Is Radioactive Rainwater in our Future?
Here in the Ozarks, we are expanding our growing areas, relearning old-time skills, acquiring hand tools and building human-powered devices while we still can. But, preparing for radioactive rain? We hadn’t thought of that.
While global warming seemed a fairytale to many 25 years ago, I personally banned Styrofoam, aerosol sprays, pesticides, paper towels and household chemicals after reading “The End of Nature” by Bill McKibben and Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance.” Just one little human, I hoped to help Earth live a few more centuries.
Radioactive Rainwater
I skimmed over forewarnings of nuclear mishaps, atomic bombs and radiation contamination though. I thought if it ever came to that, life on this planet would cease, so what was the point?
But now that an incalculable mass of radioactive elements is rolling across the Pacific Ocean, I want to know more. It’s real, it’s lethal and it isn’t going to just disappear.
Septuagenarian Australian environmentalist Dr. Helen Caldicott said in a recent news article she knew “the world would never be the same again” after the March 2011 tsunami crashed into the Fukushima, Japan nuclear complex.
“No nuclear reactor can withstand being drowned in a massive wave of water without catastrophic consequences,” she said. Caldicott has opposed nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons proliferation and war for decades. Her books include “Nuclear Madness” (1978) and “Nuclear Power is not the Answer” (2006).
She warned us this could happen.
Remember how horrifying acid rain seemed 30 years ago? On its way to earth, rain picked up sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from industrial emissions, killing 300-year-old cedars in the Northeast. Dead fish floated in lakes. Birds fell from the sky. In Europe, poisoned rainfall eroded noses from marble statues.
Instead of nourishing and revitalizing life, rain became something to fear.
We don’t hear much about acid rain anymore. Perhaps it’s because we actually made headway in cleaning up our act, reducing U.S. emissions by as much as 67 percent from 1995 to 2011, according to a Sept. 12 Mother Jones.com article by Henry Grabar.
Alas, rain is scary again – now more terrifying than ever.
The radiation contaminating the Pacific is not a West Coast problem or economic crisis or even a temporary one. Our globe is a closed system. All the water here now is all that has ever been here. The water I washed our clothes in today passed through a pterodactyl 200 million years ago.
This isn’t a new concept. I learned that in grade school in the 1960s. Water evaporates from our puddles, ponds and oceans, accumulates in our atmosphere and falls again to the earth, replenishing rain barrels, rivers and aquifers. It goes up, it comes down, and on and on it goes.
Water Not Drinkable
Three-fourths of the Earth is covered with water, but less than 1 percent of that is accessible, fresh water. Two percent is frozen and most of the rest is salty. Picture this – If all of the Earth’s water fit into a gallon jug, only one tablespoon of that is water we can drink.
While in Vietnam, I didn’t even have to ask whether the water was safe to drink. The answer was firmly mounted above the sink in my luxurious hotel room: “Water is not drinkable.”
In a Vietnamese market, I watched as a woman lowered a plastic one-gallon container on a rope to retrieve water to rinse lettuce to sell. Shallow, open wells will eventually no longer be safe to use.
The United States has one of the safest drinking water systems in the world, according to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet, Americans dump 1 billion tons of chemical pesticides on our land annually, according to a 2012 Environmental Protection Agency report. We pour costly poisons on our lawns and then buy outrageously expensive bottled water to drink.
As disturbing as that fact is, the news of 270,000 tons of contaminated water coming from Japan in the past 30 months (and still being released at 300 tons per day) is cataclysmically more alarming.
As we all hear more about radioactive elements and inert noble gases released into our air and water, people have begun calling to ask if radioactive particles can be filtered naturally from water. We sell well buckets and manual pumps. I can only imagine the calls water filter suppliers are receiving.
“There is no safe amount of radiation exposure. Every little bit is added to our burden,” Highwater Filters owner Hilary Ohm said when I called to ask about radiation filters. “Any reduction will help.”
Our unsophisticated human senses cannot detect radiation around us. It cannot be felt, seen, tasted or heard, but it is there, accumulating in our bodies until it eventually makes us ill, generally in the form of cancer.
