Professional Documents
Culture Documents
***NP DA***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 8
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
NP Good DA – Shell
A. Spending on renewable energy low now
Sachs 8 (Jeffrey, professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, The Korea
Herald, April 24)
The situation is even more discouraging when we look at the particulars. U.S. government funding for renewable
energy technologies (solar, wind, geothermal, ocean, and bio-energy) totaled a meager $239 million, or just three
hours of defense spending. Spending on carbon capture and sequestration was just $67 million, while spending for
energy efficiency of all types (buildings, transport, and industry) was $352 million.
B. Zero – sum tradeoff - Increased renewable energy incentives decrease nuclear power
Government subsidies are the only way for the NP industry to revive, absent subsidies the
high capital and construction costs will prevent investment
Roques, Nuttal, Newberry, and Neufville 5 (Fabien A, William J, David M, and Richard de, Judge Business School,
University of Cambridge, Faculty of Economics, Cambridge, Engineering Systems Division, MIT, 08 November,
http://ardent.mit.edu/real_options/Real_opts_papers/Roques%20Energy%20Journal%20final.pdf)
Despite recent revived interest in nuclear power, the prospects for merchant nuclear investment in
liberalised industries without government support do not seem promising. The reason is relatively simple:
quite apart from overcoming any regulatory and public opinion difficulties, the economic risks of nuclear
power have been adversely affected by liberalisation. High capital cost, uncertain construction cost,
potential construction and licensing delays, and economies of scale are the main features that make
nuclear power technology unattractive to private investors in liberalised electricity markets. Couching the
debate over the economics of nuclear power in terms of the expected levelised cost fails to capture these
concerns adequately. Recent cost estimates reveal both the large underlying nuclear cost uncertainties and
different interpretations of the impact of liberalisation on the cost of finance and hence investment
choices.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 11
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
NP Bad DA – Shell
A. Spending on alternative energy low now
Sachs 8 (Jeffrey, professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, The Korea Herald, April 24)
The situation is even more discouraging when we look at the particulars. U.S. government funding for renewable
energy technologies (solar, wind, geothermal, ocean, and bio-energy) totaled a meager $239 million, or just three
hours of defense spending. Spending on carbon capture and sequestration was just $67 million, while spending for
energy efficiency of all types (buildings, transport, and industry) was $352 million.
Cravens 07 (Gwyneth, science writer, Power to Save the World: the Truth about Nuclear Power, p.365-366)
By mid-century, the world's need for energy is expected to increase by 160 percent. A simultaneous
expansion of global nuclear capacity to around 1,3 50 reactors would cut the predicted increase in
carbon emissions by a quarter. Additional, smaller reductions could be obtained by renewables,
conservation, and cleaner fossil-fuel technology. The Future ofNucZear Power, the 2003 MIT-Harvard
study that called for a tripling in the number of American nuclear plants, recommends an increase in
government support for their construction as a means of not only delivering emission-free electricity and
but also of achieving a reduction in the number of coal-fired plants. The authors propose a tax on carbon
emissions to support nuclear expansion. Control of carbon output through emissions trading or
taxation would raise the cost of electricity from fossil-fuel plants considerably. Nuclear power, once
established, is not intrinsically more expensive than other means of electricity generation. France sells
cheap electricity to other countries from its nuclear plants. Over the long run, uranium is and will continue to
be inexpensive. We have enough of it to last indefinitely, as well as the technology to keep recycling uranium
fuel and to burn useless residues in reactors.
Krupp 8 (Fred, Environmental Defense Fund, , Earth: The Sequel The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming, p. 11)
Venture capitalist Doerr observes that each year the federal government devotes just $1 billion to research on
renewable sources of energy—less than ExxonMobil earns in a single day.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 17
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Richardson 8 (Bill, Governor of New Mexico, , Leading by Example: how we can inspire energy and security
revolution, p. 39)
Companies are changing, too. Not every company, but business in general is embracing energy efficiency and
energy alternatives. Investment capital is flowing into new energy alternatives at an unprecedented rate,
partly as a function of higher energy prices but also because some investors are truly visionary and committed to a
new energy future.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 18
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
***NP Good***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 19
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
***Electricity***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 20
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
D. Extinction -
Lt. Col, Tom Bearden, PhD Nuclear Engineering, April 25, 2000,
http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/042500%20-%20modified.htm
Just prior to the terrible collapse of the World economy, with the crumbling well underway and rising, it
is inevitable that some of the [wmd] weapons of mass destruction will be used by one or more nations on
others. An interesting result then---as all the old strategic studies used to show---is that everyone will
fire everything as fast as possible against their perceived enemies. The reason is simple: When the mass
destruction weapons are unleashed at all, the only chance a nation has to survive is to desperately try to
destroy its perceived enemies before they destroy it. So there will erupt a spasmodic unleashing of the
long range missiles, nuclear arsenals, and biological warfare arsenals of the nations as they feel the
economic collapse, poverty, death, misery, etc. a bit earlier. The ensuing holocaust is certain to
immediately draw in the major nations also, and literally a hell on earth will result. In short, we will get
the great Armageddon we have been fearing since the advent of the nuclear genie. Right now, my personal
estimate is that we have about a 99% chance of that scenario or some modified version of it, resulting.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 22
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
“The permanent blackout of electricity is crippling. Without oil to continue to fire up our industrial
society we will be without: public electricity, transport, industry’s processed products (food, clothing,
packaging, and machinery), communication and computer services. A little bit of brainstorming shows that
the society and its systems would come eventually to a standstill. A totally paralyzing set of
circumstances with hunger and deprivation on an unprecedented worldwide scale.”
ETH's economic damage model calculates total financial damage as the sum of the costs for:
1. Downtime Loss (as the sum of Productivity Loss and Revenue Loss)
2. Disaster Recovery
3. Liability
4. Customer Loss
Productivity Loss - employees have to use less efficient ways to fulfil their duties; Revenue Loss -
certain tasks have to be postponed; lost transactions by customers that cannot access a service due to
the company's inability to fulfil customer requests; Disaster Recovery - cost of time that employees
spend on recovery from an incident; Liability - compensation payments for not being able to fulfil a
service level agreement (SLA); Customer Loss - lost revenue due to dissatisfied customers quitting a
service; and opportunity costs of potential customers lost.
ETH's qualitative analysis demonstrates that economic damage usually does not have the same
characteristics over time as technical problems have. Economic damage can still grow when technical
problems have been resolved and the attack has been stopped. Three time intervals are considered:
During the attack; shortly after the attack has been stopped; and a much longer time after the incident such as
weeks and months. Temporal overlap of different damage types is possible.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 24
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Nuclear power is key to meeting future energy needs- the NRC is the way to go
Cravens 07 (Gwyneth, science writer, Power to Save the World: the Truth about Nuclear Power, p.362)
As the IPCC has indicated, any pragmatic plan must include more nuclear power. The American Wind
Energy Association hopes that by 2020 wind farms will be supplying as much as 6 percent of our electricity.
The Energy Information Administration estimates that the figure will be closer to 0.5 percent. Regardless of
whose predictions are accurate, the DOE projects electrical demand to grow by half by 2025. Even with
increased conservation of energy, the need for baseload electricity will still have to be met by either
fossil-fuel or nuclear power. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has made licensing of nuclear
plants simpler through new regulations and through advance approval of the location and design. This
should prevent long delays and cost overruns. Some estimates indicate that a plant of standardized,
streamlined design, with many more built-in passive safety features, and therefore fewer pumps, valves, and
other components, could be built in five years, as is already the case in France. The price per plant comes to
about $3 billion- the cost of maintaining the U.S. presence in Iraq for one week. Reactors could make
hydrogen for fuel cells as well as electricity while burning up waste residues. Although meeting
baseload demand means that new nuclear plants are likely to be large, designs now come in different
sizes: smaller reactors can supply electricity to local consumers or feed supplementary power to the
grid during peak demand. Toshiba is now offering to provide and maintain a nuclear power plant about the
size of a spruce tree; it features an underground, replaceable, sealed reactor core that can electrify a remote
village-say, a small settlement way off the grid in Alaska, where diesel-fired generators are the norm-and
supply all of a town's heat for thirty years.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 25
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
***Warming***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 28
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Nuclear power k2 solve warming-It’s the only way to sustain usage while reducing
emissions
Thurow`1 (Lester C., USA Today, Time for Nuclear Power, January 11, 2001, Lexis)
But this is in direct conflict with desires to do something about global warming. Global warming has reached the point where a scientific
consensus is rapidly emerging. The globe is getting warmer, and human activities -- the burning of fossil fuels
-- are the principal cause. There are two principal places fossil fuels are used: the burning of oil in cars and trucks, and the
burning of gas and coal in the generation of electricity. In both instances, if the green movement wants to solve the
problem of global warming, it is going to have to embrace new technologies rather than reject them --
its standard operating procedure for the past decade. Solving the problems by changing behavior simply isn't an
option. Americans are not going to go without electricity, and they aren't going to quit driving. American politicians are not going to
force Americans to drive smaller cars by putting higher taxes on gasoline, or to use less electricity by charging more for it. In the
case of electricity, we already have a technical solution at hand. It is called nuclear power -- a clean
way to generate electricity that does not cause global warming. Yet there is nothing the green movement likes less
than nuclear power. In Europe, closing nuclear power plants is at the center of Green Party political platforms. This ugly choice is
going to confront the green movement with a moment of truth. What does it like less: global warming
or nuclear power? There isn't any third way. Solar power simply cannot do what is necessary. There isn't enough sunshine
available to provide the electricity needed during the night, during the winter and during cloudy weather. Solar power also takes
enormous amounts of space devoted to ugly collectors. One can wait for fuel cells to be perfected for autos at some point in the future
and then hope that they also can be used in the home to generate electricity, but that means doing nothing about global warming today.
Nuclear power is one of the few examples in which human sociology has completely dominated hard
science. Serious studies consistently show that, to generate the same amount of electricity, more people
will die if coal is used than if nuclear power is the energy source. Remember a year ago when two workers died in a
nuclear power plant in Japan? Their deaths were in the headlines of every newspaper in the world. How many people do you think die
every day in the coal mining industries of the world? In America, we kill about 36 per year. In China, they reportedly kill 10,000 per
"normal" year. The July 1976 Tangshan earthquake is believed to have killed 200,000 coal miners. Together, China (the world's biggest
producer of coal) and America (the world's second-biggest producer)
mine half of the world's coal. We don't know the exact death rates elsewhere, but we do know how many millions of tons of coal are
produced in different countries. If we assume that the developed world has a death rate per million tons mined equal to that of the United
States and that the Third World (India is the world's third-largest producer of coal) has a death rate per million tons mined equal to that
of China, 55 people per day die in the world's coal mining industries. Few of those deaths make headlines. The problem with
nuclear power is not that it kills people; it kills very few. Its problem is that humans have a fear of
something they cannot see, hear, feel and smell. Humans are used to the idea that a rock can fall on your head and kill
you. They have not been able to get used to the idea that an invisible particle they cannot sense can kill them. Nuclear radiation is the
ultimate ghost. But there is another, perhaps more important, dirty little reality about nuclear power that the green movement would
rather not talk about. Most of us know with certainty that we will not be the ones killed in a coal mining accident. We don't work in the
world's coal mines. Someone else does. They are the ones risking their lives to give us electricity. We don't want to risk our own lives
with nuclear power to give ourselves electricity -- no matter how small the probabilities may be. Having spent a few college summers
working in an underground copper mine in Montana, my sympathies are with the coal miners. But for most Americans, it swings the
other way: It is OK for them to risk their lives to give me the electricity that I want. My death and his death are not equivalent. The
fatality equation is clear. Nuclear power is much safer than coal. It is also safer than natural gas; the number of American deaths in oil
and gas exploration is more than twice that in coal mining. The environmental side effects are equally clear. Coal
piles are slightly radioactive. Millions of tons of fly ash have to be dumped somewhere. Burning coal
causes global warming. Nuclear power is cleaner. This leaves members of the environmental movement
between a rock and a hard place. They don't like global warming, and they don't like nuclear power.
But if they want to prevent global warming, they are going to have to embrace nuclear power. Like most
of us who face such dilemmas, the green movement's forces will end up choosing to be hypocrites. They will talk about non-existent
third ways to solve global warming. But since none of these ways is politically viable, they will end up living with global warming.
Reversing themselves and admitting that they are wrong on nuclear power would be just too difficult psychologically.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 30
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
American Nuclear Society, 03 (Use of Nuclear Energy for the Production of Process Heat Position Statement
1, Nov., http://www.ans.org/pi/ps/docs/ps14.pdf)
Heat for industrial processes and for space heating, together with fuel for transportation, account for more
than 60% of the primary energy consumption in industrial societies. Burning large quantities of fossil
fuels is currently necessary to produce most of this energy. However, it is expected tha t projected climate
changes will require a shift toward energy technologies that generate less carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases. Furthermore, future energy systems will have to meet considerably stricter
requirements with regard to atmospheric pollution and other aspects of environmental degradation (such
as the emission of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, mercury, heavy metals, and particulates). Nuclear
reactors can meet these requirements in many locations at a lower or competitive cost.
Fossil fuel resources are finite and have appropriate and essential uses such as feedstock for the
production of chemicals. They should, therefore, be used sparingly as fuel. The use of these valuable
resources should be minimized in a future globally sustainable regime and gradually replaced by clean
energy sources that are either renewable or have a very large supply base, including uranium.
Currently, the use of nuclear reactors—for other than for electricity generation—is limited primarily to
small desalination projects and other heat applications such as space heating for close-in towns and
villages as well as for fishery farms and agricultural greenhouses. To achieve the objective of a higher
contribution by clean energy sources, it is essential that the use of nuclear reactors for producing heat
be increased and extended to a wider spectrum of industrial applications. (The application of nuclear
energyfor the generation of hydrogen is addressed in Position Statement 60, “Nuclear Energy for Hydrogen
Generation,” issued in June 2003.) Hydrogen and hydrogen-rich fuels are expected to become valuable
energy carriers with applications in industry and transportation. Expanding the use of nuclear reactors for
desalination projects will also become increasingly important in view of the growing world population
and already existing local shortages of fresh water. The use of nuclear energy for industrial purposes
will greatly reduce atmospheric pollution.
Peterson, 2007 (Scott Peterson, Vice President of the Nculear Energy Institute, BusinessWeek,
http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2007/05/nuclear_power_a.html)
At a time when global decision-makers are trying to reduce greenhouse gases, we should be increasing our
reliance on nuclear energy and taking advantage of the most widely expandable clean-air electricity source
on the list of options. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions would drop far lower.
In the U.S., safe and efficient nuclear power produces electricity for one of every five homes and businesses,
and it ranks as the largest source of electricity that emits no greenhouse gases. In fact, electric-sector carbon
emissions would be approximately 30% higher without nuclear energy.
But is nuclear power really as emissions-free as supporters contend?
One of the most common claims is that nuclear power emits greenhouse gases during the entire life
cycle, from mining uranium for fuel to building the power plants. Using such a life-cycle approach to
calculating emissions, one could say that all energy sources produce greenhouse gases. Research from
the University of Wisconsin shows life-cycle emissions from nuclear energy are lower than those from
renewables such as solar and hydropower and dramatically lower than those for power plants fueled
by coal or natural gas.
For this and other reasons, many environmentalists and organizations such as the Earth Institute at Columbia
University and the Pew Center for Climate Change support an expanded role for nuclear energy.
No single greenhouse gas mitigation measure can reduce carbon dioxide to the levels contemplated by
emerging state and regional programs or international agreements. Nor can a comprehensive regime like
the Princeton University “stabilization wedge” theory—a concept for halting the proliferation of CO2
emissions—succeed without nuclear energy.
Nuclear power is the only energy source that combines the attributes of large-scale electricity
production, high reliability, and zero greenhouse gas emissions during the electricity production
process. It should remain an essential part of our diverse energy portfolio to meet fast-growing electricity
demand, increase energy security, and protect the environment in which we live.
Hickey 6 (James E, Professor of Law at Hofstra, Hofstra Law Review, 35 Hofstra L. Rev. 425)
Second, since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and the 1987 Chernobyl plant meltdown in the Ukraine,
there are concerns about plant safety and harm from accidents. Since those accidents, many industry and
government measures have been undertaken to improve safety margins at nuclear plants in the United
States. In addition, nuclear plant technology has changed greatly and is continuing to change to
produce safer plants. In any event, the old Chernobyl type technology has never been used in the United
States. n47 There is also a new concern about the possibility of terrorist strikes against nuclear power plants
and those safety concerns must be taken into consideration. n48 In weighting safety concerns, it must be
appreciated that global warming from GHG emissions can potentially produce far more catastrophic
harms to the planet than local significant releases of radiation from a nuclear plant accident or
terrorist strike for that matter. n49
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 34
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Ferguson 7 (Charles D., , Fellow for Sci and Tech, CFR, April 18,
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13125/nuclear_power_will_not_play_major_nearterm_role_in_countering_climate_change_concludes_new_coun
cil_report.html)
Nuclear energy is unlikely to play a major role in the coming decades in countering the harmful effects
of climate change or in strengthening energy security, concludes a new Council Special Report authored
by Charles D. Ferguson, Council fellow for science and technology.
To significantly combat climate change in the near term, the “nuclear industry would have to expand
at such a rapid rate as to pose serious concerns for how the industry would ensure an adequate supply
of reasonably inexpensive reactor-grade construction materials, well-trained technicians, and rigorous
safety and security measures,” says the report.
There are currently 103 nuclear reactors operating in the United States. Even with twenty-year
extensions of their planned lifespan, all existing reactors will likely need to be decommissioned by the
middle of the century. To replace them, the United States would have to build a new reactor every four
to five months over the next forty years. “However, based on the past thirty years, in which reactor
orders and construction ground to a halt, this replacement rate faces daunting challenges. For this
reason alone, nuclear energy is not a major part of the solution to U.S. energy insecurity for at least the
next fifty years,” says the report, Nuclear Energy: Balancing Benefits and Risks.
Ferguson also argues against the United States increasing funding and subsidies for nuclear energy.
While it is true that nuclear energy emits fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the conventional
wisdom “oversells the contribution nuclear energy can make to reduce global warming and strengthen
energy security while downplaying the dangers associated with this energy source,” he says.
The report further warns that “the United States and its partners face the daunting challenge of
preventing the diversion of nuclear explosive materials into weapons programs and controlling the
spread of potentially dangerous nuclear fuel-making technologies and materials.” Nuclear waste is a
particular cause for concern. “If nuclear power production expands substantially in the coming decades,
the amount of waste requiring safe and secure disposal will also significantly increase,” says Ferguson,
noting that “no country has begun to store waste from commercial power plants in permanent
repositories.”
Nuclear power emits greenhouse gases. And takes too long to build.
Beyondnuclear.org, no date
(“The Nuclear Power Danger” Beyond Nuclear http://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclearpower.html)
Nuclear power cannot address climate change. Greenhouse gases are emitted throughout the nuclear
fuel chain, from the mining of the necessary fuel - uranium - to its enrichment, transportation and the
construction of nuclear plants. Nuclear plants take too long to build - up to a dozen years or more. The
planet is already in crisis with experts pointing to rapid climate change already underway and less than ten
years left to pre-empt disaster. There is no time to wait for nuclear plant construction.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 35
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Nuclear Monitor, 5.
(“Nuclear Power: No solution to climate Change” A new report from NIRS/WISE
International. http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf, feb)
To reduce the emissions of the public energy sector according to the targets of the Kyoto Protocol, 72 new
medium sized nuclear plants would be required in the 15 current European nations. These would have
to be built before the end of the first commitment period: 2008- 2012. Leaving aside the huge costs this
would involve, it is unlikely that it is technically feasible to build so many new plants in such a short
time, given that only 15 new reactors have been built in the last 20 years. In the U.S, as many as 1,000
new reactors would be required-- none have been successfully ordered since 1973.
More ev…
Mariotte 7 (Michael, executive director, Nuclear Info and Resource Service, Nov 6
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14718/nuclear_power_in_response_to_climate_change.html)
Environmental advocates considering “reconsidering” nuclear power in light of climate change are too
late. The accelerating pace of the climate crisis and the dawning realization that we no longer have the
luxury of a few decades to address the crisis already have made nuclear power an irrelevant technology
in terms of climate.
Even if the nuclear industry had solved the safety, radioactive waste, proliferation, cost, and other
issues that ended its first generation—and it hasn’t solved any of those problems—it wouldn’t matter.
What nuclear power can offer for climate is simply too little, too late.
The major studies that have looked at the issue—MIT, the National Commission on Energy Policy, etc.—
generally agree that for nuclear to make a meaningful contribution to carbon emissions reduction
would require reactor construction on a massive scale: 1,200 to 2,000 new reactors worldwide, 200 to
400 in the United States alone. And that would have to be done over the next f40 to 50 years.
Pity poor Japan Steel Works, the world’s major facility for forging reactor pressure vessels (there is one
other, small-capacity facility in Russia): working overtime it can produce twleve pressure vessels per year.
Do the math: That’s less than half of what is needed. Even if someone put in the billions of dollars and
years necessary to build a new forging facility, it’s still not enough, not fast enough.
There are 104 operable reactors in the United States today. In November 2017, no matter how much
taxpayer money is thrown at the nuclear industry, there will be 104—or fewer. Even with streamlined
licensing procedures and certified reactor designs, it will take ten, twelve years or more to license, build
and bring a single new reactor online. And since most of the reactor designs being considered are first
or second of a kind, count on them taking even longer.
Our energy future ultimately will be carbon-free and nuclear-free, based primarily on solar and wind
power, energy efficiency, and distributed generation. What is perhaps less obvious is that the future is
now. In the years we’d be waiting for that first new reactor to come online, we can install ten times or
more solar and wind capacity, and save twenty times or more that much power through increased
efficiency while building the mass production that reduces costs, especially for photovoltaics. By the
time that first reactor could come online, solar could already be cost-competitive, while wind and
efficiency already are cheaper than nuclear.
We no longer have ten years to begin reducing carbon emissions. Waiting around for a few new
reactors won’t help our climate, but it would waste the funds needed to implement our real energy
future.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 37
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Charman, 6
(Karen , editor of the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism. Questia database, Magazine article; World Watch, Vol. 19, May-June “Brave
Nuclear World? the Planet Is Warming, and Proponents of Nuclear Power Say They've Got the Answer. Are Nuclear Plants the Climate Cavalry?
First of Two Parts.”)
A growing chorus of nuclear advocates, government officials, international bureaucrats, academics, economists, and journalists is calling
for nuclear power to save us from devastating climate change. Nuclear reactors do not emit carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) and other
greenhouse gases when they split atoms to create electricity. But it's inaccurate to say that nuclear power is "carbon-
free"--on a cradle-to-grave basis, no currently available energy source is. (Even wind turbines are guilty by
association: the aluminum from which they are built is often smelted using coal-fired electricity.) In the case of nuclear power, fossil
fuel energy is used in the rest of the nuclear fuel chain--the mining, milling, and enriching of uranium
for use as fuel in reactors, the building of nuclear plants (especially the cement), the decommissioning
of the plants, the construction of storage facilities, and the transportation and storage of the waste. In
fact, the gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant at Paducah, Kentucky, is one of the single biggest
consumers of dirty coal-fired electricity in the country.
Caldicott, 5.
(Helen, the Australian, April 15. “Nuclear Power is the Problem, Not a Solution”
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0415-23.htm, founder and president of the Nuclear Policy Research
Institute)
In the US, where much of the world's uranium is enriched, including Australia's, the enrichment
facility at Paducah, Kentucky, requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants,
which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for 50per cent of global warming.
Also, this enrichment facility and another at Portsmouth, Ohio, release from leaky pipes 93per cent of
the chlorofluorocarbon gas emitted yearly in the US. The production and release of CFC gas is now
banned internationally by the Montreal Protocol because it is the main culprit responsible for
stratospheric ozone depletion. But CFC is also a global warmer, 10,000 to 20,000 times more potent
than carbon dioxide.
In fact, the nuclear fuel cycle utilises large quantities of fossil fuel at all of its stages - the mining and
milling of uranium, the construction of the nuclear reactor and cooling towers, robotic
decommissioning of the intensely radioactive reactor at the end of its 20 to 40-year operating lifetime,
and transportation and long-term storage of massive quantities of radioactive waste.
In summary, nuclear power produces, according to a 2004 study by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and
Philip Smith, only three times fewer greenhouse gases than modern natural-gas power stations.
More ev…
Electricity production only accounts for 9% of Greenhouse Gas emissions and nuclear
energy would divert resources from other projects that address climate change.
Nuclear Monitor, 5.
(“Nuclear Power: No solution to climate Change” A new report from NIRS/WISE
International. http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf, feb)
Switching the entire world's electricity production to nuclear would still not solve the problem.
Moreover, by diverting the world’s resources from sustainable energy production to nuclear power, it would
only exacerbate the problem by diverting scare resources away from those technologies which offer
real hope for addressing climate change.This is partly because the production of electricity is only one
of many human activities that release greenhouse gases. Others include transport and heating,
agriculture, the production of cement and deforestation. The CO2 released worldwide through
electricity production accounts for only 9% of total annual human greenhouse gas emissions.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 39
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Charman, 6
(Karen , editor of the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism. Questia database, Magazine article; World Watch, Vol.
19, May-June “Brave Nuclear World? the Planet Is Warming, and Proponents of Nuclear Power Say They've Got the
Answer. Are Nuclear Plants the Climate Cavalry? First of Two Parts.”)
Still, it seems impossible to pin down exactly how carbon-intensive the nuclear fuel chain is, and there is
disagreement within the environmental community about nuclear energy's potential contribution to global
warming. Tom Cochrane, a nuclear physicist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, says nuclear
power is not a large greenhouse gas emitter compared to other conventional sources of energy. But in
order for nuclear energy to make a significant dent in greenhouse gas emissions, we would need a huge
increase in the number of nuclear power plants now operating worldwide, which he does not support.
Just how huge? A widely quoted 2003 report by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers, "The
Future of Nuclear Power," calls for the construction worldwide of 1,000-1,500 new 1,000-megawatt
reactors by 2050, an expansion that would potentially displace 15-25 percent of the anticipated growth
in carbon emissions from electricity generation projected over that time. A 2004 analysis in Science by
Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow, co-directors of Princeton University's Carbon Mitigation Initiative, says
700 gigawatts of new nuclear generation--roughly double the number and output of the world's 443 operating
reactors--would be needed to achieve just one-seventh of the greenhouse gas emission reductions (at current
emission rates) required to stabilize atmospheric carbon concentrations at 500 parts per million (ppm).
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 40
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Nuclear Monitor, 5.
(“Nuclear Power: No solution to climate Change” A new report from NIRS/WISE
International. http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf, feb)
In 2003 France generated 75% of its electricity in nuclear power plants. The nuclear industry likes to use
France as a shining example of the advantages of nuclear power. However, France's greenhouse gas
emissions in 2000 were still increasing, largely because it has lost control of energy consumption in
other sectors, e.g. transport. Furthermore, studies of future energy scenarios carried out by the French
Government Central Planning Agency show no evident correlation between CO2 emissions and nuclear
power. In fact the scenario with the lowest emissions was not the one with the greatest use of nuclear power,
but the one in which the growth in demand was minimised (Boisson, 1998 & Charpin et al., 2000). In another
study, a comparison was made between the results of investments in wind energy and the same amount
of investment in nuclear energy. The results were clearly favorable for wind energy. With the same
investment much more energy could be generated with wind. Moreover, with investments in wind energy
more new jobs were generated than with investments in nuclear energy (Bonduelle & Levevre, 2003).
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Green, ‘06
(Jim, Phd, Department of Science & Technology Studies, University of Wollongong, Australia. Nov 2006,
http://www.energyscience.org.au/FS03%20Nucl%20Power%20Clmt%20Chng.pdf)
Nuclear power is used almost exclusively for electricity generation. (A very small number of reactors are
used for heatco-generation and desalination.)
Electricity is responsible for less than one third of global greenhouse gas emissions. According to the
Uranium
Institute, the figure is “about 30%”.2 That fact alone puts pay to the simplistic view that nuclear power
alone can‘solve’ climate change. According to a senior energy analyst with the International Atomic Energy
Agency, AlanMcDonald: “Saying that nuclear power can solve global warming by itself is way over the
top”.3
Ian Hore-Lacy from the Uranium Information Centre (UIC) claims that a doubling of nuclear power
would reduce greenhouse emissions in the power sector by 25%.4 That figure is reduced to a 7.5%
reduction if considering the impact on overall emissions rather than just the power sector. The figure
needs to be further reduced because the UIC makes no allowance for the considerable time that would
be required to double nuclear output. Electricity generation is projected to increase over the coming
decades so the contribution of a fixed additional input of nuclear power has a relatively smaller impact.
Overall, it is highly unlikely that a doubling of global nuclear power would reduce emissions by more
than 5%.
Moreover, that modest climate dividend assumes that coal is the reference point. But compared to most
renewable energy sources and to energy efficiency measures, nuclear power produces more greenhouse
emissions per unit energy produced or saved, in addition to its legacy of nuclear waste and the weapons
proliferation risks.5
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Limited resources are better spent on wind or solar instead of nuclear; it’s more cost-
effective given the six billion it takes to build one reactor
Kerekes 7
(Michael, senior director of media relations, Nuclear Energy institute, Nov 7
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14718/nuclear_power_in_response_to_climate_change.html)
Steve is unable to refute either of the central theses of my first posting: 1) no matter how many billions of
dollars we throw at nuclear power, there will be no new atomic reactors in the United States in the next
ten years; 2) the industry cannot build the number of reactors needed to make a meaningful reduction
in carbon emissions.
So, given nuclear power’s well-known and unsolved safety, radioactive waste, nuclear proliferation and
economic problems, why bother building any? Steve’s argument essentially breaks down to: the
technology exists, so let’s use it.
One reason not to bother is cost. The world has limited resources; we need to apply them effectively. If
nuclear reactors could be built for $1500 kilowatts, as the Nuclear Energy Institute claimed a couple
years ago, nuclear could potentially make an economic case for itself. But a funny thing happened
when utilities started looking at actual cost projections rather than engaging in wishful thinking. Even
before the first shovelful of construction dirt has been turned, costs for new reactors have skyrocketed.
NRG and Constellation Energy, the two earliest license applicants, project costs on the order of $2,500-
$3,000/kw and they are certainly low-balling. The experience in Finland, where Areva is building an EPR
reactor (PDF) is instructive. After thirty-six months of construction, the project is already twenty-four months
behind schedule and 50 percent over budget: costs for the single reactor are expected to reach $6 billion, or
almost $4,000/kw. (U.S. utilities have said they intend to build 7 EPRs; Areva is hoping to sell EPRs
globally.)
Six billion dollars for one reactor: that’s more than four times the U.S. Department of Energy’s annual
spending on all renewable energy programs—no wonder renewables continue to lag behind their
potential.
Moody’s Investors Service is even less optimistic. Their October 2007 projection is that new U.S.
reactors will cost on the order of $5,000-6,000/kw. At those prices, even solar begins to look competitive
—and its costs are trending down worldwide, not up. That’s why Google and other Silicon Valley
entrepreneurs see solar power as the next Internet in terms of financial potential, and why they’re
investing heavily in the technology.
Even under current inadequate federal energy policies, Steve notes that wind expects to reach 20
percent of U.S. electricity generation by 2030—the same percentage nuclear holds now. Taking the
hundreds of billions of dollars we could spend on nuclear power to achieve minor carbon emissions
cuts and investing that in solar, wind and energy efficiency would be far more effective, and ultimately
cheaper. And the emissions cuts could begin now, not in a decade or more.
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***Energy Independence***
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Lauber 5 (Volkmar, professor political science, University of Salzburg, Switching to Renewable Power: a
framework for the 21st century, ed. V. Lauber, p. 7-8)
In any case, the matter is not likely to rest there. One of the foreseeable results of oil depletion is that the
OPEC countries, and particularly those of the Middle East, will gain in importance as their reserves
are the largest, and their demand comparatively modest. They will thus be in a better position to
dominate the market than they have been in decades. The temptation to “secure” continued access to –
or control over – oil by military means will increase. In the early years of the 21st century, some US
neoconservatives (who as a group dominated foreign policy making at that time) argued well before the Iraq
War of 2003 that the United States should secure a strong position in the Middle East so that it could control
the distribution of the oil resource—not just to guarantee its own supplies, but because this would give it a
handle over its “friends” (and competitors—Europe and Japan) as well as its opponents. Experience shows
that intense conflict can hardly be averted in such a situation. The only alternative is to bring about a
decisive change in energy policy, one that prepares the world for the decline of oil and gas. For the
European power sector, natural gas is of decisive importance. Even though its regional distribution is not
identical to that of oil, the structure of the conflict in case of gas depletion is likely to be similar. And those
regions that are able to reduce their dependence on hydrocarbons are likely to be at an advantage.
B. Nuclear power is critical to end oil dependence. All other renewable sources fail.
Hickey 6 (James E, Professor of Law at Hofstra, Hofstra Law Review, 35 Hofstra L. Rev. 425)
Nuclear power is one of the most readily available domestic energy sources that can be used to achieve
energy independence. It has a fifty-year record of safe operational experience with over one hundred
power plants. n29 There are an estimated 498 million tons of uranium ore reserves in the United States
n30 to fuel a revived nuclear power industry. In addition, Australia and Canada, two close U.S. allies,
have most of the world's uranium reserves. Unlike fossil fuel electric power, nuclear electric power
does not produce any GHGs. In 2005, over 200 million barrels of oil were used directly for electric
generation. n31 This consumption can be replaced by nuclear generation, which would help to reduce
U.S. foreign oil dependence. In addition, the heavy reliance on the automobile in the United States is a
major source of both oil consumption and of GHG emissions. The movement to introduce electric and
electric hybrid cars to the U.S. automobile market is an attempt to reduce oil use and GHG emissions.
However, if electric batteries used in these cars are recharged with fossil fuel generated [*431] electricity,
little is achieved to reduce GHG emissions because the source of those emissions is simply moved from the
tailpipe to the smokestack. In a revived nuclear power industry, additional GHG emission reductions
could be achieved by recharging electric car batteries with electricity produced from nuclear power
plants.
Despite these advantages, the growth of the nuclear power industry has been moribund since the late 1970s
because of domestic concerns about cost, accidents, and waste disposal. n32 As a result, the nuclear energy
contribution to meet the nation's total electric demand hovers at about twenty percent. n33 If nothing changes
in the calculus of the benefits and costs of nuclear power production, the contribution of nuclear
energy to meet the rising energy needs of the United States will decline in the future. Existing nuclear
plants are operating at top efficiency and they are near the end of their useful lives, with no new plants on the
horizon. n34 In turn, U.S. electric demand is expected to increase by forty-three percent over the next twenty
years requiring between 1300 and 1900 new power plants. n35 Without nuclear power plants, the primary fuel
source for those plants will be fossil fuels (coal, natural gas and oil), which are the major contributors of
GHG to the atmosphere from electric generation. n36 Renewable energy sources presently contribute little
more than two percent of the nation's total electric generation, excluding hydroelectricity (i.e. wind,
solar, geothermal).
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Marsh 7
(Gerald E, former DoD consultant on strategic nuclear tech and policy, USA Today Vol. 135, January.)
IN THE SUMMER of 1993, Samuel Huntington published an article in Foreign Affairs that introduced an apt
phrase into the lexicon of futurologists: "The Clash of Civilizations." Huntington maintained that the
fundamental source of conflict in this century would be cultural rather than economic or ideological.
While the clash that is developing between the Muslim world and the West is indeed cultural, it is
driven by the economics of energy and, in particular, oil.
The use of oil is widespread in industry and will be irreplaceable in the transportation sector for
decades. It also will be in short supply soon, according to Claude Mandil, executive director of the
International Energy Agency, who warns that "the world's energy economy is on a pathway that is
plainly not sustainable," and is one that will lead from "crisis to crisis." The IEA predicts that many of
the oil fields the U.S. and Europe depend on will peak in the next five to seven years--and this includes
those of Russia, the U.S., Mexico, and Norway. It is estimated that world energy demand will increase
at least 50% by 2030. To meet this demand, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC), where most of the world's remaining readily accessible oil is found, practically will have to
double its production. Most of that increase must come from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq.
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Marsh 7
(Gerald E, former DoD consultant on strategic nuclear tech and policy USA Today (Society for the Advancement of
Education), Vol. 135, January)
These repressive governments, such as the former dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Assad family
in Syria, and even the more friendly dictatorship of Pres. Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, are due to failed early
attempts to modernize these societies, followed by the disastrous introduction of the centralized Nazi and later
Soviet models of governance. Traditional Islamic or Arab societies were quite different. The conflict within
Islam is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. There also is little hope that the nations of the world will act in
concert to prevent the rise of Iran to power and hegemony over the Gulf--or its probable development of
nuclear missiles. If the U.S.'s dependency on Gulf oil is not reduced, the nation must expect to pay the price in
blood in addition to dollars.
Robinson and Robinson 8 (Arthur B and Noah E, profs, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, The New
American. Jan 7, Vol. 24, Iss. 1; pg. 21, 4 pgs, Proquest)
Consider, for example, one practical and environmentally sound path to U.S. energy independence.
At present, 19 percent of U.S. electricity is produced by 104 nuclear power reactors, with an average
generating output in 2006 of 870 megawatts per reactor, for a total of about 90 GWe (gigawatts). If this
were increased by 560 GWe, nuclear power could fill 100 percent of our current U.S. electricity
requirements with an additional 230 GWe left over for export as electricity or as hydrocarbon fuels
replaced or manufactured. This is illustrated by Chart #3.
Thus, rather than a $300 billion trade loss, the United States would have a $200 billion trade surplus -
and installed capacity for future U.S. requirements. Moreover, if heat from additional nuclear reactors
were used for coal liquefaction and gasification, the United States would not even need to use its oil
resources. The United States has about 25 percent of the world's coal reserves. The heat from nuclear
reactors could also be used to liquefy biomass, trash, or other sources of hydrocarbons that might
eventually prove practical.
The Palo Verde nuclear power station near Phoenix, Arizona, was originally intended to have 10 nuclear
reactors with a generating capacity of 1,243 megawatts each. As a result of public hysteria caused by false
information - very similar to the human-caused global warming hysteria being spread today - construction at
Palo Verde was stopped with only three operating reactors completed. This installation is sited on 4,000 acres
of land and is cooled by wastewater from the city of Phoenix, which is a few miles away. An area of 4,000
acres is equivalent to a square 2.5 miles on a side. The power station itself occupies only a small part of this
total area.
If just one station like Palo Verde were built in each of the 50 states and each installation included 10
reactors as originally planned for Palo Verde, these plants, operating at the current 90 percent of
design capacity, would collectively produce 560 GWe of electricity. Nuclear technology has advanced
substantially since Palo Verde was built, so plants constructed today would be even more reliable and
efficient. The delivered cost of this electricity would be between 3 and 5 cents per kilowatt hour, which
is substantially lower than most current U.S. prices.
Assuming a construction cost of $2.3 billion per 1,200 MWe reactor and 15-percent economies of scale, the
total cost of this entire project would be $1 trillion - the equivalent of four months of the current
federal budget or eight percent of the annual U.S. gross domestic product. Construction costs could be
repaid in just a few years by the capital now spent by the people of the United States for foreign oil and
by the change from U.S. import to export of energy.
Roques, Nuttal, Newberry, and Neufville 5 (Fabien A, William J, David M, and Richard de, Judge Business School,
University of Cambridge, Faculty of Economics, Cambridge, Engineering Systems Division, MIT, 08 November,
http://ardent.mit.edu/real_options/Real_opts_papers/Roques%20Energy%20Journal%20final.pdf)
The increase in the share of gas in the electricity fuel-mix has raised concerns among policy-makers
about the growing gas-import dependency and the resulting increased foreign exchange rate
exposure to gas price fluctuations.26 The literature investigating the optimal national degree of
generation diversity (Awerbuch and Berger 2003, Stirling 2001) argues that a diverse fuel and technology-
mix has two macroeconomic benefits. First, non-fossil fuel technologies reduce fossil fuel price risk
and help avoid costly economic losses. Awerbuch and Sauter (2005) assert that the observed negative
relationship between fossil fuel price changes and economic activity justifies subsidies for renewable
energy, nuclear power and demand side management. Second, a diverse system is intrinsically more
robust to supply shocks and therefore fuel-mix diversity benefits security of supply (Stirling, 2001).
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NP solves the supply, importation, cost and environmental problems of fossil fuels; cheaper
than coal
Sikkema and Savage, ’07 (Linda and Melissa, experts, National Conference of State Legislatures, State
Legislatures, Vol. 33, March)
Most do agree, however, that meeting the current and future energy needs in the United States is
approaching a crisis. Our demand for energy is expected to jump by 50 percent in the next 25 years.
Some experts say the United States will have to import 65 percent of its oil and 30 percent of its gas by
2015. Domestically, fuels will get harder to get to and be located far from where they are needed. A
limited foreign oil supply and competition from growing needs in China and India will make it more
difficult and more expensive to depend on foreign imports. At the same time, there is an increasing
demand for clean energy. States are implementing stricter environmental and air quality standards and
the federal government is expected to do the same.
Nuclear energy is a possible solution to this growing dilemma. As a clean energy source, it meets
environmental standards. It is cheaper than coal. Development costs for a nuclear plant are less than that
of a coal plant. Thirty-one states have already incorporated nuclear power into their energy portfolios and have
been able to safely meet energy demand for consumers. Arizona, Vermont, New Jersey, South Carolina,
Connecticut and Illinois use it the most.
Despite drawbacks, NP is the only way to solve FF dependency, fill US energy need
Sikkema and Savage, ’07 (Linda and Melissa, experts, National Conference of State Legislatures, State
Legislatures, Vol. 33, March)
While there continues to be some disagreement over the safety of nuclear power, the energy issues facing
the United States are genuine. Energy experts agree that the United States needs to find a balanced mix of
resources to lessen dependency on foreign oil. For many the direction is clear: nuclear-generated power.
"If becoming independent from foreign oil truly is a national priority, we need to begin developing
alternatives that will reduce our reliance on other nations," says New Mexico's Representative Heaton.
"Over the next 50 years, the gap between projected energy demand, and projected energy production in
the United States will need to be bridged. In order to remain competitive in the global economy, we will
have to find a way to fill in this shortfall."
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***Hegemony***
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A. The lack of action on climate change and continued dependence on oil hurts US
international standing in the wake of Iraq.
Hickey 6 (James E, Professor of Law at Hofstra, Hofstra Law Review, 35 Hofstra L. Rev. 425)
In the absence of international law justifications for the invasion, the perception persists in some quarters,
rightly or wrongly, that the United States invaded Iraq primarily to secure long term foreign sources of
oil. After all, the United States depends mostly on foreign oil for much of the country's energy needs. n12
"In 2005, total U.S. demand for petroleum was 20.8 million barrels per day, of which 12.5 million barrels per
day, or 60 percent, was from net imports." n13 Domestic oil production is mature, is increasingly under
environmental constraints, and is not expected to rise significantly in the future. n14 Under the present growth
energy policy of the United States, grounded in fossil fuel use, secure foreign sources of oil must be found. In
this regard, Iraq is estimated to have up to 216 billion barrels of untapped oil reserves in the ground, the third
highest reserves in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Canada. n15
The second perception of international law illegality is that the United States is acting contrary to the
letter and spirit of the emerging international law regime to deal with climate change, in particular,
efforts to reduce GHG emissions that contribute to global warming that are found in the 1992 United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ("Climate Change Convention") n16 and later in the 1997
Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Change Convention ("Kyoto Protocol"). n17 [*429] The United States is a
party to the Climate Change Convention along with 188 other nations. n18 The Climate Change Convention
establishes an administrative mechanism for governments to cooperate in stabilizing and ultimately reducing
man-made GHG emissions to stop global warming. It establishes a largely aspirational framework to address
the problem of climate change by urging cooperation among nations, by calling for the gathering of data on
GHG emissions, by the launching of strategies to facilitate needed financing and technologies, and by
articulating principles (like equity, sustainable development, and the precautionary principle) to guide more
substantive rules. n19 An overall goal of the Climate Change Convention is to have developed nations reduce
GHG emissions to their 1990 levels and to have them assist developing countries in dealing with GHG. n20
While still a party to the Climate Change Convention, the United States, in 2001, withdrew from the
Kyoto Protocol. n21 The Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in February 2005 and has 169 parties to it,
imposed binding international law obligations on industrialized nations to cap GHG emissions. n22 If the
United States had not withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, it would have been obligated to reduce its GHG
emissions seven percent below 1990 levels. n23 Just the opposite happened. From 1990 through 2000, for
example, total GHG emissions by the United States rose from 1647 million metric tons annually to 1885
million metric tons. n24 In 2005, GHG emissions from the United [*430] States were seventeen percent
higher than in 1990. n25 The United States alone produces roughly one quarter of all the world's energy-
related carbon emissions. n26 Forty percent of that total comes from electric power plants burning
coal, oil, and natural gas. n27 In addition, the United States domestically has refused to regulate GHG
emissions from automobiles under the Clean Air Act. n28 By any measure, this is a domestic energy policy
position out of step with the international law regimes emerging to deal with climate change.
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Hickey 6 (James E, Professor of Law at Hofstra, Hofstra Law Review, 35 Hofstra L. Rev. 425)
Two perceptions, right or wrong, of international law illegality on the part of the United States have arisen in
the last few years with regard to both the use of military force in Iraq and to global warming. The first
perception is that the United States invaded Iraq illegally to secure a significant source of foreign oil.
