Deaths per TWhr, Nuclear vs. Oil vs. Coal

[Bud Struggle]

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b31569e20147e3645469970b-450wi

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/the-triumph-of-coal-marketing.html


Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China 278
Coal – USA 15
Oil 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12Peat 12
Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

It makes decision making for the future pretty simple.

[Ele'ill]

I don't know if I can handle another energy debate. What about deaths per 'incident'? I want to become a solar panel techy but I'm not smart enough. (boo hoo *violin * etc..)

[ComradeMan]

How many coal and oil plants are there compaired to nuclear and for how long etc?

The fact that there are 0.44 deaths from solar energy- :confused:- amd 0.04 from nuclear energy does not make nuclear energy safer per se.

This creates too many potentially false conclusions from the abuse of statistics.

You also have to consider how and why the deaths occurred. Unfortunate as it may be, someone falling off a roof installing solar panels is not the same as people dying after a nuclear meltdown like Chernobyl.

[hatzel]

Hmm...interesting...

I don't really want to turn this one into another energy debate, as Mari3L can't handle it (:rolleyes:), but I do agree that these kinds of figures should be taken into consideration. Personally, I favour solar power over nuclear, not least due to its more decentralised nature, but I'm very critical of those who call for nuclear power stations to be shut, under some strange and naive belief that this then means that the energy gap will be filled by renewable energy. I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that most of the gap is actually going to be filled by increased fossil fuel consumption, at least in the short term. Figures like this might be useful when it comes to calling for the end of fossil fuel power stations, but I don't think it really makes decision making for the future pretty simple, as Mr Struggle claims. For the short-term future, yes, I do believe in nuclear power as a transition power source, to see us over between abandoning oil, coal and gas (which should happen asap, as far as I'm concerned) and developing renewable energy to the level where it can actually meet our needs. Particularly when, as we know (and I'm sure a more scientific type could give us the details), the dreaded nuclear waste can be used for further energy production, rather than just sitting around in waste dumps, if only we can develop the technology to take advantage of it. On the other hand, though, I'm probably more keen to see the money earmarked for energy source development spent increasing the efficiency of solar power, so that we might even be able to have each house self-sufficient in its energy demands, thanks to some rooftop solar panel, but I'd much rather see us using nuclear than fossil fuels, and this is just one of the reasons...

Plus, once you've got the solar panels up there on the roof, I guess the death rate (which, as CM pointed out, is probably just solar panel installers falling off of roofs) would drop significantly...

[#FF0000]

Yeah, I don't know. I was always a supporter of Nuclear power. It's just the cleanest and most efficient thing we've got, and just operating a nuclear plant doesn't kill people. :mellow:

[RGacky3]

Theres not NEARLY enough proper research in the area to know for sure its the cleanest and most efficient.

Its also a corporatists wet dream.

[Jose Gracchus]

What defines a 'corporatist wet dream'? I do like what Rabbi K said. There's this inscrutable belief on much of the left that nuclear power is developed purely out of spite to the public, and that it is arbitrary to replace it with renewables but again, presumably out of spite, they just do not. There is no attempt to do any research into the energy economics and trade-offs involved, or to deal with the intermittent energy problem.

As for photovoltaics - well, production of them does generate considerable toxic waste and there are the usual spate of factory accidents and safety problems.

[RGacky3]

Nuclear power by definition has to be centralized, in the US its run by corporations while all the extra stuff (safety and so on) is subsidized.

I agree with RabbiKs like of solar power.

The thing about Nuclear poewr is its subsidized anyway, so why not just use that money to fund solar and/or wind?

Also number 1 user of oil energy, the US military, cut the military you have a LOT more energy available.

[hatzel]

Yeah, I don't know. I was always a supporter of Nuclear power. It's just the cleanest and most efficient thing we've got, and just operating a nuclear plant doesn't kill people. :mellow:

Though I can agree with this, Gacky does raise the point of it being a centralised power source. For the moment, it's definitely the best option, as it can actually meet our energy needs, but I do feel that we should hope eventually for a much more decentralised energy network, to better correspond to our decentralised political system :) And, for that, we need stuff like solar power. I don't have the figures to hand, but I'm sure that solar panels, at present, can't have a particularly good efficiency rating. And I do believe that there's still a lot of untapped potential there, so that we should eventually be able to meet our needs with this type of power...

