Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant

Protest against jaitapur nuclear power plant, Pune 17 March 2010
Protest against Jaitapur nuclear power plant

Ernest Moniz an MIT prof co authored a report says electricity generated by a nuclear plant in 2003 is 60% more costlty than power from traditional gas and coal-driven plants Not one expert including me can give an accurate decommissioning costs of a nuclear plant as most of the long lived high level wastes have to be safely stored for a million years, without getting in to the environment. . A committee of 15 leading scientists from universities, research institutes and consultancies studied nuclear waste stored in cooling ponds at 103 US reactors. In its report, released publicly on 6 April, 2005 the committee argues that the cooling ponds in which spent radioactive fuel is kept could be severely damaged by aircraft, high-powered weapons or explosives. If the water drained from the cooling ponds, the zirconium alloy fuel cladding would overheat and burst into flames. This “could release large quantities of radioactive material into the environment.
Germany is installing solar panels at the speed of light and Iceland is exploiting its geothermal and hydropower resources beyond its own needs to keep away from nuke power. Research shows that nuke power not needed to cut CO 2. Japan is trying to improve energy efficiency to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. USA is proceeding with one of the largest solar cell research effort to increase the efficiency of solar cells. Solar cells are sensitive only to photons with wavelengths that correspond to the energy gap of the material from which they are made. When photons with this wavelength reach the cell, they excite electrons into the conduction band of the material, where they are registered as an electrical current. But higher-energy photons cannot contribute to this current, and can reduce the efficiency of the cell by heating it up. High-energy photons could be harnessed and converted into current, using a ‘down-converter’ proposed by physicists in Australia and Germany and Solar cells could get an efficiency from the current maximum of 30% to almost 40%. . The present commercial solar cells have a maximum of 24.7% efficiency and US efforts are aiming for 50% efficiency.
Don’t waste huge sums in nuclear power, but go for Jatropa plant cultivation and solar power generation. Flexible cheap solar panels and panels that converts heat rather than light is on the way. The ordinary grass converts the solar power with an efficiency of 1%. A grass burning power plant is now under construction in UK at a cost of £6.5m in Staffordshire that will burn locally cultivated elephant grass and will be able to supply 2,000 homes with electricity. A small evergreen tree Jatropa plant (Botanical name-Jatropa carcass, in Hindi Jangliarandi, Bagherenda in Kannada Bettadaharalu, Mahaharalu, in Tamil Rattamankku, Telugu Adaviamudamu, in Sanskrit Arvataranda) yields oil which is used for making soaps; candle etc. is an ideal diesel substitute. A yield of 9,000- 12, 000/ kg seed / hectare is expected from a rain fed crop. The kernel contains 40% oil. Trials in or Railways and IOC were successful. Go for environmentally friendly energy sources.
It would have been ideal if we spend these huge sums being wasted in nuclear power, in Jatropa plant cultivation and solar power generation. The ordinary grass converts the solar power with an efficiency of 1%. A grass burning power plant is now under construction in UK at a cost of £6.5m in Staffordshire that will burn locally cultivated elephant grass and will be able to supply 2,000 homes with electricity. A small evergreen tree Jatropa plant (Botanical name-Jatropa carcass, in Hindi Jangliarandi, Bagherenda in Kannada Bettadaharalu, Mahaharalu, in Tamil Rattamankku, Telugu Adaviamudamu, in Sanskrit Arvataranda) yields oil which is used for making soaps; candle etc. is an ideal diesel substitute. A yield of 9,000- 12, 000/ kg seed / hectare is expected from a rain fed crop. The kernel contains 40% oil. Successful trial runs by Indian railways and Indian Oil Corporations were done two years back. Instead of Nuclear power we should concentrate on environmentally friendly energy sources.
