The Ehrlich Report

Ten Things You Didn’t Learn About Nuclear Power On This The 20th Anniversary Of The Chernobyl Disaster

On April 26, 1986, at 1:23 a.m., the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. Five million people were directly affected and the then Soviet Union identified an 18-20 mile exclusion zone around the plant and evacuated hundreds of thousands of people. The zone remains and many of the people resettled are still being supported by the governments of Belarus and the Ukraine.

The remains of the power plant were entombed in concrete, and clean up work continues to this date. There are 200 tons of uranium-based fuel still inside, and the concrete and steel dome has begun to crumble.

Here are ten facts selected to counter the misinformation and disinformation that didn’t make the daily press

1. Electricity generated from nuclear power is more expensive than coal, oil or natural gas.

2. It is estimated to be 30 times more expensive than solar or other renewable energy resources.

3, It appears cheap–President Eisenhower opened the nuclear decade announcing that nuclear energy would be too cheap to meter–but that is because the nuclear energy producers have been subsidized by the federal government. One calculation indicates a $150 billion dollar subsidy over the past 60 years.

4. The initial budget of President Shrub’s new proposal to build nuclear power plants is $15 billion, about half to cover the research and development of private companies and half to come through tax breaks. In addition, these new power plants would be given only limited insurance liability.

5. It will take at least 10 years to build a new nuclear power plant though possibly longer since the White House brain trust are planning on a new way to reprocess uranium. Why? To keep it safe from terrorists.

6. The problem of what to do about radioactive waste is still without a solution. Meanwhile, tons of dangerous wastes keep piling up, and some of the storage sites are increasingly dangerous through leaks and through dubious storage practices.

7. Electricity generated by nuclear power does not address our greatest environmental hazard right now, namely global warming. Two-thirds of carbon emissions leading to global warming comes from motor vehicles and the heating of buildings.

8. There are several relatively recent and some ongoing reports on the health effects of the Chernobyl fallout. The reports are highly variable. Current estimates range from 100,000 to a 200,000 deaths. There are many problems involved in these death estimates and it may be more appropriate to talk of persons affected. What about radiation exposures around the world as winds carried radioactive particles globally? How do you write off those who survived cancers which were treatable? What about all the illnesses which may have been the immediate cause of death such as diseases of the blood, respiratory, and nervous system which can be attributed to lower immunity and resistance due to radiation exposure? The head of the Chernobyl Union puts the figure at 7.5 million people affected. Rosalie Bertell, a leading epidemiologist, presents a figure of 21 million people “maimed or diseased by nuclear power.”

9.Since Chernobyl, 200 near accidents occurred at US nuclear power plants. Each year over 1,000 safety violations are reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

10. There is no “safe” dose of radiation. Every exposure increases the risk of bodily damage or disorder.

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