[ComradeMan]

Yeah, I don't know. I was always a supporter of Nuclear power. It's just the cleanest and most efficient thing we've got, and just operating a nuclear plant doesn't kill people. :mellow:

I'm not sure about that statement.

The cleanest thing we've got doesn't mean it's de facto clean- just not as dirty as the other things.

People don't trust nuclear energy, there have been too many lies and too many cover ups and too many accidents. Here in Italy the debate is ongoing after a previous referendum sent out a resounding no!

Whatever the case, I think this Japan incident has done such serious damage to the nuclear debate in the public opinion that it will be difficult to salvage anything- certainly that seems to be the case in Italy.

Solar power is surely cleaner and cheaper and if more money had been invested in developing solar technologies who knows what stage we might be at? We also have volcanic energy too- believe it or not, largely unexploited in Italy- it's not like we don't have the volcanoes!!! But of course those energy sources don't make megabucks for the oil companies.
;)

[hatzel]

I think this Japan incident has done such serious damage to the nuclear debate in the public opinion that it will be difficult to salvage anything

I don't really believe it should, though. That's like saying 'oh, look, there was a plane crash and 300 people died, so let's stop flying!' after seeing a story in the paper, or to abolish trains when we hear one came off the rails. Of course, as this thread hints at, if the papers ran a story every time there was a car crash killing one or two people, or, to make it more sensationalist, if at the end of each week the headline was 'hundreds killed on the roads this week', we'd all be clamouring to abolish the highways and outlaw cars right away, as they're nothing but deathtraps! :lol: The fact that oil kills *does some maths* almost 5500 people for every 1 killed by nuclear power, and we rarely if ever even hear about any of these deaths...well, that should suggest that it's just the status quo, nothing newsworthy, too common to report on, not unlike car crashes. I don't think that completely sensationalised stories of those very rare nuclear incidents should really be allowed to have any impact on public opinion, and that they should go entirely unchallenged and unquestioned :)

...and all this is without accusing it of being some conspiracy by the oil companies to discredit the nuclear industry and prevent it from impacting profit margins :laugh:

[danyboy27]

this is a big bunch of bullshit, beccause the statistics dosnt count the scores of people who died from cancer from the radiation of chernobyl and three miles island a fews year after the disaster.

Plus, nuclear energy have been around for far less time than Coal or oil, hell we been digging coal since the early 1900s, so its pretty much irrelevant to make a pissing death contest.

But the problem isnt even the number of death, its the fucking nuclear waste created and the devastating effect they can have on our economy, our crops, or foods.

a lightly irradiated corn food will be out comission for a while, even tho it might be safe to walk on the ground that is irradiated, same for tap water sources.

These nuclear waste can stay active for 10 000 year, and the concrete container in wich they are stored can only last for a hundred year or so.

Not to mention the ressources that will be necessary to deploy to store and secure those ton of nuclear materials.

Imagine the fucking nightmare of taking out thousand of ton of nuclear waste out of a underground bunker beccause the structure is failing after a 50 years, all the energy, money and risk deployed for moving those dangerous material around in order to put it in another bunker that will last another 50 year, can you imagine doing it over and over for 10 000 year?

[#FF0000]

this is a big bunch of bullshit, beccause the statistics dosnt count the scores of people who died from cancer from the radiation of chernobyl and three miles island a fews year after the disaster.

Where does it say it doesn't count that?

And even if it did, it still wouldn't come anywhere near the amount of people killed or made sick by coal, oil, natural gas...etc.


Plus, nuclear energy have been around for far less time than Coal or oil, hell we been digging coal since the early 1900s, so its pretty much irrelevant to make a pissing death contest.

I don't think there has ever been a period of time where there have been more deaths attributed to nuclear power than to coal mining.


But the problem isnt even the number of death, its the fucking nuclear waste created and the devastating effect they can have on our economy, our crops, or foods.

a lightly irradiated corn food will be out comission for a while, even tho it might be safe to walk on the ground that is irradiated, same for tap water sources.

Coal and natural gas (ESPECIALLY NATURAL GAS) have this effect to. For a nuclear reactor to have that kind of impact on people, that shit has to explode in a most spectacular way. For natural gas, turning your well water into toxic chemical cocktail that you can light on fire as it comes out the tap is part of the standard operating procedure.