Ohm, too, has protested against the use of nuclear power since the 1970s and became friends with Caldicott after hearing her speech “If You Love this Planet,” the recording of which was banned by the U.S. Justice Department as foreign propaganda.
“We have to make nukes and fossil fuels things of the past,” Ohm said. “More people need to be aware of what is happening. At least we can pressure the government to shut down our nuclear power plants.”
Ohm cited as an example the 40-year-old nuclear power plant at Indian Point, New York that was recently re-permitted. The facilities are only designed with a 40-year lifespan, she said.
“If that one has a meltdown, it has the potential to affect millions of people,” Ohm said. Other aged reactors are spread across the country and world.
Admittedly, the outlook is grim. Still, as survivalists, we refuse to just give up or pretend it isn’t happening, although it will require preparations we hadn’t anticipated.
We have known since we were youngsters that eventually mankind would strip the world of its resources (some say by 2050) and lifestyles must change. We actually hoped we would live long enough to see the transformation and looked forward to a simpler way of life – one without cars, chaos, oil and electricity.
No longer would economic slavery claim 12 hours of our day, leaving little for family or relaxation, only enough to sleep until the cycle begins again. Ironically, the pursuit of luxuries that only abundant electricity could provide is what led us to this calamity of worldwide proportion.
In time, radiation decays – the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been rebuilt. Yet, 200 dangerous elements are being released now, much more than from those two horrendous bombs ― including cesium, tritium and iodine 131 and possibly plutonium, which can remain radioactive anywhere from a few seconds to tens of thousands of years.
Some beaches have reopened in Japan, although attracting only a fraction of tourists as in pre-tsunami years. Fishermen are at work again, bringing in smaller loads and being paid drastically less than before. Some Japanese fishermen, according to the Japan Times, have taken to trolling for tsunami debris (bicycles, appliances and building materials) instead of tuna.
There are things we can do, too, as we adjust to our altered environment. The following information is taken from the SAS Survival Handbook by John Wiseman and deals with radiation contamination after a nuclear blast, although many of the same principles apply to the current radiation threat:
Food – Root vegetables with edible tubers growing underground are safest, such as carrots, potatoes and turnips. Wash them well and peel before cooking. Smooth-skinned fruits and vegetables are next safest. Plants with crinkly foliage are the hardest to decontaminate and should be avoided. Animals that live underground (rabbits, badgers, voles) have less exposure to radiation than those that live on the surface. Wear gloves when handling carcasses and leave at least 1/8” of meat on the bone as most radiation is retained in the skeleton. Muscle and fat are the safest part of the meat. Discard all internal organs. Fish and aquatic animals will have a higher contamination than land animals from the same area. Birds will be particularly heavily contaminated and should not be eaten.
Water – Avoid water from lakes, pools, ponds and other static surface water. Filter all water and boil it before drinking. The following sources are the least contaminated (in order of least risk):
Underground wells and springs
Water in underground pipes and containers
Snow taken from deep below the surface
Fast-flowing rivers
Again, the above recommendations concern radioactive fallout after a nuclear explosion. However, time and distance from the source are still the best defense. Now it may be more important than ever to have a drilled well for your drinking water and a reliable way to access that water.
Filters – TRAP (Total Radioisotope Aqua Purifier) filters, which use ion exchange and zeolite to remove radioactive particles from drinking water, are effective, especially when combined with reverse osmosis methods. Distilling and reverse osmosis both are reported to be effective.
Obviously, these recommendations only help humans, the ones who created these enormous problems in the first place.
As of January this year, there are 437 nuclear reactors worldwide, according to the European Nuclear Society. How many are on fault lines or coasts? Can they withstand tsunami, earthquakes, hurricanes and other disasters? Just how many Fukushima disasters will it take to eradicate all life? Those who protested the building of nuclear power plants in the 1960s and 70s knew we had something to fear, didn’t they?
I realize it is too late for such questions now, but shouldn’t we have been more careful with our one tablespoon of water? Or did we simply plan to post signs by our sinks to warn us “Water is not drinkable?”
