Posted 9-Dec-13
Comment by 13-Dec-13
Issues and topics related to radiochemistry are commonly found in the news. Recent examples include the nuclear deal with Iran related to proliferation and the missing 60Co source in Mexico. The material and topics covered in the course should provide you with data and information to discuss these and other news items in more detail.
Comment by 13-Dec-13
Issues and topics related to radiochemistry are commonly found in the news. Recent examples include the nuclear deal with Iran related to proliferation and the missing 60Co source in Mexico. The material and topics covered in the course should provide you with data and information to discuss these and other news items in more detail.
CNN recently showed Pandora’s Promise, a short movie on nuclear
power. Please review the movie and provide comments on the blog. Your comments should include you overall
opinion, comments on previous blogs posts, and some analysis or evaluation of
presented topic matter based on material covered in the course.
Pandora’s promise can be viewed at
ticket number: radchemfinal
The location to enter the ticket number is under the watch now menu
item.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Tell the producers thanks for allowing us to watch this film. After five minutes of watching environmental activists I was sure that I was going to hate this documentary. They did a good job of admitting their naivety and how they were willing to listen and learn to those who know. By far the best argument for going to nuclear energy is France. Their energy price isn't based on the market price of fossil fuels. They are smart enough to recycle and reuse the fuel. As a result they have a reliable and independent source for electricity with much cleaner air to breath. I would have liked to see the scenes from Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima during a spring to summer season. The winteresque shots portrayed the towns as gloomy and lifeless. Obviously Chernobyl is a decent place to live because the folks were sneaking back in. I felt dumb to learn that all that important nuclear research and development went on in my home state of Idaho, and no one bothered to tell me. Next time I go home to visit I will make an effort to at least take a tour of EBR-1.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see the viability of the French energy industry replicated in the US, where nuclear power generated from a fuel cycle could be cheaply generated and even exported to our neighbors.
DeleteI'm also from Idaho. As a kid, we could go on field trips to what was then INEEL. We saw EBR1. They took us through the building housing the pools with fuel in the bottom. We could look down in the water and see the casks. INEL employs a large portion of the highly skilled and high wage earners in eastern Idaho. In my 20 years there, I never once heard a complaint about INEEL's safety. What I did hear were complaints about was the lack of funding for the site. If only the rest of the country had the same attitude, or a hint of that attitude towards nuclear power as those in Pocatello and Idaho Falls, we would have no problem going nuclear as a country.
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ReplyDeleteI was already pro-nuclear before watching this film, so I thought it would be a case of preaching to the choir. However, the matter at times challenged a few preconceived notions of my own.
ReplyDeleteWhat was most interesting about the film was that it was told from the framework of environmental activists who had changed their mind about the use of nuclear power. Normally (as depicted in the film), these types of activists just expound upon the supposed virtues and viabilities of renewable and alternative sources of energy such as wind and solar, and claim that the mere presence of nuclear fuel sources are the cause of a mysterious cancer ‘epidemic”.
It was especially amusing to see the ignorance of the anti-nuclear activists. The people protesting the supposed leakage of tritium while consuming bananas containing a hotter isotope of potassium was hilarious.
The charge made by the one activist that the UN engaged in a mass cover up of the death of a million people at Chernobyl would probably make Holocaust deniers skeptical.
It is interesting that the wonderful benefits and potential of nuclear fuel sources was always tainted by the fact that the genesis of the fuel was in constructing, testing, and using weapons. The Cold War testing by the US, China, and the USSR, along with the duck and cover drills and the feeling that doomsday could occur all seemed to leave a permanent imprint on the public's psyche. The recent incident with the theft of the cobalt-60 source in Mexico and the scare in the news media did not do the nuclear industry any favors either.
Renewable energy sources do not contribute much power to the grid, and when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing, the facilities must use natural gas to generate power- meaning that there is an increase in the thing that these renewable sources were meant to reduce. It was also nearly hilarious to find that more people have died from the manufacture of solar panels than from the use or operation of nuclear reactors. Furthermore, the fact that no one ever died in the US as a result of a commercial nuclear reactor was neat to know.