These nuclear waste can stay active for 10 000 year, and the concrete container in wich they are stored can only last for a hundred year or so.

Not to mention the ressources that will be necessary to deploy to store and secure those ton of nuclear materials.

launch that shit into the carona of the sun. Space shuttles cost to much and use too much fuel? Go hit up Noxion and ask him about these fucking Gauss space ships or whatever that get shot into space on a magnetic track.

They don't exist, but yeah.

Anyway, this is kind of a moot point, because I think the biggest problem isn't the source of the power, but how this stuff is managed. Japan wouldn't be having the problem it's having now, for example, if not for TEPCO keeping some decrepit old reactors operational while they just so happened to sit right by a fault line.

[ComradeMan]

launch that shit into the carona of the sun. Space shuttles cost to much and use too much fuel? Go hit up Noxion and ask him about these fucking Gauss space ships or whatever that get shot into space on a magnetic track.

Great idea, let's launch rockets full of potentially nuclear waste into space and then one day one explodes in the atmosphere, like the Challenger did, and oooops.....

I must admit, I don't like all this nuclear shit to be honest and we would be better off without it.

[#FF0000]

Great idea, let's launch rockets full of potentially nuclear waste into space and then one day one explodes in the atmosphere, like the Challenger did, and oooops.....

I must admit, I don't like all this nuclear shit to be honest and we would be better off without it.

I don't see why, because it is better than coal, oil, or natural gas in literally every single way, aside from the issue of waste, which can be dealt with a bunch of different ways. Some of them involving magnets.

[ComradeMan]

I don't see why, because it is better than coal, oil, or natural gas in literally every single way, aside from the issue of waste, which can be dealt with a bunch of different ways. Some of them involving magnets.

But there even better alternatives and a lot of potential and their waste products don't get used to produce weapons grade plutonium either. ;) Of course, there is no hard confirmation for this and this often denied but I am suspicious re the fuss that was/is being made about Iran. It is said that modern reactors don't produce the wg plutonium needed for warheads- but are we ever going to know the truth?

There's to much lying and cover up with all of this.

[hatzel]

But there was something...what's that Australian (I think) pro-wind energy video that I was shown at an animal liberation congress (wtf?!) by some woman wearing a Lord of the Rings-style tunic? Well yeah, in that film it said that the science had confirmed that nuclear waste could be put through some other kind of...something, where more power can be generated from it, or something like that. And they said 'the scientists have proven it's possible, but we've spent loads of money and never yet developed a working system...so let's just totally give up and spend that money making a load of shitty windmills or whatever' :laugh: The nuclear waste issue is the issue of developing that...crazy system that allows it to be used as a power source in and of itself. And then eventually you're just left with a load of lead and everybody's happy! :)

Or maybe I have literally no idea what I'm talking about, in which case we need a scientist. Oh Noxion, come and tell us more!

[ComradeMan]

But there was something...what's that Australian (I think) pro-wind energy video that I was shown at an animal liberation congress (wtf?!) by some woman wearing a Lord of the Rings-style tunic? Well yeah, in that film it said that the science had confirmed that nuclear waste could be put through some other kind of...something, where more power can be generated from it, or something like that. And they said 'the scientists have proven it's possible, but we've spent loads of money and never yet developed a working system...so let's just totally give up and spend that money making a load of shitty windmills or whatever' :laugh: The nuclear waste issue is the issue of developing that...crazy system that allows it to be used as a power source in and of itself. And then eventually you're just left with a load of lead and everybody's happy! :)

Or maybe I have literally no idea what I'm talking about, in which case we need a scientist. Oh Noxion, come and tell us more!

The problem is that we can't make decisions now based on arguments to the future or hypotheses. Really, there is no need with the amount of solar energy and alternative sources that could be exploited- but I fear the vested interests aren't there.

On a side note, anyone ever wondered about the suspicion around Tesla and his death?

[Jose Gracchus]

Why don't any of you solar-wind-etc. renewable cornicopians meet the challenge and prove that it is an economically credible alternative to nuclear + fossil fuels as used to meet energy demands today, and that you have a credible solution to the intermittent power supply problem? Or will you all continue to just give emotional replies and handwaving wishful thinking?

[ComradeMan]

Why don't any of you solar-wind-etc. renewable cornicopians meet the challenge and prove that it is an economically credible alternative to nuclear + fossil fuels as used to meet energy demands today, and that you have a credible solution to the intermittent power supply problem? Or will you all continue to just give emotional replies and handwaving wishful thinking?

