Premier Debate 2016 September/October ld brief

AFF—Waste

The United States has no plans to deal with hazardous nuclear waste.

PSR 16 ["Dirty, Dangerous And Expensive: The Truth About Nuclear Power". 2016.Psr.Org. Accessed August 8 2016. http://www.psr.org/chapters/washington/resources/nuclear-power-factsheet.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/][Premier]

Each year, enormous quantities of radioactive waste are created during the nuclear fuel process, including 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste(1)  and 12 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste(2) in the U.S. alone. More than 58,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel already has accumulated at reactor sites around the U.S. for which there currently is no permanent repository.  Even without new nuclear production, the inventory of commercial spent fuel in the U.S. already exceeds the 63,000 metric ton statutory capacity of the controversial Yucca Mountain repository, which has yet to receive a license to operate.  Even if Yucca Mountain is licensed, the Department of Energy has stated that it would not open before 2017.

US and Japanese nuclear power causes massive health risks-effects are long term, so operators can’t be held accountable-means the judge should increase credence in the scenario to compensate

Hunziker 3/8 [Robert. "Indian Point: Fukushima's Mini-Me." Www.counterpunch.org. CounterPunch, 08 Mar. 2016. Web. 08 Aug. 2016. .][Premier]

A Leaky Industry As previously mentioned, 75% of America’s nuclear power plants leak. This therefore begs the question of how serious the problem is to health and well-being. That answer is impossible to get if only because illnesses and deaths caused by radiation can take years to develop as radiation accumulates in the body over time, and by the time cancer is detected, it can be difficult to know the cause. This is called the “latency effect.” Essentially, the latency effect is a layer of protection, effectively removing the risks of citizens lining up in front of nuclear power plants, hollering, screaming, throwing bricks. According to the U.S. General Accountability Office, there have been 56 nuclear reactor accidents in the U.S. but few fatalities. Yet, a significant pressing question is: Who’s counting? A very recent example of non-reported deaths from radiation exposure comes by way of Fukushima. Even though mainstream sources in Japan claim no serious health issues, i.e., deaths, from Fukushima radiation exposure, non-mainstream journalists in Japan have uncovered a series of unreported deaths of workers. Evidently, if a worker “dies at home,” the company (TEPCO) does not report it as “death at work.” By all appearances, this is how radiation-induced deaths are handled; they’ve gotta die at the work site or no reporting, nada, nil, a big goose egg. So, in order to get reported as “a worker death,” the worker needs to crawl out of bed and struggle to the work site, maybe on hands and knees, plop down and die on the premises. All of this segues perfectly into one of the best arguments of the pro-nuclear crowd, which is there have been so few deaths from nuclear radiation exposure, other than dropping nukes directly on the Japanese during WWII, when America very stupidly wiped out tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent people at the very moment when the Emperor of Japan was already waving a white flag, which the White House was well aware of. It is far and away the world’s all-time biggest Duh! Anyway, as it happens, deaths from nuclear radiation exposure don’t show up for years or decades, unless zapped with a huge dosage all at once, like happened to workers at the Chernobyl plant. Zap! Death within hours-to-days. Speaking of which, Chernobyl’s radiation continues, yes currently, to take countless unreported lives, either by death or permanent disability and deformity, 30 years later, still deforming and distorting another generation of people thirty years after the fact. To read all about it here, jump to subsection “Hidden Casualties of Radiation, and while there, maybe check out the subsection “U.S. Sailors Hit Hard with Radiation,” which describes how Fukushima radiation impacts U.S. sailors.

NEG—A2 Accidents Advantage

Fish

Fish are OK even after Fukushima

Buesseler 12

Ken O. Buesseler, Senior Scientist @ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution w/ PhD in Marine Chemistry from MIT, “Fishing for Answers” https://darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org/bitstream/handle/1912/5816/Buesseler%20Perspecitves%20Fukushima%20Fish%20final%20revised.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y [Premier]

Fortunately, the MAFF data show that the vast majority of fish remain below even the new, stricter regulatory limit for seafood consumption. In addition, it must be remembered that we are surrounded by a sea of radioactivity, in that many naturally occurring radionuclides appear in fish at similar or higher levels and are not considered a health threat. For example in fish we sampled in June 2011 off Japan, natural levels of potassium-40 were more than 10 times greater than Fukushima derived cesium (2). Moreover, because cesium is rapidly lost from muscle after exposure stops, fish that migrate to less affected waters will gradually lose much of their Fukushima-derived cesium, as seen in a report of tuna caught off San Diego (10).

Waste Disposal

Waste is solved

Pedraza 12

Jorge Morales Pedraza, consultant on international affairs, ambassador to the IAEA for 26 yrs, degree in math and economy sciences, former professor, Energy Science, Engineering and Technology : Nuclear Power: Current and Future Role in the World Electricity Generation : Current and Future Role in the World Electricity Generation, New York. [Premier]

It is important to note that the management of spent fuel should ensure that the biosphere is protected and the public must be convinced of the effectiveness of the methods used. Since the spent fuel contains very long-lived radionuclides, some protection is required for at least 100,000 years. There are two means to reach this goal. One of them is the following: Society can wait for the natural decay of the radioactive elements by isolating them physically from the biosphere through installation of successive barriers at a suitable depth in the ground. This strategy leads to deep geological disposal. The second one is the following: Society can make use of nuclear reactions that will transmute the very long-lived wastes into less radioactive or shorter-lived products. In the opinion of several experts, deep geological repository disposal is the most appropriate solution available today. It is important to stress that the technology for the safe management of nuclear waste is now available and can be used by any countries with an important nuclear power programme. The USA; Finland and Sweden have achieved some progress regarding the final disposal of high radioactive nuclear waste and the technology used by these countries could represents a real and objective solution to this problem for other countries as well.