FACT SHEETS # 1 - 3 by Dr. Jim Harding - 2007

[Oscar]

FACT SHEET #1 – Non-Nuclear Network

NUCLEAR IS NOT MAGIC BULLET FOR GLOBAL WARMING – by Dr. Jim Harding, Ph.D. - 2007

Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA) ads say nuclear is “clean” – implying it doesn’t release greenhouse gases (GHGs). This is simply untrue and these misinforming ads should be pulled from the airwaves. The nuclear fuel system uses vast amounts of fossil fuels, which create GHGs - from the mining, milling and enriching of uranium, to nuclear plant construction and decommissioning, to storing and transporting nuclear wastes. Nuclear is not a “no-carbon” or even low-carbon energy system, such as are the renewable energy sources.

MINING, MILLING and ENRICHING URANIUM

The amount of higher-grade, uranium-bearing ore, such as is presently mined in SK, is declining. If nuclear energy expands then the grade of ore will decrease, and even more fossil fuels will be required and GHGs produced.

FACT: 162 tons of natural uranium has to be extracted from the earth each year to fuel one 1,000 Megawatt (MW) nuclear power plant. With lower grade ore this requires mining as much as 40,000,000 tons of granite, which requires vast amounts of fossil fuels. Attempts to remediate the millions of tons of radioactive tailings require additional fossil fuels. Uranium enrichment for use in reactors is extremely energy-intensive and creates GHGs.

FACT: SK uranium sent to the U.S. is enriched using electricity from two dirty 1,000 MW coal-fired plants at Paducah, Kentucky. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has reported that hundreds of miles of cooling pipes used in this enrichment leak CFC 114, a banned virulent ozone-depleting GHG.

NUCLEAR PLANT CONSTRUCTION and DECOMMISSIONING

Constructing nuclear plants requires massive amounts of concrete and steel, which require vast amounts of fossil fuels during production. Decommissioning these huge structures requires more of these fuels, creating more GHGs. Nothing, whatsoever, can ever be recycled from these plants due to the extreme radioactivity of all materials.

& RADIOACTIVITY IS NOT CLEAN

It’s bad enough for the CNA to misrepresent nuclear as “clean” when it releases GHGs from cradle to grave. The nuclear fuel system is also radioactive from the tailings left at the mine site, to radioactive releases and spent fuel at the reactors. Uranium miners and the widespread victims of reactor accidents continue to be at greater risk of cancer. This makes a mockery of the depiction of nuclear being “clean.”
FACT: Each 1,000 MW reactors has radioactivity equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. When nuclear reactors melt down, as is bound to happen again, they cause untold cancers and suffering and contaminate vast regions. Some areas contaminated by the Chernobyl accident in 1986 will be unfit for food production for 600 years due to the half-life of radioactive isotopes like Cesium 137 and Strontium 90.

Main Source: Ch 1, 3; Helen Caldicott, “Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer”(2006).

Dr. Jim Harding, Ph.D. Retired Prof. of Environmental and Justice Studies, University of Regina. Dr. Harding has been involved in nuclear free work for many years. http://www.icucec.org/edu-hardingsecret.html

==============================
FACT SHEET #2 – Non-Nuclear Network

SASKATCHEWAN URANIUM BEING USED IN NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND DU BULLETS - by Dr. Jim Harding, Ph.D. - 2007

Nuclear proponents claim SK uranium is only used for “peaceful purposes.” This is untrue. All SK uranium from the 1950s to late 1960s was used for producing nuclear weapons; which, if used, would certainly end life as we know it. And, though the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) says SK (Canadian) uranium is not to be used for military purposes, this is still happening.

FACT: For every 10 kilos of uranium that enters the enrichment facility, only 1 kilo gets sent to the customer for use as reactor fuel. The other 9 kilos stay behind as “depleted uranium”, or DU, which has no civilian use but a host of military uses.

