[NukeNet] Nuclear Power Vastly More Lethal Than Coal: Just Uranium Mill Tailings 10 Times More Lethal Than Coal

[Bill Smirnow]

   This is from my records dated July 11, 2001:

>Robert O. Pohl, Cornell University Professor of Physics analyzed the direct
>health effects of thorium 230.  He came up with the estimate of  394 deaths
>per gigawatt-year.  Based on the Atomic Energy Commission's scenario  for
>nuclear power (at that time) this would result in at least 5,741,500
deaths.
>This would be from Thorium alone, neglecting all the other toxic
>constitutents.

Cleaner Than Coal?


The nuclear folks always boast that nuclear power is cleaner than coal. A
report by David Comey revealed that the opposite is true when considering
uranium mill tailings.



The Answer,  My Friends, Is Blowing in the Wind


These tailings release deadly radioactive gases which blow clear across the
country.  These tailings are the debris of making nuclear fuel and nuclear
weapons.  By 1975, one pile of gas emitting tailings was 230 feet high and
covered 146 acres, near Durango, Colorado.



An article by Comey in the September, 1975 issue of the  Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists
suggested that the radioactive gases released from uranium mill tailings
pose a health hazard that dwarfs health considerations associated with the
burning of coal. Comey calculated that the decay of thorium 230 in these
piles into radon and polonium will deliver at least 394 or, more likely, 440
deaths in exchange for one gigawatt (1000 megawatts) of electricity.  He
compared this with about 50 deaths per gigawatt year from sulfur oxide
emissions from the burning of coal.  In other words, just this one aspect of
nuclear power was almost ten times more deadly than coal.



Uranium mills separate uranium from the ore in which uranium is found. A
substantial amount of liquid is used to separate the uranium.  This causes
the mixture of liquid and uranium to swell.  Swelled mixtures are often 30
percent larger without the uranium than the original ore.



Only 15 percent of the radioactivity in the ore is extracted by the uranium
mill.  This leaves the remains very radioactive.  Typical ore, contains only
small amounts of uranium. After the uranium is extracted, 99.8  percent of
what was dug out of the ground is left in big exposed piles which release
gases.



A substantial portion of the remaining radioactivity is in the form of
uranium 238 which has a half-life of 4.51 billion years.  There is also
uranium 234 with a half-life of 247,000 years. Don't forget thorium 230,
with an 80,000 year half-life.  Thorium decays into radium 226 which has a
half life of 1,602 years. The radium 226 decays into radon 222, polonium
218, lead 214, bismuth 214,  polonium 214, lead 210, bismuth 210, polonium
210,  and lead 210, until it finally decays into lead 206 which is stable.
As you can see, there is a long chain of isotopes in this witch's brew of
poison.


Robert O. Pohl, Cornell University Professor of Physics analyzed the direct
health effects of thorium 230.  He came up with the estimate of  394 deaths
per gigawatt-year.  Based on the Atomic Energy Commission's scenario  for
nuclear power (at that time) this would result in at least 5,741,500 deaths.
This would be from Thorium alone, neglecting all the other toxic
constitutents.



Pohl's analysis prompted the The Environmental Protection Agency  to publish
a report in 1973 , saying the death toll would not be that bad.  Their
report, "Environmental Analysis of the Uranium Fuel Cycle, claimed 60
"health effects" would occur over a 100 year period from a 250-acre tailings
pile. Hey, it's OK to kill "only" 60 people!



The problem with the EPA analysis is that only 0.00091 percent of the
Thorium would decay in a 100 year period.  During the 80,000 years that
thorium decays, Comey affirmed that 5 million cancer deaths could occur,
depending on the growth of the nuclear industry and the efficiency with
which uranium is used.



Of, course if you don't count ALL deaths, they  don't count.  Then again, if
the wind stops blowing, then there are even fewer deaths to count.



Based on this, Comey concluded that "it would seem to be a myth that the
lethal effects from coal-generated electricity are 5,000 times greater than
the lethal health effects of nuclear-generated electricity as estimated by
Cohen and others. The deaths induced by the decay of thorium 230 in uranium
mill tailings, alone, seem to swing the statistics in the reverse direction.
Analysis of other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle may identify additional
health effects that may have been overlooked."



The real question that the EPA failed to analyze is a moral one.  Limiting
the effects from thorium decay at a mere 100 years illuminates a common
thread in nuclear industry

attitudes. Anyone who usurps the right to murder millions of people in the
future for the short term convenience of profit hungry corporations in the
present, is morally depraved.



