Talk:Environmental impact of nuclear power/Archive 1

Three Points To Include
There are a few places where this article is very wanting, although in some respects it isn't a bad start, either. Let me first say that my degree was in Nuclear Engineering, and I am not employed by any facet of the nuclear industry - I simply have a good understanding of the technology and of public misunderstandings regarding it. I don't plan on citing much of what I say because it has been common knowledge to me for some time now. However, if the reader cannot verify something I say, then if I get time I will gladly provide it. I am posting here in good faith for the sole purpose of helping the community that is both forming this article and attempting to better understand nuclear power.

There is quite a bit of discussion in this article regarding CO2 emissions that come about as a result of mining Uranium, transporting it, etc. In essence, parts of the article make it seem as if nuclear power actually produces CO2, and thus is not even self-sustainable. If those points are going to be given a voice on wikipedia, then the point ought to be made immediately following that the use of hydrogen fuel cells as a replacement for current fossil fuel vehicles/engines would in fact eliminate the production of CO2 completely. Hydrogen fuel cells are often pointed to as a remedy for our current fossil fuel addicted, CO2-producing dilemma, but the immediate response is always the same: "Where will the energy for the electrolysis required to create hydrogen fuel cells come from? We will just end up producing more CO2 in our coal, gas, and oil power plants and the problem will only get worse." However, one cannot have it both ways. The public cannot on the one hand tell the nuclear industry that it produces CO2 emissions (and is therefore not self-sustainable) due to the gas engines it must in part utilize, and then on the other hand say that the hydrogen fuel cell is not viable because there is no way to charge the cell without producing CO2. Quite simply, it ought to be pointed out that it is possible to achieve a CO2-free nuclear fuel cycle in toto via the use of hydrogen fuel cells (or electric cars, or any non-combustible energy cell).

The second major item that this article lacks is any discussion of reprocessing of spent fuel, which would drastically reduce the amount of tonnage requiring burial and the amount of mining required to sustain nuclear plants in the United States. Currently, it is illegal to reprocess in the US for political reasons. This article completely ignores the whole reprocessing debate, even as it pertains to waste burial. I could go on and on about this facet alone, but I'll leave that for the scholars who monitor these discussions.

I posted this third and final point on the discussion page of the "Nuclear Power" article, but I think it would be more appropriate here. There ought to be some discussion of the advances we have made in our ability to remove particularly long-lasting isotopes from nuclear burial wastes (which would presumably go in Yucca Mountain).

The current standard for Nuclear Power Technology waste burial is to be able to predict the location's geological movement and its relationship with said waste for one million years. Such a feat is outside the scope of our current understanding of geology and is, on its head, patently absurd. The reason for the standard, however, is because some of the isotopes in nuclear waste have half-lives in the ranges of millions of years. These isotopes make up only a very very tiny fraction of the nuclear byproduct, but in the long long long term eventually become significant. The discussion changes altogether, however, when we start to consider what would happen if we were to remove the top five or so slowest decaying isotopes from nuclear waste prior to burial. Then, the necessary standard for predicting the geology of the burial site shortens to a few thousand years (at most, a much shorter time would actually suffice), which is within the scope of present human geological understanding.

We currently have the technology to remove these dangerous isotopes from nuclear waste, and it is in fact not even particularly difficult to do. Doing so poses the question: "Then what do we do with these isoptopes once they are removed?" Keep in mind that we are talking about a few grams or so of substance per ton of nuclear waste. One could easily cask and maintain these byproducts in a relatively small facility above ground (what we currently do, sadly, with all nuclear waste). In addition, there is a process known as transmutation in which accelerators or other sources are used to bombard and change the isotope into something else that decays faster. An article concerning a newer process in the removal of but one of these isotopes can be found here: http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/sabl/2005/November/05-neptunium.html Here is another article concerning older tried and true methods of removing specific isotopes: http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/554187-eGETzf/webviewable/554187.PDF And there are other methods still which I won't get into here. The point is that the technology is there and it is very important to the future of nuclear power. 76.177.211.28 (talk) 04:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Second Review of Article: Findings and List of Possible Points for Improvement
Theanphibian, I have moved the discussion regarding this article to this talk page. I felt prudent to do so since there have been significant changes made to this article since my initial WP:NPOV tag. See Difference between the article's original content and how it is now, as of 03:48, 17 November 2007. Since there have been multiple edits by multiple contributors, it is necessary to move the conversation here so that they may also pitch in and improve this article. I hope to see this article at least being promoted to a B-Class article.