The second perception is that the United States ignores the letter and spirit of the evolving
international climate change regime to reduce greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions.
Both perceptions of international law illegality directly reflect the domestic growth energy policy of the
United States that is anchored by a present and future reliance almost exclusively on fossil fuels (oil,
coal and natural gas), which both emit GHG and contribute to the dependence [*426] of the United States
on foreign oil. n1 Those perceptions of illegality could be fully cured by an aggressive use of existing
domestic law to revive the nuclear power industry in the United States to replace its fossil fuel-based
electric supply. This would put the United States in compliance with the climate change regime
(whether or not it ever participates in it) and would help both to greatly reduce the dependence of the
United States on foreign oil as a factual matter and to eliminate the perception that it uses force to
secure foreign oil sources as a policy matter. In turn, the benefits of removing perceptions of international
law illegality ought to play a significant and positive role in weighing the benefits and costs of future
domestic nuclear energy production.
Khalilzad ’95 (Zalmay, Ambassador to the U.N., Spring, The Washington Quarterly, “Losing the Moment? The
United States and the World After the Cold War.” Lexis)
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a
global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding
principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the
United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would
be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second,
such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as
nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S.
leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and
the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global
nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar
or a multipolar balance of power system.
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Marsh, former DoD consultant on strategic nuclear tech and policy, ‘07
(Gerald E, “Can the Clash of Civilizations Produce Alternate Energy Sources?”, USA Today (Society for the
Advancement of Education), Vol. 135, January 2007.
It is a matter of national security that these sources of oil be developed. In the long run, however, we need
to ask ourselves whether it makes sense to burn billions of barrels of oil. Even if the slight warming the
world is experiencing should prove to be only minimally related to the carbon dioxide produced by
human activities, the burning of such vast quantities of fossil fuel is bound to have an environmental
impact. The developed world cannot legislate how the developing world will use these fuels, and history
has shown that commercialization likely will be at the lowest cost to the producer, with the concomitant
release of vast quantities of pollutants. China is a perfect contemporary example. Yet, if the grinding
poverty that most people in the developing world are living under is to end through development along
the Western model--and no alternative model has been shown to be viable--the required energy has to
come from somewhere.
There is only one practical answer that is known today: nuclear power coupled with the long-term
development of a hydrogen economy based on nuclear energy. Despite longstanding public concern,
nuclear power is by far the most ecologically sound way to generate large amounts of electricity. The
environmental impact of nuclear power since its inception (and this includes the Chernobyl and Three
Mile Island disasters) has been far less than that from the burning of fossil fuels for an equivalent amount
of energy.
Nuclear power is going to expand globally whether the U.S. plays a role or not. China brought six new
reactors on-line between 2002-04, and plans at least another 30 in the next 15 years. India is planning for
30, with seven due to come on-line by 2008. For nuclear power to spread through the developing world
beyond these two countries without the threat of additional proliferation of nuclear weapons, we need a
new model, hopefully one fashioned by the U.S. with its ability to structure the necessary international
framework.
A somewhat promising start has been made with the U.S. Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative,
under which the world's leading nuclear exporters would guarantee that all countries have access to a
reliable source of fuel for civilian reactors at a reasonable cost. The spent fuel would be returned for
recycling and waste disposal. In return, the non-nuclear weapons nations would renounce enrichment of
uranium and reprocessing of spent fuel. To win acceptance, the supplier nations' fuel and waste-disposal
services must be guaranteed by a global entity such as the International Energy Agency or the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
The technical part of the new model already exists: Under an arrangement known as "hub-spoke," self-
contained reactors, sometimes called "nuclear batteries," would be available in a variety of sizes. Sealed and
failsafe, they would be manufactured at a central location and rented to nations needing more energy. Running
them would not require advanced nuclear expertise. At the end of their 15- to 30-year life, the exhausted reactor
cores, still sealed, would be traded for rejuvenated ones. In fact, Toshiba has developed a nuclear battery and, to
demonstrate it, the company has offered to install one at Galena, Alaska (population 650) for free. The reactor
would put out 10 megawatts of electricity--just right for Galena--although much larger modular units can be
produced.
The combination of hub-spoke with a secure, internationally guaranteed fuel recycling and waste disposal
arrangement for all nations having conventional nuclear reactors would permit the inevitable spread of civilian
nuclear power without making the proliferation of nuclear weapons any more likely. If the IEA is correct, the
time we have to formulate an appropriate policy and begin investment is a mere five to seven years. We
need to act now.
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Krige 8 (John Krige, School of History, Technology and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332. The Peaceful Atom as Political Weapon:
Euratom and American Foreign Policy in the Late 1950s, February 21, 2008., Caliber, Journals of the University of California Press
http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/hsns.2008.38.1.5)
The U.S. emerged from World War II as the world's leading scientific and technological nation,
consolidating its advantage for the next two or three decades. This paper describes how the State Department
used the nation's dominance in the nuclear field, inherited from the Manhattan Project, to divert the resources of Western European
states, notably France and Germany, into a civilian nuclear power program undertaken by a new supranational organization, Euratom. The
determination on the continent to re-launch the European integration process in 1955, the Suez crisis
in 1956, and the launch of the Sputniks in 1957 were opportunities ably exploited by officers in the
State Department to use America's scientific, technological, and industrial depth in nuclear power as a
political weapon. To this end they withheld the supply of enriched uranium for as long as possible from
nations that wanted the fuel through bilateral agreements with the Atomic Energy Commission. In
parallel they offered nuclear materials and know how, along with economic and political incentives, to
encourage nations to commit to Euratom. This policy was strongly opposed by senior officials in the AEC and in the
fledgling International Atomic Energy Agency, as well in Britain and in some continental countries, but to no avail. Though the State Department's
efforts eventually bore little fruit, the paper clearly shows how U.S. leadership in science and technology was mobilized to
promote America's foreign policy agenda in Western Europe in the early Cold War.
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Lack of technological innovation hurts US economic dominance: It’s more important than
our current problems.
***Space***
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Bromley 7 (Dr. Blair P, Advance Council Member College Of Engineering, Chalk River Laboratories
http://www.ne.uiuc.edu/alumni/caiab.php)
For those who are interested in the exploration and development of space by humans, nuclear
propulsion technology is a very attractive option. Why? Compared with the best chemical rockets,
nuclear propulsion systems (NPS's) are more reliable and flexible for long-distance missions, and can
achieve a desired space mission at a lower cost. The reason for these advantages in a nutshell is that NPS's
can get "more miles per gallon" than a chemical rockets. If NPS's were analogous to a 1998 Honda Civic,
then your best chemical rocket would be a gas-guzzler from the 1950's.
Pike 8 (John, worked for nearly two decades with the Federation of American Scientists, where he directed the Space Policy, Cyberstrategy,
Military Analysis, Nuclear Resource and Intelligence Resource project http://www.fas.org/nuke/space/c07sei_1.htm)
- One architecture proposed by the Synthesis Group will be "nuclear rich" because nuclear is probably safer
and cheaper (and faster). "3 - There has been a discussion about improving the overall system reliability by using multiple engines, i.e., rather than trying to put
all of the reliability in one engine, have "engine-out" capability so that the overall system reliability is high. "4 - Chemical/Aerobrake will probably
cost tens of billions of dollars to develop and prove out and doesn't provide much gain. It was described
as "disappointing.""(1) General Stafford has testified that: "Today it looks like technology has advanced so
that in the year 2010 or 2020 a nuclear thermal rocket would certainly be feasible, assuming that you added
all the safety criteria and had political acceptance... We are convinced that nuclear rocket propulsion can
make an important contribution to the Space Exploration Initiative if it proves feasible and safe and can
gain public acceptance. For example, a nuclear thermal rocket can reduce the travel time to Mars by 60-
70%."(2) Following receipt of the NASA 90-Day study, Vice-President Quayle requested a review of this study by a number of organizations, including the National Research
Council (the policy research arm of the National Academy of Sciences). Consequently, the Council empaneled a Committee on Human Exploration of Space, a group over a dozen
senior space experts, chaired by H. Guyford Stever. Their report was released on 2 March 1990.(3) A number of the Stever Committee findings pertain to space nuclear propulsion.
"A major advantage of nuclear propulsion is its ability to enable transfer between
The committee's report noted that:
Earth and Mars in one-half to one-third the time required with single-stage chemical propulsion
systems. This advantage could be critical, pending the outcome of research on human performance in
space for long periods. The use of nuclear technology in space faces formidable barriers of public acceptance,
however, especially if employed in Earth orbit. Therefore, issues of safety are paramount in research and
development. "If careful systems studies, using thrust-to-weight ratios and specific impulses known to be
feasible, show a significant advantage for nuclear rockets in trip time or in weight to orbit, an in-space
demonstration of this technology should be done as soon as possible -- taking into account requirements for crew, ground personnel, and
public safety covering all phases of launch and flight, including mission abort. It will not be feasible to select the nuclear rocket as a baseline in a system architecture until such a
demonstration has been conducted. "A number of gaseous-core reactor concepts were carefully evaluated in the years between 1959 and 1970, but none was found to be technically
feasible. Unless a new idea has appeared, which is always a possibility, the committee believes the gaseous-core nuclear rocket technology is too speculative at this time and should
be dismissed as a possibility." The Office of Exploration is the lead NASA activity for implementation of the President's Space Exploration Initiative. This Office was initially
established at the Associate Administrator level in 1987, but was downgraded to an office subordinate to the Associate Administrator for Aeronautics and Technology in early 1990.
Pursuant to a recommendation by the Augustine Committee on the future of NASA, this Office is being restored to the Associate Administrator level in early 1991. The most detailed
assessment of SEI technical requirements prepared by this office was released in December 1988.(4) Although this study focused on baseline chemical + aerobrake architecture, it
"Old SC/NTR (solid core nuclear thermal rocket) technology can provide "new" high-
concluded that:
leverage capability for human expeditions to Phobos and Mars. For the all-propulsive split mission to
Phobos, reductions in IMEO on the order of 40 to 50 percent appear possible. For split mission to Mars, the
NTR (operating all-propulsively) can still provide a 5 to 15 percent savings in IMEO over that of the
aerobraked chemical system. With comparable propellant loadings, the SC/NTR could travel faster,
higher delta-V transfer orbits than its chemical counterpart, resulting in further reductions in crew
trip time.... By appropriately sizing the engine, a single NTR stage could function as a lunar shuttle; by
clustering, several NTR stages could be used to support human expeditions to Phobos and Mars."
Exploration Technology Program Manager John Mankin has noted that: "we want to be able to provide a nuclear propulsion program for the nation in the next 10 to 15 years that can
allow us to reach Mars, but whether it's nuclear thermal or nuclear electric, today we don't have the information to say which is the way to go."(5) A recent NASA report to the
"Nuclear propulsion, therefore, is considered a critical major technology alternative to
Congress concluded that:(6)
more conventional space transportation technologies for exploration. The Exploration Technology Program strategy with regard
to nuclear propulsion is to conduct parallel development in several major technologies, within the areas of nuclear thermal propulsion and nuclear electric propulsion, with down-
We
selection on promising concepts for further development as research and testing warrant." And in testimony in early 1990, Associate Administrator Arnold Aldrich noted that:
believe more sophisticated, advanced technologies in nuclear propulsion are very, very advantageous to
the longer range of this HEI (Human Exploration Initiative) program and should be explored in depth as
we go forward; and we think that we can achieve beneficial systems and also systems that are
environmentally safe to utilize... The nuclear propulsion is primarily beneficial to the Mars phase, by providing increased efficiency in propulsion for those
missions, thereby making those missions much more practical to do, in the later phases of the HEI planning. However, because nuclear propulsion is still not an advanced technology,
we feel we need to begin now to find ways to proceed in this area so that such a technology can be
available in the timeframe that we would be able to use it.
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Falconi 8 (Oscar, BS degree in Physics from M.I.T. and over the years has been a physicist and consultant in the
computer and electro-optical fields http://www.nutri.com/space/)
In the 1960s America was committed to a manned moon landing. This commitment will forever be
remembered as resulting in man's greatest accomplishment through the 20th century. But since those glorious
years we've lost something. The American space program presently doesn't seem to have any particular goal -
and certainly isn't oriented toward space colonization. So it will be necessary to redirect our energies and
talents toward the colonization of space, and this booklet is trying to do just that - by using arguments
that demonstrate the urgency of commencing immediately. Just a few years ago man became capable
of colonizing space. And a few years from now man will doubtlessly destroy himself on earth. The time
between these two events will probably be well under 100 years - a tiny instant in all time, and the only
time we'll ever have in which to construct a self-sufficient colony with our backup civilization. As
mentioned in the introduction, billions of years from now space colonization could well be seen as the
best investment in all history. This statement isn't made lightly. It's only necessary to take a far-sighted
view of what's at stake - the choice may just be between, (1) an advanced civilization, happily residing
throughout the universe for tens of billions of years, or, (2) no intelligent life, anywhere, anytime,
starting in the 20th or 21st century! The choice for space colonization, then, is clear. What, after all, could
possibly be more important than preventing the demise of possibly the universe's only intelligent life?
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Brookes 5 (Peter, Senior Fellow, National Security Affairs and Chung Ju-Yung Fellow for Policy Studies
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed060705a.cfm)
Fretting and fearmongering aside, the fact is that the "final frontier" is critical to our national defense.
We'd better make darn sure we maintain our competitive edge there. Space is the ultimate military
high ground — and critical to maintaining the supremacy (in communications, reconnaissance and so
much else) of our GIs. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that whoever holds the upper hand
there will hold the upper hand on Earth. If we don't maintain our space superiority, others, such as the
Chinese and the Russians, will gladly replace us — guaranteed. The "militarization" of space? Already a
fact. Hundreds of military-related communications, navigation and intelligence satellites are in orbit, from a
number of nations. The question turns on "weaponizing" space — that is, deploying offensive and
defensive space weapons that would protect a nation's Earth- and space-based interests and assets or
strike Earth-based targets. Such Star Wars-like weapons might include ground- or satellite-based lasers
or kinetic-energy weapons able to incapacitate (kill) hostile satellites and ballistic missiles en route to
their targets. It might also involve space-based hypervelocity metal rods — "Rods from God" — designed
to strike ground targets at 7,200 mph (120 miles per minute) with the strength of a nuclear weapon but
without the radioactive fallout.
Brookes 5 (Peter, Senior Fellow, National Security Affairs and Chung Ju-Yung Fellow for Policy Studies
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed060705a.cfm)
Opponents of the new policy clamor that a space arms race will result from even that policy shift: China,
Russia, Japan and even the European Union will surely be provoked into following our lead. But if we leave
the high ground open, what's to stop others from seizing it? The critics' answer: another U.N. arms
control treaty. Arms controllers also argue that space-based weapons are inefficient and expensive relative to
conventional weapons. All these arguments are weak — at best. A new weapon system will cause an arms
race? It ain't necessarily so. Case in point: For decades, the arms controllers railed against ballistic
missile defense, warning that it would grossly destabilize relations with China and Russia and spark an
arms race such as the world has never seen. Yet the Bush administration's initial deployment of missile
defense hasn't caused an arms race or made relations with Beijing and Moscow any tougher than they
already were. It has, however, improved our national security by providing the first protection against
ballistic missiles — ever. Space weapons more expensive than conventional weapons? Sure, a satellite
costs more than a tank. And a tank costs more than a cavalry horse, a rifle more than a rock. The most
expensive weapon is the one that doesn't do the job. What price are the opponents of a more forward-
leaning space policy willing to put on U.S. national security? As for the idea of any treaty preventing the
deployment of weapons into space . . . well, tell that to North Korea and Iran — nations undeterred by
the likes of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. More, the current U.N. (draft) treaty to prohibit the
weaponization of space was introduced by China and Russia — the two nations most active in space today.
Only the naive would argue that Beijing and Moscow wouldn't deploy space weapons today if they
could. The treaty is merely their diplomatic gambit to buy time to develop their own programs. That
work continues apace. Last year's Pentagon report on Chinese military power says that China, in addition to
improving its satellite intelligence and reconnaissance capability, is "clearly working on, and plans to field,
ASATs [anti-satellite systems]." Space is critical to American national security. No nation relies more on
space than the United States — and our potential enemies know this. Failure to protect our space
infrastructure would only invite a Pearl Harbor in space, leaving us deaf, dumb and blind — and at
war. Maintaining America's military pre-eminence — in space as on land, at sea and in the air — is a
necessity.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 70
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Critics of NASA have long stated that in addition to potential health concerns from radiation exposure,
the NASA space nukes initiative represents the Bush administration's covert move to develop power
systems for space-based weapons such as lasers on satellites. The military has often stated that their
planned lasers in space will require enormous power projection capability and that nuclear reactors in
orbit are the only practical way of providing such power. The Global Network Against Weapons &
Nuclear Power in Space maintains that just like missile defense is a Trojan horse for the Pentagon's real
agenda for control and domination of space, NASA's nuclear rocket is a Trojan horse for the
militarization of space. NASA's new chief, former Navy Secretary Sean O'Keefe said soon after Bush appointed him to head the space agency that, "I don't think we
have a choice, I think it's imperative that we have a more direct association between the Defense Department and NASA. Technology has taken us to a point where you really can't
differentiate between that which is purely military in application and those capabilities which are civil and commercial in nature." In the end hundreds and hundreds of billions of
dollars will be wasted on plans for the nuclearization and weaponization of space. In order to fund these missions Bush and Congress will have to cut programs like social security,
education, health care, child care, public transit and environmental protection. In the name of progress and security the lives of future generations will become more insecure. For the
third year in a row the Global Network (GN) will organize two days of protests on February 3-4, 2003 in Albuquerque, N.M. at the 20th Annual Symposium on Space Nuclear Power
& Propulsion. This event draws the top players from NASA, DoE, DoD, nuclear academia and nuclear aerospace each year to plan the push of nuclear power into space. Hundreds of
middle and high school students are brought to the symposium for indoctrination and the GN has been able to speak to many of these young people at our protests. NASA, DoE, and
the Pentagon are not asking the tax paying public if we want to suffer the risk and costs of nuclear power in space. Their corporate and military interests make it necessary to push
. Scientists and technologists are out of control. Their plans now literally threaten
ahead without real citizen input
the life of the entire planetary ecosystem. The time has come for vigorous global public debate around the
space nuclear power issue.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 73
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***Coal***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 74
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For miles in every direction from this dusty coal-mining village, the soil, plants and trees are gray with
soot, as if a light fall of black snow has just fallen. The air is heavy with eye-stinging fumes, and the
land is rutted. This is the dark underbelly of modern China, the industrial reality that everyone knows
exists, but no one wants to see. China's miracle economy -- the world's fastest-growing, at about 8 percent
-- is largely fueled by coal, which provides roughly three-fourths of its energy. Villages just like this one in
Shanxi province produce a quarter of the 2 billion tons of the coal China will burn this year. That's almost 20
percent more than last year -- and China's demand for energy is expected to double over the next decade.
Over the last 10 years, reckless mining by two massive, rusty, smoke- spewing state-owned coal
companies has fill the air here with particulates. As the companies have dug into the earth, they have
damaged underground water supplies that have drained away, depleting the local water table. "The
gap this left in the earth has caused the topsoil to crack and collapse," said Guo Ai Mi, 43, a local
farmer. Lengths of highways and entire fields have fissures running through them, and more appear all
the time. Since Shanxi is one of the driest places in China, and the Fen River, a local tributary of the
mighty Yellow River, ran dry years ago, farming here is now almost impossible, Guo said. As a result,
many people here have done the only thing they could to survive -- they've begun mining illegally for
coal themselves.
A mid-century growth scenario on a scale that substantially impacts GHG emissions would be realized with
thermal reactors operated principally in a once-through mode [2], with economic criteria being crucial in
driving this technology pathway. A merchant plant model of costs shows that, if nuclear power is to be
competitive with coal and natural gas, industry must demonstrate reactor capital cost reductions that
are plausible but as yet unproved, and the social costs of GHG emissions need to be internalized. For
the United States, overcoming the “first mover” problem is key to determining the role of nuclear
power. We recommend electricity production tax credits for “first movers”, modeled after those in place for
wind. First mover demonstration of the economics and safety of new nuclear plants must occur within
the next decade or so if nuclear power is to make a significant contribution to mitigating climate
change in the first half of this century.
***Medical Isotopes***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 79
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Every age has its killer. But Aids is without precedent. It is comparable only to the Black Death of the Middle Ages in the terror it evokes
and the graves it fills. But unlike the plague, Aids does not come at a time of scientific innocence: It flies in the face of space exploration, the
manipulation of genes and the mapping of the human genome. The Black Death - the plague, today easily cured by antibiotics
and prevented by vaccines - killed a full 40 million Europeans, a quarter of the population of Europe, between 1347
and 1352. But it was a death that could be avoided by the simple expedient of changing addresses and whose vector
could be seen and exterminated. With Aids, the vector is humanity itself, the nice person in the next seat in the
bus. There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Every human being who expresses the innate desire to
preserve the human genetic pool through the natural mechanism of reproduction is potentially at risk. And whereas
death by plague was a merciful five days of agony, HIV is not satisfied until years of stigma and excruciating torture have been wrought on its
victim. The plague toll of tens of millions in two decades was a veritable holocaust, but it will be nothing compared to the viral
holocaust: So far, 18.8 million people are already dead; 43.3 million infected worldwide (24.5 million of them Africans)
carry the seeds of their inevitable demise - unwilling participants in a March of the Damned. Last year alone, 2.8
million lives went down the drain, 85 per cent of them African; as a matter of fact, 6,000 Africans will die today. The daily toll in Kenya is 500.
There has never been fought a war on these shores that was so wanton in its thirst for human blood. During the First World War, more than a
million lives were lost at the Battle of the Somme alone, setting a trend that was to become fairly common, in which generals would use soldiers
as cannon fodder; the lives of 10 million young men were sacrificed for a cause that was judged to be more worthwhile than the dreams - even the
mere living out of a lifetime - of a generation. But there was proffered an explanation: It was the honour of bathing a battlefield with young
blood, patriotism or simply racial pride. Aids, on the other hand, is a holocaust without even a lame or bigoted justification. It is simply a waste.
It is death contracted not in the battlefield but in bedrooms and other venues of furtive intimacy. It is difficult to
remember any time in history when the survival of the human race was so hopelessly in jeopardy.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 81
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Cary`8 (Annette Cary, Trinity Herald, Report criticizes loss of medical isotopes, June 5, 2008, http://www.tri-
cityherald.com/901/story/203876.html)
Department of Energy plans to dispose of uranium 233 could rob the nation of an important source of
isotopes for medical and scientific research, according to a report by the DOE Office of Inspector General.
"Should the department elect to proceed as planned, it may dispose of a national resource that is
irreplaceable," the report said. "The potential for isotopes produced from uranium 233 to help save the lives
of thousands of American cancer patients is widely accepted." DOE has uranium 233 at the Idaho National
Laboratory and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee that can be used to produce actinium 225
and bismuth 213 by first producing thorium 229. "Both actinium and bismuth are extremely rare isotopes
that are now being used in clinical trials and cancer research at organizations such as the Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York," the report said. "Early research results have been promising,
showing improved cancer survivability rates." The materials also could have applications in developing
proliferation-resistant nuclear power reactor fuel cycles and as an alternative to plutonium 238 for powering
flights deep into space, the report said. Uranium 233 also is used in a national nuclear security program.
However, Congress has directed DOE to end the practice of extracting thorium 229 from uranium 233,
which allows the production of actinium and bismuth. DOE plans to begin preparing the Tennessee
inventory for disposal in 2012. In addition, DOE began shipping the Idaho inventory of uranium 233 to the
Nevada Test Site for disposal as waste in January, according to the report. "Once the planned disposal of
uranium 233 is complete, the department will not have the means to increase isotope production to meet
the dramatic projections of future needs for actinium and bismuth," the report said. About 650
millicuries per year of actinium 225 is produced now in the United States. However, the National
Institutes of Health projects a demand for 1,700 millicuries this year and 6,000 millicuries in 2009.
Security and proliferation concerns prohibit DOE from making the source material directly available
to universities or industry to permit the development of a private sector source of isotopes, the report
said. Although the private sector is pursuing some other options to create the isotopes, it is not known if the
technologies will prove viable, the report said. "At present, no viable alternative methods of production of
actinium and bismuth have been demonstrated or proven," the report said.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 82
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U.S. Department of Energy 1 (Office of Nuclear, Energy, and Science Technology, Report to Congress,
March 2001, http://www.nuclear.gov/pdfFiles/U233RptConMarch2001.pdf)
Nuclear medicine offers one of the safest ways to diagnose and treat several types of cancer, leukemia, heart
disease, and other serious, life-threatening diseases. It does so without noticeable adverse effects on normal
organs and without the debilitating side effects and extended hospital stays associated with more common
treatments. Each year, about one-third of the 30 million Americans hospitalized are diagnosed or
treated with one or more nuclear medicine techniques, representing a $7-10 billion per year industry.
Radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals, which are at the heart of nuclear medicine, are used in the
United States alone for almost 40,000 procedures every day and in more than 100 million laboratory
tests each year. The use of medical isotopes also reduces health care costs by improving the quality,
efficiency, and effectiveness of patient care. Medical research using isotopes continues to promise new
applications for fighting other diseases such as Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s. Adequate supplies of medical
and research isotopes are essential to maintain U.S. effective diagnosis, treatment, and research capabilities.
Securing Radioisotope Supplies Within the United States Is Key to The Future of Nuclear
Medicine
U.S. Department of Energy 1 (Office of Nuclear, Energy, and Science Technology, Report to Congress,
March 2001, http://www.nuclear.gov/pdfFiles/U233RptConMarch2001.pdf)
Primarily due to the Department’s support, and in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health, the
United States has become the world leader in the application of radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals for
biomedical research. As a result, the benefits to patient healthcare have been immense. Despite our
pioneering leadership, however, we have recently become dependent upon sources outside the United States
for all of the technetium-99m and for many For the United States to continue contributions in the
application of radioactive materials for biomedical investigations, it is essential that we establish a
reliable source and supply of radioisotopes. Because of the uncertain supply of radioisotopes in the
United States, many nuclear medicine researchers have become dissuaded from pursuing their ideas
for new medical advances, threatening the future of nuclear medicine in the United States. To correct
this gradual decline, the Department must continue to invest in dedicated, state-of-the-art facilities in
order to reliably supply existing radioisotopes in use and develop new radioisotopes in sufficient
quantity and year-long availability to support clinical research. Alpha-emitting radioisotopes are an
example of this investment.
Medical Isotopes Support the U.S. Health Industry and Save Lives
U.S. Department of Energy 1 (Office of Nuclear, Energy, and Science Technology, Report to Congress,
March 2001, http://www.nuclear.gov/pdfFiles/U233RptConMarch2001.pdf)
Medical isotopes save lives and reduce health care costs. Some of the more frequent uses of medical
radioisotopes include diagnosis and treatment of several major diseases, sterilization of medical
products, tissue grafts, nutrition research, and biomedical research into cellular processes. The
Department of Energy supports the U.S. health care industry and medical research by producing these
isotopes and through the support of fundamental isotope research. A class of medical isotopes -- alpha-
emitting radioisotopes -- is of growing interest in the cure of cancer. To understand this interest, the
Department sponsored a workshop on “Alpha-Emitters for Medical Therapy” in May 1996. As a result of the
workshop, the Department, through the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, undertook
significant efforts and expended several million dollars in order to establish a domestic supply of the alpha-
emitting radioactive isotopes actinium-225 (Ac-225) and bismuth-213 (Bi-213). Because of these efforts,
researchers have made tremendous advances in the diagnosis and treatment of cancerous tumors in the
human body using monoclonal antibodies and their molecular subunits in various forms as carriers for
these radioactive isotopes.
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U.S. Department of Energy 1 (Office of Nuclear, Energy, and Science Technology, Report to Congress,
March 2001, http://www.nuclear.gov/pdfFiles/U233RptConMarch2001.pdf)
A class of medical isotopes -- alpha-emitting radioisotopes -- is of growing interest in the cure of cancer. To
understand this interest, the Department sponsored a workshop on “Alpha-Emitters for Medical Therapy” in
May 1996. As a result of the workshop, the Department, through the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and
Technology, undertook significant efforts and expended several million dollars in order to establish a
domestic supply of the alpha-emitting radioactive isotopes actinium-225 (Ac-225) and bismuth-213 (Bi-213).
Because of these efforts, researchers have made tremendous advances in the diagnosis and treatment of
cancerous tumors in the human body using monoclonal antibodies and their molecular subunits in
various forms as carriers for these radioactive isotopes. Specifically, because alpha-particles deposit their
energy over microscopic dimensions, antibodies “tagged” with this radioactive isotope deliver a potent
dose of radiation directly to the cancer with minimal or no exposure of healthy tissue. In June 2000,
former Secretary of Energy Richardson directed the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology to
increase the supply of the isotopes Ac-225 and Bi-213 available to researchers through the processing of
more uranium-233 (U-233) currently in storage at the Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 88
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
AIDS can’t be solved medically; root economic and social causes must be addressed
Washington Post 2k (7/5/)
AIDS was not merely another infectious disease, Mann argued. It seemed to flourish in--and reinforce--
conditions of poverty, oppression, urban migration and social violence. It therefore could not be solved as a
biomedical problem. Women who feared a beating would not ask their husbands to use condoms. Street
children and widows without rights of inheritance could not reduce the number of their sexual partners if they
depended on sex for subsistence. In an interview with filmmaker Robert Bilheimer before Mann's Sept. 3,
1998, death in the crash of Swissair Flight 111, Mann said discrimination "isn't just an effect, it's actually a
root cause of the epidemic itself."
***NP Bad***
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***Terrorism – Attacks***
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B. Terrorist attack will risk survival of the planet – even if a nuclear terrorist attack fails, it
could cause a third world war and threaten humankind
Alexander 3 (Yonah, Terrorism Myths and Realities, Washington Times, Prof and Director of
Inter-University
For Terrorism Studies)
Last week's brutal suicide bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem have once again illustrated dramatically that
the international community failed, thus far at least, to understand the magnitude and implications of
the terrorist threats to the very survival of civilization itself. Even the United States and Israel have for
decades tended to regard terrorism as a mere tactical nuisance or irritant rather than a critical strategic
challenge to their national security concerns. It is not surprising, therefore, that on September 11, 2001,
Americans were stunned by the unprecedented tragedy of 19 al Qaeda terrorists striking a devastating blow at
the center of the nation's commercial and military powers. Likewise, Israel and its citizens, despite the
collapse of the Oslo Agreements of 1993 and numerous acts of terrorism triggered by the second intifada that
began almost three years ago, are still "shocked" by each suicide attack at a time of intensive diplomatic
efforts to revive the moribund peace process through the now revoked cease-fire arrangements (hudna). Why
are the United States and Israel, as well as scores of other countries affected by the universal nightmare of
modern terrorism surprised by new terrorist "surprises"? There are many reasons, including
misunderstanding of the manifold specific factors that contribute to terrorism's expansion, such as lack of a
universal definition of terrorism, the religionization of politics, double standards of morality, weak
punishment of terrorists, and the exploitation of the media by terrorist propaganda and psychological warfare.
Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have introduced a new scale of violence
in terms of conventional and unconventional threats and impact. The internationalization and
brutalization of current and future terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super Terrorism
(e.g. biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber) with its serious implications concerning
national, regional and global security concerns.
Lyman, 4.(“Chernobyl on the Hudson?: The Health and Economic Impacts of a Terrorist Attack at the Indian
Point Nuclear Plant” Edwin S. Lyman, PhD Union of Concerned Scientists, http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/
nuclear_ terrorism/impacts-of-a-terrorist-attack-at-indian-point-nuclear-power-plant.html)
Since 9/11, the specter of a terrorist attack at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, thirty-five miles upwind
from midtown Manhattan, has caused great concern for residents of the New York metropolitan area.
Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ordered modest security upgrades at Indian Point and
other nuclear power plants in response to the 9/11 attacks, the plants remain vulnerable, both to air attacks
and to ground assaults by large terrorist teams with paramilitary training and advanced weaponry.
Many question whether the NRC’s security and emergency planning requirements at Indian Point are
adequate, given its attractiveness as a terrorist target and the grave consequences for the region of a
successful attack. This report presents the results of an independent analysis of the health and economic
impacts of a terrorist attack at Indian Point that results in a core meltdown and a large radiological release
to the environment. We find that, depending on the weather conditions, an attack could result in as many as
44,000 near-term deaths from acute radiation syndrome or as many as 518,000 long-term deaths from
cancer among individuals within fifty miles of the plant. These findings confirm that Indian Point poses a
severe threat to the entire New York metropolitan area. The scope of emergency planning measures should
be promptly expanded to provide some protection from the fallout from an attack at Indian Point to those
New York area residents who currently have none. Security at Indian Point should also be upgraded to a level
commensurate with the threat it poses to the region.
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( ) Extinction
Lt. Col, Tom Bearden, PhD Nuclear Engineering, April 25, 2000,
http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/042500%20-%20modified.htm
Just prior to the terrible collapse of the World economy, with the crumbling well underway and rising,
it is inevitable that some of the [wmd] weapons of mass destruction will be used by one or more nations
on others. An interesting result then---as all the old strategic studies used to show---is that everyone will
fire everything as fast as possible against their perceived enemies. The reason is simple: When the mass
destruction weapons are unleashed at all, the only chance a nation has to survive is to desperately try
to destroy its perceived enemies before they destroy it. So there will erupt a spasmodic unleashing of the
long range missiles, nuclear arsenals, and biological warfare arsenals of the nations as they feel the economic
collapse, poverty, death, misery, etc. a bit earlier. The ensuing holocaust is certain to immediately draw in
the major nations also, and literally a hell on earth will result. In short, we will get the
great Armageddon we have been fearing since the advent of the nuclear genie. Right now, my personal
estimate is that we have about a 99% chance of that scenario or some modified version of it, resulting.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 101
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Amy Zalman, 08
(Ph.D. “Nuclear Terrorism- Types of Nuclear Terrorism” http://terrorism.about.com/od/n/a/NuclearTerror.htm)
In addition to the reactors themselves, nuclear power plants harbour enormous quantities of radioactive
materials in spent fuel pools. On average these spent fuel pools contain five times as much radioactive
material as the reactor core, and they are housed in simple corrugated steel buildings even more
vulnerable to attack than the reactor containment buildings. The vulnerability of nuclear power plants is
highlighted by reports that 47% of US nuclear power plants failed to repel mock terrorist attacks
conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the 1990s. The results of an attack on either a
reactor or a spent fuel pool could equal or exceed the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which led to 30
acute deaths from radiation sickness, at least 1800 excess cases of childhood thyroid cancer, the evacuation
of 100 000 people, and the radioactive contamination of vast tracts of land in several countries.
The spent fuel pools at reactor sites are vulnerable to terrorist-The NRC down plays the
threat
Gronlund, Lochbaum, & Lyman`7 (Lisbeth, co-director and senior scientist of the UCS Global Security Program.
David, director of the nuclear safety project in the UCS Global Security Program and Lyman senior staff scientist in the UCS Global
Security Program, Dec, http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/Nuclear-Power-in-a-Warming-World.pdf)
Spent fuel pools are highly vulnerable to terrorist attack. Unlike reactors, the pools used to store spent
fuel at reactor sites are not protected by containment buildings, and thus are attractive targets for
terrorist attacks. Such attacks could lead to the release of large amounts of dangerous radioactive
materials into the environment. The NRC gives less consideration to attacks and deliberate acts of
sabotage than it does to accidents. This lack of attention is manifested in emergency plans that do not take
terrorist attacks into account, the agency’s refusal to consider terrorist attacks as part of the environmental
assessments during licensing proceedings, and its failure to adequately address the risk of an attack on spent
fuel pools at reactor sites. NRC assumptions about potential attackers are unrealistically modest. The
NRC’s Design Basis Threat (DBT) defines the size and abilities of a group that might attack a nuclear
facility, and against which an owner must be able to defend. Although not publicly available, before 9/11 the
DBT was widely known to consist of three attackers armed with nothing more sophisticated than handheld
automatic rifles, and working with a single insider whose role was limited to providing information about the
facility and its defenses. The DBT has been upgraded post-9/11, but it still does not reflect real-world threats.
For example, it excludes the possibility that terrorist groups would use rocket-propelled grenades—a weapon
widely used by insurgents around the world.
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The nation's 103 nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to attack by terrorists, two watchdog groups
warned today. The groups charge that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other government
entities have failed to impose the security measures needed to prevent a successful attack and avert a
potential catastrophe. Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant is located on the western shore of the Chesapeake
Bay in Maryland, just 45 miles southeast of Washington DC (All photos courtesy NRC) The Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) admitted Friday that it "did not specifically contemplate attacks by
aircraft such as Boeing 757s or 767s" - the types of planes used to destroy the 110 story World Trade Center
towers and heavily damage the recently fortified Pentagon on September 11. While the containment buildings
that shelter nuclear reactors are able to withstand severe events including hurricanes, tornadoes and
earthquakes, "nuclear power plants were not designed to withstand such crashes," the agency said in a
statement. "Detailed engineering analyses of a large airliner crash have not yet been performed." In a
report released today, the Washington based Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) and the Los Angeles based
Committee to Bridge the Gap released a recent exchange of letters with NRC chair Richard Meserve. The
organizations cited "the extraordinary and unprecedented threat that now exists inside the United
States in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."
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It is prudent to assume, especially after the horrific, highly coordinated attacks of September 11, that bin Laden's
soldiers have done their homework and are fully capable to attack nuclear plants for maximum effect,"
Leventhal warned. Dr. Edwin Lyman, a physicist and NCI's scientific director, pointed out that a direct, high speed
hit by a large commercial passenger jet "would in fact have a high likelihood a penetrating a containment
building" that houses a power reactor. "Following such an assault," Lyman said, "the possibility of an
unmitigated loss of coolant accident and significant release of radiation into the environment is a very real
one." David Kyd of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN last week that a if a fully fueled large
jetliner hit a nuclear reactor, "which is a very extreme scenario, then the containment could be breached and
the cooling system of the reactor could be impaired to the point where radioactivity might well be set free."
Such a release, whether caused by an air strike, or by a ground or water assault, or by insider sabotage could result
in tens of thousands of cancer deaths downwind of the plant. A number of these plants are located near large
cities, Lyman noted. Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, underscored the immediate
danger by noting that nearly half of the plants tested in NRC supervised security exercises have failed to repel
mock terrorist attacks. "These exercises involve small numbers of simulated attackers compared with the
large cell of terrorists now understood to have waged the four sophisticated attacks of September 11," said Hirsch.
"The NRC's mock terrorist exercises severely limit the tactics, weapons and explosives used by the adversary, yet in
almost half the tests they reached and simulated destruction of safety systems that in real attacks could have
caused severe core damage, meltdown and catastrophic radioactive releases."
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Lyman, 4. (“Chernobyl on the Hudson?: The Health and Economic Impacts of a Terrorist Attack at the Indian
Point Nuclear Plant” Edwin S. Lyman, PhD Union of Concerned Scientists,
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_terrorism/impacts-of-a-terrorist-attack-at-indian-point-nuclear-
power-plant.html)
In the post-9/11 era, the possibility of a jumbo jet crashing into the Superbowl—or even a nuclear power
plant—no longer seems as remote as it did in 1982. Nonetheless, NRC continues to argue that the 1982
Sandia report is unrealistic because it focused on "worst-case" accidents involving the simultaneous failure of
multiple safety systems, which are highly unlikely to occur by chance. But when the potential for terrorist
attacks is considered, this argument no longer applies. "Worst-case" scenarios are precisely the ones
that terrorists have in mind when planning attacks.
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cfr.org, 2006 (“Targets for Terrorism: Nuclear Facilities” council on foreign relations,
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10213/targets_for_terrorism.html)
How vulnerable are U.S. nuclear weapons sites?
Not very, most experts say. Nuclear weapons production and storage sites are guarded by security
forces supervised by the Department of Energy. John Gordon, the administrator of the Department of
Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, has called such sites “one of the last places a terrorist
would think about attacking and having hopes of success; the security basically bristles.” But a
watchdog organization, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), charged that security at U.S. nuclear
weapons complexes was inadequate and that hundreds of tons of weapons-grade plutonium and highly
enriched uranium could be stolen, sabotaged, or even detonated. The Department of Energy dismisses such
criticism, adding that security has been stepped up since September 11. Experts note that a terrorist looking
to steal nuclear weapons or weapons-grade material would have a much easier time in Russia or
Pakistan than in the United States.
There have been no specific threats found against nuclear power plants.
cfr.org, 6 (“Targets for Terrorism: Nuclear Facilities” council on foreign relations,
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10213/targets_for_terrorism.html)
In January 2002, former NRC chair Richard Meserve said that “since September 11, there have been no
specific credible threats of a terrorist attack on nuclear power plants.” But he added that in light of “the
high general threat environment, nonetheless, we and our licensees have maintained our highest security
posture.”
On October 18, 2001, there was what was initially called a “credible threat” to the Three Mile Island
nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, the site of America’s worst nuclear accident, which occurred in 1979.
The threat closed down two nearby airports for four hours, and military aircraft were sent to patrol the area.
But by the next morning, the threat was dismissed and the alert canceled.
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CNN 7 (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/29/reactor.security/)
Dale Klein, chairman of the NRC, said that nuclear plants are already adequately defended against such
attacks." Nuclear power plants are inherently robust structures that our studies show provide adequate
protection in a hypothetical attack by an airplane," he said in a written statement. "The NRC has also
taken actions that require nuclear power plant operators to be able to manage large fires or explosions
-- no matter what has caused them." The NRC says the military and other agencies are able to protect
the facility from airborne attacks." The NRC is actively involved with other federal agencies, including
the military, to protect all this nation's infrastructure against such attacks," Klein said
All nuclear facilities in the U.S. meet stringent NRC guidelines for terrorism prevention
and national disaster response.
USNRC 7 ( October 31, United States Nuclear regulatory commission general report http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/emerg-preparedness.html)
Good planning leads to good response. Our emergency preparedness programs enable emergency personnel
to rapidly identify, evaluate, and react to a wide spectrum of emergencies, including those arising from
terrorism or natural events such as hurricanes. Our incident response program integrates the overall NRC
capabilities for the response and recovery of radiological incidents and emergencies involving facilities and
materials regulated by the NRC or an Agreement State. Under the National Response Plan, the NRC will
coordinate with other Federal, State, and local emergency organizations in response to various types of
domestic events. The NRC emphasizes the integration of safety, security, and emergency preparedness as the
basis for the NRC’s primary mission of protecting public health and safety. Our review of the emergency
preparedness programs reaffirmed that our emergency planning bases remain valid under the current threat
environment. The NRC's Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response (NSIR) has the primary responsibility
for these essential agency functions. For more information Contact Us.
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***Terrorism – Theft***
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Green 6 (Jim, Phd, Department of Science & Technology Studies, University of Wollongong, Australia. “Nuclear Power & Climate
Change”, energysciece.com, Nov 2006, http://www.energyscience.org.au/FS03%20Nucl%20Power%20Clmt%20Chng.pdf)
A very large increase in nuclear power, of the scale necessary to make a significant dent in greenhouse
emissions, would create an enormous security and non-proliferation challenge. Feiveson calculates that
with a ten-fold increase in nuclear output, 700 tonnes of plutonium would be produced annually –
sufficient for about 70,000 nuclear weapons (or 3.5 million weapons over a 50-year reactor lifespan).
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has considered a scenario involving a ten-fold
increase in
nuclear power output over this century, and calculated that this could produce 50-100 thousand tonnes
of plutonium.7
The IPCC concluded that the security threat would be “colossal.” Former US Vice President Al Gore said
in May 2006 that: “For eight years in the White House, every weapons proliferation problem we dealt with
was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear
reactors to back out a lot of coal ... then we’d have to put them in so many places we’d run that proliferation
risk right off the reasonability scale.”8
C. Extinction
Beres`87(Louis Rene Beres, Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue, 1987 (Terrorism and Global
Security, p. 42-43)
Nuclear terrorism could even spark a full scale war between states. Such a war could involve the
entire spectrum of nuclear conflict possibilities, ranging from a nuclear attack upon a non-
nuclear state to systemwide nuclear war. How might such far reaching consequences of nuclear terrorism come about? Perhaps the most
likely way would involve a terrorist nuclear assault against a state by terrorists hosted in another
state. For example, consider the following scenario: Early in the 1990s, Israel and its Arab state neighbors finally stand ready to conclude
a comprehensive, multilateral peace settlement. With a bilateral treaty between Israel and Egypt already many years old, only the interests of the
half a dozen crude
Palestinians, as defined by the PLO, seem to have been left out. On the eve of the proposed signing of the peace agreement,
nuclear explosives in the one kiloton
range detonate in as many Israeli cities. Public grief in Israel over the many thousand dead and
maimed is matched only by the outcry for revenge. In response to the public mood, the
government of Israel
initiates selected strikes against terrorist strongholds in Lebanon, whereupon Lebanese Shiite forces and
Syria retaliate against Israel. Before long, the entire region is ablaze, conflict has escalated to nuclear
forms, and all countries of the area have suffered unprecedented destruction. Of course, such
a scenario is fraught with the makings of even wider destruction. How would the United
States react to the situation in the Middle East? What would be the soviet response? It is certainly conceivable that a chain
reaction of interstate nuclear conflict could ensue, one that would ultimately involve the superpowers or even every
nuclear weapon state on the planet.