Those criminals who cry for nuclear power have no idea why many nations have stopped nuclear power plants. My advice is not to marry anyone working in the nuclear field including oncology doctors or X ray technicians or those living near nuclear plants. DAE use daily wage workers for working in radiation environment. I used to see Andhra labourers along with their kids sitting on the lawns of the plutonium plant in BARC. The lawns are contaminated with radiation. The radiation exposure to these workers or their kids were never monitored.BARC has a radiation protection division that is supposed to monitor radiation exposure to all radiation related personnel in all establishments in India. DAE had failed in this mission and that staff and visitors are routinely exposed to radiation from even in diagnostic clinics using the X ray units all over India. What USA wants from India is coolies to get exposed in USA for reactor decommissioning, like we expose our labourers to radiation damage Also USA wants to dump its used fuel and waste in India to be processed by Indian coolies. USA stopped its plans to bury its nuclear waste after spending $10billion in a deep rocky formation and is looking for alternate location or dump it in India. The reason for the three mile accident and the Chernobyl accident was the absence of experienced senior staff in the control rooms of the reactors. DAE is not attrcting the best of talents who are willing to work in radiation environments. Due to lack of shift engineers women is put as shift engineers in India. This should not be done as womenare born with all the eggs, and exposure to any radiation can cause birth defects of their kids. India should not go for unsafe costly nuclear power plants. Instead go for Wind, tide, solar and gas power plants. Kalpakkam breeder reactor designers were not knowing what is a tsunami and tsunami had flooded the nuclear plant and killed many engineers and scientists. Tamil Nadu will become a chernobyl once the breeder reactor is operational.. BARC reactors are in earthquake zone and yet they are not designed for it. RAPP is another earthquake zone. Tsnami which affected the nuke installation in Tamil nadu is not even known to any of the design engineers of Atomic Energy. So much for our nuke installations. US supplied Tarapur units were a national disaster in terms of contamination and radiation exposure. Most of the reactors built in Tromby or Narora does not meet the earthquake criteria and Mumbai becoming another Chernobyl is not far away.
Al-Qaida has obtained 40 nuclear weapons from former Soviet Union, including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and missile warheads. At least half the nuclear weapons in the Al-Qaida arsenal were obtained for cash from the Chechen terrorist allies. Documents captured in Afghanistan show that Al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market. The rogue Paki scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, with his nuke nerve center in Dubai at his ‘SMB Computer’ shop, sold nuclear technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea. His undiscovered illegal networks may be still be manned by Pakistan’s ISI and could be working for Al-Qaida. ISI is still training Indian and British muslim terrorists. Muslim terrorist threats to our Nuke installations have increased after the nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States. US and Russia had recently signed an agreement to toughen nuclear counter-proliferation measures. US is seeking Indian help to contain the threat of nuke attacks by muslim terrorists in US and in India.
Other nations are not going for nuclear power as it is not safe and highly expensive and is a threat to our future generations. In 2002 there was a news item that GOI had sanctioned some 3000 odd crores for the construction of nuclear power stations. Yet no one discussed it in Parliament, but the Coffin attracted the full attention of the MPs for days. This effect is known as Parkinson’s Law. Simply put the MPs can discuss only what they can grasp. The impact of nuclear power which cost around Rs 5 crore per MW is hardly registered even among the news media. Britain is already planning to wind down their nuclear power stations by 2050, and our self serving scientists are planning to bring up the nuclear power capacity to 20,000 MW by 2020. Nuclear power is simply too dangerous and expensive. Other concerns are radioactive waste, accidents, terrorism and we may have to safe keep the waste even up to 1.5 million years. A better decision would have been an increased spending on wind, tide, solar or other renewable power sources.
