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“Nuclear energy seems less harmful because its damage is often invisible or long-term. However, uranium mining leaves behind 99.99% of the extracted material as radioactive waste, contaminating land and water for centuries. The mining sites are primarily in Indigenous territories—such as those of the Navajo in the U.S., First Nations in Canada, Aboriginal Australians, and communities in Niger and Kazakhstan.”
“The leftover slurry was piped into two unlined earthen pits, the largest the size of 50 football fields and filled with over 21 million tons of uranium mill tailings. Over time, the uranium tailings decayed into radon gas; meanwhile, radioactive contaminants seeped into four of the region’s aquifers. Residents compiled a list of neighbors who died of cancer — they called it the Death Map.”
The careful myth and propaganda of ‘clean’ nuclear
‘We’ve contaminated everything we can, and there’s no way we can fix it.’
“The future of the site seems all but predetermined: a wasteland in the truest sense, and a national sacrifice zone.”
You’ve heard of Three Mile Island
Have you heard of Church Rock Chapter?
“In the Church Rock Chapter of the Navajo Nation, a tailings dam breached on an early July morning in 1979, sending contaminated water into the Rio Puerco. Today, it constitutes the largest release of nuclear materials in the U.S. worse even than the meltdown at Three Mile Island.”
St Louis, meanwhile, was where uranium was refined and used to help create the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. After World War Two ended, the chemical was dumped near the creek and left uncovered, allowing waste to seep into the area.
Decades later, federal investigators acknowledged an increased cancer risk for some people who played in the creek as children, but added in their report: "No method exists to link a particular cancer with this exposure."
Google, Amazon, Meta sign pledge to triple global nuclear capacity
"Lucia Tian, head of clean energy & decarbonization technologies at Google, said: "We are proud to sign a pledge in support of tripling nuclear capacity by 2050, as nuclear power will be pivotal in building a reliable, secure, and sustainable energy future."
"One of the world’s largest deposits of the strategic mineral Niobium is located in the Tukano territory. The Niobium reserves in the São Gabriel da Cachoeira region could be enough to meet the world’s demand for Niobium for 400 years, prospectors say. Niobium is a heavy metal used essentially in alloys in several industrial applications, such as aeronautics, aerospace, fabrication of pipelines and oil rigs and in nuclear fuel rods of nuclear power plants."
https://www.brazzil.com/niobium-a-radioactive-sword-of-damocles-hangs-over-brazils-northern-amazon/
@gerrymcgovern I had someone telling me last year that it isn't risky/harmful anymore and was wondering where they got that idea.
I wondered if it was just marketing jargon that had them convinced. Thanks for the links.
@gerrymcgovern so let's use thorium instead of uranium
Thorium is just as toxic as a radioactive contaminant if it isn't disposed of properly at equally high cost. Its 'safer' because its hard to make explolosives with it.
@oldoldcojote @gerrymcgovern okay, noted down 
Safely dispose of nuclear waste. By the way, I remember coming across an article that showed some proof that nuclear waste can be easily recycled and used two to four times leading to pretty minimal waste as a result. What do you think?
True. Research the cost to do so and available markets for the results. Compare to solar and hydrogen produced through solar powered electrolysis.
@oldoldcojote @gerrymcgovern ah, yeah, I remember reading about this on the register in the summer. This seems like a much more power efficient way to convert solar power into electricity. Hydrogen as a fuel looks really promising and even though Toyota pushes this direction due to Japan having oceanic deposits of needed material, I wanna see more hydrogen powered tech.
It might be worth it financially for Japan to do safe nuclear given their situation with populatio on a tiny island. But they aren't safe now, given the impacts the regular earthquakes have had on their existing nuclear. There has to be a fail safe method to isolate the nuclear core in a catastrophic situation. I've never seen such a method in practice. I have patents on materials for systems wrapping the electrical conduits that control the core reactor mechanism. Usually at least one additional redundant set of shutdown lines are required. Problem is, the pathways for the lines are often not seperate based on room and layout of the plants. Not seperate enough to protect in case of the kind of earthquake tidal wave combination that caused the last disaster. Risk analysis for nuclear needs to be fail safe because of the danger to people and environment.
@oldoldcojote @gerrymcgovern yeah, having nuclear part isolated in the case of emergency is crucial and I remember that modern French, Russian, Korean and Chinese reactors keep active material suspended while it's working, so in case of emergency it just falls down where graphite absorbs radiation and deactivates the whole thing. This seems safe to me, but I'm a project manager, so my word has a little weight in it, but earthquakes do complicate things even further. So, yeah hydrogen seems good
@gerrymcgovern clean nuclear is theoretically possible, but it will never be affordable. Anyone who tells you they will build clean nuclear is lying or a financial fool. Or trying to con the government into paying for a boondoggle.
@oldoldcojote But can nuclear ever be 'clean' when you consider that to mine 1 unit of uranium creates 999 units of toxic waste. And then you have further processing which causes another level of waste. The mining and processing, which is largely ignored, causes much more harm than the nuclear plant itself.
And then, as you point out, these plants are twenty years late to build and 5 times over budget
Not unless you mop up every tiny bit of slag. Did I mention prohibitively expensive?
@gerrymcgovern We have to understand, finally, that enterprises are lying.
All the time.
