Episode 16 – Green is Clean Air and Clean Water for All – Unintended Consequences – Chapter 7 Part 2

The trail of destruction continues from Episode 15.

Later in 2010, an Enbridge pipeline ruptured in Michigan, eventually “spilling” more than a million gallons of tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River. When monitors at the Alberta office reported that the line pressure had fallen to zero, control room staff dismissed the warning as a false alarm and cranked up the pressure twice, which worsened the disaster. In 2018, Enbridge’s “cleanup” was still incomplete.

Fire at BP Deepwater Horizon 2010
Bird in Oil Alaska 1989
800 Mile Oil Spill Alaska 1989
San Bruno Gas Pipeline Explosion 2010
Aliso Canyon Methane Leak 2014
Alberta Waste Oil Spill 2014
Oil Train Derailment in New Brunswick, Canada 2014
Alabama Oil Train Crash 2013
Mayflower, Arkansas Exxon Oil Spill 2016
Lac Megantic Quebec Oil Train Crash 2013
Enbridge Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Spill Kalamazoo 2010
Ramsey Natural Gas Processing Plant in Orla, Texas 2015

In 2013, a spectacular train wreck dumped 2 million gallons of North Dakota crude oil into Lac Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 residents and incinerating the centre of the town – but that’s just another page in the endless petroleum tale that includes Exxon’s disastrous, 2016 “spill” in Mayflower, Arkansas, that received scant notice from the press.

And in November 2013, a train loaded with 2.7 million gallons of crude oil went incendiary in Alabama, followed in December by a North Dakota conflagration.

2014 began with a fiery derailment in New Brunswick, Canada, and in October 2014, 625,000 liters of oil and toxic mine-water were “spilled” in Alberta.

July, August and September brought Alberta’s autumn, 2014 total to 90 pipeline “spills.” 2015 brought four, fiery oil train wrecks just by March, and 2016 delivered two Alabama pipeline explosions – one close to Birmingham.
George Erickson

July, August and September brought Alberta’s autumn, 2014 total to 90 pipeline “spills.” 2015 brought four, fiery oil train wrecks just by March, and 2016 delivered two Alabama pipeline explosions – one close to Birmingham.

In late 2015, California’s horrific, Aliso Canyon methane “leak” (think “geyser”) erupted, spewing forth 100,000 tons of natural gas, the equivalent of approximately 3 billion gallons of gasoline or adding 500,000 cars to our roads for a year.

The Southern California Gas Company finally managed to throttle the geyser in February, 2016. Incidentally, Aliso’s 100,000 tons of “leakage” is just 25% of California’s allowed leakage, which is an indication of the political power of the natural gas industry. (Five months later, a new headline appeared: “Massive Fracking Explosion in New Mexico”)

The Aliso “leak” caused the loss of 70 billion cubic feet (BCF) of gas that California utilities count on to create electricity for the hot summer months. As a consequence, the California Independent Service Operator, which manages California’s grid, estimated that due to Aliso, 21 million customers should expect to be without power for 14 days during the summer.

Methane leaks offset much of the climate change benefits of natural gas, study says

According to Reuters, (June 2016), “SoCalGas uses Aliso Canyon to provide gas to power generators that cannot be met with pipeline flows alone on about 10 days per month during the summer, according to state agencies.”

However, during the summer, SoCalGas also strives to fill Aliso Canyon to prepare for the winter heating season. State regulators, however, subsequently ordered the company to reduce the amount of gas in Aliso to just 15 BCF and use that fuel to reduce the risk of power interruptions in the hot summer months of 2016. Fortunately, State regulators have also said that they won’t allow SoCalGas to inject fuel into the facility until the company has inspected all of its 114 storage facilities.

The Aliso disaster wiped out all of the state’s Green House Gas (GHG) reductions from its wind and solar systems – and led to a USD 1.8 billion judgement against SoCalGas in September, 2021. In 2016, California officials also reported leakage at a San Joachim County storage facility that was “similar to, or slightly above, background levels at other natural gas storage facilities.”

Alexander Cannara – Energy Basics @ TEAC3

Dr. Alex Cannara, a California resident writes,

“Combustion sources [unlike nuclear power], aren’t burdened with their true costs. Natural gas, for example, is not cheaper than nuclear or anything else. In 2016, our allowed leakage wipes wind/solar out by 4 times. In other words, ‘renewables’ in a gas state like California wipe out their benefits every 3 months because they depend on gas for most of their nameplate ratings. The Aliso storage was largely used to compensate for ‘renewables’ inevitable shortfall.

“The most important combustion cost is the unlimited downside risk of its emissions for the entire planet, but in February 2016, our CEC approved 600MW of added gas burning in the San Diego region simply because the San Onofre nuclear plant wasn’t running, due to possibly corrupt actions by SoCla Gas, SCE, Sempra Energy and Edison Intl.

“Such practices were prevented for 75 years by the 1935 PUHCA, but the Bush administration repealed it in 2005 after decades of carbon combustion-interest lobbying. Some states – not California – passed legislation to correct for the 2005 PUHCA repeal.”

There’s more: In August, 2016, the Pennsylvania EPA admitted that oil and gas production in the state emitted as much methane as Aliso Canyon. The Aliso “leak” was deemed a disaster, but the hundreds of equally damaging Pennsylvania “leaks” were considered business as usual.

Finally, also in August, 2016, a thirty-inch pipeline exploded in southeast New Mexico, killing five adults and five children while leaving two other adults in critical condition in a Lubbock, Texas hospital.

All of this could have been avoided if, instead of pursuing intermittent, short-lived, carbon-dependent windmills and solar panels (Chapters 9 and 10), we had expanded safe, CO₂-free Nuclear Power.