 * 1) New lead needs to be rewritten.  I feel that the statement is very scientific and as unbiased as possible, but I would like to see a citation so the lead does not fall under the category of "original research."
 * 2) "Chemical Volume Control System" mentioned in Environmental effects of nuclear power, AKA CVCS, is actually known as "Chemical and Volume Control System" in USNRC (See NRC INFORMATION NOTICE 96-65, under "Description of Circumstances".)  I tried searching for CVCS in Wikipedia, but did not return any closely-related results.  However, I do see a red link.  Are you planning to write that article in the future?
 * 3) In Environmental effects of nuclear power, reads "A comparatively small amount (perhaps a ton a year from a large nuclear power plant) of high-level waste is produced, and this poses a significant disposal problem.[citation needed] It can be expected to be dangerous for tens or hundreds of thousands of years (Taking 10,000 years to decay to activity levels below that of the original ore), so extremely secure disposal methods must be found.[citation needed]"  Those, again, are almost written like it is biased.  I'll work on possibly rewording this so this issue can be avoided.  However, if you have basis or verified sources about what you're saying, it is definitely possible to just cite the source you retrieved these statements from and just call it a day. :-)
 * 4) Same section as above, "Currently, most such waste is stored in dry storage facilities...", did you mean dry cask storage?
 * 5) Environmental effects of nuclear power should be reworded to something on the lines of Risk Factors.  I believe that if you reword that, it should open doors for future editors to expand on the risks of operating nuclear technology and its effects.  Also, this section should be placed after the Radioactive effluent emissions" section because of (the next point).
 * 6) Citing the acceptable range of radiation exposure in Environmental effects of nuclear power: "After WWII and until 1969, the Hunters Point shipyard was the site of the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, the US military's largest facility for applied nuclear research, which left many areas of the shipyard radioactively contaminated. from Hunters Point, San Francisco, California, it is possible to also link the increased health problems and cancer patients living in that particular area of San Francisco.  Diseaseville - Asthma, cancer, and other illnesses occur at higher-than-average rates in Hunters Point. Many residents blame the nearby Navy shipyard, one of the most contaminated ex-military bases in the nation; By: Lisa Davis; Published: August 27, 2003; SF Weekly.  (By the way, this is just a suggestion.  I'd try to find more concrete evidence than SF Weekly.)
 * 7) Environmental effects of nuclear power: "United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development" is not listed in Google or Wikipedia, but I did come up with a similar search result Commission on Sustainable Development.  Is cites similar goals and topics as what you've mentioned.  Is this what you wanted to cite instead?

I hope you don't take it the wrong way. I don't mean to hold your article to the microscope. It's just that I promised you that I would take a close look at your article. I hope this helps. Feel free to talk about this in detail.

Happy editing and I hope you have a great day! :-)  - Jameson L. Tai   talk  ♦  contribs   09:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) Indeed, and I would like to see the same referenced text appear in Environmental concerns with electricity generation as I was saying before.
 * 2) I read they were interchangeable, so whichever's fine. And yes, Wikipedia needs an article on this.
 * Yes, we all know that volumes have already been written on the high level waste, so I mostly agree with your suggestion, but a brief summary about its "environmental effects" in specific should be included IMO. Current text needs to be fully replaced.
 * yes
 * 1) This is something I still have great internal debate on how to handle. Chernobyl is often called the "worst case scenario", so for the most part effects of nuclear power radiological accidents on environment = effects of Chernobyl on the environment.  The risk of another such event could be addressed, but a treatment of the effects of such an event sort of goes back to the Chernobyl thing...
 * 2) This could be disputed as to weather it is about nuclear power or not. However, something could be written about the connection between military and national lab research to the maturing of nuclear power - thus showing a possible environmental side effect of nuclear power.  Details of the accidents through such government nuclear research, I think should be (and hope is) covered somewhere else.
 * 3) Considering the that Commission on Sustainable Development appears to be a UN body, I would image so. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 19:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Nuclear power and global warming
Many well qualified people have recently indicated that nuclear power is not part of the solution to global warming:

In 2007, Peter Bradford said:
 * But nuclear power cannot be a magic bullet answer to climate change. Even if it is scaled up much faster than anything now in prospect, it cannot provide more than 10 per cent to 15 per cent of the greenhouse gas displacement that is likely to be needed by mid-century. Not only can nuclear power not stop global warming, it is probably not even an essential part of the solution to global warming.