The segment concerning background radiation and dosimetry was especially revealing. I had always just assumed that the radiation in and around Chernobyl must be high, since the town near the plant was evacuated back in the ‘80s. However, the background was less than 1 mSv- no higher than Los Angeles or Paris, and the level at a beach in Brazil was many times higher. Also, the radiation levels at the power plants containing spent fuel was no higher than background either as measured by the dosimeter. Also, the assumed cancer “epidemic” from Chernobyl and the generations of mutant offspring never materialized.
What was most interesting was that the radiation levels around the Fukushima plant in Japan was not high either, but the intense power of conventional wisdom concerning the dangers of radiation keep people away.
I also did not ever think that the technology of fourth generation reactors can just recycle spent fuel, or that the use of the Yucca Mountain Repository could very well be just another black hole of government funding.
I was most blown away by the integral fast reactor. The fact that the introduction of the reactor apparently can bypass the issues that caused the Chernobyl accident and the incident at Three Mile Island, but it was shut down so readily during the Clinton Administration based off of the same fears and misgivings that closed the reactor at Three Mile Island and on Long Island.
The Integral Fast Reactor need to be brought back to life. We have such an awesome tool just rusting away in our backyard due to fear of radiation.
DeleteWith technology increasing we can surly have a long lasting supply of energy. The waste of the waste can be tomorrows energy, in the future
I found two specific items to be interesting while watching this film. One is the advantage of the breeder reactor versus the light water reactor. While the breeder reactor produces a lot less waste, because of an admiral's decision, instead the reactor that produces large amounts of waste was chosen and subsequently being brought into commercial production. I don't understand why no one had look into this and say, "perhaps we should stop using the light water reactors and focus on building the breeder reactor instead."
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing that Evan mentioned above is the integral fast reactor. If this experiment was shut down due to canceled government fundings, I'm surprised that no private utility companies had bought out the blueprints to make this reactor and use it in commercial business. Are there regulations against the selling of how to build this particular type of reactor? I might have to look into this out of curiousity, unless someone here have the information.
I would imagine that there is so much red tape from the EPA and the DOE. It probably disincentivizes anyone from constructing such a power plant.
DeleteTwo things stood out to me. First, it was most interesting to see the depiction of Chernobyl. I had no idea that a portion of the facility was still online for years after the accident. Nor that there are people living around the site of the disaster, and have for over 20 years. The anecdotes from the locals about having no health problems or serious risk of cancer seemed to be backed up by the reports published by governmental agencies. The scope of the disaster at Chernobyl has been greatly exaggerated in the minds of most people.
ReplyDeleteThe second thing that caught me was the complete lack of public understanding of radiation as a hazard. I am a health physics graduate student, and hadn't fully comprehended the general lack of understanding until now. Gray, Sieverts, Becquerel, Rem...I suppose it can all get confusing. What we need to understand about radiation is until there are deterministic effects on people's health like the induction of cataracts at large doses, then radiation health effects are probabilistic. We all go through airport body scanners then hop on a plane. We don't think twice about getting diagnostic imaging when needed. Those things contribute much more to the overall dose to the general population than does the nuclear industry.
I agree that what happen in Chernobyl has been exaggerated. To learn that many are still living there and chose to move back. All of the people living there have never died of cancer or experience any illnesses. People will believe anything that can harm them so they tend to do whatever to avoid it that probably what happen here.
DeleteA few things got my attention. The first was the fact that since the use of nuclear weapons, nuclear energy is frown upon. Nuclear as an energy source has acquire lots of negative publicity just because of its use as weapons and nuclear plants trouble. I mostly blame it on the media because they always seem to exaggerate. Many people fear this and so, instead, turn and support all of the other green energy source; hydro, solar, wind etc., not knowing that these green sources are more dangerous than nuclear. In fact, there has not been one death in the United States due to nuclear radiation and Nuclear is the second safest green source. If Environmentalists' want to decrease the CO2 levels then they must have to rethink what they support and go with Nuclear as their green energy.
ReplyDeleteAnother point is that we are constantly expose to radiation on a daily basis. This phenomenon is call "Background Radiation". Places like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima have lower radiation than the beach sands of Brazil. You get more radiation by going on an airplane then you would in some of the places mention above. I guess the reason why many do not support nuclear is because of one word "RADIATION" when in fact we are expose daily.
