A recent energy bill sponsored by Congressional Republicans proposed
building 100 new nuclear reactors across the United States in the next
20 years.
The proposal, which would double the current U.S. total of 104
operating nuclear reactors, would amount to a nuclear renaissance, as
no new reactors have been ordered since 1978.
Concerns about global warming gave utilities the idea for this revival
since reactors don’t emit greenhouse gases while generating power, and
utilities have stopped closing old reactors while proposing 33 new ones
to be sited in New England, throughout the South and Southeast, and in
Texas, Utah and Idaho.
(For a list of applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for
approval of new reactors click here.
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/new-licensing-files/expected-new-rx-applications.pdf )
But this month, two Swedish scientists published an article concluding
that a large increase in nuclear reactors will not solve global warming.
The utilities, of course, fail to report that greenhouse gases are
emitted throughout the entire nuclear fuel cycle, and operating the
reactor itself is the only exception. Both the nuclear reactor industry
and its support industries spew radioactive materials into local air
and water, posing a serious health hazard, warns Dr. Samuel S. Epstein,
chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and Professor emeritus
Environmental & Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois
at Chicago School of Public Health.
In the 1970s, Wall Street investors stopped funding new reactor
projects due to cost and safety concerns. Today, these issues are
unchanged, and private investors again gave a thumbs-down to nuclear
power. A 2005 law authorizing $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees
would only cover two reactors.
The Bush administration was a willing partner in the nuclear revival.
George W. Bush became the first sitting U.S. president to visit a
nuclear plant since a grim-faced President James Carter toured the
damaged Three Mile Island reactor on April 1, 1979.
President Barack Obama has poured cold water on the renaissance. He
rejected a request for $50 billion in loan guarantees in the stimulus
package. Additionally, he rejected further funding for developing the
nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain Nevada, leaving utilities with no
place to permanently store their highly radioactive nuclear waste. It
is now being held temporarily at 55 storage sites licensed by the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission and at Department of Defense sites and
national laboratories across the country.
The major threat posed by nuclear reactors is not the addition of new
reactors, but continuing to operate old and corroding ones, says Dr.
Epstein. U.S. reactors are granted licenses for 40 years, and many are
approaching that mark. Many utilities have asked regulators to extend
their licenses for an additional 20 years.
"Each of the first 52 requests has been given a rubber-stamp approval,
even though operating a 60 year old reactor would be a huge risk to
human health," says Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, executive director of the
Radiation and Public Health Project.
Notable exceptions are state government officials in New York and New
Jersey, who are opposing the attempts to extend licenses for reactors
in their states.
About 80 million Americans in 37 states live within 40 miles of a
nuclear reactor, including residents of New York City, Chicago,
Philadelphia, Detroit, Miami, Phoenix, Cleveland, and Boston. "If a
meltdown were to occur, safe evacuation would be impossible and many
thousands would suffer from radiation poisoning or cancer," warns Dr.
Epstein. "The horrifying specter of Chernobyl, or of terrorists
attacking a nuclear plant, is not lost on concerned Americans."
Reactors are a real health threat, not just a potential one, a fact largely ignored by mainstream media, he declares.
To generate electricity, over 100 radioactive chemicals are created –
among the most dangerous chemicals on Earth, and the same toxic mix in
atomic bomb test fallout. These gases and particles, including
Strontium-90, Cesium-137, and Plutonium-239, are mostly stored as
waste. But some must be routinely released into air and water. Humans
breathe, eat, and drink them - just as they did bomb fallout - raising
the cancer risk, especially to children.
Industry and government officials argue that reactor emissions are too
small to cause harm. But for years, scientists have produced study
after study documenting high cancer rates near reactors. For example, a
2007 review of the scientific literature by researchers from the
University of South Carolina found elevated rates of childhood cancers,
particularly leukemia and brain cancers, in nearly all 17 studies
examined. A 2008 study of German reactors was one of the largest ever
done, and it also found high local rates of child cancer.
Mangano and colleagues published a January 2002 article in the journal
"Archives of Environmental Health," showing that local infant deaths
and child cancer cases plunged dramatically right after shut down
whenever a U.S. reactor closed. Because the very young suffer most from
radiation exposures, they benefit most when exposures are removed. This
research indicated that there would be approximately 18,000 fewer
infant deaths and 6,000 fewer child cancer cases over the next 20 years
if all nuclear reactors were closed.
Over half the states in the United States, 31, currently host nuclear
power plants. Illinois has the most with 11, Pennsylvania has nine, New
Jersey has four.
While waiting for the federal government to phase out nuclear power in
favor of safer alternatives, state governments should act to warn and
protect their citizens, urges the Cancer Prevention Coalition.
Governors have responsibilities to take whatever political action they
can to phase-out nuclear plants. In the first instance, governors
should tell their citizens of the danger.
In 1954, Atomic Energy Chairman Lewis Strauss declared nuclear power
“too cheap to meter.” President Richard Nixon envisioned that the
nation would have 1,000 reactors by this time. But the dreams of people
like Strauss and Nixon were dashed by staggering costs and built-in
dangers.
The attempt to revive this Cold War-era dream has been, and still is,
largely talk. While the talk goes on, the nation is fast developing
technologies like solar and wind power, which never run out and don’t
pollute. Putting millions of Americans at risk of cancer by hanging on
to old reactors – that produce only 19% of America's electricity and 8%
of the country's total energy – is a reckless gamble. Nuclear reactors
in the U.S. should be phased out, and replaced by options that don’t
threaten public health.
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