Rise of the Nuclear Greens - Some environmentalists see atomic energy as the answer to global...

In theory, the March 11, 2011, disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant should have bolstered environmentalists’ opposition to new nuclear-energy projects. But in the wake of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, some of the world’s leading Greens have done just the opposite: they have come out in favor of nuclear power. Perhaps the most prominent convert is British activist and journalist George Monbiot, who even cites the disaster as one reason for his change of heart. Just ten days after Fukushima, in a column for the Guardian, Monbiot called the use of solar energy in the United Kingdom “a spectacular waste of scarce resources” and declared that wind energy was “hopelessly inefficient” and “largely worthless.” Moreover, he wrote, “on every measure (climate change, mining impact, local pollution, industrial injury and death, even radioactive discharges) coal is 100 times worse than nuclear power.” He concluded: “Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power.”

Illustration by Arnold Roth

A number of prominent British and American environmentalists were pronuclear before Fukushima. Among the Americans are longtime environmental activist and publisher Stewart Brand, as well as Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, founders of the Oakland-based Breakthrough Institute, a center-left think tank. The Brits include environmentalist Mark Lynas, former British prime minister Tony Blair, and scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock. There’s also a Canadian in the group: Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore.

The emergence of the pronuclear Greens represents an important schism in modern environmentalism. For decades, groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace have pushed an antinuclear agenda and contended that the only energy path for the future is the widespread deployment of wind turbines and solar panels. But fear of carbon emissions and climate change has catalyzed a major rethinking. As Brand puts it in a new documentary, Pandora’s Promise, which explores the conversion of antinuclear activists to the pronuclear side: “The question is often asked, ‘Can you be an environmentalist and be pronuclear?’ I would turn that around and say, ‘In light of climate change, can you be an environmentalist and not be pronuclear?’ ”

Newfound support can only help the nuclear-energy sector, but it remains to be seen whether nuclear will play a major role in the burgeoning global electricity market, which has grown by about 3 percent per year since 1985. It’s already clear that the Greens’ pronuclear stance won’t have a significant impact on the American electricity market over the next decade or so, for a simple reason: the shale-gas revolution here has produced abundant supplies of low-cost natural gas. In 2010, one of the largest electric utilities in the country, Exelon, said that for new nuclear projects to be economically viable, natural gas would have to cost at least $8 per million Btu. Today, the price is about $3.50, and the shale-gas boom means that a price anywhere near $8 is exceedingly unlikely for years to come. Four nuclear reactors are now being built in the United States—the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors in Georgia and the Summer 2 and 3 reactors in South Carolina—but the projects are going forward only because regulators in those states have allowed the utilities that own them to recover costs from ratepayers before the projects are finished.

Nuclear advocates may have more influence in Asia and Europe, where natural gas remains relatively expensive. For instance, in Japan, where the nuclear industry is fighting to stay alive after Fukushima, natural gas must be imported in liquefied form, and it currently costs about $17 per million Btu. In Western Europe, imported, liquefied natural gas costs nearly $12 per million Btu. When natural gas is that expensive, nuclear reactors can make economic sense. According to the World Nuclear Association, a trade group, some 62,000 megawatts’ worth of new reactors are now being built—58,000 in Europe and Asia and the remainder in South America and the Middle East. (The WNA figures don’t count all 4,400 megawatts of capacity under construction in the United States.)

The biggest obstacle to a rapid expansion of the global nuclear fleet isn’t natural gas, however; it’s coal, the leading source of carbon-dioxide emissions. In China, for example, about 500,000 megawatts of new coal-fired electric generation capacity came online between 2000 and 2011. Between 2013 and 2016, China will probably build another 315,000 megawatts of new coal-fired capacity. Electricity producers are building new coal-fired power plants because coal is relatively cheap and abundant and because no OPEC-like cartel controls the global market (see “Coal Comfort,” Summer 2012). Those factors help explain why, over the past decade, the global consumption of energy from coal grew by about the same amount as the consumption of energy from oil, natural gas, hydropower, and nuclear power combined. In just one year, 2011, global coal use increased by the equivalent of about 3.9 million barrels of oil per day. That daily increase was nearly as much energy as the total amount provided each day by all global non-hydro renewables.

For nuclear energy to gain significant momentum in the global marketplace, then, it has to get much cheaper. In a September essay published in Foreign Policy, Nordhaus and Shellenberger, with coauthor Jessica Levering, provided a road map for revitalizing the nuclear sector. They called for a “new national commitment” to the development and commercialization of next-generation nuclear technologies, including small modular reactors. The goal, they said, should be reactors that can be built at “a significantly lower cost than current designs,” as well as a new, more nimble regulatory framework that can review and approve the new designs.