Nuclear weapons countries use this DU to make weapons-grade plutonium, which is done by bombarding DU with neutrons inside a military reactor. DU is also used directly in the construction of Hydrogen bombs, more than doubling its explosive power and contributing over 90% of the potential radioactivity from these monstrous bombs.

FACT: Canadian DU is not separated from that from any other country, and the military helps itself to this radioactive waste for its military needs. There are no safeguards or international inspection for DU. And SK (Canada) does nothing to stop DU from its exported uranium from being used for military purposes.

DU is also used to create DU (anti-tank) Bullets that have been widely used by the U.S. and NATO in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon impact these weapons burst into flame and release cancer-causing uranium aerosols into the surrounding and distant environment. The half-life of uranium is 4.5 billion years so these carcinogens are being spread “forever”.

FACT: Since DU Bullets were used in Basra, Iraq in 1991 there has been a seven-fold increase in childhood cancers and in gross congenital abnormalities. Much more DU has been spread into Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, and increased childhood cancers are already showing.
As the major source of uranium for the U.S., DU from SK uranium is bound to be going into their DU Bullets. And there is direct evidence that this has happened.

FACT: In 1993 the Inter-Church Uranium Committee (ICUC) released an Application for License to Export Nuclear Material Equipment, issued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on March 8, 1988. The suppliers name was Sequoyah Fuels Corporation at Oklahoma City, where SK uranium (yellowcake) gets shipped for processing; and the “ultimate consignee” was Eldorado Resources in Port Hope, Ontario.

The “ultimate end use” was depleted uranium alloyed metal bullets for Aerojet Ordinance, Tennessee. The Application says, “AOT will supply uranium hexaflouride (UF4) to Eldorado Resources who will use it to manufacture Depleted Uranium metal for AOT’s use in manufacturing depleted uranium penetrators on U.S. Dept. of Defense Contracts.”

Main Sources: Gordon Edwards, “The Peaceful Atom Goes To War”, Can. Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (2006); Ch 3, Helen Caldicott, “Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer” (2006); ICUC (1993); Jim Harding “Canada’s Deadly Secret”(2007).

Dr. Jim Harding, Ph.D. Retired Prof. of Environmental and Justice Studies, University of Regina has been involved in nuclear free work for many years. http://www.icucec.org/edu-hardingsecret.html

==================================
FACT SHEET # 3 – Non-Nuclear Network

THE RENEWABLE ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVE IS ALREADY HERE - by Dr. Jim Harding, Ph.D. 2007

SK’s economy has unfortunately been shaped to depend upon exporting non-renewables like uranium and oil and gas. Because of the blinders of short-term government and corporate self-interest we have been slow to realize the potential of the renewable, sustainable resources. SaskPower, for example, is far behind other public utilities in Manitoba and B.C., where expenditures on conservation (demand side management) are seen as saving public capital costs for generating electricity. We have been misled to think that our economic prosperity depends on the profitability of such uranium-nuclear multinationals as Cameco. And the Calvert NDP has seemingly tied its political future to the expansion of nuclear – building a uranium refinery in the province.

RENEWABLE vs NUCLEAR ENERGY

Worldwide renewable energy has now passed nuclear as a source of electricity (20% to 17%). This is partly due to wind, biomass and solar power, but is mostly due to co-generation of electricity from waste heat. Wave (tidal) power will soon accelerate this trend.

FACT: By 2004 decentralized electrical generation provided 3 times the output and 6 times the capacity as provided by nuclear. Centralized thermal plants – whether nuclear or coal, can no longer compete with wind and co-generation, and solar may soon become competitive.

Nuclear proponents often reply that “we need all options”, but society can’t afford all options. And surely we want to encourage the “no carbon” or low carbon alternatives, especially when they don’t produce radioactive wastes. Right now the subsidies and hidden costs of uranium-nuclear steal from the potential of converting to renewables. This conversion to renewables is urgently needed to avert the further doubling of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and perhaps irreversible cataclysmic climate changes over the next half century.

