In the early 1970s the world was not going to end by nuclear war, but by chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) coming out of deodorant cans. They were going to destroy the ozone layer, exposing us to the ultraviolet rays of the sun, blinding people and giving them skin cancer, and eventually... you know the stuff.
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Reasons why this was unlikely were given in the Aug. 77 issue, and although CFCs continue to be used in refrigerators everywhere, and in spray cans in much of the world, the great calamity has failed to materialize. In Jan. 1984 NASA released an assessment report Present State of Knowledge of the Upper Atmosphere, which includes the figure below, giving the history of the predictions of ozone depletion as made at the corresponding time. By last year the predictions had shrunk to 5%, less than the variation of the ozone layer with geographic latitude. In the text of the report, we read that calculations using realistic increases of CFCs together with other chemicals predict that ozone increases will dominate for the next few decades; and "if atmospheric methane continues to increase at a substantial rate, the combined effect of methane and fluorocarbons may never result in a decrease of column ozone."
Are we then doomed to live without the ozone threat hanging over our heads?
Perhaps not: Dr. Helmut Metzner of the Tubingen (W. Germany) Institute for Plant Physiology hypothesizes that forest damage, often attributed to acid rain, is due to the ozone formed near nuclear plants by the radiation from the tiny amounts of emitted noble gases, krypton and xenon. His hypothesis is not based on direct experiments, but on literature research.
I would like to know more about this and to have better sources than a number of newspaper clippings before passing final judgment, but a few points are clear. Ionizing radiation does indeed have the capability of dissociating regular oxygen (O^2) into single atoms, many of which will then combine with regular oxygen into tri-atomic oxygen or ozone (O^3); What seems utterly incredible is that the minute emissions of nuclear plants could possibly compete with other natural and man-made sources causing the same process
¾not only natural radioactivity (radon in caves produces ozone that one can smell), but electric discharges. Quite apart from lightning, the blue coronas round imperfect insulators, especially in humid weather, again produce ozone in "smellable" quantities, but the forests traversed by high-voltage fines for close to a century have not noticed.This near and strong source would surely swamp the effect of the distant and minuscule source if, indeed, there is any effect from either. This preliminary reasoning is supported by reports (Augsburger Aligemeine Z., 7/25/85) that Metzner calculated the ozone concentration near the (planned) reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf as ten million times normal, while nuclear scientists calculated the increase as insignificant
¾not the type of discrepancy in serious scientific controversy.What is certain is that this godsend of a whipping boy will soon arrive in America, which is why it is reported here even before all the facts are in.
Meanwhile, if the charlatans believed their own caricatures of physics, they would have nothing to worry about: Ozone, man? Just take a can of deodorant, and fffft! fffft! it's depleted.
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Vol. 13, No. 1
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 13, No. 1 Date: November 29, 2004 03:34 PM (For actual publication date see newsletter.) Title: Reactors for Red China
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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