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Burns & Choppin`8 Peter C Burns Henry Massman Chair in Civil Engineering, Professor, Notre Dame University. Gregory Choppin
professor of chemistry, Florida State University. Nuclear power's future: Reprocessing returns?, 28 FEBRUARY 2008The Why files
http://whyfiles.org/275nukewaste/
High-level radwaste -- the yuck Yucca is slated to receive -- is spent fuel from nuclear reactors,
and it's roughly one million times more radioactive than fresh uranium fuel. High-level waste is
extremely carcinogenic, even lethal, and must be handled by remote control or under heavy shielding. Spent fuel can also provide the
basis for good ol' explosive nuclear bombs and dirty bombs (which spew radiation without
that familiar mushroom cloud). So to prevent nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and a
cancer epidemic, spent fuel must be contained virtually forever. The goal at Yucca is to safely
store 70,000 tons of radwaste for 1 million years. Over those 10,000 centuries, the radioactive isotopes will gradually cool
and be converted into stable, non-radioactive isotopes. (Isotopes are versions of an element with a different number of neutrons. Different isotopes decay at
different rates; with many elements, some isotopes are stable, others will decay and release radiation.) For the repository at Yucca, about 100 miles
northwest of Las Vegas, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) would love to follow GambleVille's marketing mantra ("What radiates near Vegas stays near
But the giant repository is unlikely to open for at least another 10 years, and in the
Vegas").
meantime, spent fuel will continue stacking up at reactors across the country, making a
splendid target for terrorists eager to release a deadly cloud of radiation or even trigger a
nuclear meltdown.
Digges`2 Bellona Stanford Database Tracks Lost Radwaste to Stem Nuclear Terrorism02/05-2002Charles Digges,
http://www.bellona.no/bellona.org/english_import_area/international/russia/nuke-weapons/nonproliferation/24099
Their Database on Nuclear Smuggling, Theft and Orphan Radiation Sources documents some 850 incidents from the past decade —
everything from radioactive trash carelessly tossed out by a cancer clinic to weapons-usable plutonium and uranium smuggled out of the
former Soviet Union. Sept. 11 accelerated the project. Although most experts think Osama bin Laden's boast of nuclear capability is a
bluff, they think there might be some truth to al Qaeda field commander Abu Zabaydah's claim
that the group can build a "dirty bomb" out of the kind of radioactive material available in
clinics, colleges and poorly guarded nuclear waste storage facilities in Russia and worldwide. Rigged with ordinary
explosives and then detonated, such a device could shower an area with radioactive
contamination — not so much a weapon of mass destruction as mass disruption and hysteria. Radioactive materials are not just up for grabs in the
former Soviet Union either. In the United States itself, disappearing radioactive material is almost a
daily occurrence. "Within the United States, you're losing track of radioactive material
literally every other day. Every other day. And controls there are among the highest in the world," said nuclear physicist Fritz Steinhausler
— who fostered the database as a visiting professor at Stanford — in a telephone interview from Austria with Bellona Web. He said that the US
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) lists an average of 200 radiation sources that are
stolen, lost or abandoned within the United States every year. Nonetheless, with Russia's comparatively lax
controls and accounting procedures, Steinhausler said that annual figures for stolen or lost radioactive material is "impossible to assess, but certainly
higher," than figures posted by the NRC. Many countries in the database either do not even have a central register of radioactive materials or, like Russia,
have registries that are often years out of date, which causes difficulties in tracking radiation sources. At Stanford, Kazakstan-born researcher Lyudmila
Zaitseva pours over databases, government records, technical journals and newspapers to identify cases and assess their credibility. She then enters them
into the Stanford database and categorizes incidents by three ratings of veracity.
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Center For International Security and Cooperation 4 (Institute For International Studies,
Standford University, April 13, 2004, http://cisac.stanford.edu/nuclearterrorism/index.html)
Fortunately, the materials for making nuclear explosives -- plutonium and a rare isotope of uranium -- are
difficult to obtain. Plutonium must be made in a nuclear reactor. Uranium must be highly enriched in the
needed isotope in a highly specialized set of facilities. A number of countries have carried out these activities
and more could, but it would be difficult or impossible for a terrorist group to carry out these activities,
at least without host government support. Even with government support, such activities are likely to
be detected from abroad.
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Connor 6 (a, Shane, CEO of nukalert.com consultation for civil defense with the military, World Net Daily, August 24, 2006,
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51648)
whether it is dirty bombs, terrorist
What possible good news could there ever be about nuclear destruction coming to Americ
nukes or ICBMs from afar? In a word, they are all survivable for the vast majority of American
families, if they know what to do beforehand and have made even the most modest preparations. Tragically, though, most Americans
today won't give much credence to this good news, much less seek out such vital life-saving instruction, as they have been jaded by our
culture's pervasive myths of nuclear un-survivability. Most people think that if nukes go off, then everybody is going to die, or will wish
they had. That's why you hear such absurd comments as: "If it happens, I hope I'm at ground zero and go quickly." This defeatist
attitude was born as the disarmament movement ridiculed any alternatives to their agenda. The sound Civil Defense strategies of the '60s
have been derided as being largely ineffective, or at worst a cruel joke. With the supposed end of the Cold War in the '80s, most
Americans neither saw a need to prepare, nor believed that preparation would do any good. Today, with growing prospects of nuclear
terrorism, we see emerging among the public either paralyzing fear or irrational denial. People can no longer envision effective
preparations for surviving a nuclear attack. In fact, though, the biggest surprise for most Americans, if nukes are
really unleashed, is that they will still be here! Most will survive the initial blasts because they won't be close enough to
any "ground zero," and that is very good news. Unfortunately, few people will be prepared to survive the coming radioactive fallout,
which will eventually kill many times more than the blast. However, there is still more good news: Well over 90 percent of the
potential casualties from fallout can be avoided if the public is pre-trained through an aggressive national Civil
Defense educational program. Simple measures taken immediately after a nuclear blast, by a trained public, can prevent agonizing death
and injury from radiation. The National Planning Scenario No. 1, an originally confidential internal 2004 study by the Department of
Homeland Security, demonstrated the above survival odds when they examined the effects of a terrorist nuke going off in Washington,
D.C. They discovered that a 10 kiloton nuke, about two-thirds the size of the Hiroshima bomb, detonated at ground level, would result in
about 15,000 immediate deaths and another 15,000 casualties from the initial blast, thermal flash and radiation release.
American Institute of Physics 2 (Inside Science News Service, March 12, 2002,
http://www.aip.org/isns/reports/2002/038.html)
Rochester, NY (March 12, 2002)-The latest post-9/11 disaster scenario making news headlines is the "dirty bomb." The theoretical situation
occurs when terrorists get hold of radioactive material from a hospital or food-irradiation plant, attach it to an explosive, and detonate the bomb in
an urban area. The explosion spreads the radioactive material all over a city and exposes the population to radiation. Yet according to a health
physicist,
the biggest health risk from a dirty bomb would not, reassuringly, be cancer, but something more
preventable: panic. A dirty bomb "would probably not lead to many, if any, cancer deaths," says Andrew Karam, radiation
safety officer of the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY. But if the public receives unreliable or exaggerated information about dirty bombs,
Karam worries that "the use of a radiological weapon would result in many deaths in traffic accidents as people flee the
scene, and possibly stress- and anxiety-induced heart attacks." The radiation dose from a dirty bomb would likely
be relatively small, says the Rochester health scientist. Even a potent dirty bomb, consisting of a radioactive cobalt-60 rod used for food
irradiation, for example, would deliver an average dose of a few tenths of a rem for people within a half-mile radius, he says. (A rem is a unit of
radiation dose.) This compares to the 0.3-0.4 rem average dose per year that a person receives from natural sources, and 5 rem, the typical annual
dose limit for nuclear and radiation workers (most radiation workers receive less than 1 rem of exposure annually). Some recent news
accounts have predicted that dirty bombs would cause a small amount of additional cancer cases. However, Karam
says these estimates are all based on a faulty assumption. "They are based on the use of a concept called 'collective
dose,' the concept that exposing a large number of people to very low levels of radiation will result in a certain
number of cancer deaths," he explains. "By analogy, we can say that throwing one small stone at each of a million people will result in
crushing one or two people because the combined weight of all the stones adds up to a ton, which is enough to crush someone." Karam notes that
the Health Physics Society, a professional organization comprised of over 6,000 radiation safety professionals, has advised against calculating
risk from exposure to low levels of radiation (less than10 rem)
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Suitcase bombs arent a threat – they’re small, difficult to build, and easily detectable
CISAC 6 (“Nuclear Terrorism: Risks and Realities” Center for International Security and Cooperation, Institute for International Studies,
Stanford University. iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/20770/Nuc_explosion_facts.pdf
At the same time as it generates its explosive power, a nuclear explosive generates radiation and also makes
very large amounts of radioactive materials that will last from seconds to years. A typical nuclear explosion
creates from one hundred to over one thousand times as much radioactive material as could be loaded in a
dirty bomb. Nuclear weapons have been made small and light enough to be delivered by airplanes and
missiles. They would also fit in a truck and some would fit in the trunk of a car. What is a suitcase bomb?
The US and possibly other countries have made weapons that might fit in a large suitcase. They would
be rather heavy, however, and it is quite unlikely that a terrorist group could make such a bomb. Can a
nuclear explosive be detected? All nuclear weapons give off a low level of radiation that would be
detectable by suitable instruments if the weapon were in a suitcase, the trunk of a car, or other unshielded
location. Shielding this radiation so it could not be detected would involve surrounding it with a
considerable amount heavy of material such as lead. Most first responders are now equipped with
simple radiation detectors that can warn of radiation. More sophisticated detectors used to identify
nuclear explosives are becoming more widespread. These detectors are being installed at ports of entry and
other locations in several countries, but putting together an effective system will take time.
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***Proliferation***
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Winfield et al 06 [Mark, Director Environmental Governance The Pembina Institute, Alison Jamison, Senior
Project Manager, Rich Wong, Eco-Efficiency Analyst, Paulina Czajkowski, Eco-Efficiency Analyst, Nuclear Power
in Canada: An Explanation of Risks, Impacts, and Sustainability, December 2006,
http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/Nuclear_web.pdf]
Nuclear energy’s shared origins with nuclear weapons programs raises the potential for -- and reality of --
links between technologies and materials used for energy production and for nuclear weapons development.
Concerns about these connections have grown in the past few years as a result of nuclear programs in
North Korea, Iran, India and Pakistan. Any large-scale expansion of reliance on nuclear energy would
carry significant risks of the proliferation of materials and technologies that could be applied to
weapons development. India’s 1974 nuclear bomb test, a project developed in part using Canadian-
supplied technology and uranium, demonstrated this problem clearly.
Lawson 4
(Richard , USAF, Ret., is a former President and CEO of the National Mining Association,” http://www.greenhealth.org.uk/nuclear.htm#NCo2)
Since conventional nuclear fission can make only a short lived and minor contribution to world energy
supply, advocates of nuclear energy look to "breeder" technology as the solution. Here uranium fuel is
"burned" in such a way as to produce plutonium which can itself be burned. It is claimed that this
could extend the contribution of NP by a factor of 50 (that is, satisfy 70% of 2000 electricity demand at
current levels for 1000 -1500 years). In contrast to conventional stations, this sounds as if it could be a
significant contribution to global energy needs. Unfortunately, there is a problem in that plutonium is the
material for nuclear weapons. Some of the vast amounts of plutonium which would be created in a
breeder programme of the scale contemplated would inevitably leak into the hands of terrorists and
politicians who, like our own leaders, would seek an illusory form of security in the possession of
nuclear weapons. In a breeder energy economy, the hope of curtailing the proliferation of nuclear
weapons would be gone forever. In the face of this prospect, nuclear apologists can only answer that a
bomb made out of reactor grade plutonium would be "inefficient". Nevertheless, they cannot deny that it
would be able to convert matter into energy - that is, it would work. Its inefficiency would guarantee that
the unburnt plutonium would simply be spread as fallout, making it a dirtier bomb than average -
which would be very much to a terrorists' liking. It is amazing that one year after the disastrous war
on Iraq, fought ostensibly because of a perceived threat that Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain nuclear
weapons, that people should be seriously contemplating opening up a technology that would put
plutonium within the grasp not just of Iran and North Korea, but of any state anywhere who has a
perceived need for high-technology electricity. We should stop for a moment and remember the deep (if
mistaken) sincerity with which Tony Bliar spoke of his fears that Saddam Hussein would get nuclear
weapons and would lend one to Osama Bin Laden. He was misled, or misleading, but the fact remains that
this was for him a major threat. A generalised plutonium economy would be even more of a threat. Faced
with this challenge, pro-nuclear apologists can only aver that the plutonium can be kept under surveillance.
Unfortunately we have to accept that surveillance even at present relatively low levels of material fall far
short of perfection. Leakage of plutonium from a large breeder programme would be inevitable. A
breeder programme would therefore inevitably lead to widespread proliferation of nuclear weapons.
We shall return to the consequences of this later. It should also be noted that the Breeder development
programme of the late 20th century ended in catastrophically expensive failure everywhere it was tried. It
should be noted that even without breeder technology, nuclear energy can be used to produce nuclear
weapons. In fact, all nuclear weapons states have started with nuclear power programmes
Winfield et al 06 [Mark, Director Environmental Governance The Pembina Institute, Alison Jamison, Senior
Project Manager, Rich Wong, Eco-Efficiency Analyst, Paulina Czajkowski, Eco-Efficiency Analyst, Nuclear Power
in Canada: An Explanation of Risks, Impacts, and Sustainability, December 2006,
http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/Nuclear_web.pdf]
Concern has also been raised that long-term waste disposal sites could become the “plutonium mines of
the future,” raising longer-term proliferation issues. Plutonium in fresh spent fuel is “protected” by the
high radioactivity of the material. This radioactivity decays after some decades, whereupon separation of
plutonium from the fuel would become relatively simple.71
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Countries will use commercial nuclear as an excuse for a program and it causes high risk of
war.
Beyondnuclear.org, no date
(“Nuclear Weapons and the Link to Nuclear Power” Beyond Nuclear
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclearpower.html)
The U.S. and Russia continue to maintain at least 26,000 nuclear weapons between them, with close to
5,000 ready to launch within minutes. The consequences of such a launch, whether full scale or partial,
could still result in a nuclear winter, ending most life on earth as we know it. However, new studies have
shown that even a smaller-scale regional nuclear war could still change the climate dramatically,
decimating modern agriculture and starving billions. Such a war would affect populations far away
from the conflict and the climatic effects would be long-lasting.
Although there are only five recognized nuclear weapons states (the U.S., Russia, China, France and the
U.K.), and four unacknowledged ones (India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea), there are at least 32
additional countries that could develop nuclear weapons from their substantial supplies of uranium
and plutonium produced by civilian nuclear programs. Indeed, all four of the unofficial nuclear
weapons states developed their weapons from civilian nuclear programs.
The continued insistence on supplying the technlogy, materials and know-how for civilian nuclear
programs perpetuates the danger that nuclear weapons may also be developed - with speculation over
Iran a case in point.
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Shackelford 6
(Scott, PhD Candidate, Cambridge, Issues in Political Economy, Vol. 15, August 2006 )
With worldwide nuclear energy use on the increase especially in the developing world where security
precautions are more lax, experts at the United Nations have cited three primary growing security threats
related to this area. Among them, theft by terrorists of weapons-grade plutonium stripped out from
radioactive waste during reprocessing; an attack on a nuclear installation or transport convoy; and, as
suspected with Iran and North Korea, an attempt by countries developing a nuclear power sector to
build weapons with the same technology. “If you have more nuclear material in the world, you have a
higher proliferation risk—it's a truism,” said Alan McDonald, a nuclear expert at the IEA (Bennhold
2004). Yet, with demand for electricity increasing across the globe, he added, nuclear energy remains
important despite the risks. It has always been true that nuclear technology can be used to make weapons as
well as electricity, and one of the main ways that it does this are through breeder reactors. So-called
‘breeders’ were invented in the 1970’s to make reprocessing nuclear waste a 700 year problem instead of a
million-year waste impasse. However, the process was found to be hazardous and was boycotted in the
US for a number of base environmental and security concerns. Specifically, the processes involved
taking the spent nuclear fuel of Uranium 238, a fissionable material with only roughly half of its energy
production capacity spent, and through a refining process changing it in to Plutonium 239 (Brabsen
2005). This new material is then used to power a different type of reactor, thus creating a full-loop and
eliminating the need to store nuclear waste. Of course, when commercial nuclear power plants are
engineering large amounts of plutonium, there are nuclear weapon proliferation concerns that arise.
“Let us not forget that plutonium is the chief ingredient for basic nuclear weapons, and thus countries
involved in making it in mass quantities could intentionally or inadvertently lead to the spread of this
technology,” said Brabsen (Brabsen, 2005). Perhaps the greatest worry circulating in national defense
departments and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels is the development of
nuclear weapons on the back of civilian energy programs. This dilemma goes to the heart of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), of which the International Atomic Energy Agency is the guardian. The Treaty
on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons entered into force 35 years ago and has been successful at
defying predictions that today there would be as many as 50 nuclear-weapon states in the world. With 188
countries signing up, it is the most universally supported international treaty in history. In addition to nuclear
disarmament, the treaty also controls the proliferation of nuclear material and at the same time obliges
nuclear powers to offer nuclear technology to other countries for electricity generation. Given the grave perils
that nuclear proliferation poses for all states, the NPT has been a true cornerstone of global security (M2,
2005). On the contrary, as one senior diplomat at NATO put it: “You cannot artificially separate the
civilian from the military aspect -- everyone here is aware of that. As such, you also cannot separate the
debate on nuclear proliferation from the debate on alternative sources of energy,” (Bennhold, 2004). To
exemplify the dangers involved in nuclear proliferation, China and Pakistan signed a joint contract to supply
a reactor pressure vessel for the second phase of the Chashma Nuclear Power Station in Pakistan. China
Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation Deputy General Manager Huang Guojun said Pakistan had pledged that
technology would be used solely for peaceful purposes with no transferal to a third parties. Though, he also
admitted that “It is difficult to ignore the fact that nuclear technology has benefits in addition to its primary
function of electricity generation,” (Mihailescu, 2004). Thus, although there is a growing recognition as to
the dangers of non-proliferation, there could also be a willingness on the part of several countries to
fully exploit their burgeoning nuclear programs. Of course, in addition to non-proliferation concerns,
with an increasing number of nuclear power plants in the world the problem of nuclear waste also
takes on a new and pressing dimension. Some 600,000 tons of depleted uranium sits outside in aging
steel cylinders at the two inactive uranium enrichment plants at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Portsmouth,
Ohio, and the still active plant at Paducah, Kentucky. Every year some 2,000 pounds of radioactive material
is added to this total, most of which is dangerously radioactive radium-226 derived from spent fuel rods.
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Spencer`7Jack Spencer, Jack Spencer is the Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy at The Heritage Foundation's Roe Institute for Economic
Policy Studies. The Nuclear Renaissance: Ten Principles to Guide U.S. Policy September 26, 2007
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1640.cfm
Recognize that nuclear weapons are not the result of peaceful nuclear energy programs.
Nuclear energy critics often argue that the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation outweighs any potential
benefits of nuclear power. While civilian nuclear power has been used to clandestinely pursue
nuclear weapons programs in the past, there is no causal link between the two. As has been
demonstrated consistently throughout history, states act in their interests and generally
behave according to agreed norms only to the extent that doing so advances their national
objectives. Therefore, limiting the technology development of peaceful nations will not serve
to limit the threatening behavior of other nations. With very few exceptions, law-abiding
countries do not divert their energy programs for weaponry.
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Einhorn 7 [Robert J., Senior Advisor for National Security Advisory Group, International Security Programs,
CSIS, “Reducing Nuclear Threats and Preventing Nuclear Terrorism,” October,
http://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/news_11_07/NSAG_NuclearThreats_Oct07.pdf]
A world of increasing numbers of nuclear weapon states is not inevitable. Neither is a nuclear attack
by terrorists. Both can be prevented. But if we are to avoid today’s nuclear nightmares – as we avoided
the nuclear nightmare of the Cold War – the prevention of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism
will have to be an overriding U.S. national priority, and strong American leadership in mobilizing the
sustained, concerted efforts required of the international community will be indispensable.
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No impact – increasing the number of plants does not increase the risk of proliferation. It is
already inevitable.
Walsh 5 [Jim, Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, “Learning from Past Success: The NPT and the Future
of Non-proliferation,” http://www.wmdcommission.org/files/no41.pdf
While this position represents the extreme end of non-proliferation thinking, much of the underlying logic is
widely accepted, i.e., that the diffusion of technological know-how and the persistence of security threats
make proliferation inevitable, and no treaty can stop it. This is the same reasoning that provided the
premise for 1960s predictions of widespread proliferation. Even the Director General of the IAEA has
reportedly declared that “30 countries could have nuclear weapons within the next 10 to 20 years if
efforts do not improve.”16
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***Organized Crime***
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Transnational organized crime groups pose more of a threat to international financial markets as
the world economy becomes increasingly interdependent. Laundering billions of dollars in
organized crime money worsens national debt problems because the large sums of money are then
lost as tax revenue to that country's government. Russian organized crime groups are actively involved
in banking, according to FBI official James Moody, because public financial institutions are "the most vulnerable and lucrative target." The Russian Interior
Ministry has estimated that organized crime "controls" most of Russia's 200 banks and half of its financial capital
("control" ranges from ownership and operation to influence over bank decisions through threats of
violence). U.S. and Western businesses in Russia, in particular, are frequent targets of extortion, robberies, threats and
murder. Security costs for these businesses (especially physical protection, extra protection of cargo, and forced payments to gangsters for "protection,")
often consume more than 30% of profits. The fear generated combined with organized crime
monopolies in certain industries, such as the agriculture and construction markets in Columbia and Venezuela, damages the overall
economy because it discourages legitimate, innovative businesses and entrepreneurs (foreign and domestic)
from entering the market.
Extinction
Bearden`2k (Bearden, Tom. “Zero-Point Energy, Gauge Theory, Scientific Politics.” December 29, 2000.
http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/042500%20-%20modified.htm.)
The earth will increasingly become a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode. So about a year or two ahead of the
"full economic collapse", we will be in a period of such increased conflicts between nations, and with those conflicts increasing in
intensity and sophistication. According to Defense Secretary Cohen, some 25 nations now have weapons of mass destruction (WMD) such as nuclear missiles, nuclear
bombers and submarines, and/or chemical weapons, biological weapons, etc. and more nations are acquiring them. The Secretary also alluded to electromagnetic weapons of great power, being
used to engineer the weather, initiate earthquakes, etc.—almost certainly referring to the longitudinal EM wave interferometry weapons now possessed by seven or eight nations. Here is his exact
with the crumbling well underway and rising, it is inevitable
statement: (Continued…) Just prior to the terrible collapse of the World economy,
that some of the weapons of mass destruction will be used by one or more nations on others. An interesting result then
—as all the old strategic studies used to show—is that everyone will fire everything as fast as possible against their perceived
enemies. The reason is simple: When the mass destruction weapons are unleashed at all, the only chance a nation has to survive is to desperately try to destroy its perceived enemies before
they destroy it. So there will erupt a spasmodic unleashing of the long range missiles, nuclear arsenals, and biological
warfare arsenals of the nations as they feel the economic collapse, poverty, death, misery, etc. a bit earlier. The ensuing
holocaust is certain to immediately draw in the major nations also, and literally a hell on earth will result. In short, we will get the great
Armageddon we have been fearing since the advent of the nuclear genie. Right now, my personal estimate is that we have about a 99% chance of that scenario or some modified version of it,
resulting. (Continued…) Now my military background shows. In my view, the mass destruction weapons and terrorist teams are already sited and waiting in our population centers. The
Unless the increasing energy
increasing stress on nations that will result from the increasing energy crisis and oil crisis will eventually push the nations of the world right over the edge.
economic pressure stayed, we are now approaching the unleashing of a total mass destruction war, one in which
crisis is blunted and the
the survival not only of America but of all civilization—and the biosphere itself—is at stake. (Continued…) Accordingly, what time I have left will be spent on energy, energy,
energy. Ethically, once one sees the great train that is rapidly bearing down upon us, one must do everything in
one's power to stop it and derail it. It must be done for our children, and our children's children. Not only for the survival of we Americans, but also for the
survival of all the other peoples of the world, and of this fragile biosphere as well.
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Given the enormous profits organized crime makes from their traditional criminal activities, such as
narcotics or people smuggling, nuclear trafficking may not be its first choice.[19] Nevertheless, it can be
tried as a sideline activity, if the criminals believe it can be profitable. Today organized crime does not
limit itself to single forms of illegal activity, but engages in multi-crime and deals in anything and
everything that can bring profit. Besides, criminal networks can resort to nuclear trafficking upon a
specific order by a potential buyer. It is the latter scenario that raises the biggest concern among international
experts due to its high plausibility and low chances of detection.
Nowadays, serious crime, like serious capitalism, requires globalization. Tony Soprano-style protection
rackets are old news, and generally stop at national borders. But trading in contraband goods -- be it
drugs, arms, oil or human beings -- inevitably means setting up international relationships and
connections. Above all, the big-time criminal needs a way to launder his loot, and there has never been a
global climate more obliging for bad men who want to make dirty money look clean. The reasons for this
outrageous blossoming of so many flowers of evil are, according to Glenny, essentially twofold. "The
collapse of ... the Soviet Union is the single most important event prompting the exponential growth of
organized crime around the world in the past two decades," he writes. A key event in that breakdown was
the bizarrely selective deregulation of the Soviet economy. The officials under Boris Yeltsin who executed
this "reform," for reasons not entirely clear, liberalized the prices of everything but Russia's natural
resources: oil, gas, diamonds and metals. Those lucky enough to get ahold of these commodities at the
artificially low, state-mandated prices could turn around and sell them at market rate to the rest of the world.
The result was the overnight creation of a generation of Russian oligarchs and "quite simply the
grandest larceny in history."
US Not Key - Organized crime fueled by other countries such as China, Malaysia and
Pakistan
Tripathi 8 (Rahul, The Times of India
[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Delhi/Kattas_to_Colts_Blame_the_spiralling_crime_graph_on_unlicensed_arms
/articleshow/3186527.cms] Kattas to Colts: Blame the spiralling crime graph on unlicensed arms/ July 2, 2008)
An illegal arms bazaar is thriving in the Capital. From the simple desi kattas to the sophisticated
smuggled guns from China, Malaysia, Italy and Pakistan - everything is available for a price, even on
rent. According to the police, illegal weapons outnumber the legal ones by more than eight times in the
city and more than 90% of crimes in Delhi are committed using unlicensed guns. Sources say these easily
obtainable weapons are contributing to the rising incidents of shooting in public places. Last week,
Priya complex shoppers were stunned when a drunk man shot his girlfriend in public following a tiff. The
man, said to be from Gurgaon, is absconding. Last Friday a shootout at a crowded Ashok Vihar market
claimed the life of a 48-year-old shopkeeper selling car accessories. The accused Rohit Srivastava (21) and a
teenager arrested on July 1 were found to be in possession of a countrymade pistol, which was used in the
murder.
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First, while there is plenty of information about conventional crime, we don't know much about
organized crime. Thousands of books have been written about the subject, none with robust evidence
about the size, shape and trends of organized crime, its impact on society, its relations with business
and politics. Second, while the criminal economy is estimated at several percentage points of the
world's gross product (that is about $30 trillions), this is anecdotal: in reality, we really have no idea
even how to measure it.
If the Russian crime wave of the late '80s and early '90s coincided with economic recession, then the
latest rise is taking place against a background of strong economic growth. That may well provide a
clue as to why the crime rate is shooting up again. As ever more Russians acquire expensive modern
gadgets such as cars, laptops, and mobile phones, there is no doubt a lot more around to steal, and more
incentive to report crimes.
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***Accidents***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 134
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NP Bad - Accidents
Nuke Power isn’t worth the high accident risk-They’re not safe, and each reactor is a
potential Chernobyl
Greenpeace`3(Greenpeace, environmental watchdogs, The Probability of a Nuclear Accident
May 20, 2003, http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/the-probability-of-a-nuclear-a)
The public should not be lulled into a false sense of security by the mere fact that the U.S. nuclear
power industry has not melted down a reactor since Three Mile Island. Operating without a meltdown
for a finite period of time does not mean that safety is adequate. Again, Mr. Lewis, of the NRC's
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, recognized this fallacy. Mr. Lewis stated that: The general
argument that the fact that one has operated safely for a finite period of time proves that the safety
level is adequate is just not statistically right, because there isn't that much history in the industry. And
it's a trap. Because other agencies, for example, people have used the argument that they had 24
successful Shuttle flights, to show the level of safety was adequate. And in retrospect, after one disaster,
it turned out not to be. The Soviets, after Chernobyl, suddenly discovered that the level of safety they
had before Chernobyl was not adequate. But the day before Chernobyl they would have said it was
adequate on the basis of operating history..So it is a general trap, a psychological trap, to believe that
because something has not happened, you are doing just fine. 42 The NRC and the nuclear industry have
already fallen into the trap. The NRC and the NEI have already begun to deregulate nuclear safety
regulations, including those dealing with the security of nuclear reactors, based upon the limited
operating history of reactors in the U.S. The risk posed by nuclear power plants was significant before
September 11th . When we take into consideration the terrorist threat to nuclear power plants their
continued operation is unacceptable. As NRC Commissioner Asselstine pointed out, U.S. nuclear reactors
are capable of releasing enormous amounts of radiation into the environment. Since each reactor has
the potential for a Chernobyl sized release of radiation, it is important to recognize the consequences of
such an accident. In 1990, the Wall Street Journal reported on a study conducted by a Soviet nuclear
industry economist on the continuing economic disaster of the Chernobyl accident. The study found that
the cost of the disaster had originally been underestimated. Yuri Koryakin, chief economist of the
Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering, the institute that originally designed the
Chernobyl reactor, found that the accident may cost 20 times more than Moscow's original estimates. By
2000, the report estimated that the Chernobyl accident would cost the country between 170 and 215
billion rubles from contaminated farm land, lost electricity production and other economic fall-out.
The accident contaminated approximately 31,000 square kilometers or 12,400 square miles. When the
Wall Street Journal article was published in 1990, the contaminated land was considered a total loss for at
least two generations. 43 The Wall Street Journal article concludes that, "The total bill suggests that the
Soviet Union may have been better off if they had never begun building nuclear reactors in the first
place." 44 The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) attempt to down play the impact of the disaster. According to
NEI: The accident destroyed the reactor in Unit 4, killed 31 people (one immediately and 30 within
three months) and contaminated large areas of Belarus (formerly Byelorussia), Ukraine and the Russian
Federation. In addition, one person has subsequently died from a confirmed diagnosis of acute radiation
syndrome, and three children have died from thyroid cancer. 45 The consequences of the accident are severely
understated by NEI. According to an article published by the Associated Press the consequences of the
Chernobyl disaster are "grimly visible." an estimated 4,000 deaths among those who took part in the
hasty and poorly organized cleanup; 70,000 people disabled by radiation, according to government
figures. Overall, about 3.4 million of Ukraine's 50 million people, including some 1.26 million children,
are considered affected by Chernobyl, and many may not show the affects for years. 46 The grim
reality of the Chernobyl accident will be with the people of the former Soviet Union for generations.
Shutdown Before Meltdown The United States can avoid the next nuclear accident by phasing out the
remaining 103 commercial nuclear reactors. Rather than coddling the nuclear industry with more
taxpayer subsidies and less regulation the federal government should replace nuclear reactors with
energy efficiency and other clean, renewable sources of electricity.
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NP Bad - Accidents
With nuclear energy accidents like Chernobyl are virtually inevitable
Gunter &Gunter`5 (Paul and Linda, NIRS staff, NIRS Opinion/Editorial May 23, 2005 [NIRS= Nuclear Information and
Resource service] http://www.nirs.org/columnist/chernobylmay2320005.pdf)
Last month, the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl atomic reactor disaster in Ukraine slipped by with scarcely
a murmur in the media. Instead, headlines were trumpeting the new nuclear “renaissance,” as the Bush
administration flaunts its pork-laden energy bill and the industry crows about “clean, green, nuclear power.”
In attempting to muscle its way into the climate change argument, with a barrage of misinformation
and flawed statistics, the nuclear industry is conveniently ducking the very real horrors that would
ensue if one of their reactors suffered an accident or attack resulting in a release to the environment of
its radioactive contents. And the weight of scientific evidence suggests such an outcome is not only
possible but probable. Since 9/11 the security landscape has changed forever. We know that an attack on
a U.S. reactor was in the original al Qaeda plans and likely will be again. The 103 operating U.S.
reactors are all now reaching the end of their life spans, meaning they are more prone to technical
problems that could lead to accident. And despite their geriatric status, older reactors are subject to
fewer safety checks and are run hotter and longer, leading to cracking and embrittled parts vulnerable
to failure. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), congressionally charged with safeguarding the
public, has instead capitulated to the industry’s profit-margin priorities. Added to that, older reactors
contain radiation inventories far larger than the infant reactor at Chernobyl that had operated just 2
years before the catastrophe. And of course both the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents were a
result of human error, the one wild card that can never been entirely eliminated.
An accident like Chernobyl can give more than seven million people 800 different cancers
Gunter &Gunter`5 (Paul and Linda, NIRS staff, NIRS Opinion/Editorial May 23, 2005 [NIRS= Nuclear Information and
Resource service] http://www.nirs.org/columnist/chernobylmay2320005.pdf)
Also forgotten amidst the Washington pundits’ pro-nuclear pronouncements are the tragic
consequences so vividly seen today in the children of Chernobyl. These are young lives forever altered
by the birth defects they inherited from their parents who had the misfortune to live close to the
reactor or downwind of its toxic fallout cloud. Many have been abandoned in orphanages. More than
seven million people in the former Soviet Republics of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are believed to have
suffered medical problems and genetic damage as the direct result of Chernobyl. In Ukraine alone,
more than 2.32 million people, including 452,000 children have been treated for radiation-linked illnesses,
including thyroid and blood cancers and cancerous growths according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
New findings reported last November in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health published by
the British Medical Association concluded that more than 800 cancers in Sweden are being attributed to
the ever-widening impact of the “Chernobyleffect.” It is increasingly disingenuous of the nuclear industry
to distance itself from a potential catastrophic accident in the United States. Considerable evidence exists that
currently operating U.S. reactor containments can also fail during a severe accident. A 1990 U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) study of risks associated with severe reactor accidents
concluded that none of the five different US designs it analyzed were capable of remaining intact
during all severe accident scenarios.
NP Bad - Accidents
Accident would cost $600billion
Beyond Nuclear, no date.
(Nuclear Power hinders Progress on Climate Change, http://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclearpower.html)
Accidents: New reactors, like old ones, are at their most vulnerable to accidents. Yet in the event of an
accident, existing evacuation plans have been found to be unrealistic. Furthermore, the Price-Anderson
Act ensures that the liability of an accident to a utility is capped at $10.8 billion. A serious reactor accident
could cost as much as $600 billion, the balance of which would likely be paid by taxpayers.
NP Bad - Accidents
While US designs use water to slow and cool the atomic chain reaction in the reactor core rather than the graphite absorption model of the infamous reactor
many US reactors continue to operate with serious
at Chernobyl that exploded and burned in a radioactive fire on April 26, 1986,
design flaws and in violation of federal safety requirements today. One top safety concern is General Electric’s 24
antiquated MARK I boiling water reactors that store highly radioactive and thermally hot nuclear fuel in densely packed storage pools located six to ten
makes the GE
stories up in the reactor building outside and atop the primary containment structure for the reactor vessel. The design feature
BWR design vulnerable to rupture by an accidental heavy load drop or penetration by a deliberate
terrorist strike. While nuclear power proponents argue that there is no comparison between Chernobyl-style RBMK reactors and western reactors
with the claim that the Soviet reactor had no containment, the containment structure for the MARK I is known to be a
fundamentally flawed design. In the words of a former chief nuclear safety director for the NRC Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation,
“You’ll find something like a 90 percent chance of failure” of the Mark I containment if challenged by a
significant accident.119 The Mark I design was later back-fit to give operators the option to deliberately vent radiation from the containment
during an accident in order to save the reactor itself. However, despite these significant safety issues, the NRC is extending the operating licenses for these
Other known and
fatally flawed designs and approving extensive power increases for aged reactors under hasty and superficial technical reviews.
long standing design flaws make the boiling water reactor fleet and other US reactor designs prone to
early containment failure in the event of an accident or successful attack. Continued lack of NRC enforcement action
on long standing safety violations increases the risk of the occurrence of a significant accident involving reactor core damage and a catastrophic release of
long standing and widespread violations of fire protection law by a
radioactivity to the environment. The example of
majority of nuclear power plant operators is disturbing. A fire set by a worker checking for air leaks
along electrical cable trays with an open candle flame at Alabama’s Browns Ferry nuclear power station
on March 22, 1975 nearly caused a catastrophic radioactive accident. In just 15 minutes, the fire
destroyed 1500 cables, more than 600 of which were vital to the control of the reactor and its
shutdown. As a result, in 1980 NRC promulgated new regulations for fire protection to assure that no single fire could knock out the control room’s
ability to safely shut the reactor down in the event of fire. The law now requires that for areas in the plant where redundant safe shutdown electrical circuits
appear in the same fire zone, qualified design features are required to protect safe shutdown cable functionality through rated time/temperature fire barrier
systems or minimum separation used in conjunction with automated fire detection and suppression systems.120 In 1989, NRC was notified that the most
widely deployed fire barrier system for such purposes in US reactors, Thermo-Lag 330-1, could not be relied upon to protect safe reactor shutdown in the
event of a significant fire. By 1992, NRC declared the system inoperable for 89 reactor units.121 NRC staff and the nuclear industry engaged in a six-year
dialogue of technical meetings to bring operators back into compliance with fire protection law. By 1998, most of the industry had entered into agreements
with NRC to upgrade inoperable fire barrier systems. However, 17 operators for 24 reactor units that had failed to enter into timely resolution were issued
orders by the federal safety agency to bring their reactors into fire safety compliance by 2000. Subsequent inspections from 2000 through 2002 revealed that
a substantially large number of reactor operators ignored their agreed-upon Corrective Action Programs. Instead many operators substituted unapproved and
largely unanalyzed “operator manual actions” rather than fix the bogus fire barriers. In the event of a significant fire, control room operators would instead
allow unprotected electrical cables to be destroyed by the fire and send station personnel to remote plant locations to manually operate the end piece
components (valves, circuit breakers, fuses, etc.) that were required by law to be protected for control room operation. Many of these manual actions would
require workers to run a potentially hazardous gauntlet (smoke, fire, radiation, and possible attackers) with keys, tools, ladders and respirators in a heroic
effort to save the reactor from meltdown. While design features such as fire barriers or minimum cable separation requirements can be qualified and
inspected, manual actions raise a host of uncertainties on human reliability. There is unquestionably no equivalence between maintaining qualified passive
The industry efforts have undermined reasonable assurance that
design fire protection features and human actions.
vital reactor safety functions can be achieved before a meltdown could occur. While the agreements and orders for
fire protection compliance are still in effect, NRC so far has refused to take any enforcement action for safety violations going back to 1992. Instead, the
nuclear industry and NRC are seeking to amend the fire protection law to circumvent the requirement that prioritizes qualified physical fire protection
features by substituting wholesale exemptions that rely upon these dubious operator manual actions.122 Such regulatory maneuvers would codify a
significant reduction in the defense-in-depth philosophy and set back the fire protection code for nuclear power stations to the days before the near
catastrophic Browns Ferry fire. In fact, an investigation by Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) found that the Browns Ferry-1 reactor
restarted in May 2007, after a 22-year shutdown for a host of design safety problems—still does not comply with federal fire protection regulations put into
place because of its near-catastrophic fire in 1975. Despite spending nearly $2 billion to bring the reactor back on line, the Tennessee Valley Authority
ignored fixing violations for the protection of safe shutdown electrical circuits and instead adopted the dubious operator manual actions. The NRC gave its
OK for the restart of the reactor under “enforcement discretion” for more than 100 violations with the federal fire safety law that the reactor was responsible
for creating.123
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AT: Accidents
Nuclear fears unfounded; they’re based on old myths. The benefits outweigh the risks.
Prefer our ev, it’s comparative
Fortune, ’08 (The Case for Nukes, June 9, Vol. 157, Iss. 12; pg. 22. Proquest)
One uncomfortable way to mitigate the energy crisis has been under our nose since the 1950s: nuclear
energy. It's one of the cleanest and most efficient alternatives to coal- and natural-gas-based electricity
production, and it's responsible for less than 20% of domestic electricity production. The most recent
numbers (2006) indicate that coal-based production was the largest contributor, at 48%. Increasingly
expensive petroleum and natural gas account for 22%. All three are replaceable.
It may not be fashionable to suggest that the French know what they're doing with regard to anything but
wine and cheese, but spend some time in Provence and note the remarkably clean air and cheap electricity,
75% of which is produced by nuclear power plants. Most of the plants were built after the 1970s oil shocks
that sent France's economy into a tailspin because it was almost completely dependent on foreign oil, as we
are now. Nuclear energy doesn't produce the air pollution that burning coal does, and even waste
products are recyclable, though it hasn't been done thanks to an also potentially shortsighted Carter-
era decision to ban it over fears of nuclear terrorism. Although the ban has been reversed, the fears
still linger. But irrational fear of improbable safety breaches is responsible for most opposition to
nuclear power in this country. The unlikely culprit? Pop culture. We've seen The China Syndrome, and
we worry that nuclear-reactor employees may be bumbling Homer Simpsons, capable of accidentally
pushing the red button. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island--the former of which killed 36 people and
the latter of which killed none--have become so outsized in the American imagination that our
perception of actual risk has been completely distorted. We're willing to tolerate the health risks and
environmental repercussions of other fuels to avoid the infinitesimally small and comically improbable
possibility of a catastrophic accident that resembles something out of a 1979 Jane Fonda movie, the
likes of which have never happened in the history of nuclear power.
Three Mile Island proves the safety mechs for NP plants, no injury or death occurred
Hiserodt, aerospace engineer, 08 (Ed, “Myths About Nuclear Energy”, The New American. April 30, Vol.
23, Iss. 9; pg. 18, 6 pgs, Proquest)
TRUTH: The great nightmare associated with nuclear energy is the "meltdown." Anti-nuclear activists
love to point to a scenario in which a reactor would lose its coolant allowing the fuel rods to melt
through the reactor vessel, through several feet of high-strength concrete, and through hundreds of feet
of earth till reaching an aquifer whereupon a steam explosion would ensue. Consequently, they eagerly
seized upon the accident at Three Mile Island as the embodiment of all their fears - or at least of the
fears they wanted the public to have.
The problem was that Three Mile Island was a demonstration of the safety of nuclear plants. Beginning
at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, a series of mishaps resulted in the partial meltdown of the reactor core. By
7:45 a.m. that morning, according to the Smithsonian Institute, "a molten mass of metal and fuel - some
twenty tons in all - is spilling into the bottom of the reactor vessel." Yet that reactor containment vessel
worked as designed and by 9:00 a.m. the danger was past: "The reactor vessel holds firm, and the
molten uranium, immersed in water, now gradually begins to cool," the Smithsonian Institute says in its
timeline of events at the damaged reactor. Perhaps the final word on Three Mile Island comes from
Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. In October 2006, Moore wrote in Popular Mechanics: "At the time,
no one noticed Three Mile Island was a success story; the concrete containment structure prevented
radiation from escaping into the environment. There was no injury or death among the public or
nuclear workers."
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AT: Accidents
A Chernobyl repeat is impossible due to better safety standards
Hiserodt, aerospace engineer, 08 (Ed, “Myths About Nuclear Energy”, The New American. April 30, Vol.
23, Iss. 9; pg. 18, 6 pgs, Proquest)
It is common to mention Chernobyl and Three Mile Island at the same time in debate over nuclear safety, but
the two events are substantially different. Chernobyl was the feared "worst case scenario" envisioned by
critics of nuclear energy. Whereas at Three Mile Island the nuclear chain reaction was stopped in the first
10 seconds of the event, at Chernobyl the chain reaction continued well into the accident. Although
there is almost nothing flammable in a U.S. power reactor, Chernobyl's was constructed from graphite,
a form of carbon that is difficult to ignite, but burns with a very hot flame once ignited. Not only that,
but Chernobyl did not even have a containment structure for the reactor, unlike American plants that
are built with containment buildings designed to withstand the impact of a jumbo jet. Because there
was no containment vessel enclosing Chernobyl's poorly designed RBMK-type reactors, when the
plant exploded, chunks of radioactive material were ejected from the annihilated plant and exposed to
the environment.
And yet, the aftermath of Chernobyl was not as bad as many expected it to be. According to the United
Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), "The accident caused the
deaths within a few days or weeks of 30 power plant employees and firemen (including 28 deaths that
were due to radiation exposure)." No one wants to see loss of life, but as large industrial incidents go. this
was relatively unexceptional. The 1984 gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killed at least 3,000 people and,
according to some estimates, may have caused the death of 15,000. At Chernobyl, by contrast, fears of mass casualties from
the effects of radiation have not been realized. According to the UN, "There have been eleven deaths between 1987 and
1998 among confirmed acute radiation sickness survivors.... There were three cases of coronary heart disease, two cases of
myelodysplastic syndrome, two cases of liver cirrhosis, and one death each of lung gangrene, lung tuberculosis and fat embolism. One
patient who had been classified with Grade II acute radiation sickness died in 1998 from acute myeloid leukaemia."