Dr. Wade Allison, in Nuclear is For Life, wrote: “Critics of civilian nuclear power use what they fear might happen due to a nuclear failure – but never has – but ignore other accidents that have been far worse:
– The 1975 dam failure in China that killed 170,000;
– The 1984 chemical plant disaster in Bhopal, India where 3,899 died and 558,000 were injured;
– The 1889, Johnstown. PA flood that drowned 2,200;
– The 1917 explosion of a cargo ship in Halifax, N. S. where 2,000 died and 9,000 were injured;
– Turkey’s 2014 coal mine accident that took 300 lives;
– The 2015 warehouse explosion in China that cost 173 lives. “

The list seems endless, but no one advocates destroying dams or closing chemical plants.

The way the world has reacted to the Fukushima accident has been the real disaster with huge consequences to the environment, but the accident itself was not.”

See more from Dr Alison here.

Rediscovering the Promise of Nuclear Power by Wade Allison

“In California, defective, Japanese-built steam generators at the San Onofre plant could have been replaced for about USD 600 million, but the plant is being decommissioned at a cost of USD 4.5 billion because of Fukushima and anti-nuclear zealotry. The plant could be replaced with two, CO_2-free AP-1000 reactors for USD 14 Billion.” Mike Conley

In this foolish way, California lost the CO₂-free electricity generated by San Onofre – 9% of California’s needs – which was replaced by carbon burning power plants and/or carbon-reliant wind and solar.

Nuclear plants are required to set aside part of their profits to pay the cost of decommissioning, but no such requirement is made of wind and solar farms. Neither are carbon companies required to pre-fund the removal of miles of pipelines, the cleanup of refinery sites, or the sealing of their abandoned wells.

Gas Industry Plans to Sink Nuclear Power

Inside the Gas Industry’s Plan to Sink Nuclear Power, Lachlan Markay 14 April 2019

I repeat, NO ONE has died from radiation created by commercial nuclear power production in Western Europe, Asia or the Southern and Western hemispheres, but up to 5,000,000 people die prematurely every year from the burning of coal, gas, wood and oil.

The 2008 UNSCEAR update on their Chernobyl Report changed the “4000” future deaths from cancer to undetectable future deaths. With that reduction, the deaths per TWh drop accordingly.
A 2019 study lowered the nuclear rate even further from 0.0013 to 0.0007/TWh.

The original version of this chart, which rated nuclear power at 0.04 deaths per Terawatt hour, included thousands of LNT-predicted Chernobyl deaths that never happened.

As a consequence, this image, which reflects reality instead of LNT [Linear No Threshold] errors, reveals that nuclear power is far safer than initially thought, and that nuclear is actually 115 times safer than wind – not 4,340 times safer than solar – not 10, 3,000 times safer than natural gas, 27,000 times safer than oil – and coal is out of sight.

“Renewables” vs Nuclear Power by George Erickson 21 Sept 2017

While we are at it, let’s explore resources necessary to build equivalent power facilities and the fuel required.

Quadrennial Technology Review 2015 Department of Energy

Power Station	Fuel Quantity	Fuel Quantity (kg)	CO2 Production (Tons)
Solid Fission (U235)	7 Pounds	3.2	Zero
Coal Burning	9,000 tons	9,000,000	26,000
Natural Gas Burning	240,000,000 cu ft	4,621,309	15,210

How Much Does it Take to Move that Much Materials?

Thorium and Uranium Compared Slide 1 of 3
Thorium and Uranium Compared Slide 2 of 3
Thorium and Uranium Compared Slide 3 of 3

Coming up next week, Episode 17 – All At Sea – The Best Technology. Not Used. Why?

Links and References

1. Next Episode – Episode 17 – All At Sea – The Best Technology. Not Used. Why?
2. Previous Episode – Episode 15 – Clean Air and Water? Not with Fossil Fuels Around
3. Launching the Unintended Consequences Series
4. Dr. George Erickson on LinkedIn
5. Dr. George Erickson’s Website, Tundracub.com
6. The full pdf version of Unintended Consequences
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Mayflower_oil_spill
8. https://www.ecowatch.com/massive-fracking-explosion-in-new-mexico-1919567359.html
9. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/methane-leaks-offset-much-of-the-benefits-of-natural-gas-new-study-says/2018/06/21/e381654a-7590-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html
10. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-california-heatwave-idUSKCN0Z60DO
11. https://thoriumenergyalliance.com/resource/dr-alex-cannara-energy-basics/
12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUVq81kBKyk
13. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-cannara-6a1b7a3/
14. http://www.dep.pa.gov/Business/Air/BAQ/BusinessTopics/Emission/Pages/Marcellus-Inventory.aspx
15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh
16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Allison
17. https://www.linkedin.com/in/wade-allison-08929816/
18. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285420212_Nuclear_is_for_Life_A_Cultural_Revolution
19. https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Life-Wade-Allison-author/dp/0956275648
20. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nuclear-power-climate-change-misconceptions-by-wade-allison-2018-06
21. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-conley-5529b3/
22. https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-gas-industrys-plan-to-sink-nuclear-power
23. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lachlanmarkay/
24. https://duluthreader.com/articles/2017/09/21/109245-renewables-vs-nuclear-power
25. https://www.energy.gov/quadrennial-technology-review-2015

#UnintendedConsequences #GeorgeErickson #ClimateChange #FissionEnergy #NuclearEnergy #FossilFuels #NuclearSafety #TheThoriumNetwork #Fission4All #RadiationIsGood4U #GetYourRadiation2Day #Thorium

21st Apr 20225th Jun 2022

Episode 15 – Clean Air and Water? Not with Fossil Fuels Around – Death by Fossil – Unintended Consequences – Chapter 7 Part 1

What’s the Fossil Fuel Record? Millions of Air Pollution Deaths each year

Fossil fuel air pollution responsible for more than 8 million people worldwide in 2018
Loretta J. Mickley | Harvard
February 9, 2021

Loretta J. Mickley , Senior Research Fellow in Chemistry-Climate Interactions, Harvard

Because the carbon industries are heavily subsidised, one might expect them to have exemplary safety and social records, but one would be wrong!

