Name: ______
Date:______
TP: ______
Wave, wind, sun—the buffet of renewable energy options is attractive. But the sheer amount of power generated by coal and fission cannot be matched by any current system of renewable energy. Between them, nuclear and coal provide more than 70 percent of US electricity. Renewable sources (wave, wind, and sun) provided 9 percentas of 2007. While research is constantly advancing, we may still have to be dependent on these super-producers (coal and fission). But when deciding between a new coal plant or a nuclear plant, a number of difficult decisions have to be made.
Coal-fired plants, of course, let out CO2and toxins like nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide. The effects of greenhouse gases will lead to disastrous weather conditions, including widespread flooding, food shortage, dislocation, and extinction. If we continue to use carbon-capture-and-storage technology, we will have to find a safe way to store the CO2; so far, the most promising method—burying it underground—seems to have its owndangerous side effects, including acidified ground water and weakened rock.
Nuclear plants produce radioisotopes with half-lives ranging from a few days to a few million years. Their pollution tends to occur in bursts—either in disastrous accidents or waste leaks—but, similar to CO2, the negative effects can be felt for decades or centuries. Trying to figure out where to store and dispose of nuclear waste are longstanding problems, complicated by President Obama’s plan to abandon the long-term nuclear storage project at Yucca Mountain. Both uranium and coal mining cause destruction on nearby communities. And then there is the pending danger of uranium finding its way into weapons.
With all this information, renewable energy looks better than ever. But even so-called “renewable” sources take their toll. As Jesse Ausubel, director of Rockefeller’s Program for the Human Environment,has pointed out, the amount of land and infrastructure (machines and buildings) needed to produce renewable power indicates that solar and wind will inflict their own costs without the massive production of energy yielded by nuclear or coal.
The questions when it comes to coal and nuclear are: Which process’s byproducts—CO2or radioisotopes—are the least frightening? Which are we most likely to figure out a solution for in the near future, and which has the most pressing effects?
These aren’t new questions. But with a new administration ready to tack a new course during a crucial time in our response to climate change, the decision is real. Which do you think is the lesser of the two evils, and why? Do you see a way out of this devil’s choice?
1. What was the main purpose of this reading?
Fukushima nuclear disaster is warning to the world, says power company boss
Simon Tisdallin Tokyo
Tuesday 19 November 201313.10ESTLast modified on Thursday 22 May 201404.41EDT
The catastrophic triple meltdown at theFukushimaDaiichi nuclear plant in March 2011 was "a warning to the world" about the dangers of nuclear power and contained lessons for the British government as it plans a new generation of nuclear power stations, the man with overall responsibility for the operation in Japan has told the Guardian.
Speaking at his Tokyo corporate headquarters , Naomi Hirose, president of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the troubled Fukushima plant, said Britain's nuclear managers "should be prepared for the worst" in order to avoid repeating Japan's traumatic experience. "Wetried to persuade people that nuclear power is 100% safe. That was easy for both sides. Our side explains how safe nuclear power is. The other side is the people who listen and for them it is easy to hear OK, it's safe, sure, why not?
"But we have to explain, no matter how small a possibility, what if this [safety] barrier is broken? We have to prepare a plan if something happens … It is easy to say this is almost perfect so we don't have to worry about it. But we have to keep thinking: what if …"
Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi facility on the coast about 124 miles (200km) north-east of Tokyo, including six nuclear reactors, was hit by a giant tsunami with waves peaking at 17 metres high caused by the Great EastJapanearthquake on 11 March 2011. In what quickly became one of the world's worst nuclear disasters, operators lost control of the plant when the power supply, including emergency back-up, failed during massive flooding. As cooling systems malfunctioned (stopped working), reactors 1, 2 and 3 suffered meltdowns.