But we aren't economists we are communists.;)

Much of the energy demands today are unnecessary and wasteful and serve only to drive the bourgeois capitalist money machine.

We're using a bit of a bad "well, that's just how thing are" type of argument here- and I fear you're buying into their bullshit.

[Ele'ill]

Why don't any of you solar-wind-etc. renewable cornicopians meet the challenge and prove that it is an economically credible alternative to nuclear + fossil fuels as used to meet energy demands today, and that you have a credible solution to the intermittent power supply problem? Or will you all continue to just give emotional replies and handwaving wishful thinking?

I think there's a couple different things going on here. There's a criticism of current energy sources (which is healthy) and a lack of capital backing alternative energies. The shift from what we have currently to say, solar, isn't going to be summed up in a thread on an internet forum- there's a lot of infrastructure to be planned, tested and built yet for that shift to occur. I don't believe it's fair to say 'you're criticising current trends so let's hear a solution' because the solution has already been stated- genuinely start to try alternative energies.

[Jose Gracchus]

But we aren't economists we are communists.;)

Much of the energy demands today are unnecessary and wasteful and serve only to drive the bourgeois capitalist money machine.

We're using a bit of a bad "well, that's just how thing are" type of argument here- and I fear you're buying into their bullshit.

I'm so glad the workers of the future have this crop of leftists with their, "Well, reading is hard, so I'll forgo the work to actually demonstrate my claims with any substantive support, and just suppose it will all work, cheers!"

One might think it is stuff like this that doesn't help our politics get taken seriously.


I think there's a couple different things going on here. There's a criticism of current energy sources (which is healthy) and a lack of capital backing alternative energies. The shift from what we have currently to say, solar, isn't going to be summed up in a thread on an internet forum- there's a lot of infrastructure to be planned, tested and built yet for that shift to occur. I don't believe it's fair to say 'you're criticising current trends so let's hear a solution' because the solution has already been stated- genuinely start to try alternative energies.

And can you demonstrate that it will actually produce enough and consistent electricity to meet modern industrial needs without sapping investment in resources and initiative from other sectors? Oh yeah, say-so makes it so!

Well I say everything will run on pixie dust! And I know its so because I say so!

[Ele'ill]

I'm so glad the workers of the future have this crop of leftists with their, "Well, reading is hard, so I'll forgo the work to actually demonstrate my claims with any substantive support, and just suppose it will all work, cheers!"

One might think it is stuff like this that doesn't help our politics get taken seriously.

/

And can you demonstrate that it will actually produce enough and consistent electricity to meet modern industrial needs without sapping investment in resources and initiative from other sectors? Oh yeah, say-so makes it so!

Well I say everything will run on pixie dust! And I know its so because I say so!

I think you've just said what we're sort of saying- we're not going to know until it starts but the argument we're making is that it needs to start- now.

[Bud Struggle]

I'm so glad the workers of the future have this crop of leftists with their, "Well, reading is hard, so I'll forgo the work to actually demonstrate my claims with any substantive support, and just suppose it will all work, cheers!"

One might think it is stuff like this that doesn't help our politics get taken seriously.



And can you demonstrate that it will actually produce enough and consistent electricity to meet modern industrial needs without sapping investment in resources and initiative from other sectors? Oh yeah, say-so makes it so!

Well I say everything will run on pixie dust! And I know its so because I say so!

You nailed it Comrade. While solar and wind chimes are of course charming--can they deliver the amount of energy needed to run the world?

Most likely not. It all can be measured easily--how much heat of the sun reaches the earth? Howmuch of that could be used?

Wind? How many of those turbines will it take to match what coal and oil and nuclear are producing?

Anyone have an answer?

[Jose Gracchus]

I'm more concerned about intermittency than other things. What about using the oven when its not wind season and its night time? 'Fraid batteries don't come that big, and if you've taken basic chem you know batteries are full of NASTY TOXIC SHIT themselves.

Though if you have to reduce investments in workers' standard of living to do extra expensive alternatives, then what? I agree capitalism is wasteful, but that does not mean that a socialist society would not still have to make hard decisions about relative trade-offs in industry, social investment, commitment of community resources, etc. People should be realistic if they want to promote their politics, not utopian.