Soviet Union during the Cold War deployed tactical nuclear weapons throughout US. These nuclear suitcases had been buried throughout the U.S at remote sites throughout US for recovery by Soviet agents. No one knows where are these located. Russian defector Stanislav Lunev confirmed this to US congressional investigators and he could not pinpoint the locations. Russian military leaders continue to believe that a nuclear conflict with the U.S. is still inevitable. U.S. have excavated several sites believed to be possible depots and the only hope of finding them would be if the Russian government disclosed the locations. Belgium have found three secret depots containing tactical nukes buried by the Soviets in the 1960s. Bin Laden hired former Soviet special forces officers whose job was to know where these buried suitcase bombs are. The nuke attacks in US may start when these weapons are located. Based on captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border with the help of organized US crime group like the MS-13 street gang. According to other reports,
Bin Laden started plotting the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania when he was in Sudan in 1993. The attack on the USS Cole was more than two years in the making. Between the first attack on the World Trade Center and the second one had a gap of 10 years. Bin Laden may re-enacting the 1945 attack on Japan with one nuclear detonation in India followed by another in USA days later and India could be a target just because of the Indo US nuke treachery. But according to al-Qaida defectors the nuke terror could take place simultaneously at various sites throughout USA and the plans for this have been under development for more than a decade. It is designed as a final deadly blow of defeat to the the Great Satan U.S. The targets include New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Houston, Las Vegas, and Valdez, Alaska, where the tankers are filled with oil from the Trans-Alaska pipeline. Osama bin Laden’s preferred dates are Aug. 6, the anniversary of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing in 1945, Sept. 11 and May 14, the anniversary of the re-creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
India has deployed National Security Guards (NSG) at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) but is not sufficient to stop the suicide bombers. Other nations have deployed exclusion zones around nuke plants, anti aircraft guns, sniffing dogs, automatic barriers etc, and India has only the disposable humans to protect the nuke facilities. External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee on 24-11-06 raised the spectre of terrorist outfits operating in India’s neighbourhood laying their hands on weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Dec. 16, 2008 The directorate-general of civil aviation has prohibited flying of aircraft upto the height of 10,000 feet over the area within a radius of 10 km from the Kalpakkam nuclear installation in Tamil Nadu. As per The Guardian newspaper dated November 14 2006, British intelligence officials believe that al-Qaida is determined to attack the UK with a nuclear weapon. This bleak assessments of Britain is based on an awful lot of chatter on jihadi websites expressing the desire to acquire chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. Also Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, had warned recently about 30 active plots to attack Britain at a time when Dhiren Barot, was jailed in UK for 40 years for plotting dirty bomb attacks against UK and US
Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), is al-Qaida’s north African wing, had carried out the suicide bombing at the French embassy in Mauritania. One French-Algerian nuclear terrorist, arrested in France, in Oct 2009 was an engineer at the nuclear research centre on the French-Swiss border. He also worked at CERN famous for its particle collider that aims to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang, This French nuclear terrorist had been in contact with AQIM and had suggested French targets for attacks.
When the nuclear bomb project was taken up Indira Gandhi had instructed that not a single muslim should be employed even as a typist in that section. The complete group that worked on the project was not told about the purpose of their work, but everyone was told orally to develop a particular portion of the project and its end use was not revealed. That was the level of secrecy that was required as BARC was filled with Pakistni and American spies in administrative levels. There is a large component of Pak linked persons in DAE and the nuclear plants are no more safe in India. All it takes is a knowledgable person willing co commit suicide, working in DAE to cause a Chernobyl or Three mile Island accident in India. Recent Kaiga heavy water ingestion is fresh in our memory and the investigation went nowhere.
US supplied Tarapur units were a national disaster and on 13 May 1992 the tube leak caused a radioactive release of 12 Curies of radioactivity from Tarapur nuclear power station and for repairs, DAE had to mobilize all the staff from all over India and most of them got burned in the highly radioactive areas of Tarapur and many died.
Japanese are protesting over re-opening of Japanese nuclear reactor
today the 7 May 2010. Protest is against Japan’s Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) starting of its fast-breeder Monju nuclear reactor that was shut down following a liquid of sodium leak and fire in 1995. The accident happened just after four months of its start-up in August 1995. Japanese does not want any more Hiroshima, or Nagasaki from nuclear power station. In Germany a fully completed fast breeder was not put in to operation due to fears of safety. India is just starting with our own fast breeder reactor and we do not need terrorists to create a Chernobyl in India
Well water of heavily populated Mumbai suburb Chembur which is just 3 kms from BARC showed heavy radioactive contamination in the seventies and this information was kept secret. But in December 1991, due to a serious radioactive leakage from underground pipelines at CIRUS reactor in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre this information became public. Very high levels of Cesium-137 activity found in the soil and water samples taken from within BARC. In 1992, marine organisms like crab samples taken from the sea behind BARC showed as high as 500 milli becquerel gram radioactivity showing that any fish caught near any where in Mumbai seashore will result in cancer, miscarriages, birth deformities and low sperm count
Nuclear power plants should be in a 1.6 km exclusion zone. In practice, settlements should be at least five kms away. In Tarapur, the Ghivali village, of 3000 inhabitants, is just 1.23 km from the Tarapur nuclear waste immobilisation plant. Radioactivity from the plant drainage pipe was directly connected to the storm water drains. It contaminated the subsoil water in the village and killed cattleheads, buffaloes and caused many diseases among the villagers. Other severe long term effects could be damages to the chromosomes, that can lead to abnormal childbirths or disabled children. Genetic damage can appear, not in the first generation, but could surface in the unborn generations. In one instance, drinking water to the water cooler was also given to a radioactive processing plant through a non return valve. Valve malfunctioning had caused radioactive water backing up to the water cooler and its consumption at CIRUS, in BARC. So never marry anyone working in any nuclear plants.
