We must never forget about the consequences of our actions today on future generations, especially not when nuclear power is involved.
I just answered the following comment on a recent blog post of mine:
"Larissa, I agree with most of the positions that have been articulated by the Green Party. But I am particularly troubled by your dislike of nuclear energy. Nuclear, is, by no means, an optimal energy source, but in terms of radioactive pollution and radioactive waste, it is light years ahead of coal. If a nuclear reactor was proposed for the Moose Jaw area (at Lake Diefenbaker) to replace highly pollutting coal-fired power plants at Estevan or Coronach, would you be for or against such a development?"
There is unfortunately a lot of controversy with the nuclear issue, so I have posted my answer below for others:
At the current rate of usage without building any new nuclear power plants, we would be out of domestic uranium in 40 years! With the soaring price of uranium (approx. $10/pound in the 1990's to appprox. $170/lb these days) and with industry making false claims that nuclear is green, many new plants are proposed around the world and five new plants in Canada as well.
Each gigawatt of nuclear energy requires 170 tonnes of uranium. When the uranium is processed into fuel, 250,000 tonnes of carbon are emitted for every 1000 megawatts produced. Nuclear energy produces huge amounts of greenhouse gases. There is no safe way to store the radioactive waste produced. Nuclear waste stays toxic for one million years! It is highly carcinogenic, and so are the routine emissions of nuclear power plants.
Consider the following information quoted below:
"The KiKK study commissioned by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection in Germany and made public on December 10th 2007 examined cancer rates in young children between 1980 and 2003. It showed a 60% increase in solid cancers and a 117% increase in leukemia among children up to five years of age living within 5 km of 16 German nuclear reactors. It also found a 20-40% increase for all cancers in children living within a 50 km radius of the plants. These nuclear power plants were operating under normal conditions, with radiation releases well within levels allowed for civilian populations."
I just lost my seventeen year-old cousin to cancer. When are we going to start taking responsibilty for our actions and start addressing any known causes of this cancer epidemic?! I have to represent our party's position on nuclear strongly, for Jen.
The quoted info above continues:
"The new evidence from Germany of an association between increased cancers and proximity to nuclear facilities raises difficult questions. Should pregnant women and young children be advised to move away from them? Should local residents eat vegetables from their gardens? And, crucially, shouldn't those governments around the world who are planning to build more reactors think again?"
I do not support and can not support a nuclear power plant being built in Saskatchewan, especially nearby. I hope you won't--can't, either.
As for coal, leave it in the ground! The health consequences from coal are completely awful too, and the effects to the environment from coal are HORRIBLE! That is why we must shift away from non-renewable resources (like uranium) and make the transition to a healthy, just and sustainable energy future.
All of Canada's uranium is mined in Saskatchewan, and 85% of it is exported to the U.S. In a recent book on the war in Afghanistan by Jack Warnock, he writes the following:
"Depleted uranium (DU) is produced during the uranium enrichment process. The U-235 used to produce fuel for reactors that generate electricity is removed, leaving the U-238 isotope. The remaining material is extremely dense and increases the penetration capability of weapons; it is used in the warheads of missiles and bombs. On impact the shell, with its uranium and traces of americium and plutonium, vaporizes, generating very tiny particles of radioactive dust. When this is inhaled it stays in the body, emitting radiation. The DU used in US weapons comes from the uranium mines in Saskatchewan.
Thousands of DU bombs and missiles have been used by US forces in the Afghan and Iraq wars. A typical bunker bomb contains 1.7 tons of depleted uranium."
I shudder to think of what we have done to the health of too many inncocent civilians in Afganistan, most of which are women and children. We all deserve a chance at a healthy life. This is not the legacy that I want Saskatchewan to have. We can't control the uranium mined here once we ship it south of the border. Nuclear is an international security threat and is destroying ecosystems too.
Plus, Saskatchewan's uranium is mined using dirty coal in Texas. How does this make nuclear better than coal? NEITHER should be an option, especially when we have more wind and solar power generating capacity than anywhere else in the world, right here in Saskatchewan!
I am a young women. I have to think of future generations. If I don't, who will? Certainly not Harper!
Can nuclear power meet our energy needs and be the solution to climate change? Not when one considers the cost, pollution and threat to global security associated with nuclear power.The Green Party believes that choices should be economically rational. The best energy choices to respond to the climate crisis should be those that deliver the greatest reduction of GHG per dollar invested. By this criterion, nuclear energy is among the very worst options. Reactors cost billions of dollars, take more than a decade to build, operate unreliably after about the first dozen years of operation, and only produce one type of energy: electricity. Even if the industry were “green and clean” as claimed by the pro-nuclear propaganda efforts, it fails on the economics. Nevertheless, it is neither clean nor green.
