Nuclear Energy Is Beneficial to Society

My thanks to Pro for his invitation to debate this topic. In keeping with the rules stipulated in round one, I will not be addressing any of my opponent's arguments in this round; instead I will focus on why nuclear energy is not beneficial to society. There are three major problems with the production of electricity in nuclear fission reactors: it is dirty, it is dangerous, and it is expensive. Dirty According to Physicians for Social Responsibility, in the US alone "Each year, enormous quantities of radioactive waste are created during the nuclear fuel process, including 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste". In addition, "More than 58,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel already has accumulated at reactor sites around the U.S. for which there currently is no permanent repository." They go on to point out that "The production of 1,000 tons of uranium fuel generates approximately 100,000 tons of radioactive tailings and nearly one million gallons of liquid waste containing heavy metals and arsenic in addition to radioactivity."[1] In addition, the pit mines typical of uranium mining are massively intrusive, involving creating cuts in the earth's surface which can be miles long and up to a mile deep. These mines leave horrible scars on the landscape. They also leave waste in the form of tailings (crushed dust from the radioactive ore), which have a half life of about 80,000 years. What this means is that if we travel as far into the future as the total time humans have inhabited the earth, around half of the radioactivity which the wind has blown across the landscape and vegetation and into our waterways will still be there. As Gordon Edwards describes it: "as the tailings are sitting there on the surface, they are continually generating radon gas. Radon is about eight times heavier than air, so it stays close to the ground. It'll travel 1,000 miles in just a few days in a light breeze. And as it drifts along, it deposits on the vegetation below the radon daughters, which are the radioactive by products that I told you about, including polonium. So that you actually get radon daughters in animals, fish and plants thousands of miles away from where the uranium mining is done. It's a mechanism for pumping radioactivity into the environment for millennia to come". [2] Dangerous Mining the raw materials used to power nuclear reactors is dangerous in itself. Firstly, to the miners. "The most serious health hazard associated with uranium mining is lung cancer due to inhaling uranium decay products.....Many Native Americans have died of lung cancers linked to their work in uranium mines. Others continue to suffer the effects of land and water contamination due to seepage and spills from tailings piles." [3] Of course, lung cancer is not the only side effect of radiation produced during the mining process. Edwards also refers to "two categories of human illness that everyone agrees can be caused by exposure to atomic radiation even at very low levels. They are (1) cancers of all kinds, and also (2) genetic mutations -- which can be caused right down to the lowest levels of radiation exposure." Finally, he adds "It has now been confirmed by the scientific community -- only in recent years, by the way -- that mental retardation is caused by radiation exposure in the womb."[2] Besides the mine workers, these symptoms most commonly appear in indigenous populations worldwide, as a great many uranium mines are located in remote areas, on native lands. When most of us think of the dangers involved in nuclear power, we think of nuclear reactors. And when things go wrong with a nuclear reactor, the consequences can be mind boggling. Consider the "fallout" of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster: "An estimated 220,000 people were displaced from their homes, and the radioactive fallout from the accident made 4,440 square kilometers of agricultural land and 6,820 square kilometers of forests in Belarus and Ukraine unusable. It is extremely difficult to get accurate information about the health effects from Chernobyl. Government agencies in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus estimate that about 25,000 of the 600,000 involved in fire-fighting and clean up operations have died so far because of radiation exposure from the accident.(4) According to an April 2006 report commissioned by the European Greens for the European Parliament, there will be an additional 30,000 to 60,000 fatal cancer deaths worldwide from the accident." [1] Furthermore, "To this day, the sheep in Wales are unsuitable for human consumption because of contamination by one particular by-product of the Chernobyl accident called cesium-137." [2] Nuclear reactor accidents are not as rare as some may believe. "Globally, there have been at least 99 (civilian and military) recorded nuclear power plant accidents from 1952 to 2009 (defined as incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than US$50,000 of property damage, the amount the US federal government uses to define nuclear energy accidents that must be reported), totaling US$20.5 billion in property damages." [4] The worst of these have been Chernobyl, Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and Fukushima in Japan. I may elaborate with details of the latter two further on in the debate. Whilst not as catastrophic as Chernobyl, there have been serious consequences from both of these incidents. Finally, there is the issue of terrorism. The following report was filed only one week ago: "Hamas terrorists launched three powerful rockets at an Israeli nuclear power plant on Wednesday " a terrifying escalation of hostilities in the increasingly violent conflict...Extremists from Hamas" fanatical Qassam Brigades boasted that they had launched the long-range, M-75 rockets from the Gaza Strip to the Israeli city of Dimona hoping to damage or destroy the reactor, about 47 miles away." [5] Two of the rockets missed their target, another was shot down; but the consequences of a rocket destroying a nuclear reactor are almost unimaginable. Expensive It is a myth that nuclear power is cheap. For a start, there is the cost when something goes wrong. "As of October 2012, approximately "9.4bn (1,335 bn yen) had been paid out in compensation as a result of the Fukushima accident and this is expected to double in the next year. At this stage the final cost can only be roughly estimated, but the utility company, Tepco, has suggested that cost for compensation and decontamination maybe in the order of "70bn" [6] The costs of the Chernobyl nuclear accident can only be calculated with a high degree of estimation.... the magnitude of the impact is clear from a variety of government estimates from the 1990s, which put the cost of the accident, over two decades, at hundreds of billions of dollars.[7] But even ignoring the costs incurred by the failure of nuclear reactors, the cost of production is higher than would appear. In the UK "A pro-nuclear energy group is pressing the government to halt plans to order new atomic power plants because costs have been inflated leaving householders and businesses facing an enormous bill."[8] Whilst in the US, "The first generation of nuclear power plants proved so costly to build that half of them were abandoned during construction. Those that were completed saw huge cost overruns, which were passed on to utility customers in the form of rate increases. By 1985, Forbes had labeled U.S. nuclear power "the largest managerial disaster in business history." The industry has failed to prove that things will be different this time around: soaring, uncertain costs continue to plague nuclear power in the 21st century. Between 2002 and 2008, for example, cost estimates for new nuclear plant construction rose from between $2 billion and $4 billion per unit to $9 billion per unit" [9]. Conclusion Throughout Europe, nuclear energy is being abandoned. "Sweden (1980) was the first country to begin a phase-out (influenced by the Three Mile Island accident), followed by Italy (1987), Belgium (1999), and Germany (2000). Austria and Spain have enacted laws to cease construction on new nuclear power stations. Several other European countries have debated phase-outs."[10] Nuclear energy is not safe, not renewable, not sustainable, and not affordable. Nuclear energy is not beneficial. References: [1] http://www.psr.org... [2] http://www.ccnr.org... [3] http://ieer.org... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://nypost.com... [6]http://www.theguardian.com... [7] http://www.greenfacts.org... [8] http://www.telegraph.co.uk... [9] http://www.ucsusa.org... [10] http://en.wikipedia.org...