Nuclear power is particularly green energy: get used to it - pg. 3 of 3

...continued from page two.

Pollution from nuclear power plant takes the form of radiation emission or of toxic waste.

We noted above that a normal nuclear power plant will have insignificant emission of radiation, effectively the same as the background noise. It also makes sense that we should control radiation emission very carefully, since we understand the problems that lack of control can cause.

That said, it will no doubt come as a surprise to the casual reader that coal fired power plant releases far more radiation of all types into the atmosphere than any nuclear plant. More disconcertingly, while we strictly regulate and monitor radiation emission from nuclear plant and build in exigent safeguards and controls to ensure that the probability of emission is reduced to near zero, we turn a rather callow blind eye to the radiation pollution that spews from coal fired plant.

Even more shameful, it is not as if we don’t know what we are doing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency itself states blandly that burning coal generates huge quantities of radioactive materials in the form of fly ash. The figures are startling: according to the EPA, assuming normal uranium and thorium concentrations in coal (1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm respectively), a typical U.S. coal plant releases 5.2 tons of uranium and 12.8 tons of toxic thorium derivatives, per year into the atmosphere, as well as significant quantities of cadmium, palladium, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and other gases and heavy metals.

Even more astonishing, this includes an amazing 74 lbs of uranium-235, a highly toxic radioactive form of uranium used in rudimentary nuclear weapons. This is put willy-nilly, with subsidies from our elected representatives in Congress, into the air we breathe.

If such quantities of radioactive pollutants were released from nuclear facilities, there'd be mass hysteria. If we could attribute this to a terrorist group, we'd haul them to Guantanamo and throw away the key.

Yet we not only allow, we subsidize our coal plant owners to do this to us. Such behavior can surely only be motivated by the vast and powerful forces of massive ignorance and greed. It's hard not to conclude that our refusal to take aggressive corrective action against coal plants is a consequence of the fact that burning coal produces 50% of U.S. energy and that there are just too many lobbies involved supporting the industry.

To remove such a huge communal trough would require major political courage and will, and require huge investment in replacement technologies such as nuclear.

What's more, oil and gas plants also pollute far more than nuclear. Oil is particularly dirty, with radioactive heavy metals and toxic gases being released in vast quantities all along the extraction and production process. In comparison, nuclear power injects none of these highly toxic pollutant gases and metals into the atmosphere.

Yes, nuclear produces toxic waste.

It's undeniable that nuclear plants produce toxic waste products that require delicate handling with stringent controls.

That’s a good reason to be wary, and some would argue a good reason to avoid the technology altogether.

But once again, there's a major issue of comparative benefit. Toxic waste is also produced by burning carbon fuels. Aside from the radioactive fly ash from coal power generation that we are being forced to breathe, drilling for oil and gas produces a sludge laden with radionuclide such as radium-226, radium-228, and radon gas, all of which are highly toxic. Mining for coal exposes heavy metals that are left in tailings and slurry that seriously pollute water supplies. In that respect, the waste from nuclear processes is much better controlled and monitored.

Of course, intense radiation of heavy metals produces by products, but most of these are highly unstable, i.e. they don’t hang around long enough to do anyone any damage. For the longer-lived, more problematic elements, it's well recognized that we have to take appropriate measures to control them, and we do. Plutonium 239, for example, is both long lived and very toxic, so it is treated as a toxin. In fact, the systems put in place for treating and handling nuclear waste products are so stringent and so effective that there are compelling arguments for forcing the same standards on oil, gas, and coal plant, and even on domestic chemicals.

In this respect, nuclear is very different than other power technologies. Coal, gas, oil, and even hydro power have commonly been put into operation without prior understanding of the environmental impact, and therefore without any attempt at control to protect the environment. That is a huge and critical difference from nuclear that has always planned for and attempted to forestall or mitigate the worse effects of even the worse case scenario.

Yet instead of applauding the nuclear power industry, we shun it even more and turn to pipe dreams, or pork barrels such as hydrogen-fueled cars and ethanol.

We should take a harder and more objective look at the effect on the environment of other sources of power before castigating nuclear. Apart from the obvious suspects - coal, gas, and oil - hydro power projects historically have had a huge impact on the ecosystem, causing destruction of habitat, migration and eradication of species, and significant changes in local micro climates. Associated irrigation projects often cause massive degradation in land utilization from increased salination.

The fate of the Aral Sea is an eloquent example of our strange blindness - only a really huge nuclear accident could ever have such a deleterious effect. Yet we seem to be focused on what is actually a low risk to the environment and indeed to ourselves, from carefully building and operating nuclear facilities, and oblivious to the guaranteed negative effects of the other sources of power even when they are right on the doorstep.

Finally, let’s put all these elements together and look at what we have:

• Nuclear generating plants create no greenhouse gas emissions
• Normally operating nuclear plants release less radiation into the atmosphere than coal, or than is released by the long term extraction of gas or oil
• Nuclear has the lowest overall long term cost structure of any fuel – especially in countries without an easily accessible source of fossil or hydro resources
• Nuclear plants cause less damage to the riverine ecosystem than major hydro project, and
• Nuclear plants are less noisy and unsightly than wind turbines, and not as dangerous to birds

Okay, that last point is a little joke. But it's also true!

So let’s get building guys. Nuclear, of course, if you're really green.

Joseph Neil worked for 7 years for the French Commission d’Energie Atomique at Cadarache in Provence, South of France during the development of both the Liquid Sodium Fast Breeder Reactor technologies, and the first Fusion processes. He has also worked in the oil industry and for HydroVenturi - a “green” low-head hydro system manufacturer. He now lives and works in Silicon Valley.