I'm sorry that we can not support nuclear to appease your opinion, but I can not lie to yourself or others about this issue. I am too honest by nature, and our children deserve no less.
Peace and Solidarity,
Larissa Shasko
"Larissa, I agree with most of the positions that have been articulated by the Green Party. But I am particularly troubled by your dislike of nuclear energy. Nuclear, is, by no means, an optimal energy source, but in terms of radioactive pollution and radioactive waste, it is light years ahead of coal. If a nuclear reactor was proposed for the Moose Jaw area (at Lake Diefenbaker) to replace highly pollutting coal-fired power plants at Estevan or Coronach, would you be for or against such a development?"
There is unfortunately a lot of controversy with the nuclear issue, so I have posted my answer below for others:
At the current rate of usage without building any new nuclear power plants, we would be out of domestic uranium in 40 years! With the soaring price of uranium (approx. $10/pound in the 1990's to appprox. $170/lb these days) and with industry making false claims that nuclear is green, many new plants are proposed around the world and five new plants in Canada as well.
Each gigawatt of nuclear energy requires 170 tonnes of uranium. When the uranium is processed into fuel, 250,000 tonnes of carbon are emitted for every 1000 megawatts produced. Nuclear energy produces huge amounts of greenhouse gases. There is no safe way to store the radioactive waste produced. Nuclear waste stays toxic for one million years! It is highly carcinogenic, and so are the routine emissions of nuclear power plants.
Consider the following information quoted below:
"The KiKK study commissioned by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection in Germany and made public on December 10th 2007 examined cancer rates in young children between 1980 and 2003. It showed a 60% increase in solid cancers and a 117% increase in leukemia among children up to five years of age living within 5 km of 16 German nuclear reactors. It also found a 20-40% increase for all cancers in children living within a 50 km radius of the plants. These nuclear power plants were operating under normal conditions, with radiation releases well within levels allowed for civilian populations."
I just lost my seventeen year-old cousin to cancer. When are we going to start taking responsibilty for our actions and start addressing any known causes of this cancer epidemic?! I have to represent our party's position on nuclear strongly, for Jen.
The quoted info above continues:
"The new evidence from Germany of an association between increased cancers and proximity to nuclear facilities raises difficult questions. Should pregnant women and young children be advised to move away from them? Should local residents eat vegetables from their gardens? And, crucially, shouldn't those governments around the world who are planning to build more reactors think again?"
I do not support and can not support a nuclear power plant being built in Saskatchewan, especially nearby. I hope you won't--can't, either.
As for coal, leave it in the ground! The health consequences from coal are completely awful too, and the effects to the environment from coal are HORRIBLE! That is why we must shift away from non-renewable resources (like uranium) and make the transition to a healthy, just and sustainable energy future.
All of Canada's uranium is mined in Saskatchewan, and 85% of it is exported to the U.S. In a recent book on the war in Afghanistan by Jack Warnock, he writes the following:
"Depleted uranium (DU) is produced during the uranium enrichment process. The U-235 used to produce fuel for reactors that generate electricity is removed, leaving the U-238 isotope. The remaining material is extremely dense and increases the penetration capability of weapons; it is used in the warheads of missiles and bombs. On impact the shell, with its uranium and traces of americium and plutonium, vaporizes, generating very tiny particles of radioactive dust. When this is inhaled it stays in the body, emitting radiation. The DU used in US weapons comes from the uranium mines in Saskatchewan.
Thousands of DU bombs and missiles have been used by US forces in the Afghan and Iraq wars. A typical bunker bomb contains 1.7 tons of depleted uranium."
I shudder to think of what we have done to the health of too many inncocent civilians in Afganistan, most of which are women and children. We all deserve a chance at a healthy life. This is not the legacy that I want Saskatchewan to have. We can't control the uranium mined here once we ship it south of the border. Nuclear is an international security threat and is destroying ecosystems too.
Plus, Saskatchewan's uranium is mined using dirty coal in Texas. How does this make nuclear better than coal? NEITHER should be an option, especially when we have more wind and solar power generating capacity than anywhere else in the world, right here in Saskatchewan!
I am a young women. I have to think of future generations. If I don't, who will? Certainly not Harper!
Can nuclear power meet our energy needs and be the solution to climate change? Not when one considers the cost, pollution and threat to global security associated with nuclear power.The Green Party believes that choices should be economically rational. The best energy choices to respond to the climate crisis should be those that deliver the greatest reduction of GHG per dollar invested. By this criterion, nuclear energy is among the very worst options. Reactors cost billions of dollars, take more than a decade to build, operate unreliably after about the first dozen years of operation, and only produce one type of energy: electricity. Even if the industry were “green and clean” as claimed by the pro-nuclear propaganda efforts, it fails on the economics. Nevertheless, it is neither clean nor green.