[hatzel]

Most likely not. It all can be measured easily--how much heat of the sun reaches the earth? Howmuch of that could be used?

I've just done some maths (which might be totally wrong, but I trust it, I used a calculator), and...if we were to develop an entirely efficient solar panel, one that can convert all of the sunlight that falls onto it into usable energy, and then covered about 2/3 of the surface land area of the world with it, we will have met the world's global energy requirements in an hour. Or, if we want to run them all day (pretend it's 12 hours, average, over the course of a year), that means we have to cover 0.0148% of the world's land surface area (about 850,000 square miles) in solar panels to meet our current energy needs with solar power alone. Remember, of course, that there's always the possibility of putting this stuff over the water.

On the other hand, you could just build 7,520,000,000,000 of today's wind turbines...yeah...:rolleyes:

Still, as we all know, the most powerful power stations in the world today (or, 7 of the top 10, at least) are hydroelectric (the other three being nuclear), which should go some way to suggesting that there's a serious amount of power floating around in the natural world without burning anything, if we only learn to harness it. Not saying, by the way, that we should dam up every river or anything like that...that would be a bad idea :lol:

[#FF0000]

Remember, of course, that there's always the possibility of putting this stuff over the water.

Or near one (or both) of the poles.

[Bud Struggle]

Or near one (or both) of the poles.

Sun's energy may be a bit thin there. Libya would be alot better. We'd just have to get rid of....NO WAY!

That's being done already! :D

[hatzel]

Or near one (or both) of the poles.

Or on some weird space station on the edge of the atmosphere, where the sunlight is presumably stronger, connected to us by a frigging long wire :lol:

[#FF0000]

Or on some weird space station on the edge of the atmosphere, where the sunlight is presumably stronger, connected to us by a frigging long wire :lol:

so many extension cords.

[ComradeMan]

I've just done some maths (which might be totally wrong, but I trust it, I used a calculator), and...if we were to develop an entirely efficient solar panel, one that can convert all of the sunlight that falls onto it into usable energy, and then covered about 2/3 of the surface land area of the world with it, we will have met the world's global energy requirements in an hour. Or, if we want to run them all day (pretend it's 12 hours, average, over the course of a year), that means we have to cover 0.0148% of the world's land surface area (about 850,000 square miles) in solar panels to meet our current energy needs with solar power alone. Remember, of course, that there's always the possibility of putting this stuff over the water.

On the other hand, you could just build 7,520,000,000,000 of today's wind turbines...yeah...:rolleyes:

Still, as we all know, the most powerful power stations in the world today (or, 7 of the top 10, at least) are hydroelectric (the other three being nuclear), which should go some way to suggesting that there's a serious amount of power floating around in the natural world without burning anything, if we only learn to harness it. Not saying, by the way, that we should dam up every river or anything like that...that would be a bad idea :lol:


Actually, there was a study- I can't remember when, a good few years back anyway, that showed if an area of the Sahara- unfortunately in Libya :crying: were covered with solar panels it could supply at least the whole of Europe four times over.

Sorry.... but you guys are seriously falling for all the poo-pooing bullshit that is put out in order to serve vested interests.

FFS you can generate electricity from salt water if I am not mistaken.... we have plenty of that and the alkaline waste could be put to other use. Then we can add volcanic/seismic energy too... the list goes on.

When it comes to nuclear- the question is simple. Would you want to live next door to a nuclear power station? If the answer is no- why? Then ask whether we should not seek alternative sources of energy.

[#FF0000]

When it comes to nuclear- the question is simple. Would you want to live next door to a nuclear power station? If the answer is no- why? Then ask whether we should not seek alternative sources of energy.

I said earlier that I would have no problem with it. I would much rather that than have them drill for natural gas on my property if I had a well.

[Bud Struggle]

I said earlier that I would have no problem with it. I would much rather that than have them drill for natural gas on my property if I had a well.

Maybe not.

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/06/fracking-in-pennsylvania-201006

(Gacky's own magazine of record!)

[hatzel]

Actually, there was a study- I can't remember when, a good few years back anyway, that showed if an area of the Sahara- unfortunately in Libya :crying: were covered with solar panels it could supply at least the whole of Europe four times over.

