Fallout from Chernobyl

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Fallout from Chernobyl
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400 million people exposed in 20 countries
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Chernobyls political fallout

• Stimulated Gorbachevs glasnost (openness)
• Stimulated nationalism in Ukraine, Belarus, and
  other republics that lost clean-up workers.
• Growth of environmental opposition
• Questioning of the heart of technocratic power
• Soviet leaders were engineers, not lawyers
• USSR collapsed within 5 years.

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Radiation and Health

• Health effects as a result of radiation exposure
• -increased likelihood of cancer
• -birth defects including long limbs, brain
• damage, conjoined stillborn twins
• -reduced immunity
• -genetic damage

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8,000 deaths in 14 years

• 3.5 million sick,
• one/third of them children

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• My grandmother, by Luda

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• Death of my life, by Marina

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• Chernobyl is war, by Irena

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• Beauty and the beast, by Helena

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• Nothing escapes radiation, by Irena

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• Chernobyl, our hell, by Eugenia

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• Self-portrait, by Natasha

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It Cant Happen Here

• U.S. reaction to Chernobyl, 1986
• Blamed on Communism, graphite reactor
• Also Soviet reaction to Three-Mile Island, 1979
• Blamed on Capitalism, pressurized-water reactor
• No technology 100 safe
• Three-Mile Island bubble almost burst

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Three-Mile Island, PA 1979
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Health around TMI

• In 1979, hundreds of people reported nausea,
  vomiting, hair loss, and skin rashes. Many pets
  were reported dead or showed signs of radiation
• Lung cancer, and leukemia rates increased 2 to
  10 times in areas within 10 miles downwind
• Farmers received severe monetary losses due to
  deformities in livestock and crops after the
  disaster that are still occurring today.

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Plants near TMI

• -lack of chlorophyll
• -deformed leaf patterns
• -thick, flat, hollow stems
• -missing reproductive parts
• -abnormally large

TMI dandelion leaf at right
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Animals Nearby TMI

• Many insects disappeared for years.
• Bumble bees, carpenter bees, certain type
  caterpillars, or daddy-long-leg spiders
• Pheasants and hop toads have disappeared.

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Nuclear reaction

• Chain reaction occurs when a Uranium atom splits
• Different reactions
• Atomic Bomb in a split second
• Nuclear Power Reactor more controlled, cannot
  explode like a bomb

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History of nuclear power

• 1938 Scientists study Uranium nucleus
• 1941 Manhattan Project begins
• 1942 Controlled nuclear chain reaction
• 1945 U.S. uses two atomic bombs on Japan
• 1949 Soviets develop atomic bomb
• 1952 U.S. tests hydrogen bomb
• 1955 First U.S. nuclear submarine

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Atoms for Peace

• Program to justify nuclear technology
• Proposals for power, canal-building, exports
• First commercial power plant, Illinois 1960

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Economic advantages

• The energy in one pound of highly enriched
  Uranium is comparable to that of one million
  gallons of gasoline.
• One million times as much energy in one pound of
  Uranium as in one pound of coal.

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Emissions Free

• Nuclear energy annually prevents
• 5.1 million tons of sulfur
• 2.4 million tons of nitrogen oxide
• 164 metric tons of carbon
• Nuclear often pitted against fossil fuels
• Some coal contains radioactivity
• Nuclear plants have released low-level radiation

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Early knowledge of risks

• 1964 Atomic Energy Commission report
• on possible reactor accident
• 45,000 dead
• 100,000 injured
• 17 billion in damages
• Area the size of Pennsylvania contaminated

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States with nuclear power plant(s)
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Nuclear power around the globe

• 17 of worlds electricity from nuclear power
• U.S. about 20 (2nd largest source)
• 431 nuclear plants in 31 countries
• 103 of them in the U.S.
• Built none since 1970s (Wisconsin as leader).
• U.S. firms have exported nukes.
• Push from Bush/Cheney for new nukes.