In 2007, Dr Mark Diesendorf said:
 * Nuclear power in particular is rejected because of its substantial risks (proliferation of nuclear weapons, terrorism, waste management and reactor failures) and economic costs, and because within several decades it will become a significant emitter of CO2, mainly from the fossil fuels used in mining and milling low-grade uranium ore. Based on existing technologies, nuclear power is neither a long-term nor a short-term solution to global warming.

In 2006, the Pembina Institute said:
 * The study finds that GHG emissions arise at each stage of the nuclear energy cycle, with power plant construction being the most significant source of releases. Further releases of GHGs occur as a result of the operation of equipment in the uranium min­ing process, the milling of uranium ore, mill tailings management activities, and refining and conversion operations. The generation of greenhouse gases from mining and milling operations would increase pro­portionally with the use of lower grade uranium ores, as larger amounts of ore would have to be extracted and processed to produce the same amount of ura­nium concentrate.

In 2005, Dr Jim Green said:
 * There are significant constraints on the growth of nuclear power, such as its high capital cost and, in many countries, lack of public acceptability. As a method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear power is further limited because it is used almost exclusively for electricity generation, which is responsible for less than one third of global greenhouse gas emissions.


 * Because of these problems, the potential for nuclear power to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing fossil fuels is limited. Few predict a doubling of nuclear power output by 2050, but even if it did eventuate it would still only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 5% – less than one tenth of the reductions required to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

In 2007, Professor Ian Lowe said:
 * Promoting nuclear power as the solution to climate change is like advocating smoking as a cure for obesity. That is, taking up the nuclear option will make it much more difficult to move to the sort of sustainable, ecologically healthy future that should be our goal.

I think this material should be included in the article, but at this stage am not sure where the best place for it is. Johnfos (talk) 02:08, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've read plenty of these, and provided that the argument isn't in the stormsmith and Helen Caldicott camp, who decide to reject life cycle emission analysis on the basis that those who provide them can not be trusted (which most of these are not, thank you), then they come down to these points:
 * Construction costs and time frame limits worldwide penetration over 20 or 30 % at best in the near future
 * Nuclear is only an electricity source, thereby not eliminating the huge chunk of emitters that are in transportation and other infrastructure
 * Please correct me if your opinion contains more arguments, but these all are basically criticizing the limited extent of nuclear power. These are doing nothing more than citing global warming causes that nuclear can't fix.  That's not a societal or environmental detriment of nuclear power.  If you want to argue that expansion of nuclear power stunts the growth of renewable technologies, then that's another thing, which could be construed as an environmental determent instead of an economic consideration, if other factors are introduced including weighing the environmental consequences of renewables vs. nuclear and the relative share each would have occupied without the other.  But considering that the world is currently building natural gas and coal plants at an alarming rate, I hope you can understand my skepticism of this statement.


 * Economics of new nuclear power plants could by all means be linked to, but I'm not sure what you're saying should be covered here that's not covered there. Again, all of these above are talking about nuclear in relation to the displacement of other power sources, not the effects of nuclear power itself. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 02:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Mining, Milling, Purifying and Enrichment
This article does not seem to touch on the environmental aspects of the mining, milling, purifying and enrichment of the uranium ores. It makes no mention of the impact of the mining except the carbon emissions. Mining uranium is a very dirty process. In many respects, uranium mining comes with similar problems as mining for other metals. But the effects of mining go far beyond the small area disturbed in the operation. A mine cannot operate in isolation. It requires the construction of roads, the transport of material and the disposal of wastes. It leaves behind tailing ponds, plumes of radon and uranium dust. The runoff water is contaminated with uranium, radium, and radon. As the grade of the ore decreases, the amount of waste drastically increases at the mine. The mill has similar problems - plumes of radioactive yellow dust containing more uranium, radium, and radon.

The most common purification process involves solvent extraction with tertiary amines in an organic kerosene solvent in a continuous process. This process needs lots of sulfuric acid and can remove maybe 80% of the uranium. However, the remaining waste contains uranium, radium, radon and many heavy metals. This waste often ends up in the environment - a big tailing pond. The runoff from the tailing ponds is very bad for the environment because it contains remnants of now radioactive kerosene. The initial separation and refining processes generate large volumes of acid and organic waste. The drying process vents the organic solvents into the air. For every tonne of uranium yellow cake produced, there are thousands of not tens of thousands of tonnes of waste.

