Farmers+Per+3-4



=**We'd prefer to continue farming as opposed to saying okay to potential harm!!**=

PROS: CONS:
 * Nuclear power can be used for a long time while coal will only be plentiful for a few more decades
 * As farmers we can make money off of our land
 * Nuclear power does emit a small amount of carbon dioxide opposed to fossil fuels.
 * There is not a completely safe way of handling nuclear waste
 * Despite a generally high security standard, accidents can stil﻿l happen. It is technically impossible to build a plant with 100% security. A small probability of failure will always last. The more nuclear power plants (and nuclear waste storage sh﻿elters) are built, the higher is the probability of a disastrous failure somewhere in the world.
 * Planning and building of a new nuclear power generation plant is in the range of 20 to 30 years
 * The energy source for nuclear energy is Uranium. Uranium is a scarce resource, its supply is estimated to last only for the next 30 to 60 years

 ﻿ Facts and Effects:
At chernobyl power plant, In April 1986, a nuclear reactor in Ukraine exploded and sent radioactive particles flying through the air, infiltrating the surrounding soil. plants, humans, Despite the massive disaster, some plants in the area seem to have adapted well, flourishing in the contaminated soil but others were unrecognizable. This ability to adapt has to do with slight alterations in the plants’ protein levels, researchers report in a study that appears in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Although the plants have grown in the radioactive soil appear to be healthy, they may not be safe enough for consumption, he said.

“Now I don’t think anybody wants to eat this,” -- Iowa's crops are mainly for consumption, & if they're not safe to eat, that lowers the income.

In both studies, Martin Hajduch of the [|Institute of Plant Genetics and Biotechnology at the Slovak Academy of Sciences] and his colleagues planted the crops in a swath of land that received a relatively high dose of the Chernobyl fallout, and then compared them to plants grown in a control field 100 km away.

The soybean plant experiments yielded beans from the contaminated field that were visibly smaller than those from the control field. a nuclear explosion does not happen in a nuclear meltdown due to the low fissility of the radioactive components. However, a steam explosion may occur if it hits water and water is what is used to cool the reactors!!!!!!!!

-- Effects on the environment.

We live in the modern age, and one of the downsides of living in this unique time period is the emergence of nuclear weapons and energy. It is no secret that millions of people are looking for an excuse to ban or discredit nuclear technology just as others are looking for ways to promote it's usage. One of the cited reasons for not using nuclear technology is it's damaging effects on the natural world. The radiation emitted from the use of nuclear weapons and power plants is extremely harmful to the environment. This is not a speculation, it is an observation. Even we humans have suffered the effects of a horrible situation where a nuclear plant went through meltdown. I think we all have heard of Chernobyl at one point or another.

Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union. It was used to create large amounts of energy using the highly dangerous nuclear process. One of the reactors eventually had a meltdown and exploded violently. The result was the releasing of an enormous cloud of radiation into the environment. It has been determined that the meltdown released roughly four hundred times the amount of radiation produced by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The radiation spread, and effected countries as far away as Great Britain and South Africa. Locally, the damage was devastating. The radiation killed a very large part of woodland that would later become known as the famous "Red Forest". All wildlife in that area was wiped out. Nearby towns and villages suffered deaths from radiation poisoning and many more deaths in the future were linked to the accident. There were also a great many deformities among newborns, both people and animals

--Effects on people

Probable Health effects resulting from exposure to Ionising Radiation.

The amount of injury caused by a radioactive isotope depends on its physical half-life, and on how quickly it is absorbed and then excreted by an organism. Most studies of the harmful effects of radiation have been performed on single-celled organisms. Obviously, the situation is more complex in humans and other multicellular organisms, because a single cell damaged by radiation may indirectly affect other cells in the individual. The most sensitive regions of the human body appear to be those which have many actively dividing cells, such as the skin, gonads, intestine, and tissues that grow blood cells (spleen, bone marrow, lymph organs).

Radioactivity is toxic because it forms ions when it reacts with biological molecules. These ions can form free radicals, which damage proteins, membranes, and nucleic acids. Radioactivity can damage DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) by destroying individual bases (particularly thymine), by breaking single strands, by breaking double strands, by cross-linking different DNA strands, and by cross-linking DNA and proteins. Damage to DNA can lead to cancers, birth defects, and even death.

NUCLEAR POWER PLANT NEAREST COUNCIL BLUFFS, IA

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; lineheight: normal;">Located on the shore of the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of Omaha, Fort Calhoun has a single generating unit with a capacity of 478 MW. The plant, based on the Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactor (PWR) design, first went on-line on August 9, 1973. The plant’s operating license was recently renewed for another 20 years (through 2033), although OPPD understood that many upgrades would be required to ensure safe functioning of the plant’s systems over the next 25-plus years.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; lineheight: normal;">Planning for Fort Calhoun’s 25th refueling outage and replacement project began in the spring of 2006 with schedule reviews conducted with all the contractors and station personnel. Bechtel Power, with more than 30 nuclear renovation projects under its belt, was engaged by OPPD to manage the project, which included more than 5,000 individual scheduled activities. Work was scheduled 24/7, so contingency plans and materials were developed for all major work packages to ensure their success.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 150%; lineheight: normal;">Past projects were studied, especially those that had entailed two replacement outages, in an effort to identify the best practices that typically make the second replacement more efficient than the first. Both formal and informal team-building sessions were conducted to fully integrate all the contractors and station personnel. To help unite the various stakeholders into a single, cohesive team, OPPD’s project slogan was “One Team, One Goal.” media type="youtube" key="n-c1PrCLaRw?fs=1" height="385" width="480" align="center"

