Environment Day: Radioactive Oil, Fertilisers and Tobacco

Emilio Godoy (mexico city)

Large-scale treatment of raw materials that contain naturally occurring radioactive material can lead to the concentration of radiation in products or waste, as in the case of the production of artificial phosphate fertilisers as well as oil and gas.

The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster caused by the Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan has heightened global awareness on the dangers of nuclear energy, and has awakened new concern about all sources of radiation ahead of World Environment Day, celebrated Jun. 5.

Combustion of oil, natural gas and coal — Mexico's chief sources of energy — releases into the atmosphere radon-220 and 222, lead-210, polonium-210, radium-226 and 228, thorium-232 and uranium-238. However, there are few studies on the effects of these radionuclides on the environment and human health.

'Little is known about the effect of these emissions,' Miguel Medina, a member of the Academy of Engineering of Mexico, a non-profit association that brings together professionals and academics, told IPS. 'Coal has the strongest effects. And it is nearly impossible to remove the uranium.'

In this country, 93 percent of power comes from fossil fuels.

Mexico also releases into the atmosphere around 710 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, mainly from power generation and the transport sector. The state oil monopoly Pemex extracts 2.5 million barrels of crude and 6.8 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The state-owned power company CFE operates three coal-fired power plants that generate 678 of the 52,000 megawatts produced in the country.

The generation of one gigawatt of electricity produced by burning coal releases some 5,000 tons of uranium and 8,000 tons of thorium into the environment, according to scientific researcher Murdoch Baxter, director of the Marine Environment Laboratories of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1990 to 1997.

'The contribution of fossil fuels to the increase in naturally occurring radioactivity is well-known, although it is perhaps not understood yet in all its magnitude,' Baxter, founder of the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, wrote in a 1993 article on industry's impact on environmental radioactivity.

The Mexican government of conservative President Felipe Calderón voluntarily agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 million tons by 2012.

But CFE will require 25.6 million tons of coal by 2024, and the three coal-fired plants release some 20 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

'The solution is to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. Development of technologies is not enough to cut emissions,' said Medina.

The production and use of chemical fertilisers releases into the environment polonium-210, which is highly radioactive and toxic and adheres to tobacco leaves, ending up in the lungs of smokers.

The tobacco industry has been aware that cigarettes contain significant levels of polonium at least since the 1960s. Polonium, fairly volatile and dangerous to handle, is found in the phosphate fertilisers used on tobacco fields, survives the tobacco drying process, and when inhaled, becomes stuck in the bronchi, lungs and trachea.

Polonium made the headlines in November 2006 when former Soviet KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko fell ill and died in London, and a 'major dose' of polonium-210 was found in his body.

'Tobacco has small doses of polonium-210,' Gustavo Soñora, legal adviser in Mexico for the International Union against Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases, told IPS. 'The law requires that manufacturers disclose all of the cigarette's components when applying for a health licence. We are talking about a chemical product that contains many elements.'

Mexico's tobacco control law stipulates that when applying for a health licence, producers, manufacturers and importers of tobacco products must attach information about the components, additives, residues and other substances used in their manufacture, as well as the maximum acceptable limits and known or potential risks.

Mexico produces nearly one million tons a year of fertilisers, especially phosphates and potassium, and consumes approximately four million tons a year. The different is covered by imports, especially nitrogen fertilisers, according to government agencies.

It also produces some 7,800 tons of tobacco on 4,300 hectares of land, using nitrogen and potassium fertilisers, according to the ministry of agriculture. The main tobacco-producing states are Nayarit, Veracruz and Chiapas.

A total of 2.5 billion packs of cigarettes are smoked every year in this country of 112 million people, where 11 million smokers consume an average of 5.4 cigarettes a day, according to the 2010 report 'The Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Taxation in Mexico' by U.S. and Mexican health experts.

Smoking claims the lives of between 25,000 and 60,000 Mexicans a year.

'The major tobacco manufacturers discovered that polonium was part of tobacco and tobacco smoke more than 40 years ago and attempted, but failed, to remove this radioactive substance from their products,' says 'Waking a Sleeping Giant: The Tobacco Industry's Response to the Polonium-210 Issue', published by the American Journal of Public Health in September 2008.

The U.S. scientific researchers Monique Muggli, Jon Ebbert, Channing Robertson and Richard Hurt concluded that 'Internal tobacco industry documents reveal that the companies suppressed publication of their own internal research to avoid heightening the public’s awareness of radioactivity in cigarettes.'

Philip Morris and British American Tobacco, which have a monopoly on the market for cigarettes in Mexico, did not respond to IPS requests for comment.

Original source: Inter Press Service

http://www.globalissues.org/news/2011/06/03/9938

Juine 3, 2011