green108

Green 108

Nuclear power? No thanks!

Nuclear power is an interesting idea in theory, and a remarkably bad idea in practice. The problem is due to the confluence of, on the one hand, a system so complex and sensitive that small glitches are frequent and all-but inevitable; and on the other hand, when small glitches avalanche, a doomsday scenario becomes possible.

Three Mile Island was a close call, but Windscale in 1957 significantly contaminated large parts of the UK. "On 10 October 1957, a failure to properly control the temperature of graphite control rods within the reactor sparked a devastating fire, which caused radioactive contamination to spew into the atmosphere. The fire was eventually put out with water - a risky act which could have caused an explosion - but a radioactive cloud was already spreading far and wide." According to a report on the BBC News website 7 October 2007: "In 1957, a fire at the Windscale nuclear reactor in Cumbria led to a release of radioactive material that spread across the UK and Europe. But new research [published in the journal Atmospheric Environment] claims the incident generated twice as much radioactive material and caused dozens more cancers than was previously thought." "At the time of the accident the levels and spread of the radioactive materials was estimated, and measures were put in place to limit radioactive contamination. But a new study carried out by John Garland, formerly of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and Richard Wakeford, a visiting professor at the University of Manchester, suggests the contamination of the environment may have been much higher. The team carried out a re-analysis of data taken from environmental monitoring of air, grass and vegetation and combined this with computer models that revealed how the radioactive cloud would have spread from the reactor with the meteorological conditions at that time." The radioactive cloud swept over not only most of the UK, but also northern Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, southern Norway, southern Sweden, northern Germany, northern Poland and the other Baltic states. "They confirmed radioactive iodine and caesium were released, as well as polonium and a very small amount of plutonium, but found that the levels would have been higher than previously thought. John Garland said: "The reassessments showed that there was roughly twice the amount than was initially assessed." This would have also impacted the numbers of cancers that the accident would have caused, said the authors. Previously, it was thought that the radiation would have eventually led to about 200 cases of cancer, but the new contamination figures suggest it could have caused about 240. The researchers said most of the radioactive materials released had now decayed and posed no ongoing risk, but small quantities of caesium and plutonium remained." Similarly, there are still sheep in the UK that are radioactive from eating Chernobyl-dusted grass. The explosion (late 1950s) of a radioactive waste dump in Siberia was hushed up until 1978. Recently (2006), lorry-loaded drums containing intensely radioactive materials were discovered to be irradiating all in their path as they were transported across the UK.

I am not a pessimist, but I firmly believe that, given sufficient time, something that can go wrong will go wrong. There is enough evidence littering recent history to justify this statement with ease: Apollo 13 and the fire in the Channel Tunnel are two celebrated accidents in which, mercifully, no-one was killed. The August 2004 power outage that hit much of the US eastern seaboard and much of populated eastern Canada involved a sensitive, vulnerable, complex system, and my uncle and aunt were stranded on the eighth floor of their appartment block for want of power to operate the elevator. Any number of train crashes, ferry sinkings and aircraft downings demonstrate our personal vulnerability when things go wrong. In each case, the people killed or injured were usually limited to those directly involved. When a nuclear power station goes wrong, it has the potential to affect the lives of thousands or even millions of people.

A recent (2007) earthquake in Japan caused the long-term closure of the country's foremost nuclear power station, a consequent shortfall in electricity production, and the need to buy crude oil for burning to turn the turbines. A second Japanese nuclear power station went off-line today, as a result of significant operation irregularities. No date has been set for either of these nuclear power stations to be returned to electricity production.

The nuclear power industry presents itself as a model of safety. However, the following news report illustrates the everydayness of safety-compromised events at nuclear power facilities.

"Frankfurt, Germany, 5 February 2008, Reuters News Service

A fire started at Vattenfall Europe's currently closed Kruemmel nuclear plant in northern German but was quickly put out by the plant's own fire brigade on Monday, the operator and local government said. No radioactive substances had been released and all relevant authorities had been informed, Vattenfall said in a statement. The 1,402 megawatt plant, which is jointly operated by the Swedish/German utility Vattanfall utility group and by Germany's E.ON has been closed since June 28, 2007 when a fire at a transformer sub-station caused a short circuit. The Social Affairs Ministry in the northern state of Schleswig Holstein, which supervises nuclear safety, said the incident took place around 0700 GMT and was resolved shortly after 0800 GMT. The internal fire brigade had dealt with the fire so there had been no need to involve public fire fighters, it said. There were no injuries. Vattenfall confirmed the details in a statement, saying there had been a smouldering fire at a ventilation system.