According to the Guardian, 6 Oct 2021 “The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by USD 5.9tn in 2020″ Or USD 11 million a minute every day. This is according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF has noted before that existing fossil fuel subsidies overwhelmingly go to the rich, with the wealthiest 20% of people getting six times as much as the poorest 20% in low and middle-income countries.

IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by USD 5.9tn in 2020, or USD11 per minute.
Guardian , 6 Oct 2021

The ash derived from burning coal averages 80,000 pounds per American lifetime. Compare that to two pounds of nuclear “waste” for the same amount of electricity. The world’s 1,200 largest coal-fired plants cause 30,000 premature U.S. deaths every year plus hundreds of thousands of cases of lung and heart diseases.

In 2006, the Sago coal mine disaster killed 12. A few years later, a West Virginia coal mine explosion killed 29. In May 2014, 240 miners died in a Turkish coal mine.

*Normal Operations – Ash from Coal Fired Power Station – Tennessee Valley Authority*

Generating the 20% of U.S. electricity with nuclear power saves our atmosphere from being polluted with 177 million tons of greenhouse gases every year, but despite the increasing consequences of Climate Change and Ocean Acidification, the burning of carbon to make electricity is still rising.

Scientific American, 13 Dec 2007: “Coal-fired plants expel mercury, arsenic, uranium, radon, cyanide and harmful particulates while exposing us to 100 times more radiation than nuclear plants that create no CO₂. In fact, coal ash is more radioactive than any emission from any operating nuclear plant.”

How Coal Kills 17 Feb 2015, EarthTalk (Doug Moss & Roddy Scheer), February 17, 2015

The Human Cost of Energy
Fossil fuels exact the biggest toll in terms of lives lost
By Mark Fischetti on September 1, 2011

In one year, a CO₂-free, 1,000 MW nuclear plant creates about 500 cu ft of spent fuel that can be recycled to retrieve useful U-238, reducing its bulk by about 90%. (An average U. S. bathroom is about that size.) In that same year, a 1,000 MW coal plant creates 65,000 tons of CO₂ plus enough toxic ash to cover an entire football field to a height of at least 200 feet.

Burning fossil fuels releases significant quantities of carbon dioxide, aggravating climate change. Although it gets less attention these days, combustion also emits volumes of pollutants, which can cause a variety of illnesses.
Mark Fischetti

U.S. Health Burden Caused by Particulate Pollution from Fossil-Fuelled Power Plants

Illness	Mean Number of Cases
Asthma (hospital admissions)	3,020
Pneumonia (hospital admissions)	4,040
Asthma (emergency room visits)	7,160
Cardiovascular ills (hospital admissions)	9,720
Chronic bronchitis	18,600
Premature deaths	30,100
Acute bronchitis	59,000
Asthma attacks	603,000
Lower respiratory ills	630,000
Upper respiratory ills	679,000
Lost workdays	5.13 million
Minor restricted-activity days	26.3 million

The Health Care Burden of Fossil Fuels

Every year, we store 140 million tons of coal ash in unlined or poorly lined landfills and tailing ponds. In 2008, five million tons of toxic ash burst through a Tennessee berm (see below), destroying homes and fouling lakes and rivers.

Coal Ash Spill Revives Issue of Its Hazards 2008

Coal-fired power plants leak more toxic pollution into America’s waters than any other industry. (A June, 2013 test found that arsenic levels leaking from unlined coal ash ponds were 300 times the safety level for drinking water.)

And in 2014, North Carolina’s Duke Energy’s plant (now bankrupt) “spilled” 9,000 tons of toxic coal ash sludge into the Dan River. Why do they always say “spilled” – never “gushed?”

Coal companies like to promote their supposedly “clean coal,” which really means “not quite so filthy,” but despite making an attempt at carbon capture and storage (CCS) at a new power plant in Saskatchewan, the plant has been a failure. (Burning fossil fuels causes 4.5 million early deaths per year.)

CO2 Sequestration Critique by The Juice Media 2 Sept 2021

CO₂ removal devices use natural gas or electricity, which is usually generated by burning carbon. The moral hazard of removing CO₂ from the air is that it justifies burning fossil fuels.

Technology to Make Clean Energy from Coal is Stumbling in Practice

Carbon Capture System at Saskpower Boundary Dam Powerstation

An electrical plant in Saskatchewan was the great hope for industries that burn coal.

In the first large-scale project of its kind, the plant was equipped with a technology that promised to pluck carbon out of the utility’s exhaust and bury it, transforming coal into a cleaner power source. In the months after opening, the utility and the government declared the project an unqualified success, but the USD 1.1 billion project is now looking like a dream.

Known as SaskPower’s Boundary Dam 3, the project has been plagued by shutdowns, has fallen way short of its emissions targets, and faces an unresolved problem with its core technology. The costs, too, have soared, requiring tens of millions of dollars in new equipment and repairs.

“At the outset, its economics were dubious,” said Cathy Sproule, a member of the legislature who released confidential internal documents about the project. “Now they’re a disaster….”

New York Times by Ian Austen, 29 March 2016, Ottawa

Even modern, 75% efficient coal-burners with thirty-year lifespans can’t compete with nuclear plants that have lifespans of 60 years and provide CO2-free power at 90% efficiency, and the new plants are even safer. In addition, our coal reserves will last 100 years at best. And as we “decarbonize”, we will require increasing amounts of electricity, and the only source of economical CO₂-free, 24/7 power must be our new, super-safe, highly efficient nuclear reactors that cannot melt down.