Or, just maybe, we can learn from our experience with acid rain of 40 years ago. We don’t have to live like this.
Linda Holliday lives in the Missouri Ozarks where she and her husband formed Well WaterBoy Products, a company devoted to helping people live more self-sufficiently off grid, and invented the WaterBuck Pump. A former newspaper editor and reporter, Holliday blogs for Mother Earth News, sharing her skills in modern homesteading, organic gardening and human-powered devices. To read more, visit her blog.
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About the Author: Mrs. WaterBuck
Linda Holliday lives in the Missouri Ozarks where she and her husband formed Well WaterBoy Products, a company devoted to helping people live more self-sufficiently off grid, and invented the WaterBuck Pump. A former newspaper editor and reporter, Holliday blogs for Mother Earth News, sharing her skills in modern homesteading, organic gardening and human-powered devices. To read more, visit her blog.
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In response to the statement: “it isn’t going to just disappear”
In reality, all of the radioactive debris WILL decay into stable, non-radioactive nuclei. A few of these are long lived, but many of the most dangerous fission products have effectively “disappeared”.
It is a misconception that radioactive materials with long half lives are more dangerous than those with short half lives. An isotope with a half life of 1 billion years, has very little radioactivity.
Decay visualization tool found here: http://energyfromthorium.com/2006/07/14/new-visualization-tool-for-decay-chains/
Considering more frequent natural disasters, Chernoble and Fukushima are just the beginning of problems for our children.
As long as natural and man-made disasters, human error and nuclear power coexist, radioactive debris will be in our future. Even with every safety protocol imaginable implemented, nuclear plants cannot be made strong enough to withstand all forces of nature.
We hope mankind still has time to learn to be good stewards of the Earth.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. This is a very important topic.
Yes, we need to learn to be good stewards. I agree with you completely. It is also important to realize that the earth, over which we are the decided stewards, is radioactive itself. Radioactive decay generates most of the heat within the earth’s molten core. There is also a giant nuclear reactor flying through the sky. Because of this, Your body would experience a higher dosage of radiation flying in an airplane to Fukushima than you would experience when you landed there.
Your body is radioactive. 8,000-12,000 radioactive events occur within the human body every second from naturally occurring isotopes of potassium, carbon, rubidium, and others.
When dealing with any power source, prudence is the key. Mankind made the decision thousands of years ago to use fire. As long as they didn’t touch it and they kept the cave well ventilated, things worked out. These old reactor designs you reference (PWR’s and BWR’s) have had a few high-profile failures, but have a better safety record than any other form of power. Deaths per kWh is a rather gruesome metric, but nuclear has the lowest. And new reactor designs (including LFTR) are inherently safer than the older designs.
“Titanic’s sinking in 1912 didn’t put an end to ocean liners: They got safer.” -Llewellyn King
The following video contains an explanation of half life and what it can tell you about the relative danger of a certain isotope: http://youtu.be/D3rL08J7fDA?t=49m23s
This website was pointed out to me. Firstly, your water is already subject to NORM or naturally occurring radioactive materials. Secondly, any “radioactive rain” is most assuredly a far-fetched notion, given the enormous dilution of any radioactive Cs or I isotopes that would occur. Third, I am a part of a consortium of physicists and chemists who are pushing for a type of reactor which has been proven and is orders of magnitude safer than PWRs or BWRs currently in use. This is in addition to the fact that nuclear energy is the safest means of producing electricity known to man.
I suggest scaremongering not be a part of a prepper network ideology. Rather, let proper information and scientific data be the guide.
Stephen, I adamantly disagree with your statement: “This is in addition to the fact that nuclear energy is the safest means of producing electricity known to man.” This is simply not true and discredits any “push” you make for an alternative type of reactor. Have you determined what to do with the waste it produces? Please figure out how to safely deal with the waste before you push this on us.
I suggest that you refrain from misstatements regarding the safety of nukes. It’s simply a preposterous statement considering the disasters of Chernobyl and Fukushima and their aftermath.