Though tragic, these deaths do not amount to the devastation of much of Russia and Western Europe that
was predicted. Among the broader population, even under the microscope of a media that seeks out
disasters, the only detectable heath effect was an increase in childhood thyroid cancer. But some have
pointed out that this might be an anomaly caused by extra screening after the accident. If you screen more
children every year, you will detect more cases of thyroid cancer, Chernobyl notwithstanding. It's noteworthy that Russia's childhood
thyroid cancers did not go off the scale. In Finland, 2.4 percent of children had thyroid cancer - 90 times that of all persons in the
Bryansk area of Russia who were less than 18 in 1986 - at the time of the accident.
The most detrimental effect of Chernobyl was the forced relocation of residents. Ironically, the fallout
from the accident emitted less radioactivity than the local soil.
***Natural Disasters***
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***Environment***
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Water contamination negatively affects multiple species, including plankton, and can
destroy biodiversity.
Winfield et al 06 [Mark, Director Environmental Governance The Pembina Institute, Alison Jamison, Senior
Project Manager, Rich Wong, Eco-Efficiency Analyst, Paulina Czajkowski, Eco-Efficiency Analyst, Nuclear Power
in Canada: An Explanation of Risks, Impacts, and Sustainability, December 2006,
http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/Nuclear_web.pdf]
Surface water contamination has wide-ranging negative impacts on aquatic biota within the
contaminated water body.65,66 A 2004 Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) Priority
Substances List (PSL) toxicology assessment concluded that the effluents released from historical
uranium mining and milling operations in Ontario, and both historic and current operations in northern
Saskatchewan, particularly those containing uranium and uranium compounds, were toxic to benthic
invertebrates, mink, muskrat, plankton, and fish.67 The same study concluded that radionuclides from
uranium mining and milling were being released into the environment in quantities or conditions that
have either had or may have an immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment and its
biological diversity.68 Studies are ongoing to further understand the impacts of these contaminants,
including the potential effects of milling effluent releases (specifically metals) on the health of native fish
populations, and the impacts of mine effluents on aquatic invertebrates.69
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AT: Pollution
Nuclear power plants emit less radiation than coal plants, they’re harmless
Hiserodt, aerospace engineer, 08 (Ed, “Myths About Nuclear Energy”, The New American. April 30, Vol.
23, Iss. 9; pg. 18, 6 pgs, Proquest)
MYTH: Nuclear plants emit dangerous radiation
TRUTH: Have you ever known anyone killed in a car accident? I have - two uncles, a roommate, and a
girlfriend from college. How about anyone killed from radiation, or maybe even injured slightly? If
you're like me and nearly all other Americans, you can't name a single person you know who has been
injured by radiation.
The fact is, nuclear power plants emit less radiation during normal operation than do coal-fired power
plants. In an article published in 1993 in Oak Ridge National Laboratory Review, ORNL physicist Alex
Gabbard pointed out "that coal-fired power plants throughout the world are the major sources of
radioactive materials released to the environment." According to Gabbard, radiation from coal
combustion "is 100 times that from nuclear plants." Yet even at that level, radiation from coal is
completely negligible. Nuclear reactors emit much less radiation than coal-fired power plants.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission limits radiation at the plant boundary to 5 millirems per year. (It seldom
gets anywhere near that.) If you were to stand unclothed at the boundary for 120 years, you would
receive as much radiation as a person living on the Colorado plateau does in one year from natural
background radiation.
Moreover, the U.S. capitol building has long been known to emit too much radiation to be licensed as a
nuclear power plant.
Consider too that unlike coal- or oil-fired plants, nuclear power plants do not have smokestacks
spewing pollutants into the atmosphere. In the case of nuclear plants, the wastes are contained within
the plant itself. Often mistaken for smokestacks, some nuclear power plants, like some coal- or oil-fired
plants, have cooling towers that emit water vapor.
Finally, it is important to keep in mind that radiation is all around us every day. According to the
Department of Energy, the average American receives 300 millirems of radiation each year from natural
sources, but that amount is higher in some places. For instance, in Denver, Colorado, because of the
proximity of the Rocky Mountains and because there is less atmosphere overhead to protect from cosmic
rays, residents receive almost double the national average background radiation. I wonder, does the EPA
know about this? Perhaps Coloradans should be evacuated!
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***Human Health***
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Lendman`6 (Stephen, contributor to Global Research, Global Research.org, BOOK REVIEW Nuclear Power Is Not the
Answer, by Helen Caldicott, August 7, 2006, http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2908)
The overall cost of nuclear energy rarely, if ever, includes the very significant toll it takes on human
health. Those paying the price include uranium miners, nuclear industry workers and potentially
everyone living close to these operations. Also affected are residents in areas close to nuclear power
plants that routinely or accidently emit toxic radioactive releases that can cause illness, disease and
death over time. Chicago is a prime example of what may go wrong. The city is surrounded by 11 nuclear power plants, many of them
aging and all of them with histories of safety violations caused by aging and shoddy maintenance. Even if accident free, these facilities
(and all others everywhere) discharge enough radiation daily in their normal operations to contaminate the food we eat (even organic
food), water we drink and air we breathe into our lungs. But if a core meltdown ever occurs at any of these plants (a
real possibility no one is prepared for) and Chicago is downwind of the fallout, the city and suburbs
alone would become uninhabitable forever and would have to be evacuated quickly with all possessions
left behind and lost (including people's homes) except for what could be carried in suitcases or family
vehicles. Two other groups especially also have and continue to pay an overwhelming and largely
hidden price from the toxic effects of radiation poisoning - the people of Iraq and US military force
invaders and occupiers who now serve there, have served or will in the future as well as those participating in the 1991
Gulf war. Most of them have potentially been exposed to the deadly effects of so-called depleted uranium (DU) poisoning because of the
extensive use of DU munitions by the US military in both Iraq conflicts. These weapons were first developed for the Navy in 1968 and
tested by Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur war under US supervision. Except for that test, they were never before used by any country
prior to the US Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Since then, the US has used them freely, routinely and with deadly consequences to
those affected by their fallout. DU is part of the radioactive waste resulting from the enrichment process used
to produce enriched uranium fuel for nuclear reactors. When the Pentagon discovered that solid
"dense metal" (1.7 times the density of lead) DU projectiles in all forms (missiles, bombs, shells and
bullets) greatly increased their ability to penetrate and destroy a target, they knew they had a new
technology they could use advantageously in combat and now have done so for the last 15 years in four
wars. Despite their effectiveness as a weapon, however, DU munitions have a serious and deadly side
effect. In all their forms, they're radioactive and chemically toxic after striking, penetrating and
incinerating inside a target after which they aerosolize in a fine spray which then contaminates the air,
soil and water around and beyond the target area. The toxic residue is permanent and those ingesting this ceramic
uranium oxide have a permanent dose that potentially can cause many diseases including cancer, leukemia, birth defects and ultimately
death or at least a shorter, more painful life. No one has kept track of the precise toll DU poisoning has had on the Iraqis although it's
known the cancer rate in the country is far higher now than before 1991. But much is known about how DU toxicity has affected the US
military who served in the Gulf war. Thirty percent or more of them are now on some kind of disability or have
died from a serious illness likely the result of their military service in the Gulf. We're also just beginning to
learn that those serving in Iraq since March, 2003 are reporting disturbing symptoms. Over time, it's likely they'll multiply
greatly, affect a greater number of our forces than those serving in the Gulf war because of longer and repeated deployments to the
region and eventually cause an even greater number of serious illnesses and deaths because the DU weapons now used contain
plutonium, neptunium and the highly radioactive uranium isotope U-236. A UK Atomic Energy Authority 1991 study found these latter
two isotopes were 100,000 times more dangerous than the U-238 used earlier in DU munitions. By any interpretation of the appropriate
Hague and Geneva Conventions banning the use of all chemical, biological or any other "poison or poisoned weapons" in war, the US
use of DU munitions constitutes a war crime that has and will continue to take an immense and tragic toll on those individuals exposed
to them. The danger to human health from the use of nuclear power in any form is unavoidable even
under the best of circumstances outside of a war zone. But whenever serious accidents happen, as they
have and will again, the consequences can be calamitous. The link between radiation exposure and
disease is irrefutable dependent only on the amount of cumulative exposure over a long enough period
of time. Dr. Caldicott explains that "If a regulatory gene is biochemically altered by radiation exposure,
the cell will begin to incubate cancer, during a 'latent period of carcinogenesis,' lasting from two to
sixty years." As little as a single gene mutation can eventually turn out to be fatal and too often is. No
amount of radiation exposure is safe, and it's thought that 80% of known types of cancers are
environmentally caused by such exposure combined with the potentially carcenogenic effects of about 80,000 different
inadequately or untested chemicals in common use acting synergistically in our bodies to harm us. But just the combined effects of
routine allowable radiation from nuclear power plants, uranium mining and milling operations, uranium enrichment, and fuel fabrication
can be devastating to all those exposed to any of their effects. Add to that the insoluble problem of radioactive waste
disposal/storage and the certainty of devastating nuclear accidents, it's no exaggeration to say the
human species is playing an insane game of nuclear Russian roulette it can't win and that will
eventually have a disastrous and possibly fatal ending if we can't stop it in time.
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Hardert`6 (Ronald A, ; International Journal of Humanities and Peace, Vol. 22, 2006. Questia Database Recent
Developments in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle)
The prevailing ethic promoted by the utilities says that nuclear power is "emission-free." The truth is
quite different. Nuclear power stations systematically release small, but measurable, amounts of
radiation. And, even very low doses pose a risk of cancer over a person's lifetime, according to the
National Academy of Sciences. The Academy, therefore, is now concerned about radiation levels allowed at
abandoned reactors and other nuclear sites. Some anti-nuclear advocates argue that stringent regulations are
needed when cleaning up abandoned nuclear sites and considering health risks near nuclear power plants.
Thus, there is virtually no radiation dose that is completely safe. In connection with the above findings, it
must be noted that cancer, not heart disease, is now the leading cause of death in America. And, for the
first time in U.S. history, those younger than 85 years will die of cancer before any other cause. How
many more byproducts of modern civilization will we tolerate before we say, "No more?" Clearly,
governmental agencies are failing to protect public health here and abroad.
Pitman`5 (Sean D., M.D. Genticist, DNA Mutation Rates and Evolution August, 2005,
http://naturalselection.0catch.com/Files/dnamutationrates.html)
Since mutations are the only possible source of novel genomic function in the evolution of living things, we should consider a few facts
about these mutations. Mutations are thought to be purely random events causes by errors of replication and maintenance over time.
They occur anywhere in the entire genome in a fairly random fashion with each generation. Given this information, lets consider how
these mutations would build up and what effect, if any, they would have on a human lineage. Newer research suggests a detrimental
mutation rate (Ud) of 1 to 3 per person per generation with at least some scientists (Nachmann and Crowell, 2000) favoring at least 3 or
more.30 Since detrimental mutations outnumber beneficial mutations by at least 1,000 to 1, it seems like the build up of
detrimental mutations in a population might lead toward extinction. 34,36 Nachmann and Crowell detail the
perplexing situation at hand in the following conclusion from their fairly recent paper on human mutation rates:
The high
deleterious mutation rate in humans presents a paradox. If mutations interact multiplicatively, the genetic load
associated with such a high U [detrimental mutation rate] would be intolerable in species with a low
rate of reproduction [like humans and apes etc.] . . . The reduction in fitness (i.e., the genetic load) due
to deleterious mutations with multiplicative effects is given by 1 - e -U (Kimura and Moruyama 1966). For U = 3, the average
fitness is reduced to 0.05, or put differently, each female would need to produce 40 offspring for 2 to
survive and maintain the population at constant size. This assumes that all mortality is due to selection and so the
actual number of offspring required to maintain a constant population size is probably higher. The problem can be mitigated somewhat
by soft selection or by selection early in development (e.g., in utero). However, many mutations are unconditionally
deleterious and it is improbable that the reproductive potential on average for human females can
approach 40 zygotes. This problem can be overcome if most deleterious mutations exhibit synergistic epistasis; this is, if each
additional mutation leads to a larger decrease in relative fitness. In the extreme, this gives rise to truncation selection in which all
individuals carrying more than a threshold number of mutations are eliminated from the population. While extreme truncation selection
seems unrealistic [the death of all those with a detrimental mutational balance], the results presented here indicate that some form of
positive epistasis among deleterious mutations is likely.30 Nachmann and Crowell find the situation a very puzzling one. How does one
get rid of all the bad mutations faster than they are produced? Does their hypothesis of “positive epistasis†adequately explain how
detrimental mutations can be cleared faster than they are added to a population? If the functional effects of mutations were increased in
a multiplicative instead of additive fashion, would fewer individuals die than before? As noted above, even if every detrimental
mutation caused the death of its owner, the reproductive burden of the survivors would not diminish, but would remain the same. For
example, lets say that all those with at least three detrimental mutations die before reproducing. The population average would soon
hover just above 3 deleterious mutation rates. Over 95% of each subsequent generation would have 3 or more deleterious mutations as
compared with the original "neutral" population. The death rate would increase dramatically. In order to keep
up, the reproductive rates of those surviving individuals would have to increase in proportion to the
increased death rate. The same thing would eventually happen if the death line were drawn at 100, 500, 1000, 10000 or more
deleterious mutations. The only difference would be the length of time it would take a given population to build up a lethal number of
deleterious mutations in its gene pool beginning at a relatively "neutral" starting point. The population might survive fairly well for
many generations without having to resort to huge increases in the reproduction rate. However, without getting rid of the
accumulating deleterious mutations, the population would eventually find itself experiencing an
exponential rise in its death rate as its average population crossed the line of lethal mutations. Since the
theory of positive epistasis does not seem to help the situation much, some other process must be found to explain how to preferentially
get rid of detrimental mutations from a population. Consider an excerpt from a fairly recent Scientific American article entitled,
"Mutations Galore":
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Hiserodt 8 (Ed, , aerospace engineer, The New American. Feb 18, Vol. 24, Iss. 4; pg. 12, 6 pgs, Proquest)
The underlying cause of the nuclear-waste "problem" is an exaggerated fear of radiation. We have
been conditioned for many years to accept the premise that even the slightest bit of radiation is
dangerous - a premise that is not borne out by any experimental evidence.
It is certainly true that high doses of radiation can sicken or kill, and lower but still very substantial
exposures can increase one's propensity for developing cancer. But contrary to "common knowledge,"
examination of the data shows that low levels of ionizing radiation often have a beneficial effect on
human health known as hormesis - a fact that many scientists are striving to make public with little help
from an uninformed and generally antinuclear news media. There is a very close parallel between ultra-
violet (non-ionizing) radiation from exposure to sunshine and nuclear (ionizing) radiation. While
extreme exposure to sunlight can lead to sunstroke and death, and lesser amounts cause sunburn and increase
chances of skin cancer, moderate sunshine stimulates our bodies to create vitamin D that is necessary
for good health. We see this same phenomenon with trace elements such as arsenic and many vitamins.
It is not unexpected then to see the same human reaction to ionizing radiation.
We have been deceived into believing that all radiation is bad because of the United States' policy
reliance on the "linear no-threshold" theory, or LNT, which states that if large amounts of something
cause death or sickness, fractional amounts of the same thing cause proportional amounts of death or
sickness. If the LNT were applied to falling as it is to radiation, we might note that 100 percent of those
falling onto concrete from 100 feet are killed, but only 50 percent of those falling from 50 feet die. With
these data we would linearly extrapolate to say that 10 percent falling from 10 feet and one percent of those
falling from one foot would die. Armed with this "linear no-threshold falling theory," we could confidently
assert that jumping rope should be banned on all school playgrounds since statistically anyone making 100
one-foot jumps would die.
Neither experience nor evidence supports LNT theory, yet this same statistical ploy is used to make
very small exposures of radiation to large numbers of individuals appear deadly. In 2005, by
unanimous vote, both the French Academy of Medicine and the French Academy of Science deplored
the use of this dose-response methodology in predicting effects of low-dose radiation. It is high time
that the radiation professionals in this country did likewise, and many are doing just that.
Unfortunately, the fact that thousands of workers in nuclear industries are outliving their unexposed
peers is not considered newsworthy, but a leak of three quarts of reactor coolant water with less
radioactivity than salad dressing makes the front page as a catastrophe.
Radioactivity surrounds us. Human beings and all we come into contact with contain radioisotopes.
Uranium in the soil will still be radioactive in 10 billion years when our sun runs out of hydrogen. It is
a natural part in our universe. To fear it is like fearing the warmth of a fireplace just because fire can
also bum down the house. Yet people are still paralyzed with fright because few in this country
understand anything about the measurement of radiation or its effects. Until we do we are defenseless
against the posturing of radical environmentalists and destined to eventually lose the most incredible
source of clean, safe, and reliable energy that man has ever been fortunate enough to enjoy.
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World Nuclear Association 07, (Radiation and Nuclear Energy, August, http://www.world-
nuclear.org/info/inf05.htm)
In the last 25 years a lot of research has been undertaken on the effects of low-level radiation. Many of the
findings have failed to support the so-called linear hypothesis. This theory assumes that the
demonstrated relationships between radiation dose and adverse effects at high levels of exposure also
applies to low levels and provides the (deliberately conservative) basis of occupational health and other
radiation protection standards. Extensive research has not supported the linear hypothesis for low-
level radiation exposure. Some evidence suggests that there may be a threshold below which no harmful
effects of radiation occur. However, this is not yet accepted by national or international radiation protection
bodies as sufficiently well proven to be taken into official standards. In addition, there is increasing
evidence of beneficial effect from low-level radiation (up to about 10 mSv/yr). This "radiation
hormesis" may be due to an adaptive response by the body's cells, the same as that with other toxins at
low doses. In the case of carcinogens such as ionizing radiation, the beneficial effect is seen both in lower
incidence of cancer and in resistance to the effects of higher doses. However, until possible mechanisms
are confirmed, uncertainty will remain. Further research is under way and the debate continues. Meanwhile
standards for radiation exposure continue to be deliberately conservative.
Empirically, exposure to plutonium does not have adverse effects on human health
Cravens 07 (Gwyneth, science writer, Power to Save the World: the Truth about Nuclear Power, p.110-111)
Humans first created plutonium during the Manhattan Project. Los Alamos National Laboratory remains one
of the few places on the planet where, as a metal, it is fabricated into weapons components. Only people
who are carefully screened and found able to do the job safely are permitted to work with plutonium,
and they have to use a glove box or manipulators in an isolated, protected location. In the early days, a
number of lab employees handling the metal accidentally received significant doses when shielding was
breached. The worst exposures in the history of the lab befell twenty-six men who worked at Los Alamos
going back to the Manhattan Project. A study cohort was formed in 195 1 and the men have been
examined every five years since then. A few who accumulated a significant body burden of plutonium
became members of the UPPU Club ("You pee Pu," Pu being the chemical symbol for plutonium), because
traces of plutonium in urine can indicate the amount remaining in the body-it tends to migrate to lung, liver,
and bone tissue--and these employees were required to provide periodic urine samples and to undergo
frequent examinations. The average exposure was over 1,000 millirem. Researchers report from time to
time on the health and mortality of these men. Their diseases and physical changes as they age are
consistent with those of a male population of their age group, as is the number of cancers and the death
rate. One person developed osteosarcoma- bone cancer-perhaps related to the plutonium exposure he'd
received. A study done fifty years after the accidents, when the average age of the exposed group was
seventy-two, found nineteen of the twentysix UPPU club members in reasonably good health; most of
them have lived well into their eighties. They produced normal children and grandchildren. The findings
of the study differ "from some popular misperceptions that large health risks occur with any exposure
to plutonium."
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****Nuclear Waste****
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In the light-water reactors that make up the majority of the world's reactor fleet, uranium fuel is loaded into
the reactor, then bombarded by neutrons to trigger the nuclear fission chain reaction. After awhile all of the
fissionable material in the uranium fuel is used up, or "spent." But the neutron bombardment makes the fuel
two-and-a-half million times more radioactive, according to Marvin Resnikoff, a nuclear physicist with
Radioactive Waste Management Associates in New York. By 2035, American nuclear power plants will
have created an estimated 105,000 metric tons of spent fuel that is so deadly it must be completely
isolated from the environment for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. A Nevada state agency
report put the toxicity in perspective: even after 10 years out of the reactor, an unshielded spent fuel
assembly would emit enough radiation to kill somebody standing a meter away from it in less than
three minutes.
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Hiserodt 8 (Ed, aerospace engineer, The New American. Feb 18, Vol. 24, Iss. 4; pg. 12, 6 pgs, Proquest)
Nuclear power plant wastes come in two distinct varieties: the dangerously radioactive daughters that
are the remnants of the fission reaction, and the remaining recyclable isotopes that can be "burned" as
fuel in the reactors to produce heat, steam, and electricity. Those opposed to nuclear power would have
us confuse these two. A nuclear physics axiom is: "In general, the higher a radionuclide's specific activity,
the shorter its half life (decay rate), and the more 'radioactive' it is when compared to one with a lower
specific activity." If the "specific activity" stuff seems a bit confusing, you might think of short half-life
isotopes to behave like gasoline thrown on the campfire, while the long half-life isotopes are analogous to the
methane that seeps slowly up in the bayou and glows on those still, dark nights. High-level wastes give up
their energy in a short period of time and then become stable and harmless, while the unused fuel
(uranium and plutonium) are so weakly radioactive that their emanations are only dangerous in the
minds of those who are dead set against nuclear power.
How long does it take for high-level wastes to become safe? For those interested in a definitive answer to
this question, Bernard Cohen's article "The Disposal of Radioactive Wastes From Fission Reactors" in the
June 1977 issue of Scientific American is a classic that delves deeply in to the subject. However, there are
ways to attack the question using logic. The daughters of fission reactions are not only radioactively hot but
are also thermally hot, since the energy from the decay is converted into heat energy. These decay products
begin very hot and cool as they lose radioactivity. The decrease in the heat produced can therefore be equated
to the decrease in radioactivity. A canister of waste that produces 30,000 watts of heat energy when
removed (after one year) from a power plant cooling pond would have dropped to about 3,000 watts in
10 years, to 300 watts in 100 years, and to a barely detectable 3 watts in 1,000 years. We can see then
that the radioactivity of the waste canister has decreased to 1/10,000th its initial value and is not likely
to require the services of armed guards 24/7 for 100,000 years, as the more vocal anti-nuclear activists
would have one believe.
Cravens 07 (Gwyneth, science writer, Power to Save the World: the Truth about Nuclear Power, p.366)
Some argue that until present stores of spent nuclear fuel are safely put away, new nuclear plants must not be
built. But I saw that nuclear waste is being safely stored right now and that there are some workable
solutions for its long-term sequestration. The world's inventory of spent nuclear fuel would be tiny if
all the enriched uranium in the pellets were fully exploited through existing technology. Residues not
burned in reactors of advanced design could be secured in deep geologic repositories. The Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant has demonstrated to the world that nuclear waste can be securely transported and
isolated in a virtually inaccessible location. Many nations lack suitable geological formations or the
wherewithal to construct such a repository, but international cooperation, along with new deep-drilling
technology that has considerably advanced our ability to gain access to deep-ocean sediments, could
one day lead to permanent disposal of waste with no future uses in sites where it would be naturally
shielded and immobilized for millions of years. The Seabed Working Group has shown that the world's
scientific and technological communities and existing international organizations can be effectively
mobilized, given the right leadership and an environment of scientific objectivity. The group succeeded in
putting together a cooperative way to control nuclear waste, and the methodology could be applied to all
aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle.
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Hiserodt 8 (Ed, aerospace engineer, The New American. Feb 18, Vol. 24, Iss. 4; pg. 12, 6 pgs, Proquest)
Another interesting way for us to assess the dangers of radiation is to compare the radiation levels
found in nuclear plant wastes to those of material found in nature. Numerous studies dating from the
1970s show that ores from which the uranium for fuel was mined have the same amount of
radioactivity that nuclear wastes will emit after being sequestered from 400 to 900 years, depending on
the quality of the ores and the timing of a power plant's refueling cycles. If we used the same
philosophy about naturally occurring radioisotopes as we do nuclear power plant wastes, we would
have to dig up, encase, and rebury the State of Virginia because of the large uranium deposits that
have been found there. (And you can be certain Senator Harry Reid, whose fear-mongering about
nuclear wastes knows no bounds, would not allow Virginia to be buried in Nevada!)
We don't attempt to sequester naturally occurring radioactive pitchblende and similar ores to protect
humans and animals from cancers and mutations, nor should we. They've always been there. Many
states besides Virginia - e.g., New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Texas, Arizona, Florida,
Washington, and South Dakota - have ore deposits that are sufficiently concentrated for commercial
mining, without harm to the population or causing radioactive pollution of the groundwater. And, for
the record, these naturally occurring ores aren't vitrified, encased in stainless steel, or stored in a dry
environment.
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Discover, 08
(Is Nuclear Energy Our Best Hope?”, April 25, http://discovermagazine.com/2008/may/02-is-nuclear-energy-our-
best-hope/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=)
What about the waste? Uranium is an extremely dense source of energy, and the volume of waste is
therefore small. According to David Bradish, a data analyst at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear
fuel pellet measures 0.07 cubic inch (about the size of your fingertip) and contains the energy
equivalent of 1,780 pounds of coal. The nation’s 104 reactors generate roughly 800 billion kilowatt-
hours a year and contribute about 2,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel a year. By contrast, U.S. coal
combustion produces some 100 million tons of toxic material annually.
At nuclear plants, spent fuel is currently being transferred from pools to robust concrete casks, where
it can be secured for about a century. But this spent fuel, which retains more than 95 percent of its
energy, can be reprocessed to make new fuel, reducing the ultimate volume of waste by more than 60
percent. The National Academy of Sciences has given the nod to long-term disposal of spent fuel in
canisters that will be sealed deep inside a mountain near the vast, remote Nevada Test Site, where
hundreds of atomic bombs were once exploded.
The worlds nuclear waste could fit in a football field- coal plants produce much more waste
Cravens 07 (Gwyneth, science writer, Power to Save the World: the Truth about Nuclear Power, p.354-355)
I'd read that the nation's quantity of nuclear waste was staggering, and early on I mentioned that to Rip. He
replied that all of it could fit in the Albuquerque municipal dump with a lot of room to spare. Greater
fuel efficiency has led over recent decades to a decrease in nuclear waste generation. A 1,000-megawatt
reactor today produces about twenty-five tons of spent fuel a year, and the annual national total comes to
about two thousand tons. The entire American inventory of waste presently being stored at nuclear plants,
after forty years of making trillions of kilowatt-hours of electricity and sparing the atmosphere billions
of tons of carbon and greenhouse gases, comes to about fifty thousand metric tons. All that waste would
cover an area the size of a single football field to a depth of about five yards, if the fuel assemblies were
laid end to end and stacked side by side. The per capita lifetime contribution of consumers getting all their
electricity from nuclear power: two pounds of waste. By comparison, each year coal combustion in the
United States alone yields one hundred million tons of ash and sludge containing toxic heavy metals;
that amount will continue to expand as new plants are built and old ones increase their output.
Worldwide, nuclear plants avoid a yearly average of two billion metric tons of carbon emissions. The EPA
estimates that the United States annually discards about three hundred million tons of nonnuclear hazardous
waste: every day the collective households and industries of America throw away nearly a million tons of
garbage containing toxic heavy metals and dangerous chemicals, as well as plastics that never break down.
That garbage will be our culture's real legacy, enduring for millions of years after all the present nuclear
waste has decayed. One day, Rip did some calculations and estimated that all the spent fuel generated by
one of Oconee's 846-megawatt reactors in a single year-about twenty-five tons--could fit in the bed of
his 350-Ford pickup. "My truck would be skwooshed flatter than a fly track by the weight, though,'' he said.
All the spent fuel from all of America's power surprising adventure. My conclusions about the importance of
nuclear power and its risk relative to other forms of large-scale energy generation would stand. Respected
professors, radiation biologists, epidemiologists, and other researchers who have seen firsthand the worst that
radiation can do all told me that they favored nuclear energy and would not be averse to living near nuclear
plants. I'd seen that, for the public, uranium is cleaner and safer throughout its shielded journey from
cradle to grave than our other big baseload electricity resource, fossil fuel.
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Chapin et al. 2 (Douglas M .and everyone else, Science, New Series, Vol. 297, No, 5589, (Sept. 20, 2002), pp.
1997-1999)
Since 11 September 2001, the U.S. nuclear industry and its regulators have been reevaluating plant and fuel
shipment safety. These studies are being kept secret. But it is no secret that basic engineering facts and
laws of nature limit the damage that can result. Extensive analysis, backed by full-scale field tests, show
that there is virtually nothing one could do to these shipping casks that would cause a significant public
hazard (2, 3). Before shipment, the fuel elements have been cooled for several years, so the decay heat and
the short- lived radioactivity have died down. They cannot explode, and there is no liquid radioactivity to
leak out. They are nearly indestructible, having been tested against collisions, explosives, fire, and
water. Only the latest antitank artillery could breach them, and then, the result was to scatter a few
chunks of spent fuel onto the ground. There seems to be no reason to expect harmful effects of the
radiation any significant distance from the cask.
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Beach, Kreutzer, & Liberman`8 William W. Beach Director, Center for Data Analysis David Kreutzer is the Senior Policy Analyst in Energy
Economics and Climate Change at The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis. Ben Lieberman is a Senior Policy Analyst at The Heritage Foundation's Roe
Institute for Economic Policy Studies. The Economic Costs of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Legislation, The heritage foundation, May 12, 2008
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/cda08-02.cfm
Resolving the problems with waste disposal is a major hurdle in expanding nuclear power generation. The baseline
assumption is that nuclear power plants will continue to store the waste on site. Given the already high use of
available capacity, electricity generated by nuclear power is projected to grow by only 0.5 percent per year through
2030.
There are no official disposal sites now-Until there are we can’t even think about nuclear power
AFP`8 Agence France-Presse,May 22, 2008, Nuclear breaks out as America's new 'green' darling
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i7T1eYiINfHi24IlQNQGxN9lUX7g
Anti-nuclear activists point to lingering concerns about disposal -- there are no approved nuclear waste
dumps in the United States so the plants store their waste on site -- as well as a shortage of skilled personnel and infrastructure. "At this
point the belief that there is a nuclear renaissance underway is premature," said Michael Mariotte, director of the Nuclear
Information and Research Service. "From our perspective it is pure folly to consider new reactors when we don't know
what we are going to do with the waste from the current reactors."
Washington Post`81 (The Washington Post, Nuclear Dump, December 3, 1981, Lexis)
THE LACK OF a nuclear waste disposal policy remains one of the chief bars to a healthy nuclear power
industry. There is no imminent technological crisis--but after 20 years without a solution, the public, Wall Street
and even the nuclear industry are all losing confidence that the problem will ever be solved. Without a waste
policy, or even a realistic prospect of one, utilities are understandably reluctant to join those owning the growing
pile of homeless radioactive waste. There is no lack of waste disposal plans. What has held up congressional action
before has been a surfeit of plans, and this year is turning out to be no exception. Three committees in the House and
two in the Senate are arguing over different approaches. Workable compromises that were agreed to in the closing
days of the last Congress have been abandoned. Whether the new ideas are better or worse, the fact that they are
new guarantees further inaction. Though Congress seems capable of arguing over the details forever, the outlines
of a technologically sound and politically feasible program have been evident for some time. Nuclear waste disposal
really involves two very different tasks: permanent disposal that will contain wastes safely for thousands of years,
and interim storage until a permanent repository is ready. Permanent disposal has to be done right the first time.
Therefore caution and exceedingly demanding safety standards--even perhaps unnecessary caution--are appropriate.
Rules for interim storage can be much more flexible. Arguments over whether the federal government would be
"bailing out" the nuclear industry by providing interim storage are beside the point and should be ignored so long as
the industry bears the costs.
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Lack of good disposal technology precludes nuke industry growth-Acceptance and security
mandates
BBC`7 (Brttish Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union – Political, Poor waste disposal may hamper
Russian nuclear industry - agency chief, December 4, 2007, Lexis)
The problem of poor technologies for nuclear waste disposal may hamper the development of the nuclear
industry, Sergey Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom [Russian Atomic Energy Agency], has said. "If we are not able
to show [everyone], including the general public, that we are able to effectively deal with the problem of
[nuclear waste] disposal, it will hamper the development of nuclear energy industry," Kiriyenko said on
Tuesday [4 December] in Moscow when opening the innovation fair Atomeco-2007. The event is dedicated to
technologies for the final stage of the nuclear fuel cycle and technologies for nuclear waste disposal. "I am sure
that it will be the fastest growing segment of the sector over the next few years," Kiriyenko said. He is sure that
the requirements for providing nuclear security will become stricter as the sector develops. Kiriyenko said that
"nuclear energy is an open global market." "We are ready to open our market for efficient technologies," he said,
adding that specialists of the Russian nuclear industry are going to actively take part in the development of nuclear
energy abroad.
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Rhodes`1 (Richard Rhodes; Richard Rhodes is the author of "Nuclear Renewal" and "The Making of the Atomic Bomb.",
Nuclear Power's New Day, The New York Times May 7, 2001, Lexis)
Americans are beginning to understand one of the unique benefits of nuclear technology. A majority now say
they approve of nuclear power, a shift that appears to indicate awareness that nuclear power does not produce
greenhouse gases that lead to global warming. There is less evidence of public understanding of radiation
and nuclear waste. Antinuclear activism began in the 1960's with concerns about the disposal of
nuclear waste, and disposal continues to be the nuclear industry's Number 1 public-relations problem.
The disposal debate is likely to move to center stage later this year, when the scientists and engineers
evaluating Yucca Mountain, north of Las Vegas, as a possible permanent waste repository expect to deliver
their final report.
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Blowers & Lowery`91 (ANDREW BLOWERS and DAVID LOWRY, Environment: No place to glow? - Siting
nuclear waste dumps in areas where the industry enjoys support may be the simplest political option, but are they always the
safest locations, The Guardian (London) June 7, 1991, Lexis)
Finding somewhere to put nuclear wastes has become a preoccupation of governments, west and east, north and south.
But there has been a noticeable lack of progress in selecting and constructing nuclear waste repositories around the
world. Radioactive wastes are stockpiled at existing nuclear facilities, awaiting decisions. Everywhere, as plans have moved from the drawing
board to construction site, protests have been launched and plans have been revised. Nuclear waste has
become the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry - but the industry needs a solution to the problem if it is to ensure
the future of nuclear energy. The favoured solution for the more dangerous wastes - the so-called high level wastes, or HLW - in nearly every country is
deep geological disposal in relatively remote locations, usually where there is some local support for the nuclear industry. These 'nuclear oases' share characteristics.
They either depend on the nuclear industry, have some recent experience of it, or are suffering from economic distress. They are the industry's best hope for a political
solution to its most pressing problem, but they are not always the most appropriate technical solution. Deep geological disposal is the solution favoured by the nuclear
industry's experts and by governments. It will concentrate the waste at a few locations where it can be safely contained and monitored. And provided deep repositories
are carefully sited and constructed with engineered barriers adding to the natural ones, they should have sufficient integrity to prevent leakage of radioactivity into the
accessible environment. At least that is the theory. Many environmentalists beg to differ. In the UK and abroad, environmental groups including Greenpeace and
Friends of the Earth claim deep disposal merely conceals the problem; it does not solve it for there is as yet no known solution. The safety and security of a deep
repository cannot possibly be guaranteed over the thousands of years - up to 240,000 years in some cases - that some radionuclides will remain harmful. Geological
upheaval, climatic change or human interference, deliberate or inadvertent, could break the integrity of the most carefully constructed barriers. Anxiety
about
the safety of waste repositories has enabled opponents of the nuclear industry to make common cause frequently
with local communities who oppose nuclear waste sites in their own backyards, forming powerful coalitions able to
mobilise public opinion. In each country examined in our recent study of the international politics of nuclear waste (covering the UK, US, Sweden,
Germany and France), political expediency has pushed the nuclear industry back to its nuclear oases in search of a
final resting place for nuclear waste. Nuclear waste site opponents stopped some projects and delayed others.
They have narrowed the options and ensured that the 'nuclear oases' may have to carry the burden of nuclear wastes through future generations. In Britain in the late
1970s, opposition from local communities and environmental groups scuppered proposals for test drilling for a deep repository in the Cheviots in Northumberland, at
Mullwarcher Hill in Ayrshire and the Dyfi Valley in mid Wales. Efforts to find sites in the mid 1980s for burying intermediate and low level wastes were balked by co-
ordinated opposition from the threatened communities in eastern England at Killingholme, Fulbeck, Elstow and Bradwell. The search for suitable sites has been
narrowed down to Sellafield or Dounreay, the two communities most dependent on the nuclear industry. Sellafield is now firm favourite, with planning permission
perceived as easier to achieve in nuclear-friendly west Cumbria. Similarly, in the US there is strong opposition against nuclear waste repositories at state level, but
strong support in 'nuclear oases'. The remote, thinly populated western states offer the most promising repository sites, but investigations into possible locations there
were cut from nine sites to three between 1982 and 1986. Yucca mountain near the bomb-testing range in Nevada desert has been identified as the preferred site,
although there are fears of earthquakes in the area and state government opposition may yet prevent a repository being constructed. A purpose-built repository at
Carlsbad under the New Mexico desert has been held up by water seepage problems. Turning to Europe, Sweden has opened a purpose-built repository under the
granite Baltic seabed 150 km north of Stockholm north of Forsmark, but has yet to select a deep site for its high level wastes. In Germany, sites have been selected (in
Konrad for low and intermediate level, at Gorleban for high level) but are not yet approved. It has taken the power of the German High Court to override the Lower
Saxony state government ruling and permit the go-ahead for the Konrad Mine. In France, hitherto the most pro-nuclear nation, sites for low-level waste have been
constructed but the test drilling programme at the four potential HLW sites was suspended last year following political protests. A proposal to resume the research is
due to be debated in the French parliament next week. An official report on French management of nuclear wastes concludes that: 'The 1990s must mark the end of the
cult of secrecy in nuclear affairs' and that 'the future of nuclear energy in our country depends on our capacity to develop democracy.' In the past six months opposition
has emerged to government plans to develop nuclear waste facilities in Argentina, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Japan and Canada. Radioactivity generates
greater public anxiety than other statistically far more dangerous activities. People
fear radioactivity whatever its source and whatever its strength
because of the possibility, however remote, of catastrophic and irreversible consequences. As evidence of harmful
effects accumulates people are not reassured by the industry's claims for the benefits and safety of nuclear
energy. And this mistrust has helped the industry's opponents defeat waste disposal plans. Our study shows there are two fundamental requirements for
engendering the trust necessary to find a lasting solution to the problem of nuclear waste - technical suitability and public acceptability based on a policy of honest
disclosure.
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Lalonde`6 (MICHELLE, Wilkins glowing over 'renaissance' of nuclear power: U.S. ambassador says his country is
investing in it as alternative to oil, The Gazette (Montreal) February 24, 2006, Lexis)
The United States ambassador to Canada added his voice to an international chorus singing the praises of
nuclear energy yesterday, saying Canada and the U.S. are leading a "nuclear resurgence" fuelled by the global
urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "Nuclear power is the second-largest source of electrical
generation in the United States, about 20 per cent of our total, and it provides electricity with no emissions of
nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide, mercury or carbon dioxide," David Wilkins told the Canadian Nuclear Association
annual conference in Ottawa yesterday. "Both the U.S. and Canada now have national policies that will help open
a door to the resurgence of nuclear power, including safe, standardized plant designs, an improved licensing
and oversight process, the advent of new technologies and, of course, the need to reduce our emissions of
greenhouse gases." He said U.S. President George W. Bush made it clear in his State of the Union Address that the
"United States is committed to investing in clean, safe nuclear energy." Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who sits on the
Senate energy committee, spoke of a "nuclear renaissance" in the U.S., and said investing in "major new nuclear
initiatives" is the only way North American economies can continue to grow yet still reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. "It has to be done through nuclear, through new technologies, and this country and certainly
Canada are going to be major players in leading the way." Phil Ruffles, of the United Kingdom's Royal Academy
of Engineering, and Ambassador Lu Shumin of China both expressed enthusiasm for the ability of nuclear power to
meet growing energy needs. This was all music to the ears of Murray Elston, president and CEO of the Canadian
Nuclear Association and others in the industry who support investment in new nuclear projects and the refurbishing
of Canada's aging nuclear plants, such as the Gentilly plant near Trois Rivieres. Elston said the statements by
Wilkins and Craig are "good evidence that other strong economies ... are looking at nuclear as being a competitive
supplier of electricity for them." But critics say the talk of a "nuclear renaissance" is overblown. "A lot of this is
spin-doctoring by an industry that's been moribund for 20 years," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace.
"Climate change is the latest PR ploy the nuclear industry has tied its wagon to. But it's not big power that's going to
solve climate change." He said massive nuclear power plants have proved unreliable and expensive. Plants that were
touted to last 40 years are dying after 25 and costing far more than predicted to refurbish. And questions about
safety and waste disposal remain unresolved, he said.
Nuclear rebirth possible without an official waste plan-The industry’s booming now
Nuclear power is undergoing a quiet renaissance in the U.S. Not built in large numbers since the 1980s, clean-
burning nuclear plants are re-emerging as viable alternatives to other power sources as debate continues
about climate change and potential damage caused by fossil fuels. Emblematic of the renewed interest in
nuclear energy is Areva NP Inc. Business is booming at the Lynchburg company, which manufactures
components and sophisticated equipment for the building of nuclear reactors. These days, the company can’t
manufacture products fast enough. Existing inventory is presold through 2018 as utilities gear up to meet
power demand across the country. To expand output, Areva announced a $25 million expansion last month. It’s
also adding 500 jobs to its engineering/nuclear service staff, with the majority of those slots going to engineers.
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Inside Energy`5 (Inside Energy with Federal Lands, With key support, nuclear power revival seen at hand, February 21,
2005, Lexis)
U.S. nuclear industry officials, buoyed by the strongest support from a White House and Congress in decades,
are growing increasingly optimistic that the long-awaited revival of their industry may be close at hand. In
remarks at Platts' nuclear energy conference in Washington last week, Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said a "nuclear renaissance ... is occurring," and pointed to what
he called new attitudes at the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The government,
Domenici said, has moved beyond the period where it "was politically expedient to not even talk about
nuclear" power. He added that Congress made a mistake when it tried to solve nuclear waste disposal once
and for all, rather than for a reasonable interim period during which technology could advance. Domenici
urged the industry not to lose momentum because of problems with the waste program, saying he hoped "to
see new nuclear plants very soon." Also speaking at the conference, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said the Bush
administration, which has been a proponent of nuclear energy since the president took office in 2001, is likely to be
a more effective proponent of the sector in Congress this year than it was before. Craig told the conference he was
frustrated last year by what he considered "a degree of ambivalence" about nuclear energy at the Office of
Management and Budget and the Energy Department. As a result, he said he convened a meeting in September
involving OMB, DOE and the Council on Environmental Quality, as well as utility executives, to discuss
nuclear energy options. That session, he said, resulted in "a significant change in attitude" at the White House
toward nuclear energy, which he said has since been reflected in the administration's plans for the FY-06
budget (IE, 14 Feb, 1) and in its support for congressional efforts to craft comprehensive energy legislation.
Craig assured nuclear energy executives attending the conference that he and Domenici plan to "get as many
obstacles [to new nuclear reactors] out of the way as we can" through energy legislation. He told reporters later
that he and Domenici would consider a production tax credit and other incentives for nuclear power that were
included in energy legislation that failed to pass in the last Congress.
Other conference speakers agreed that the prospects for the industry are unlikely to be better anytime soon.
David Christian, chief nuclear officer and senior vice president for nuclear operations with Dominion Energy, said
that in the United States "it is no longer a matter of 'if' we need new nuclear plants, it's a matter of when and
how those plants will be built." Marilyn Kray, vice president of project development for Exelon Nuclear, suggested
the industry is at a turning point where it is finally seeing the opportunities it has been awaiting for 20 years.
To further boost prospects for nuclear energy, a group of high-level representatives from industry, academia
and DOE national laboratories issued a report at the conference urging steps to enable the construction of new
reactors in the United States. The group, which calls itself the Decision-Makers' Forum on a Unified Strategy for
Nuclear Energy, offered a list of recommendations (related story p.10). The Nuclear Energy Institute is hoping to
better harmonize the industry's choir. It held a closed-door door meeting Thursday in Washington with utility chief
nuclear officers and other industry representatives "to craft industry alignment on key policy issues for this year,"
according to a notice sent out about the meeting.