While that plan is sensible enough, it’s not clear whether groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace can be persuaded to abandon their antinuclear zealotry. Nevertheless, it’s encouraging to see that some influential environmentalists are realizing that we have no choice but to embrace the astonishing power of the atom. We do have to get better at nuclear power, and that will take time. But we’re only at the beginning of the Nuclear Age.

Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment at the Manhattan Institute.

WHO had a nasty habit of publishing things that the IAEA did not like. Laws were ammended to require WHO to submit reports regarding radiation hazards to IAEA for approval before publication. I’ll find a better link if I have time but this document words it softly:http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull373/37305381015.pdf

Note that the right side of page 3 says that a practice has been developed (no mention of the legal requirement) whereby manuals, standards, regulations and recommendations are issued under ‘joint sponsorship’ including the IAEA, FAO and WHO.
WHO did vow about 2 years ago to escape the yoke of IAEA approval but has not been able to do so.

Here’s a good video re effects of Chernobyl (Toxicologist who participated in international study).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc72kT_gFNQ&feature=autoplay&list=WL60CD6C2FD5A374DB&lf=BFp&playnext=1

Includes at the 3:40 mark a description of WHO’s submission to IAEA, an ‘agreement’ that was reached in 1959 and has never been changed. More mention of the agreement and modern protests against it at the 10:38 mark. The agreement is referred to as “WHA 12-40.”

At the 5:30 minute mark, the toxicologist addresses the issue of the problem being worse than she had heard. It’s a 29 minute video - lots of good information. She makes the point that Chernobyl is not contained, it’s seeping into the ground water and the structure covering is unsound. We don’t hear that from the IAEA do we?
Some depressing maps in the video showing world wide impact.
At the 13:30 mark, only 20% of children are considered healthy in Belarus compared with pre Chernobyl population. I remember reading earlier documentation from international researchers saying that soon after Chernobyl, “Most children in Belarus were sick...” Another pro nuke international report said that after Chernobyl, “all instances of disease increased”. I had to go back and read that twice. Exposure to radiation suppressed immune systems so people sicken and or die from diseases they could otherwise resist.
22:15 she says “we need to separate the WHO from IAEA...”
She says she worked for the AEC (Atomic Energy COmmision) in 1952. She laments the secrecy and lies, coverups, falsification of data used to protect the nuclear power industry.
She makes the point in the last few minutes of the video that we can’t depend on humans to operate this technology and notes that Chernobyl was human failure. Having watched the documentary videos and read the reports - I too came to this realization, particularly after watching “The Battle for Chernobyl” on Youtube. The video I linked above (toxicologist) hi-lights a US reactor that almost had a melt through (within one inch of melting through containment) because of poor maintenance.

The reason people dare to claim that radiation is harmless is because of government collusion with nuclear power (a match made in hades) - together they cast decades of research proving the harmful effects of radiation as mere ‘superstition’ and minimize the suffering they cause. Medical Researcher and “Father of Plutonium” was initially a hero for discovering plutonium and helping provide Oppenheim with needed isotopes on a deadline. But now the nuclear power industry hates him because, when his medical research demonstrated the harmful effects of radiation on humans (and this was late 1950’s) they HAD to try to discredit him. They stripped his colleagues of labs and funds and try to destroy his reputation. The National Academy of Sciences stood by him back then - which was a real shock because the gov funds the NAS. The government and the nuclear power industry had access to medical evidence for decades...but they act like were just being superstitious if we cite it.

What possible physical mechanism connected to any kind of problem at any kind of nuclear power plant could eat through a new roof "overnight" as claimed? I have iodine-colored rainwater sometimes too - it's from dead leaves.

All the wild claims of damage from Three Mile Island through mysterious and unexplained/inexplicable physical mechanisms couldn't possibly be coming from opportunistic cretins looking to cash in, could they?

I've seen pictures of plants that obviously had been treated with 2-4D weed killer presented as "evidence" of damage from Fukushima.

The effects and mechanisms of radiation exposure are well-understood and fully characterized. The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are carefully studied to this day. If someone claims that their kidney "disappeared" - are they sure they had two to begin with? And how is that "consistent with radiation exposure?" How many survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima had their kidneys "disappear?" And I doubt many doctors have heard of emphysematous pyelonephritis, either.