Hillary –
Please use any metric you want. You’ll see that when you calculate gas, oil, wind, solar, etc. per kWh, nuclear is the safest.
Further, I’m a Ph.D. in fluoride-salt chemistry, so it’s a bit silly of you to ask such a pedantic question like whether or not I’ve calculated or addressed waste concerns. It also tells me you are uninformed about molten-salt reactors, as the amount of waste is both small and short-lived (in terms of half life). For the record, I have addressed the fate every single nuclide produced and can actually use several of the nuclides to produce life-saving medicines. I can productively, safely use all of the waste to benefit mankind and not one gram of it will end up in the ground (or groundwater).
Additionally, and perhaps more importantly for people like you, molten-salt reactors can ELIMINATE the long-term waste left over from poorly designed and deployed BWRs and PWRs that we currently use as a species.
Stephen, you are correct. I am not familiar with molten-salt reactors. If they can do what you say, I predict you will become a very wealthy man. I suspect there are challenges to your claims and will hold off my opinion until I hear both sides.
As for your comparison of kWh, I don’t see how that proves safety. I do know that Fukushima is a disaster and the total health consequences have yet to be realized as with Chernobyl. The estimates of cancers, deaths and birth defects from Chernobyl are very disparate. I believe they are far greater than any official number given.
You may have a PhD in chemistry but that doesn’t make you a medical expert and just because some radioactive particles are “short-lived” doesn’t make them safe. There is no safe dose of radiation. It’s cumulative. You can call your waste safe but I don’t buy it. But good luck with that.
Your assertion that “There is no safe dose of radiation” is unproven. The Linear-No-Threshold model vs the Radiation Hormesis model debate is ongoing.
Hi, Hilary –
I would strongly suggest you watch my Youtube videos (although they are very technical) or peruse the many competent explanations that exist, either by Kirk Sorenson or several others.
My comparison is simple: the total number of kWh produced per death as direct result of the energy production process (from mining to electron). Do the math and you’ll quickly see that nuclear is safest.
Actually, as Ph.D., I CAN competently comment on radiodosimetry. So, you should also get your terms and facts correct:
1)the shorter the half life, the more unstable the nuclide. This means that they are more energetic. Your statement is easily disproven, because I never called the waste “safe” (please re-read my statement above). You want to (safely) exploit the energetic nuclides, because you can extract more useful work out of them. Then, when they are no longer radioactive, you can use them, just like any other molecules you are holding in your hand, as they ARE the non-radioactive daughters of previous nuclear events. This is why, for example, you are breathing three different isotopes of oxygen right now!!
2) subatomic particles (betas and alphas) have near zero penetration; only gammas (photons) penetrate through you.
3) Ingestion is very bad, regardless of the emission, but only if the thing you ingest stays inside you. Quite often, they are insoluble compounds and you excrete them quickly.
4) In fact, wherever you are right now, you are being bombarded by radiation (the “bad” kind). So, your statement there is also false. We tolerate rather high doses of radiation and, in fact, low-dose radiation is very likely good for us. The concept of there being “no safe dose” of radiation is a lie that has been peddled for many years. Recently (feel free to google it), the DoE is FINALLY trying (albeit ham-handedly) to correct this falsehood.
5) No, only high, acute and/or chronic doses of radiation are cumulative. Our (as well as several other species) pX3 pathways for genetic repair are quite robust.
6) Considering that I work with several “children of Chernobyl” here in our labs, I have much better data than you about the actual, long-term effects of the Chernobyl disaster.
Believe me, I’m a huge fan of my kids and my environment, so I am arguably a much better steward than you on issues like this, due to my training and due to your near-total absence of chemistry/physics knowledge.
Look, the FIRST thing that we as a people or a nation need to do is get a handle on the current waste. We need to do so responsibly and with an explicit eye on our current and future electricity needs.
I have ways to not only produce electricity to meet our current and future needs, but to eliminate the very waste (and the reactor type) that irresponsible humans before us and who live with us now continue to shove down our throats. After all, they are merely plutonium-breeder vestiges of a Cold War, right?