Note: The word “efficiency,” AKA “capacity factor,” in this book means the amount of electricity created over an extended period by wind, solar, etc. compared to their maximum power rating. Unfortunately, the maximum power rating is often used to sell the project. For nuclear reactors, this figure is at least 90%, but it is 33% for windmills and just 19 -22% for pv solar – and solar panel efficiency degrades by 1% per year during their short, 20 year lifespan. (Thermal efficiency is a separate matter.)

When a gas pipeline exploded in 2010 at San Bruno, California, 8 people died, 35 homes were levelled and dozens more were damaged. In 2016, a federal government report stated that natural gas explosions cause heavy property damage, often with deaths, about 180 times per year – that’s every other day.

GULF OF MEXICO – APRIL 21: In this handout image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, fire boat response crews battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico on April 21, 2010 near New Orleans, Louisiana. An estimated leak of 1,000 barrels of oil a day are still leaking into the gulf. Multiple Coast Guard helicopters, planes and cutters responded to rescue the Deepwater Horizon’s 126 person crew. (Photo by U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images)

In 2010, British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico “spilled” 200 million gallons of oil and killed 11 workers and 800,000 birds. Prior to that, an explosion at a Texas BP refinery killed fifteen workers. And BP, which was also involved in the Exxon Valdez “spill” in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, is just one of the many oil companies that we subsidise with USD 2.4 billion every year.

“‘Evolution is driven by the tendency of all organisms to expand their habitat and exploit the available resources… Just as bacteria in a Petri dish grow until they have consumed all of the nutrients, and then die in a toxic soup of their own waste.”
William Ophuls

Fossil fuels are far deadlier than nuclear power, New Scientist, 23 March 2011, Phil Mckenna

Coming up next week, Episode 16 – “Green” Means Everyone Gets Clean Air and Clean Water

Links and References

1. Next Episode – Episode 16 – “Green” Means Everyone Gets Clean Air and Clean Water
2. Previous Episode – Episode 14 – What’s up Doc? Tremors from Fukushima – Unintended Consequences – Chapter 6, Part 2
3. Launching the Unintended Consequences Series
4. Dr. George Erickson on LinkedIn
5. Dr. George Erickson’s Website, Tundracub.com
6. The full pdf version of Unintended Consequences
7. https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/02/deaths-fossil-fuel-emissions-higher-previously-thought
8. https://www.seas.harvard.edu/person/loretta-mickley
9. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Still-Not-Getting-Energy-Prices-Right-A-Global-and-Country-Update-of-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-466004
10. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/06/fossil-fuel-industry-subsidies-of-11m-dollars-a-minute-imf-finds
11. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27406195
12. https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2021/jun/21/tva-studies-idle-kingston-coal-plant/549068/
13. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-coal-kills/
14. https://earthtalk.org/
15. https://www.linkedin.com/company/earthtalk/
16. https://www.linkedin.com/in/roddy-scheer-2070722b/
17. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-human-cost-of-energy/
18. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/graphic-science-health-care-burden-of-fossil-fuels/
19. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-fischetti-7482609/
20. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/us/25sludge.html
21. https://news.stlpublicradio.org/health-science-environment/2014-12-19/first-ever-national-coal-ash-regs-disappoint-missouri-environmentalists
22. https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-power-plants
23. https://www.southernenvironment.org/news/duke-energy-pleads-guilty-to-environmental-crimes-in-north-carolina/
24. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8
25. https://www.thejuicemedia.com/
26. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/business/energy-environment/technology-to-make-clean-energy-from-coal-is-stumbling-in-practice.html
27. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/19/false-solution-500-groups-urge-us-canadian-leaders-reject-carbon-capture
28. https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-sproule-a049944a/
29. https://www.nytimes.com/by/ian-austen
30. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-great-invisible-a-new_b_7532262
31. https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/15265-small-modular-reactors-generating-interest-among-municipalities-in-finland.html
32. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-austen-0a10a944/
33. https://ccsknowledge.com/news/next-generation-ccs–beyond-coal
34. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
35. https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-ophuls-9b3171225/
36. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ophuls
37. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/
38. https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-mckenna-75930b7/
39. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928050-200-risk-expert-why-radiation-fears-are-often-exaggerated/

#UnintendedConsequences #GeorgeErickson #FissionEnergy #NuclearEnergy #FossilFuels #ParticulatePollution #AirPollution #WaterPollution

14th Apr 202218th Jun 2022

Episode 14 – What’s up Doc? Tremors from Fukushima – Unintended Consequences – Chapter 6 Part 2

Japan responded [to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake] by closing its nuclear plants – a foolish move that has required the country to spend USD 40 billion per year on liquefied natural gas plus billions more for coal, which has created huge amounts of greenhouse gases. Another USD 11 billion per year has been spent to maintain their perfectly functional-but-idle reactors.

Nuclear power has been tarred by the Fukushima Daichi disaster, but the failure was NOT the fault of nuclear power. It was caused by repeated corporate lying, record falsifying and penny-pinching, by the lack of government enforcement of seawall height, by building too low to the ocean, and by installing backup generators in easily flooded basements.

Blaming nuclear power for Fukushima is like blaming the train when an engineer derails it by taking a turn at 70 mph that is posted for 30. (The Japanese Diet has stated that the Fukushima accident was not the fault of “nuclear power.”)

Blaming nuclear power for Fukushima is like blaming the train when an engineer derails it by taking a turn at 70 mph that is posted for 30. (The Japanese Diet has stated that the Fukushima accident was not the fault of “nuclear power.”)

In 2015, the usually reliable Amy Goodman [Democracy Now!] reported that a class action suit had been filed by several sailors who had served on the USS REAGAN. In her article, she described their symptoms, which they blamed on being exposed to radiation, but she failed to provide any depth.

