Can we continue regaurding nuclear energy as a viable energy option for the future? M

Published on Thursday, July 31, 2008 by Inter Press Service
Accidents Make Nuclear Questions Bigger

by Julio Godoy



PARIS - The recent proliferation of accidents at nuclear power plants in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia and elsewhere in Europe has made calls for greater reliance on nuclear energy questionable, experts say.

Several accidents were reported in mid-July at three nuclear power plants in the south of France. They came days after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Jul. 3 that his government had decided to construct a new nuclear power plant.

In one accident at Tricastin on Jul. 7, up to 30,000 litres of a solution contaminated with more than 70 kilograms of uranium leaked into ground water. The plant is located near the medieval city Avignon, 530 km south of Paris, in a densely populated area with intensive agriculture.

The leak forced authorities to ban use of water for agricultural and domestic purposes around the plant for several days. The accident drew sharp criticism of Electricité de France, the state-owned power generation monopoly. It first concealed the leak, and reacted to it several hours after it had happened.

At the same plant, about 100 workers were contaminated with radioactive dust containing during maintenance operations Jul. 23.

Five days earlier, another uranium leak occurred at the Romans-sur-Isère plant, some 80 km north-east of Tricastin. Some reports suggested that this leak has been continuing for years.

A fourth accident occurred at the plant at Saint Alban, in the same region, 115 km north of Tricastin. Fifteen workers were exposed to radioactive dust.

Environmental groups say similar incidents occurred during July at the nuclear power plants at Nogent sur Seine, 80 km southeast of Paris, and Gravelines, near the border with Belgium.

“In less than 15 days, we have received information of the accidental contamination of 126 persons working in nuclear power plants,” says Bruno Chareyron, an engineer in nuclear physics, and director of research at the independent investigative commission on radioactivity CRIIRAD (after its French name).

Chareyron told IPS that CRIIRAD had knowledge of other leaks in Tricastin last year. “Carbone 14 and tritium were released into the atmosphere,” he said. “This time, uranium leaked for several hours before the authorities were warned and precaution measures were put in place.”

According to CRIIRAD, the Jul. 7 leak represented at least 17 times the maximum radioactivity allowed legally for a whole year.

Annie Thábaud-Mony, a physician at the French National Institute for Medical and Health Research, says contamination of workers “confronted regularly with important irradiation increases the risks of contracting diseases associated with ionising radiation, such as cancers and disorders affecting the human reproductive cycles.”

All facilities involved in the accidents are the property of AREVA, the state-owned monopoly which constructs nuclear power plants in France. AREVA is also involved in the construction of nuclear power plants abroad.

The new power plant announced by Sarkozy will use pressurised water reactor (PWR) technology. Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, had decided in 2006 to construct the first PWR in Flamanville on the northwest Atlantic coast, by the English Channel.

The PWR in Flamanville is under construction, and is expected to go into production in 2012, and produce 1,600 megawatts of electricity. But the project has been hit by delays, and construction began really only in December last year.

“We want that nuclear energy be one of the main answers to the oil crisis we are facing today,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon announced. France has long relied on nuclear energy. A total of 58 nuclear power plants produce some 63,000 megawatts, 80 percent of the electricity consumed in France.

But, like all other countries using nuclear energy, France has not found a solution to the disposal of nuclear waste. And, judging by the recent string of accidents, it cannot claim that its nuclear power plants are absolutely safe.

“All these accidents show that, beyond the official incantations praising nuclear power, this technology remains a source of pollution, enormous dangers, and very difficult to deal with,” Fréderic Marillier of Greenpeace France told IPS.

Marillier says that some 900 incidents officially classified as unimportant occur in French nuclear power plants on average every year, in addition to “constant leaks around their facilities.”

Greenpeace has called for a suspension of the PWR programme. It points out that a PWR reactor under construction in Finland, in which AREVA is a partner, has faced numerous setbacks, and will go into production only in 2011, after more than two years delay and a 50 percent increase in construction costs.

Numerous accidents in European nuclear power plants have occurred in recent months. In Sweden, a fire broke out Jul. 11 at the plant at Ringhals, near the city Göteborg. In Spain, accidents led politicians and environmentalists to call for closing the nuclear power plant at Cofrentes, 70 km west of the Mediterranean city Valencia.

As at Tricastin, several accidents took place at Cofrentes, one of seven Spanish nuclear power plants. First, radioactive material was found just outside the plant. Later, on Jul. 13, the plant was automatically shut down after an abnormal surge of power was registered.

Fernando Giner, mayor of Vallada town 60 km south of the plant, says at least 22 accidents have been registered at the Cofrentes plant since January 2007. Giner, member of the right-wing Popular party, has urged the government to close down the plant.

In Germany, two nuclear power plants near Hamburg had to close in March. But leading members of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) have been calling for reversal of a decision taken in 2000 to phase out nuclear power by 2022. That decision was taken by the coalition government of the time, formed by the SPD and the Green party.

