#carbon14 — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

DoomsdaysCW @[email protected] · 2025-06-27 · 03:18 UTC

#Carbon14: Another underestimated danger from #nuclear reactors

"There are a number of radionuclides released from nuclear energy facilities. This paper highlights carbon-14 for a number of reasons:

- Carbon-14 is radioactive and is released into air as #methane and #CO2

- Before 2010, carbon-14 releases from nuclear reactors were virtually ignored in the United States. Today only estimates are required and only under certain restrictive circumstances.

- There is no good accounting of releases to date, so its impact on our health, our children’s health, and that of our
#environment remains unknown, yet environmental measurement is possible, but can be challenging under certain
conditions.

- Carbon-14 has a half-life of over 5700 years and the element carbon is a basic building block for life on earth. Therefore, “it constitutes a potential health hazard, whose additional production by #anthropogenic sources of today will result in an increased #radiation exposure to many future generations.”

- Like #tritium, it can collect in the tissues of the fetus at twice the concentration of the tissues in the mother, pointing to its
disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable human lifecycle: the developing child.

The element carbon is found in all organic substances. Carbon is also a primary constituent of #GreenhouseGases that are responsible for #ClimateChange, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (#CH4). Carbon-14 (c-14) is a radioactive form of
carbon that occurs in nature and is also newly formed in nuclear power processes.

"Carbon-14 is a health concern because it is released from #NuclearPower facilities as radioactive carbon dioxide and methane, traveling readily in the local and global environment.

"Over time, carbon-14 becomes part of organic material including food, and has a half-life of approximately 5,730 years, decaying by a type of radioactive particle called a beta. Its hazardous life is 10-20 times its half-life, meaning that harmful exposure to man-made carbon-14 can last for hundreds of generations. The radioactive carbon forms as a byproduct of fissioning of uranium fuel, through a process called activation. The final step is a chemical reaction between carbon-14 and oxygen or hydrogen, which forms methane or carbon dioxide. The radioactive carbon-14 formed by this process is brand new and would not exist without nuclear fission.

"During its long hazardous life, carbon-14 could be responsible for gross physical or
mental defects, stillbirths and childhood deaths, embryonic and neonatal deaths into the many millions over the life of the isotope.

"These millions could be underestimated five times or more. Carbon-14 could also be responsible for #leukemia, bone and other #cancers."

https://beyondnuclear.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/carbon14FINAL.pdf

#NoNukes #RethinkNotRestart #NoNukesForAI #RenewablesNow! #BeyondNuclear #NuclearIsNotCarbonFree

#beyondnuclear #rethinknotrestart #nonukesforai #renewablesnow #nuclearisnotcarbonfree #carbon14

DoomsdaysCW @[email protected] · 2025-06-27 · 03:07 UTC

We Work The Black Seam

"This place has changed for good
Your economic theory said it would

It's hard for us to understand
We can't give up our jobs the way we should

Our blood has stained the #coal
We tunneled deep inside the nations soul

We matter more than pounds and pence
Your economic theory makes no sense

One day in a #nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole

Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimey faces were never seen
Deadly for 12,000 years
Is #Carbon14

We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together

The seam lies underground
Three million years of pressure packed it down

We walk through ancient forest lands
And light a thousand cities with our hands

Your dark satanic mills
Have made redundant all our mining skills

You can't exchange a six-inch band
For all the poisoned streams in cumberland

One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole

Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimey faces were never seen
Deadly for 12,000 years
Is carbon 14

We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together

And should the children weep
The turning world will sing their souls to sleep

When you have sunk without a trace
The universe will suck me into place

One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole

Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimey faces were never seen
Deadly for 12,000 years
Is carbon 14

We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together"

- #Sting, 1985

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egynEo4cIEM

#80sMusic #NoNukes #NoCoal #RethinkNotRestart #DirtyCoal #NuclearWaste #RenewablesNow! #NoNukesForAI #NoCoalForAI

#coal #nuclear #carbon14 #sting #80smusic #nonukes