FACT: According to Energy Probe, public subsidies to the nuclear industry in Canada amount to 75 billion dollars. Our provincial and federal governments continue to subsidize uranium-nuclear and oil rather than the renewable energies.

WIND POWER SUCCESS STORY

After co-generation, wind is now the “least-cost option” to nuclear power and coal. The potential for wind power is worldwide. The North Sea, Great Lakes and southern South America are all extremely high potential wind-producing areas. The Canadian Prairies has great potential for wind too. It is good that SaskPower has finally started to build wind farms, but, tied as the government is to the uranium-nuclear industry, it still isn’t admitting the great successes of wind power, worldwide.

FACT: Wind power has increased 34% annually since 2001. In 2004 wind added 6 times the capacity to generate electricity and 3 times the electrical output as did nuclear.

Denmark rejected nuclear power after Chernobyl and now leads the world in wind technology. England is adding more electricity from wind power than it is losing from shutting down nuclear plants. Germany is nearing 10% of its electricity from wind and biomass.

The huge advantage of wind over nuclear is that it is up and operating much more quickly, with far less energy use and capital expense, and gives a quick payoff in reductions of GHGs. China, which nuclear proponents assert must replace coal with nuclear, is now exploring wind. It has already constructed a wind farm in Inner Mongolia (at Huitengxile) which by 2008 will generate 400 megawatts (MW) of electricity. The plan of China’s Centre for Renewable Energy Development is to have 4,000 MW from wind by 2010 and 20,000 MW by 2020. (20,000 MW is equivalent to ten large nuclear power plants.)

THE POTENTIAL OF SOLAR

The U.S. has not yet widely embraced wind, but it is becoming a leader in solar.

FACT: Sales in solar technology in the U.S. increased by 28% between 2004-05. An estimated 300,000 homes got electricity from solar by 2006. Rebate programs exist in places like New Jersey and California, and fourty states now allow residents to sell excess electricity into the public grid.

One downside of solar power is that it takes fossil fuels to create the photovoltaic cells to generate electricity, but solar is still a net energy producer after 1-4 years. Passive solar, which involves designing and building to capture and retain solar heat, is a completely “no-carbon” option with huge untapped potential. (Its only “downside” is that it doesn’t produce a commodity for corporations to sell and profit from.) It is therefore clearly one of the best sustainable energy options.

CONSERVATION, RENEWABLES AND THE SK ECONOMY

North Americans are among the worst energy wasters on the planet. The U.S. Alliance to Save Energy estimates that the U.S. presently wastes half of its energy fuels. And the U.S., with only 4 % of the world’s population, creates 24% of the GHGs from electrical generation. Meanwhile the Bush administration (along with Canada’s Harper minority government) rejected Kyoto and its targets, which could probably be met through conservation and energy efficiency alone.

But SK remains part of the problem, with the fastest rising and largest per capita GHGs in the country in recent years. And it remains the major uranium-radioactivity exporting region on the planet. Rather than the SK economy being made even more dependent on toxic non-renewables, we need to shift to a sustainable energy system and economy. Rather than towns being encouraged to compete for a toxic uranium refinery, or nuclear waste dump, or heavy oil plant, we should promote a renaissance in conservation and renewables. While ethanol provides a new market for crop farmers, it takes land from food production to fuel machines. Rural redevelopment would be encouraged far more by a growth in “wind farmers.” Such sustainable, renewable energy will create far more job opportunities per investment, without creating long-lived toxic wastes that come from uranium-nuclear. Policies should be changed so wind farmers can sell excess power into the public grid. It’s time for SK to get off its destructive and unsustainable energy path.


Main Sources: Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute; Ch 9, Helen Caldicott, “Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer” (2006); Jim Harding “Canada’s Deadly Secret” (2007).

Dr. Jim Harding, Ph.D. Retired Prof. of Environmental and Justice Studies, University of Regina has been involved in nuclear free work for many years.
http://www.icucec.org/edu-hardingsecret.html