You have reactors, you have a surplus of DU and you have a client and you have a product and you have contingent health issues Its part of the package .... unlike a dam and a water filter which perhaps share a function (albeit one of disproportionate scale)
On the contrary, your inability to tie the health factors in with it make it clear you just want to rig the numbers in the assessment to provide a biased perspective The concern that we don't really have a good idea on what to do with stuff (the manufacture of DU ammunition being but one good example) that can be hazardous for up to 10 000 years, much less a the consistency as a civilization to last 10 000 years, much less that estimations about how safe it will be and how much money we stand to save over 10 000 years, is far from petty or illogical ...
And you have dams, which retain water and allow Brita filters to have something to process. No Brita filters = less demand for tap water = fewer dams = fewer deaths. (And dam breaks have caused far more deaths than unintentional DU exposures have.)
LG Here is a report by the World Heath Organisation on depleted uranium. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/ Please read it. This is a balanced view, which accepts the need for monitoring in areas where DU has been used in munitions, but does not exaggerate, which I sadly suspect your other sources have done. Among points made, include that there is no known chemical toxicity problem with it, and that the extra radioactivity from exposure is very slight. A possible kidney effect, which is known to heal completely.
You do know that you can build civilian nuclear reactors without the need for enriched uranium? This therefore negates any discussion of the impact of DU in the case of civilian nuclear energy production, as there is no need for an enrichment process, and thus no by-product of DU.
So you don't think the proliferation of nuclear reactors in any way shapes the availability of DU? Yes or no? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Oh I don't doubt it has done - but your point is moot, which from the naivety of your response I am sure you are fully aware. The discussion is about civilian energy production - which can be done with unenriched uranium, for which DU would not be a byproduct. The issue of DU can thus be considered null and void going forward with regard its health impact relating to energy production from such reactors. For these specific reactors, that use unenriched uranium, is DU a byproduct? Yes or no? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
well sure, for the specific ones, no .. but in t he mean time, we live in a world with specific reactors that do and have, that have also specifically contributed to DU ammunition which have in turn given us a specific host of health risks, which in turn can be factored in to specific costs for uranium energy. I mean its not like the battle zones littered with DU hardware are going to magically disappear if and when the world is exclusively run by unenriched uranium But, all that aside, the problem with enriched uranium reactors is that they make it easier to manufacture nuclear warheads ... which is another risk factor to add in the estimations ....
Battle zones littered with DU will eventually have no DU, for the simple reason that the large lumps will be salvaged and the small lumps will form into dust. Since uranium is a part of the background, a little DU dust blowing will simply add a little to that. By the time this happens, it is no longer a problem, since it takes a lot of DU dust to cause health problems. As I see it from what I have read, the only way that DU can be a real health problem is either you breath in dust or you get fragments penetrating your body during an explosion. Both these events happen during battle conditions, and the casualties are battlefield casualties. Personally, I would rather no war and no battlefield. However, while stupid politicians continue to wage war, there will be casualties. Blaming those casualties on nuclear energy as a source of DU is just like blaming lead miners for casualties from lead bullets. Not rational.
certainly a relief for the people living int he area tank wrecks, shelled buildings and the like are covered in the stuff You have an industry that can and has and does provide the raw materials so its something to factor in the assessment of it as a whole. To treat the uranium energy industry and the uranium military industry as mutually exclusive is absurd. They don't even do it in international politics when some hot headed country insists they want to build a nuclear reactor for purely energy reasons.
