nuclear-news

1 THIS MONTH

 profile of all three Fukushima documentaries.  

of the week:   http://sanonofresafety.org/blog/

A website to watch:   http://hormesishistory.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/radiation-hormesis-and-adaptive-response-definitions/    Here’s  a brand new website.  It’s for anyone who wants background knowledge on ionising radiation.  It will bust the spin of the current propaganda campaign promoting bodgie pseudoscience. –  “radiation hormesis” and “adaptive response”  are  the latest spin designed by the nuclear industry to reassure us that low level ionising radiation is OK.

 EVENTS

March 2012 is “March Against Nuclear Madness” and Beyond Nuclear has created a new March Against Nuclear Madness Facebook page.

March 8th & 9th  – Cape Town, South Africa - The Global Conference: Nuclear Power For Africa? http://koebergalert.org/npfree/

 March 11 _ UK – Protest at Hinkley nuclear site

May 31  USA  - Portland, Maine, Bonnie Raitt benefit concert for  New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution

Nuclear power and water – theme for February 2012

Effects of uranium mining and nuclear power on water.

Overuse of precious fresh water.One of the greatest dangers of the nuclear/uranium industry is in its use of water.  Both uranium mining and nuclear reactors require enormous amounts of water.  This is a threat to the world’s scarce resources of fresh water.

Pollution. Both uranium mining and nuclear reactors also pollute water.  In uranium mining, water is often used to pour over radioactive dust tailings: radioactive water can leach down into groundwater. In the “in situ leach” process, radioactive water is disposed of into the aquifer.

Flooding rain can cause overflow and radioactive pollution of waterways.

Nuclear reactors use water for cooling – the resulting hot water is released into the source, river, or coastal sea, to thermally pollute the area, damaging plants and fish.

Effects of water (too little or too much) on nuclear reactors.  

Water scarcity, and hot water.. In heat waves, nuclear reactors often will need to be shut down, as their river sources of cooling water become too warm to function as a coolant.

As global warming brings about a rise in average temperatures and ocean levels, inland reactors will increasingly contribute to, and be affected by, water shortages. During the record-breaking 2003 heat wave in France, operations at 17 commercial nuclear reactors had to be scaled back or stopped because of rapidly rising temperatures in rivers and lake. Spain’s reactor at Santa María de Garoña was shut for a week in July 2006 after high temperatures were recorded in the Ebro River.

Paradoxically, then, the very conditions that made it impossible for the nuclear industry to deliver full power in Europe in 2003 and 2006 created peak demand for electricity, owing to the increased use of air conditioning.  http://chellaney.net/2011/03/14/paradox-of-nuclear-power-water-guzzler-yet-vulnerable-to-water/

Seawater can be used to cool reactors, but it has to be purified. Corrosive elements in the seawater would otherwise ruin the reactors – so seawater is  a last resort for cooling. As in the case of the Fukushima emergency – seawater was used, as  ruining the reactors was preferable to a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.

Too much water.  It is a laugh that nuclear power is touted as a solution to global warming More likely, global warming is the death knell for nuclear power.

Very many nuclear reactors are located along coastlines, where they are vulnerable to storms, hurricanes, and tsunamis. With climate change and rising sea levels, these events are becoming more frequent and more extreme.

So far, we have considered water only as it relates to only the normal operations of nuclear reactors.  Even then, nuclear reactors have leaks, especially as they age, allowing radioactive substances to disperse into water systems.

Uranium mines are vulnerable to flooding. When this happens, the disaster is an economic one, as well as environmental. Canada’s Cameco company and Energy Resources of Australia have found this out to their cost. Both uranium companies are still in financial plight due to the Cigar Lake (Canada) floods of 2006, and 2008, and the Ranger mine (Australia) floods of 2011.

But Fukushima has shown the world how a natural climate event can disrupt nuclear power.  In the event of a nuclear accident the effects of nuclear power on water are hugely damaging, catastrophic.

Some figures and facts on nuclear/uranium and water.

URANIUM MINING  Water use in a typical uranium mine is approximately 200 to 300 gallons per minute, In water-short Australia, BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine has been for years taking 35 million litres of water each day from the underground aquifer, at no cost whatever.  When BHP digs its new biggest hole in the world, it will pay a small fixed price for removing even greater amounts, exceeding 42 million litres.

A typical 1000-megawatt pressurized-water reactor (with a cooling tower) takes in 20,000 gallons of river, lake or ocean water per minute for cooling, circulates it through a 50-mile maze of pipes, returns 5,000 gallons per minute to the same body of water, and releases the remainder to the atmosphere as vapor. A 1000-megawatt reactor without a cooling tower takes in even more water–as much as one-half million gallons per minute. The discharge water is contaminated with radioactive elements in amounts that are not precisely known or knowable, but are biologically active.

Some radioactive fission gases, stripped from the reactor cooling water, are contained in decay tanks for days before being released into the atmosphere through filtered rooftop vents. Some gases leak into the power plant buildings’ interiors and are released during periodic “purges” and “ventings.” These airborne gases contaminate not only the air, but also soil and water.

200 billion gallons of water withdrawn from America’s water supply each day for every terawatt of electricity produced by nuclear reactors,

At least 20 USA nuclear plants have admitted leakage of radioactive tritium into the groundwater.

Spills and leaks are common at In Situ Leach  mines. The South Australian  Department of Primary Industry and Resources lists 59 spills at Beverley mine from 1998 to 2007.