Being a bit of a nerd myself, I am somewhat familiar with MSRs and I agree with many of Stephen’s points and appreciate the science he has brought to this conversation.
I am curious, if the rainwater will always be safe from radioactive elements that could harm us, then who would be the first take a big ole’ swig of water after a rainstorm at the Trinity site to prove to everyone that we’ve got nothing to worry about? Or better yet, drink a glass directly from Fukushema since that was more recent. Until someone has the balls to do that and not get cancer afterwards, then I’m not buying into any downplay at the seriousness that dangerous elements and chemicals are to our food and water supplies.
Yes, Nuclear energy is cleanest energy for the amount of energy that we get from it, you won’t get any argument from me about that. But the fact remains that as our population continues to grow and the need for industry and energy continues to increase, there will continue to be more harmful materials that find their way into our food and water.
The point of this article isn’t to scare people into banning nuclear energy or other necessary evils, but rather to educate people on the need for clean water. All the policies and rules and regulations in the world are not going to stop pollution. It’s a fact of life that we have to deal with. As population grows it WILL get worse. The ONLY and ultimate solution is for each individual to educate themselves on water safety and to take their own water purification needs into their own hands.
Hi, Tom –
So, you have confused a couple of points here. I appreciate your skepticism, but Trinity was a bomb-testing site and not a nuclear reactor. The Fukushima Da-ichi site is simply a poorly designed nuclear reactor, which had very little stewardship in place regarding the waste.
Third, the underlying commonality of conventional nuclear reactors is water and this is something that a well-designed molten-salt reactor (MSR) basically doesn’t need. Placement of all nuclear power plants near water sources has been a requirement, both for cooling, as well as for electricity generation, but it’s ALWAYS been the cooling issue which has been the Achilles’ heel of NPPs. Having no real requirement for water means that MSRs can be placed out of harm’s way.
I am with you 100% on the threat that humanity places (by dint of its mere existence and propagation) on our water supplies. The fundamental thing to note, however, is that MSRs will create next to no waste (in dramatic contrast to conventional NPPs); have very little real need for water (no coolant is necessary); and in fact can efficiently “burn” the many metric tons of nuclear waste we have in “long-term” storage.
Stephen I think the biggest reason why many people fear nuclear reactors is the same reason why many people fear flying. Airplane crashes make big news not because there was a crash but because the number of people that died in that crash. We all know that flying is the safest means of travel, but when planes crash, they crash big. Even though the number of deaths per flight hours is decreasing over the years because of safety, the total aggregate number of deaths will continue to grow over the years because of the increase in population and the numbers of people flying.
No one wants to be in a 747 while it’s barreling down to the ground, anymore than they want to be next to a nuclear power plant when it melts down. You can put reactors in the most remote deserts in this country but eventually there will be people living near them. The more there are the more impact they will have on the environment, no matter how clean you make them, even if they are the cleanest source of energy. The real problem is population growth.
Stephen, Hillary, Linda, William, it’s obvious that each of you are experts in your own respective fields. I would no more expect Stephen to tell Hillary or Linda which is the best method of procuring safe drinking water anymore than I would expect Linda or Hillary to tell Stephan which is the safest method of creating nuclear energy. Each of you bring a unique perspective to the table that I think is of value to preppers. What I would actually like to see would be a collaborative article, or series of articles, from your own perspectives addressing these concerns while considering the following things that are given:
*No one wants dirty water.
*No one wants cancer
*People want to be safe
*people want to be free
*people don’t like to be controlled or dictated how to live their lives
*There is no source of energy known to man that is 100% safe for 100% clean.
*Population will continue to grow
*Population control is a violation peoples personal liberties
*man’s hunger for energy will never go away
*nuclear energy is here to stay
I would like to see nuclear energy proponents, environmentalists, privacy and individual liberty advocates, and good ole patriots come together and find a solution that works for everyone. If that is even possible. I know that I certainly do not want to live in a Nanny State that dictates to me when I can water my lawn, when I have to turn out the lights, how many children I should have, or how I should live my life. Too much government control and invasion on our lives is no way to live. Some things are worse than dying. I think Patrick Henry would agree. We already have every facet of our lives being invaded by own government. If you push people to far they push back. If instituting draconian policies to control people’s behavior ultimately ends in a revolution, then that’s defeated the actual purpose of trying to save lives.