Germany is in the process of phasing out nuclear power by 2020 under plans agreed by the previous coalition of Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens. The plans are being contested by the conservative parties CDU/CSU, which are currently in a coalition government with the SPD. Each safety-related incident is helping to weaken their arguments and reignite fears over the safety of the technology.

A statement from the ministry said the cause of the fire had not yet been determined but its experts were investigating at the site. The 24-year old Kruemmel reactor is about 20 km (12.43 miles) southeast of Hamburg on the River Elbe. Adjacent Brunsbuettel, another nuclear plant operated jointly by Vattenfall and E.ON, with 806 megawatts of capacity, also remains shut since the incidents last summer. Environmental organisation Greenpeace called for the permanent closure of the two plants. "The latest fire at Kruemmel shows that reactors cannot be operated safely," it said in a statement, adding that power markets were managing without the supply.

Utilities say they need to prolong nuclear operations to win time to meet increasingly ambitious goals for curbing emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide.Nuclear-derived power generation emits no carbon dioxide, although the process of mining and enriching uranium does. Alternative renewable energies are not yet fully commercially viable.

Before Monday's incident, Kruemmel had been expected to re-open possibly in mid-May, and Brunsbuettel at the end of March at the earliest. Vattenfall says each day of standstill at the two plants costs it several hundred thousand euros. (Reporting by Vera Eckert, editing by James Jukwey)"

The following text is from the Wikipedia web page regarding the Tricastin nuclear power centre in southern France:

"In July of 2008, 18,000 liters (4,755 Gallons) of Uranium solution containing natural uranium were accidentally released. Due to cleaning and repair work the containment system for a uranium solution holding tank was not functional when the tank filled. The inflow exceeded the tank's capacity and 30 cubic meters of Uranium solution leaked with 18 cubic meters spilled to the ground. Testing found elevated uranium levels in the nearby Gaffière and Lauzon rivers. The liquid that escaped to the ground contained about 75kg of unenriched uranium which is toxic as a heavy metal while possessing only slight radioactivity. Estimates for the releases were initially higher, up to 360kg of natural uranium, but revised downward later. ^[3]

French authorities have banned the use of water from the Gaffière and Lauzon for drinking and watering of crops. Swimming, water sports and fishing were also banned."

It is not only the natural environment and members of the public who are placed at risk. The following report by Reuters on 25 July 2008 was written by Muriel Boselli

PARIS - Too many French nuclear workers are being contaminated with low doses of radiation, an independent research group on atomic safety said on Thursday, a day after the latest incident in southern France. The Independent Commission on Research and Information on Radioactivity (CRIIRAD) also said a growing number of French nuclear workers were complaining about worsening working conditions and their likely impact on safety.

"In less than 15 days, the CRIIRAD has been informed of four malfunctions in four nuclear plants, leading to the accidental contamination of 126 workers," CRIIRAD head Corinne Castanier told Reuters in an interview."This is the first time I have seen so many people being contaminated in such a short period of time."

On Wednesday alone, some 100 staff at the nuclear power plant of Tricastin in southeastern France were contaminated with low doses of radiation. The incident followed another on July 7 at the same site, which shook public confidence in the safety of France's nuclear industry, the largest in Europe, at a time when President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to expand it.

The French nuclear safety body, ASN, said that in 2007, less than a 100 nuclear workers had been contaminated by radiation in France, where 80 percent of power is produced by atomic energy.The CRIIRAD also criticised French state-owned nuclear operator EDF for saying the latest contamination incident had no impact on people's health or on the environment because the radiation doses were below the regulatory limits set by international standards.

"The regulatory limits for radiation... do not mean there is no risk but relate to a maximum risk level that can be permitted," the CRIIRAD said in a note published on its website on Thursday.The CRIIRAD was created in 1986 to give independent nuclear expertise after the French government wrongly claimed the Chernobyl radioactive cloud had stopped at the Italian border and told the population no safety measures were needed.

