To the Editor,
In response to the letter from Dr. Philip Carlson[1]:
The nuclear fuel cycle uses large quantities of fossil fuel to mine and mill the uranium ore, to enrich uranium 235 from 0.7% to 3%, to construct and decommission the reactor, and to transport and store the radioactive waste for 500,000 years, thus adding substantially to global warming.
The nuclear industry will not solve its problem of radioactive waste by reprocessing. Rather it intends to use “fast” reactors to fission plutonium and convert it to fission products, the main ones being cesium 137 and strontium 90, to last 600 and not 200 years. However, only 10% of the 15–25 tons of plutonium in a fast reactor are fissioned, leaving 90% of the original carcinogenic and mutagenic plutonium 239 with a half-life of 24,400 years.
It is medically contraindicated to replace one very polluting electricity generating technology with another that is even more medically dangerous.
Helen Caldicott, MD
Footnotes
Readers are encouraged to respond to the author at caldicott@nuclearpolicy.org or to Paul Blumenthal, MD, Deputy Editor of MedGenMed, for the editor's eyes only or for possible publication via email: pblumen@stanford.edu
References
- 1.Carlson P. Reader's response to “nuclear mutagenesis.”. MedGenMed. 2007;9(1) Available at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/552565 Accessed March 2, 2007. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