Warning – A Rubbish Introduction: Fukushima “Death Cloud” Kills hundreds on US Warship

A few days later, Goodman’s article was read by Captain Reid Tanaka, a United States Navy professional with considerable expertise in nuclear matters who had been intimately involved during the meltdown – and Captain Tanaka presented a very different view:

“I was in Japan, in the Navy, when the tsunami struck and because of my nuclear training, I was called to assist in the reactor accident response and served as a key adviser to the US military forces commander and the US Ambassador to Japan. I spent a year in Tokyo with the US NRC-led team to assist TEPCO and the Japanese Government in battling through the casualty.

“My command (CTF 70) was the direct reporting command for the REAGAN (where we had control over REAGAN’S assignments and missions) and were in direct decision-making with REAGAN’S Commanding Officer and team. I don’t qualify to be called an “expert” in reactor accidents…, but I am well informed enough to know where my limits are and to see through much of the distortions on this issue….

“A Google search will tend to drive people to alarmist websites and non-technical news reports, but you could also find the dull, technical (yet truthful) places such as the IAEA or DOE…

“Numerous bodies of experts have weighed in and provided assessments and reports. A couple are quite critical of TEPCO and the Japanese nuclear industry and regulators.

“… the biggest problem the public has is … being able to distinguish the science-based, objective reports from the alarmist and emotionally charged positions that get the attention of the press, some of whom are self- proclaimed experts in some fields but NOT nuclear power: Dr. David Suzuki and Dr. Michio Kaku. Neither understand spent fuel, nor the condition of spent fuel pools….

“Dr. Suzuki is an award-winning scientist and a champion for the environment, but he is lacking any real understanding of spent fuel or radioactivity. “Bye-bye Japan?’ A headline grabbing sound-bite, but the math just doesn’t work…

“[Sometimes] the true experts cannot give a simple answer because there isn’t one, while those who have no science to back their claims have no compunction in saying the sky is falling and everyone else is lying.

“For the Navy, the contamination caused by Fukushima created a huge amount of extra work and costs for decontaminating the ships and our aircraft to ‘zero’, but [there was] no risk to the health of our people.

“REAGAN was about 100 miles from Fukushima when the radiation alarms first alerted us to the Fukushima accident. Navy nuclear ships have low-level radiation alarms to alert us of a potential problem with our onboard reactors. So, when the airborne alarms were received, we were quite surprised and concerned. The levels of contamination were small, but they caused a great deal of additional evaluation and work. REAGAN’s movements were planned and made to avoid additional fallout. Sailors who believe they were within five miles or so, were misinformed. Japanese ships were close; the REAGAN was not….

“There are former sailors who are engaged in a class-action suit against TEPCO for radiation sickness they are suffering for the exposure they received from Operation Tomodachi. The lead plaintiffs were originally sailors from REAGAN but now have expanded to a few other sailors from other ships. Looking at the claims, I have no doubt some of the SAILORS have some ailments, but without any real supporting information (I haven’t seen ANY credible information to that end), I do not believe any of their ailments can be attributable to radiation—fear and stress related, perhaps, but not radiation directly. Radiation sickness occurs within a ‘minutes/hours’ time frame of exposure and cancer occurs in a ‘years’ time frame. These sailors were not sick in either of these windows. I believe that many of them believe it, but I also believe most are being misled.”

Why Operation Tomodachi worked like clockwork

May, 2020, – U S Court Rejects Sailors’ Lawsuit

The closure of Japan’s nuclear plants and its increased use of imported liquefied natural gas put an end to Japan’s long-standing trade surplus. But in 2015, bowing to financial realities and because of diminishing fear, Japan restarted the second of its reactors. As of May, 2018, seven reactors had been restarted, with many scheduled to follow.

Shortly thereafter, the U. S. media and many of the “Green” organizations began to report that a Fukushima worker had been “awarded compensation and official acknowledgment that his cancer [leukemia] was caused by working in the reactor disaster zone.” That’s wrong, and competent journalists who do adequate research should know it. Here are the facts:

The worker received a workman’s comp benefit package because he satisfied the statutory criteria stipulated in the 1976 Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act, which says that workers who are injured or become ill while working or while commuting to and from work, can receive financial aid and medical coverage. The worker spent 14 months at F. Daiichi. (October, 2012 to December 2013.)

In late December 2013, the worker felt too ill to work, so he went to a doctor, and was diagnosed with acute leukaemia in January, 2014. No link was made between his occupational exposure and his cancer. In addition, because the latency period between radiation exposure and the onset of leukaemia is 5 to 7 years, the worker did not get cancer from working at Fukushima. It was, in fact, a pre-existing condition that was exploited by opponents of nuclear power who routinely repeat convenient-but-wrong stories because being honest and accurate takes time, knowledge and integrity.

In 2016, anti-nuclear zealots began to fear-monger about the effects of Cesium-134 on fish while ignoring reports from NOAA and the Japanese government that stated, “Radioactive Cesium in fish caught near Fukushima Daiichi continues to dwindle. Of the more than 70 specimens taken in October, only five showed any Caesium isotope 134, the ‘fingerprint’ for Fukushima Daiichi contamination. The highest Cs-134 concentration was [associated] with a Banded Dogfish, at 8.3 Becquerels per kilogram. Half of the sampled fish had detectable levels of Cs-137, but all were well below Japan’s limit of 100 Bq/kg….”

These amounts are tiny, and the particles emitted from the Potassium-40, which we all contain, are more potent than the Caesium-137 emissions that many greens apparently fear.

There is 500,000 times more natural radiation in the ocean than the amount added by Fukushima.

Regarding the risk from remaining reactor material that many greens agonize over, Dr. Alex Cannara subsequently wrote,

“As of late 2013, the spent fuel at Fukushima was 30 months old. That means that the rods and the fuel pellets within them are able to be stored in air. If any rods had never been in a reactor core, they have no fission products in them and are perfectly safe to take apart by hand.

