Chemical releases from nuclear power plants

I’m sure many of you have seen this. (Full size poster here.)

They claim to have based this comprehensive list on actual government data.

If anyone knows where any such source data comes from, I’d really like to see it.

Over at Depleted Cranium, they’ve already had a good attempt at exposing the stupidity and ignorance of this campaign.

Nitrogen comprises 78% of Earth’s atmosphere.

All municipal water supplies have Chlorine added to them, and the vast majority have Fluoride added, too.

BULAB 6002 is a liquid cationic polyquaternary ammonium compound, used to control the growth of microorganisms in commercial and industrial water systems, such as cooling towers.

It is approved for use in drinking water in the US by ANSI/NSF.

Many chemicals on the list are indeed used as biocides, corrosion inhibitors, oxygen scavengers and such forth, in the water systems of a nuclear power plant.

Such requirements for controlling the water chemistry are needed at any thermal power plant using water as the working fluid, say for example at any coal-fired power plant.

The list is full of double counting!

Chlorine is double counted, and so is Ammonia. Then they’ve counted Ammonium Hydroxide separately too - ammonia in aqueous solution and Ammonium Hydroxide are the same thing.

One chemical listed - nurobenzene - I’ve never heard of, and neither has Google - other than NRCs records of the submissions from these scientifically illiterate groups.

The list is stacked with Organochlorine insecticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and polychlorinated biphenyls - persistent organic pollutants, and real ecological nasties.

Dieldrin, Dioxin, PCB, DDT - any scientifically literate environmentalist should immediately recoil in horror when these names are dropped - and I suspect that’s exactly the whole point of the exercise.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and dioxins, are often produced, in tiny trace quantities, in any combustion process.

If a security guard at Millstone, say, smokes a cigarette, then there is a release of PAHs into the environment.

But get real. By far the most enormous source of emissions of dangerous, carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons into the atmosphere is the uncontrolled, massive, discharge to the atmosphere of dangerous Fossil Fuel waste.

I don’t quite understand why a nuclear power plant would be using extremely potent organchlorine insecticides - would someone care to tell me?

What IS immediately obvious to me is that Chlordane, banned completely by the EPA in the 1988, or Toxaphene, banned for all uses in the US in 1990, are not being discharged by the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant.

Chemistry is scary!

I’m particularly interested in hearing about this issue from those who actually have real-world experience with nuclear power plants. Here in Australia, people with that experience are difficult to find.

Exactly what types of unusual chemicals are being discharged into the environment, in what quantities, from nuclear power plants, aside from the obvious ones like water vapor, detergent in the waste water from employees having a shower or rinsing a coffee mug?

Hazards associated with photovoltaic cell manufacturing

http://www.pv.bnl.gov/art_170.pdf

This interesting and useful report outlines the environmental, toxicological, and health implications of the toxic chemicals involved in the manufacturing of semiconductor photovoltaic devices.

Of course, those solar cells on your roof aren’t deadly, but if we want to talk about solar photovoltaics with the same whole-of-life-cycle analysis and exceptionalist attitude that opponents of nuclear power use, then it must all be considered.

Hazardous materials encountered in photovoltaic technology include Arsine and other Arsenic compounds (extremely toxic and carcinogenic), Cadmium compounds (cumulatively toxic heavy metal), Copper, Lead (cumulatively toxic heavy metal), Diborane, Germane (Germanium hydride) (toxic and flammable), Carbon Tetrachloride (Carcinogenic, ozone depleting and highly toxic), Hydrogen Sulfide (highly toxic), Hydrofluoric acid (extremely toxic and corrosive), Indium compounds (toxic), Hydrogen Selenide (highly toxic), Nitric acid, Selenium compounds, Phosphorus Oxychloride, Sodium Hydroxide, Tellurium compounds, Phosphine (extremely toxic), Silane, Silicon Tetrafluoride (toxic and corrosive)

Of course, most of these materials are handled in industry routinely, with no grave safety implications. But if Nuclear Exceptionalism was applied to this technology, can you imagine what they’d say?