Thorium and its decay products are not sealed  in salt mines, encased in
glass or ceramic, or bubbling away in stainless steel tanks.  Highly
radioactive radon 222 escapes as a gas with a half life of  3.82 days?  Just
cover the piles or put the tailings back in the mines they assure.  We will
find a way to find answers they promise.  Forget the promises.  Piles of
tailings  continued to remain exposed with no improvement whatsoever.


Nuclear promoters say, see, that's not so bad, with a half life of 3.82 days
radon 222 it disappears in four days. They suavely coo, how can the radon
gas from remote uranium mines reach large population centers in such a short
time? Hold on folks. You can figure this one out yourself.  When radon
reaches its half-life of 3.82 days, it doesn't completely disappear.  Only
one half of it disappears.  That's why it is called a half-life. Half of
what remains then takes another 3.82 days.  Then there is another 3.82 days
for half of what's still left, etc.  It takes at least 10 half-lives before
it is completely gone.  That means it takes 38.2 days before it is
completely gone.  With a 10 mile per hour wind, blowing 24 hours a day, the
radon can travel 9,168 miles.  That is one hell of a distance.



        38.2 days x 24 hours per day x 10 miles per hour = 9,168miles



Then, they argument that this kind of poisoning is too quick to worry about.
Since when is a quick assault on your genes beneficial? Is stopping a quick
bullet good for you?



To doubters of dire predictions, Comey asserted that the problems may become
greater rather than worse.  Uranium mining is being encouraged worldwide,
often in populated areas.  You better believe it.  There is a large deposit
near Morristown, New Jersey.  This is very close to the entire New York City
metropolitan area.  Some years ago, there was a proposal to mine that
uranium.  The uranium is near a large water supply for New Jersey. Many
homes in Morris County have high radon levels because of  uranium down
under.



Every place uranium has been mined has become an environmental disaster
area. Not only is the air polluted, but the water supply is ruined.  The
push for mining uranium in New Jersey/Pennsylvania was stopped cold. Don't
be surprised if  the uranium hungry wolf-pack  bares its teeth again for
this deposit.  The more scarce, already scarce uranium becomes, the greater
the pressure will be to mine it, regardless of the impact on residents.







Tobacco Smokers Beware


One especially damaging daughter of  radon is lead 210.  the September, 1974
issue of
"Not Man Apart" ( a Friends of the Earth publication) discussed the
Martell-Radford finding that tobacco leaves store unexpectedly high levels
of radioactive lead 210.  Sticky, hair-like trichomes on tobacco leaves
catch this airborne "natural" radioactivity and hold onto it.  When burned
in cigarettes, according to Martell and Radford, the heads of the trichomes
form insoluble highly radioactive smoke particles that lodge in the bronchi
of the smoker.  Both Martel and Radford believe that the subsequent decay of
these lead 210 particles into more highly radioactive polonium 210 is the
main cause of  lung cancer in smokers.





"Results of studies," wrote Martell, "published in 1965 by Drs. John B.
Little and Edward P. Radford at the Harvard School of Public Health showed
high local concentrations of polonium 210 in the bronchi of deceased
smokers. Cigarette smoker's lungs typically have about 10 disintegrations
per minute of lead 210 and polonium 210.  This is  more than the natural
levels in non-smoker's lungs.  The added amount is highly localized and can
be explained by the presence of several million insoluble smoke particles,
each carrying the lead 210 radioactivity of an individual tobacco trichome."



"The cumulative alpha radiation dose," continued Martell, "to lung cells
surrounding the radioactive particles is about 100 rem in 20 years for a
single particle and thousands of rem in 20 years around small clusters of
such particles .doses that rival or exceed the doses known to have caused a
significant increase in lung cancer in uranium miners."



Comey's Analysis May Have Been Conservative


Radon 222's short half-life of 3.82 days soon creates lead 210 with a
half-life of 20.4 years.  That allows it to do its stuff for many years.



Comey's estimate of 394-440 average human cancer deaths per gigawatt-year of
nuclear electricity were based on the estimates given in the National
Academy of Science's BEIR (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations) Report
and do not take into account such special cases as the Martell-Radford
hypothesis.



(References: "The Legacy of Uranium Tailings" D.D. Comey, Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, September, 1975; "Nuclear Energy Health Effects of
Thorium 230," unpublished paper by Robert O. Pohl, Professor of Physics,
Cornell Univesity: letter from Martell to Harding, September 17, 1974,
"Radioactivity of Tobacco Trichomes and Insoluble Cigarette Smoke
 Particles," Edward Martell, Nature, Ma;y 17, 1974: "Poloniumn-210 Alpha
Radiation as a Cancer Initiator in Tobacco Smoke." Paper presented ;by
Edward Radford (Johns Hopkins University, School of Public Health,
Baltimore, Md) to the Fifth International Congress of Radiation Research,
July 14, 1974.)