Non tech persons of India have no idea about nuke technology. The agreement with USA is like an agreement between two Eskimos on how to construct a multistoried building on ice. Both have no idea about what they are doing. USA stopped nuclear power plants some 31 years back. No good engineer will opt for a stagnant nuclear field . USA has no nuclear fuel and it is obtained from Russia and other countries. Manmohan stopped our mining of Uranium while he was FM and trapped us now to a useless agreement. The only benificiaries is swiss bank account holders of Indian politicians
If a nuclear plant comes up, the only advice I can give to others is to run away from that area or city. Huge deposits of Uranium were found by the Atomic Minerals Division in about 1337 hectares across Lambapur, Namapuram, Yellapur and Peddagutta villages of Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh. The Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) is planning to set up Rs 600 crore plant in Nallamala region. Supreme Court on Aug 30, 1999 issued notice to the Union Government, Uranium Corporation of India; the Atomic Energy Commission and the Deputy Commissioner, Singhbum district of Jharkhand on a public interest petition seeking a direction to take immediate steps to insulate people living in the vicinity of the Jaduguda uranium mine from the hazards of untreated effluents and pollution of uranium mining in the wake of alarming reports that villagers were affected by the radiation from mines. There are environmental impacts for any such uranium opencast mines.
UCIL says mining in AP will not cause health problems and claimed that the water from mining area will not reach Nagarjunasagar which is located nearby because of impervious granite rock formations. There are always fault lines in such rocks and water can definitely reach the reservoir if not immediately, but in due course, and this probability is further increased as the seismic level in these region is quite high. They also claimed that where the tailings pond where uranium waste would be dumped is 10 metre lower than the Akkampally drinking water reservoir which is quite near. Akkampally reservoir is a drinking water source for Hyderabad city. This is also not a good argument as over time, water bodies at higher levels could get contaminated from lower lever sources due to rainwater flooding and similar natural reasons. So if the AP mines become operational, the best way Hyderabais to escape the genetic damage and other radiation related problems is to run away from the city.
India’s human right commission should investigate the operation of the American supplied Tarapur power station had killed some of our Engineers due to radiation overexposre and the damage to the population who are living nearby. Added to this, the DAE chairman and other management level directors have sent practically every DAE employee, for the repair of the contaminated, highly radioactive Tarapur power plant,supplied by USA, in which these unfortunate humans were exposed to lethal level of radiation.. From every DAE department the head of the division have sent engineers, scientists and highly experienced technicians whom they don’t like very much, to be irradiated at Tarapur. The children born to those who were sent there have developed cancers and other diseases. The details of rxposure to each individual is kept secret and not given to them. It can be roughly said that for every 1 RED of radiation, the life span of the will be reduced by one year.
Many nuclear power plants also have ‘once through’ cooling water intake systems that require two and a half times as much water as fossil fuel plants with similar cooling systems, that seriously harm water resources and aquatic water systems. There is an acute shortage of water in places like Rajastan. The Kota nuclear plant accident had earlier resulted in radioactive heavy water leakage in to the nearby river. With the radioactive waste being pumped in to the sea, the sea water and marine life will get contaminated. These radioactive pollutants will be concentrated by the fish. For example the radioactive strontium will be concentrated by a factor of one lakh by the fish and it will find its way to our food chain. A city like Chennai is planning for desalination of sea water for its drinking purposes. Industrial pollution,is up to four miles in to the sea, and the fish is already contaminated with it. In future, the radioactivity will also be there in the fish.
