Letters to the Editor

Re- Global Warming Implications of Nuclear Power - Not So Green with Impacts Not So Seen

If you think that nuclear energy does not contribute to global warming - think again. The common misconception that nuclear power is better for global warming than other technologies is a myth perpetuated by the nuclear industry. The industry has a massive heat footprint contributing to global warming which has not been generally known.
We think of global warming as being fed by energy from the sun. The greenhouse effect captures the solar radiation which is elevating the average global temperatures.
But there is another source of heat in the atmosphere which is wholly additional to the solar radiation captured and that is the heat produced by nuclear reactions in the operation of nuclear power plants and the storage of nuclear fuel waste.
Right from the construction of nuclear plants through to the perpetual storage of nuclear waste there are huge contributions to global warming including the following:
•    Mining, transportation, construction and manufacturing global warming contributions;
•    The raising of temperatures of lakes, rivers and oceans through perpetual plant cooling water;
•    The raising of temperatures of lakes, rivers and oceans through perpetual cooling of fresh nuclear waste in on-site cooling ponds which draw their cooling water from lakes, rivers and or oceans;
•    Perpetual thermal ambient air contributions through aboveground high level nuclear waste storage vaults;
•    The perpetual eating of the atmosphere and the earth by increasing volumes of hot nuclear waste in the global environment radiating over tens of thousands of generations in time; and,
•    The proposed highway and rail transportation of tens of thousands of truckloads of hot radioactive waste over thousands of kilometers of public roads and railroads contributing significantly to the diesel emissions and other risks from trucks and locomotives;
As the lakes and rivers heat up through global warming caused temperature increases and perpetual thermal releases from nuclear plants and nuclear waste storage, the efficiency of cooling waters from those water bodies will decrease due to decreasing temperature differentials which will require more pumping, more energy to maintain cooling and more ionised water being returned to the water bodies.
Environment Canada’s water use surveys conducted in 1996 found that of all the uses of water in Canada including manufacturing, agriculture, municipal water, mining and thermal power generation, 64% of all the water used in Canada was used for cooling thermal generating plants.
Sixty four percent represents significant warming of significant volumes of water in Canada which along with perpetual atmospheric thermal releases contributes significantly, not only to global warming but also the contamination of our water bodies. Nuclear power plants cannot compete socially, economically or environmentally with cleaner, cheaper and more scalable alternatives now available.
Nuke plants are anything but green and their continued operation beyond a rapid transition to cleaner technologies presents a dark future for humanity and our critical planetary life support systems.
Learn more at wethenuclearfreenorth.ca/casa/
Remi Lorteau