Thread by @RobertLeskovar

Why fission #nuclearenergy is NOT a solution to global warming problems? @abratusek @Energy4Europe @algore
The data, collected by Cher Gilmore, explain why:

As of 2021, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that there are about 370000 tons of high-level radioactive waste worldwide needing disposal,

containing over 100 radioactive elements such as: Strontium-90 (which causes bone cancer and leukemia), Caesium-137 (which causes muscle sarcomas and cancers in many other organs), Plutonium-239 (a mutagen that induces bone cancer, lung cancer, leukaemia, fetal abnormalities

and genetic diseases), and Iodine-129 (a thyroid carcinogen). Iodine-129, with a half-life of 16 million years, is dangerous virtually forever.

Further complicating the picture for both nuclear plants and waste storage are the ever-present risks of accidents,

natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, rising sea levels caused by runaway global warming, and nuclear warfare. We should have been chastened by the consequences of the Three Mile Island accident, Chernobyl, The Hanford, and Fukushima Daiichi.

Unfortunately, radiation doesn’t stay where it’s released. For example, The Guardian reported in 2019 that plumes of radioactive waste from Chernobyl were washed down from the atmosphere by rain produced by seeding the clouds with silver iodide.

This top secret “Operation Cyclone” carried out by Russia was to keep the waste from reaching Moscow, and resulted in a second radioactive zone with high levels of radiation in southern Belarus.

Some of the Chernobyl radiation reached the Cumbrian fells in England, spiking the radiation levels in topsoil and ultimately contaminating the sheep that grazed on the land.

In the 1950s, harmful levels of radioactive caesium were found by British officials in imported Minnesota wheat. The source of the radioactivity was the U.S. bomb tests in Nevada, about 1500 miles (2400 km) away.

On the U.S. west coast in 2013, there were reports of elevated radiation levels; mass die-offs of sea stars; and marine animals suffering from hair loss and open sores, after radiation from the Fukushima accident had crossed the Pacific.

Regarding health impacts, in addition to those already mentioned, radiation bioaccumulates in the body and can be passed on to fetuses, so it’s a "gift" that keeps on giving.

And since it often takes 10 to 20 years or more for cancers to develop after exposure, the source of the disease may not be easily identified. We do know, however, that cancers are increasing.

According to the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2019, the number of people worldwide diagnosed with cancer rose from 18.7 million people in 2010 to 23.6 million in 2019.

Incidences of thyroid cancer, in particular, have been rising rapidly in recent decades, and no one seems to know why.

In addition to Cher's data: "several studies since Chernobyl disaster have shown associations between high and low levels of radiation and the abundance, distribution, life history and mutation rates of plants and animals":
researchgate.net/publication/70…

Therefore, we need to invest more and faster in really green technologies like geothermal, wind, sun, water, low-energy fusion (check out focusfusion.org), etc.

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