I'm sorry that we can not support nuclear to appease your opinion, but I can not lie to yourself or others about this issue. I am too honest by nature, and our children deserve no less.
Peace and Solidarity,
Larissa Shasko
3 comments:
As the original poster of the question, thank you for your answer.
Although I will be voting for you because the other candidates in Moose Jaw, quite frankly, suck, I must point out a number of factual errors in your reply:
1) The price of uranium is nowhere near $170/lb. A recent quote from the Ux Consulting Company (www.uxc.com), LLC, puts the spot price at US$62/pound.
2) Megawatts and gigawatts are to energy, as km/hr or m/sec is to speed. Over what time period is "250,000 tonnes of carbon" emmitted for every 1000 MW produced? I think its imperative that if politicians are to have meaningful discussions of the issues, that they at least understand some of the science around the measurement of energy production.
3) Anecdotally, go to Estevan sometime and inquire about rates of asthma in that community. They're atrociously high. And barely a month goes by where SaskPower doesn't lose a current or retired employee to occupational cancers in Estevan. But you don't hear of the same happening to workers employed in the nuclear industry. Or do you?
4) "Saskatchewan's uranium is mined using dirty coal in Texas." Quite frankly, I don't know how to respond to that as it makes no sense whatsoever.
Thanks so much for your support! I hope to make you proud to vote green.
Thank-you for your points. I do not claim to be an expert, nor do I doubt the integrity of non-nuclear experts in this province who provide me with facts, but you make some important observations, and I thank you.
I agree that the devastating asthma rates in Estevan are absolutely unacceptable. I also want to thank you for being informed on this. The reality is that most people turn a blind eye to such problems. The Green Party does not, and I do not. Speaking as someone who nearly died as a young child from severe asthma, this is an unacceptable way to make a profit and one more reason that we need green energy industries, 100% clean and green-- including not toxic legacies for future generations. Childhood cancer and asthma MUST be addressed.
I also do not claim to be an academic environmentalist, although I am an environmental activist. These two areas are worlds apart. My knowledge in this area is growing leaps and bounds, and I love being a student of the environment. I will be able to explain the emissions in full with great ease in the near future, but for now I rely on the experts that wrote Vision Green (Green Party platform), which is hwere this stat is from. I'd be happy to call or e-mail Elizabeth May to ask her for clarification on the time frame. Would you like me to? I'd be more than willing. I agree it's important. Although I do not know the time frame that the emissions are produced in, the point is, they ARE produced. If we are going to find an alternative, why don't we look to truly emissions free sources, why not wind and solar power in sunny and windy Saskatchewan? Isn't Estevan something like the sunniest city in North America? Someone mentioned that to me the other day. If it's not the sunniest city, it's certainly one of them! Plus, wind power and solar power are far less expensive to build or install and take far less time to begin generating the precious renewable energy that we need in order for healthy people and healthy futures in Saskatchewan.
I wish I was super human and had the time to check every single fact three times like I would if I was elected as M.P. Unfortunately, this election was not expected. I was expecting Harper's four year elections law to be adhered to (and therefore more time for pre-election fact checking). Please know I would do an impeccable job in this area as your M.P.
As to your fourth point, This fact was derived in a 2007 publication produced by Saskatchewan non-nuclear experts. I will research this item more fully when I find a moments spare time. I'll blog about my findings. It does, however, make sense when knowing that Canada exports 85% of our uranium (all of which is currently from Saskatchewan), much of this going to the U.S. where it is refined for use in United States nuclear power plants. We do not have nuclear refineries in Saskatchewan, and nor do we want them or their additional increases of childhood cancers and negative health effects. We can do better than nuclear, wouldn't you agree?
The price of uranium I used was not a current statistic, but a recent one. I am a student, not an expert yet, nor do I watch the stock market. This price was found while doing research for a university paper on uranium last fall. I was doing the paper at the time when uranium had peaked in value. I thank you for bringing my attention to the drop in uranium's value as of late. This is good news! Please visit the link below to see a graph that maps the uranium exchange value between 1968 and 2008. At the time I did the research it was 2007 at the time when uranium had peaked (the correct number according to the graph was $135, but the 2007 numbers on the site I am linking to are only available to clients, so I am not sure if my memory failed me or if that number was the correct amount for just one month and does not show on the graph. I apologize for not being concrete with the data. Please visit this link to view the graph: http://www.uranium.info/index.cfm?go=c.page&id=29
Finally, thank-you, sincerely, for your vote. It is great to be able to exchange freely our opinions on nuclear in open dialogue knowing that we each respect what the other is saying, even if we don't fully agree. I admire your assertiveness. Please don't hesitate to give me a call at any time. My line is open to all Palliser constituents! If you or others want to discuss the issues that matter to you, please call 692-7925.
Peace and Solidarity,
Larissa Shasko
You'll need to cut and copy that graph link.
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