If the ultimate goals are to save lives, protect the environment, and provide for our energy needs at the same time, then you don’t want policies that make living in society cost prohibitive or places us all in a state of despotism. I believe the solution is proper education, and to find solutions that satisfy our energy needs, that are clean, that are safe, that address our population growth, yet still provide for individual liberties. What would the ultimate solution be? I have no idea, but it would be really cool if there were an X prize for someone who could find that solution.
Tom,
Thank you for keeping us focused. I am not an expert in any field, just someone who remembers how much cleaner the outdoors seemed and how much calmer people seemed 40 years ago. My concerns about nuclear radiation may be entirely unfounded, but thanks, too, for allowing me to share my perspective.
From about 1940 to 1980 my grandparents owned an antique store in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I loved to go there as a child in the 1960s and marvel at the quaint gadgets from yesteryear. Grandma greeted customers while Grandpa was in the back converting old kerosene table lamps and hanging lamps to electric lights. Apparently, no one wanted the lamps until they could plug them in to a wall socket and light up a room with a 60-watt bulb.
Although we still sharpened our pencils with a paring knife and opened beans with a handheld can opener, advertisements showed us the dazzling array of products powered by electricity. All manner of appliances, tools, toys, office machines and kitchen slicers, choppers, peelers and mixers went electric, as did tools for the yard and garden.
Valuable self-sufficiency skills were lost and hand tools filled the town dump.
Recently my 70-something mother called around to her country neighbors for a scythe because she could no longer manage her heavy gas-powered weed-whacker. The only farmer she located who still had an old scythe in the barn said it was “too dangerous” for her to use. But a gas-powered machine that whips plastic string thick enough to cut down small trees is not?
My mother raised three children in rural Wisconsin without a car, telephone, clothes dryer, color television or air-conditioning. She never has driven a car, but gradually after age 45 acquired the other luxuries. Now, if any of those are not working for whatever reason, she is scared and doesn’t know what to do. Like millions worldwide, my mother has become unhealthy, unhappy, and dependent upon technology.
Admittedly, I do fear the potential for large-scale disaster by the use of nuclear power and weapons. I am just as concerned about the massive amounts of toxic chemicals and other pollutants in our environment. I worry about the finite natural resources we have dug and pumped and siphoned from below ground.
With nearly 7.2 billion of us inhabiting this planet (more than twice as many since I was born), I realize we cannot turn back the clock. I believe our once-abundant and inexpensive fuel contributed to artificially raising the world population to such a level. Manufacturers will continue putting motors on pencil sharpeners and weed-whackers and we will continue buying them until we have exhausted every source of power. We are like children, filling our faces with candy before someone else grabs it, without thought of cavities years in the future. It tastes good so we keep eating.
I am not so naïve to think the world will stop producing nuclear power or burning coal or drilling for oil. We are hooked. And I know our personal practice here of relearning old skills and using human power whenever possible amounts to a fraction of a drop in the ocean, but we will continue and encourage others to do the same. Besides being physically and mentally invigorating, we are naturally more conservative when we do things by hand. Americans use more than 100 gallons of water per day per person, a statistic that would quickly change if all that water was pumped by hand.
Thank you, Stephen, for the introduction to MSRs. I doubt that my opinion of nuclear power will be swayed, but I do plan to read more about it and have already ordered some books on the topic. My mistrust of this new technology stems from years ago when we were assured by experts and the government of the safety of nuclear power. Perhaps statistically the accidents have been few, but catastrophic, in my opinion.
Hi, Tom –
You raise several excellent points. I, myself, am not a prepper, but I would suspect that a large part of the ideology stems from an inherent distrust of government. This is extremely well-placed suspicion and one need only look to the thousands of examples of governments screwing up to overwhelmingly satisfy these suspicions.