(whole body) || Health effects Immediate || Delayed ||
 * Dose in rems

`Frying of the brain'. || None || From the third to fifth week after exposure, death is closely correlated with degree of leukocytopenia. More than 50% die in this time period. Survivors experience keloids, ophthalmological disorders, blood dyscrasis, malignant tumours, and psychoneurological disturbances. || The healthy adult recovers to somewhat normal health in about three months. He or she may have permanent health damage, may develop cancer or benign tumours, and will probably have a shortened lifespan. Genetic and teratogenic effects. ||
 * 1,000 or more || Immediate death.
 * 600-1,000 || Weakness, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea followed by apparent improvement. After several days: fever, diarrhoea, blood discharge from the bowels, haemorrhage of the larynx, trachea, bronchi or lungs, vomiting of blood and blood in the urine. || Death in about 10 days. Autopsy shows destruction of hematopoietic tissues, including bone marrow, lymph nodes and spleen; swelling and degeneration of epithelial cells of the intestines, genital organs and endocrine glands. ||
 * 250-600 || Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, epilation (loss of hair), weakness, malaise, vomiting of blood, bloody discharge from the bowels or kidneys, nose bleeding, bleeding from gums and genitals, subcutaneous bleeding, fever, inflammation of the pharynx and stomach, and menstrual abnormalities. Marked destruction of bone marrow, lymph nodes and spleen causes decrease in blood cells especially granulocytes and thrombocytes. || Radiation-induced atrophy of the endocrine glands including the pituitary, thyroid and adrenal glands.
 * 150-250 || Nausea and vomiting on the first day. Diarrhoea and probable skin burns. Apparent improvement for about two weeks thereafter. Foetal or embryonic death if pregnant. || Symptoms of malaise as indicated above. Persons in poor health prior to exposure, or those who develop a serious infection, may not survive.
 * 50-150 || Acute radiation sickness and burns are less severe than at the higher exposure dose. Spontaneous abortion or stillbirth. || Tissue damage effects are less severe. Reduction in lymphocytes and neutrophils leaves the individual temporarily very vulnerable to infection. There may be genetic damage to offspring, benign or malignant tumours, premature ageing and shortened lifespan. Genetic and teratogenic effects. ||
 * 10-50 || Most persons experience little or no immediate reaction. Sensitive individuals may experience radiation sickness. || Transient effects in lymphocytes and neutrophils. Premature ageing, genetic effects and some risk of tumours. ||
 * 0-10 || None || Premature ageing, mild mutations in offspring, some risk of excess tumours. Genetic and teratogenic effects. ||


 * = **Some comparative radiation doses and their effects** ||
 * ~ 2 mSv/yr || Typical background radiation experienced by everyone (average 1.5 mSv in Australia, 3 mSv in North America). ||
 * ~ 1.5 to 2.0 mSv/yr || Average dose to Australian uranium miners, above background and medical. ||
 * ~ 2.4 mSv/yr || Average dose to US nuclear industry employees. ||
 * ~ Up to 5 mSv/yr || Typical incremental dose for aircrew in middle latitudes. ||
 * ~ 9 mSv/yr || Exposure by airline crew flying the New York – Tokyo polar route. ||
 * ~ 10 mSv/yr || Maximum actual dose to Australian uranium miners. ||
 * ~ 20 mSv/yr || Current limit (averaged) for nuclear industry employees and uranium miners. ||
 * ~ 50 mSv/yr || Former routine limit for nuclear industry employees. It is also the dose rate which arises from natural background levels in several places in Iran, India and Europe. ||
 * ~ 100 mSv/yr || Lowest level at which any increase in cancer is clearly evident. Above this, the probability of cancer occurrence (rather than the severity) increases with dose. ||
 * ~ 350 mSv/lifetime || Criterion for relocating people after Chernobyl accident. ||
 * ~ 1,000 mSv cumulative || Would probably cause a fatal cancer many years later in 5 of every 100 persons exposed to it (//i.e.// if the normal incidence of fatal cancer were 25%, this dose would increase it to 30%). ||
 * ~ 1,000 mSv single dose || Causes (temporary) radiation sickness such as nausea and decreased white blood cell count, but not death. Above this, severity of illness increases with dose. ||
 * ~ 5,000 mSv single dose || Would kill about half those receiving it within a month. ||
 * ~ 10,000 mSv single dose || Fatal within a few weeks. ||

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[] [|Institute of Plant Genetics and Biotechnology at the Slovak Academy of Sciences]

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