“So, what do we have at Fukushima? We have some melted core materials (corium), which can be entombed. We have water containing a small amount of fission products like Cesium. And, we have a bunch of fuel assemblies that are very radioactive because of their internal creation of fission products when they were in their reactor cores. (No fission products are created when rods are out of cores, in pools or dry air storage.)

“Since the rods are at least 30 months out of fission-product production [2013], one can see how quickly they’ve lost the need for cooling and the reduction in their radioactivity.

“Nuclear power has for its entire life, been the safest form of power generation. The EPA estimates that we lose more than 12,000 Americans every year to coal emissions. The Chinese lose 700,000, and the Indians, 100,000. To delay building nuclear power plants will cause diseases and deaths that could easily be avoided.”

Nuclear power is the safest way to generate electricity.
World Health Organisation

“A nuclear power plant that melts down is less dangerous than a fossil fuel plant that is working correctly. [Because of their toxic ashes and emissions.] Fukushima illustrates that even a meltdown that penetrates containment is very little danger to the public when a few basic precautions are taken.” Andrew Daniels, author, “After Fukushima What We Now Know”.

Titans of Nuclear – Andrew Daniels, Author, After Fukushima Sep 27, 2018

After Fukushima: What We Now Know: A History of Nuclear Power and Radiation

A nuclear power plant that melts down is less dangerous than a fossil fuel plant that is working correctly.
Andrew Daniels

How Fukushima Made Me a Nukie, Eric Schmitz on March 28th, 2017

Colin Megson on Future Nuclear Energy & The Madness Of Renewables

“Not 1 in 10,000 people have any concept of the huge amount of 24/7, low-carbon electricity a nuclear power plant can deliver compared to the intermittent dribble provided by the renewables.”
Colin Megson

Every year, U.S., nuclear-generated electricity prevents more than 500 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering our atmosphere – Wall Street Journal

Only Nuclear Energy Can Save the Planet, Wall Street Journal, Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan A. Qvist Jan. 11, 2019

Is nuclear energy the key to saving the planet?, High Country News, about Emma Redfoot by Jonathan Thompson

Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System, IEA, Fuel Report, May 2019

5 Things Everyone Should Know About Nuclear, David de Caires Watson, Dec 11, 2019

Emma Redfoot, Sunnyvale, California, United States
Titans of Nuclear
Image by Sarah Craig

Coming up next week, Episode 15 – Clean Air and Water? Not with Fossil Fuels Around – Death by Fossil

Links and References

1. Next Episode 15 – Clean Air and Water? Not With Fossil Fuels Around – Death by Fossil
2. Previous Episode – Episode 13 – What’s so Great about Nuclear Power?
3. Launching the Unintended Consequences Series
4. Dr. George Erickson on LinkedIn
5. Dr. George Erickson’s Website, Tundracub.com
6. The full pdf version of Unintended Consequences
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Goodman
9. https://www.democracynow.org/
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ronald_Reagan
11. https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/uss-reagan-sailors-lawsuit-found-lacking
12. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2020/05/28/american-sailors-lawsuit-against-japanese-over-fukushima-radiation-rejected-by-us-appeals-court/
13. https://www.linkedin.com/in/reid-tanaka-b212751b/
14. https://www.nvcfoundation.org/newsletter/2008/3/captain-tanaka–first-japanese-american-commander-of-a-navy-submarine-base/
15. https://www.vice.com/en/article/gq8gbm/these-nuclear-physicists-think-david-suzuki-is-exaggerating-about-fukushima
16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki
17. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00967/
18. http://www.noaa.gov/
19. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-cannara-6a1b7a3/
20. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14245903
21. https://twitter.com/After_Fukushima
22. https://www.instagram.com/andrewsdaniels/
23. https://www.amazon.com/After-Fukushima-History-Nuclear-Radiation-ebook/dp/B01LC8489M
24. https://nuclearprogress.org/how-fukushima-made-me-a-nukie/
25. https://mobile.twitter.com/moonbatnukie
26. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocBGxMnpQ9g
27. https://www.facebook.com/cwm66
28. https://www.wsj.com/articles/only-nuclear-energy-can-save-the-planet-11547225861
29. https://www.hcn.org/issues/50.21/nuclear-energy-a-new-generation-of-environmentalists-is-learning-to-stop-worrying-and-love-nuclear-power
30. https://www.iea.org/reports/nuclear-power-in-a-clean-energy-system
31. https://medium.com/generation-atomic/5-things-everyone-should-know-about-nuclear-64e73ff27c98
32. https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-goldstein-0ab013204/
33. https://www.linkedin.com/in/staffanq/
34. https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-redfoot-4121685b/
35. https://twitter.com/EmmaRedfoot
36. https://www.titansofnuclear.com/experts/EmmaRedfoot
37. https://www.hcn.org/voices/jonathan-thompson
38. https://twitter.com/jonnypeace
39. https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidjohnwatson/
40. https://twitter.com/ecopragmatist
41. http://www.sarahcraigmedia.com/

#UnintendedConsequences #GeorgeErickson #FissionEnergy #NuclearEnergy #Fukushima #airpollution #USSReagan #OperationTomodachi

7th Apr 202218th Jun 2022

Episode 13 – What’s so Great about Nuclear Power? – Unintended Consequences – Chapter 6 Part 1

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima

No other technology produces energy as cheaply, safely and continuously on a large scale as nuclear power. No other energy source can match nuclear power’s low environmental impact, partly because its energy density is a million times greater than that of fossil fuels – and more so for wind or solar.

As of 2016, the world’s 400 + nuclear reactors created about 15% of our electricity. France, alarmed by the cost of petro-fuels, went to 70% nuclear in just 16 years, and Finland, now at 30%, is aiming for 60%. Sweden is adding 10.

The French energy transition by Craig Morris, 23 Feb 2015

Nuclear France emits about 40 grams of CO₂/kWh, but Germany, the US, Japan and most industrialised nations emit 400 – 500 grams per kiloWatt hour – ten times more per kWh than heavily nuclear France. Compared to fossil fuel-reliant wind and solar farms, nuclear power is a gift from the energy gods.