“The retreat from the phasing out will come,” former chancellor Helmut Schmidt from the SPD said in an interview with the conservative weekly Die Zeit. “I find it surprising that Germans believe, in contrast to all other industrialised nations, that they can get by without nuclear power.”

Schmidt admitted that nuclear power brings environmental and health risks. “But there is nothing in the world, not even love, that is without risk.”


URL to article: Accidents Make Nuclear Questions Bigger - CommonDreams.org

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Yes.

Cheap
Abundant
Clean
Safe (accidents are rare and it has a far better track record environmentally than most other energy suppliers). A few minor accidents here and there don't negate the vast value of nuclear power. That's just silly talk.

Phasing out nuclear power because of minor accidents happening is absurd idiocy, to put it bluntly, manufactured by ignorant greenpeace-like greens. And whatta ya know...the picture is related to greenpeace propaganda...they admit it! As I said before: if we listened to those greenpeace nutters instead of the educated people on this topic, we'd be eating stewed chickweed and acorns, living in caves. NO thanks.

I've never understood how anyone could call nuclear energy clean... If it were so clean, why does the disposal of nuclear waste present such a problem?

Nuclear energy isn't clean since it generates waste that will emit radiation for thousands of years. It is extremely short-sighted to continue to generate such toxic, UNCLEAN material.

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"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

It's clean in terms of emissions. Nukes produce very few emissions. Unlike many other energy industries (e.g. coal, oil), sequestration of waste products is more manageable, easier. Coal tends to pump radioactive soot, ash that cause all manner of problems right into the atmosphere. CO2 emissions are also a problem. Nuclear power largely bypasses this.

Of course Nukes do have waste, so they are not 100% clean technology, but even many of the Green technologies produce some form of pollution or waste at some point in use or production, so if you are going to argue by the logic that something must be 100% clean, or it's not clean, then green != clean either.

Nukes are a vast improvement, pollution-wise, over oil and coal. It has the safest rating in the industry to boot. Properly managed, there will be very little ecological damage from nuclear plant except for occasional minor accidents as the above which are dealt with. Coal and Oil routinely pollute the environment through normal use.

The disposal of nuclear waste is such a problem:

A. Because of political bungling in the United States, as I mentioned prior. Spent fuel reprocessing is an excellent way to eliminate a large portion of the nuclear waste issue by recycling it into useful products. Some will remain, but can be safely stored for a lifetime (and then maintained) in durable containers. Modern nuclear waste containers are tested rigorously under the following hazard conditions:

1. Total immolation
2. Total submersion
3. High speed impact and puncture


They test these things by flinging them at concrete walls at high speed, submerging them in water for extended periods, and setting them on fire. They are quite up to the task of containing nuclear waste. There are also new types of reactors in development that further reduce the chance of catastrophic failure and waste production.

B. Another major problem is the culture of NIMBY. No one wants it in their backyard. A secondary issue are the Greens who, well-intentioned, are foolishly misguided. In large part due to organizations of laymen such as Greenpeace, a lot of anti-nuclear propaganda has been spread and infected the minds of the population, thus turning them against an excellent source of energy. Greenpeace is simply wrong and doing a disservice to society through its propagation of ignorance.

Minor accidents keep happening over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. So what does it take? A major meltdown? Loss of 2 million people, contamination of a part of Europe for 10,000 years? Terrorists bombing a nuclear plant and doing the same level of damage?

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Major meltdowns won't happen or are very unlikely with modern technology and the newer reactor and facility designs. It's just scaremongring, for the most part. Terrorists aren't going to bomb anything. That's another threat mongring worthy of the Bush administration. It's actually far easier just to smuggle in a nuke or radioactive bomb than to try to attack a nuclear facility, getting through layers of static defenses.

Minor accidents happen in coal, oil, and all mining. IN comparision, nuclear power's minor events are no more damaging than coal or oil. If anything, it's considerably less harmful ecologically when understood in total, in the long-term. Every day we pump more harmful chemicals into the environment with coal and oil than we have throughout the entire history of nuclear power.

Why build anything if terrorists can just blow it up and cause damage?

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Major meltdowns won't happen" because ..... you said so and you should know because you are on the corporate time clock?

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Of all these "accidents" what has been the total cost in terms of money? In terms of enviromental damage? In terms of human life?

Than compare that to Oil, Coal, Hydro, and any other power source you so want for the same time period. I dare you.

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"The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness...This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector."


"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."

--Plato

Major meltdowns won't happen or they would be rare. I explained that this is due to modern safety precautions and reactor types, not because I say so. Modern reactors, such as breeder reactors, make it virtually impossible to have a meltdown. Look them up. Do research for a change instead of trying to be snide and accuse people of working for the nuclear industry whenever they disagree with your whacky nonsense.

Obviously, you must be a Greenpeace activist. See? I can make accusations about your occupation too, just like you. Ain't it fun zippy? I don't and never have worked for the nuclear industry.

You are clearly very poorly informed on this issue as well as arrogantly snide when corrected on misconceptions. This is a pattern with you. Very adolescent behaviour.