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Ostroff`7 (Jim Ostroff, Kiplinger Business Forecasts, December 10, 2007 Nuclear Power Facing a Renaissance, Lexis)
Nuclear power is on the verge of a boom. Look for about 30 new nuclear power plants to be built over the
next 20 years, bringing the total in operation in the U.S. by 2025 to roughly 140. Together, they'll supply one-fourth
of U.S. electricity. About a fifth of current U.S. electricity needs are met with power provided by nuclear plants. But
that share will fall before it rises because total U.S. power needs and supplies from nonnuclear sources will grow
more swiftly than nuclear in the short term. For the most part, new plants will be built near existing nuclear
facilities, which minimizes both costs and the likelihood of "not-in-my-backyard" objections. Clinton, Ill., is
the likely site of the first new plant, which will be operated by Exelon. Also in the first wave of new construction:
An Entergy facility in Grand Gulf, Miss., a TXU plant at Comanche Peak, Texas, a Dominion Power facility in
Louisa County, Va., and a Constellation Energy plant in Calvert Cliffs, Md. What's behind the renewed interest in
nuclear power? First and foremost: The likelihood that federal limits on carbon dioxide emissions -- more than
likely twinned with a credit sharing scheme -- are coming, probably by 2010. Already, Florida, California and nine
northeastern states are implementing plans to restrict power plants' CO2 emissions. Others, such as Texas and
Kansas, are balking at new coal-fired power plants, since existing coal plants are the single biggest contributor to
CO2 emissions. Natural-gas-fired plants also emit CO2. Nuclear plants, in contrast, are zero-emission
operations, which would not only mean such plants wouldn't have to worry about meeting emissions caps, but
would provide an opportunity for utility companies to trade carbon credits, just as they do now with federal
sulfur and nitrogen -- compound emissions. And the fact is nuclear power plants have a lot more going for them
these days. Operating costs are generally lower than for any other type of power generation, running at an
average of 1.7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), well below the 2.4 cents average for coal-fired plants and 6.75 cents
tally for natural-gas-fired generators. Although wind power compares relatively favorably, with operating costs as
little as 2 cents per kWh, neither it nor more-expensive solar-generated power (with costs averaging 3.2 cents per
kWh) is capable of producing the additional volume of power that will be needed during the next decade or two,
according to Richard Baxter, a senior vice president with Ardour Capital Investments. Moreover, new nuclear
plants should wind up with operating costs that are below the standard for the industry. At the same time,
some state utility regulators, including those in Florida and North Carolina, have agreed that utilities can pass
along nuclear power plant construction costs to consumers as soon as the first shovel goes into the ground.
They won't have to wait until the plant is operating, says Tony Pietrangelo, vice president for federal affairs with the
Nuclear Energy Institute. Regulators have been reluctant to OK such a rate bump in the past, fearing voter ire. But
concern about skyrocketing costs of natural gas, the energy source for most newer power generation plants in
recent years, plus soaring consumer demand for energy, are overcoming their objections.
Uncle Sam is also becoming friendlier to nuclear plants. For example, in an effort to bypass the laborious and
timely case-by-case approval process of the past, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently gave the nod to
several standardized designs for nuclear generators and is in the process of OKing several more. That plus a
streamlined application process should cut the lead time on new building from 12 years now to only about five
years. The feds have also set up a financial safety net for investors, agreeing to guarantee financing for up to
80% of the cost of building a plant. Each of the first six new nuclear plants will also get an investment tax credit
worth about $125 million per year. Improved technology, specifically enhanced safety features also plays a role,
alleviating some public concerns. Next-generation plants, for example, may contain four emergency shutoff systems,
twice as many as older facilities have. Newer plants have fewer pumps, valves and pipes, some of the weakest
points in reactor safety. And plant manufacturers have beefed up containment structures for radiation
leakages. One remaining obstacle is waste disposal, but it won't derail nuclear's resurgence.
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Plant operators say they have plenty of space to store waste on-site as politicians drag their feet on approving a
depository for spent fuel in Yucca Mountain, Nev. We still expect that to be OK'd within a decade, in any case.
Riner`7 (Bobette, Natural Gas Week, After 29 Years In-Vitro, US Nukes Expecting, October 1, 2007, LexiS)
After an initial, partial application submitted by UniStar for a new nuclear plant at the existing Calvert Cliffs in
Maryland , the country can breathe easy: A complete application for a combined operating license -- for the
construction and operation -- has at long last been filed. NRG Energy, having recently climbed out of bankruptcy,
has the distinction of being the first of all the nuke wannabes to stake its turf.
"Today marks the most significant and tangible step to date, toward the construction of the first new nuclear
power plant in the United States in over 30 years," Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell said in a prepared
statement. "DOE is confident that with NRG's reactor design selection and cooperation with their partners, and
Toshiba, this project will likely result in the first of many new reactors being constructed and operated in the
US . "We look forward to the continued cooperation with industrial partners and the NRC on the road to
substantial deployment of new emissions-free and reliable nuclear power in the near future," Sell's statement
concluded. Of course, none of the applicants and would-be applicants for as many as 20 plants have come to
terms with the toxic waste from a new nuclear fleet; the nation still is grappling with the issue of waste
disposal from the 104 plants currently operating. But the fact is, there are several new designs being vetted, and
the US appears on the verge of a nuclear resurgence some 29 years after the accident at Three Mile Island in
Pennsylvania in which a reactor overheated and began to melt down. The application filed by Princeton, New
Jersey-based NRG is for GE's Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) technology for two units totaling 2,700
MW -- essentially double the size of the existing 2,500-MW, two-unit nuke at the South Texas Nuclear Project, in
which NRG is a partner. The NRC's new fiscal year began Oct. 1, marking the date the agency was to conduct an
"acceptance check" of NRG's application, said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell . "It's like a huge jigsaw puzzle. First,
we check to see all the pieces are there; that takes about 60 days," he said. "If so, then we begin the full, formal
process." That process likely will take four years, said Victor Dricks , NRC spokesman in Arlington , Texas . The
NRC has already certified the ABWR technology chosen by NRG for the Bay City , Texas , site. The other new
technology already certified, the Westinghouse AP1000, has been proposed for as many as 10 new projects by
various developers, all of whom are expected to file applications by the end of the year. ABWR proponents favor its
modular design, which expedites the construction process, and it has four units in operation in Japan , with another
dozen being considered. Along with the Areva EPR proposed by UniStar at Calvert Cliffs, two other reactor designs
pending certification by the NRC have been suggested for the new fleet of nuclear plants: GE's Economic Simplified
Boiling Water Reactor and Mitsubishi's Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor.
The scale and extent of the widely proclaimed nuclear "renaissance" in the US will come into much clearer
focus in the next few months, and is in no small way tied to possible congressional action limiting greenhouse
gas emissions. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Delaware) has suggested that greater incentives will be part of pending
legislation capping carbon emissions. But even if the climate change legislation simply penalizes coal or other
carbon-based fuels, it would still give nuclear a lift.
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Rocky Mountain News`8 (Rocky Mountain News, Todd Hartmanand Gargi Chakrabarty, Nuke interest resurges in state
Utilities, others taking hard look at energy source, June 7, 2008, http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jun/07/nuke-
interest-resurges-in-state/)
Nuclear power, long in public disfavor because of safety, waste and cost concerns, is muscling its way back into
the energy picture. While its return is most prominent internationally - where dozens of countries are seeking
nuclear generators as a source of new energy supplies - it's also getting a rethink in Colorado and across the United
States. Nationally, worries of pollution from coal-burning power plants are spurring renewed interest.
Meanwhile, the nuclear industry has launched a major public relations campaign touting itself as "clean-air
energy." And Colorado, too, is again paying more attention to generating energy from splitting atoms: * Tri-State, a
major electricity provider to Colorado's small towns and rural regions, wants to study the possibility of a nuclear
power plant on the eastern plains. * Xcel Energy, the state's largest electricity provider, which owns nuclear plants in
the Midwest, said nuclear power will be "on the table" as it considers future energy sources in the Centennial State.
* Colorado congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall, a Democrat and a longtime champion of renewable
energy, says nuclear should be part of the conversation as the country tries to ease off of fossil fuels. His opponent,
Republican Bob Schaffer, also supports nuclear power. * And most significantly for Colorado, the state is the
nation's third-largest source of radioactive fuel - uranium. And whether or not another nuclear plant is ever built
here, Colorado appears to be in for another mining boom as international demand for uranium ramps up. "We're
seeing tremendous increases and the beginnings of activity right now," said Jim Burnell, director of the minerals
program at the Colorado Geological Survey. A record 10,000 new mining claims were filed on federal lands in the
state in 2007, with the bulk of those for uranium, Burnell said. The nuke is back, said Robert Meyer, a Fort
Collins-based energy consultant with long experience in the nuclear industry. "It's happening. . . . Nuclear
power is being further considered (where it already exists) . . . and reconsidered in countries that had decided
to back away from it," he said. "We're seeing it everywhere."
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Charleston Post and Courier`8 (Charleston Post and Courier Toward safe nuclear waste disposal Monday, June 9, 2008
http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/jun/09/toward_safe_nuclear_waste_disposal43892/)
The Bush administration's application for a permit to build the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site
should provide momentum for a needed project, which has been stalled by parochial opposition. The need for
the disposal site waste will become more apparent as the pressure mounts for new sources of energy. Unfortunately, the
project has a well-placed opponent in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Sen. Reid has taken a not-in-my-backyard approach
and has used his congressional muscle to block its progress. Sen. Reid has described the disposal site as "a dying beast" and has
promised to continue cutting its budget in an effort to "drive the final nail in its coffin," The Associated Press reported. He has been
supported by some anti-nuclear groups. But their arguments against nuclear power are faltering with the rising environmental concern over
greenhouse gases produced by coal-fired power plants. Ultimately, the biggest long-term impediment may be a court ruling
that could require proof of safe storage for up to a million years, according to the AP. It's hard to fathom how such a
long-term goal can be reasonably met. Unless the standard is revised by Congress, it will prove troublesome in
the permitting process and in the courts. Meanwhile, the federal government already is about 10 years beyond its own
deadline for providing for a safe waste disposal site for commercial nuclear plants. Currently, the growing volume of waste is being
stored on site at numerous locations nationwide. Some defense-related waste eventually scheduled for relocation to Yucca is at the
Savannah River Site in what is termed "temporary" storage. In a recent release, Gov. Mark Sanford referred to that unsettling situation as
he cited the importance of building a permanent repository. "Over the years, South Carolina has become an increasingly large temporary
home to nuclear waste, and moving forward on this application is an important part of the federal government keeping promises that
have been made to our state over the course of many years," Gov. Sanford said. "We believe Yucca Mountain to be an important part of
our nation's future both when it comes to energy policy and security, and we're hopeful that this process will continue without delay."
The absence of a single, safe disposal site is a shortcoming in national security and national energy policy. The interior of a mountain in
a desert location is a better solution for radioactive waste than scattered temporary sites across the nation.
NIRS`1 (Nuclear Information and Resource Services, Yucca Mountain nuke dump update, Via Wise Magazine, June 15, 2001,
http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/550/5287.html)
In mid-May, George W. Bush announced his Energy Policy Plan (see WISE News Communique 549.5275,
"The Bush energy plan"). With DOE Secretary Spencer Abraham (formerly a US Senator who voted
numerous times to send nuclear waste to Yucca) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Administrator Christie Todd Whitman at his side, Bush advocated building new nuclear power plants in
the US for the first time in decades. Nuclear power means nuclear waste, so Bush called on his Cabinet
officials to speed up the process for opening a national dump. Although he didn't mention Nevada by
name, Yucca is the only site under consideration. Yucca, limited under current law to receiving no more
than 70,000 tons of waste, would nearly be filled by what already exists in the U.S. Building new
reactors, re-licensing old reactors, or even continuing operations at current reactors will generate more
waste than Yucca could legally hold. Unwise as it would be in terms of the heat and radiation impact on
Yucca's rock, Congress could simply change the law, cramming twice as much waste into Yucca.
Otherwise, a second national dump would be needed. Citizens in Utah fear that the proposed Private Fuel
Storage dump targeted at the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in their State just might be that
second repository, a nuclear industry initiative that could launch the beginning of 4,000 cross country waste
shipments as early as 2003.
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Kerrey`2 (Bob, a former U.S. senator from Nebraska, is president of New School University in New York, Yucca Mountain
Nuclear Storage is Bad for Nevada and the Nation, St. Paul Pioneer press, April 29, 2002,
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0429-07.htm)
Transporting nuclear waste across our country is an undertaking that every American concerned about our
nation's security should take very seriously. Sharing our highways with tens of thousands of radioactive
shipments is a disaster waiting to happen. An accident involving a truck with radioactive waste is a statistical
certainty. Just as certain is the increased exposure to terrorism. DOE and outside experts both agree accidents
will happen; though no one can predict their likely impact. More troubling is the potential for radiation exposure.
The government-approved casks, which have never undergone rigorous full-scale testing, leak radiation and could
become portable X-ray machines that cannot be turned off. This concern is not trivial either from a health or a
liability standpoint. Most serious of all is that these shipments will become irresistible targets for terrorists. After
Sept. 11 and the increasing incidents of suicide bombings, our elected leaders should not approve this plan unless
they can guarantee the safety of these shipments. They cannot simply trust the DOE or the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission who are still analyzing risks based on terrorist incidents from the 1970s and 1980s. Without
proper security measures, these shipments could easily be used as a "dirty bomb." It is imperative that an up-
to-date plan is in place to prevent them from becoming low-grade nuclear weapons and that the cost of this
plan be measured against the potential benefits of a single site. The American people and their representatives in
Congress must keep this in mind: There is no pressing reason to move ahead with the Yucca Mountain site
without completing a comprehensive evaluation. Even the administration agrees that the current storage system
can safely remain for many years. Congress must now decide. Will it opt for the administration's unsound policy that
jeopardizes our health and safety or will it choose to act responsibly? At a time when we need to be doing
everything in our power to secure our nation's safety, a policy that puts us on the road to another national tragedy is
a step in the wrong direction.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 177
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Beres`87(Louis Rene Beres, Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue, 1987 (Terrorism and Global
Security, p. 42-43)
Nuclear terrorism could even spark a full scale war between states. Such a war could involve the entire spectrum
of nuclear conflict possibilities, ranging from a nuclear attack upon a non-nuclear state to systemwide nuclear war.
How might such far reaching consequences of nuclear terrorism come about? Perhaps the most likely way would involve a terrorist
nuclear assault against a state by terrorists hosted in another state. For example, consider the following
scenario: Early in the 1990s, Israel and its Arab state neighbors finally stand ready to conclude a comprehensive, multilateral peace settlement. With a
bilateral treaty between Israel and Egypt already many years old, only the interests of the Palestinians, as defined by the PLO, seem to have been left out. On the
eve of the proposed signing of the peace agreement,
half a dozen crude nuclear explosives in the one kiloton range detonate
in as many Israeli cities. Public grief in Israel over the many thousand dead and maimed is matched only by
the outcry for revenge. In response to the public mood, the government of Israel initiates selected strikes
against terrorist strongholds in Lebanon, whereupon Lebanese Shiite forces and Syria retaliate against Israel. Before long,
the entire region is ablaze, conflict has escalated to nuclear forms, and all countries of the area have
suffered unprecedented destruction. Of course, such a scenario is fraught with the makings of even wider
destruction. How would the United States react to the situation in the Middle East? What would be the soviet
response? It is certainly conceivable that a chain reaction of interstate nuclear conflict could ensue, one that
would ultimately involve the superpowers or even every nuclear weapon state on the planet.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 178
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Whitesides`8 (John Whitesides, Political expert-Reuters, Obama pushes deep into Republican turf
Thu Jul 3, 2008 http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN031031200807030)
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pushed deep into Republican territory in North Dakota on
Thursday, saying he saw the potential for a significant political realignment in November's election. Staking
another claim to a state usually ignored by Democratic contenders for the White House, Obama said
Americans of all political leanings were hungry for something different after eight years of President George W.
Bush. "I'm a firm believer that 90 percent of success is showing up and Democrats haven't been showing up in
these places," he said in Fargo, North Dakota, a state that has not backed a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in
1964. The visit to North Dakota, where Obama pushed his plans to help military veterans, followed stops in
conservative sections of Ohio and Colorado this week. On Friday's July 4th holiday, he will visit Montana,
another state that traditionally votes Republican. "If you look at the trends in many of these states, there are
more and more independents who aren't tied to a political party and I want to make sure that we are reaching
out to them," Obama said. "I think there is a possibility of a significant realignment politically in this election,"
he said. "Now is the time for us to have a conversation with all Americans, not just some Americans, about how we
can pull together."
Yet Sen. Reid opposes the opening of the Yucca Mountain spent-fuel repository in his home state of Nevada. On his
Web site, he states that Yucca Mountain is "never going to open" because "it threatens the health and safety
of Nevadans and people across the United States" through its existence and from the transportation of spent fuel
from nuclear power plants to the facility. Agreeing with Reid is his party's presidential nominee, Sen. Barack
Obama. In a primary debate in Nevada, Obama pledged: "I will end the notion of Yucca Mountain because it
has not been based on the sort of sound science that can assure the people of Nevada that they're going to be
safe."
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 181
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Johnson`2 (Jeff, Chemical and Engineering, Washington, Yucca Mountain, July 8, 2002
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8027/8027yucca.html)
THE SIZE, schedule, and other repository parameters for this huge project were fixed by Congress in
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and in 1987 amendments, which designated Nevada as the state
where it will be built. The act was passed in response to pressure from nuclear energy advocates and
utilities, and they now are clamoring for Yucca Mountain to open. Highly radioactive utility waste has
been generated for decades by U.S. power companies that badly want to get the spent fuel rods away
from their power plants--both for safety reasons and to help clear the decks for their plans to push ahead
on a new generation of nuclear power plants. Yucca Mountain advocates and even opponents argue that
the congressional vote is not over nuclear power, but it is hard to see continued growth for nuclear energy
without a scientifically sound waste solution that is accepted by society. Currently, there is 43,000 metric
tons of accumulated waste stored at commercial nuclear reactor sites, says Melanie Lyons, a spokeswoman
for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association. Some is stored in dry casks, but most of the spent fuel
lies in pools of water. Lyons stresses that it is safe there but adds that the industry would like to get it to a
central location, some place away from their plants. That waste, she says, is going to grow at about 2,000
metric tons per year for many more years. Many of today's 103 operating nuclear reactors are reaching the
end of their 20-year legal lives, but most plan to get license extensions, allowing them to tack on another
20 years of operation. And if the current record-level high efficiencies and operation improvements of U.S.
nuclear power plants continue, waste volumes will grow right along with the increase of nuclear-
generated electricity. DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which is charged with
licensing reactors and overseeing their operation, have made several efforts recently to aid the relicensing of
old plants and possibly speed approval of a new generation of reactors should any company come up with a
proposal (C&EN, Sept. 3, 2001, page 29). Nuclear energy is on a roll. The President's energy plan of last
year had several provisions to encourage nuclear power, including tax breaks and another look at fuel
reprocessing and advanced technologies. DOE is even jumping in with a plan to help pay companies to find
sites for new nuclear power plants. LAST FEBRUARY, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham made a
formal recommendation to move ahead with the Yucca site to President George W. Bush, and in less
than 24 hours, the President authorized construction. Just hours later, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, a
Republican like Bush, announced he would veto the President's decision (C&EN, Feb. 25, page 8).Guinn's
veto led to House and Senate votes under the terms in the Waste Policy Act. The act calls for a unique
approval process. For instance, it does not allow Senate opponents to use a filibuster to stall action, and it
allows any senator to bring a resolution to overturn Guinn's veto to the floor, which may prove particularly
important because Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) opposes overturning the veto. It also
sets a deadline for congressional action, which works out to July 27. The Nevada congressional delegation is
united in opposition to the site. They lost in the House, however, by a large margin in May. In the Senate,
they are likely to come closer, but Guinn's veto is expected to be overturned. Nevada has filed five lawsuits
challenging the federal government. It has sued the Environmental Protection Agency, DOE, NRC, the
President, and the energy secretary, says Robert R. Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for
Nuclear Projects. "IF WE PREVAIL in the Senate, we think the Nuclear Energy Institute will challenge the
constitutionality of the Waste Policy Act; if we lose, we may challenge it," Loux says. He expects more suits
if the process moves to NRC licensing. Loux wants the waste to remain in pools or casks at the utilities that
create it. He points to statements by NRC officials saying the waste would be safe there for decades."What
this is really about," he says, "is that utilities know no one will even let them even think about building
more power plants unless they have removed waste temporarily or permanently--as if anyone would
anyway. This has nothing to do with health and safety. It is about an industry's wish to expand."
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 182
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Kamps`1 (Kevin Kamps, NIRS, November 21, 2001, " Yucca Heats Up " Update on Yucca Mountain
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/yuccaupdatenov202001.htm)
Despite DOE’s claim that 20 years of site characterization are now finished, the NRC, the US Nuclear Waste
Technical Review Board (a Presidentially-appointed science and engineering advisory panel), and experts overseas
have criticized the Yucca studies. Concerns range from severe seismic activity, to how fast water flows through the
mountain, to what could happen if a volcano erupts through the buried waste containers. A current article in Physics
Today points to uncertainty about how the metal used for disposal containers would react to ground water when it is
combined with corrosive chemicals and heated by the waste inside the repository. There is a growing recognition
that, due to Yucca Mountain’s inability to isolate waste, DOE is relying very heavily on engineered barriers,
contradicting the original concept of "permanent geologic disposal." Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is
expected to rule in favor of Yucca by early next year. President Bush, advocating the construction of new
reactors in the U.S., will almost certainly give his thumbs up shortly thereafter. The Governor and Legislature
of the State of Nevada have already indicated they will exercise their legal right under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
to veto those decisions. The decision would then go to the Congress, where a simple majority vote in both
Houses could override Nevada’s veto. That Congressional showdown could happen as early as June. If Yucca
clears all those hurdles, DOE would then submit a license application to NRC, perhaps by the end of 2002. NRC
would review the application for three to four years. NRC could thus grant a construction license as early as 2006.
Presently, the earliest waste shipments could arrive at Yucca in 2010. However, the law could be changed to
speed that schedule up. In fact, the GAO reported that DOE is considering building a parking lot style
"interim storage" facility at Yucca in order to expedite waste shipments away from utilities that are presently
suing DOE for breach of contract and seeking damages because DOE failed to begin hauling radioactive fuel
rods away by January 31, 1998 – the arbitrary, unrealistic deadline Congress mandated in the 1982 Nuclear Waste
Policy Act.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 183
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The government has been investigating since `78, Yucca’s the only place for geo-dispo
Feulner`4 (Ed, Ed Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation, Wasting a good solution, The Washington Times,
September 6, 2004, Lexis)
The problem: Tens of thousands of tons of dangerous nuclear waste are stored at more than 125 sites
around the nation. The solution: Bury it at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Yucca would become a giant
underground repository. It's designed to contain nuclear waste for 10,000 years - long enough for it to
decay to safe levels. At Yucca, our waste would be stored safely beneath 1,000 feet of solid rock.
Now comes the politics. "One of the biggest environmental and security challenges facing Nevadans is the
threat that Yucca Mountain will be turned into the nation's nuclear waste dump," warned during a recent
campaign stop in the state. But Mr. Kerry and others who want to block Yucca ignore the fact our nuclear
waste must go somewhere. We can't simply dump it in the ocean or blast it into space. And we know Yucca
Mountain is ideal, because it's probably the most-studied location in the world. The federal government
started investigating whether the site would be suitable for storing nuclear waste back in 1978. Located
in a quiet area of Nevada, some 100 miles from the outskirts of Las Vegas, Yucca has all the traits necessary
for the long-term storage of radioactive waste.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 184
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Yucca Bad-Transport-Terrorism
Transportation to one location increases terrorism risk
Neuman`2 (Brooke, Writer for the John Hopkins News Letter, Yucca nuclear waste site proposal: A bad idea for future generations, 2.22.
http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2002/02/22/Opinions/Yucca.Nuclear.Waste.Site.Proposal.A.Bad.Idea.For.Fut
ure.Generations-2248030.shtml)
Abraham claims that the prompt decision was made for national security purposes and that Yucca
Mountain was chosen based on sensible scientific findings. The issue of national security is clearly a
playoff of post-Sept. 11 paranoia - the DOE is using the public's fear of terrorism to try and slip through an
unstable proposal. In reality, a time line exists that the Department of Energy has already failed to meet. The
waste site was supposed to be activated in 1998. Abraham must have woken up one morning and noticed that
it was 2002 and a site still hadn't been approved. He now sets the goals on activating the site in 2010 - 12
years after the original deadline. Furthermore, on National Security, Spencer advises that moving waste
from over 131 sites to a centralized one decreases the chances of a terrorist attack on an old nuclear
power plant. Funny that for the 57 years that the waste has accumulated 70,000 tons, this was never
considered - not even during the Cold War. The waste is far more secure where it is and is regulated to
extreme measures - moving everything to Yucca presents the risks of leakage as well as all the risks
associated with transporting the waste. Safety is in fact a part of security, and the idea of a centralized
nuclear waste site is logically not safe at this time.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 185
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
b) An earthquake would cause plutonium to enter the water table and atmosphere
Cyber West`97 (Cyber West Magazine, Earthquake could cause flooding of Yucca Mountain repository September 2, 1997
http://www.cyberwest.com/cw14/14scwst2.html)
Using computer modeling based on geological data, historical quakes and results from about 20 test wells,
they showed that a magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake could raise the water table between 450-750 feet at the
storage site. Because the repository would be only 600 to 800 feet above the present water table,
"flooding could be expected to occur," they write. The water table below the Yucca Mountain site is
unusually deep, about 1,500 feet below the surface, Davies said. But within a 6-mile area north of the
proposed storage facility the groundwater level rapidly rises to a more normal depth of about 600 feet.
The reason for this abrupt change in the water table is a cause for concern, Davies said. Davies and
Archambeau believe that the presence of open fractures underneath Yucca Mountain has allowed the
water table to descend to unusually low depths, and that closed fractures to the north have resulted in
a more normal water table level. The danger is that an earthquake of sufficient magnitude could cause
the open fractures underneath the Yucca Mountain site to squeeze shut, forcing the water upward into
the storage facility. "If water hits the storage area it could cause a rapid corrosive breakdown of the
containers and allow the plutonium to leak into the water table and the atmosphere," Davies said.
This study brings closure to species survival arguments, by specifying via an Equation and its Graph what
concentrations of Plutonium are required to cause species extinctions. The key variable is genome size.
Amphibians have the largest genomes, and are already suffering malformations and extinctions. Larger
animals, especially carnivores, will certainly be next. Humans will not be immune. The Department of Energy's
Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) near Carlsbad, NM, is designed to hold plutonium-contaminated material,
produced by our nation's nuclear armament industry, "out of the environment" for 10,000 years. The number of
hld's [human lethal doses] of plutonium scheduled to be placed in WIPP is alarming and unacceptable. Charles
Hyder received B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from the University of New Mexico (1958,1960), and a Ph.D. in
Astrogeo- physics from the University of Colorado (1964). He published more than twenty solar and comet papers.
He worked for NASA, UCLA, UNM, and the Southwest Research and Information Center. He was an early whistle-
blower, presenting effective criticism of plans for radwaste disposal in New Mexico, [particularly at WIPP]. He and
nineteen other radwaste experts were employed by the government of Lower Saxony to critique the Gorleben Salt
Dome project, which was ultimately rejected. In 1986-87 Hyder underwent a seven-month fast in Washington, DC,
protesting against War. In this book he commits to another fast, "terminal," he says, protesting the proposed opening
of WIPP. It will remain open, "over my dead body." This book provides the science which underlies that kind of
certainty and commitment. In HUMAN SURVIVAL... Hyder advises his readers to become strict vegetarians. He
suggests living at high altitudes, rather than in low-lying areas, where heavy metals settle. He asserts that recent,
global amphibian extinctions are our dying canaries!
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 186
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Wheelwright`2 (Jeff, Discover, Welcome to Yucca Mountain Where a computer model has determined it's safe for America
to bury its nuclear garbage by Jeff Wheelwright, http://discovermagazine.com/2002/sep/featyucca)
At some point in time, a group of human beings put dangerous radioactive waste into the dry heart of the
mountain. After watching over the stuff for a century or two, until they were satisfied their plan would work, these
human beings closed up their tunnels into the mountain and went away. Then, about 10,000 years later, give
or take a millennium, some of the radioactive waste leaked out of the mountain. It crept southward on the
pathways of the deep groundwater. Now it happened that a man named Bruce lived 11 miles south of the
brown mountain. Bruce kept a little vegetable garden, which he watered from his drinking well. One day,
without noticing it, Bruce began consuming water that was slightly more radioactive than usual. Since his
vegetables were also tainted, his ingestion of radioactivity went up further. The result was that each time he ate
from his garden or drank from his well, his chances of contracting a fatal cancer increased. Although they were
long dead, the people who had put the nuclear waste into the mountain knew all about Bruce. They had
planned for his existence and his way of life, which they called rural-residential. They didn't call him Bruce,
however. They called him the Reasonably Maximally Exposed Individual, which was regulatory jargon for this
person and others like him. Most important, the nuclear waste managers had calculated the odds as to whether
Bruce would become fatally ill because of the poison in the mountain. They decided that his risk was far too low
—less than one chance in a billion—to rule out storing the waste there. And if Bruce's health risks were
acceptable, it followed that other Nevadans of the future would be all right, too, because they would live
farther away from the brown mountain and their water would be less contaminated. This fable has a scientific
version, driven by data but just as farseeing. The science fable, though, takes just an hour to unfold, not
millennia. That's because it is a model—equations and assumptions—running at breakneck speed on computers.
The model projects the behavior of the nuclear waste that the federal government wants to bury at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nuclear waste disposal is America's longest-running environmental
headache. Tens of thousands of tons of fiercely radioactive by-products of our nuclear power stations and
nuclear weapons plants are stored at 131 separate locations. If packed in containers and brought together, the
spent fuel rods and toxic liquids would cover approximately 17 football fields. And the volume grows daily.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 187
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Yucca is located along earthquake faults, volcanic activity, and is prone to floods-Floods
would devastate the whole Western U.S.
Gumbel `2 (March 15, Andrew, London Independent staffwriter, “BUSH TO DUMP NUCLEAR WASTE IN
EARTHQUAKE ZONE” page 17)
President George Bush has approved a plan to move 77,000 tons of nuclear waste from around the country to a
storage area under the mountain, pushing forward where two previous administrations, including his father's, did
not dare. Yucca Mountain is about as unsuitable a repository site as one could imagine. The area is criss-
crossed by no fewer than 33 earthquake faults. The rock is volcanic, there are volcanic cones in the area,
and the latest scientific guesswork is that there has been an eruption in the past 20,000 years - a mere blip
in the estimated 250,000- year toxic lifespan of nuclear waste. Moreover, scientific studies by former
Department of Energy officials have found evidence that groundwater, currently running 300 metres beneath
the site, has risen in the past and flooded the storage area. Were that to happen once the waste arrived, it
could not only contaminate the drinking water of the few hundred people who live locally (including
members of a native tribe, the Western Shoshone, who believe Yucca Mountain to belong to them under a 19th-
century land treaty). Radioactive toxins are likely to reach the surface, evaporate and pose a grave health
threat to a large area of the American West.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 188
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Increased research reveals more and more dangers related to ground water
Ross, No date (David P., Vermont Law Review, Spring, pg. 833-4)
Even though Yucca Mountain is located in a desolate desert, concerns over the quantity of rainfall, only
sixteen centimeters a year, and movement of groundwater ironically may preclude the selection of the site.
The concern is that rainfall will percolate through the soil and into the storage chambers, where it will
slowly corrode the waste packages and eventually transport contamination to the groundwater
hundreds of feet below, and from there it will travel in an expanding plume that may eventually be
tapped by wells. At first the volcanic tuff below Yucca Mountain was thought to be impermeable, but then it
was discovered that fifteen to thirty fractures riddle every meter. It was then thought that water traveled very
slowly through the fractures because of the lack of rainfall and the high rates of evaporation. However,
scientists have now discovered Chlorine 36, an isotope created by the surface testing of atomic bombs back
in the 1950's, at the repository level, meaning surface water traveled through the fractures to the repository
level in only fifty years. Finally, it was thought that plutonium did not travel through groundwater
because it dissolves slowly in water and rapidly absorbs to particulate matter. Yet scientists recently
discovered that plutonium in one instance had traveled nearly a mile in only thirty years. While
research is supposed to remove the uncertainty in constructing Yucca Mountain, this research is
demonstrating that uncertainty grows with scientific discovery.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 189
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
ANP`3 (The Agency of Nuclear Power, The States of Nevada, What’s Wrong With Putting Nuclear Waste in Yucca Mountain,
2003, http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:XyqaeAco68QJ:www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2003/pdf/nv_wwrong.pdf)
When Congress passed nuclear waste laws in 1982, “geologic isolation” was required for any waste repository,
to protect future generations. An isolation time of 250,000 years was envisioned, when radioactivity would have
decayed to safe levels. • This approach had been recommended by scientists since 1957, and was selected by
Congress after a comprehensive 1980 study by the Department of Energy (“DOE”). • Detailed safety rules for
repositories were developed in the early 1980s by DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”), all based on geologic isolation. • Hoping Yucca Mountain would
satisfy this requirement, Congress selected it in 1987 as the only site for detailed study. • But results from DOE
studies were startling: They showed Yucca could not geologically isolate wastes, because water flows much
faster from the surface through the mountain to the water table than had been expected. o Yucca was formed
from volcanic ash and is the only repository under consideration in the world that is above the water table, not
below it. o Yucca’s volcanic material is brittle and contains innumerable fractures and voids, some
resembling a Swiss-cheese formation. o DOE says the number of “water-conducting fractures” at Yucca is
“on the order of one billion.” o Fast water paths through the mountain make “geologic containment” a
matter of 50 to 200 years, not the 250,000 years intended by scientists and Congress. o The so-called “dry” rock
is over 80% saturated with water, posing serious waste package corrosion risks. o Yucca’s rock form and
chemistry are uniquely conducive to the production of strong acids that can corrode through metal waste
packages. o Scientists agree that the primary risk at Yucca is water transporting radioactive wastes from
corroding waste containers to the accessible environment. B ENDING T HE RULES • Knowing Yucca could
never meet geologic isolation requirements in place since the 1980s, DOE contrived a new set of “rules” in
late 2001 to enable the Secretary of Energy to declare the repository is suitable anyway.
ANP`3 (The Agency of Nuclear Power, The States of Nevada, What’s Wrong With Putting Nuclear Waste in Yucca Mountain,
2003, http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:XyqaeAco68QJ:www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2003/pdf/nv_wwrong.pdf)
DOE has assumed that a broad variety of radioisotopes released from corroding waste packages will not
descend through the mountain to the water table, claiming they will be retarded by attaching to minerals in the
rock, or by diffusing into the rock. • But Nevada’s studies show this phenomenon is not significant for many of
the most prevalent radioactive constituents. • Once radioactive materials get to the water table, DOE
concedes they will rapidly migrate to Armargosa Valley (in as little as 100 years). Armargosa Valley today
hosts Nevada’s largest dairy and organic milk producer, using locally grown feed. It’s about 80 miles north of
Las Vegas, the nation’s fastest growing city. T HE B OTTOM L INE • DOE’s performance models assume
Nevadans will one day be drinking and using water contaminated with nuclear waste; the only questions being
“how soon” and “how much.” The Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository fails the tests of science and can
never be made safe.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 190
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Yucca Bad-Transportation-Accidents
Transport to Yucca Mountain would risk hundreds of accidents
LaDuke 99 (Winona, Director of Honor the Earth Fund and White Earth Land Recovery Project, All Our
Relations, pg. 108-9)
Pushed through with some heavy lobbying by the nuclear industry and a sentiment in Congress of “get it out
of my backyard,” the bill authorizes the transport of nuclear waste from 108 nuclear reactors to Yucca
Mountain in Western Shoshone territory. As Senator Rod Grams of Minnesota, a co-author of the 1997
Nuclear Waste Policy Act, explains it, “We in the Senate have done our part in trying to restore the promises
made by the federal government to the ratepayers of this country to move nuclear waste out of our home
states.” To start with, Northern States Power put about $171,000 into its congressional delegations’ coffers,
and the other members of the Nuclear Energy Institute also anted up, sending about $12.8 million to their
congressional delegations to set up the interim site at Yucca Mountain. That money is almost three times the
amount utilities have spent on Congress in nearly a decade. The problem is that Yucca Mountain doesn’t
really get the waste out of the senators’ backyards. Yucca Mountain would create yet another nuclear waste
site. Operating reactors would still have to store waste on their sites, because the radiation is so hot that it has
to chill in liquid for five to ten years before it can be transported. Perhaps most alarming, the waste would be
moving on U.S. highways. More than 50 million Americans live within a half-mile of the most likely
route, near some of the nation’s largest cities: Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Baltimore,
Jacksonville, Denver, Portland, and others. Nuclear Information and Resource Service director Michael
Marriote outlined some of the problems in his congressional testimony on the act. First, there will be some
potentially disastrous accidents. According to the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, there have been
about 2,400 shipments of high-level nuclear waste in the United States (most of it in small quantities
from submarine reactors). There have been seven accidents associated with those shipments, none of which
involved the release of radioactive materials. This rate of one accident per 343 shipments translates into,
at the very minimum, 268 accidents resulting from the 15,000 to 90,000 shipments of nuclear waste to
Yucca Mountain. Second, the act’s designation of acceptable radiation exposure is dangerously high.
The act establishes a radiation standard for Yucca Mountain of 100 millirems per year, or what the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission calculates is the equivalent of a 1 in 286 lifetime risk of fatal cancer. Yet,
Marriote observed, “our nation typically regulates pollutants to ensure that exposure to them will cause
no more than a 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 1,000,000 lifetime risk of fatal cancer.”
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 191
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Yucca Bad-Transportation-Radiation
Yucca will necessitate the trek of mobile Chernobyls-The radiation risk is high
NIRS, No Date (Nuclear Information and Resources, "Mobile Chernobyl" - High-Level Radioactive Waste Transport,
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/hlwtransport/mobilechernobyl.htm)
The same material that blew apart and burned during the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in 1986 – highly
radioactive, irradiated nuclear fuel – would be transported through countless communities across the U.S. if the
nuclear establishment gets its way. The U.S. Department of Energy proposes shipping tens of thousands of
trucks, trains and barges carrying irradiated nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste through 45 states
and the District of Columbia. DOE wants to dump these highly radioactive wastes at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada. A nuclear utility consortium called Private Fuel Storage, LLC proposes shipping 4,000 irradiated nuclear
fuel railcars to Skull Valley, Utah for "temporary storage." Such proposals dwarf the 2,500 to 3,000 irradiated
nuclear fuel shipments that have taken place in the U.S. since the beginning of the Nuclear Age well over 50 years
ago. Each truck-sized container would hold up to 40 times the long-lasting radioactivity released by the
Hiroshima atomic bomb. The much larger train/barge containers would each hold over 200 times
Hiroshima’s long-lasting radioactivity. These shipping containers are vulnerable to severe accidents. Even a
fraction of a single shipping container’s radioactive cargo escaping into the environment could prove
catastrophic for an entire area downwind and downstream. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not
even require them to undergo full-scale physical safety testing! The containers are also vulnerable to terrorist
attack, making them massive “dirty bombs on wheels.”
B) This’ll give more than seven million people 800 different cancers
Gunter &Gunter`5 (Paul and Linda, NIRS staff, NIRS Opinion/Editorial May 23, 2005 [NIRS= Nuclear Information and
Resource service] http://www.nirs.org/columnist/chernobylmay2320005.pdf)
Also forgotten amidst the Washington pundits’ pro-nuclear pronouncements are the tragic consequences
so vividly seen today in the children of Chernobyl. These are young lives forever altered by the birth
defects they inherited from their parents who had the misfortune to live close to the reactor or downwind
of its toxic fallout cloud. Many have been abandoned in orphanages. More than seven million people in the
former Soviet Republics of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are believed to have suffered medical problems and
genetic damage as the direct result of Chernobyl. In Ukraine alone, more than 2.32 million people,
including 452,000 children have been treated for radiation-linked illnesses, including thyroid and blood cancers
and cancerous growths according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. New findings reported last November in
the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health published by the British Medical Association concluded
that more than 800 cancers in Sweden are being attributed to the ever-widening impact of the
“Chernobyleffect.” It is increasingly disingenuous of the nuclear industry to distance itself from a potential
catastrophic accident in the United States. Considerable evidence exists that currently operating U.S. reactor
containments can also fail during a severe accident. A 1990 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
study of risks associated with severe reactor accidents concluded that none of the five different US designs
it analyzed were capable of remaining intact during all severe accident scenarios.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 192
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Yucca Bad-Volcanoes
Volcanoes will erupt at Yucca and throw tons of rad-waste into the atmosphere
Macfarlane 2k (Allison, The Earth Around Us, Jill Schneiderman- editor, pg. 291
Faults are not the only threat to the peace of Yucca Mountain; the presence of volcanoes suggests future
volcanic activity. Within six miles of the mountain are the Crater Flats volcanic cones, all approximately one
million years old. A little further to the south is the infamous Lathrop Wells cone, which has been the source
of ample controversy Some geologists claim that it is as old as 100,000 years, whereas others suggest that it is
much younger, on the order of 10,000 years.’ The probability of future volcanic activity is highly significant
to the success of the repository. One does not want a volcanic center to pop up in the middle of the
repository blowing high into the atmosphere all the radioactive material carefully stored there. Geologists
have had a difficult time reaching agreement over the probability of future volcanic eruptions near Yucca
Mountain. To deal with this disagreement, the Department of Energy convened an event of questionable
scientific validity: A number of the geologists who work closely on volcanism in the Yucca Mountain region
gathered to debate the probability of future volcanism.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 193
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Monastersky`97 (Richard Monastersky "Relying on geology to jail nuclear waste - geological disposal of nuclear waste".
Science News. Nov 1, 1997. FindArticles.com. 02 Jul. 2008.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n18_v152/ai_19978570)
In the bad-news category, federal scientists reported potential problems at Yucca Mountain, Nev., where the
Department of Energy is considering constructing an underground repository for 70,000 tons of spent fuel from
nuclear power plants and other highly radioactive waste. In 1987, Congress chose Yucca Mountain as the only
candidate site because its extremely arid rock layers would, in theory, keep water from dispersing the
radioactive isotopes. Experiments conducted this year, however, indicate that rainwater is leaking through the
mountain faster than previous studies had predicted. On the other hand, the Energy Department got some welcome
news about an underground repository in southern New Mexico called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
Excavated from a salt deposit, WIPP is designed to hold defense-related waste contaminated with radioactivity
during the production of nuclear weapons. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency gave provisional
approval for opening WIPP. The Yucca Mountain data came to light at a meeting of the Geological Society of
America in Salt Lake City. Donald S. Sweetkind of the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver reported on
measurements made in an exploratory tunnel cutting through the mountain. His group detected elevated
concentrations of chlorine-36--a radioactive isotope--in rock samples taken from several locations in the
tunnel. The chlorine-36, says Sweetkind, comes from above-ground nuclear weapons tests conducted in the
1950s and 1960s. Its presence in the tunnel at four times the natural concentration indicates that rainwater
has traveled through fractures in the rock, reaching several hundred meters into the mountain in 4 decades.
ANP`3 (The Agency of Nuclear Power, The States of Nevada, What’s Wrong With Putting Nuclear Waste in Yucca Mountain,
2003, http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:XyqaeAco68QJ:www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2003/pdf/nv_wwrong.pdf)
Repository safety analysis begins with projected rainfall. DOE’s computer models ignore climate change
impacts expected at Yucca as a result of global warming. DOE assumes an average annual rainfall that is spread
out evenly during the year. DOE, therefore, assumes most of the water evaporates before penetrating the
mountain. In fact, rainfall at Yucca occurs frequently as torrential storms, often resulting in flooding that
penetrates the mountain through fractures and faults. o Last July, flash flooding washed out roads DOE had
built at Yucca. Yucca’s surface is latticed with erosion features from such flooding. Below Yucca’s surface is
volcanic rock DOE calls the “unsaturated” zone. The repository would be built in this zone, about 1000 feet
beneath the mountain crest, and about 1000 feet above the water table. • Because the volcanic material is
porous and retains water in innumerable matrices and voids, 80% of the void space is actually filled with water,
on average. • DOE hopes to show that little or no water will make it through this zone and into the repository.
However – o DOE now estimates there are at least a billion fractures in the unsaturated rock, permitting fast
water flow times of as little as 50 years. o High repository temperatures from radioactive decay of nuclear
waste will release and mobilize water already trapped in rock voids. DOE has found trapped water deposits
of up to a million gallons at Yucca Mountain. 5 T HE R EPOSITORY ’ S W ASTE P ACKAGES • Because
water threatens to corrode the repository’s ten thousand waste packages, DOE is now proposing to install
titanium umbrellas, or “drip shields,” over every one of them, at a cost of nearly $10 billion. • Even if drip shields
were to prevent dripping onto the waste packages, they will not negate the underground tunnel’s high
humidity and corrosive environment. Nevada’s corrosion experts have determined that dripping is unnecessary
for waste package corrosion to occur in the repository’s hot, humid and dusty environment.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 194
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
ANP`3 (The Agency of Nuclear Power, The States of Nevada, What’s Wrong With Putting Nuclear Waste in Yucca Mountain,
2003, http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:XyqaeAco68QJ:www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2003/pdf/nv_wwrong.pdf)
Fractured rock in tunnels that would house the waste packages pose risks to those packages, since small
earthquakes, heat and other disturbances cause rockfalls. Rockfalls can damage waste packages and increase
their susceptibility to corrosion. o Rockfalls are such a problem at Yucca that DOE engineers were forced to
erect complex steel lattices around tunnel ceilings to protect workers from injury. • Waste packages will be
made from “Alloy-22,” a new industrial metal that DOE claims will contain wastes for at least 10,000 years.
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (“TRB”) recently concluded there is no scientific basis to believe
Alloy-22 is capable of this task. • Using the water composition DOE says will be present in the repository zone,
Nevada’s corrosion experts were able to demonstrate to NRC and the TRB that Alloy-22 began corroding in
mere hours at expected repository temperatures. o Nevada’s studies also showed that heat and humidity at
Yucca will create an environment for microbes to thrive. Microbes produce nitrates, which speed corrosion
of metallic surfaces. o The titanium drip shields are also highly susceptible to corrosion in the expected
Yucca underground environment, according to Nevada- and NRC-sponsored studies.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 195
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Muth`8 (Chuck, Nevada Appeal, Welcome to Yucca Mountain Appreciation Month, June 6, 2008,
http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20080606/OPINION/880080296)
To paraphrase the late, great Mark Twain, Sen. Reid's reports of Yucca's death appear to be greatly exaggerated.