As we move on to the future, we must become energy independent. We have to learn from the French and become a nation where we can have a long lasting supply of clean energy. But before we can do that we need to teach this nation that Nuclear power is better than that of coal, oil, hydro, and solar. If we continue to ignore this problem their will not be enough energy to be supplied to every person in the world.
This documentary was an incredible insight into the deeper and more qualified arguments for proponents of nuclear energy. It revealed quite a few astonishing facts that, quite frankly, make it difficult to find something to disparage it. It seems that the only underlying factors that cause these people to be so against nuclear power are that they are ignorant of how the process works and that the media has created such a convoluted depiction of reactors.
ReplyDeleteEvery argument that was proposed by anti-nuclear activists that were presented in Pandora's Promise could be refuted as simply as presenting a single fact. For example, the lady who was preaching about how Chernobyl has killed upwards of 1 million people was blatantly wrong unless her conspiracy theories were, in fact, true and all of the scientific research done had been falsified. In my AP Government class this year, we were assigned to create surveys on whichever topic we wished that would implement questions that determined a result. I chose to do mine on whether they supported nuclear energy or not and if their understanding of the subject had any correlation to their bias. The results were quite astounding because it clearly revealed that there was an association. The less they understood about the rationality of reactors, the less inclined they were to be supportive. It was fascinating to see this hypothesis in a real life example.
The media has also contributed greatly to the declination of support. Stemming from the movie, the China Syndrome, an inherent fear has been implanted into the minds of many due to nuclear reactor's portrayals as being so dangerous. Some of my favorite statistics from the film were those concerning the death rates among power sources. I knew that coal was the most dangerous but I didn't realize that it accounted for over 3 million deaths worldwide each year. Also, the fact that solar was not only accounted for more deaths than nuclear power but caused over three times as many was mind-blowing.
Lastly, I'd like to discuss the generation III and IV reactors that are currently being studied and built. The traveling wave nuclear reactor type sparked quite a bit of interest in me. The notion that they could be sustained for 60+ years seems almost preposterous but would be an incredible opportunity to seize. It blew me away Integral Fast Reactor wasn't being built immediately following its discovery, despite how safe and efficient it was. Overall, the movie really helped me comprehend the arguments of nuclear energy, even though I was already very supportive, and it was extremely enjoyable to watch.
I was astounded that the fourth generation reactors can so easily recycle spent fuel while operating. I always knew that the French recycle spent fuel, but had always just assumed that the process took a very long time and was very expensive. I was a big supporter of Yucca Mountain based upon the belief that the spent fuel should be left in a safe repository in the middle of nowhere instead of in casks outside of a power plant. But these fourth generation reactors sem to make the use of Yucca immaterial
DeleteLast month, I did a presentation about biodiesel and its relation and greenhouse gases. Fossil fuel is very popular slowly depleting every day and while we still have it, it will emit great amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. Our population continues to grow and the demand for energy every day is increasing. Therefore, a clean alternative energy is a must for our environment. Because many people are against and are afraid of nuclear energy, we turn to coal. There are many accidents occurring with the use of coal such as the dangers in mining and its health hazards. The products produced from coal as us of energy are actually more radioactive. As for those residents of Chernobyl after a blast, no one died of any illness. Nuclear power’s harm to the human health is tiny compared to that of coal energy. Nuclear power will last many, many years and maybe even after we run out of non-renewable source of energy.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I noticed, and which Kyle also had mentioned, was the fact that many people lacked knowledge about nuclear energy or radiation. What they do not know is that every day we are surrounded by radiation and some of these items, they probably have no clue what type of radiation it emits. It amazes me how many people are against radiation when they know little about it. I agree with what Angel said, I as well blame it on the media. The media can really brainwash a person’s mind.
One funny and poignant part of the show was when a guy started handing out bananas to the power plant protesters. Potassium-40 is a naturally occurring radioisotope. The potassium in the banana would expose them to more radiation than they would receive from the nuclear reactor. This goes back to the recognition that people don't generally appreciate the risks involved with radiation from the nuclear industry.
DeleteWhen "Pandora's Promise" comes out on netflix, I will recommend it to my family and friends. It is a good tool to educate general audiences about the realities of nuclear power. It just so happens that the reality of nuclear power is better than the perception of it at the moment. Maybe this show will improve that perception.
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