Al Gore opened his 2006 movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”, with
an apology for not having already saved the world from global warming: “I have
advocated policies to promote renewable energy and accelerate reductions in
global warming pollution for decades, including all of the time I was in public
service.” In support of his continuing political agenda, Al Gore recently
joined Van Jones last week to argue for wind power’s “clean energy” as a
replacement for fossil fuels’ “dirty energy.” Inconveniently for Mr. Gore, the
truth is that mining and processing key materials to make the magnets in wind
power turbines is releasing massive amounts of air, water and ground pollution,
including enormous quantities of radioactive waste into the global ecosphere.
Huge wind turning propellers spin large magnetic coils to
produce electricity. Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are an essential ingredient
needed to manufacture these magnets. REEs, such as Neodymium, Samarium,
Gadolinium and Dysprosium are in very limited supply, — which brings into
question both of Mr. Gore’s “renewability” and “sustainability” marketing
claims. The United States was the world’s largest producer of REEs until 2002,
when the huge Mountain Pass open pit mine in California was closed after the
United States Environmental Protection Agency determined that 600,000 gallons
of highly radioactive mining wastewater had been spilled onto the surrounding
dessert between 1984 and 1998. The water contained highly concentrated amounts
of radium, which has a half-life of radium is 1600 years, and thorium, which
has a half-life of 14 billion years.
Today, 95% of all REEs are mined and processed in remote
Western China. Once shrouded in secrecy by China’s autocratic leadership, the
environmental dangers of unregulated REE mining has caused so much damage it is
now an acknowledged national concern. According to Wang Caifeng, China’s Deputy
Director-General of the Materials Department of the Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology, producing one ton of REEs creates 2,000 tons of mine
tailings. It is also estimated that within Baotou, where China’s primary rare
earth production occurs, REE enterprises produce approximately 2.5 billion
gallons of highly polluted wastewater per year and most of that waste water is:
“discharged without being effectively treated, which not
only contaminates potable water for daily living, but also contaminates the surrounding
water environment and irrigated farmlands.”
According to an article published by the Chinese Society of
Rare Earths:
“Every ton [2000 lbs.] of rare earth
produced generates approximately 8.5 kilograms (18.7 lbs.) of fluorine and 13
kilograms (28.7 lbs.) of dust; and using concentrated sulfuric acid high
temperature calcination techniques to produce approximately one ton of calcined
rare earth ore generates 9,600 to 12,000 cubic meters (339,021 to 423,776 cubic
feet) of waste gas containing dust concentrate, hydrofluoric acid, sulfur
dioxide, and sulfuric acid, approximately 75 cubic meters (2,649 cubic feet) of
acidic wastewater plus about one ton of radioactive waste residue (containing
water).”
This inconvenient environmental holocaust seems to have been
exempted from Mr. Gore’s evaluation of wind power as source of “clean energy.”
Recently physicist John Droz Jr. consulted with nuclear experts to compare the
radioactive waste generated from a 3 gigawatt (GW) wind farm with that of a
nuclear reactor to generate the same amount of electricity. Their conclusions
are:
Wind Energy
Fact 1: Wind turbines require about 2000 lbs. of REEs per
megawatt of rated capacity;
Fact 2: U.S. Army reports that mining 2000 lbs. of REE
creates about 2000 lbs. of radioactive waste;
Assumption 1: The available Capacity Factor of these
turbines will be about 33% (very optimistic);
Assumption 2: Water is about 50% of the weight of the REE
mining radioactive waste.
Therefore, the radioactive waste for a 3 GW wind facility:
—> Twenty year expected usable life of wind turbine
(optimistic);
—> 50% of waste is water that will evaporate away;
Total of wind power radioactive waste (3000 MW x 2000 REE/MW
x 1 x .5) = 3,000,000± pounds
Nuclear Power
Fact 1: Nuclear reactor is Pressurized Water Reactor ;
Fact 2: Radioactive waste is spent fuel rods that are
permanently stored in deep earth repository;
Assumption 1: GW Nuclear facility generates about 60,000
pounds per year of “spent” uranium;
Assumption 2: Twenty years is used as that is the generous
expected life of a wind turbine.
Therefore, the radioactive waste for a 1 GW single-pass
nuclear power plant:
—> Average 60,000 pounds per year.
รจ Twenty
years of operations
Total of nuclear generator radioactive waste (60,000 lbs. x
20 yrs.) = 1,200,000± pounds
So compared to the radioactive waste from wind energy to the
radioactive waste in an “equivalent” nuclear power facility to produce the same
amount of electricity, wind energy is dirtier — with 250% the amount of
radioactive waste! The next time you hear someone promote wind energy as a
renewable, sustainable, clean, green source of energy that will give us energy
independence, ask if it will also help the earth glow in the dark.
The writer is indebted to John Droz Jr. for the technical
research and analysis provided for this report. Mr. Droz has been a physicist
and an environmental activist for over 25 years. He received undergraduate
degrees in physics and math from Boston College, and a graduate degree in physics
from Syracuse University. John has been a participating member of the Sierra
Club and the Adirondack Council.
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