The Nuremberg Principles



After World War II, the Nuremberg Principles were established to punish the
perpetrators heinous crimes against humanity.



The Nuremberg Principles


* Murder, extermination.or other inhuman acts done against any civilian
population
   constitute a crime against humanity.
* Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract
entities.
* A superior order "does not relieve a person from responsibility under
international
    law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible.
* Individuals have international duties which transcend the national
obligations of
   obedience imposed by the individual  state  (or in this day and age by an
individual
   corporation)



With the memory of the Nazi holocaust burning in her memory, Frieda
Berryhill, Chairperson of the Coalition for Nuclear Power Postponement
delivered the following testimony at the Nuclear Waste Management Forum:
U.S. Department of Energy, August 6, 1976.  The Nuremberg Principles were
very much in her mind.



She introduced findings by Radiation Chemist  Dr. Chauncey Kepford which
pertained to the issue of extensive poisoning from uranium tailings.



Her testimony says it all.  I quote.



" On July 5, 1977 during the Operating Licensing Hearing for Three Mile
Island Unit 2, Dr. Chauncey Kepford, intervenor, had testified that the
Nuclear Regulatory Commision had grossly underestimated the health effects
from radon 222.  Using an EPA model and NRC data, Dr. Kepford calculated
that 1.2 million people will die for every reactor year of operation.  Dr.
Reginald Gotchy, of the NRC, in sworn testimony agreed with Dr. Kepford's
figures.  The transcript reveals the following exchange:



Dr. Gotchy: Yes. I think that what he has got here.I can't argue with these
numbers.  I can come up with approximately the same numbers.The only
question is what to do with that number.

Chairman: Peace, peace.  I was only inquiring whether or not you had a
quarrel with these numbers, not what to do with them.



What to do with them --- the most important question was never asked.



A memorandum of September 21, 1977, from Dr. Walter H Jordan of the Atomic
Safety and Licensing Board to James R. Yore, Chairman of the ASLBP, states
as follows:



"In summary, the values given in Table S-3 for the amount of radium 222
emitted per annual fuel requirement is grossly in error.  So also is the
dose to offsite population from milling due to one annual fuel requirement."



Again, the question of what to do about it was ignored.  It was not until
March, 1978 that the NRC released the news to the public that the health
effects (death by cancer) was in error by a factor of 100,000.



The NRC news release of July 18th informs me that the NRC has accepted for
review applications for more nuclear plants.  Gentlemen, in view of the
above, minimum morality demands that all such activity be stopped.

In a letter to NRC Chairman Joseph Hendrie, on March 16, 1978, Dr. Marvin
Resnikoff states as follows: "Though the Commission has been made aware for
some time that the Radon emissions from mill tailings were grossly
underestimated by the Commission, it has refused to face the issue squarely.
The Commission's delay in this matter has made a mockery of the National
Environmental Protection Act."



While waiting with anticipation to see what my government is going to do
about it, I was stunned and insulted when I received, this week, a packet
from the Department of Energy which included a report by Gejorge L. Gleason,
Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the American Nuclear Energy
Council, which states as follows:
"Mill tailings are the residue which is left over from the process of
refining raw ore uranium. Although they contain some radioactive elements,
the tailings are relatively harmless, corresponding closely to those
naturally present in nearby rock formations."



How many hundreds or thousands of copies of this fraudulent report are being
circulated by this department?



I concur with the statement made before this body by Dr. John W. Gofman in
San Francisco on July 21, 1978:

"There already exists a body of principles which the USA has on an historic
occasion acted upon in an international court.  I refer to the Nuremberg
Principles.  We shall all look forward at the earliest possible moment to
the implementation of these principles in our own government in evaluating
the personal responsibility of and the meting out of justice to those who
insist upon conducting random pre-meditated murder in the planning and
execution of the nuclear power program."



I also concur with the statement of the Union of Concerned Scientists:



"We therefore recommend that Congress request the Public Integrity Section
of the Criminal Divison of the U.S. Department of Justice to carry out an
investigation of the conduct of former AEC officials, now NRC officials, to
determine any role they may have had in a nuclear safety coverup."



Thirty years ago, I became a citizen of this great and glorious country.  I
have lived through the rise and fall of the German Reich.  I heard the
murderers' resounding defense of "I was only following orders."  It did not
wash.  Neither will the excuse, "I was only following policy"



I have been lied to for the last time.  Now that we know, what are we going
to do about it?"



Justice has not prevailed.  The skunks are still at it.



Nuclear power is not cleaner than coal.  Tailings are not harmless.