"Metallic tasting blast of air?" From what, an above-ground nuclear test? We're talking about nuclear power plants, not nuclear bombs here.

Obviously, high levels of ionizing radiation are harmful to human health - nobody is trying to deny that.

What I object to is this idea that a 0.0000001% increase over background radiation levels that humanity has lived with since the dawn of time is catastrophic, and the idea that this tiny risk represents a reason to shut down one of the only emissions-free sources of large-scale base-load electricity in order to enslave ourselves to the fossil-fuel pushers. Buying iodine pills in Seattle because of Fukushima? F---ing stupid. People need to get a grip.

There are reactor designs that are constrained by the laws of physics such that they cannot generate enough heat to melt the fuel, even with a complete absence of external cooling. The hotter they get, the less power they produce. But since it takes a decade or more to get approval for a design, we keep running the outdated plants like those at Fukushima.

Flooded to the roof? What power plant are you talking about? Ft. Calhoun in Nebraska? No... That was designed to deal with 10 feet of floodwater and got only four or so. "Back east?" Oyster Creek, maybe? No... Which one?

Let’s start with your most deceiptful comment first:
________________
What I object to is this idea that a 0.0000001% increase over background radiation levels that humanity has lived with since the dawn of time is catastrophic, and the idea that this tiny risk represents a reason to shut down one of the only emissions-free sources of large-scale base-load electricity in order to enslave ourselves to the fossil-fuel pushers. Buying iodine pills in Seattle because of Fukushima? F-—ing stupid. People need to get a grip.
________________
Nuke apologists always average the increase in background radiation. Of course such an ‘average’ is about as useful as averaging the body temperatures of all patients in a hospital. In Japan, the increase in background radiation is several orders of magnitude and it will be for countless generations. Do you think the people suffering the effects of living their entire lives in contaminated zones will rejoice when they hear that the planetary increase in background radiation is low? Does dumping radioactive waste into the environment just ‘not count’ until you raise the entire planetary average by 10%?

Hmmmm....why did people living in Seattle buy iodine? Well because they knew that they would be lied to and probably decided to look after themselves. In Fukushima, the government ordered city leaders NOT to distribute iodine tablets. Don’t want to cause ‘panic’ do we? ‘Panic’ is the code word for ‘don’t want to accept responsibility for our actions’.
Or perhaps they were watching news reports in the US which indicated air monitors were detecting radioactive isotopes and were therefore being removed from service (Radnet). Or maybe they looked at this map of the minute amounts of sampling done in the US (don’t want to find anything right? keep sampling to a minimum) which indicated fallout reached the US? http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es203217u

Here’s a quote from a related page “Variable amounts of 131I, 134Cs, or 137Cs were measured at approximately 21% of sampled NADP sites distributed widely across the contiguous United States and Alaska. Calculated 1- to 2-week individual radionuclide deposition fluxes ranged from 0.47 to 5100 Becquerels per square meter during the sampling period. “ http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es203217u
If nuclear power had a history of honesty, people living in Seattle would be far less likely to take the action that some apparently did. Lied to, deceived, and pro active - they earn the contempt and wrath of those who lie to them.
____________________________

What possible physical mechanism connected to any kind of problem at any kind of nuclear power plant could eat through a new roof “overnight” as claimed? I have iodine-colored rainwater sometimes too - it’s from dead leaves.

All the wild claims of damage from Three Mile Island through mysterious and unexplained/inexplicable physical mechanisms couldn’t possibly be coming from opportunistic cretins looking to cash in, could they?
__________________________

An ‘event’ happens, is denied, those reporting medical responses to said event are ridiculed...this is routine you know? Ever heard of Downwinders? Do you think the nuclear power industries shoddy history has anything to do with the public’s response to being dismissed? WIth the nuclear power plant’s history of ‘lie and deny’ from it’s inception?

__________________________

I’ve seen pictures of plants that obviously had been treated with 2-4D weed killer presented as “evidence” of damage from Fukushima.