Subsidy the USA nuclear industry received was US $66 billion. The cost per unit for nuclear power is five times the cost of other methods with subsidies. In India, there is heavy subsidy for the nuclear power plants. There is also the taxpayer financed insurance policy for the nuclear plants. It is known that if a major accident occurs like the Chernobyl, whole areas will be laid to waste and the people had to be shifted out. In Trombay, in Mumbai city with more than five reactors and reprocessing plant. A terrorist strike in Trombay will result in total paralysis of Indian economy and Mumbai will become uninhabitable. Assuming that the nuclear power plant is far away, from populated area, a minimum of US $300 billion could be the cost in damage to lives and property due to a major nuclear accident. Price Anderson Act that limits nuclear liability in the event of an accident to about US $7 billion in USA. After an accident, US taxpayers have to make up the difference
Reprocessing plant of France contaminated the Normandy coast in 1997. Greenpeace activists forcibly shut down its beaches when divers found contamination levels in the ocean to be exceedingly above accepted levels. France’s breeder reactor project, the super Phoenix, riddled by accidents, collapsed in its own ashes, Now India is proceeding on the Fast Breeder reactor programme, for which it had sent our Engineers to France, are all now retired and the present group of Engineers are much juniors. India’s first pressurized heavy water nuclear reactor at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan, called RAPS-I that achieved criticality in 1972 was decommissioned in April 2002 as it was a high risk plant and the radiation level in and around the units was a major health hazard.
There were ten terrorist incidents against European nuclear installations between 1966-1977. New York City’s water reservoirs were contaminated with plutonium in April 1985. The testing confirmed it as they detected femto curie levels of plutonium in the water. A caller said to be a member of the Nuclear Liberation Front claimed responsibility for a bomb explosion in the parking lot of Sandia National Laboratories, California, next to LLNL at 1:30 A.M on 28-11-1987. In Pennsylvania at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in 1987 a man drives his station wagon through the fence and wanders on foot for a period of time before he was captured. In Feb 1990 Azerbeijani rebels unsuccessfully attacked a Soviet military depot near Baku where nuclear weapons are stored. Soviet troops were sent to secure the base. In Mar 1992 box of radioactive material was stolen from Pridniestroviye, Transdnestr and the thieves threatened to blow up the material if fighting in Moldova was not stopped.
Our fast breeder reactor is coming up in Kalpakkam. Last time a tsunami flooded the plant as these things were not thought of during design. Every fast breeder reactor is unstable and danger to the population as these reactors are inherently unsafe because of its positive void coefficient. Only one small test fast reactor operates in India in Kalpakkam. The construction of a larger prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam that use mixed plutonium uranium oxide as fuel in its core, with a blanket of depleted uranium oxide that will absorb neutrons and transmute into plutonium 239 is expected by 2010. Liquid sodium will be used to cool the core, which will produce 1,200 megawatts of thermal power and 500 megawatts of electricity. Only low IQ Tamils will allow 80km away such a potential bomb near Chennai city.
In Kalkar in Germany the first full size, commercial fast breeder reactor was constructed by spending $ 5billion.Yet in 1991 the German Government decided to abandon the project as the reactor was unsafe to that nation. It was sold for $30 million and converted to an amusement park. United States that built the first breeder reactor and spend lot of money for more than 20 years abandoned the breeder programme in late 1970s. Japan has shut down its Monju reactor after a sodium fire in December 1995. French breeder program, remained inoperative for the majority of its 11-year lifetime until it was finally shuttered in 1996. Indian Engineers who work in Kapakkam were trained in France and they are going to cause grief to India in the near future. Fast breeder reactors aren’t ready for commercial use. Fast reactors could become a nuclear bomb in layman’s language.
