A few notes about energy to Jurica Dujmovic at MarketWatch. (Howard Cork Hayden) USofA

A few notes about energy to Jurica Dujmovic, columnist at Market Watch Howard Cork Hayden, Physicist October 15, 2019 By e-mail to Jurica Dujmovic at Market Watch I don’t pretend to know anything about markets. My expertise is physics, and I have been studying the energy picture since the early 60s. My first publications about energy were in the early 80s, and I have published The Energy Advocate for over 23 years. I have no financial interest in any energy company whatsoever. My business is information, and I don’t call a spade an agricultural implement to cater to people’s sensitivities.

Your expertise is markets, and you should not pretend to know anything about energy.

That much said, let me say that the purpose behind sending you the attached articles is to keep you from making an idiot of yourself. You did a pretty good job of it with your screed against nuclear energy in today’s MarketWatch. (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/think-fossil-fuels-are-bad-nuclear-energy-iseven-worse-2019-10-17 ) Y(ou will notice that most of the commentary is about your ignorance, not your political stance.)

The thumbnail version of the attached RadWaste article is that one year’s production of high-level radwaste in a plant producing a billion watts of electricity around the clock for a year is --- one metric ton. It’s not guesswork; it’s calculable. One tonne (1.1 tons) Enough electricity for a city of 700,000 for a whole year results in ONE TONNE of high-level radwaste. (Don’t be confused by the weight of the fuel in which the waste resides.)

The attached Energy Advocate (Oct. 2018) addresses the nuclear waste issue by showing one picture (from the generally anti-nuclear Chemical and Engineering News) that clearly demonstrates the safety of nuclear power.

Nobody --- not a single soul --- has ever been hurt by the radiation from a US power plant or by the waste therefrom, although we have had nuclear power plants in operation since the 50s. How is that bad? ALL of the waste from over 20 years of producing power with a nuclear reactor is sitting outside in stainless steel casks, around which workers are free to wander.

The tsunami that hit the Fukushima prefecture killed thousands of people; the radiation, none. The Chernobyl power plant, designed to produce material for bombs (and secondarily to produce electricity for the serfs of the Soviet empire) killed a few

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dozen people. (The Supreme Soviet decided that it was easier to make more Russians than all the concrete that would be required for a containment building.)

By comparison, a one-billion watt coal-fired power plant requires 120 100-ton rail cars of coal every day (or the equivalent amount natural gas coming through pipelines) or 24,000 tons of biomass (such as firewood) every day.

I strongly recommend that you read, study, and inwardly digest the information in the two attached articles, and refrain from writing a single thing about energy until you have a thorough understanding. I’ll gladly send you a complimentary copy of Energy: A Textbook if you are interested in learning something about the subject. (It is written for the intelligent-but-untrained individual, and has no politics whatsoever in it. It will be useless if you can’t do arithmetic.)

Cheers, Cork _____________________ Howard "Cork" Hayden corkhayden@comcast.net NEW! Energy: A Textbook, $25 at www.energyadvocate.com and www.valeslake.com P.O. Box 7609 Pueblo West, CO 81007 Consensus is the enemy of science

China Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant

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Link: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/think-fossil-fuels-are-bad-nuclear-energyis-even-worse-2019-10-17 Please see link above for original article, embedded hotlinks and comments.

Opinion: Think fossil fuels are bad? Nuclear energy is even worse

By Jurica Dujmovic Published: Oct 15, 2019 Some tout nuclear energy as ‘clean,’ but it’s hardly that, even with technological advancements.

Nuclear power, as it is today, is a poor substitute for fossil fuels.

Not long ago, I wrote about nuclear plants and the large number of “incidents” (many of which go under the radar) that occur every year, despite upgrades, updates, technological advancements and research that’s put in nuclear energy.

Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have come up with an unsettling discovery. Using the most complete and up-to-date list of nuclear accidents to predict the likelihood of another nuclear cataclysm, they concluded that there is a 50% chance of a Chernobyl-like event (or larger) occurring in the next 27 years, and that we have only 10 years until an event similar to Three Mile Island, also with the same probability. (The Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor, near Middletown, Pa., partially melted down on March 28, 1979. This was the most serious commercial nuclear-plant accident in the U.S.) Companion stories: The energy revolution is already here and California’s mass power outage shows we don’t really know the costs or effects of climate change Nuclear waste Then there’s the problem of nuclear waste. Just in the U.S., commercial nuclear-power plants have generated 80,000 metric tons of useless but highly dangerous and radioactive spent nuclear fuel — enough to fill a football field about 20 meters (65 feet) deep.

Over the next few decades, the amount of waste will increase to 140,000 metric tons, but there is still no disposal site in the U.S. or a clear plan on how to store this highly dangerous material.

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While some would say that this amount of nuclear waste is nothing compared with the tons of trash polluting our seas and toxic gasses destroying our atmosphere, let’s not forget this isn’t ordinary waste. Nuclear waste will remain dangerous — deadly to humans and toxic to nature — for hundreds of thousands of years.

Digging deep wells and tunnels in which it can be stored is simply kicking a very dangerous can down the road — a can that can break open and contaminate the environment because of earthquakes, human error and acts of terrorism.

Ocean dumping Let’s also not forget that the majority of developed countries have felt the need to use seas and oceans as nuclear-dumping sites. Although the practice was prohibited in 1994, the damage was already done. The current amount of nuclear waste in world seas greatly exceeds what’s currently stored in the U.S. And that’s just documented waste, so the exact number may be much higher.

Some may be comforted by the fact that 2011 data suggest the damage to the environment was minimal, but let’s not forget that these containers will eventually decay and their contents will spill and mix with water, polluting marine life and changing the biosphere. Finally, all of this contamination comes back to us in the form of food we eat, water we drink and air we breathe.

The question I was asked when writing this article was: “Is there a place for nuclear energy in a carbon-free world?” If we keep storing dangerous nuclear waste in places where it can come in contact with our immediate environment and where isolation isn’t 100% secure, and if we keep lying to ourselves that nuclear power plants are safe and clean, even though the data clearly show otherwise, then the answer is no.

‘Clean’ energy?

The nuclear-energy industry wants to participate in the clean-energy movement by positioning itself as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. However, fossil-fuel pollution can be reversed. Nuclear waste is here to stay for hundreds of thousands of years.

You may think I oppose nuclear energy in any shape or form, but that’s not true. Key problems that plague the industry are waste management and safety. Once those burning issues are appropriately addressed, I’d be more than happy to support nuclear power. But for now, if we use nuclear to fight fossil-fuel-based pollution, we’re simply replacing one problem with one that is much worse.

The majority of models from the United Nation’s climate-research body calls for an increase in nuclear power. The goal here is precisely what I warned about: To reduce the carbon output while paying the high cost of producing more nuclear waste.

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This, they say, should be done by bringing about an additional 17 gigawatts from nuclear power plants a year. If this plan were put into action, it would effectively double the number of nuclear power plants in the world by 2040. If that happens, it will be clearer to everyone why nuclear energy — in its current shape and form — is not the tool to battle climate change.

Do you agree or disagree? Please let me know in the comment section below.

E-mail: juredujmovic@gmail.com

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