In fact, after more than two decades and millions of dollars worth of efforts to kill Yucca Mountain, the project
has now entered its final approval phase, with the Department of Energy recently submitting its licensing
application. Approval of the license is the last step before construction begins. Sen. Reid is starting to resemble
a blind man standing in the middle of the tracks yelling "Stop" at an oncoming bullet train. But he's not
wearing a cape, tights and a shirt with a big red "S" on the front. Also apparently living in state of denial, the Clark
County Commission recently rubber-stamped yet another meaningless, toothless anti-Yucca Mountain
"resolution." Commission Chairman Rory Reid noted that the commission has already issued seven such
resolutions during the years, leading columnist John L. Smith to write, with a healthy dose of much deserved
sarcasm, "Imagine. Seven tersely worded statements and still the DOE keeps coming. What next, stern rebukes?
Hard stares? The silent treatment?" Meanwhile, the refusal of Nevada's politicians to take a seat at the table and
discuss potential benefits and safety controls, while simultaneously maintaining opposition to the facility,
means that if Yucca is eventually built, as still appears likely, Nevadans will get doodley-squat in the bargain.
Plus, all the decisions regarding the site, including safety, will be made by unaffected out-of-state interests rather
than Nevadans.
Discover`8 (Eliz Stricklnd, So Much Radioactive Waste, So Little Time So Much Radioactive Waste, So Little Time,
Discover Magazine online, June 4, 2008, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/06/04/so-much-radioactive-waste-so-
little-time-2/)
It’s been a big news week for nuclear waste, with most of the attention going to the Department of Energy’s
announcement that it has at long last submitted an application to open a nuclear waste repository in Nevada’s
Yucca Mountain. After two decades of planning, the application nudges the project a little closer to reality, but
there’s a long way to go yet. Nevada officials remain violently opposed to the “nuclear dump,” and lawsuits are
inevitable. The Department of Energy says that the repository won’t be ready to open until 2020, at the earliest.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 198
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Spencer & Loris`8 (Jack Spencer and Nick Loris, Jack Spencer is Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy and Nicolas Loris
is a Research Assistant in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, Yucca Mountain
Remains Critical to Spent Nuclear Fuel Management, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Energyandenvironment/bg2131.cfm)
The recent push to build new nuclear power plants in the United States is forcing some to consider
alternatives to the Yucca Mountain geologic repository, located in Nevada, for spent nuclear fuel. These
options include recycling nuclear fuel and opening interim storage facilities. Both options could play
critical roles in any American nuclear power renaissance, but they simply cannot eliminate the need to
open the Yucca Mountain repository. The United States generates about 20 percent of its electricity from 104
nuclear power reactors, and these reactors in turn have generated over 56,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel.
Commonly referred to as waste, this spent fuel is in fact a potentially valuable resource. Although politicians
and the public have begun to accept that nuclear power is a clean and affordable source of energy, questions
remain about how to manage spent fuel. There are at least three solutions to this problem. First, the
spent fuel could be put directly into Yucca Mountain for permanent storage. While politics has made
this impossible to date, no scientific, safety, or technological reason prevents it. Volumes of data attest to the
repository's safety.[1] These data have been generated by numerous sources, including both private and
public entities, and more studies are being conducted. Second, the U.S. could recycle (reprocess) spent
nuclear fuel, which still contains usable fuel that could be recovered and "used again" for future power
generation. This could be achieved through numerous methods. Some technologies have already been
commercialized abroad, and others are being researched and developed. These technologies will enable more
efficient use of uranium resources and could drastically reduce the amount of high-level nuclear waste. In the
end, however, some byproduct will still need to be placed in permanent geologic storage. Finally, the spent
fuel could be stored on an interim basis at shorter-term storage facilities. This option also has
advantages. Simply allowing the spent fuel to decay over time decreases its heat load, making it easier to
store for the long term. Shorter-term storage would also provide time to develop new technologies that would
improve long-term management of spent fuel. Both recycling and interim storage would provide flexibility,
but geologic storage in Yucca Mountain will still be necessary.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 199
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Johnson`2 (Jeff, Chemical and Engineering, Washington, Yucca Mountain, July 8, 2002
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8027/8027yucca.html)
The vote is a significant step in the nation's long and costly program to build a geological repository for nuclear
waste. The outcome has implications beyond U.S. borders. Worldwide, nuclear proponents have long favored
a geological repository as the ultimate home for high-level nuclear waste, but few nations have moved beyond
discussing such emplacement. The U.S. government's effort at Yucca Mountain is far and away leading the
pack. And for this reason alone, there are many eyes watching the Department of Energy's $60 billion
construction project in Nevada's high desert, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 200
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
But the federal government's decades-long track record on nuclear -not least its failure to meet contractual
obligations to remove spent fuel from existing utility nuclear plant sites--does not inspire confidence. The drive to
build a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has dominated federal fuel cycle policy for
nearly two decades, to the exclusion of all other disposal options. Yet the much-delayed project still faces many
obstacles. The government remains strongly committed to the Yucca Mountain project. Growing doubts about
current policy, however, suggest that a major rethink may be needed. Work at Yucca Mountain should
continue. But if the project fails, an alternative will be required. And even if it eventually goes forward, it may
not suffice if there is a major new commitment to nuclear power in the United States. Is it possible to imagine a
different policy, one that would engender confidence that nuclear waste will be disposed of safely and cost-
effectively? Requirements for a back-end policy go beyond successful waste disposal, important as that is. An
effective policy must also contribute to the goals of controlling the proliferation of nuclear weapons; fighting
terrorism; and minimizing health, safety, and environmental risks during the lengthy interval between the generation
of waste and its final isolation; all this while keeping nuclear power economically competitive with other ways of
making electricity. Moreover, the policy must be "scalable"; that is, it must be capable of accommodating significant
expansion in the number of nuclear power plants. In this year's State of the Union address, President Bush
announced a new nuclear power initiative, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). If adopted, GNEP
would constitute the biggest shift in U.S. nuclear fuel cycle policy in decades. According to the president, GNEP
is intended to help nuclear power expand safely and economically both at home and in other nations, including
developing nations, while minimizing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. The centerpiece of GNEP is a
scheme to accelerate the introduction of new technologies for reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear power
reactor fuel. The Bush administration claims that this scheme could eliminate the need for repositories other
than Yucca Mountain, cut the duration of the waste disposal problem from hundreds of thousands of years to
something much shorter, and use almost all the energy in uranium fuel. This is an appealing vision, but the
reality is that GNEP is unlikely to achieve these goals and will also make nuclear power less competitive
economically. The good news is that there is an alternative pathway that can lead to success.
Bunn`7(Matthew, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, "Risks of GNEP’s Focus on
Near-Term Reprocessing" Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Full Committee Hearing on the Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership (GNEP) November 14, 2007,
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/17675/risks_of_gneps_focus_on_nearterm_reprocessing.html)
Bunn testified, in part, "A key GNEP goal is to expand global reliance on nuclear energy without increasing
proliferation risks. Controlling the spread of enrichment and reprocessing — the technologies that make it
possible to produce nuclear bomb material — is a critical part of achieving that objective. Some elements of
GNEP could make important contributions to reducing proliferation risks. Unfortunately, GNEP's heavy focus on
building a commercial-scale reprocessing plant in the near term would, if accepted, increase proliferation risks
rather than decreasing them."
Extinction
Totten`94 (Assoc. Professor at University of Arkansas)[Samuel, The Widening Circle of Genocide, p. 289 //wyo-tjc]
There are numerous dangers inherent in the spread of nuclear weapons, including but not limited to the
following: the possibility that a nation threatened by destruction in a conventional war may resort to the
use of its nuclear weapons; the miscalculation of a threat of an attack and the subsequent use of nuclear
weapons in order to stave off the suspected attack; a nuclear weapons accident due to carelessness or
flawed technology (e.g., the accidental launching of a nuclear weapon); the use of such weapons by an
unstable leader; the use of such weapons by renegade military personnel during a period of instability
(personal, national or international); and, the theft (and/or development) and use of such weapons by
terrorists. While it is unlikely (though not impossible) that terrorists would be able to design their own
weapons, it is possible that they could do so with the assistance of a renegade government.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 202
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Feulner`4 (Ed, Ed Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation, Wasting a good solution, The Washington Times,
September 6, 2004, Lexis)
The climate is dry. That means little rain, which might erode the canisters nuclear waste is stored in. The geology
is stable, so it's unlikely an earthquake would disturb the waste. And the water table at Yucca is contained, so if
there's a leak, it won't contaminate the water supply anywhere else. Of course, when it comes to storing nuclear
waste, most people (understandably) say "not in my backyard." But right now, the waste is in our backyard. All
high-level nuclear waste is the federal government's responsibility. While we're dithering over Yucca
Mountain, this waste is piling up at temporary sites in almost 40 states. Most of these are near water, and
many are in urban or suburban areas. Today, an estimated 161 million people live within 75 miles of
temporarily stored nuclear waste, and each storage site is a potential terrorist target. Contrast that with Yucca
Mountain. The federal government owns almost 80 percent of Nevada. Nuclear waste stored there will be far
from populated areas. In fact, the site's nearest neighbor is the Nevada Test Site, larger than the state of Rhode Island
and one of the largest restricted-access areas in the United States. That, combined Yucca also being surrounded
on three sides by Nellis Air Force Base, should help keep the waste safe from potential terrorist attack.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 203
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Yucca Good-Terrorism
Waste is currently scattered everywhere and not regulated, this increases the risk for
terrorism-Yucca solves
Feulner`4 (Ed, Ed Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation, Wasting a good solution, The Washington Times,
September 6, 2004, Lexis)
All high-level nuclear waste is the responsibility of the federal government. While we’re dithering over Yucca
Mountain, this waste is piling up at temporary sites in almost 40 states. Most of these are near water, and
many are in urban or suburban areas. Today, an estimated 161 million people reside within 75 miles of
temporarily stored nuclear waste, and each storage site is a potential terrorist target. Contrast that with
Yucca Mountain. The federal government owns almost 80 percent of Nevada. Nuclear waste stored there will
be far from populated areas. In fact, the site’s nearest neighbor is the Nevada Test Site, which is larger than the
state of Rhode Island and is one of the largest restricted-access areas in the United States. That, combined with
the fact that Yucca is also surrounded on three sides by Nellis Air Force Base, should help keep the waste safe
from potential terrorist attack. Of course, getting the waste to Nevada will pose a challenge. “Under the Yucca
Mountain plan,” Kerry warned recently, “more than 50,000 shipments of waste would travel just yards away from
homes, hospitals, parks and playgrounds in states across this country.” That’s true, but nuclear waste already is
traveling around the country, and the safety record is admirable. In the past 30 years, the government has
safely completed more than 2,700 shipments of spent nuclear fuel, and there hasn’t been even a single injury
from the release of radioactive materials. With the proper security measures, nuclear waste will be delivered
safely to Yucca Mountain. The price of oil is hovering around record highs, and there’s no doubt our country needs
to develop alternate sources of energy. Nuclear power is cheap, safe and generates no greenhouse gasses. However,
the United States hasn’t opened a new nuclear plant since 1979, partly because we haven’t had any place to put the
radioactive waste.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 204
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Koerner`8 (Brendan I, Not in My Back YuccaWhat are our alternatives for storing radioactive waste?, Slate,
http://www.slate.com/id/2188984/)
The good news is that we've got a viable stopgap solution: dry-cask storage. After nuclear fuel rods have been
used up, they're cooled in pools of water. After five years of such cooling, they can be placed in sealed casks made
of heat-resistant metal alloys and concrete. This technique is currently used at 31 locations nationwide, all of which
must be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC asserts that there has never been a single
incident at any of these sites. The conventional wisdom is that these dry-cask storage sites will suffice for at
least the next 100 years. But they'll fill up at some point, and some worry over their vulnerability to terrorist
attacks, natural catastrophes, or theft. The whole rationale for Yucca Mountain was to secure all high-level
nuclear waste in a single, safe location; with that project now imperiled, what's a nuclear nation to do?
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 205
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Esmarlada County`6 (Esmaralda County.com, Esmeralda County is one of ten counties designated as an affected unit of
local government (AULG). Esmeralda County has been overseeing the site characterization of Yucca Mountain since 1988 even
though Esmeralda County was not granted "affected", What makes YuccaMountain a good place to store waste?FAQ, 2006
ttp://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:A6Sg2x0QPi8J:esmeraldanvnuke.com/facts/FAQ5.pdf)
Yucca Mountain is located in a desert, isolated from population centers, in a region where the land is controlled by
the federal government, including the U.S. military. Most of the land in this region is under federally restricted
access. Waste placed in Yucca Mountain would be located 1,000 feet underground — compared to its current
location in temporary surface facilities at 131 sites in 39 states. Natural and engineered barriers would work in
concert to isolate radionuclides from the accessible environment for tens of thousands of years.
Esmarlada County`6 (Esmaralda County.com, Esmeralda County is one of ten counties designated as an affected unit of
local government (AULG). Esmeralda County has been overseeing the site characterization of Yucca Mountain since 1988 even
though Esmeralda County was not granted "affected", What makes YuccaMountain a good place to store waste?FAQ, 2006
ttp://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:A6Sg2x0QPi8J:esmeraldanvnuke.com/facts/FAQ5.pdf)
Limited Release of Radionuclides from the Engineered Barriers – Even though the waste packages and drip
shields are expected to be long-lived in the repository environment, the advanced computer simulations predict
some eventual loss of waste package integrity. If water were to penetrate a breached waste package, several
characteristics of the waste forms and the repository would limit radionuclide releases. First, because of the warm
temperatures of the waste, much of the water that might penetrate the waste package will evaporate before it
can dis- solve or transport radionuclides. Neither spent nuclear fuel nor glass waste forms will dissolve rapidly
in the water expected in the repository environment. In addition, the invert, part of the engineered barrier system
under the waste package and support pallet, would contain crushed tuff that would also delay the transport
of radionuclides into the unsaturated host rock.
Esmarlada County`6 (Esmaralda County.com, Esmeralda County is one of ten counties designated as an affected unit of
local government (AULG). Esmeralda County has been overseeing the site characterization of Yucca Mountain since 1988 even
though Esmeralda County was not granted "affected", What makes YuccaMountain a good place to store waste?FAQ, 2006
ttp://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:A6Sg2x0QPi8J:esmeraldanvnuke.com/facts/FAQ5.pdf)
Delay and Dilution of Radionuclide Concentrations by the Natural Barriers - Eventually, the engineered barrier
systems could experience a decrease in their integrity, and small amounts of water could contact waste, dissolve it,
and carry some radionuclides out of the repository and into the rock below. As water flows through fractures,
dissolved radionuclides would diffuse into and out of the pores of the rock matrix, increasing both the time it
takes for radionuclides to move from the repository and the likelihood that radionuclides will be exposed to
sorbing minerals (minerals that attract and hold them). Radionuclide migration through the unsaturated and
saturated zone is affected in two ways. First, radionuclides are exposed to minerals in the rocks called “zeolites”
that trap many species of the radioactive waste; this delays the transport of radionuclides. Second, dispersive
processes that occur during transport through the saturated zone dilute and reduce radionuclide
concentrations in groundwater
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 207
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Tetreault`8 (STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU, Yucca delay may spur interim storage Nuclear
waste piling up at plants, Apr. 26, 2008, http://www.lvrj.com/news/18252514.html)
The conference becomes the second national organization this year to recommend steering high-level waste into
temporary storage while the Department of Energy attempts to overcome a decade of delay to advance the
Yucca project. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners adopted a similar policy in February.
The Nuclear Energy Institute is recruiting communities interested in hosting such a storage complex.
Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, D-Las Vegas, said the shift toward interim storage might benefit Nevada
leaders who have fought the Yucca repository. "We ought to be able to make it work for us," McClain said at
the group's meeting. "I think it increases the chances that they might find an alternative in that 25 years." A
subcommittee adopted the policy Friday. Since the vote was unanimous, it will be added to a fast-track agenda for
approval at the final conference session, said John Heaton, a state representative from New Mexico. The new
policy was propelled by legislators from New Mexico, Maryland and Maine who argued nuclear waste piling up
at power plants in 35 states needs to be removed and taken somewhere if not Yucca Mountain right away. The
issue is most pressing at 10 sites where reactors have been shut down but nuclear waste remains and requires
costly protections, said Deborah Simpson, a Maine representative. "We can no longer sit back," said Sally
Jameson, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. "We have to try to make a path forward possible."
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 208
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Ledwidge`1 (Lisa Ledwidge of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research for the Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability and was based largely on IEER materials, especially High-Level Dollars, Low-Level Sense and Science for
Democratic Action vol. 7 no. 3., If not Yucca Mountain, then what?" An alternative plan for managing highly radioactive waste in
the United States December 2001 http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/yuccaalt.html)
Argument: "If not Yucca Mountain, then what?" Counter: The Institute for Energy and Environmental
Research (IEER), a scientific institution with expertise in nuclear waste management and related issues, published
an alternative plan for the short- and long-term management of highly radioactive waste in 1999. It is
summarized here and details are available on the internet at http://www.ieer.org/sdafiles/vol_7/7-3/index.html. In
the short term, irradiated reactor fuel should be stored as safely as possible on site or as close to the point of
generation as possible for an interim period (several decades) that would be long enough to allow a long-term
management plan to be implemented. In light of the attacks of September 11, IEER has recommended on-site or
close-to-site subsurface dry storage of spent fuel, in the type of structures built for the storage of the vitrified
high-level wastes at the DOE's Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This would reduce the risk of large-scale
catastrophe in case of a terrorist attack. The federal government should use monies from the Nuclear Waste
Fund to pay for additional on-site storage necessitated by delays in the repository program. For the long-term,
more basic research on various geologic settings is needed before sites for permanent disposal of radioactive
waste can be scientifically screened. IEER recommends three broad approaches for waste storage research:
geologic disposal on land, sub-seabed disposal, and upper mantle disposal. The main aim would be to yield
sufficient data and analysis in one to two decades to enable a comparison between these options. Repository types
need to be considered in tandem with the development of engineered barriers that mimic natural materials and
structures that retard the migration of radioactivity for millions of years or more.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 209
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Skerzce`2 (Ean, DOE Yucca Mountain site characterization project, Understandmg the potential for volcanoes at Yucca)
To assess the possibility of future volcanic activity in the Yucca Mountain area, the U S Department of Energy
relied upon careful evaluation by some of the world’s foremost experts in such fields as volcanology,
geophysics, and geochemistry. Their studies started with extensive analysis of the location, age, and volume
of past volcanic activity in the Yucca Mountain area. Using the data from these studies, along with
information from studies of both modern Using their extensive studies of the Yucca Mountain region, experts
estimate the chance of a volcanic event disrupting the proposed repository to be about one in 63 million per
year. This equals about 0.0000016 percent chance per year that a volcano will disrupt the repository. Put
another way, it means there is about a 99.9999984 percent chance per year that a volcanic event will not
disrupt the repository
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 210
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
NSL`8 (Nevada Seimsmology Laboratory, Earthquakes & Yucca Mountain How is the NSL involved in Yucca Mountain?,
2008, http://www.seismo.unr.edu/htdocs/nsl-ym.html)
The NSL has monitored the seismicity around Yucca Mountain since 1992, but monitoring actually began
under the US Geological Survey in 1978. At present, we operate a very sensitive network of 30 stations
within 50 km of Yucca Mountain. This network "sees" 10-15 earthquakes per day, with roughly only 5
per day being locatable. Most of these earthquakes are extremely small, near magnitude 0 on the Richter
scale. The NSL reports regularly to the DOE on this seismic activity and deploys additional instruments in
the case of interesting earthquakes (M > 4 say). The NSL role is to quantify the seismic activity in the
vicinity of Yucca Mountain and provide this information to the DOE in order that they may use it in
modern, seismic, risk-based design of the repository facilities. The NSL also performs research into the
accuracy of the ground-motion predictions for seismic design and into the nature and causes of the
earthquake activity at Yucca Mountain.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 211
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Esmarlada County`6 (Esmaralda County.com, Esmeralda County is one of ten counties designated as an affected unit of
local government (AULG). Esmeralda County has been overseeing the site characterization of Yucca Mountain since 1988 even
though Esmeralda County was not granted "affected", What makes YuccaMountain a good place to store waste?FAQ, 2006
ttp://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:A6Sg2x0QPi8J:esmeraldanvnuke.com/facts/FAQ5.pdf)
Once the saturated zone, which is about 1,000 feet below the repository, is reached the flow paths are generally
southerly toward the Amargosa Desert and Death Valley. Yucca Mountain is located in a closed hydrologic
basin. The boundaries of this basin are defined and understood. Water in this basin does not flow into any
rivers or oceans, and is isolated from the aquifer systems of Las Vegas and Pahrump, the largest community
in Nye County. Isolated hydrologic basins are a relatively rare geologic feature. The groundwater system in
this basin conforms to the mountainous topography, and drains inward.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 212
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Monastersky`97 (Richard Monastersky "Relying on geology to jail nuclear waste - geological disposal of nuclear waste".
Science News. Nov 1, 1997. FindArticles.com. 02 Jul. 2008.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n18_v152/ai_19978570)
"It's certainly a bad sign. It's a new wrinkle that definitely has to be considered in terms of the rapidity of flow. But I
can't say that this is a [finding] that will kill the performance of the repository," says Sweetkind. The available
data do not tell how much water is flowing through the rock at the level of the planned repository, says June T.
Fabryka-Martin of the Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory, who led the chlorine-36 study. The seepage rate is
important because abundant water would corrode the waste canisters and carry the radioactive isotopes down
to the water table, where they could spread and eventually contaminate drinking water. By law, the repository and
the specially designed canisters must limit leakage for the next 10,000 years.
The actual tunnel is dry and they newer evidence-The DOE did another assessment
Monastersky`97 (Richard Monastersky "Relying on geology to jail nuclear waste - geological disposal of nuclear waste".
Science News. Nov 1, 1997. FindArticles.com. 02 Jul. 2008.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n18_v152/ai_19978570)
The tunnel is currently dry There are no places where water is trickling in. This indicates that little liquid is
flowing through the rock today, says Fabryka-Martin. During the last ice age, however, the region received
more rain than it does now. "Under a wetter climate in the future, the sites where we have found elevated chlorine-
36 might be potential areas for seeps," says Fabryka-Martin. Next year, the Department of Energy, which
oversees the Yucca Mountain project, will issue a preliminary assessment of the site's suitability for storage.
Opponents view the new measurements as a serious blow to the planned repository. "I think they're in a lot of
trouble regarding the performance of this site." says Robert R. Loux of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects in
Carson City.
Monastersky`97 (Richard Monastersky "Relying on geology to jail nuclear waste - geological disposal of nuclear waste".
Science News. Nov 1, 1997. FindArticles.com. 02 Jul. 2008.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n18_v152/ai_19978570)
Russell L. Patterson, a hydrologist with the Energy Department, disagrees. Scientists had acknowledged the
possibility that water could move through so-called fast pathways, so the new data were not totally
unanticipated, he says. In fact, he views the movement of water through the rock as a potential benefit. "It
prevents moisture from [pooling] at the level of the repository and limits the amount of moisture that comes
in contact with the waste containers." he says.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 213
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Muller`82 (Richard, Richard A. Muller, a 1982 MacArthur Fellow, is a physics professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, where he teaches a course called "Physics for Future Presidents." Since 1972, he has been a Jason consultant on U.S.
national security, The Witch of Yucca Mountain More research on nuclear waste storage won't reassure the public, March 12,
2004, http://muller.lbl.gov/TRessays/26-Witch-of-Yucca-Mountain.htm)
A related issue is the risk of mishaps and attacks while transporting nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain site.
The present plans call for the waste to be carried in thick reinforced concrete cylinders that can survive high-
speed crashes without leaking. In fact, it would be very hard for a terrorist to open the containers, or use the
waste in radiological weapons. The smart terrorist is more likely to hijack a tanker truck full of gasoline,
chlorine, or some other common toxic material and then blow it up in a city. So why are we worrying about
transporting nuclear waste? The answer is ironic: we have gone to such lengths to assure the safety of the
transport that the public thinks the danger is even greater. Images on evening newscasts of concrete containers
being dropped from five-story buildings, smashing into the ground and bouncing undamaged, do not reassure
the public. This is a consequence of the "where there's smoke there's fire paradox" of public safety. Raise the
standards, increase the safety, do more research, study the problem in greater depth, and in the process you
will improve safety and frighten the public. After all, would scientists work so hard if the threat weren't real?
Well-meaning scientists sometimes try to quench the furor by proposing advanced technological alternatives to
Yucca Mountain storage, such as rocketing the waste into the sun, or burying it in a tectonic subducting zone at sea,
where a continental plate will slowly carry it into the deep Earth. Such exotic solutions strongly suggest that the
problem is truly intractable, and they only further exacerbate the public fear.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 214
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Muller`82 (Richard, Richard A. Muller, a 1982 MacArthur Fellow, is a physics professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, where he teaches a course called "Physics for Future Presidents." Since 1972, he has been a Jason consultant on U.S.
national security, The Witch of Yucca Mountain More research on nuclear waste storage won't reassure the public, March 12,
2004, http://muller.lbl.gov/TRessays/26-Witch-of-Yucca-Mountain.htm)
Let me return now to the danger of the plutonium in the waste. Plutonium is not a fission fragment; it is produced
in the reactor when uranium absorbs neutrons. But unlike the fission fragments, plutonium doesn't go away by a
factor of 10 in 300 years; its half-life is 24,000 years. Not only that, but many people think plutonium is the most
dangerous material known to man. Plutonium is certainly dangerous if you make nuclear weapons out of it. If
turned into an aerosol and inhaled, it is more toxic than anthrax—and that's very toxic. But when ingested (e.g.
from ground water) it isn't. According to the linear hypothesis, when consumed by a group of people, we expect
about one extra cancer for each half-gram of plutonium swallowed. (Click here for a good reference.) That is
bad, but not a record-setter. Botulism toxin (found in poorly prepared mayonnaise) is a thousand times worse.
The horrendous danger of ingested plutonium is an urban legend—believed to be true by many people, yet
false. Moreover, I think it a mistake to bury the plutonium with the waste. It is a good fuel for reactors, as valuable
as uranium. I sense that original reason for burying it (rather than extracting and using it) was to keep the public
from worrying about it, but that approach has backfired.
By any reasonable measure I can find, the Yucca Mountain facility is plenty safe enough. It is far safer to put
the waste there than to leave it on site at the nuclear plants where it was made and is currently stored. We
should start moving it to Yucca Mountain as soon as possible. Research should continue, because more
knowledge is good, but the hope that it will reassure the public is forlorn. Further studies are no more likely to
reduce public concern now than scientific research would have calmed the fears of the people of Salem in 1692.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 215
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Feulner`4 (Ed, Ed Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation, Wasting a good solution, The Washington Times,
September 6, 2004, Lexis)
But Kerry and others who want to block Yucca ignore the fact that our nuclear waste has to go somewhere. We
can’t simply dump it in the ocean or blast it into space. And we know Yucca Mountain is ideal, because it’s
probably the most-studied location in the world. The federal government started investigating whether the
site would be suitable for storing nuclear waste back in 1978. Located in a quiet area of Nevada, some 100 miles
from the outskirts of Las Vegas, Yucca has all the traits necessary for the long-term storage of radioactive
waste. The climate is dry. That means little rain, which might erode the canisters that nuclear waste is stored in.
The geology is stable, so it’s unlikely an earthquake would disturb the waste. And the water table at Yucca is
contained, so if there’s a leak, it won’t contaminate the water supply anywhere else. Of course, when it comes
to storing nuclear waste, most people (understandably) say “not in my backyard.” But right now, the waste is in
our backyard.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 216
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Reprocessing Bad-Oceans
Reprocessing hurts oceans
Eco Bridge`3 (Eco Bridge, Nuclear Wastes: The Threat to our Oceans, 2003,
http://www.ecobridge.org/content/n_wst.htm#recycle)
The most radioactive place on the planet Artificial lakes containing more than 14 billion cubic feet of waste from the Mayak nuclear processing
plant are filled to capacity and within a few years may leak into the region's rivers, Gov. Pyotr Sumin of the Chelyabinsk region in the Ural
Mountains wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov…Mayak, a major nuclear weapons plant during Soviet times, has been the site
of several accidents, including a 1957 facility explosion that contaminated 9,200 square miles. The region has been called the most radioactive
place on the planet because of accidents and Soviet-era nuclear waste dumping into lakes and rivers. The vice governor of the Chelyabinsk
region, Gennady Podtyosov, once said in an interview that the water level in the lakes was just 12 inches below the limit. If action is not taken,
contaminated water could burst the dam within three to four years, he said. ``It would be a major catastrophe,'' Podtyosov said. ``Waste
would pollute rivers and flow into the Arctic Ocean.'' [10] Recycling Nuclear Wastes Threat to Oceans The
Nuclear Regulatory Commission is working to determine if/how NRC-licensed facilities (i.e.commercial
nuclear power reactors) can incinerate, "release," "reuse,"or "recycle" many forms of nuclear wastes - metal,
concrete, soil, plastics, chemicals, etc. - thus allowing them to end up in your local landfill, incinerator, or even in
common consumer products that you find on your local store shelves. We are transporting dioxin and other
chemicals into the air and oceans now through the incinerating of hospital refuse and other plastics. Soon we
may be doing the same with radioactive material. We human beings are becoming walking toxic dumps, the
average adult body possessing many chemicals, such as dioxin, PCBs, mercury and lead.
B) Oceans destruction=Extinction
CBS`6 (CBS, Salt-Water Fish Extinction Seen By 2048 Study By Ecologists, Economists Predicts Collapse of World Ocean
EcologyNov. 3, 2006, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/02/health/webmd/main2147223.shtml)
The apocalypse has a new date: 2048. That's when the world's oceans will be empty of fish, predicts an
international team of ecologists and economists. The cause: the disappearance of species due to overfishing,
pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. The study by Boris Worm, PhD, of Dalhousie University in Halifax,
Nova Scotia, -- with colleagues in the U.K., U.S., Sweden, and Panama -- was an effort to understand what this loss
of ocean species might mean to the world. The researchers analyzed several different kinds of data. Even to these
ecology-minded scientists, the results were an unpleasant surprise. "I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent
these trends are -- beyond anything we suspected," Worm says in a news release. "This isn't predicted to happen.
This is happening now," study researcher Nicola Beaumont, PhD, of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, U.K., says
in a news release. "If biodiversity continues to decline, the marine environment will not be able to sustain our
way of life. Indeed, it may not be able to sustain our lives at all," Beaumont adds. Already, 29% of edible fish and
seafood species have declined by 90% -- a drop that means the collapse of these fisheries. But the issue isn't just
having seafood on our plates. Ocean species filter toxins from the water. They protect shorelines. And they
reduce the risks of algae blooms such as the red tide. "A large and increasing proportion of our population
lives close to the coast; thus the loss of services such as flood control and waste detoxification can have
disastrous consequences," Worm and colleagues say. The researchers analyzed data from 32 experiments on
different marine environments. They then analyzed the 1,000-year history of 12 coastal regions around the world,
including San Francisco and Chesapeake bays in the U.S., and the Adriatic, Baltic, and North seas in Europe. Next,
they analyzed fishery data from 64 large marine ecosystems. And finally, they looked at the recovery of 48 protected
ocean areas. Their bottom line: Everything that lives in the ocean is important. The diversity of ocean life is the
key to its survival. The areas of the ocean with the most different kinds of life are the healthiest. But the loss of
species isn't gradual. It's happening
fast -- and getting faster, the researchers say. Worm and colleagues call for sustainable fisheries management,
pollution control, habitat maintenance, and the creation of more ocean reserves. This, they say, isn't a cost; it's an
investment that will pay off in lower insurance costs, a sustainable fish industry, fewer natural disasters,
human health, and more. "It's not too late. We can turn this around," Worm says. "But less than 1% of the global
ocean is effectively protected right now.".
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 217
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, no date (Reprocessing: A Global Environmental Menace, Searched June
15, 2008, http://www.ananuclear.org/Portals/0/documents/Reprocessing.%20Environmental%20Concerns.pdf)
After fuel rods are irradiated in nuclear reactors, targeted radionuclides can be extracted. In most procedures,
PUREX and UREX+ (still under development), “spent” fuel is dissolved in acid and uranium and plutonium
are separated out. Though the waste streams from the two processes differ, none of the radioactive material in
the irradiated fuel disappears and their environmental impacts are comparable. Another reprocessing method
proposed for GNEP, pyroprocessing, is very costly and only partially developed; it would focus on fuel
irradiated in fast reactors, which have never been adopted by any country’s nuclear industry because they are
so expensive and dangerous to operate. The U.S. government reprocessed irradiated fuel from the
Manhattan Project through the 1980s at three Department of Energy (DOE) sites — Hanford (WA), the
Idaho National Laboratory, and the Savannah River Site (SC) — to pull out plutonium and highly enriched
uranium for nuclear weapons. The only commercial reprocessing facility in the U.S., at West Valley, New
York, was shut down after just six years (1966-1972). Russian, French, and British reprocessing, too, began
as part of those countries’ nuclear weapons programs. Russia and France continue to reprocess. The British
Sellafield plant was forced to close after a serious leak was discovered in 2005 and may never reopen.
Japan’s massive reprocessing facility at Rokkasho-mura is not yet fully operational after 13 years and
nearly $20 billion but has already leaked radioactive material and contaminated workers
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 218
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, no date (Reprocessing: A Global Environmental Menace, Searched June
15, 2008, http://www.ananuclear.org/Portals/0/documents/Reprocessing.%20Environmental%20Concerns.pdf)
Whether reprocessing plants have been shut down or continue to operate, there is neither an adequate
way to deal with their waste, nor any demonstrably effective program to address their day-to-day
environmental hazards. All four U.S. reprocessing facilities remain dangerously contaminated after years of
underfunded, mismanaged cleanup. Reprocessing’s environmental hazards come from both ongoing operations
and from the waste produced. Liquid waste and pollution: The liquid acid used to dissolve the irradiated fuel
is intensely radioactive, toxic, thermally hot, and difficult to contain. The tanks used to store it must be
cooled or the waste will explode. One of the globe’s worst nuclear accidents was an exploding highlevel waste
tank at Chelyabinsk, Russia in 1957. It contaminated nearly 6,000 square miles. At three DOE sites,
approximately 90 million gallons and hundreds of millions of curies are stored in buried tank farms that
have leaked into soil and groundwater. Reprocessing waste has been found, in excess of drinking water
standards, in the Snake River Aquifer, the sole source of drinking water for much of southern Idaho. At
Hanford, reprocessing waste has reached the groundwater and is moving toward the Columbia River.
Removing the high-level waste from the tanks and solidifying it are daunting tasks made more difficult by
mismanagement and inadequate funding. Less attention has been paid to other liquid wastes from reprocessing,
but it has done substantial environmental damage, too. France’s reprocessing plant at La Hague dumps nearly
60 million gallons of nuclear waste directly into the English Channel every year. In 1996, a typical year, the
discharge contained 285,000 curies. The British Sellafield reprocessing plant dumped equivalent amounts on
the other side of the channel, and together their pollution has contaminated seafood as it has moved all the
way to the Arctic. At Savannah River, billions of gallons of liquid reprocessing waste was routed to seepage
ponds. Contamination moved from the seepage ponds to groundwater. The groundwater outcrops to local
streams that eventually flow into the Savannah River.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 219
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, no date (Reprocessing: A Global Environmental Menace, Searched June
15, 2008, http://www.ananuclear.org/Portals/0/documents/Reprocessing.%20Environmental%20Concerns.pdf)
Even without the kind of catastrophic tank accident seen at Chelyabinsk, reprocessing accounts for the
lion’s share of air pollution from nuclear power. Fifty-two nuclear reactors operated at INL, but its
reprocessing plant and a linked facility to dry the high-level liquid waste were the largest source of radioactive
emissions there. In France, 80 percent of the collective radiation dose from the nuclear power industry can
be attributed to reprocessing, as can 90 percent of the radioactive emissions and discharges from British
nuclear power.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 220
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Reprocessing Bad-Prolif
Reprocessing=Prolif
Lyman`6 Dr. Ed Lyman, UCS Senior Staff Nuclear Reprocessing: Dangerous, Dirty, and Expensive Why Extracting Plutonium from Spent
Nuclear Reactor Fuel Is a Bad Idea, Union of Concerned Scientist, January
2006http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_terrorism/extracting-plutonium-from-nuclear-reactor-spent-
fuel.html
Reprocessing would increase the ease of nuclear proliferation. U.S. reprocessing would undermine the U.S.
goal of halting the spread of fuel cycle technologies that are permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty but can be used to make nuclear weapons materials. The United States cannot credibly persuade other
countries to forgo a technology it has newly embraced. Although some reprocessing advocates claim that new
reprocessing technologies under development will be "proliferation resistant," they would actually be more
difficult for international inspectors to safeguard because it would be harder to make precise measurements
of the weapon-usable materials during and after processing. Moreover, all reprocessing technologies are far
more proliferation-prone than direct disposal.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 221
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Reprocessing Bad-Terrorism
Because reprocessing separates material that could be used to make nuclear weapons or could be modified to use in
nuclear weapons from the highly radioactive waste, this process makes it much easier for terrorists to steal the
material. As long as the plutonium remains in the nuclear waste, it is extremely difficult to steal because of the
intense radiation it emits and cannot be used to make a nuclear weapon. By engaging in steps that remove many of
the necessary barriers that prevent terrorist from acquiring material for a bomb, reprocessing increases the risk that
dangerous material will fall into the hands of terrorists.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 222
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Reprocessing would hurt U.S. nuclear waste management efforts. First, there is no spent fuel storage crisis that
warrants such a drastic change in course. Hardened interim storage of spent fuel in dry casks is an economically
viable and secure option for at least fifty years. Second, reprocessing does not reduce the need for storage and
disposal of radioactive waste, and a geologic repository would still be required. Plutonium constitutes only
about one percent of the spent fuel from U.S. reactors. After reprocessing, the remaining material will be in
several different waste forms, and the total volume of nuclear waste will have been increased by a factor of
twenty or more, including low-level waste and plutonium-contaminated waste. The largest component of the
remaining material is uranium, which is also a waste product because it is contaminated and undesirable for reuse in
reactors. Even if the uranium is classified as low-level waste, new low-level nuclear waste facilities would have to
be built to dispose of it. And to make a significant reduction in the amount of high-level nuclear waste that would
require disposal, the used fuel would need to be reprocessed and reused many times with an extremely high
degree of efficiency—an extremely difficult endeavor that would likely take centuries to accomplish. Finally,
reprocessing would divert focus and resources from a U.S. geologic disposal program and hurt—not help—the
U.S. nuclear waste management effort. The licensing requirements for the reprocessing, fuel fabrication, and
waste processing plants would dwarf those needed to license a repository, and provide additional targets for
public opposition. What is most needed today is a renewed focus on secure interim storage of spent fuel and on
gaining the scientific and technical consensus needed to site a geological repository.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 223
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Makhijani`1 (Arjun Makhijani, Vice-President Cheney Wrong About French Nuclear Repository Program, Independent
Institute Asserts French Public's Opposition to Nuclear Waste Repositories as Deep as that in the United States, May 11, 2001.
http://www.ieer.org/comments/waste/chen-prl.html)
The people wanted to see an end to the production of waste and pointed out that it was not very democratic to
discuss dumping waste in areas that had had no say in the decision to produce it. "France made a historic mistake
when it decided to rely so heavily on nuclear power, rather than develop more advanced renewable technologies and
efficient utilization methods," said Didier Anger, a local elected official, and a founder of France's Green Party,
which is part of the ruling coalition government. Mr. Anger represents one of France's most heavily nuclearized
regions, Normandy, where the world's largest commercial plutonium separation plant is located. France's nuclear
waste management differs from the U.S. in one major respect. France has a major plant, called a reprocessing plant,
to dissolve used reactor fuel in a chemical plant to separate plutonium, uranium and fission products.
"But reprocessing does not get rid of the radioactivity," said Dr. Makhijani. "Rather it creates more pollution.
Moreover the separated plutonium is a proliferation problem and a very costly, uneconomical fuel." Liquid waste
discharges from reprocessing are polluting the English Channel and spreading radioactivity in the seas of
Western Europe. The pollution from the reprocessing plant has so rankled other European countries, that 12
members of the OSPAR (Oslo-Paris) convention (a European body whose mission is to protect the marine
environment) voted last year for the elimination of the radioactive releases from the plant with a view to shutting
down the reprocessing activity. France abstained. Denmark, Norway and Ireland have called on France and Britain,
which runs a similar plant, to shut down their reprocessing operations. The French public is also growing more and
more skeptical of government claims about the safety of nuclear power. Government spokespersons misled the
French public into believing that there was no fallout on France after the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986, even as the
rest of Europe was dumping contaminated food. Those reassurances have since been proven to be false. France, like
much of the rest of Europe has hot spots from Chernobyl. The government has recently commissioned an
epidemiological study to investigate the role of the Chernobyl accident in the increase of thyroid cancers. "There is
no good solution to the problem of long-lived nuclear waste," said Dr. Makhijani. "Before we launch into an
energy policy that will lock us into another generation of waste creation, we ought at least to look carefully at
the terrible burdens we will pass on to future generations from the last round of reactors." "France is no
showcase for nuclear power," said Didier Anger. "Before pointing to France as a success story, the American public
should ask the French people what they think of the problems of waste, disease, and government cover-ups."
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 224
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Rizvi`7 (Haider, One World U.S., Bush's Nuclear 'Reprocessing' Plan Under Fire November 26, 2007,
http://us.oneworld.net/issues/nuclear-issues/-/article/bushs-nuclear-reprocessing-plan-under-fire)
The report concluded that reprocessing would only divert attention away from a viable long-term solution to
nuclear waste, and the GNEP program may further complicate the waste disposal problem as it proposes to reprocess
spent fuel from not only new domestic reactors, but also from foreign reactors.
The senators warned that the administration's proposed technologies would also result in material that could be
easily processed to make a nuclear weapon. In their letter, the senators noted that commercial reprocessing in
Britain, France, Japan, and Russia has resulted in the accumulation of about 250 metric tons of separated
plutonium that can be used to make nuclear weapons, exacerbating the risk of terrorists gaining access to this
material. "At a time when the United States is seeking to limit the spread of reprocessing technology and
expertise to other countries," they said, "resuming reprocessing would reverse decades of U.S. leadership that
contributed to countries such as Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan abandoning their reprocessing
ambitions." The Bush administration is trying to promote nuclear power as a clean energy source that would reduce
dependence on fossil fuels, whose use is a major contributor to dangerous climate changes.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 225
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Lyman`6 Dr. Ed Lyman, UCS Senior Staff Nuclear Reprocessing: Dangerous, Dirty, and Expensive Why Extracting Plutonium from Spent
Nuclear Reactor Fuel Is a Bad Idea, Union of Concerned Scientist, January
2006http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_terrorism/extracting-plutonium-from-nuclear-reactor-spent-
fuel.html
Reprocessing would increase the risk of nuclear terrorism. Less than 20 pounds of plutonium is needed to
make a nuclear weapon. If the plutonium remains bound in large, heavy, and highly radioactive spent fuel
assemblies (the current U.S. practice), it is nearly impossible to steal. In contrast, separated plutonium is not
highly radioactive and is stored in a concentrated powder form. Some claim that new reprocessing
technologies that would leave the plutonium blended with other elements, such as neptunium, would result in
a mixture that would be too radioactive to steal. This is incorrect; neither neptunium nor the other elements
under consideration are radioactive enough to preclude theft. Most of these other elements are also weapon-
usable. Moreover, commercial-scale reprocessing facilities handle so much of this material that it has proven
impossible to keep track of it accurately in a timely manner, making it feasible that the theft of enough
plutonium to build several bombs could go undetected for years. A U.S. reprocessing program would add to
the worldwide stockpile of separated and vulnerable plutonium that sits in storage today, which totaled
roughly 250 metric tons as of the end of 2005—enough for some 40,000 nuclear weapons. Reprocessing the U.S.
spent fuel generated to date would increase this by more than 500 metric tons.
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2) Empirically different-American hegemony has been high since WWII, but since the
80’s our nuclear leadership has fallen because we’ve neglected to use new
technology. This is why France gets 90% of their power from nuclear, and we get 20.
3) We solve the internal to prolif better-Deterrence is played out and encourages prolif
as proven by Iran, and North Korea. We can better influence their policies by
becoming the main supplier of nuclear tech and know-how. They can’t proliferate, if
we won’t give them the tech and know-how. In the squo other countries, with
weaker prolif policies do that.