Finland doubles down on nuclear power as coal heads out the door

Nuclear power, being CO2-free, is by far the most effective displacer of greenhouse gases, so how can my fellow “greens,” oppose nuclear power when the environmental costs of burning carbon-based fuels are so high?

01 Seminar Opening – Deep Decarbonization with Advanced Nuclear -seminar

Dr. James Lovelock, a patriarch of the environmental movement, has begged people to support nuclear energy: “Civilization is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear power, the one safe, available, energy source now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by an outraged planet.”

James Lovelock Explains Gaia Hypothesis on The Sacred Balance (TV)

In May, 2014, Robert Bryce wrote in Bloomberg View,

“In the core of just one reactor, the power density is about 338 million watts per square meter. To equal that with wind energy, which has a power density of 1 watt per square meter, you’d need about 772 square miles of wind turbines….

“Some opponents still claim that nuclear energy is too dangerous. Debunking that argument requires only a close look at the facts about Fukushima….

“Here’s the reality: The tsunami caused two deaths – two workers who drowned at the plant.

“It was feared that radiation from the plant would contaminate large areas of Japan and even reach the U.S. That didn’t happen. In 2013, the World Health Organization concluded: ‘Outside of the geographical areas most affected by radiation, even within Fukushima prefecture, the predicted risks remain low and no observable increases in cancer above natural variation in baseline rates are anticipated.

“High on my list of well intentioned dupes are those who praise science and are eager to confront Climate Change but refuse to accept nuclear power as an essential part of carbon-reduction strategies. They dismiss new reactor designs that they don’t understand, and then talk about how wind and solar power can ‘supply our needs.’

“They are wrong, but nuclear can supply our needs when people conquer their fears, educate themselves on the safety of nuclear power – and constructively join the fray. Until they do, they must accept their culpability in creating an overheated planet with millions of climate refugees.”

Duke Energy Says It Can’t Reach Carbon-Cutting Targets Without Nuclear, March 2021

Only at the “illegal” plant at Chernobyl, which was designed to also make plutonium for bombs, with electricity being a by-product, has anyone died from radiation from nuclear power, but we’ve had tens of millions of coal, gas and petroleum-related, early deaths. Furthermore, our reactors, by generating electricity from the 20,000 Russian warheads we purchased in the Megatons to Megawatts program, have become the ultimate in weapons-reduction techniques.

First Container of Uranium in Megatons to Megawatts, 1995

Top climate change scientists’ letter to policy influencers

Dr. James Hansen, former scientist at NASA, professor at Columbia University

How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources by James Conca, Forbes, 10 Jun 2012

Energy Source	Deaths per trillion kWh	Significance
Coal – Global Average	100,000	41% global electricity
Coal – China	170,000	75% China’s electricity
Coal – U.S.	10,000	32% U.S. electricity
Oil	36,000	33% energy, 8% elect.
Biofuel/Biomass	24,000	21% global energy
Natural Gas	4,000	22% global electricity
Hydro – Global Average	1,400	16% global electricity
Rooftop Solar	440	< 1% global electricity
Wind	150	2% global electricity
Hydro – U.S.	5	6% U.S. electricity
Nuclear Global Average	90	11% global electricity
Nucleat – U.S.	0.1	19% U.S. electricity

Activist conversion to pro-nuclear: Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger at Canada Nuclear 2018, CNA2018

What about 3-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima? We’ll examine each of them, but it is important to remember that nuclear plants have been supplying 15% of the world’s electricity, while creating no CO₂, for 16,000 reactor-years of almost accident-free operation. And the reactors that have powered our nuclear Navy for more than 50 years have similar safety records. (Naval reactor fuel can be up to 90% U-235.)

Three Mile Island

In March, 1979, two weeks after the release of the popular movie, The China Syndrome, a partial meltdown of a reactor core due to a stuck coolant valve and design flaws that confused the operators, caused mildly radioactive gases to accumulate inside one of the reactor buildings.

After the gases were treated with charcoal, they were vented, and a small amount of contaminated water was released into the Susquehanna River. No one died or was harmed.

However, when an AP reporter described a “bubble” of hydrogen inside the reactor building in a way that led people to think that the plant was a “hydrogen bomb,” many residents fled, which caused more harm than the accident.

In fact, radiation exposure from Three Mile Island was far less than the amount of radiation that pilots and airline passengers receive during a round-trip flight between New York and Los Angeles [1 mrem, or 1 microSivert – 100 times less than average yearly background exposure in the area around Three Mile Island]. Furthermore, in the following decades, more than a dozen studies have found no short or long-term ill effects for anyone, whether they were downwind or downstream from the plant or at it – and since then, operator training and safety measures have greatly improved.

Lieutenant Jimmy Carter USS Barracuda 1952

President Carter—who had specialized in nuclear power while in the United States Navy—told his cabinet after visiting the plant that the [Three Mile Island] accident was minor, but reportedly declined to do so in public in order to avoid offending Democrats who opposed nuclear power.
Perspectives, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 6 April 1979

Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors Program [55 years safe operation], so that they might find some benefit for their own work. I am always chagrined at the tendency of people to expect that I have a simple, easy gimmick that makes my program function. Any successful program functions as an integrated whole of many factors. Trying to select one aspect as the key one will not work. Each element depends on all the others.
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover

John Kennedy and Hyman Rickover — President John F. Kennedy with Vice Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, 11 Feb 1963

Despite all of the fear and panic, nothing happened. No one died, and no one got cancer, but the media-hyped event at Three Mile Island came very close to shutting down all progress in American nuclear power. Because of the radiophobia generated by our sensation-seeking press and fervent greens, neither of whom bothered to check the facts, many proposed reactors were replaced by coal plants, and in the following decades, pollution from those plants brought premature death to at least 500,000 Americans.