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Countries Generating Most Nuclear Power
Country Total MW
USA 99,784
France 58,493
Japan 38,875
Germany 22,657
Russia 19,843
Canada 15,755
Ukraine 12,679
United Kingdom 11,720
Sweden 10,002
South Korea 8,170
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Nuclear fuel cycle

• Uranium mining and milling
• Conversion and enrichment
• Fuel rod fabrication
• POWER REACTOR
• Reprocessing, or
• Radioactive waste disposal
• Low-level in commercial facilities
• High level at plants or underground repository

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Front end Uranium mining and milling
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Uranium tailingsand radon gas
Deaths of Navajominers since 1950s
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Uranium enrichment

• U-235
• Fissionable at 3
• Weapons grade at 90
• U-238
• More stable
• Plutonium-239
• Created from U-238 highly radioactive

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Radioactivity of plutonium

• Life span of least
• 240,000 years
• Last Ice Age glaciation
• was 10,000 years ago
• Neanderthal Man died out
• 30,000 years ago

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Risks of enrichmentand fuel fabrication

• Largest industrial users of water, electricity
• Paducah, KY, Oak Ridge, TN, Portsmouth, OH
• Cancers and leukemia among workers
• Fires and mass exposure.
• Karen Silkwood at Oklahoma fabrication plant.
• Risk of theft of bomb material.

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Nuclear Reactor Process

• 3 enriched Uranium pellets formed into rods,
  which are formed into bundles
• Bundles submerged in water coolant inside
  pressure vessel, with control rods.
• Bundles must be SUPERCRITICAL will overheat and
  melt if no control rods. Reaction converts water
  to steam, which powers steam turbine

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Technology depends on operators
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Other reactor accidents (besides TMI and
Chernobyl)

• 1952 Chalk River, Ontario
• Partial core meltdown
• 1957 Windscale, England
• Graphite reactor fire contaminates 200 square
  miles.
• 1975 Browns Ferry, Alabama
• Plant caught fire
• 1976 Lubmin, East Germany
• Near meltdown of reactor core .
• 1999 Tokaimura, Japan
• Nuclear fuel plant spewed high levels of
  radioactive gas

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United States
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Risk of terrorism(new challenge to industry)
9/11 jet passed near Indian Point
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Nuclear Reactor Structure

• Reactors pressure vessel typically housed in 8
  of steel
• 36 concrete shielding
• 45 steel reinforced concrete

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Breeder reactor Breeds plutonium as it operates

• Uses liquid sodium metal instead of water for
  coolant
• Could explode if in contact with air or water
• 1966 Fermi, Michigan
• Partial meltdown nearly causes evacuation of
  Detroit
• 1973 Shevchenko, Russia
• Breeder caught fire and exploded
• Controversial proposals in Europe, U.S.

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Reprocessing

• Separates reusable fuel from waste
• Large amounts of radioactivity released
• 1960s West Valley, NY
• Radiation leaked into Lake Ontario
• 1970s La Hague, France
• Released plutonium plumes into air

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Back end Radioactive wastes

• Low-level wastes in commercial facilities
• Spent fuel in pools or dry casks by plants
• Nuclear lab wastes
• Hanford wastes leaked radiation into Columbia
  River
• High-level underground repository
• Yucca Mountain in Nevada to 2037
• Wolf River Batholith in Wisconsin after 2037?
• Risks of cracks in bedrock, water seepage

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Yucca Mountain
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Transportation risks

• Uranium oxide spills
• Fuel rod spills (WI 1981)
• Radioactive waste risks

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Mobile Chernobylto Yucca Mtn.
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Kyshtym waste disaster, 1957
Orphans

• Explosion at Soviet weapons factory forces
  evacuation of over 10,000 people in Ural Mts.
• Area size of Rhode Island still uninhabited
  thousands of cancers reported

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Radioactive Waste Recycling

• Disposal of radioactive waste from nuclear power
  plants and weapons facilities by recycling it
  into household products.
• In 1996, 15,000 tons of metal were received by
  the Association of Radioactive Metal Recyclers .
  Much was recycled into products without consumer
  knowledge.
• Depleted Uranium munitions for military.

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Summary

• Nuclear energy has no typical pollutants or
  greenhouse gases
• Nuclear waste contains high levels of radioactive
  waste, which are active for hundreds of thousands
  of years.
• The controversy around nuclear energy stems from
  all parts of the nuclear chain.