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Aside from Yucca there are two other U.S. sites that meet all standards
Wall`7 (Annemarie, GOING NOWHERE IN THE NUKE OF TIME: BREACH OF THE YUCCA CONTRACT, NUCLEAR
WASTE POLICY ACT FALLOUT AND SHELTER IN PRIVATE INTERIM STORAGE, Environmental Outlook Journal
Albany Law Environmental Outlook Journal
2007)
The NWPA authorizes the DOE to locate, research, construct and eventually operate a permanent repository to
house our nation's current inventory of nuclear byproducts. n249 It took the DOE ten years to identify nine
potential sites, each requiring a complex round of environmental assessments. n250 From the nine [*176] originally
proposed sites, the agency was required to narrow its focus to three final contenders based upon the
environmental data collected. n251 This information included consultations with the Council on Environmental
Quality, the Administrator of the EPA, and the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, each of whom had surveyed
the sites and developed science-based guidelines to disqualify the nine candidates. n252 These guidelines contemplated
then-existing temporary storage sites, operating reactors, transportation and safety issues, as well as "hydrology,
geophysics, seismic activity, ... proximity to water supplies, ... and the proximity to populations." n253 Additionally,
the guidelines imposed two specific criteria for site recommendation. n254 "First, the repository must allow for
containment of waste in accordance with the [EPA] standards and NRC regulations after closure. Second, the
repository must abide by EPA's standards established specifically for [the repository] and NRC's regulations
during construction, operation and closure." n255 After meeting the above requirements, three qualified sites in
Nevada, Texas, and Washington received Presidential approval in 1986. n256 High costs of research and
development forced Congress to amend the NWPA in 1987 to permit only one potential site at Yucca
Mountain, Nevada. n257 Thereafter, the DOE was responsible for site-characterization. n258 This initial step required
scientists to extensively study the geological and hydrological indicators for the site, including "depth, thickness,
[*177] and extent of the host rock at Yucca Mountain and whether it responded to heat or water." n259 The water
table, ground water flow, and surface conditions were also studied at length, as was the potential for seismic and
volcanic activity. n260 In addition to climate studies and temperature analyses, the DOE was charged with analyzing
social, environmental, and economic impacts a repository would have on the location. n261 The DOE evaluated the
impact on public health, law enforcement, fire protection, medical care, schools, transportation, environmental
factors, and the potential effects on tourism, economic growth, and property values. n262
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Chapman`4 (Neil, European Commison, Geological Disposal of Radioactive Wastes Produced by Nuclear Power … from concept to
implementation, 2004, http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:JRTXCGzkCnUJ:ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp6-
euratom/docs/waste_disposal_eur-21224_en.pdf)
Burial at several hundreds of metres depth in stable rock environments – so-called ‘geological disposal’ – is the
option for disposal of the most hazardous radioactive wastes because it will provide permanent safety – not
just for ourselves, but for future times very much longer than the whole of past human history. Although we
currently store all our wastes safely and make every effort to minimise the amount of radioactive waste that we
produce – and Europe is researching ways of making further reductions – it is inevitable that there will always
remain some wastes that have to be disposed of deep underground.
Geological disposal is environment-neutral, prevents water based spread, and keeps the
waste away from us
Chapman`4 (Neil, European Commison, Geological Disposal of Radioactive Wastes Produced by Nuclear Power … from concept to
implementation, 2004, http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:JRTXCGzkCnUJ:ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp6-
euratom/docs/waste_disposal_eur-21224_en.pdf)
Geological disposal is based on the concept of multiple barriers that work together to provide containment.
The barrier concept prevents deep ground waters, present in almost all rock formations, from rapidly leaching
the wastes and transporting radioactivity away from the repository. There are both ‘engineered barriers’ that
are constructed in the repository and ‘natural barriers’ in the surrounding geological environment. For
disposal in hard rocks and clays, the basic engineered barrier components are the solid waste, its container
(usually metal and often multi-layered), and a buffer or backfill material (clay or cement) that fills the space
between the container and the rock. In salt formations, where there is no groundwater, the buffer is replaced
by crushed salt. The natural barrier is provided by the rocks and soils between the repository and Earth’s
surface. These barriers work together to provide containment and safety: • the container protects the waste
and prevents any water reaching it for at least several hundred years and, in some concepts, for tens or even a
hundred thousand years – by this time, most activity will have decayed inside the waste matrix; • the buffer
protects the container, preventing water from flowing around it and absorbing any mechanical disturbance
that might be caused by future deep-earth movements (associated with major earthquakes) – if it is highly
impermeable, such as clay, it also contains any radionuclides that eventually escape from the container; • the rock
and the geological environment of the repository provide stable mechanical, chemical and water flow
conditions around the engineered barriers for very long times, allowing them to contain radionuclides for
much longer than if they were left at Earth’s surface – this ‘cocoon’ effect is due to the very slow rate of
natural processes at depth; • the rocks, soils and waters around and above the repository slow down, or
completely immobilise, and dilute and disperse any eventual releases of activity so that they do not cause a
hazard in the natural environment.
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Sunday Herald Sun `3 (Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), Terror alert on dumps, July 27, 2003, Lexis)
THE threat of terrorism has greatly increased the dangers of storing radioactive waste on or near the
ground's surface, the United Nations nuclear watchdog has warned. A position paper released by the Atomic
Energy Agency, in Vienna, said the security of nuclear materials was of increasing concern. "Occurrences of
illicit trafficking and the events of 11 September have heightened these concerns."
The paper warned that material could be stolen and used to produce a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. "While
nuclear material has traditionally attracted security precautions to prevent it falling into unauthorised
possession, it is now recognised that non-fissile material must also be protected because of the possible threat
of deliberate spreading of contamination by terrorists. "The material is obviously much more vulnerable to
attack if placed on the surface. In geological disposal facilities (deep burial), it is beyond the reach of all but
the most determined and sophisticated individuals or groups." The agency paper said many storage facilities were
on the same site as other active nuclear facilities and benefited from overall site security arrangements. If
storage continued longer than the operational lifetime of the other facilities, on-site security would have to be
continued independently. "Security considerations, which carry increasing weight, lead strongly and
unequivocally to (geological) disposal being desirable," the paper said.
THE NEED FOR the UK to establish a national repository for its nuclear waste has become even more
pressing since September 11, industry experts said this week. Fear of vulnerability to terrorist attack could be
the factor that finally ends decades of indecision and prompts the government to order a deep underground
dump similar to that planned by the US at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Advocates of burying radioactive waste
deep below the earth believe there may never be a better chance to make a convincing case that this offers a
safe, long-term solution for placing the material beyond the reach of even the most determined terrorist. To
make that case they will have to overcome public mistrust almost as toxic as the waste itself. But overcome it must
be, according to many who believe that decision time is here. In one of the ironies that abound in the nuclear world,
the UK recently began giving technical and financial assistance to Russia as part of an international push to clean up
that nation's dire nuclear legacy. But while the UK helps the Russians, there remains the small matter of what to do
with its own 20,000 tonnes of solid, long-life nuclear waste. Over the coming decades this will rise to 500,000
tonnes as the waste generated by decommissioned nuclear reactors is added to the stockpile. Dealing with this
amount of radioactive material is a massive challenge in its own right. But the heightened state of anxiety over
terrorist activity in the wake of September 11 has added greatly to concerns about having waste lying around on the
surface of the UK, often stored under less than ideal conditions (HARWELL: CLEANING UP THE 1960S
NUCLEAR MISTAKES). It needs to be put out of harm's way. The best way to do that, many experts believe, is
by 'geological disposal': burying it deep below the earth's surface where it will be inaccessible to terrorists
now and harmless to future generations. Dr Kevin Langley, head of southern sites projects for the UK Atomic
Energy Authority, confirmed that the wind was blowing in that direction. 'I think that since September 11 there is
more political momentum to build a deep repository sooner rather than later,' he said. International scientific opinion
has certainly swung behind this solution. Last month the International Atomic Energy Agency
published the results of a two-year investigation into the options for radioactive waste management. Its
findings could hardly be more conclusive. According to the IAEA, security concerns over terrorist activity
'lead strongly and unequivocally to disposal [as opposed to storage] being desirable at as early a date as is
reasonable.' The agency stated that the only viable option is disposal deep beneath the earth. The report said:
'After several decades of research on the disposal of nuclear wastes, geological disposal is the only approach
that has gained widespread credibility in the scientific community.
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Chapman & McCombie`2 (Charles Mccombie And Neil Chapman, Nuclear Engineering International, RADWASTE
MANAGEMENT; SHARING THE WASTE BURDEN, November 30, 2002, Lexis)
Another hazard that may arise in storing nuclear materials is that of security. Highly enriched uranium and
plutonium are fissile materials, which can be used to make nuclear explosives. This problem is being increased
by the disarmament currently underway in Russia and the USA. Hundreds of tonnes of plutonium and thousands of
tonnes of highly enriched uranium will become available for other purposes as these surplus weapons are
dismantled. Society must face the challenge of ensuring that the weapons-grade materials are converted into
forms that are unsuitable for use in bombs and are safeguarded permanently from misuse by states or by
terrorist groups. Terrorists could, it is feared, also spread radioactive materials using conventional explosives in
a so-called "dirty bomb". The aim must therefore be to safeguard all sensitive nuclear materials by making
them inaccessible to such groups. The challenge is to maintain safety and security by permanently isolating
the long-lived radioactive materials. This isolation can be achieved for long periods by building, maintaining and
guarding strong and secure surface storage facilities. However, this leaves a legacy to future generations. The
ideal solution would be to remove the material permanently from Earth (such as by ejection into space) or to
change it to a less harmful form. The former option has been considered periodically since the 1970s and it has
always been found to be too risky and too costly. Transforming long-lived radionuclides to shorter-lived ones is
possible by transmutation in a reactor or a particle accelerator. This has also been studied for 30 years, and the
consensus is that it is a complex and immensely costly process. It cannot get rid of many of the more
problematic radionuclides, nor does it do away with the need for geological disposal. Today, the single solution
that is judged by scientists as being capable of removing the hazards of radioactive waste without placing
undue burdens on future generations is deep geological disposal. This view is enshrined in the legislation of
countries such as the USA, Sweden, Finland, Japan and Switzerland and is the chosen approach in many others.
Although some countries have re-opened the question of whether real alternatives are available, no one has
developed a scientifically feasible, sustainable and ethically justifiable alternative.
There’s no official storage site-Any waste from the reactors is just waiting for terrorist
Burns & Choppin`8 Peter C Burns Henry Massman Chair in Civil Engineering, Professor, Notre Dame University. Gregory Choppin
professor of chemistry, Florida State University. Nuclear power's future: Reprocessing returns?, 28 FEBRUARY 2008The Why files
http://whyfiles.org/275nukewaste/
High-level radwaste -- the yuck Yucca is slated to receive -- is spent fuel from nuclear reactors,
and it's roughly one million times more radioactive than fresh uranium fuel. High-level waste is
extremely carcinogenic, even lethal, and must be handled by remote control or under heavy shielding. Spent fuel can also provide the
basis for good ol' explosive nuclear bombs and dirty bombs (which spew radiation without
that familiar mushroom cloud). So to prevent nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and a
cancer epidemic, spent fuel must be contained virtually forever. The goal at Yucca is to safely
store 70,000 tons of radwaste for 1 million years. Over those 10,000 centuries, the radioactive isotopes will gradually cool
and be converted into stable, non-radioactive isotopes. (Isotopes are versions of an element with a different number of neutrons. Different isotopes decay at
different rates; with many elements, some isotopes are stable, others will decay and release radiation.) For the repository at Yucca, about 100 miles
northwest of Las Vegas, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) would love to follow GambleVille's marketing mantra ("What radiates near Vegas stays near
But the giant repository is unlikely to open for at least another 10 years, and in the
Vegas").
meantime, spent fuel will continue stacking up at reactors across the country, making a
splendid target for terrorists eager to release a deadly cloud of radiation or even trigger a
nuclear meltdown.
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Graham Allison, a former assistant secretary of State and director of Harvard’s Belfer Center, is one of the appointees. He agreed with Curtis’
analysis, pointing out similar ideas from his book, “Nuclear Terrorism: the Ultimate Preventable
Catastrophe,” on the nuclear threat posed by terrorist groups such as al Qaeda. Allison said the group’s
objective is to kill 4 million Americans, including 2 million children, which they justified in a fatwa, to
balance the deaths of Muslims at the hands of “Jewish-Christian crusaders,” Allison said. “You’re not
going to kill 4 million people by hijacking airplanes and crashing them into buildings.” While nobody
knows for sure what the chances are of an attack, the consequences make the different estimates an issue of
secondary importance, he said. The commission would present a nonpartisan opportunity to take stock on the progress made since 9/11. “I think
the inspiration of the people who created the commission is that a bunch of independent people looking at the evidence will, I think, agree on both
the urgency of this agenda, but also on specific things to be done,” Allison said. To be successful, the commission will have to be specific about what the
president and new Congress can do to overcome past obstacles; the goal, he said, must be to gain the international community’s assistance in choking off the threat of
proliferation at the source, allowing no loose nuclear weapons, no new fissile materials, and no new nuclear states. “There’s no more important
issue in my view,” Allison said.
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Elliott`97 (Herschel, University of Florida Emeritus Philosophy, 1997 “A General Statement of the Tragedy of the Commons,”
February 26, http://www.dieoff.org/page121.htm)
Third, all systems of ethical beliefs are hypotheses about how human beings can live on Earth. As such, they
make factual claims. And like all factual claims, their truth or falsity depends on empirical evidence. For this
reason, the sequence of biological events which the general statement of the tragedy of the commons describes is of
decisive importance for ethical theory. It shows (1) that moral behavior must be grounded in a knowledge of biology
and ecology, (2) that moral obligations must be empirically tested to attain necessary biological goals, (3) that any
system of moral practices is self-inconsistent when the behavior, which it either allows or makes morally obligatory,
actually subverts the goal it seeks. Thus empirical criteria give a necessary (though not a sufficient) condition
for acceptable moral behavior. Regardless of the human proclivity to rationalize, any system of ethical beliefs
is mistaken if its practice would cause the breakdown of the ecosystem which sustains the people who live by
it. Indeed, biological necessity has a veto over moral behavior. Facts can refute moral beliefs Fourth,
ecosystems are in dynamic equilibrium. In addition, technology and human institutions are constantly evolving in
novel and unpredictable ways. Furthermore, living things must compete with each other for space and resources; yet
each organism also depends symbiotically on the well-being of the whole for its own survival and well-being.
Indeed the welfare of all organisms -- including human beings -- is causally dependent on the health and
stability of the ecosystems which sustain them. As a consequence, the stability and well-being of the Earth's
biosystem has moral priority over the welfare of any of its parts -- including the needs and interests of human
societies and individuals.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 240
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Hiruo`8 (Elaine Hiruo, DOE official: New president can't kill repository without law change, Nucleonics Week January 24,
2008, Lexis)
The next administration, whether Democratic or Republican, cannot unilaterally kill the DOE repository
project in Nevada, DOE waste program director Edward Sproat said January 22. Instead, a new administration
would have to convince Congress to change the federal law governing it, he said.
Responding to an audience question following his address at the Nuclear Energy Institute fuel supply forum in
Washington, DC, Sproat said the next administration would have three options. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act, DOE is to site and build, if licensed by NRC, a repository at Yucca Mountain. The next administration,
Sproat said, can comply with the law, ignore it, or change it.
Still, the next administration also could withdraw a repository license DOE submitted to NRC, Sproat later told
reporters. However, he added that the administration would have to show some basis for taking such action,
especially if NRC had already deemed the application acceptable for review.
NIA`6 (Nuclear Industry Association, UK Announces Plans For Deep Geological Disposal 25-Oct-2006,
http://www.niauk.org/news/latest-nuclear-news/uk-announces-plans-for-deep-geological-disposal.html)
The UK's high-level nuclear waste will be managed through deep geological disposal, with the government
looking for "a strong partnership" with local communities over the selection of sites, as part of plans announced
today. Environment secretary David Miliband told parliament that the decision accepts the recommendation
of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), an independent government advisory
committee that in July 2006 recommended deep geological disposal as the best option for the long-term
management of the UK's high-level radioactive waste. He told parliament: "We are not seeking to impose
radioactive waste on any community. I am determined that the new approach for selecting sites will be carried out
from the beginning in an open, transparent way with appropriate opportunity for public and stakeholder, as well as
expert community, involvement," he said. "Disposal facilities will only be built in a geologically suitable area,
and we will consider how geological and scientific considerations will be meshed with other societal
considerations. For a successful programme, both criteria will need to be met." The government said it would
consider what benefit packages might be offered to host communities. CoRWM had recommended that benefits be
offered to communities that volunteer to host disposal facilities. In its July 2006 recommendations, CoRWM said
deep geological disposal would need to be underpinned by "robust interim storage" until a repository site is selected,
which could take several decades. Mr Miliband said today that until geological disposal facilities are available, there
will be a continuing need for safe and secure interim storage. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will
take responsibility for securing geological disposal. Mr Miliband said the NDA would have "clear responsibilities
and accountabilities." The NDA was set up in April 2005, under the Energy Act 2004, to take responsibility for the
UK's nuclear legacy. CoRWM reached its recommendations after a three-year process that examined the technical,
scientific, ethical and social aspects of all the potential options. The recommendations apply to the estimated
470,000 cubic metres of waste that currently exist or will arise through decommissioning of nuclear sites.
Public consultation on the disposal plan and the process of site selection will begin in 2007, with decisions on the
siting process to be taken in 2007 or 2008.
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Geo dispo is based in theory that violates basic science and morality
Yeager`94 (Peter Cleary, Demography, ecology, and the environment -- Burying Uncertainty: Risk and the Case against
Geological Disposal of Nuclear Waste by K. S. Shrader-Frechette Yeager, Peter Cleary. Contemporary Sociology. Washington:
Sep 1994, Proquest)
The core of Shrader-Frechette's book is several chapters that dispassionately criticize the government's risk
assessments of nuclear waste disposal for their highly questionable methodological and ethical assumptions.
The former result in dubious extrapolations from limited samples, and from present experience to the largely
unknown distant human future. The risk assessors equally mishandle both the natural and the social sciences.
Geology is an explanatory rather than a predictive science, so long-term forecasts about water migration,
earthquakes, and volcanoes--key to the security of buried nuclear -are especially suspect. Indeed, the
government's geological assumptions have already failed once, resulting in radioactive releases at its nuclear
waste facility at Maxey Flats, Kentucky. Similarly, the government's analysts assume little risk from the
possible intrusion into the burial site of human communities long into the future, an assumption that not only
far outstrips the predictive capability of the social sciences but also flies in the face of the federal
government's own recent history of neglect and mismanagement of nuclear wastes, as documented in the book.
If our present institutional arrangements have so poorly protected present and forthcoming generations, then surely
there is little cause to be sanguine about the effects of (and on) human communities thousands of years from now, as
Kai Erikson has also recently argued on this subject (New York Times Magazine, March 6, 1994). The book
demonstrates that decisions favoring deep geological burial violate both very basic rules of scientific method
and general logic and fundamental moral principles. Made on the grounds of ostensibly neutral technical
judgments, the decisions rest on the consent of neither present nor future citizens but disproportionately
distribute the risks to future generations.
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Chapman`4 (Neil, European Commison, Geological Disposal of Radioactive Wastes Produced by Nuclear Power … from concept to
implementation, 2004, http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:JRTXCGzkCnUJ:ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp6-
euratom/docs/waste_disposal_eur-21224_en.pdf)
Basic R&D in the field and in the laboratory has been augmented by practical tests and experiments in
specially constructed underground facilities that have operated for more than 20 years. The practical
implementation of disposal has, however, been slow, owing to the political and social problems associated with
selecting repository sites. This stems from a widespread fear of radioactivity and nuclear energy, arising from
their association with nuclear weapons and compounded by the long period of innate secrecy of the nuclear
industry, from which it is only just emerging. This atmosphere was prevalent throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Now, the first national repository programmes to have overcome these setbacks (Sweden and Finland) have
narrowed down to potential repository sites and hope to begin construction in the next ten years. The steps from
concept to implementation will thus have taken many decades and the further operational steps leading to
final closure of geological repositories are expected to take at least as long. Unlike any other industrial or
environmental developments, geological disposal programmes evolve slowly and cautiously and will take many
decades to complete
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It could happen any day in the future in an area anywhere in the U.S. In the hustle of the day or in its serene
moments, suddenly the earth heaves, highway pavements crack, and buildings tremble -- an earthquake has
struck. Thirty seconds later the ground stills. Not far from a city in the affected area is a hazardous waste
treatment facility with a large storage unit. The plant is only slightly damaged. However, below the earth's
surface, in the adjoining landfill, cracked drums are leaking into the ground through a liner split by the tremor,
and hazardous material is seeping into the water table. That scenario, though fictional, is neither farfetched
nor unlikely to happen somewhere in the U.S. soon, say people who monitor hazardous waste facilities. Seismic
damage to treatment, storage and disposal units is a potentially serious problem, one that industry executives
and officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are addressing with increased urgency. "You'd be
amazed," says Art Day, director of location standards in EPA's office of solid waste, that even though companies
have the capability to perform a detailed analysis of the geological stability of a proposed facility site, units
still end up in unstable areas. The consequences of an inadequate assessment -- leaks and contamination -- are
all too familiar, says John T. Schofield, president of International Technologies (Torrance, Calif.), one of the largest
hazardous waste treatment companies in the U.S. Before there were any regulations on the subject, says Schofield,
"companies didn't do detailed [geological] investigations." That's one reason the facilities had so many leaks
and problems, he adds. A thorough environmental impact assessment should tell a hazardous waste facility siting
team everything it needs to know about potential earthquake problems, Schofield says. Inadequate rule However,
there are few specific regulations on the seismic parameters of facility siting to guide industry choices. The
seismic considerations for location requirements are found in an appendix to location standards in the Resource
Conservation and Recover Act (RCRA). The rule simply states that hazardous waste facilities must be more than
200 ft from an active fault line. The rule applies only to certain counties west of the Mississippi River, even
though many areas east of the river are at risk of earthquake activity. And the rule does not address
earthquake intensity or duration, says Glen Galen, an environmental scientist with EPA's office of solid waste.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has proposed the inclusion of a map in the next edition of the Uniform
Building Code, scheduled to be published sometime this year, that would show much more specifically what kind of
force would be experienced by an object on the earth's surface (map, below). USGS notes only a 10% chance that its
estimates of force exertion would be exceeded by that of an actual quake during the next 50 years. That should help
designers looking for quake resistance information. Although most company engineers say that they follow local
building codes for design and construction, if there is no local code, most companies refer to the Uniform Building
Code. A key problem that arises when geological considerations are not properly taken into account in
hazardous waste facility siting is that earthquake ground motion could crack liners and container vessels, says
Robert Whitman, a civil engineering instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge). That is
especially true for those with landfills or other lined storage or disposal units. To determine whether a lining
might crack during a quake, says Whitman, an environmental analysis would have to reveal the potential of
the strength of the differential movement between two points several hundred feet apart. However, he points
out, current technology is not accurate enough to measure the potential differential movement. Another
possibility is that ground shaking could cause downslope movement of a clay liner, resulting in cracked clay
or a damaged plastic membrane, he says. Whitman feels that a crude analysis for potential downsloping is
possible with existing technology.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 244
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Chapman & McCombie`2 (Charles Mccombie And Neil Chapman, Nuclear Engineering International, RADWASTE
MANAGEMENT; SHARING THE WASTE BURDEN, November 30, 2002, Lexis)
Furber, Warf and Plotkin`8 (Robert D, James C and Sheldon C, Southern CA Confederation of Scientists
“The Future of Nuclear Power”, Monthly Review. Feb, Vol. 59, Iss. 9; pg. 38, 11 pgs, Proquest)
Considering the long time required for the high-level radioactive waste to decay, the ethics of leaving
this problem to future generations points to the irresponsibility of the United States over the last fifty
years. Other countries share in this irresponsibility. It is wishful thinking to assume that authorities are
people of good character and that technology will produce a satisfactory solution to the problem of
waste disposal. Given that about half the U.S. waste is at the Hanford, Washington site in the form of
radioactive sludge acquired during the building of nuclear weapons, only about half of the U.S. waste is
from the use of nuclear power plants. Plans have been made to solidify the sludge and to vitrify the solid
waste into large glass logs. While the waste in this form will not disperse into the environment because
of its solidity, and while it will not undergo fission because of the neutron absorbing chemicals in the glass,
the question remains as to what can possibly happen after several thousand years. Can these large
stockpiles of potentially hazardous material break up into smaller elements, which could mix with
normal rocks and soil? Pulverization could conceivably release particles into the atmosphere. This is
just one scenario to lead us to ask: Is this what we want to allow to happen by chance? Another factor,
which has not been determined yet, is the cost of such a process. It will be expensive and the taxpayer
will certainly be stuck with the bill. Thus far no government has risked tackling this problem. So, it is
ignored and is left to future administrations. Unfortunately the leaking Hanford tanks are getting
worse as the waste is beginning to contaminate the Columbia River. Gradually, it is becoming evident
that the United States must do something. As contaminated as much of the world is, particularly the
former Soviet Union, the Hanford area is among the most contaminated of any place. Reactor Waste
Most of the 103 U.S. nuclear power reactors today are of the pressurized light water type-they use control
rods and build up high-level radioactive waste in them. The spent fuel rods are stored in what are called
swimming pools. Water is used for cooling the physically hot radioactive materials. So, now that these
storage areas are pretty full, the problem of what is to be done needs to be faced. Building more and
larger swimming pools only delays the day for carrying out a decision of what the long-term future will
be for the troublesome material. A multitude of geological burial techniques has been proposed, but all
have been found to have significant problems, and do not yet meet long-term engineering standards. It
is not necessary to present details here other than to mention the basic engineering system principle that
requires the testing of any new system for at least one life cycle in order to make sure that there has not been
a mistake or that an inadvertent design error has not been made. Needless to say, we cannot do this before
deployment. The life cycle of any waste disposal system depends on one's point of view. However, the
estimates vary from 10,000 to 240,000 years, which are all impracticably long. Thus no geologic burial will
ever meet basic engineering requirements, which would be necessary for us to bury the waste in good
conscience.
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Mosquin`94 (Ted Mosquin has a B.Sc.(Hons.) in Botany (U. of Manitoba 1956), and a Ph.D. in Systematics & Evolution
(UCLA 1961). He has taught at a number of universities, and for 12 years was a research scientist with Agriculture Canada,
Ottawa, The Roles of Biodiversity in Creating and Maintaining the Ecosphere,
http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/MosqEcoFun5.html)
Decomposition (detritivory) is the natural recycling of residues of life. Most decomposers require oxygen
(function 2). Next to primary production, decomposition is the most important ecological function of organisms.
A very wide range of life forms participate in decomposition: from bacteria to protozoa, filter feeders, humans
and scavenging biota in all ecosystems, and also within many larger organisms (i.e. digestion). Fermentation is a
specialized method of decomposition. Primary detritivory is the absorption of
free organic molecules as food. Bacteria obtain all their food this way, as do two phyla of marine worms. They
metabolize these molecules to create nutritive blocks (called plaques) that are eaten by multitudes of protozoa
and other plankton (functions 2 and 3). These, together with photosynthesizing algae and cyanobacteria (function
1) are the primary "pastures" for all freshwater and marine food chains. Secondary detritivory is the
"digesting" of animal and plant tissue and its degradation into simpler organic compounds. All filter feeders
are secondary detritivores because they cannot discriminate between living planktonic organisms and floating
dead tissue biomass. Life on Earth could not survive without primary and secondary detritivores because there
would be no way of cleansing the Ecosphere of the "products" of life. Indeed, oil and coal may have been
deposited only because the detritivory function had not yet by that time been perfected by the evolving Ecosphere.
Many bacteria have developed a very powerful ecological function: that of ingesting organic molecules (toxics, oils,
etc) and reducing a portion of them to less harmful substances and minerals. Mineralizing bacteria, since they
metabolize toxic organic compounds (and return part of the molecule to harmless mineral matter) can be amazingly
abundant in many ecosystems, and play an influential role in detoxifying soils and waters in local and regional
ecosystems and the Ecosphere as a whole.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 247
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Sciencia Press`5Sciencia Press, Science and medicine for the discerning readerSea-Based Nuclear Waste Solutions, Winter 2005,
http://www.scientiapress.com/findings/sea-based.htm
A second sub-seabed option has received almost no attention but deserves careful consideration: burying canisters of
nuclear waste in Subduction Faults that would carry the waste downward toward the Earth's
mantle. This approach possesses the virtue of being very permanent--the reverse of shooting the waste with rockets into
the Sun, except much more practical. As the subduction fault would carry the canisters down at a rate of, say, 10
cm per year, the chances of any release of radionuclides into the biosphere would become increasingly
remote. A single California firm, Permanent RadWaste Solutions, has pursued the technology for this option. In
addition to the bottom-crawling submarine for digging the holes and delivering the waste, this
company has developed a canister technology that becomes more tightly sealed and resistant as the
outside pressure increases during the descent of the canister toward the mantle. Some observers object that
earthquake or volcanic activity could cause the canister to leak, and the radioactive waste would spew into the sky or onto the surface. However, it is possible
to place the canisters in the parts of a subduction zone where there is no volcanic activity, so that
they will take millions of years to migrate to less stable parts, at a time when their level of
radioactivity will no longer surpass that of the natural background. As with the stable clay approach, it would be
possible to bore deep holes into the subduction faults in order to get the waste as deep as possible,
even though the danger of leakage upward to the seafloor appears to be minimal. Radionuclides are
heavier than water, so there is also no reason why they should migrate upward to the ocean's
surface, especially since there is no evidence that bottom-dwelling marine species are concentrated
upward into a food pyramid that leads to the surface.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 248
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The influence of the United States internationally could be enhanced significantly if the U.S. is able to achieve
success in its Nuclear Power 2010 program and place several new orders in the next decade and beyond. There is a
clear upsurge of interest in nuclear power in various parts of the world. As a consequence, if the U.S. aspires
to participate in these programs and to shape them in ways that are most conducive to nonproliferation, it will need
to promote the health and viability of the American nuclear infrastructure. Perhaps more importantly, if it wishes to
exert a positive influence in shaping the nonproliferation policies of other countries, it can do so more effectively by
being an active supplier to and partner in the evolution of those programs. Concurrent with the prospective
growth in the use of nuclear power, the global nonproliferation regime is facing some direct assaults that are
unprecedented in nature. International confidence in the effectiveness of nuclear export controls was shaken
by the disclosures of the nuclear operations of A.Q. Khan. These developments underscore the importance
of maintaining the greatest integrity and effectiveness of the nuclear export conditions applied by
the major suppliers. They also underscore the importance of the U.S. maintaining effective policies
to achieve these objectives. Constructive U.S. influence will be best achieved to the extent that the
U.S. is perceived as a major technological leader, supplier and partner in the field of nuclear technology. As
the sole superpower, the U.S. will have considerable, on-going influence on the international nonproliferation
regime, regardless of how active and successful it is in the nuclear export market. However, the erosion of the U.S.
nuclear infrastructure has begun to weaken the ability of the U.S. to participate actively in the international
nuclear market. If the U.S. becomes more dependent on foreign nuclear suppliers or if it leaves the
international nuclear market to other suppliers, the ability of the U.S. to influence nonproliferation policy will
diminish. It is, therefore, essential that the United States have vibrant nuclear reactor, enrichment
services, and spent fuel storage and disposal industries that can not only meet the needs of U.S. utilities
but will also enable the United States to promote effective safeguards and other nonproliferation
controls through close peaceful nuclear cooperation with other countries. U.S. nuclear exports can
be used to influence other states’ nuclear programs through the nonproliferation commitments that
the U.S. requires. The U.S. has so-called consent rights over the enrichment, reprocessing and alteration in form
or content of the nuclear materials that it has provided to other countries, as well as to the nuclear materials that are
produced from the nuclear materials and equipment that the U.S. has supplied. Further, the ability of the U.S. to
develop improved and advanced nuclear technologies will depend on its ability to provide consistent and
vigorous support for nuclear R&D programs that will enjoy solid bipartisan political support in order that they
can be sustained from one administration to another. As the U.S. Government expends taxpayer funds on the
Nuclear Power 2010 program, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the Generation IV initiative and other
programs, it should consider the benefit to the U.S. industrial base and to U.S. non-proliferation posture as criteria in
project design and source selection where possible. Finally, the ability of the United States to resolve its own
difficulties in managing its spent fuel and nuclear wastes will be crucial to maintaining the credibility of the
U.S. nuclear power program and will be vital to implementing important new nonproliferation initiatives
designed to discourage the spread of sensitive nuclear facilities to other countries.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 250
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Transmutation Bad
Transmutation Expensive and Ineffective
Warf and Plotkin 96 (James and Sheldon, Professor of Chemistry at Southern California, Nuclear Age
Peace Foundation, September 1996, http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/1996/09/00_warf_disposal.htm)
Even though the outlook for nuclear transmutation is most unpromising, a few details are perhaps in order.
The accelerator procedure is highly unfavorable from the standpoint of energy consumption. The steel and
other parts would be activated by neutrons, and become radioactive. It seems that about as much
radioactive waste would be produced as is consumed, as stated above, if not more. Costs would be
fantastic. The procedure could not easily be used with fission products. They absorb neutrons poorly;
after all, they were in a neutron environment for years, and survived. Only two, iodine-129 and
technetium-99, are easily transmuted to nonradioactive nuclides, and these are not particularly
important. Technetium-99 (half-life nearly a quarter of a million years) is converted by neutrons into
technetium 100 (half-life only 16 seconds) forming ruthenium. If this process is carried out while a stream of
ozone is passed through the apparatus, volatile ruthenium tetroxide is constantly removed. Transmutation
might be successful in this case, and perhaps that of iodine-129, but in general the technique is not
expected to be satisfactory.
***Reactors***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 259
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
***PBMRs Good***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 260
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
While pebble bed reactors are not the only new nuclear energy technology being considered for the future,
this technology is arguably the most advanced in terms of interest and development. The United States
has chosen high temperature gas reactors as their technology of choice to power the future hydrogen
economy in an emission free way. Pebble bed reactors offer the potential for meeting the needs of high
energy efficiency, safety and economy if the concepts proposed in this paper are successfully implemented.
The nations of South Africa and China are committed to developing pebble bed 15 technology. Thus,
pebble bed reactors offer a future for nuclear energy in combating global climate change in an
affordable technology that has been demonstrated to work.
PBMRs are cost effective, inherently safe and increase public confidence
Kadak 5 (Andrew, International Journal of Critical Infrastructures
[http://www.inderscience.com/search/index.php?action=record&rec_id=6679&prevQuery=&ps=10&m=or] A future
for nuclear energy: pebble bed reactors/ 2005)
Pebble Bed Reactors could allow nuclear plants to support the goal of reducing global climate change
in an energy hungry world. They are small, modular, inherently safe, use a demonstrated nuclear
technology and can be competitive with fossil fuels. Pebble bed reactors are helium cooled reactors that
use small tennis ball size fuel balls consisting of only 9 grams of uranium per pebble to provide a low power
density reactor. The low power density and large graphite core provide inherent safety features such
that the peak temperature reached even under the complete loss of coolant accident without any active
emergency core cooling system is significantly below the temperature that the fuel melts. This feature
should enhance public confidence in this nuclear technology. With advanced modularity principles, it
is expected that this type of design and assembly could lower the cost of new nuclear plants removing a
major impediment to deployment.
PBMRs are cost effective, increase public confidence and solve for global climate change
Kadak 4 (Andrew, MIT [http://web.mit.edu/pebble-bed/papers1_files/PBReactors.pdf] A Future For Nuclear
Energy – Pebble Bed Reactors/ April 25, 2004)
Pebble Bed Reactors offer a future for new nuclear energy plants. They are small, modular, inherently
safe, flexible in design and operation, use a demonstrated nuclear technology and can be competitive
with fossil fuels. Pebble bed reactors are helium cooled reactors that use small tennis ball size fuel balls
consisting of only 9 grams of uranium per pebble to provide a low power density reactor. The low power
density and large graphite core provide inherent safety features such that the peak temperature
reached even under the complete loss of coolant accident without any active emergency core cooling
system is 2 significantly below the temperature that the fuel melts. This feature should enhance public
confidence in this nuclear technology. With advanced modularity principles as described, a new way of
thinking and building nuclear plants is proposed that would improve quality by factory fabrication of space
frame modules and site assembly similar to “legos” would speed the time to operation. It is expected that
this type of design and assembly could lower the cost of new nuclear plants such that the biggest
impediment to new nuclear construction namely the capital cost of new nuclear plants is removed. This
would allow nuclear plants to support the goal of reducing global climate change in an energy hungry
world.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 261
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) is a new type of high temperature helium gas-cooled nuclear
reactor, which builds and advances on world-wide nuclear operators' experience of older reactor
designs. The most remarkable feature of these reactors is that they use attributes inherent in and natural to the
processes of nuclear energy generation to enhance safety features. It is also a practical and cost-effective
solution to most of the logistics of generating electricity, with particular reference to South Africa today.
PBMR's are designed to produce 110MW each which means that 30 000 average homes could be
sustained by one such reactor. More than one PBMR can be located in a facility thus creating energy
parks. It is possible for a PBMR energy park to be made up of a maximum of 10 modules which share a
common control centre. This system allows sequential construction of modules to match users' growth
requirements; as the area grows, so more modules can be added to meet the industrial and domestic
needs for electricity in an area A single PBMR reactor would consist typically of a single main building,
covering an area of 1 300 square metres (50 x 26 m). This area is far less than the area covered by a rugby
field or even a soccer field. The height of the building would be 42m, some of it below ground level,
depending on the bed rock formations as the building would sit on bed-rock. The part of the building that
would be visible above ground is equivalent to a six storey building. There would be a unit control room,
a high voltage switch yard, and a cooling tower for inland facilities and a sea pump-house for coastal
facilities. Ten PBMR reactors produce 1 100 MW would occupy an area of no more than three football
fields. These relatively small power stations would be versatile and flexible. They could be erected
anywhere there is a steady and ready supply of water. They could be used as base-load stations or load-
following stations, and could be adjusted to the size required by the communities they serve.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 262
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Besides the safety improvements of the PBMR design there has been a major effort to improve
efficiency and to remove systems whose complexity could lead to operational mistakes (human error or
machine failure). This has led to a higher power output with the same amount of nuclear fuel being
used, and reduced the maintenance and operating requirements. The use of a continuous fuelling regime
has removed the need to shut the reactor down every 12 - 18 months to change the fuel, as is the case at
Koeberg. The use of a closed cycle gas turbine with helium and magnetic bearings has meant tha the thermal
efficiency is higher (~45 per cent c.f. to 33% for Koeberg) - because gas turbines are more efficient than
steam and also with magnetic bearings there is less friction - this has reduced the major maintenance
requirements to once every six years. All components are built as replaceable modules, so they are changed
for spares which are then refurbished for the next machine. This shortens the maintenance periods
significantly. All these improvements enable the PBMR to be operated with little human intervention.
The staff are there to monitor and supervise the plant rather than to operate it. All this means that
PBMR's need fewer safety and fall-back systems, without compromising either worker or public safety. This
also reduces the cost of building PBMR's and the time needed to plan, build and commission them.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 263
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Any PBMR station built in South Africa will adhere to the stringent local and international safety
standards that are laid down for nuclear stations in South Africa and throughout the world. The PBMR is
walk-away safe. Its safety is a result of the design, the materials used and the physics processes rather than
engineered safety systems as in a Koeberg type reactor. The peak temperature that can be reached in the
reactor core (1 6000 degrees Celsius under the most severe conditions) is far below any sustained
temperature (2 000 degrees Celsius) that will damage the fuel. The reason for this is that the ceramic
materials in the fuel such as graphite and silicone carbide - are tougher than diamonds. Even if a reaction in
the core cannot be stopped by small absorbent graphite spheres (that perform the same function as the
control rods at Koeberg) or cooled by the helium, the reactor will cool down naturally on its own in a
very short time. This is because the increase in temperature makes the chain reaction less efficient and it
therefore ceases to generate power. The size of the core is such that it has a high surface area to volume ratio.
This means that the heat it loses through its surface (via the same process that allows a standing cup of tea to
cool down) is more than the heat generated by the decay fission products in the core. Hence the reactor can
never (due to its thermal inertia) reach the temperature at which a meltdown would occur. The plant can
never be hot enough for long enough to cause damage to the fuel.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 264
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
WHY WON’T PBMR BECOME A SECOND CHERNOBYL? The peak temperature that can be
reached in the core of the reactor (1 600 ºC or 2912 ºF under the most severe conditions) is well below the
temperature that may cause damage to the fuel. This is because the radionuclides, which are the
potentially harmful products of the nuclear reaction, are contained by two layers of pyrocarbon and a layer of
silicon carbide which are extremely good at withstanding high temperatures. Even if there is a failure of the
active systems that are designed to shut down the nuclear reaction and remove core decay heat, the
reactor itself will stop any nuclear fission and eventually cool down naturally. Unlike the Chernobyl
type of reactor, which during the accident produced more energy the hotter it became (known as “a positive
temperature coefficient of reactivity”), the pebble-bed reactor has a strong negative temperature
coefficient of reactivity which halts the chain reaction. It also cools naturally by heat transport to the
environment. The size of the PBMR core ensures a high surface area to volume ratio. This means that the
heat that it loses through its surface (via the same process that allows a cup of tea to cool down) is more than
the heat generated by the decay of fission products in the core. The reactor therefore never reaches a
temperature at which significant degradation of the fuel can occur. The plant can never be hot enough
for long enough to cause damage to the fuel. This inherently safe design of the PBMR renders obsolete the
need for safety backup systems and most aspects of the off-site emergency plans required for conventional
nuclear reactors. It is also fundamental to the cost reduction achieved over other nuclear designs. Although
plans related to aspects such as the transport of fuel will still be required, they will be modified to suit the
specific characteristics of the fuel and the transport mode. The reactor core concept is based on the well-tried
and proven German AVR power plant which ran for 21 years. This safe design was proven during a public
and filmed plant safety test, when the flow of coolant through the reactor core was stopped and the control
rods were left withdrawn just as if the plant was in normal power generation mode. It was demonstrated
that the nuclear reactor core shut itself within a few minutes. It was subsequently proven that there
was no deterioration over and above the normal design failure fraction of the nuclear fuel. This proved
that a reactor core meltdown was not credible and that an inherently safe nuclear reactor design had been
achieved.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 265
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
PBMR proponents do not normally bring up the issue of final disposal of the reactor's spent fuel.
There is a reason for this: the volume of the spent fuel produced by a PBMR is significantly greater
than that of the spent fuel produced by a conventional LWR, per unit of electricity generated. This is
because the uranium in the fuel spheres is diluted in a large mass of graphite. One can estimate the
volume of spent pebbles discharged per unit of electricity generated for the Eskom PBMR as follows. Each
pebble has a radius of 3 cm and a volume of 113 cm^3. Eskom calculates that operating a 110 MWe unit
continuously at full power for 40 years will require 13.8 full fuel loads. Since each fuel load contains
330,000 pebbles (not counting the pure graphite spheres), this means that 4.55 million will be required over
the plant lifetime. The amount of electricity generated during this period is 1.61 million MWD, so the
total volume of spent fuel produced is 320 cm^3/MWD. A typical 1150 MWe PWR operating on an 18-
month cycle will discharge about 84 fuel assemblies per outage, with each assembly having a volume of
about 186,000 cm^3. The amount of electricity generated is 630,000 MWD. Therefore, the volume of spent
fuel produced is 25 cm^3/MWD, a factor of 13 less than for the PBMR.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 266
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
If construction costs were all that mattered, the pebble bed reactor would clearly not be economic
compared to natural gas plants. However, when one includes the fuel and operating and maintenance
costs since the pebble bed plant requires far fewer staff than conventional reactors due to their
simplicity, the total cost of power estimated to be 3.3 cents per kilowatt hour well within the
competitive range for new natural gas plants.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 267
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
***PBMRs Bad***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 269
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
PBMRs have only been built on a pilot basis- no real world evidence suggests it solves
Makhijani 8 (Arjun [http://www.ieer.org/comments/energy/chny-pbr.html] The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor/
June 1, 2008)
The PBMR seems the latest nuclear industry attempt to sell new, improved, "inherently safe" reactors.
This is an inherently misleading term. No commercial PBMR has actually been built and operated. A
small German pilot reactor operated for 21 years and operated at 70 per capacity factor, according to
the promoters of the PBMR (http://www.pbmr.co.za/2_about_the_pbmr/2_8background_to_the_pbmr.htm).
The experience with HTGRs is decidedly mixed. The one large HTGR in the United States, the Fort St. Vrain
reactor, had quite a lot of problems and was prematurely shut. PBMRs were proposed in the 1990s as
possible reactors to use for waste transmutation. (See Science for Democratic Action vol. 8 no. 3, May
2000, for a description of IEER's transmutation study.) An analysis of the safety issues related to such use
of PBMRs is provided in a 1996 study on transmutation by the National Research Council of the
National Academy of Sciences. That safety analysis does not directly apply since the operating
conditions and fuels would be different than the proposed PBMR. However, it is noteworthy that the
study concluded "At this stage of its conceptual development, there is little information about the safety
features of the PBR [Pebble Bed Reactor], its dominant risk factors, or its environmental impact." The study
further stated that "It is not clear how the core [of the PBR] would react to any event that may interrupt the
flow of helium coolant." 3
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 270
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
But the challenge to incumbent nuclear companies does not end there. Most of today's nuclear industry
profits come from making and replacing fuel in operating plants not building new ones. Western
companies have a large stake in preserving how nuclear fuel is now made, a tightly controlled system
run by quasi-government entities and nuclear service companies. The status quo works for everyone,
consumers included, so long as existing reactor designs are the only viable options. PBMR
commercialization would upset this arrangement. PBMR uses a totally different fuel design to current
reactors. PBMRs should refuel while running whereas Western designs require refueling shutdowns every
two years. So PBMRs do not need either Western-style fuel or Western companies' refueling services.
