly wrong.  Nuclear power emits no polluting or greenhouse gases.  It requires much less mining than coal -- and, with fast reactors deployed, no mining at all will be needed for centuries.
    Around the world, nuclear power is seen as competitive, with 52 reactors under construction, 143 more on order or planned, and 344 proposed (<http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html>).  Functioning reactors whose capital costs have already been amortized are such cash cows that there are proposals in several places to subject them to a "windfall profits" tax.
    Energy from wind, solar, wave, and tide is turning out to be very expensive per kilowatt-hour delivered (20-50 cents or more), and would not be used for central power anywhere without taxpayer-provided subsidies and regulations requiring utilities to use "renewable" energy when it is available.  (Note that the capacity always stated for wind and solar installations is nameplate, which is three to five times larger than the average available power, and costs for backup and long transmission lines are rarely included in the cost estimates.)
    The two reactors to be built at the Vogtle power station in Georgia are predicted to have an overnight capital cost of about $6800 per kWe (this is undoubtedly considerably higher than future plants, since the ones at Vogtle are first-of-a-kind in the U.S. nuclear revival, and much of that cost is for licensing and other paperwork, rather than for actual construction).  This translates to a capital-cost component of about 6 cents per kWh.  If the fuel and operating cost is another 2 cents/kWh, the resulting 8 cents is higher than for coal or gas, but lower than for wind or solar.

> ". . . and finally, there is currently no good means of nuclear waste disposal, hence more environmental pollution."
    Comment:  As everyone knowledgeable about the industry knows, this common perception is just plain wrong.  Unlike the waste from fossil-fuel burning -- spent nuclear fuel is not polluting the environment anywhere.  And with fast reactors deployed, the spent fuel from thermal reactors becomes a very large energy resource, since only about 4% of its energy has so far been extracted.

    The body of the editorial is unlikely to be any more authoritative than its introduction.

George Stanford
Reactor physicist, retired from Argonne National Laboratory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At 11:28 AM 4/17/2010, Peter Bossew wrote:
> Editorial, Water Air Soil Pollution, 208, 1-4, 2010
> M. Saier and J. Trevors: Is Nuclear Energy the Solution ?
> 
> www.springerlink.com/content/yr0548j054320377/      (open access)
> 
> 
> Comments ?
> 
> In particular I would be interested in (qualified !) comments on the
> economic arguments.
> 
> 
> Peter Bossew

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