In fast reactors, an accident that rearranges the fuel in the core could lead to an increase in reaction rate and an increase in energy production. If this were to occur quickly, it could lead to a large, explosive energy release that might rupture the reactor vessel and disperse radioactive material into the environment. They have positive coolant void coefficient, that can result in Chernobyl type accident. It means that if the coolant in the central part of the core were to heat up and form bubbles of sodium vapor, the reactivity, a measure of the neutron balance within the core, which determines the reactor’s tendency to change its power level would increase. Core melting could accelerate during an accident. A positive coolant void coefficient, not involving sodium, contributed to the runaway accident in April 1986 Chernobyl reactor. Light water reactors typically have a negative coolant void coefficient so that a loss of coolant reduces the core’s reactivity.
Our smaller fast breeder test reactor, with its much smaller core, doesn’t have a positive coolant void coefficient. DAE doesn’t have real experience of a large fast breeder reactor and these bastards are taking the nation for a radioactive ride. The smaller German reactor designed to produce 760 megawatts of thermal energy would produce 370 megajoules in the event of a core-disruptive accident. In the case of the PFBR, the DAE has lied as usual the worst-case core disruptive accident would release an explosive energy of 100 megajoules only. The U.S. Clinch River Breeder Reactor, which was was designed with a heterogeneous core like PFBR was eventually cancelled. Four percent of the thermal energy could be converted into mechanical energy and can cause ejection of radioactive materials into the atmosphere that can cause vast areas of Tamil Nadu a Chernobyl. The stupid Tamilians are sitting on a possible catastrophic nuclear holocaust from a poorly designed fast breeder reactor.
In june 21 2003, a radiation leak was noticed at the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Kalpakkam near Chennai which is just 48 km from the city. Two scientific officers, B.P. Singh and Sridharan, and a worker named Raju went into the radiation free zone of the reprocessing plant to take routine samples and had suffered excessive exposure to radiation due to this. Kakkodkar tried to hush up the issue. After a week the agitated DAE workers went on a flash strike. Then the management in Kalpakkam to come out with the truth to the media and the public. There is an unhealthy concentration of nuclear power and research units in Kalpakkam that can make Chennai unsafe to live in case of a major accident. The MAPS I and II reactors produces 340 MWe, the IGCAR research reactor produces 30 kilowatts, the fast breeder test reactor produces 40 MWe and the prototype fast breeder reactor using mixed-oxide fuel is scheduled to produce 1,400 MWe by 2008.
Read Daniel Patrick Moynihan the US ambassador (1973-75) wrote a book- A Dangerous Place – ISBN 0316586994. . Economist Dr Ashok Mitra was also Chief financial Advisor to Indira Gandhi wrote a book titled ‘A Prattler’s Tale’ , Samya, 2007, ISBN : 81-85604-80-0, Dr Ashok Mitra was a well known economist and was a former Finance Minister of West Bengal. His book says that the USA asked P.V. Narasimha Rao to make Manmohan Singh as finance minister in his Cabinet. Manmohan Singh was flown back from Washington in a CIA plane, late in the night 20-6-1991 and on 21-6-1991 Singh was sworn in as Finance Minister along with PV Narasimha Rao as PM.. So Manmohan’s foray in to NPT is not surprising. Better the media do the digging on Manmohan’s true background. Sonia Gandhi was planted in India and before marriage was working for ISI under Salman Tassir in London.
Manmohan Singh has sold our DAE to Americans and our future in nuclear technology is doomed because of the additional expenditure that is required to bifurcate civil and mililary nuclear installations. With less and less good engineers joining DAE, coupled with a total lack of interest in basic sciences by the brilliant, our nuclear installations are headed in the direction of Chenobyl. India operates 17 reactors of which 13 are Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) reactors.and another 5 are under construction.These PHWR reactors are CANada Deuterium Uranium reactors (CANDU). . All the current CANDU reactors share a characteristic known as positive coolant void coefficient of reactivity. Under a Large Break Loss of Coolant Accident (LBLOCA) it may lead to a positive feedback, which can, in turn, cause a large power pulse. Recent experiments suggest that this feedback effect may be stronger than originally believed.