Radiation leakage following the explosions forced the removal of tens of thousands of people from the surrounding area. An exclusion zone roughly 11 miles by 19 miles remains in force around the plant two and half years later. The entire facility is now being decommissioned (shut down), but Tepco's clean-up, which has been strongly criticized by environmentalists, is expected to take up to 40 years.
Preventative measures included fitting waterproof seals on all the doors in the reactor building, or placing an electricity-generating turbine on the facility's roof, where the water might not have reached it. In addition, wrong assumptions were made, he said.
Hirose said he felt deeply sorry for the estimated 150,000 local residents who have been forced to leave their homes due to potentially harmful radiation levels, and may in some cases never be able to return.
"I have visited Fukushima many times, met the evacuees, the fishing union, the farmers, many people whose businesses have been damaged very much. I feel very sorry for them. We have to compensate (pay) them fully for the damage we caused by our accident."
Hirose said that although there are currently no nuclear powerplants operating in Japan, nuclear power had a future in the country. Popular former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi called last week for Japan to abandon nuclear power altogether, saying it was demonstrably dangerous.
The best course for Japan and other developed countries was energy diversification (getting energy from different sources), Hirose said, combining nuclear power with other forms of generation, including oil, gas and renewables.
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"Coal Kills 4,000 Times More People Per Unit of Energy than Nuclear"
April 11, 2011|Jerome RoosTop of Form
Bottom of Form
Today, Japanese authorities raised the level of severity of the Fukushima nuclear emergency from 5 to 7 on a scale of 7, making it a 'major accident' and bringing it into the same ranking as the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
But while European newspaperssplashed the newsonto their front pages, other energy-crisis related news largely went unreported. Last year, for example, coal mining accidentskilled 4,233in China alone, while coal pollutants killed an estimated13,200 Americans. And while you may remember a few ofthe 25 worst energy-related disasters of 2010, most went unnoticed by Western media and the public.
When you actuallydo the math, coal kills somewhere on the order of 4,000 times more people per unit of energy produced than nuclear power. Or to put it another way, outdoor air pollution, caused mainly by the combustion of fossil fuels, kills as many peopleevery 29 hoursas will eventually die due to radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, according to World Health Organization figures (Source:nuclear;air pollution).
Yet since coal-related deaths have a much lower profile than nuclear disasters, and because they largely occur in the conveniently far-away obscurity of the developing world, they tend to be severely underreported by the mainstream media in the West.
So while all eyes turned to Fukushima, the grinding, every-day death and illness caused by the air pollution, toxic contamination, and mercury poisoning leaching from the world's coal plants and oil refineries and the tailpipes of roughly a billion cars and trucks continued unabated -- and continued to go largely unmentioned.
For some reason, as the formerly anti-nuclear environmentalist George Monbiot has argued, greens seem to care a great deal about scientific consensus when it's about climate change, but when it comes to nuclear energy far too many are very willing to dismiss factual evidence and spread dishonest information.
The reality we will have to deal with is that fossil fuels, andcoal in particular,kill many times more people than nuclear.
Below is a graphic illustration of human deaths per unit of energy for coal, oil and nuclear power. Note that these numbers only refer to direct health impacts of extraction and combustion. They do not include the many millions of people who are likely to die as a result of anthropogenic climate change, in great part caused by the carbon emissions emanating from coal-fired power plants and fossil fuel transport.
Neither do the figures include the victims of resource-fueled armed conflicts, which tend to lead tomore combat deathsthan non-resource conflicts.
Homework questions:
Directions: Questions (including number 1 on page 1) should be answered with at least 2 full sentences per question. Make sure to also underline where you got that answer and put the number by that annotation as well.
2. What was the viewpoint of Article 1?
3. What was the viewpoint of Article 2?
4. What evidence does Article 1 provide about the dangers of nuclear power plants?
5. What evidence does Article 2 provide about the dangers of coal plants?
6. What would both scientists agree on in regards to energy sources?
7. What do you think? After reading each article, which of these practices do you think poses the least risk?
Be your best self.