Castanier added that the morale of staff at nuclear power plants was especially low and the number of calls her organisation had received in the last year had soared.The calls came from staff and temporary workers at nuclear sites, who informed them about the worsening working conditions. Pressure was especially acute during maintenance periods at reactors, which have considerably shortened, the CRIIRAD added.

In the 1980s, the Irish government formally complained that the Irish Sea was being made intolerably radioactive. The coast of Dumfries and Galloway is considered by many to be contaminated with radioactivity. Despite official denials, epidemiological studies have shown an increase in the incidence of certain kinds of cancer in western Cumbria, UK. Nuclear power stations discharge radioactivity into the environment. This is an environmental cost that should be considered unacceptable.

Radioactive Fish (Weblog posting 30 May 21012)

According to study results just released, radioactive pollution from the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year (April 2011) was found in fish caught off the North American coast only four months later. Whilst it was shown that the intensity of the radiation was relatively low, this does not negate the fact that environmental effects of the disaster have spread from the locale and the region to the hemisphere. This new evidence proves once again that nuclear contamination continues to poison the planet. Even if, like Germany, all countries abandoned nuclear power production immediately, the effects of radioactive pollution will yet be felt for thousands of years. It makes no sense to compound the accumulation of problems by continuing this outrageous assault on the environment. Moving away from nuclear power to renewable energy production is the only course of action which will protect the planet.

Terrorism

It barely needs to be stated that nuclear facilities pose an especial risk regarding terrorism. The terrorists who were able to use aircraft as missiles to hit the World Trade Centre in Manhattan demonstrated that nothing is inviolate, nothing is invulnerable. A report published in September 2007 stated that the UK is stockpiling 100 tonnes of plutonium powder, the existence of which poses a significant terrorist threat. There are alternative forms of energy production likely to be less attractive to terrorists. Blowing up a wind turbine, or even a coal-fired power station do not carry the potential to irradiate vast tracts of land and populations.

The nuclear power industries in both the UK and Japan have been rocked by scandals involving the long-term systematic falsification of safety figures. Systematic malpractice has also been evident in Russia and the US. Nuclear power production has repeatedly shown itself to be a situation in which decent, honest, professional men and women are twisted into systematic dishonesty.

In order to protect nuclear facilities and nuclear materials, companies and the national state are compelled to institute military(-style) security. There are alternative forms of energy production that are more people- and freedom-friendly.

The processes of nuclear energy development and production produce large quantities of dangerously radioactive waste. Some of this waste is spent nuclear fuel, which will continue to be highly radioactive for thousands of years. (In recent years there have been international news stories about pariah ships laden with high-grade radioactive waste plying the oceans in vain for a port that would permit the unloading of its unwanted cargo. One can only hope that none of these ships capsize in heavy seas, or run aground, spilling contaminants on a continental shelf.) Most of the waste from nuclear power stations, however, consists of radioactively-contaminated components, such as pipes and concrete. The nuclear industry claims to have developed a method of disposal for the waste it produces. This involves grinding everything up into tiny fragments and encapsulating the resulting grit or flour in glass and then burying the radioactive glass in a deep mine for the necessary thousands of years. I have to confess that the arrogance of such an idea strikes me as darkly humorous. Burdening future generations with the responsibilities to guard indefinitely the poisonous faeces of a misguided Frankenstein is a storyline drawn from the nightmare fantasies of manga and anime.

The costs associated with researching, developing, constructing, fuelling, maintaining, storing the waste from, and finally decommissioning, a nuclear power station are astronomical. Perhaps it is in the nature of governments to prefer to commission large and expensive projects, instead of laying the groundwork for the local and the small-scale. There are cheaper alternative forms of energy production. If all the money spent on attempting to create and maintain a nuclear power industry had been spent on renewable sources of energy, power generation could now have been decades into the future

The cost, complexity and security issues inevitably place the production of electricity by nuclear power in the hands of governments (including Iran and North Korea, although nuclear proliferation is a separate issue) and large corporations. I have a strong preference for electricity production being both widely distributed and as closely as possible under the control of its consumers: the Nissan car factory in Washington, UK, has several wind turbines [find out what proportion of the plant's power requirements are satisfied by these wind turbines].

Conclusion

From everything written above, it seems self evident that nuclear power is a very bad idea.

Nuclear power? No thanks! Merci, non! Nein danke! No gracias! Nyet!