A Look at Uranium Mining
A Look at Uranium Mining Texas Vox July 8, 2009 by Public Citizen Texas
“………………………There is one destructive aspect of nuclear power that public discourse tends to be especially silent on. Just as coal industry apologists brush over the enormous damage caused by coal mining, any discussion of nuclear is power is likely to be silent on the damage done by uranium mining.
The damage to human health associated with uranium mining is huge. Historically, uranium miners have had a significantly higher risks of developing small cell Carcinoma, which is a likely product of their exposure to Radon-222 — a cancer causing agent created by decaying uranium. The presence of Radon gas also makes uranium mines a very dangerous work environment.………………………..
Last year the French mining company Areva was nominated for a Public Eye Award (a recognition intended for companies who brought about the most social or ecological damage) by Pro Natura (Switzerland’s branch of Friends of The Earth), and the Berne Declaration development campaign. The nomination came from the company’s perceived failure to adequately disclose the risks associated with uranium mining to its workers in Niger, as well as neglecting to treat patients who are unable to pay at company hospitals. Workers also mentioned deaths caused by radioactive contamination of air and ground water.
Aside from the dangers of uranium exposure, mining projects also cause considerable damage to the local environments and to the health of people who live nearby.
A Look at Uranium Mining « TexasVox: The Voice of Public Citizen in Texas
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This Month
Doncha get sick of all the nuclear hype? Meanwhile, where it’s really all happening is in truly CLEAN energy!
(This month on our Action page: 1. UK: Block the Builders is a campaign which aims, using nonviolent direct action, to prevent the building of new nuclear weapons facilities at AWE Aldermaston . 2. Belarus: A call for solidarity actions with Belarusian antinuclear movement on February 19-21)
For February 2010 we focus on RENEWABLE ENERGY and ENERGY EFFICIENCY
1. The most effective method of all: ENERGY EFFICIENCY
The false message of the nuclear lobby is that in order to reduce greenhouse gases, and have enough energy, we need nuclear energy.
In fact, both of these goals can be met quickly, cheaply and cleanly, by just stopping wasting energy.
Energy wastage can be stopped – in the home, in business, in transport, building and manufacturing. The European Plan has already shown how effectively energy can be saved through existing energy efficincy procedures. http://www.energyscience.org.au/FS04%20Energy%20Efficiency.pdf
Cost-effective energy management. There are many ways to implement cost effective energy in homes, offices, industries. Many countries are not doing this yet, due to market problems, lack of information, differing aims of landlords and tenants.lack of institutionalset-ups for delivering services such a sheating and cooling in the least costly way.
Government action would solve these problems by regulating energy performance standards for both existing and new buildings, appliances, equipment and industrial processes.
2. The other component: renewable energy – (and let’s not forget,- while there are set up and maintenance costs – the fuel is free.)
Gas is a good energy source to tide us over the change to renewables, and can provide back-up for solar. Wind power and Solar energy are advancing, but would require special assistance schemes.
The BASELOAD FALLACY
A baseload power station, in theory, provides elctricity 24 hours a day.. In practise, they are costly to manintain, and do break down.. So they have reserve plant, and peakload pland (gas turbines or hydro-electricity.
Renewable energy can provide several different baseload technologies.:
- bioenergy – burning crops and rsidues, or converting them to gas
- hot dry rock geothermal power
- solar thermal electricity, with heat storage in hot water or hot rocks
- large scale distributed wind power, with a small amount of occasional backup from peakload plant
Contrary to general opinion, wind power is generally not intermittent, when it is part of a system of several wind farms, or when connected to a national grid.
A renewable energy system would consist of a mix of different energy sources. Ultimately, its success would depend on some limit to economic and population growth.
http://www.energyscience.org.au/FS05%20Sust%20Energy.pdf
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