"I would hurl words into the darkness and wait for an echo. If an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight." Richard Wright, American Hunger
“Somewhere in America a family will lose a loved one in the next hour as a result of pollution from coal-fired power plants.”
Wow! I saw this headline in an email fromGreenpeacethat my father-in-law sent me. You might remember that I spent several posts researching nuclear power, seeing this as the real energy demon. Now perhaps it is time to look at coal.
Below is the text and YouTube video that was in the email. I would love to hear what you think about it.
“Pollution from the coal industry isn’t just poisoning our communities. It’s polluting our political process as well. The millions of dollars they spend on lobbying and campaign contributions has allowed them to continue doing business as usual. But that’s changing.
Communities everywhere are standing up to the coal industry and doing what they have to do to keep their families safe and protect their air and water. And Greenpeace is supporting them.”
That’s why we created a new website — www.quitcoal.org –– especially for these activists and for anyone who is concerned about coal. Check out their stories and be one of the first people to see our new site by clicking on the video below.
We feel that this site can serve as a valuable resource by providing a platform for these activists to share their story and connect with other people in the movement and to highlight the work that is being done across the country to build a clean energy future.You’ll be hearing a lot more about the site in the future. Thanks for all you do.Quit Coal,Kelly Mitchell Greenpeace Coal Campaigner
Yesterday, Alon asked for responses to his post about statistics that make it appear that coal is worse than nuclear when it comes to radiation emissions and health risks. Here are my views.
Mark Twain said, “There are three kinds of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics.” I have taken a year of graduate-level stats and I can verify that you can choose your methods to show almost whatever it is you want from a given set of numbers. This is what people do who have an agenda to forward other than just getting the truth out.
Back in the days when George H.W. Bush was president, he said in a speech: “More low income people will benefit from these tax cuts than high income people.” Well, that was technically true. It’s just that the “low income” people benefited by about ten dollars, while the “high income” people benefited by the tens of thousands of dollars. It’s a lot like how a magician uses misdirection – making you look over here at this hand while the other hand slips a pigeon out of a pocket.
Death stats are often used to downplay some danger or another. The reason more people have not died from radiation (lately) is that nuclear accidents are still seen as serious and people get the hell away from them. If the Japanese government had not evacuated the area around Fukushima, the stats would look a whole lot worse.
Plus, nuclear advocates (who seem inexplicably to have some hold over our news media) just love to point out that the reason that a person died could have been anything – not necessarily radiation. It’s actually somewhat difficult to “prove” that someone died of radiation poisoning, unless it was a severe and obvious case.
Another important fact is that radiation is essentially forever. If you were to pee in a lake, the urine would not only dissipate, but biological processes would act on the urine to essentially make it really go away – change form, etc. Radiation does dissipate, but it’s still there, at least until well beyond its half-life.
Accidents like Fukushima are the gifts that keep on giving for a long time. Fukushima is FAR from over and the radiation coming out of there is not slowing down but is in fact probably speeding up. It’s flowing into the air and the ocean.
Nukeys also love to tell you about how you get more radiation from sunbathing or whatever. But it’s the TYPE of radiation that matters. Here’s a hint, nuclear accident release the bad type.
Furthermore, compared to coal-fired plants, nuclear power plants don’t release much radiation on site when everything is working properly and no mistakes are made. But mistakes and accidents happen much too often for my comfort. The latest accident, Fukushima, has released thousands of times the radiation from any pile of coal sludge.
As I’ve said before, nuclear is not cost efficient, nor is it safe. Nukeys love to tell you that, with the development of new technology, nuclear will get safer and safer. This, of course, will happen given time and lots of money. And in the process, there will be some accidents, radiation leakage, health issues and possibly lives lost.
What would happen if we instead took that time and money and put it into developing solar, wind, wave, and geothermal energy? I guarantee that, at the end of the same time period and with the same expense, we would be many times better off by going the renewable energy route.
But there is a danger with, specifically, solar power. The most efficient way to utilize solar power is to produce it yourself, at your own house (and in reality the old-fashioned solar water heater roof units are the best thing you can do). This means that you would buy the equipment, which is manufactured by companies competing for business – largely on price. Then, your energy would be pretty much free. So there is a danger…
Tom Rossi is a commentator on politics and social issues. He is a Ph.D. student in International Sustainable Development, concentrating in natural resource and economic policy. Tom greatly enjoys a hearty debate, especially over a hearty pint of Guinness.
You would think, given my blog post on Friday that the era of nuclear power is over. Actually, according to a recent poll, more people think that nuclear power is safe after what happened in Japan than a few years ago. In fact, only 40% of Americans believe that nuclear energy is unsafe.
All Smiles Despite Japan's Disaster
A few more interesting titbits from this survey: 60% of men believe in nuclear power, while only 40% of women. Also, the older you get, the more willing you are to accept nuclear power. What about the grandchildren, paps?
One brave columnist decided to take the 1986 meltdown of Chernobyl, Reactor 4, as the worse example in history. He honestly accepts that:
“Thirty-one people died soon after the accident, most of acute radiation exposure, with perhaps a few more in the years since. More than 100 others suffered radiation injuries. Some 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer have been diagnosed in Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians who were under 18 at the time, many likely stemming from radiation exposure via milk contaminated with radioactive iodine. However, only 15 deaths had been reported as of 2005 — thyroid cancer is readily treated.
“There’s evidence of increased leukemia and cataracts among recovery workers who received higher doses, but no health effects otherwise. (Experts project an eventual 4,000 additional cancer deaths among the 600,000 people most exposed — i.e., an increase of a few percent beyond the 100,000 cancer deaths you’d expect for this group.) An irregularly shaped “exclusion zone” of about 1,700 square miles around the plant remains off-limits to human habitation, 220,000 people had to be permanently relocated, and agriculture is restricted, but vegetation and wildlife for the most part have thrived.”(source)
…but then goes on to point out that: “Look, here was a five-star fiasco and the confirmed death toll is about the same as from 12 hours of U.S. traffic accidents. Is that an outstanding safety record or what?” (source).
If Homer can live with it...
Now I have to admit, the amount of fatalities from traffic accidents and drunk driving is astounding and there is no reason in the world to belittle it, but his comparison is chilling.
He then makes the comparison to coal. “Each year, on average, 35 U.S. coal miners are killed and 4,000 are injured. In China, 2,600 coal miners were killed in 2009, following 3,200 dead in 2008. (Recent U.S. uranium mining deaths: zero.) Coal-burning power plants release close to three times as much radioactivity as nuclear plants.” (source)
Sometimes I just hate statistics! How would you respond to this?
Alon Shalev is an author of novels that highlight social injustice. His latest novel is The Accidental Activist. Click on the icon above for more about the author and his books.
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