This study was presumably based on slightly more sound mathematics than mine was :lol: But actually I think it fits in pretty well with my calculations...perhaps they know the efficiency of solar panels, which I don't. I don't know how much power they generate. I just checked a couple of Wikipedia pages and put the figures into my calculator :) I trust my findings, though! Publish 'em! I might conduct another study soon, if you're lucky...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

These figures fail to take into account the latest research, which shows that just one nuclear accident, Chernobyl, killed upwards of 980,000 people, and possibly as many as 1.8 million.


New Book Concludes - Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer

by Prof. Karl Grossman

September 4, 2010

This past April 26th marked the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident. It came as the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear government officials in the United States and other nations were trying to "revive" nuclear power. And it followed the publication of a book, the most comprehensive study ever made, on the impacts of the Chernobyl disaster.

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment was published by the New York Academy of Sciences.


It is authored by three noted scientists:


Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian president;

Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, a biologist and ecologist in Belarus; and

Dr.Vassili Nesterenko, a physicist and at the time of the accident director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.


Its editor is Dr. Janette Sherman, a physician and toxicologist long involved in studying the health impacts of radioactivity.

The book is solidly based -- on health data, radiological surveys and scientific reports -- some 5,000 in all.

It concludes that based on records now available, some 985,000 people died, mainly of cancer, as a result of the Chernobyl accident. That is between when the accident occurred in 1986 and 2004. More deaths, it projects, will follow.

The book explodes the claim of the International Atomic Energy Agency-- still on its website that the expected death toll from the Chernobyl accident will be 4,000. The IAEA, the new book shows, is under-estimating, to the extreme, the casualties of Chernobyl.

Alice Slater, representative in New York of the Nuclear Age Peace

Foundation, comments: "The tragic news uncovered by the comprehensive

new research that almost one million people died in the toxic aftermath of Chernobyl should be a wake-up call to people all over the world to petition their governments to put a halt to the current industry-driven

"nuclear renaissance.' Aided by a corrupt IAEA, the world has been subjected to a massive cover-up and deception about the true damages caused by Chernobyl."

Further worsening the situation, she said, has been "the collusive agreement between the IAEA and the World Health Organization in which the WHO is precluded from publishing any research on radiation effects without consultation with the IAEA." WHO, the public health arm of the UN, has supported the IAEA's claim that 4,000 will die as a result of the accident.

"How fortunate," said Ms. Slater, "that independent scientists have now revealed the horrific costs of the Chernobyl accident."

The book also scores the position of the IAEA, set up through the UN in 1957 "to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy," and its 1959 agreement with WHO. There is a "need to change," it says, the IAEA-WHO pact. It has muzzled the WHO, providing for the "hiding" from the "public of any information "unwanted" by the nuclear industry.

"An important lesson from the Chernobyl experience is that experts and organizations tied to the nuclear industry have dismissed and ignored the consequences of the catastrophe," it states.

The book details the spread of radioactive poisons following the explosion of Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear plant on April 26, 1986. These major releases only ended when the fire at the reactor was brought under control in mid-May. Emitted were "hundreds of millions of curies, a quantity hundreds of times larger than the fallout from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." The most extensive fall-out occurred in regions closest to the plant--in the Ukraine (the reactor was 60 miles from Kiev in Ukraine), Belarus and Russia.

However, there was fallout all over the world as the winds kept changing direction "so the radioactive emissions" covered an enormous territory."

The radioactive poisons sent billowing from the plant into the air included Cesium-137, Plutonium, Iodine-131 and Strontium-90.

There is a breakdown by country, highlighted by maps, of where the radionuclides fell out. Beyond Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, the countries included Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The radiological measurements show that some 10% of Chernobyl poisons "fell on Asia"Huge areas" of eastern Turkey and central China "were highly contaminated," reports the book. Northwestern Japan was impacted, too.

Northern Africa was hit with "more than 5% of all Chernobyl releases."

The finding of Cesium-137 and both Plutonium-239 and Plutonium-240 "in accumulated Nile River sediment is evidence of significant Chernobyl contamination," it states.

"Areas of North America were contaminated from the first, most powerful explosion, which lifted a cloud of radionuclides to a height of more than 10 km. Some 1% of all Chernobyl nuclides," says the book, "fell on North America."

The consequences on public health are extensively analyzed. Medical records involving children--the young, their cells more rapidly multiplying, are especially affected by radioactivity--are considered. Before the accident, more than 80% of the children in the territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia extensively contaminated by Chernobyl "were healthy," the book reports, based on health data. But "today fewer than 20% are well."