__________________________

Yes the lies and coverups of the nuke industry sometimes come back to bite them, don’t they? Observers noting the weed killer on a website I was frequenting back then wondered why the Japanese sprayed weed killer on the plants around the power plant. Some theorized it was to conceal the impending death of the plants but I’ve never heard an explanation. Given that nuclear fuel was ejected from the reactor, we won’t have to look to vegetation for the ‘effects’ of Fukushima:
“
Newly released neutron data from three University of California San Diego scientists confirms Fairewinds’ April analysis that the nuclear core at Fukushima Daiichi turned on and off after TEPCO claimed its reactors had been shutdown. This periodic nuclear chain reaction (inadvertent criticality) continued to contaminate the surrounding environment and upper atmosphere with large doses of radioactivity. In a second area of concern, Fairewinds disagrees the NRC’s latest report claiming that all Fukushima spent fuel pools had no problems following the earthquake. In a new revelation, the NRC claims that the plutonium found more than 1 mile offsite actually came from inside the nuclear reactors.”http://www.fairewinds.com/content/new-data-supports-previous-fairewinds-analysis-contamination-spreads-japan-and-worldwide

___________________________________
The effects and mechanisms of radiation exposure are well-understood and fully characterized.
___________________________________
And fully denied and lied about. One writer had this to say re TMI: “I read everything I could lay my hands on, groping for the truth behind the evasive reports published by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I finally read verbatim transcripts of the Commissioners’ meeting held the day after the accident. The words these men said to each other stunned me. They had no idea what was happening and no idea how to stop it. And meanwhile they were issuing reassuring reports to the public.” http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/nwJWG.html

_____________________________
The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are carefully studied to this day. If someone claims that their kidney “disappeared” - are they sure they had two to begin with? And how is that “consistent with radiation exposure?” How many survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima had their kidneys “disappear?” And I doubt many doctors have heard of emphysematous pyelonephritis, either.
_______________________________

John Gofman (http://www.rightlivelihood.org/gofman.html and an excellent overview of his contributions to science here: http://www.nirs.org/radiation/gofman.pdf) documents the ways in which researchers worked to scramble the data on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki studies. Now WHY would researchers want to do THAT?
Oh and he wasn’t alone in determining that, by design, the study of A-bomb survivors was designed in such a way that it would be blind to actual genetic harm done to people:
* In other words, when the study was initiated, it was expected in advance that such a study would be inherently incapable of detecting the radiation-induction of inherited afflictions at any statistically significant level. The famous negative “findings” were built-in before the study began. “
Here’s another quote re the intentional distortion of the data: Gofman recognizes how easy it is to slant research on the effects
of radiation, and how important it is to be meticulous in
discovering these effects. The study of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
survivors and those affected by the Chernobyl accident provide
essential data bases for the effects of ionizing radiation on
human health. If such research work is poorly designed or biased,
false conclusions will enter the textbooks and become medical lore
for very many years to come. The resulting misinformation can lead
to untold human suffering, magnified over time. Thus a trustworthy
data base is a sacred obligation to humanity.In the cases of both the atomic bomb survivors and the Chernobyl
study, he has shown how standard rules of research have been
violated. For example, in 1986 the original groupings (called
cohorts) of the atomic bomb survivors were shuffled. Doing such a
shuffle of data allows you to arrange for results you like. Gofman
has shown the effects of this shuffle using the old and new data
bases. The new data base suggests that low dose radiation is less
harmful per dose-unit than high dose radiation. The original data
base suggests the opposite. The retroactively altered data base
can be construed as consistent with threshold speculations,
whereas the unaltered data base argues strongly against any “safe
dose”.
*The best overview of Gofman’s analysis re the distortion about the A-bomb studies is mid-way down the page under the title “4. Criticism of the A-Bomb Study” http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/RIC/chp5F.html
___________________________________________

“Metallic tasting blast of air?” From what, an above-ground nuclear test? We’re talking about nuclear power plants, not nuclear bombs here.
___________________________________________

Apparently you are unaware that persons exposed to radiation (including medical uses) report a metallic taste in their mouth and you are likewise unaware of the event at TMI and also you are unaware that containment domes exploded at Fukushima.
_______________________________________________
Obviously, high levels of ionizing radiation are harmful to human health - nobody is trying to deny that.

_______________________________________________

Obviously even low levels of radiation are harmful to human health. The nuke pimps are always trying to limit the discussion of radiation health impacts to ARS (acute radiation sickness) but for decades medical research has proven that low levels, even those found in x-rays contribute to cancer. John Gofman’s work influenced the acknowledgement in the medical community that medical uses of radiation contribute to cancer risk - that’s why we now sign a medical release acknowledging radiation hazards when we have isotope treatments/xrays etc. Gofman was the first to reveal xray risks.
____________________________________________