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Radioactive water is ingested from water cooler by the staff in nuclear plants. Filtered water to a water cooler could be linked to some radioactive utility tank line that holds radioactive water. These branches are provided with isolating valves and check valves. But there were cases where these check valves malfunctioned after years of service and the radioactive water backing up to the water cooler line. There are many areas were a totally isolated line can not be given to a water cooler. Such things go on unnoticed for sometime. During maintenance workmen in a totally covered suit and with fresh air mask may wrongly connect pipes in radioactive areas. The number of such accidents run in tens of thousands. Kakkodkar has just a day more in service and it is a bad way to end his tenure, after his three times illegally extended service.
A heavy water leak at Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) forced the reactor to be shut down in September 1988. On 5-3-1991, 0.847 tonnes of heavy water escaped from the moderator system. 350 kg was recovered and over 53 % spilled heavy water was released into the atmosphere through the stack and about 3 % was released into the sea. The radioactivity concentration of the heavy water was 10 curies/litre and the radioactivity concentration of the air in the chamber was 3,225 DAC (Derived Air Activity).. In the case of tritiated water vapour, the DAC is 20 microcuries/cubic metre. Clearly, 3,225 DAC of tritium air activity is dangerously high. A worker will receive more than the annual limit if he or she were to work in such an atmosphere for even an hour.This exposure is similar to heavy water ingestion.
At Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) on 26-3-1999, 14 tonnes of 2 curies/kg level of radioactive heavy water from the coolant cycle spilled from the second unit and seven tones or 14,000 curies have been released into the atmosphere through the stack. The permitted level is 300 curies per day per reactor . 42 workers who mopped up the spill for 4 days were subjected to heavy exposure . Seven workers who plugged the leak have been placed in the “removal category” (The Hindu, April 9, 1999). Workers received tritium uptake in excess and that these employees have been removed from regular work. (The Hindu, April 21, 1999). There have been at least two similar accidents at MAPS. The environment pollution result in general public receiving radiation doses from tritiated heavy water. Public exposure limit is 1 mSv/year (or 0.1 rem/year) per person as recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP).but the spill resulted in many times the prescribed limit
Tritium is present naturally in the environment, this amount is too small for practical recovery. Naturally occurring tritium was about 34 million curies, of which 22.2 million curies were contained in the oceans and 9.2 million curies were present in inland areas before the advent of nuclear energy. Nuclear weapons testing has added about 3,600 million curies of tritium in the northern hemisphere. By 1970, only about 2,900 million curies was left, mostly in the oceans; the rest had undergone radioactive disintegration to become helium-3. American light-water reactors generate about 15 to 23 curies of tritium per megawatt year, of which no more than 1 curie is normally released into the environment. CANDU reactors generate about 620 curies per megawatt year, of which about 16 curies to the air, 4 curies to the water are normally released into the environment. The radiological significance of tritium is due to its easy incorporation into all parts of the body that contain water.
Tritium for strategic purposes is produced artificially, with neutrons that are made to strike a target of lithium or aluminum metal, which gives tritium and other by-products or by a neutron reaction with helium-3 which gives tritium and hydrogen as by-products. Tritium is produced in Reactor moderator heavy water, due to the capture of neutrons by deuterium atoms in the water. Tritium is used in medical diagnostics, for hydrogen bombs and to boost the yield of both fission and thermonuclear weapons. Each thermonuclear warhead contains 4 g of the isotope. For neutron bombs designed to release more radiation uses 10-30 g of tritium. USA’s total tritium production since 1955 is about 225 kg which after decay is now has some 75 kg.
Tritium is produced in nature by the action of cosmic rays from outer space. It is also produced by atomic explosions and by nuclear power plants. Each CANDU reactor produces from 30 to 100 times as much tritium as a comparable American light water reactor, because the heavy water in a CANDU “breeds” tritium while the reactor is operating. Tritium resulting from neutron generators etc, is mostly drawn off from the plants into the atmosphere by way of waste gas lines. The tritium poisons the air and since tritium adds on to or builds into water vapor the radioactivity returns to the earth’s upper surface, for example through rain water and can thereby cause environmental poisoning.
