Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Notes 407Oak Ridge for seven weeks (New York Times1981c). Non-union workers maintained normaloperations at the Georgia PowerCompany, a major nuclear utility, during a1981 strike.103 Pollard 1979:39.104 Smith 1978:Encl. 2:App. J. #10.105 Washington Post 1975.106 Burnham 1975:124.107 Wall 1974.108 Hatzfeldt et al. 1979:92.109 Nussbaum 1980.110 Los Angeles Times 1981f.111 There are also non-nuclear hazards inthe nuclear fuel cycle. For example, heavywaterplants, operating at Savannah river andin Canada, have enormous inventories ofhydrogen sulfide, whose toxicity limit is fivehundred parts per million. Some official Britishcalculations suggest that a major release of noxiousgas could be about as hazardous as a modestreactor accident; and the plants have far lessprotection than a reactor.112 A three-element shipment cooled for onehundred fifty days contains several millioncuries of radiocesium. Dispersal in New YorkCity of a shipment totalling only two hundredthousand curies is calculated to contaminatetwo billion dollars’ worth of land (Finley et al.1980:65–66.) This is not a worst case. Forexample (ibid.), dispersal of just eighteenounces of plutonium oxide into the air is conservativelycalculated to cost two billion dollarsin land contamination and to cause more thantwo thousand deaths. Dispersal of one hundredforty-four curies of polonium-210 (a fairlycommon alpha-ray source) would causescores of deaths and nine billion dollars’ contamination.All these isotopes, and more, areshipped in comparable quantities throughAmerica’s largest cities, though some, notablyNew York, have had some success in retainingauthority to prohibit this practice.113 Dinneen et al. 1980.114 Chester & Chester 1976:337.115 Taylor 1981.116 Gorleben International Review 1979:Ch. 3.117 Burnham 1980.118 Marter 1963.119 South Carolina Department of Healthand Environmental Control 1974.120 Alvarez 1980; Johnson 1982 (a compactreview of releases from all U.S. nuclearweapons facilities).121 Gorleben International Review 1979;Hatzfeldt et al. 1979:79–98.122 Cochran & Speth 1974:10–17.123 Johnson 1981.124 Committee on Appropriations 1970.125 Ramberg 1980.126 Gervasi 1981:3.127 Guardian 1975.128 Flood 1976:33.129 Marshall 1980a; Boston Globe 1980.130 Kempster 1981; Los Angeles Times 1981r;Newsweek 1981a; Marshall 1981d.131 Oakland Tribune 1981. Unconfirmedreports from the Sunday Times of London (NewYork Times 1981w) suggest that the bombingmight merely have provided cover for demolitionby charges placed deep inside the reactorby Israeli sappers. Israel has declined comment.In view of the precision of the bombing,such a tactic hardly seems to have been necessary.132 Boston Globe 1981a.133 Ramberg 1980.134 Koven 1980.135 Marshall 1980a. France had tried tochange to non-weapons grade fuel, but Iraqhad refused. (In 1982, France agreed torebuild the reactor only if it were redesignednot to use HEU [Smith 1982], so perhapsFrance will ask for the return of its deliveredHEU, for which Iraq can have no legitimatefurther use.) Of course, French HEU exportsto Iraq, Chile, etc. are much smaller than U.S.exports, which total tons of HEU (and othermaterial directly usable for bombs), to suchcountries as Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Israel,Italy, South Korea, Pakistan, Spain, Taiwan,and South Africa. The HEU currently held(in quantities sufficient for one or morebombs) in Spain and Italy is presumably liableto seizure by terrorists in those countries.136 Hume 1981.137 Marshall 1981d; Richter 1981.Compare, however, Fainberg 1981.138 Gossick 1977.139 Lovins 1980; Lovins & Lovins 1981.140 Taylor 1973:182.141 O’Toole 1977. This imprecision isunlikely to improve much, for fundamentalreasons which undercut international safe-