The enrichment process also produces a lot of environmental waste. The yellow cake is mixed with nitric acid and hydrogen fluoride. The process gives off fluorine. The process also requires hydrogen. The process that makes hydrogen from natural gas produces carbon monoxide as its waste products. Kgrr (talk) 11:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I also think it's deceiving if someone only quotes weights for yellowcake or enriched Uranium. Putting the other factors in there, it still comes out to something like 100 or 1000 times less rock requirements than coal, otherwise
 * "In many respects, uranium mining comes with similar problems as mining for other metals."
 * Yes, it's practically the same. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 22:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

High-level waste
How can the high-level waste coming out of a nuclear power plant be only 1 ton per year, when a 1000 MWe plant requires 25 tons of enriched fuel? Where did the other 24 tons of material go? Aren't the fuel assemblies after they've been through the reactor also high-level waste? Does the entire volume of the casks they are put in not count towards high-level waste, or are the casks reused?Kgrr (talk) 16:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * 25 metric tons is the right answer. I don't think I wrote that part.  One ton would be like the size of my couch. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 22:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the original author meant to write 1 cubic meter, which would weigh in the ballpark of 19 metric ton.85.224.78.95 (talk) 01:17, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Waste Heat
"One researcher believes that increasing sea water temperature has a detrimental effect on sea life."

If the opinion of this one researcher is worth mentioning then surely it's worth elaborating on? The sentence seems slightly out of place, and looks as though it's been chucked in there in an attempt to appear balanced. Tomb24 (talk) 23:08, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

§ Vattenfall comparative emissions study
I feel like deleting this paragraph, as it is not at all an LCA. Vattenfall themselves said: Our study is not an energy analysis it is an environmental analysis. p. 13 But I fear if I just delete it, User:Nailedtooth will have me for it. This § should definitely note be above Storm Smith. -- Eiland (talk) 19:11, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Operational aspect
In addition to generally tightening and correcting the Intro and first section, I deleted the following text because it is an operational consideration and not an environmental one. However, since exemptions were granted, I'm going to check the ref and then restore it. Simesa (talk) 00:24, 3 September 2008 (UTC) During the Europe's 2003 and 2006 heat waves, French, Spanish and German utilities had to secure exemptions from regulations in order to discharge overheated water into the environment. Some nuclear reactors had to shut down.

RfC?
I've felt I had to make so many changes that there's certain to be a lot of discussion. This really has been a lot of changes, and perhaps we ought to have an RfC to review them. Simesa (talk) 02:09, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I deleted the Fort Greely image because it was a military facility under radically different rules from civilian facilities. See .  Also, several precautions are seen in the image (although a civilian facility would have more).  Simesa (talk) 03:31, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Broken thoughts?
I was reading the section Waste heat and noticed that the majority of it sounds like something I would expect from science notes. The thoughts seem unusually divided and unrelated. Don't know if theres any way to fix that? =\ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.38.55.80 (talk) 06:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that various editors contribute and, until someone organizes it all, it should be expected to be disjointed. I removed this text commented out in the article, as it should be place here.-Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 17:19, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed comment from waste heat section
Commented this out during a copyedit. I can't figure out what it's trying to say.

The large throughout of sea water of coastal nuclear power plants - generally over 40 m3s-1 has a considerable impact on marine life. Larger sea life (>3 cm) is being impinged (killed) by filters at water intakes. Smaller sea life is being killed as it suffers mechanical, temperature, biocide and pressure damage in the cooling system.

Environmental effects from accidents
NOTE: I'm requesting a citation for the "next few centuries" part, not the "killing many" part. Simesa ventures that millennia might be more accurate, but a cite will still be required.

Added from in-article comment. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs)

Units
"30 degrees warmer" farenheit or celsius?79.75.82.44 (talk) 10:12, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That would only be Fahrenheit if it's the change in temp in water for waste heat. That would be in the upper range to the extent of my knowledge. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 22:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Greenhouse Gas Emissions
I removed a few sentences because they were too much anecdotical and not relevant to the topic. According to a 2007 story broadcast on 60 Minutes, nuclear power gives France the cleanest air of any industrialized country, and the cheapest electricity in all of Europe. and Some studies have found that due to thermodynamic limitations, nuclear power may not be able to expand quickly enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I think the last statement missed one point, we are talking about the comparision of energy sources, not if one source, put aside, is "good". If the statement should stay there, they should at least compare it with another source...

