It’s funny. People really believe that nuclear power is emissions free. Powering cities with nuclear, they propound, is the panacea to climate change. And yet, if you really take a look at the fuel cycle, it is obvious nuclear energy is, in fact, emissions intensive.
First off the ore needs to be mined. This involves drilling, explosions, heavy equipment. Even at the EPA standard of 15 grams of carbon per break horsepower engine hour, this translates to a lot of carbon. Then the ore needs to be shipped to a processing facility, or mill.
Here, twenty-four hours a day, heavy equipment loads the ore into a hopper, the intake into the semi-autogenous grinding mill. This grinding mill uses electricity (coal) to turn an enormous steel drum filled with metal tumbling balls. Additionally, tons – yes tons – of concentrated sulfuric acid are needed to help leach the uranium from the ore, among quantities of other highly caustic chemicals, all of which must be prepared on industrial scales and shipped to the facility.
After a number of other mechanical operations, all of them energy intensive, the ore must be dried in an oven, where, twenty-four hours a day, countless kilo-watt hours are burned heating the rock to temperature.
Finally, the processed ore, now ‘yellow cake’, has to be boxed up, sealed in steel drums (refined and produced industrially), and then shipped to market.
Then, of course, it needs to be reacted with hexaflourine, or some other chemical, to be refined and turned into the uranium rods that are used in the reactor core. Only now can the power be said to be emissions free: once the rods are installed and operational, powering generators with their nuclear heat.
Of course, after a few months the rods are spent. They then need to be safely disposed of – or, more accurately, buried somewhere where no one will notice them, contained for 1,000 years, after which they become someone else’s problem (probably the DOE or EPA). They must be safely interred for over four billion years. Yes, they need to be baby-sat for an amount of time that exceeds the current age of the Earth.
Because a nuclear core demands fresh, refined uranium, there is a constant use-cycle – an unstoppable appetite – that, ultimately pollutes in manifold ways:
- The diesel burned in extracting the ore produces CO2, CO, NOX, SOX, dioxins, VOCs among the other expected particulates from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels.
- The dust produced from mining becomes airborne and settles on downwind communities, increasing the cancer rate noticeably.
- The diesel burnt in shipping the heavy rock to processing produces the same slew of pollutants as the heavy mining machinery, while trailing radioactive dust along the way.
- The mill itself burns up millions of KWh every year, KWh generated, in this day and age, almost exclusively from burning coal – high SO2, H2SO3 and H2SO4 meet heavy metals like Hg with the clouds of greenhouse gases.
- The mill must vent many toxic gases as it processes the ore. It must store radioactive slurry in the ground, hoping it will evaporate so the tailings can be capped. Groundwater and runoff pollution occurs. Once capped, the tailings are radioactive for billions of years. Future contamination becomes a certainty. (Just, the mill operators hope, not in their lifetime.)
- Shipping the yellow cake to market. There are only two enrichment plants in the Northern United States, and one of them is in Canada. Long trips equal large emissions. Much of the yellow cake will be shipped overseas, adding emissions from large container vessels and potential maritime spills to the list.
- The enrichment facility then vents toxic gases from the reagents used in reducing the yellow cake to weapons-grade uranium.
- The rods are shipped to power plants, necessitating the fourth round of distribution-related emissions.
- The rods are used, then spent, sealed up, and transported to a nuclear waste dump – more emissions, more radioactive decay along public roads and waterways.
- Countless emissions result from policing the waste site.
Of course, none of this includes the emissions from the industrial-scale production of the reagents needed by the uranium refining cycle. Not to mention their weekly delivery to processing mills and enrichment facilities.
Nor does it take into account the 'depleted' uranium used as munitions (which, despite what you might infer from its name, is actually enriched – it is depleted of the less radioactive isotopes). That causes enough pollution to contaminate our armed-forces personnel before it's even fired! Let alone the land where it is unleashed.
The whole thing is utterly non-sustainable. And no model on which to base future, responsible energy production. So why all the hoo-ha? Simple. Uranium allows, not so much for clean energy, but centralized energy production. Centralized energy production – aside from being grossly inefficient from the distribution angle, losing more than 7% of all energy generated – means centralized profits. Same, boring story we’re all tired of hearing about. Corporate profits should no longer trump the public right to choose viable, alternative energy. Making the right choice means sharing the benefits of energy production: Not letting a small group of corporate elitists eat the whole pie while pushing the future costs (which approach infinity) onto every subsequent generation of human beings, ever.
Wake up. This is madness. And it won't stop until we hold CORPORATE GREED accountable. Haven't you had enough of this yet?
Comments
Caught your link from Thorium site. I see and respect your points. However, think safer Thorium, not Uranium when using "nuclear power" term. Also, think entire system approach (much like you just did with mining costs). In this case think from the Thorium element to the power station to the electric cars.
A Thorium reactor uses the same type of heat energy that geo-thermal uses; it's just more concentrated. Personally, I'm open, but feel the Thorium story has merit here; that is, until we invent solar panels that extract energy on cloudy days. That is coming for sure, but not in time to feed world energy needs; and that's no less an issue than clean air.
