Blogger has Questions for Gov Kaine

(From the Waterlogged Dog Blog)

Waterlogged Dog

Waterlogged Dog
Life is good.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Uranium in Virginia?
Eureka! The answer was right there in front of us the whole time. Now we can wean ourselves off of foreign oil and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions with affordable, renewable nuclear power from uranium that is less than 200 miles west of Tidewater, in Pittsylvania County. Yippee!
Gov. Kaine, I just have a couple of questions before we lift the moratorium, and start strip mining. That's what we're talking, right? Uranium mining is a volume intensive process where humongous, visible from space, open pit mines are employed.
The uranium is chemically removed from the rocks and the leftover radioactive sand (tailings) is left in huge reservoirs with dykes that have been known to fail and spill the tailings into rivers, lakes and surrounding lands. Is this the future of Pittsylvania County?
The tailings emit gamma radiation. Radium and arsenic laden dust blows into the atmosphere. Radon gas, exhaled from radium is transported great distances, like to tidewater, possibly?
What will we do about this? How has technology improved?
Uranium mining is a water intensive process that would use and contaminate millions of gallons of ground water per day. How will this affect the overall Virginia aquifer? A lot of Virginians are on well water and with global warming, drought and water scarcity, can we afford this level of water usage/abusage? I understand that it is nearly impossible to restore groundwater to pre-mining conditions. What would be our restoration plan?
Historically, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) ran the show, and when government subsidies ended in the 1960s, uranium production ceased or was curtailed, mine waste sites were abandoned, and the taxpayer eventually paid for the cleanup, which is still a colossal work-in-progress.
Will the taxpayers have to clean up the future mess of Pittsylvania County? Is this really cost effective energy? Is it true that no insurance company will insure a nuclear operation, which is why it can never be totally a private venture, hence the AEC?Do current cost-benefit analyses consider all of these factors?
If so, then how much would a kilowatt of nuclear energy cost compared to a kilowatt produced by solar, wind, oil, or coal?Is this all really safe? We don't have a good history of being smart with this stuff. In the not so distant past we brazenly dumped radioactive wastes offshore, incorrectly thinking that the oceans would absorb it.
We also have various leaky messes at mine sites out west, and we have Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and the rusting Soviet Nuclear Subs in the Arctic, but now we know better, right?With our burgeoning population we need answers to the emerging energy crisis.
I would love to embrace the nuclear alternative, but I am not confident that we have the technology to mine safely in our back yard.
Maybe I'm suffering from a NIMBY (not in my back yard) bias, but with our high population density in this region, we should be careful.Summitville Superfund Mine Site, Colorado - Current tab:

$210 Million and counting