Chernobyl

Mil Mi-17 Heavy Lift Helicopter Spraying **bourda** (molasses) and/or Radiacwash™

In 1986, during a test ordered by Moscow that involved disabling the safety systems, a portion of the core of the reactor, which had design hazards not present in Western reactors, was inadvertently exposed. (The RKMB reactor at Chernobyl was long judged to be dangerous by scientists outside of the Soviet Union.)

Reactor 4, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

As Dr. Spencer Weart wrote in The Rise of Nuclear Fear, “In short, for Soviet reactor designers, safety was less important than building ‘civilian’ reactors that could produce military plutonium if desired, and building them cheaply.”

This negligence led to a steam/hydrogen explosion that released radioactive gases into the atmosphere because the reactor had no effective containment structure. In contrast, no U.S. reactor contains flammables. Each has a reinforced concrete containment structure that can survive an airliner hit, and every plant is strictly regulated by the NRC.

There has never been a source of energy as safe or kind to the environment as nuclear power, and the reason for the safety is regulation.

Every responsible nation similarly regulates its nuclear power plants and shares information and training practices via international agencies. This cooperation, which was expanded after Three Mile Island, resulted in so many improvements that civilian nuclear power climbed from 60% up-time in the sixties to at least 90% today.

For three days, Soviet authorities hid the [Chernobyl] disaster and delayed evacuating the area, coming clean when radiation readings across Europe began to rise. (The government also failed to distribute iodine tablets, which could have protected thousands from airborne Iodine-131, which is readily absorbed by the thyroid, particularly in the young. (A body with an abundance of benign I-127 is less likely to absorb I-131.)

Chernobyl failed due to bad design, Moscow’s interference, poor training and a system that forbade operators from sharing essential information about reactor problems. It is the only “civilian” reactor accident where radiation directly killed anyone. Initially, approximately eighteen firefighters died from intense radiation. Yet, with design changes and proper procedures, several similar reactors still operate in the former Soviet Union.

Metsamor, a nuclear power plant in Armenia, (former USSR), also has no containment structure. The European Union has urged Armenia to close down the site for years, and offered $289 million to finance shutting down the plant…

Saahel Alimagham, SFSU 2021

https://wikimapia.org/4963743/Metsamor-Nuclear-Power-Plant
Metsamor Nuclear Power Plan Aerial View
Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant
Metsamor Reactor 1 Control Room 1970s
Metsamor Reactor 1 Control Room 2011

According to a study by 100 scientists from eight United Nations agencies, “Chernobyl produced additional 50 deaths over the following twenty years.” Most died soon after the accident. However, that’s just a tiny fraction of the deaths caused by burning coal or oil or natural gas.

(A round trip flight for the U. S. to Chernobyl will expose travellers to twice as much additional background radiation as their 2-day tour in the exclusion zone, which even includes a tour of the damaged plant).

Tours of Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Extreme Tours of Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Furthermore, the deformed and brain-damaged “Chernobyl children” that sensation-seeking TV programs occasionally feature are no different from similarly afflicted children elsewhere in Europe who received no fallout, but that information is never provided by anti-nuclear activists and the media. (Since Chernobyl, cancer rates in the Ukraine have been about 2/3 of the rate in Australia.)

Because of the erroneous, dangerous LNT theory and many dire predictions from people like Helen Caldicott (coming up in future episodes), many thousands of badly frightened European women endured needless abortions because they had become convinced that they were carrying monster babies.

Dr. Helen Caldicott vs Nuclear Canada (Nuclear Ontario / Alberta / Saskatchewan & our CANDU)

Let’s separate the urban myths from Chernobyl’s scientific facts

Roaming wild in the radiation zone: Endangered species are THRIVING around Chernobyl 30 years after nuclear disaster forced mankind to leave

Fukushima

Tepco’s Fukushima reactors began operation in 1971 and ran safely for 40 years, generating huge amounts of electricity without creating any CO₂ or air pollution, but then, in 2011, came a record-setting earthquake – Tōhoku.

During the earthquake, which actually shifted Honshu, Japan’s main island, 8 feet eastward, all of Japan‘s 52 reactors shut down properly, including those at Fukushima.

However, the quake destroyed the plant’s connections to the electrical grid, which required emergency generators to power the systems that cooled the still-hot reactors.

Although three of Tepco’s six nuclear reactors were off-line when the quake struck, five were eventually doomed because:
1. In 1967, Tepco removed 25 meters from the site’s 35-meter seawall to ease bringing equipment ashore.
2. Tepco replaced the original seawall with only a six-meter seawall.
3. The Japanese government advised Tepco to raise it, but Tepco declined – and the government did nothing.
4. Tepco had inexplicably placed five of its six emergency generators in the basements.
5. The tsunami flooded all but #6.
6. Batteries powered the controls for about 8 hours, and then failed. Without coolant, meltdown was assured.

Reactors 1 – 4 are useless, and number 5 is damaged, but reactor 6 was unaffected because its back-up equipment was intelligently sited well above the tsunami’s reach. Reactor 6 is capable of producing power, but it has not been started, largely because of the anti-nuclear hysteria fanned by most of the Japanese press.

FAQ: Radiation from Fukushima – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

There were warnings: All along the coast, ancient “Sendai stones” have been warning residents to avoid building below 150 feet above sea level for centuries.

The Onagawa nuclear plant, which was closer to the epicenter of the quake, also survived the quake, and its 45-foot high seawall easily blocked the tsunami. The tsunami took more than 15,000 lives, but Fukushima’s seawall failure took the lives of just two workers who drowned.

Onagawa: The Japanese nuclear power plant that didn’t melt down on 3/11

Onagawa closer to earthquake but tsunami stopped by sea wall
Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Hamaoka 63 foot high sea wall