There's no big conspiracy out there on this. When the nuclear industry says that nuclear is emission free, they are talking about power generation activities. Which is true.
Even after considering construction and mining activities, nuclear power is still better for the environment than solar power.
So check up on the below reference. It might help you with further posts!
"Life-Cycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Systems and Applications for Climate Change Policy Analysis," Paul J. Meier, University of Wisconsin-Madison, August 2002.
What about reprocessing the uranium so we mine less of it? Our current 'once through' nuclear power plants use about 1% of the energy in the fuel. If we begin reprocessing nuclear waste we can reuse it over-and-over and end up with a much smaller amount of waste that is dangerous for a shorter time. America needs clean, cheap energy -- not clean, expensive energy.
-- Robert Moen, www.energyplanUSA.com
If nuclear power plants were used to produce carbon neutral synfuels such as the 'Green Freedom' concept, the transportation cycle could be completely carbon neutral. Also, uranium can also be mined from seawater which has 1000 times as much uranium as current terrestrial mine resources.
newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/01/nuclear-synfuel-economy.html
newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/10/fueling-our-nuclear-future.html
Meier has no papers published in any peer-reviewed science journal. None. Zero. Nada.
I have access to all the scientific journals in case you have any doubts.
This report is an internal publication w/ no scientific relevance or credibility, it is useless. Thus, Meier can say what he wants or ... what he was told to say. There are no references mentioned of any value, other than other propaganda reports. In 2002, it says the energy conversion of solar cells is 5.7%, this utterly false and ridiculous. The report was not reviewed by anyone, I would not sign his PhD had I been on his committee. It is a disgrace that reputable universities allow this sort of thing to go on. There is no evidence that Meier has done any rigourous scientific studies or comprehensive exams for his PhD, other than the coursework.
Thorium is found as an oxide, requires processing and all of Ben's comments apply. The lack here is insufficient reader understanding of the laws of mass/energy conservation.
What I'm about to write is relevant & important - whether you believe me or not, it will prove to be true before long...
Our "Space Brothers" (extraterrestrial beings from our neighbor planets like Mars and Venus) are here to guide, inspire and, most importantly, protect us from destroying ourselves through the misuse of nuclear technology. Their beneficial service of protection has taken different forms, but their most crucial work directly related to our planet is the "mopping up" of extremely dangerous nuclear radiation. We have enormous amounts of, as yet, undetected nuclear toxins spewing out of our dilapidated nuclear fission plants.
The Geiger Counter instruments, used to inspect nuclear facilities, were invented decades ago and are totally inadequate devices in terms of safety. They cannot measure the deadliest levels of radiation because they cannot register the finer "etheric" planes of matter, just above the gaseous level.
Google: "Space Brothers Benjamin Creme"
I think this is an interesting article.
I would like to see how the emissions related to the creation and disposal of the materiel rquired for nuclear energy compares with that of creating PV panels or wind turbines. Perhaps also creating a raito of these emissions to the amount of useful energy created. This could help us make a more informed decision about the usefulness of nuclear energy compared to other alternative energy sources.
Even after creating those ratios, I would still be troubled by how to handle spent fuel rods. We have nothing like that to worry about with PV, solar thermal, or wind.
I recently attended a discussion where a nuclear operator detailed the advantages of building new reactors in Alberta. He repeatedly referred to nuclear power as being less greenhouse gas intensive, over the full life-cycle of the facility(including mining operations, than renewable technologies (wind and solar) of equivalent capacity. He attributed large GHG emissions to the quantity of materials, particularly concrete, required for building wind turbines.
These claims triggered my skepticism, but I have yet to find any persuasive, thorough analysis of life-cycle emissions for next-generation renewables or for nuclear plants. While the above article highlights sources of emissions from nuclear operations it doesn't really provide a basis for comparison. I'm curious if there are any good, third-party, quantitative analyses of carbon emissions from a range of energy technologies.
Any suggestions?
Part of my training in mechnical engineering included the study of thermodynamics. Since then I view our planet as an open system with energy flowing in from the sun which eventually exits as heat radiated fronm the surface. Over millions of years that system arrives at a relative stability which supported life. ANY PRODUCTION OF HEAT NOT DIRECTLY ORIGINATING FROM THE SUN DISTURBS THE THERMODYNAMIC STABILITY OF THE EARTH. To imagine actually converting mass within that system into energy without disturbing the equilibrium is not possible. The fundamental argument against fossil fuels and nuclear power generation ought to be based on maintaining this stability.
Most of the nuke fuel we use comes from Russia. The governments agree to disarm our nuke bombs and Russia sends us the fuel, we then use it in our plants. Very little mining is going on. Plus for coal up until the part about using the fuel to make electricity it's the very close to the same processes as mining uranium. Only the energy conversion to steam is the difference and nuke fuel is much much better at it than coal. And both have waste product.
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