There is an examination of genetic impacts with records reflecting an increase in "chromosomal aberrations" wherever there was fallout.

This will continue through the "children of irradiated parents for as many as seven generations." So "the genetic consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe will impact hundreds of millions of people."

As to deaths, the list of countries and consequences begins with Belarus. "For the period 1900-2000 cancer mortality in Belarus increased 40%," it states, again based on medical data and illuminated by tables in the book. "The increase was a maximum in the most highly contaminated Gomel Province and lower in the less contaminated Brest and Mogilev provinces." They include childhood cancers, thyroid cancer, leukemia and other cancers.

Considering health data of people in all nations impacted by the fallout, the "overall mortality for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated as 985,000 additional deaths."

Further, "the concentrations" of some of the poisons, because they have radioactive half-lives ranging from 20,000 to 200,000 years, "will remain practically the same virtually forever."

The book also examines the impact on plants and animals. "Immediately after the catastrophe, the frequency of plant mutations in the contaminated territories increased sharply."

There are photographs of some of these plant mutations. "Chernobyl irradiation has caused many structural anomalies and tumorlike changes in many plant species and has led to genetic disorders, sometimes continuing for many years," it says. "Twenty-three years after the catastrophe it is still too early to know if the whole spectrum of plant radiogenic changes has been discerned. We are far from knowing all of the consequences for flora resulting from the catastrophe."

As to animals, the book notes "serious increases in morbidity and mortality that bear striking resemblance to changes in the public health of humans--increasing tumor rates, immunodeficiencies, and decreasing life expectancy."

In one study it is found that "survival rates of barn swallows in the most contaminated sites near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are close to zero. In areas of moderate contamination, annual survival is less than 25%." Research is cited into ghastly abnormalities in barn swallows that do hatch: "two heads, two tails."

"In 1986," the book states, "the level of irradiation in plants and animals in Western Europe, North America, the Arctic, and eastern Asia were sometimes hundreds and even thousands of times above acceptable norms."

In its final chapter, the book declares that the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear plant "was the worst technogenic accident in history." And it examines "obstacles" to the reporting of the true consequences of Chernobyl with a special focus on "organizations associated with the nuclear industry" that "protect the industry first--not the public." Here, the IAEA and WHO are charged.

The book ends by quoting U.S. President John F. Kennedy's call in 1963 for an end of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons."The Chernobyl catastrophe," it declares, "demonstrates that the nuclear industry's willingness to risk the health of humanity and our environment with nuclear power plants will result, not only theoretically, but practically, in the same level of hazard as nuclear weapons."

Dr. Sherman, speaking of the IAEA's and WHO's dealing with the impacts of Chernobyl, commented: "It's like Dracula guarding the blood bank." The 1959 agreement under which WHO "is not to be independent of the IAEA" but must clear any information it obtains on issues involving radioactivity with the IAEA has put "the two in bed together."

Of her reflections on 14 months editing the book, she said: "Every single system that was studied -- whether human or wolves or livestock or fish or trees or mushrooms or bacteria -- all were changed, some of them irreversibly. The scope of the damage is stunning."

In his foreword, Dr. Dimitro Grodzinsky, chairman of the Ukranian National Commission on Radiation Protection, writes about how "apologists of nuclear power" sought to hide the real impacts of the Chernobyl disaster from the time when the accident occurred. The book "provides the largest and most complete collection of data concerning the negative consequences of Chernobyl on the health of people and the environment...The main conclusion of the book is that it is impossible and wrong "to forget Chernobyl.”

In the record of Big Lies, the claim of the IAEA-WHO that "only" 4,000 people will die as a result of the Chernobyl catastrophe is among the biggest. The Chernobyl accident is, as the new book documents, an ongoing global catastrophe.

And it is a clear call for no new nuclear power plants to be built and for the closing of the dangerous atomic machines now running -- and a switch to safe energy technologies, now available, led by solar and wind energy, that will not leave nearly a million people dead from one disaster.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20908

[hatzel]

Okay, I've conducted another study, but something tells me it's not right. Do I even know what watts and joules and all that are? No! Despite this shortcoming, I'll submit the figures that I've used...that way, y'all can tell me if I'm wrong...