I removed some dangerous words, such as "Most of the studies shows". I think we should include both sides of the arguments, espicially if they are brough up in the debate frequently. AlexH555 (talk) 02:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Energy Cannibalism
I removed the following section because it has no relation whatsoever about the environnemental effect of nuclear power, only about the cannibalisation of other energy sources. I don't feel it has any signification but feel free to talk about. A professor at Queen's University, Joshua Pearce published a paper in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology titled Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology, which applied his proposed concept of Energy cannibalism to nuclear power. He suggested that, with a (controversial) representative energy payback time from Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen (5.5 to 92 years for the US energy mix, 1.5 to 12 years for the European energy mix with an ore grade of 0.1%) of 10 years, nuclear power will have a growth limit of 10% without "cannibalizing" other energy sources. AlexH555 (talk) 05:04, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Cannot read references

 * M.V. Ramana. Nuclear Power: Economic, Safety, Health, and Environmental Issues of Near-Term Technologies, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2009. 34, p.142.
 * Benjamin K. Sovacool. A Critical Evaluation of Nuclear Power and Renewable Electricity in Asia, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 40, No. 3, August 2010

I cannot read theses references, I think it does need subscription or something else. It is possible that someone sends the papers to my e-mail?

AlexH555 (talk) 10:28, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Windscale shouldn't be on this page
This is a page about the environmental effects of nuclear power. Windscale was a military research reactor and thus shouldn't be on this page. 82.11.1.60 (talk) 04:20, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Have removed Windscale. Johnfos (talk) 23:12, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

What is a "boron letdown"
Hi. Even though I know a lot, I've never heard of a "boron letdown". So unless somebody provides more facts (on reactors, sites, etc., where this is practised; on radionuclides released; on their impact; etc.) I recommend deleting this. gsc — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.184.28.42 (talk) 17:57, 11 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Boron letdown is removal of borated coolant water, practised at all PWR and BWRs. --SCStrikwerda (talk) 17:56, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

uranium mining
New to editing so I thought I would ask what the general procedure was. Under the Uranium Mining section, citation 20 appears to have no relevance to the foregoing statement, and the statement itself seems highly prejudicial. Should this be removed? Moved somewhere else with a correct citation? Am I just confused? Slo186 (talk) 22:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Necessary additions
This article needs the ExternE-Pol final tech report cited and discussed as it is on the Nuclear power page.

Some mention of the red forest, and the fact that Chernobyl is now a nature reserve, being designated so by Ukraine.

& reference to Nuclear powers favorable CO2 emissions Comparisons of life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions, being beaten by Wind & Hydro but only just. Boundarylayer (talk) 03:11, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if the article uses the incorrect notion that the electricity used to enrich the uranium should be counted as the national or local average carbon cost of the energy so consummed. That energy should instead be subtracted from the energy produced per ton of fuel. Otherwise you find that the carbon cost of nuclear is worst in the places most infested by coal. But also, There is a widely ignored carbon cost for a running wind turbine. The usual spinning reserve, that which is kept running so that a drop in the wind power production can be caught and replaced in the few seconds it takes to save the grid frequency, is a gas turbine burning enough gas just to keep it spinning on idle. The big California electric power scandal was the prices that could be demanded, like a ransom, for such protection against sudden peak demand. I believe that the IFR and the LFTR are both able to do tthis, but let's replace the base load with them right now, instead of waiting until our grandchildren buy them as we do solar pamels, from China. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DaveyHume (talk • contribs) 04:49, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Abandoned mines
This section mentions a risk lasting 250,000 years, which is, IMHO, correctly flagged as "dubious". To my mind, any length of time longer than Archbishop Ussher's 6000 years, or even the antiquity of the Pyramids, is self-indulgent, or temporally parochial. That's not a miss-spelling of "temporarily" Nevertheless, I presume that the original intent was to say that a dangerous level of radioactivity will persist for 250 millennia, which may be true enough. To the extent that uranium is removed, and its accumulated decay products left behind, I'd say the assertion, that the site will remain dangerous for longer than we can intuitively imagine, is quite plausible.DaveyHume (talk) 17:23, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

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