I will address your points, if you don’t mind, because your points are so good:
• No one wants dirty water. AGREED, but the myths that I was trying to dispel are what was alluded to in this article. The likelihood of an occurrence is near zero for nuclear and MUCH higher for crude, NG, wind and solar (mining runoff is a disaster for the REEs for wind and the host of chemicals needed to produced solar panels).
• No one wants cancer. AGREED, but the myths that I was trying to dispel are what was alluded to in the article, yet again. Cancer will be much more readily caused by *chemicals* which enter our DNA (see Erin Brockovich, the Love Canal, DDT, BPA or like 30 public messes)…nuclear NOT being one of them.
• People want to be safe AGREED. The point you raise about nuclear fears are well-studied and frankly fascinating. I personally believe (and Hilary’s comments perfectly reflect this) that the near-zero levels of understanding of nuclear, combined with the decades of misinformation and the horrifying (yet exceedingly remote) specter of nuclear harm grossly exaggerate the worries. This inextricably ties in with the distrust that many Americans should rightfully have about the vagaries of governmental behavior.
• People don’t like to be controlled to or dictated how to live their lives. AGREED. And the government (again) is squarely to blame. We were sold a sh*tty bill of goods by having to use what are effectively just plutonium breeder reactors (PWRs and BWRs) to support the Cold War and nuclear proliferation. Jimmy Carter’s imposition of the now-infamous “Single Use Rule” is why we both have a dearth of invaluable *non-weapon* isotopes (like 238Pu) and yet over 70,000MT of “waste”. I’m offering a method of producing electricity AND getting rid of all this waste by “burning” it in an MSR.
• There is no source of energy that is 100% safe or 100% clean. TRUE. We as humans MUST BE GOOD STEWARDS OF THIS PLANET and we have done a piss-poor job of it. To your next point, populations will continue to grow, disparities of monies are undoubtedly linked to energy-based feedstocks (water, food, oil, NG, electricity, etc.).
MSRs are, by no means whatsoever, a panacea. Yes, some “waste” is produced by MSRs, in the form of short-lived betas, alphas, and a few gammas. I am very happy to exploit these “waste” materials and make useful things from them, with the utmost of care and respect for them.
To your last points: AGREED, AGREED and AGREED.
MSRs are an excellent form of nuclear energy that can 1) process and use *all* of the long-term nuclear waste left over from decades of irresponsible behavior 2) produce (on a 1GWe) electricity with near-zero CO2 emissions (other than mining, trucks for transport, etc.) for about 0.02c/kWh – on a par with NG and even lower than coal (current spot prices). and 3) have a water-free, passively safe nuclear reactor which has already been proven to work under immense overclocking (20kh at over 850°C!!!).
The biggest hurdles people like me face are a wildly uninformed public, coupled with an almost wholly purchased Congress and decades of abjectly irresponsible governmental behavior, which only compounds the difficulties people like me have in educating the public.
We actually won the MIT Climate Co-Lab prize for our Thorium-based MSR solution. it’s not the X-prize, but it’s up there. No monies, unfortunately…
Interesting Stephen. Not a Prepper? Do you have a fire extinguisher in your home? Do you wear a seat belt? I would hope you wear safety glasses when you are in a lab. By definition, preparedness makes you a prepper. It’s simply an easier word to say than preparer. A Prepper is simply one who prepares, nothing more, nothing less. Don’t buy into the media hype that trumps up stories on the already overly-sensationalized Hollywood portrayals of preppers. The reality shows turn down 99% of us that they interview for their casting calls because we are just too boring for them.
I do find the science fascinating though. Thanks for sharing that info with us.
Hi, Tom –
I’m really glad you like the science. I’m straight up and I frankly loved your bullet points. If we riff off of them and have people like you act as “ambassador”, we can have a sane, balanced dialog where everybody can learn something. As cliché as it sounds, we really CAN make this world and the world of our kids a better place. Aamof, I have dedicated my life to it as far as current and future diversified energy/electricity landscapes are concerned.
Stephen, you ought to write some articles for the APN. We are always looking for good content that makes people think.