Wikipedia says that domestic energy consumption in a temperate country is about 20000 kWh/yr. I've heard rumours that 1 kWh is the same as 3.6 megajoules, so the annual domestic energy consumption is 72,000,000,000 J, no? Apparently the energy / power / whatever of sunlight, when it reaches the Earth's surface, is 1000 kW/m2, which, I do believe, is 1,000,000 J/s. I think this means that if each house had a 100% efficient solar panel, measuring one metre squared (you Americans know what a metre is, right? About a yard :laugh:), then it would take 72000 seconds to meet its annual energy consumption. That's 20 hours. As we'd of course be running it all year, a solar panel would only have to have about a 1% efficiency rating to meet the domestic demand. I don't know the prevailing efficiency of solar panels, but still...1% can't be that hard, can it? :confused:

This is Rabbi K's second study on solar power. If anybody notices that I've made any glaring errors (I haven't taken much interest in maths or physics for many years, so have literally no idea what I'm talking about), please point them out! Otherwise, my study stands as a valuable resource for all greenies :)

[#FF0000]

Maybe not.

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/06/fracking-in-pennsylvania-201006

(Gacky's own magazine of record!)

Yyyup. That's exactly what I'm referring to!

[Jose Gracchus]

Globalresearch is not a reputable source. Show me the actual peer-reviewed journal study, please. Even if the study is legitimate, we still need to know the trade-off costs and feasibility in material terms of universal renewable energy production. What are they trade-offs? How are we going to solve the intermittency problem? Is no one going to even attempt to meet these very pertinent and important questions?

I also wonder why people think that nuclear and fossils are predominant now. Do they think it really comes down to bourgeois spite alone? That material factors do not favor this development in energy production, at all? What is the reason?

Photovoltaics require strategic resources and produce lots of toxic waste residues. Honestly for large scale power generation concentrated solar thermal is probably more suitable.

[RGacky3]

When measuring energy needs we have to remember that a LOT of energy is wasted, on inefficient industrial techniques (capitalist short term thinking) and a lot on military spending.

[ComradeMan]

I know this is cynical but...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Solar_land_area.png (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Solar_land_area.png)

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_land_area.png
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia_solare

Now... look at the areas that are orange-red and have the most potential solar energy "resources".

Then ask why the predominantly blue-green areas are so interested in nuclear, coal and oil. ;)

:lol:

With solar energy however we have to distinguish between two means of harnessing solar energy:-

Thermic that is used to heat water etc.

Photovoltaic that as the name suggests generates electricity.

Presso l'Università di Toronto (http://www.revleft.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A0_di_Toronto) nel 2005 è stato inventato un materiale plastico che sfrutta nanotecnologie (http://www.revleft.org/wiki/Nanotecnologia) per convertire in elettricità i raggi solari anche nella banda dell'infrarosso, e che quindi funziona anche con il tempo nuvoloso[3] (http://www.revleft.org/vb/#cite_note-2). Gli autori della ricerca sperano che costruendo pannelli fotovoltaici con questo materiale si possano ottenere prestazioni cinque volte superiori al silicio, tanto che una copertura dello 0,1% della superficie terrestre sarebbe sufficiente a sostituire tutte le attuali centrali elettriche. Il materiale può essere spruzzato su una superficie, come un vestito o la carrozzeria di un'automobile.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannello_fotovoltaico#Prestazioni_e_rendimenti
3) Nature Materials S. A. McDonald et al., Nature Materials 4, 138 - 142 (2005) (http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v4/n2/abs/nmat1299.html)

At the University of Toronto a plastic material was invented that exploited nanotechnology to convert sun rays into electricity- even with the infrared band and thus functioning when cloudy. It is hoped that that panels constructed with this materials will be 5 superior to the current sillicon panels and thus if 0.1 % of the Earth's surface were covered it would be sufficient in order to substitute all of the current electricity plants.

[hatzel]

I also wonder why people think that nuclear and fossils are predominant now.

Are you seriously asking this question? :confused: Why do people burn stuff to create energy? Ah...tradition :) I mean, we've only been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years. Something tells me homo erectus didn't have the technological requirements to harness the power of the sun in any meaningful way, but I'm not a historian, so correct me if I'm wrong...

[ComradeMan]

I also wonder why people think that nuclear and fossils are predominant now.

That's not really a sound basis for argument here- you may as well say "I also wonder why people think that capitalism is predominant now".