Re: Horreur Nucléaire vs. Wind Power Now


"Ouroboros_Rex" <its@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g55q4j$egg$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ernie Jurick wrote:
"trudogg" <independent@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:27:11 -0700, "Ernie Jurick"
<invalidexample@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yesterday, according to a strangely under-republished story from
the AP, the nuclear power plant outside Avignon, (Provence
Alps-Côte d'Azure), France - near Nice and Marseilles - spilled
8,000 gallons of toxic, radioactive liquid into the Gaffiere and
the Lauzon rivers and into the water table of the area.

It was under-reported because it was neither toxic nor
radioactive-- it was
a slurry of naturally-occurring uranium ore. Have you ever heard of
uranium
mine workers suffering from radiation poisoning? The radon in your
basement
is more dangerous.

...so you know more about this than the news service? What is it
about "toxic" and "radioactive" that you don't understand?

I understand, in the words of the French nuclear official in the
story you quoted, "The risk is slight." There was no increase in
background radioactivity

There was a 1000-fold increase in uranium concentration.

Not according to the stories I saw. A 1,000-fold concentration would be
highly radioactive.

I see no figures for background radiation, where did you find some?

From various sources. It was no big deal, really. As the French nuke people
said, the danger was slight, and then only because of a relatively low risk
of toxicity until the spill was dispersed. France has anti-nuke types just
as we do (even though 70% of France's electricity comes from nuke plants),
and they would have been all over a major spill, and Greenpeace would have
been shouting the house down.

because 99.3% of uranium ore is inert. U-238

Neither U-238 nor uranium ore is inert or non-radioactive.

I hate to disillusion you, but 99.3% of uranium is rock. Plain old
non-dangerous utterly inert rock. That's why they need so much ore to
produce a small quantity of U-238 to refine into U-235, which is the power
plant fuel. Spent fuel has reverted mostly to natural U-238 again, which
cannot be used without processing it again, and the presence of plutonium in
waste fuel prevents it from being recycled at this time. Breeder reactors
are designed to produce more fuel than they use because they make use of the
plutonium component.
-- Ernie


.

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