Faced with this challenge, nuclear vendors -- with future plant sales and lucrative fuel and services
businesses at stake -- have attacked PBMR as an idea whose time will never come.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 271
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
About 20,000 PBMRs would be needed over the next four decades or so to make a contribution to global
electricity supply that would have a significant impact on carbon dioxide emissions. Allowing a decade for
reactor development (a very short time, considering none have been built), that would be almost two reactors
per day being brought on line for thirty years after that. Quality control for so many reactors and their
regulation would be essentially impossible. Further, were a design problem found in the PBMR a decade or two
after the hectic construction phase began, it would become economically prohibitive to fix it. Fuel production
for 20,000 units would have to be about 25 trillion microspheres per year. How the quality control would be
implemented for such a huge supply of a relatively novel fuel would be a crucial issue for the PBMR. In this
context, it is worth noting that one of the corporations leading the charge for the PBMR is BNFL, the British
government-owned company that has admitted that some of the plutonium oxide-uranium-oxide (MOX) fuel that it
sent to Japan had fabricated quality control data.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 272
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
In reviewing Exelon’s application to build a PBMR in the US, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
staff submitted 123 detailed questions on fabrication, quality control, performance in the core, and
ability to measure burnup reliably. 10 After Exelon pulled out, Farouk Eltawila, director of the NRC’s
Division of Systems Analysis and Regulatory Effectiveness, noted that “to test the fuel, it would take on
the order of five to seven years.” The principal fuel challenges fall into several areas. First, there is a
significant challenge in fabricating, and ensuring quality control, for the microspheres themselves.
NRC staff note that the fuel kernel needs to be perfectly centered in the microsphere or the kernel will
migrate out of the particle. 11 At that point, fission products are not contained. The kernels are so
small, and the volume is so large (5 billion microspheres for an initial core load), that fabrication and
quality control are major challenges. . 12 It is also a challenge to fabricate the larger pebbles. Fifteen
thousand microspheres are mixed with graphite and sintered (baked) into a large fuel pebble about
the size of a tennis ball.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 273
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The pebble bed reactor is being touted as nearly "accident proof." It is being hailed as the savior of the
nuclear industry. Three Mile Island Alert opposes this reactor design because of its inherent dangerous
safety defects. 1. It has no containment building. 2. It uses flammable graphite as a moderator. 3. It produces
more high level nuclear wastes than current nuclear reactor designs. 4. It relies heavily on nearly perfect fuel
pebbles. 5. It relies heavily upon fuel handling as the pebbles are cycled through the reactor. 6. There's
already been an accident at a pebble bed reactor in Germany due to fuel handling problems. COMMENTS 1.
The lack of a containment building is a necessity because cooling is by natural convection. Also, a
containment building would hinder the modular design - that is - no additional reactors could be added onto
the plant after initial construction. This modular capability is what is so appealing to utilities because it
requires less investment from the beginning. Frankly, this single point is enough to conclude that this
reactor design is unsafe. The United States has criticized Soviet reactor designs for not having
containment buildings. It is the last line of defense for containing a radiological release. Furthermore,
the lack of a containment building leaves the reactor(s) wide open to a terrorist attack. 2. The uranium
is covered by a layer of graphite. The graphite is covered by several other layers of materials including a
silicon carbide. The graphite could burn if defects in the fuel defeat the outer coverings. The industry
acknowledges that there is approximately 1 defect per pebble associated with these layers. There are
approximately 370,000 pebbles in a pebble bed reactor. One tennis ball sized pebble comes out the bottom of
the reactor every 30 seconds. It can be returned to the top of the reactor for additional use. The 1957
Windscale accident and the 1986 Chernobyl accident both involved burning graphite. The burning
graphite dispersed radioactivity. At Chernobyl, the burning graphite released radiation for ten days.
3. Although the volume by "configuration for long term storage" is lower than current design, the actual
amount of high level waste by weight is higher. The pebbles are less radioactive than conventional fuel
assemblies and more pebbles are required to produce the needed heat inside the reactor. There will be many
more truck and railroad transports needed to remove the wastes. This will increase the numbers of vehicle
accidents and the odds of another radiological accident involving these vehicles traveling across the country.
Creating even more nuclear waste without a final depository plan is unconscianable. 4. The industry
acknowledges that "fuel pebble manufacturing defects are the most significant source of fission
product release." Recent history shows that some companies have falsified fuel quality. In fact, there have
been instances of fuel sabotage and tampering over the last few decades. Germany and Japan have shut
down plants or refused fuel shipments once the problems were discovered. The industry can't produce
"defect-free" fuel and therefore it is a certainty that a pebble bed reactor will experience an accident.
The industry acknowledges that there is approximately 1 defect per pebble associated with these layers.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 274
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
While the design of PBMRs would avoid fuel meltdown type accidents, a loss of the coolant could still
produce serious radiological consequences. PBMRs will contain graphite, which could catch fire if air
enters the core after a loss of the helium coolant. Further, a loss of coolant accident that involved a
breach in the separation between the helium and water circuits poses a risk of steam-graphite
reactions, which generate carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which would give rise to a fire hazard. In
sum, PBMRs have their own safety vulnerabilities, specific to their design, and should not be called
"inherently safe." Note that the PBMR proponents still want the government to insure their reactors under
the Price Anderson Act. Might this indicate a lack of confidence in its inherent safety?
Another important source of uncertainty comes from the complexity of the PBMR core, which is
constantly in motion. A PBMR operator must be able to accurately compute the pebble flow, neutron
flux and core temperature distributions without the benefit of in-core instrumentation (since there are
no structures to support such instrumentation). Previous experience with the AVR test reactor in
Germany, a precursor to the PBMR, indicates cause for concern. Experiments measuring the He coolant
temperature in the AVR found numerous "hot spots" in the coolant that exceeded 1280 C, whereas the
maximum predicted temperature was only 1150 C[4]. After NRC staff highlighted these findings, Exelon
raised the design maximum fuel temperature limit during PBMR normal operation from 1060 C to 1250 C.
This is of concern because above 1250 C the SiC layer of the TRISO fuel coating will degrade as a
result of attack by palladium isotopes produced during fission[5]. It also calls into question the accuracy
of the current generation of computer codes for PBMR core analysis.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 276
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
No matter what the environmental, public health, safety and energy security advantages that nuclear
energy may offer, if the product is not competitive, it will not be used. The MIT team used a
comparative analysis of energy alternatives that was performed in 1992 by the Nuclear Energy Institute.
The results of this comparative analysis for capital costs for a 10 unit modular plant show that the base
plant overnight construction cost was $ 1.65 Billion. Applying a contingency of 23 % and an overall cost
of money of 9.47%, total capital cost estimate was $ 2.3 Billion or about $ 2,000 /kw installed. On a per
unit module, for a 110 MWe plant the capital cost is estimated to be about $ 200 million. This estimate is
approximately double that of the PBMR proposed by ESKOM.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 277
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The possibility of developing large-scale nuclear power is determined first and foremost by the
existence of accessible fissioning materials. The natural reserves of uranium have been investigated and
assessed [1]. Since these reserves are limited and no more than 1% uranium is used in thermal reactors, large-
scale development of nuclear power is impossible over the long term. This conclusion does not affect the
recycling of fuel from thermal reactors and bringing thorium into the fuel cycle. Breeder reactors are
essentially the only way to make complete use of uranium and thorium for producing energy and
thereby make possible the long-term development of nuclear power. Consequently, the transition of
nuclear power to a closed fuel cycle is inevitable and breeder reactors will play a determining role in the
future
Breeder reactors provide enough energy to power the world for 500 thousand years
Garwin 1 (Richard, Last Date Cited, The Borzi Reader
[http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/garwin/qna.html] What new conclusions or arguments does
Megawatts and Megatons bring to the public debate on atomic energy?)
The Cheney reports looks favorably on reprocessing of spent fuel from U.S. power reactors; a recent study by
an expert committee of the National Academy of Sciences finds no merit or necessity in such an approach--
certainly not in reprocessing to obtain plutonium to reduce by 20% the uranium consumption of the usual
U.S. reactor. Even if the entire world's energy needs were met by nuclear power, the four billion tons of
uranium naturally present in the oceans would fuel the reactors for thousands of years. If no new
source of energy such as nuclear fusion were perfected in a thousand years, "breeder reactors" could
be used to power the world's energy needs for 500,000 years.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 279
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
In order to regulate the internal neutron flux, the primary coolant typically is one of the light metals like
Sodium. Since Uranium-238 is one of the more abundant elements in the Earth's crust, Breeder
Reactors make it possible to have an essentially unlimited source of fuel for nuclear reactors - which
means an unlimited supply of electricity. At its best, the Breeder Reactor system produces no nuclear
waste whatever - literally everything eventually gets used. In the real world, there actually may be some
residual material that could be considered waste, but its half-life - the period of time it takes for half
the radioactivity to dissipate - is on the order of thirty to forty years. By contrast, the half-life for the
stuff we presently consider nuclear waste is over 25,000 years! Imagine a transformed energy
landscape, where there is no nuclear waste problem, no power shortages, a safe and inexhaustible
supply of inexpensive electricity. France has constructed and used Breeder Reactors like this for many
years. So have the British and the Japanese. So why not the United States?
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 280
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
"But technologies like fast-breeder reactors allow us to extend the life of the uranium, and eke more out
of it." World uranium prices have more than tripled since 2004 to about $35 a pound, as nations
trying to cut pollution take another look at nuclear power. China's plan to build as many as 30 new
reactors has galvanized new exploration and investments. Fast-breeder reactors, a concept under
development since the 1960s, are designed to produce more nuclear fuel than they consume. China could
consider joint ventures to explore for and mine uranium in countries like Australia, said Shen Wenquan, a
vice chairman at China National Nuclear Corp, without providing further details. "Uranium prices are up a
lot and given current developments, they are likely to continue to rise. But they are still low in comparison
with fuel prices for oil-fired plants," Shen said.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 281
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
In contrast to most normal nuclear reactors, however, a fast reactor uses a coolant that is not an efficient
moderator, such as liquid sodium, so its neutrons remain high-energy. Although these fast neutrons are not
as good at causing fission, they are readily captured by an isotope of uranium (U238), which then becomes
plutonium (Pu239). This plutonium isotope can be reprocessed and used as more reactor fuel or in the
production of nuclear weapons. Reactors can be designed to maximize plutonium production, and in
some cases they actually produce more fuel than they consume. These reactors are called breeder
reactors. Breeder reactors are possible because of the proportion of uranium isotopes that exist in
nature. Natural uranium consists primarily of U238, which does not fission readily, and U235, which does.
Natural uranium is unsuitable for use in a nuclear reactor, however, because it is only 0.72 percent U235,
which is not enough to sustain a chain reaction. Commercial nuclear reactors normally use uranium fuel that
has had its U235 content enriched to somewhere between 3 and 8 percent by weight. Although the U235 does
most of the fissioning, more than 90 percent of the atoms in the fuel are U238--potential neutron capture
targets and future plutonium atoms.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 282
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
In order to regulate the internal neutron flux, the primary coolant typically is one of the light metals like
Sodium. Since Uranium-238 is one of the more abundant elements in the Earth's crust, Breeder
Reactors make it possible to have an essentially unlimited source of fuel for nuclear reactors - which
means an unlimited supply of electricity. At its best, the Breeder Reactor system produces no nuclear
waste whatever - literally everything eventually gets used. In the real world, there actually may be some
residual material that could be considered waste, but its half-life - the period of time it takes for half
the radioactivity to dissipate - is on the order of thirty to forty years. By contrast, the half-life for the
stuff we presently consider nuclear waste is over 25,000 years! Imagine a transformed energy
landscape, where there is no nuclear waste problem, no power shortages, a safe and inexhaustible
supply of inexpensive electricity. France has constructed and used Breeder Reactors like this for many
years. So have the British and the Japanese. So why not the United States?
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 283
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Fast breeder reactors make the most efficient use of natural uranium. Plutonium recycling with fast
breeder reactors increases the efficiency of uranium use by a factor of 60 to 70. If we try to supply the
expected share of nuclear energy to satisfy worldwide energy requirement, a shortage of uranium would be
experienced around the middle of the next century. Commercial operation of fast breeder reactors by the
middle of next century will become indispensable; so smooth transition of fissile materials from uranium 235
to plutonium can be achieved. If this plutonium recycling takes place, about one million tons of depleted
uranium (mostly uranium 238) that the world now possesses could supply about one thousand years of
nuclear power at the present world nuclear power generation level.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 284
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The cost estimates for a liquid metal breeder reactor are certainly smaller than the cost estimates for a
fusion reactor, and are (and may remain) smaller than for renewables. A breeder programme deserves by
this reckoning at least as much funding as the fusion reactor which is still far in the future. But it may be
desirable (although not necessary) in the intermediate term also. It is now 50 years since the start of the
nuclear age and it can be said that we are only just beginning to understand how to make a viable LWR
programme. A breeder reactor development programme (including real operating demonstration plants)
may give enough experience to overcome some of the cost (and weapons proliferation) problems and
enable us to have the safety and environmental advantages of a metal fuel reactor and a coolant that soaks
up stray fission products.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 285
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The history of the breeder reactors is a history of fiascos. Like the Russian reactor, the British reactor
achieved an operating capacity of 15 percent before its shutdown in 1992. The French Super Phoenix
(1200 Megawatts) attained 7 percent and cost 10 billion euros. The much smaller Japanese breeder (300
Megawatts) cost 5 billion euros and experiences regular operating problems. Making these reactors fit
for operation, if that were to prove possible, would require incalculably greater add-on costs. This path
of development would be prohibitive without continued or increased public expenditures. The
thousand-year nuclear waste question remains an unresolved problem with unforeseeable permanent costs.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 287
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Commercial reprocessing programs originated in the 1960s and 1970s when power reactor operators
worldwide expected that plutonium would be needed to make start-up fuel for plutonium breeder reactors.
These reactors would then fuel themselves and other reactors with the plutonium that reactors produce
by transmuting the abundant non-chain-reacting uranium-238 isotope. It was believed that production
of nuclear energy based on the much less abundant chain-reacting uranium-235 isotope would increase
so rapidly that the world’s high-grade uranium ores would quickly be depleted, making a transition to
the more uranium-efficient breeder reactors economical. This expectation, however, was wrong, as U.S.
and world nuclear capacity reached a plateau at one-tenth the level that had been projected for the
year 2000, huge deposits of high-grade uranium ore were discovered in Australia and Canada, and
both breeder reactors and reprocessing were found to be much more costly than had been expected.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 288
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Second, if there was such a large-scale deployment of nuclear power, the only means by which it could
become sustainable in the long term is through the use of breeder reactors, which create their own fuel in
the form of plutonium. These reactors have never shown their ability to generate sufficient new fuel.
Even if breeders could operate as intended, this would mean that plutonium, a highly hazardous
radioactive material, would be transported in increasing quantities around the globe. The potential
diversion of even a small fraction of this material would significantly increase the threat of nuclear
terrorism.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 289
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The catch phrase "Monju would produce a never-ending source of energy" is a lie. While the reactor might
breed 20% more plutonium than it consumes, mainly in the reactor core, it is impossible to extract
plutonium due to the interference of the contaminated noble metals that are produced by fission reactions.
Therefore, it is useless. Meanwhile, a small amount of pure plutonium known as "super weapons-grade
plutonium" is produced in the breeder blanket surrounding core. This is easy to extract—and is also
useful for nuclear weapons.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 290
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
A breeder reactor IS a fission reactor. It is a much more efficient version of a fission reactor because it
"breeds" new fuel while consuming the old fuel. This is possible because the fission reactions release lots of
neutrons that can be used to transform certain non-useful isotopes into useful isotopes or elements - in
particular Plutonium is generally a product of breeder reactors. However, plutonium is also rather
hazardous and dangerous for reasons associated with proliferation of nuclear weapons, so breeder
reactors have not been very popular in the U.S. They are widely used in other countries though (Japan
and France I think).
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 291
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Just as for sodium coolant, a large fraction of the cost of using lead coolant will undoubtedly be due to
experimental investigations of materials, testing of the structural units, experimental samples of the
equipment, and systems, and the technology for maintaining the quality of the lead coolant. As a result
of the higher initial temperature in the case of lead (greater than 370°C), it will be more difficult to perform
the experiments, and therefore such experiments will be more expensive than for sodium and the eutectic
alloy lead–bismuth. As already mentioned, in our country the cost of developing and adopting sodium-
cooled breeder reactors is estimated to be approximately 12 billion dollars. There are no grounds for
believing that the lead solution will be less expensive. On the contrary, the arguments presented above
show that these costs will be substantially higher.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 292
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Critical issues in the development targets for the future fast reactor (FR) cycle system, including sodium-
cooled FR were to ensure safety assurance, efficient utilization of resources, reduction of
environmental burden, assurance of nuclear non-proliferation, and economic competitiveness. A
promising design concept of sodium-cooled fast reactor JSFR is proposed aiming at fully satisfaction of
the development targets for the next generation nuclear energy system. A roadmap toward JSFR
commercialization is described, to be followed up in a new framework of the Fast reactor Cycle Technology
development (FaCT) Project launched in 2006.
Sodium-cooled reactors guarantee an energy supply for the next 1000 years
Ichimiya 7 (Masakazu , Japan Atomic Energy Agency
[http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:TXZk2MiXfzkJ:article.nuclear.or.kr/jknsfile/v39/JK0390171.pdf+sodium+c
ooled+reactors+feasible&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=20&gl=us] A NEXT GENERATION SODIUM-COOLED FAST
REACTOR CONCEPT AND ITS R&D PROGRAM/ May 14, 2007)
The capacity for efficient burning of TRU materials, including degraded plutonium, and the excellent
neutron economy are some of the advantages of the SFR, which enable the utilization of nuclear energy
as a sustainable energy source over a very long time period of more than thousand years. Accordingly,
the effective utilization of uranium resources includes the recycling of TRU. The current outlook is that
long-term demand for energy will keep increasing on a global scale, but because there is an element of
uncertainty in any projection regarding energy supply and demand, an SFR system should possess the
flexibility to adapt to changing energy needs by adjusting its actinide management capability (from net
consumption to net generation of fissile material)
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 294
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
EBR-II was a sodium-cooled fast reactor in which all the primary coolant system components were inside
a single vessel containing sodium at atmospheric pressure. It began operating in 1964 and for 30 years
operated safely and reliably producing and selling electricity to the local utility as well as serving as a
irradiation facility for hundreds of advanced fuel and material development tests. In April 1986, two
landmark tests were conducted on EBR-II demonstrating inherently passive responses to unprotected
loss-of-flow and loss-of-heat-sink accident simulations. Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) had
been the backbone of the U.S. breeder reactor effort since 1964. The EBR-II plant consists of a sodium-
cooled reactor with a thermal power rating of 62.5 megawatts (MW), an intermediate closed loop of
secondary sodium, and a steam plant that produces 19 MW of electrical power through a conventional
turbine generator. The original emphasis in the design and operation of EBR-II was to demonstrate a
complete breeder-reactor power plant with on-site reprocessing of metallic fuel. The demonstration was
successfully carried out from 1964 to 1969. The emphasis was then shifted to testing fuels and
materials for future, larger, liquid metal reactors in the radiation environment of the EBR-II reactor
core. It is now operating as the IFR prototype.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 295
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Incentives Solve
Incentives would encourage development of Sodium-cooled reactors
UDE 3 (US Departmet of Energy [http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf77.html] Generation IV Nuclear Reactors/
2003)
Sodium-cooled fast reactors. This builds on more than 300 reactor-years experienced with fast neutron
reactors over five decades and in eight countries. It utilises depleted uranium in the fuel and has a coolant
temperature of 550°C enabling electricity generation via a secondary sodium circuit, the primary one being at
near atmospheric pressure. Two variants are proposed: a 150-500 MWe type with actinides incorporated into
a metal fuel requiring pyrometallurgical processing on site, and a 500-1500 MWe type with conventional
MOX fuel reprocessed in conventional facilities elsewhere. Early in 2008, the USA, France and Japan signed
an agreement to expand their cooperation on the development of sodium-cooled fast reactor
technology. The agreement relates to their collaboration in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership,
aimed at closing the nuclear fuel cycle through the use of advanced reprocessing and fast reactor
technologies, and seeks to avoid duplication of effort.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 296
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
SCRs Feasible
The construction of sodium-cooled reactors is feasible
Ichimiya 7 (Masakazu , Japan Atomic Energy Agency
[http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:TXZk2MiXfzkJ:article.nuclear.or.kr/jknsfile/v39/JK0390171.pdf+sodium+c
ooled+reactors+feasible&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=20&gl=us] A NEXT GENERATION SODIUM-COOLED FAST
REACTOR CONCEPT AND ITS R&D PROGRAM/ May 14, 2007)
A promising design concept of sodium-cooled fast reactor JSFR is proposed aiming at fully satisfaction
of the development targets for the next generation nuclear energy system, such as Generation IV system.
(1) The construction cost would be reduced by the adoption of innovative technologies with quite clear
feasibility and R&Ds of several issues are in progress now. (2) The core performance characteristics such
as the breeding capability, MA burning characteristics, fuel burn-up, and operation cycle length are well
suited to meet the design requirements for an oxide fuel core which satisfies safety design requirements,
safety research being the most advanced regarding the oxide fuel. (3) The drawbacks of sodium, on the
other hand, are overcome by system design features such as double boundary structures for sodium.
Thus, the plant reliability can be ensured together and ISI&R capability can be provided.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 297
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
A conceptual design study of a small sized sodium cooled reactor with 165MWe output with a metallic
fuel, which aimed at the application for the diversified power supply has been carried out. As for core
design, 550_C core outlet temperature and 20 years core life time have been achieved by utilizing the three
zone core having different Zr contents in U-Pu-Zr of metallic fuel. Although the coolant void reactivity has
been relatively high of 6$, the core has been confirmed to have high safety characteristic to prevent the
core damage by utilizing the negative reactivity feedback and inherent and passive safety
characteristics like natural circulation performance owing to low linear power density. Besides, an
improved UIS which enhances CRD expansion in ATWS and a reliable EMP power source with synchronous
motors which reduces frequency of emergent loss of flow have been designed. As for plant design, compact
reactor vessel and simplified cooling system have been achieved by adopting a pool-type reactor vessel
with the control rods control system and a forced circulation system, integrated annulus type IHX and
EMPs in series arrangement and one secondary cooling loop. Though construction cost in FOAK does not
satisfy the economical goal, the economical goal will be achieved in NOAK taking a learning effect into
account.
Resistance to nuclear proliferation and enhanced physical protection is a goal established for advanced
systems and technologies that aims at (1) making a next generation system the least desirable route to
obtaining nuclear material for use in nuclear weapons or other explosive devices, by a nation or a sub-
national entities, and (2) making the system less vulnerable to acts of sabotage. Among the technical
features that contribute to the proliferation resistance of the SFR are the characteristics of the
recycling process, which include the presence of minor actinides (MA) and highly radioactive ( , )
fission products (FP) in the recycled fuel, rather than the separation of plutonium. This results in
lowering the chemical purity and the fissile fraction of Pu, and in an increase in the surface dose rate of
the recycled product. These features enhance the difficulty of accessing the nuclear materials in the fuel
cycle and lower their attractiveness, since separated plutonium does not exist in its pure state in any of
the system’s processes. Regarding the organizational aspects, it is necessary to implement nuclear
safeguards (IAEA safeguards agreements) and to always maintain an accurate material inventory through the
utilization of advanced technologies
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 299
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
One of the countermeasures against sodium leakage is that the whole sodium boundary of the primary
and secondary heat transport systems and DHRS are covered with a guard vessel and/or guard piping
structure. These measures restrict the amount of leaked sodium by accommodating it within the
limited area of the guard vessel or guard piping structure, thus the sodium-surface level in the reactor
vessel is maintained enough high for core cooling function. Further, sodium combustion accompanied by
leakage is prevented, since the closed space between inside the outer wall is filled with inert nitrogen
gas which is of lower cost than argon gas. The outer wall structure is welded to keep its sodium-leak-
tightness.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 300
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The first statement is either horribly misinformed or an outright falsehood. The history of sodium-cooled
reactors in the United States had very serious incidents involving the reactor core. For example, there
were the following two events involving partial meltdown of the reactor cores of sodium-cooled reactors: • In
July 1959, the sodium-cooled nuclear reactor at the Santa Susana facility outside Los Angeles,
California, experienced overheating causing damage to roughly one-third of the fuel elements in the
reactor core. The design of this reactor was very similar to that proposed for Galena in that it also featured a
low-pressure, pool-type, sodium-cooled reactor with a sodium/sodium heat exchanger and a secondary
sodium/water steam generator. 6 • In October 1966, the sodium-cooled nuclear reactor at the Enrico
Fermi nuclear plant outside Detroit, Michigan experienced overheating causing damage to several fuel
assemblies in the reactor core.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 302
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
According to Brown, there are 21 sodium-cooled reactors around the world -- including Japan's
MONJU reactor, which Toshiba helped construct with three other companies in the 1985. After
construction delays, MONJU first went critical in 1994, but was shut down after an accidental sodium
leak and fire occurred in late 1995 while operating on low power. No radiation leaked out, but community
concerns have kept MONJU shut down. "MONJU has definitely not been a success," says Paul Gunter, a
reactor specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C. Gunter said that
experience with sodium-cooled reactors in the United States has not been much better. "The main
concern (with this type of reactor) is that sodium and water have a tremendous explosive reaction.
There was another near accident in Detroit at Fermi Unit One in 1966, resulting from loose parts."
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 303
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
In 1955 enthusiasts (including my cousin Derek Smith who worked on breeder reactors from his PhD in
1955 until his retirement around 1990) thought that a sodium cooled fast neutron reactor might be as
cheap or cheaper than a light water cooled thermal reactor. The working temperature can be higher and the
thermal efficiency perhaps 40% instead of 30%. Sodium is far less corrosive than water. It does not attack
steel and make it rust. On the contrary it removes oxides. It boils at a higher temperature than water enabling
a high thermal efficiency without using high pressures. Even in 1973 the cost differential was not thought to
be big. But the shutdown of all operating experimental breeder reactors suggests that even their
operating costs are higher than the operating costs of LWRs. Various factors have increased the cost of
nuclear power until now, in the USA, the busbar cost (including paying off the mortgage) is about 5 US
cents/kWh, nearly 10 times the 1973 figure. Even this high cost is competitive with most non-fossil fuel
alternatives, although not with fossil fuels. The fuel cost increase which Benedict found unacceptable is
only 10% of this busbar cost and an even smaller fraction of the retail cost which includes transmission
and distribution costs (and some other items) of a few cents per kWh. The charge on my electricity bill is
9 US cents per kWh, compared with which 0.5 cents per kWh is small. Therefore we can afford to use the
more expensive uranium resource without appreciably increasing the final electricity cost. Using Benedict’s
figures, a worldwide LWR system could produce about 4 x 1015 kWh (4.6 x 105 GW-years) of electricity, or
enough for over a century at an optimistic postulated year 2030 demand of 2500 GW-years. This suggests
that scarcity of affordable uranium is not an issue at present. An early (within 50 years) deployment of a
breeder reactor must be justified by more than this. These considerations therefore suggest that a breeder
may not be cost effective for some time to come.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 304
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
According to Wu, the HTR-10’s design is tailor-made for the world’s fastest growing energy market. “Regions
that are in the process of transforming from rural to industrial can start small, but add new modules as the area and
its fuel demands grow,” he said. “We can provide them with modules one at a time, if needed. This makes start-
up costs affordable and the reactors will be cheaper to operate as they grow, thanks to economies of scale in
everything from staff to fuel supply.” The nuclear reactor’s byproduct will be hydrogen, a clean fuel that provides
options that are less harmful to the environment. The HTR is the only reactor that can provide a nuclear heat source
to produce hydrogen, Wu said. Not surprisingly, a number of countries are closely watching these
developments in China. “Many of my colleagues around the world agree that high-temperature gas-cooled
reactors using pebble fuel offer the most potential for commercially meeting the future environmentally
friendly needs of global power generation,” Wu said
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 306
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
HTGR is used as an alternative to light water-cooled and moderated reactors. It uses graphite as a
moderator and helium as the coolant. HTGR has been used for electric power generation for a long time. The
helium coolant enters the reactor at 636F and exits at 1377F. It is possible to employ conventional
superheat/reheat cycles found in high performance fossil-fueled power plants becauseof these high
temperatures. The overall plant efficiency for HTGRs is 39 percent which compares quite favorably
with the 33 percent efficiency obtained with LWR power plants.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 307
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
HTGRs Feasible
High temperature gas cooled reactors are scientifically feasible
IPCC 8 ([http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/high-temperature-gas-cooled-reactors.html] High
Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors/ June 2, 2008)
High Temperature Gas cooled Reactors (HTGRs)distinguished from other gas-cooled reactors by the
higher temperatures attained within the reactor. Such higher temperatures might permit the reactor to be
used as an industrial heat source in addition to generating electricity. Among the future uses for which
HTGRs are being considered is the commercial generation of hydrogen from water. In some cases, HTGR
turbines run directly by the gas that is used as a coolant. In other cases, steam or alternative hot gases such as
nitrogen are produced in a heat exchanger to run the power generators. Recent proposals have favored
helium as the gas used as an HTGR coolant. The most famous U.S. HTGR example was the Fort Saint
Vrain reactor that operated between 1974 and 1989. Other HTGRs have operated elsewhere, notably
in Germany. Small research HTGR prototypes presently exist in Japan and China. Commercial HTGR
designs are now promoted in China, South Africa, the United States, the Netherlands, and France
though none of these is yet commercially marketed.
HTGR technology is once again receiving increasing interest in many countries around the world as a
promising future energy option. HTGR research reactors are coming on line in Japan and China, and
two power plant designs are being pursued as international development projects, and additional
design studies are under way. The renewed interest is based primarily on modular design concepts that
utilise unique properties of the technology to assure retention of radioactive fission products by inherent and
passive means. This characteristic offers the promise of an economically competitive electricity
generation option at modest unit size, suitable for construction and operation in both industrialised
and developing countries. The high temperature capability and smaller unit size also offers the prospect of
non-electrical applications for high temperature process heat, as well as low temperature energy supply
through cogeneration.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 308
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
6.1 Engineered Safeguards (1). Reactor protection system and shutdown devices. Shutdown functions of
the protection system and isolation of the steam generator after a water or steam pipe rupture are
similar to those of THTR 300. Besides the control rods, which serve also as shutdown rod, a secondary
shutdown device is demanded by the recent safety criteria in Germany. Up to now there is no final
decision on the design of this device. (2). Residual heat removal system. The system is designed to remove
residual heat after normal shutdown and after all anticipated incidents. Because of the high redundancy
of the primary He-loops these are also used for residual heat removal. Residual heat is transfered by means of
the steam generators to seperate auxiliary steam-water loops. Steam flows through a throttle-valve to a water-
cooled condenser and the condensate is recycled to the steam generator. One auxiliary loop is fed by two
steam generators. The whole residual heat removal system, except the cooling tower for the condenser
cooling, is installed inside the containment. The capacity of the system is 200% for the loss of coolant
accident with a primary gas pressure of 3.3 bar, that means a redundancy of the primary loops of 8 * 25 % (or
12 * 16 %) and of the auxiliary loops of 4 * 50 %. If intermediate He-circuits are used particular He-water
heat exchangers are provided for residual heat removal instead of the steam generators. (3). Containment.
Licensing practice in FRG indicates, that all power reactors must be protected against airplane crash,
although the probability of such events is in most cases less than 10^-6 per reactor year. The following
assumptionsl are made: A projectile of 7 m^2 cross section hits the containment perpendicularly with a time
dependent impact. To achieve a reasonable protection a concrete wall of a thickness between 2 and 3
meters is needed. If one accepted this, it is only a small further step to get a containment which is able to
withstand an internal pressure of 3.3 bar and which is gastight as it is necessary to govern a large primary
leakage. Such a building can also easily designed against the pressure wave of an external gas
explosion.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 309
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
This is a thermal neutron reactor design generally graphite moderated and CO2 cooled. They can have
a higher thermal efficiency compared with PWRs due to higher operating temperatures. There are a number
of reactors of this design, mostly in the United Kingdom where the concept was developed, e.g. Calder Hall
the first commercial nuclear power plant in the west, which was in operation between 1956 and 2001,
was of this design. Today, first generation GCR reactors like Magnox are either shut down or will be
in the near future. However, the AGCRs have an anticipated life of a further 10 to 20 years.
Decommissioning costs can be high due to large (graphite) volume of reactor core.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 311
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The Heavy Water Reactor (HWR) concept allow the use of natural uranium as a fuel without the need
for its enrichment, offering a degree of energy independence, especially if uranium is available for mining
or for extraction as a byproduct of another industry such as gold mining or phosphate fertilizer production.
However, it needs the installation of a heavy water D2O production capability, which is a much simpler
endeavor anyway, since separating the light isotopes (D from H) is much simpler than separating the
heavy isotopes (U235 from U238). HWRs have become a significant proportion of world reactor
installations, second only to the Light Water Reactors (LWRs). They provide fuel cycle flexibility for
the future and can potentially burn the recycled fuel from LWRs, with no major reactor design
changes, thus extending resources and reducing spent fuel storage.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 313
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Both pressurized light and heavy water moderated and cooled breeder reactors are highly attractive
from an engineering standpoint because of the availability of the extensive pressurized water
technology which has already been developed in the nuclear power field. As the neutron spectrum is
hardened in an uranium-233 fueled light water breeder reactor, the conversion ratio steadily increases from
a thermal value of 0.8 at a moderator-to-fuel atom ratio greater than 7 to a value of about 1.06 at a
moderator-to-fuel atom ratio of 1.0. This conversion ratio increase is due to a reduction in parasitic
neutron absorption in the moderator and structural material more than compensating for a decrease in
eta (η) in the higher energy neutron spectra. However, light water breeders provide only a sufficient
breeding margin to permit self-sustained operation with very long doubling times.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 314
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
ABWR technology reflects 50 years of continued evolution of boiling water reactor (BWR) technology
and combines the best features of the worldwide BWR fleet with advanced technology enhancements
that improve safety, performance and longevity. ABWR technology is certified by the NRC and has an
impressive construction and operational track record. This includes setting world records for
construction time and bringing the units in on budget. Four ABWR units have been successfully
commissioned in Japan in 39 months or less. Toshiba has built two of these and has developed significant
operational experience in providing support to these ABWR units.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 319
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Some four hundred Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) and Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) have been in
operation for several decades. The present concept, the High Pressure Boiling Water Reactor (HP-BWR),
makes use of this operating experience. The best parts of the two reactor types are used and the troublesome
components are left out. This means improved safety. The increased thermal efficiency is beneficial to
the environment as less cooling water is released per produced kWh. With some modifications the used
components can be used to make this design cost effective and possible to achieve in the currently not too
distant future.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 320
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Since the 1950s several hundred Boiling Water and Pressurized Water Reactors (BWRs and PWRs) in use.
There is a wealth of operating experience. During this have been time many difficulties occurred with a
number of important components. This concept, the High Pressure – Boiling Water Reactor (HP-BWR) offers
a solution to use the best parts from each type (BWR and PWR) and leave out the troublesome components.
This means an important increase of safety. As an extra benefit, also increased efficiency attained
beneficial for the environment as less cooling water is released per produced kWh. The HP-BWR is
using –with some modifications- currently manufactured parts making this a cost effective, realistic concept.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 323
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
GE provides technology-based products and services that help owners of Boiling Water Reactor
(BWR) nuclear power plants safely operate their plants with greater efficiency and output. We also
offer the proven Advanced BWR (ABWR) design. The ABWR nuclear plant is an economically competitive
option for utilities that need additional baseload power generation capacity. The ABWR provides low cost,
emission-free electricity. It can be built in only four years for a cost ranging from $1,400 to $1,600 USD
per kW, depending on the host country. The ABWR has been licensed in three countries, including the
United States, Japan and Taiwan. GE is also a market leader in the design and manufacture of harsh
environment sensors.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 324
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KANAZAWA, Ishikawa Pref. -- The Kanazawa District Court ordered Hokuriku Electric Power Co. to
shut down the No. 2 reactor at its Shika power plant Friday in Ishikawa Prefecture, recognizing a citizen
group's claim that it would be vulnerable, as it sits near a fault line, if a major quake hit. Hokuriku Electric
Power began full operation of the upgraded 1,358-megawatt boiling-water reactor on March 15. It is the
nation's 55th commercial reactor and second-largest in terms of output. The 135 plaintiffs, from 17
prefectures, filed the lawsuit in August 1999, initially demanding the reactor not be built. The plaintiffs
had said the reactor was too weak, noting it was built using 20-year-old antiquake-design guidelines
from the government. They said residents were at serious risk of being exposed to a major accident
because the reactor is near the Ochigata fault line, which the government's Earthquake Research Committee
has said could have a major temblor of magnitude 7.6. Their suit also said the advanced boiling-water
reactor is more dangerous than conventional boiling-water reactors as the advanced model was created for
cost efficiency and the power supply in the Hokuriku region currently exceeds demand. Presiding Judge
Kenichi Ido said the utility "has not taken into consideration an earthquake that may occur at the Ochigata
fault belt." "There is a possibility that the plaintiffs may be exposed to radiation in an accident at the
plant caused by an earthquake that is beyond the defendant's expectation," Ido said.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 326
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
It is becoming increasingly clear that the aging of reactor components poses serious economic and
safety risks at BWRs. A report by NRC published in 1993 confirmed that age-related degradation in
BWRs will damage or destroy many vital safety-related components inside the reactor vessel before the
forty year license expires. The NRC report states "Failure of internals could create conditions that may
challenge the integrity the reactor primary containment systems." The study looked at major
components in the reactor vessel and found that safety-related parts were vulnerable to failure as the
result of the deterioration of susceptible materials (Type 304 stainless steel ) due to chronic radiation
exposure, heat, fatigue, and corrosive chemistry. One such safety-related component is the core shroud
and it is also an indicator of cracking in other vital components through the reactor made of the same
material.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 328
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
***Fusion***
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 330
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The main application for fusion is in making electricity. Nuclear fusion can provide a safe, clean energy
source for future generations with several advantages over current fission reactors: Abundant fuel
supply - Deuterium can be readily extracted from seawater, and excess tritium can be made in the fusion
reactor itself from lithium, which is readily available in the Earth's crust. Uranium for fission is rare, and it
must be mined and then enriched for use in reactors. Safe - The amounts of fuel used for fusion are small
compared to fission reactors. This is so that uncontrolled releases of energy do not occur. Most fusion
reactors make less radiation than the natural background radiation we live with in our daily lives.
Clean - No combustion occurs in nuclear power (fission or fusion), so there is no air pollution. Less
nuclear waste - Fusion reactors will not produce high-level nuclear wastes like their fission counterparts, so
disposal will be less of a problem. In addition, the wastes will not be of weapons-grade nuclear materials
as is the case in fission reactors.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 331
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The best fuel for fusion comprises two types, or isotopes, of hydrogen: deuterium and tritium. The
former can be derived from water which is abundant and available everywhere. The latter can be produced
from lithium, which is plentiful in the Earth's crust. Unlike the burning of fossil fuels, fusion reactions
produce no carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas blamed by scientists for warming the planet. Fusion
scientists also say the system would be inherently safe because any malfunction would result in a rapid
shutdown.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 332
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Fusion reactors have been getting a lot of press recently because they offer some major advantages
over other power sources. They will use abundant sources of fuel, they will not leak radiation above
normal background levels and they will produce less radioactive waste than current fission reactors.
Nobody has put the technology into practice yet, but working reactors aren't actually that far off. Fusion
reactors are now in experimental stages at several laboratories in the United States and around the
world. A consortium from the United States, Russia, Europe and Japan has proposed to build a fusion
reactor called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Cadarache, France,
to demonstrate the feasibility of using sustained fusion reactions for making electricity. In this article,
we'll learn about nuclear fusion and see how the ITER reactor will work.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 333
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Six partners, the United States among them, have chosen France as the site for a $13 billion
experimental nuclear fusion reactor that, if successful, would open the door to cleaner and abundant
energy, the partners announced Tuesday. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, is
intended to show that nuclear fusion, which harnesses the same energy that heats the sun to generate
electricity, can wean the world off pollution-producing fossil fuels. Nuclear fusion also produces no
greenhouse gas emissions, which many scientists tie to global warming, and only low levels of
radioactive waste. The project is funded by Japan, the United States, South Korea, Russia, China and
the European Union, but the six parties had been divided over where to put the test reactor, which would
fuse atomic nuclei at extremely high temperatures inside a giant electromagnetic ring. Competition was
intense. At stake are billions of dollars worth of research funding, construction and engineering contracts, and
the creation of thousands of jobs.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 334
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
The main application for fusion is in making electricity. Nuclear fusion can provide a safe, clean energy
source for future generations with several advantages over current fission reactors: Abundant fuel
supply - Deuterium can be readily extracted from seawater, and excess tritium can be made in the fusion
reactor itself from lithium, which is readily available in the Earth's crust. Uranium for fission is rare, and it
must be mined and then enriched for use in reactors. Safe - The amounts of fuel used for fusion are small
compared to fission reactors. This is so that uncontrolled releases of energy do not occur. Most fusion
reactors make less radiation than the natural background radiation we live with in our daily lives.
Clean - No combustion occurs in nuclear power (fission or fusion), so there is no air pollution. Less
nuclear waste - Fusion reactors will not produce high-level nuclear wastes like their fission counterparts, so
disposal will be less of a problem. In addition, the wastes will not be of weapons-grade nuclear materials
as is the case in fission reactors.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 335
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
Some scientists have warned that Cadarache could be prone to earth tremors, a view discounted by France's
government. And opponents note that the project, which will take 10 years to build, is only
experimental and that it would be at least 50 years before a commercially viable reactor is built.
Greenpeace, for one, stated that “at a time when it is universally recognized that we must reduce greenhouse
gas emissions by 2050, Greenpeace considers it ridiculous to use resources and billions of euros on this
project.” Some also contend that fusion fuel is neither clean nor safe, although they acknowledge it
would be a safer energy source than nuclear fission. The project also faces challenges like trying to build a
reactor that can sustain temperatures of about 180 million degrees Fahrenheit for long enough to
generate power. “I give it a 50:50 chance of success but the engineering is very difficult,” said Ian Fells
of Britain’s Royal Academy of Engineering. “If we can really make this work there will be enough electricity
to last the world for the next 1,000 to 2,000 years.”
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 336
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When will the first commercial fusion reactor be built? Not for a long time. Experimental fusion
reactors like the Joint European Torus (Jet) at Culham in the UK currently use more energy than they
release. There are therefore many major scientific and engineering hurdles to overcome before the
technology becomes commercially viable. A commercial reactor is not expected before 2045 or 2050 - if
at all. Indeed, there is no guarantee that Iter will succeed. The running joke is that fusion has been "just
decades away" for several decades. And many commentators, particularly those greens who have fought
long campaigns against nuclear fission, are deeply suspicious of fusion. They doubt Iter will deliver and
believe the money earmarked for the project would be better spent on renewables, such as wind, wave
and solar, for which technical solutions already exist.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 337
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
ITER would have an advantage over current nuclear reactors because it would be cleaner. It would not rely
on enriched uranium fuel and it would not produce plutonium, which is a concern from a terrorism point of
view. Fusion reactors would, however, still pose some radiation danger. "In the course of the reaction it
produces a lot of neutrons and they get into the actual fabric of the machine and over years it becomes
radioactive, so there is still a problem of decommissioning,” said Fells. “The technology of this is the
science of the hydrogen bomb,” Fells added. “You take a couple of hydrogen atoms and you squeeze
them together, you fuse them together, and they turn into an atom of helium and produce a great burp
of energy.” Scientists know it could work because they know the hydrogen bomb works. But the problem
they face is trying to do it in a controlled manner so the heat can be used to generate electricity. The hydrogen
atom used is deuterium, which is a stable isotope of hydrogen. “The oceans are absolutely stuffed full of it,”
said Fells.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2008 338
Scholars Nuclear Power Good/Bad
There are several valid arguments against the construction of the ITER reactor and continued
research into fusion energy; tremendous costs, safety risks, radioactive waste to name a few. The ISRI
researchers focussed on the strategic-political and military-technical implications of the fusion research and
reviewed two aspects of the proliferation risk: the availability of tritium, which can be used both in fusion
reactors and nuclear weapons, and scientific knowledge on fusion physics. Tritium and nuclear weapons
The oldest design for nuclear weapons consists of pure high-enriched uranium and/or plutonium
materials. The Nagasaki bomb for instance contained 6 kilograms of plutonium and 120 kilograms of
uranium; to compress the materials and start the chain reaction, 2,500 kilograms of high explosives surrounds
the nuclear core making the bomb large (1.3 meters), heavy (about 3,000 kilograms) and deliverable by
airplane only. "Boosting" technology has made it possible to decrease the weight and size of a weapon.
Its core materials remain the same but prior to detonation, the center is injected with a mixture of deuterium-
tritium gas. Compressed by chemical explosives, an initial chain reaction begins with subsequent X-rays and
neutrons heating the gas at the center. The pressure and temperature of the gas is sufficient to start the fusion
reaction, the mixture rapidly burns out generating an intense pulse of neutrons. These fusion neutrons cause
the rest of the core to fission, which generates most of the yield of the explosion. In "boosted" bombs, fusion
is used to produce neutrons for fission making them very different from powerful "hydrogen" or
"thermonuclear" bombs where fusion itself is more important and causes the main yield. A few grams of
tritium are sufficient to "boost" bombs made of a few kilograms of military- or reactor-grade
plutonium making them smaller and lighter than conventional designs and deliverable by missiles
instead of bomber planes. "Boosted" bombs contain only 4 kilograms of plutonium or 12 kilograms
high enriched uranium, weighs less than 100 kilograms and is about 30 centimeters in diameter. Their
reduced size and weight also makes these weapons a terrorists object of desire given that they could be
deliverable using a vehicle and do not require testing.