DU is an inhalation hazard and consumption hazard-basically its' toxicity is that of a mildly radioactive heavy metal. If it's solid and outside your body you're good...however it has this interesting property of bursting into flame when it hits things really hard, which is why it's so wonderful for armor-piercing rounds and getting into the places where your lungs branch-where its' low-dose radiation, over a span of years, will cause lung cancers to form. DU dust is actually the dangerous part. ANYWAY... My $.02 on nukes: 1. Nukes are on par with coal for undesirability as far as I'm concerned-and for a similar reason-the waste. I worry what will happen 2000 years from now, not just until I'm pushing up daisies. I want us to mature as a civilization and move out into space, but there's no guarantee we won't fall back into a more primitive existence... and then have nuclear waste contaminating our water supply. 2. Water, wind, and solar are far from fully mature, so I think saying "Oh, we can't possibly run it all on renewables"...well, I rather believe we haven't tried as hard as we can to do that. I see how crappy they build houses-pretty, but good gods the houses bleed money for their owners... 3. we could save 40% of our current usage just by being more efficient. 4. At least in America, we're not set up for sustainability...and, IMO, rather than arranging for energy to be cheap the way we've been doing through our foreign policy...we need to plan an economy and social structure based on more expensive, more scarce energy. Since my wife's been loving Fallout 3...pass the strange meat? Nah, Wind water and solar-with hydrogen generated by electrolysis used as a storage medium for times when neither are available FTW. One thing I'd like to see tons of is homeowners getting assists to construct solar and wind systems that feed back into the grid so that power is created in a less-centralized fashion...that way we don't have to build all these plants-or these high-voltage transmission lines. Don't forget transmitting power over distances reduces the amount that arrives. No, that's not the entire solution, but it's a piece.
You state that with such confidence. As if you knew, for example, the full story behind this: http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/07/16/n6.html France's contribution to nuclear proliferation is easier to dig out of the internet than the actual near-miss record of its reactors and fuel handling and waste transport businesses - but even with mere casual effort one can find apparent links to the mob figures who were dumping nuke waste of the coast of NW Africa. You recall: the pirate problem zone? Realistic cost estimates, comparing total costs and similar stages or scales, are very difficult to find. They will double again, for nuclear, if more realistic estimates of cleanup and decommissioning are included - more than triple, if the military cost of proliferation is counted in - tenfold, if an accurate risk premium (say, what it would cost if these plants had to buy insurance on the private market) were somehow estimated, and both the rpincipal and debt cost of all relevant government subsidy were realistically included. And the thermal solar, wind, etc, are of course being averaged in over early stages in industrialization, with full R&D costs exposed. A lot of that stuff was and continues to be hidden in military appropriations, for nukes. Not that much more space than nuclear, much less expensive space (high desert preferred), and much cheaper infrastructure etc. Three Mile Island, for example, is quite a large chunk of some of the most valuable real estate on the planet. Nuclear power takes up a lot of room, if you include everything involved - and it's normally pretty valuable room (both to devote and to risk) near large sources of clean water etc. Thermal solar is currently - in its early, R&D stages - getting into competition range with coal. 10 cents US @ kwh are normal range, estimates of 6 cents US @ kwhr are now part of official documents: http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/25722/.
Actually, my source puts thermal solar at 25 cents per kw.hour and solar cell at 40 cents, compared to nuclear at 12. Not much of a comparison.
Not much of a source. Thermal solar is down to about half that, in actual production - estimated efficiency improvements await only comparable scales of investment. Meanwhile, nukes are more than double - what is your source using as estimate for waste disposal and decommissioning, which are both future costs imperfectly known now?
Iceaura If you want to discredit my source, you have to use a credible alternative. So far you have not.
Nor does willful ignorance on your part. DU would be used even if the only use of uranium was for weapons.
Do you think the proliferation of nuclear reactors contributes to a more prolific use of DU? Yes or No?
Sure the health risks of being shot should of course never be underestimated Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But your fallacy here is to attribute all of the risks of DU at the door of civilian nuclear power stations... First, DU was initially a byproduct of the need for enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. Second, the majority of DU is still stored in tanks around the globe and is not used in DU weapons, and thirdly it is also used in a vast number of civilian applications (ballast for ships and trim for aircraft etc). Current civilian nuclear power does increase the availability of DU, but to put all DU issues at the foot of civilian nuclear power is unjustified, especially as there is no need to use enriched uranium, and thus no need for civilian power stations to be a source of DU. Excuse me??? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Enriched uranium reactors do NOT make it easier to manufacture nuclear warheads. Nuclear warheads need enriched uranium: they are a competing user of the enriched uranium. Furthermore the enrichment process would exist whether there were nuclear power stations needing the stuff or not. Also - going down this pathetic route is like attributing deaths from weapons to the producers of the raw materials, or the tools, that enable the making of the weapons. Heck, why not go the whole way and say that producing energy is the cause of so many deaths in the world that it should be discouraged, regardless of source! :shrug:
