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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (4424)	7/12/2006 9:17:53 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24210

Cherenkov on Tuesday July 11, 2006 at 7:43 PM EST Nuclear energy is the ultimate dead end. It is an asinine, kill all the humans, strategy that only an engineer could like or love. PEAK URANIUM The global nuclear industry requires approximately 68,000 tonnes of uranium ore a year to operate.3 Approximately 36,000 tonnes of uranium a year is manufactured from `primary sources' (mining).3 Nearly half of all uranium supply is now provided from military sources (decommissioned weapons stocks and reserves) as well as spent fuel recycling.3 The European Commission estimates that there may be only 2-3 million tonnes of exploitable uranium sources globally.4 At current projections of nuclear capacity, uranium mining operations will need to increase output by 100% within 10-20 years to meet demand.4 It is estimated that global exploitable reserves of uranium will likely be depleted within 30-40 years.4 If all the world's existing fossil fuel based power stations were replaced by nuclear, there would only be enough uranium for 3-4 years.4 WASTE The average nuclear power station produces between 20-30 tonnes of used nuclear fuel each year, amounting to 8,800-13,200 tonnes a year globally (not including military, research and medical sources).4 A complete lifecycle analysis of the nuclear process-chain (mining, transport, operation, storage and decomissioning) reveals that the average nuclear reactor produces 20-40% of the CO2 of a typical gas fired power plant. Powerful greenhouse gases such as HFC and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) are also produced in unknown quantities.4 A typical 1,000-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 vapour.5 Many governments have dumped spent fuel rods and drums of radioactive sludge into the North Atlantic (26 known sites), the North Pacific (21 known sites) and the Arctic (6 known, but many more suspected) oceans.6 ECONOMICS During the period 1953-2002 the Canadian Government has given the nuclear industry approximately $14.5 billion in direct subsidies.8 The US government spent nearly $67 billion in direct subsidies to the nuclear industry in the 50-year period between 1948-98.9 Members of the OECD (the 30 most industrialized nations) are estimated to have spent $318 billion on nuclear energy research and development by 1992.10 The European Union spends 61% of its research and development funding for energy on nuclear despite the fact that the industry only contributes 13% of the EU's energy supply.11 In France, if the nuclear industry were not exempt from paying full accident insurance, the premiums would increase the costs of nuclear generated electricity by 300%.11 newint.org theoildrum.com