_________________________

Nuke pimps always claim that the public is responsible for disasters like Fukushima because we won’t approve more designs which they deem ‘safer’. The problem with nuclear power is the people involved - the people are the weakest link. For example, nuke pimps treated the public’s concerns with contempt for years and rejected caution with statements declaring that it was physically impossible for containment to fail.
We have three nuclear cores which have melted through containment structures in Fukushima right now and the nuke pimps haven’t changed their story. Most disheartening (to me) was that there was an insider email circulated shortly after Fukushima explaining that the nuke industry officials were aware of a design flaw that could (and did) result in containment failure. Watch the youtube video “The Battle For Chernobyl” and discover that the design of the reactor was less of a problem than the people running the reactor. Incompetent management.
The nuke industry lies and treats the public with contempt. They damage human health and ridicule those who object. WHy give employees like these a promotion?(thorium) Is it possible that the nuke industry fouled it’s own nest, and our nests, so much that we don’t trust them or want them to do us any more ‘favors’? Oh yes, shortly after Fukushima some nuke engineer on FR sneered that the people of Fukushima or Japan for that matter, had no reason to object because they’d gotten cheap energy for years!
____________________________________________

Flooded to the roof? What power plant are you talking about? Ft. Calhoun in Nebraska? No... That was designed to deal with 10 feet of floodwater and got only four or so. “Back east?” Oyster Creek, maybe? No... Which one?

_____________________________________________
If I have time, I’ll look for the links on FR.

You’re off the rails again. It isn’t much of a conspiracy. Even back in 1960’s the NRC directed it’s scientists to prevent a researcher from publishing facts about above ground nuclear testing which proved that the US government under reported the amount of radiation released by 90%. The researchers met with the angry scientist and didn’t know what was expected of them so they asked him a few questions, made a few suggestions and ‘let him go’ publish. The NRC management threw a tantrum - he said they were to have stopped him. The scientist released his research proving the government lied (under reported by 90%)to the detriment of the health and well-fare of it’s people and...crickets. Nothing happened. They lie - they get away with it.

The Downwinder’s demanded their day in court. The government allowed it - but barred the victims’ veterinarian’s from testifying and sent in their own government vet and...can you figure out how that trial turned out?

Three Mile Island: Only the power plant’s radiation estimates get recorded as official. He who writes history...

Before the nuclear accident, the average background radiation level in Tokyo was slightly above 0.03 microsievert/hour. So what did you think of the discovery of 23,300 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in a park in Tokyo? That’s several orders of magnitude larger than original background radiation. When diminished 7/8, it’s 2912.5 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium which is still 5 decimal points above original background - and still damaging to people, plants and animals.

You don’t think that there’s only one spot like that in all of Japan, do you? Or that the Japanese government is posting information about such highly radioactive hot spots? (must avoid ‘panic’, right?) or that it is even looking for them, right? You do understand that there are entire mountain ranges that are considered too radioactive to visit for the traditional viewing of the cherry blossoms, right? SO the official stance is that the ‘trees are resting’ from being visited too much in the past.

The more optimistic radiation maps distributed by the Japanese government were created by helicopter - off the ground the radiation is measured...ahem lower. Several schools in Fukushima have radiation monitors in the front yard. Those monitors are set up to measure higher off the ground than necessary (again it lowers the reading) so others have come along and set up ‘real’ radiation monitors right next to them to display the disparity.

Here’s a quote “Radiation Exposure

About a fifth of the 1,600 schools in Fukushima are exposed to at least 20 millisieverts of radiation a year, the Network to Protect Fukushima Children from Radiation said, citing the most recent government readings in April. That’s the limit for an atomic plant worker set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.”

Or as you said, any citizen can buy a geiger counter: Here’s a photo of a citizen measuring the radiation in front of a junior high school (shown in the background). The radiation there is 0.54 microsievert/hour. So five days of school could be 21.6 microsieverts of exposure per child. But of course that’s not their total dose because they move around, go inside etc and then they go home to live in an area contaminated by radiation an eat/drink contaminated food and water. (Fukushima)
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/10/radioactive-japan-us-high-school.html
Note that this last link has a good radiation contour map made by an independent Japanese scientist. Any citizen can buy a Geiger counter...

This series of maps is excellent: http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/search?q=radiation+map

Here’s a quote:
“Use of school yard:

On April 14 in Kanagawa, iodine-131 was detected at 48,000 becquerels/square meters, and cesium-134 and cesium-137 were detected at 53,000 becquerels/square meters each on the surface of the soil with small gravels.” http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/05/professor-kunihiko-takeda-teachers-wake.html

As long as the government downplays levels of radiation, it refuses to compensate the residents for moving out of the area, losing jobs, houses etc.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.