Premier Debate 2016 September/October ld brief

AFF—Accidents

Uranium mining disproportionately effects indigenous communities.

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]

Uranium, which must be removed from the ground, is used to fuel nuclear reactors.  Uranium mining, which creates serious health and environmental problems, has disproportionately impacted indigenous people because much of the world’s uranium is located under indigenous land.  Uranium miners experience higher rates of lung cancer, tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases. The production of 1,000 tons of uranium fuel generates approximately 100,000 tons of radioactive tailings and nearly one million gallons of liquid waste containing heavy metals and arsenic in addition to radioactivity.(3)  These uranium tailings have contaminated rivers and lakes. A new method of uranium mining, known as in-situ leaching, does not produce tailings but it does threaten contamination of groundwater water supplies.

Probability of high impact accident now unacceptable

Verbruggen 08 [Aviel Verbruggen, Full professor at the University of Antwerp, Energy & Environmental Economist, "Renewable and nuclear power: A common future?" Energy Policy 36, 2008, 4036–4047] [Premier]

As in the case of climate change, there is evidence about the convex growth of the externality costs even when uncertainty about numbers cannot be resolved. Fig. 4 shows two curves that grow steeply with the expansion of nuclear installations and the number of sites. The bottom curve expresses the likelihood of major nuclear accidents when more and more countries would engage in nuclear activities and the number of installations grows. The probability that somewhere a major accident occurs is increasing faster than linearly, also because less-acquainted countries will enter the nuclear area. The damage costs follow a steeper pattern because of the collateral damage triggered by a single accident on the other nuclear activities. Combining the two factors (probability and consequences) into a single risk measure (Covello and Merkhofer, 1993), and applying the standards of risk acceptability, the combination of a nonnegligible and growing likelihood with the immeasurable high damages of a major nuclear accident or nuclear warfare, will conclude that nuclear power falls into the non-acceptable domain of human enterprising. While the impacts of nuclear technologies, their failures and abuses, can have devastating consequences of similar size and irreversibility as climate change impacts, there are important differences between both challenges that make public understanding and policy reactions different. Carbon emission sources are continuous and numerous, globally spread and controlled by billions of decision-makers. Also the various effects are building up continuously, globally spread and fall—although unevenly—yet on all people on earth. Nuclear technologies and sources are concentrated and controlled by a few (and for security and safety reasons the few should become fewer and preferably zero), and the most harmful effects are punctual in time with effects spreading unpredictably from the point of impact (accidents, nuclear bombs). Risk assessment of the nuclear option is more extreme than risk assessment of climate change damages. The probabilities of particular events are smaller but the consequences of one single event are more catastrophic. One can learn from accidents, nearaccidents and incidents that happened and continue to happen. Although the learning processes are not well structured and characterized by opposite interpretations (nuclear advocates versus nuclear critics), a majority of the public evaluates nuclear risks higher than the benefits delivered by the power output of nuclear plants (Turkenburg, 2004; Eurobarometer, 2007). Nuclear advocates call this attitude ‘barriers’ of public acceptance (IEA, 2006a, p. 134) and the nuclear sector invested and invests lots of money to convince the public and politicians to change their mind and balloting

Nuclear power is dangerous despite low probability and current regs are not enough

Lucas 12 [Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and a member of the cross-party parliamentary environment audit committee, “Why we must phase out nuclear power,” The Guardian, February 17, 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/17/phase-out-nuclear-power] [Premier]

Fukushima, like Chernobyl 25 years before it, has shown us that while the likelihood of a nuclear disaster occurring may be low, the potential impact is enormous. The inherent risk in the use of nuclear energy, as well as the related proliferation of nuclear technologies, can and does have disastrous consequences. The only certain way to eliminate this potentially devastating risk is to phase out nuclear power altogether. Some countries appear to have learnt this lesson. In Germany, the government changed course in the aftermath of Fukushima and decided to go ahead with a previously agreed phase out of nuclear power. Many scenarios now foresee Germany sourcing 100% of its power needs from renewables by 2030. Meanwhile Italian citizens voted against plans to go nuclear with a 90% majority. The same is not yet true in Japan. Although only three out of its 54 nuclear reactors are online and generating power, while the Japanese authorities conduct "stress tests", the government hopes to reopen almost all of these and prolong the working life of a number of its ageing reactors by to up to 60 years. The Japanese public have made their opposition clear however. Opinion polls consistently show a strong majority of the population is now against nuclear power. Local grassroots movements opposing nuclear power have been springing up across Japan. Mayors and governors in fear of losing their power tend to follow the majority of their citizens. The European level response has been to undertake stress tests on nuclear reactors across the union. However, these stress tests appear to be little more than a PR exercise to encourage public acceptance in order to allow the nuclear industry to continue with business as usual. The tests fail to assess the full risks of nuclear power, ignoring crucial factors such as fires, human failures, degradation of essential infrastructure or the impact of an airplane crash.

Fish

Fisheries are coming back, but nuclear spillage from Fukushima contaminates the whole food chain

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]

However, the fact that many fish are just as contaminated today with cesium-134 and -137 as more than one year ago remains troubling and provides the best evidence that cesium is still being released to the food chain. The Japanese government is using these MAFF results to keep fisheries closed off Fukushima and to closely monitor neighboring areas where levels are approaching the regulatory limits. These patterns of contamination and trends over time for different species need to be communicated to the media and the public in order to put these risks in context. But, studies of cesium in fish are not enough. An understanding of sources and sinks of cesium and other radionuclides is also needed to predict long-term trends in fish and other seafood. Such knowledge would support smarter, more targeted decision making, lessen public concern about seafood, and potentially help revive these important fisheries safely, with confidence, and in a timely manner.