Most of the tritium produced in a reactor is as a byproduct of the absorption of neutrons by a chemical known as boron. Boron is a good absorber of neutrons, which nuclear reactors use to help control the fission chain reaction. Toward that end, boron either is added directly to the coolant water or is used in the control rods to control the chain reaction. Tritium can also be produced by absorption in lithium or to a lesser extent from the fission process itself. Tritium can be producedin large amount when neutrons are absorbed heavy water moderator and coolant. Like normal hydrogen, tritium can bond with oxygen to form water. When this happens, the resulting water is called tritiated water and is radioactive. Tritiated water is chemically identical to normal water and the tritium cannot be filtered out of the water. Nuclear power plants routinely and safely release dilute concentrations of tritiated water.
Tritium is almost always found as a liquid and primarily enters the body when people eat or drink food or water containing tritium or absorb it through their skin. People can also inhale tritium as a gas in the air. Once tritium enters the body, it disperses quickly and is uniformly distributed throughout the soft tissues. Half of the tritium is excreted within approximately 10 days after exposure. Workers in weapons facilities; medical, biomedical, or university research facilities; or nuclear fuel cycle facilities receive increased exposures to tritium. A tritium concentration to yield a 4 mrem per year dose as 60,900 pCi/L and the maximum contaminant limit is 20,000 pCi/L. Like all radioactive substances, tritium is a carcinogen, a mutagen, and a teratogen. Laboratory work with mice and rats has clearly shown that tritium is particularly potent as a mutagen and teratogen
Due to an accident,radioactive heavy water or tritiated water leaked out from the core area of the reactor through the pump seals and mingled with the emergency cooling water, contaminating it with 3,500 curies of radioactive tritium and this necessitated a deliberate dump of 3500 curies of tritium into the Ottawa River upstream of Ottawa in Canada, on 19 July, 1981, with no warning to the population or to municipal authorities.
Drums of radioactive heavy water was dumped in to the river by mistake at RAPP. The dumping of high amounts of tritium began in the middle of the 20th century, in multiple locations near nuclear power plants, such as Savannah River in the U.S., or Marcoule in France. Cases of exposure to the radioactive material have been documented in other facilities around the U.K. and Russia.
Tritiated water can be ingested in the liquid form. It can also be inhaled or absorbed through the skin in the form of water vapour or steam, which makes tritium an occupational hazard in CANDU nuclear power plants. In pregnant females, tritium ingested by the mother can cross the placenta and be incorporated directly into the foetus. Like all radioactive substances, tritium can cause cancer, genetic mutations, or developmental defects in unborn children. Passage of tritium in the form of tritiated water from the mother through the placenta and into the foetus results in shrunken heads, sterility, stunting, reduction of the litter size etc. Tritium is capable of inducing dominant lethal mutations, chromosome aberrations and point mutations. Even in low levels, tritium has been linked to developmental problems, reproductive problems, genetic and neurological abnormalities and other health problems.
No threshold or “safe dose” of tritium has been scientifically established for any of these effects. Tritium is four or five times more dangerous for causing cancer than that would be predicted just on the basis of its energy alone. Additionally, there is evidence of adverse health effects on populations living near tritium facilities. Tritium contamination has been reported in many nuclear reactor site in ground water soil from operational releases and accidents. The tritium pilot plant at BARC, Trombay was set up in 1992 and is called the detritiation plant. Tritium is extracted from moderator heavy water that is being used in research and power reactors. The tritium build up in reactors increases with the number of years of plant operation.
CANDU reactors poison us with tritium. Tritium is radioactive hydrogen. It is created and released into the environment in far greater quantities from CANDU reactors than from other nuclear power reactors, such as US light-water designs. Quantities of tritium accumulate in the heavy water existing in the reactor, which is a highly dangerous radioactive substance, and these quantities are higher and higher as the reactor’s operating time increases.The reactors requires heavy water top up throughout the reactors’ lifetime of about 30 years for the water loss through seals etc.This amount is around 12 tons per year per unit and will result in the radioactive pollution with tritium. Higher the heavy water losses means higher the concentration tiritium pollution at the nuclear plant. It would be nothing special, but because of the lack of tightness inherent in any industrial plant, a part of the heavy water infested with radioactive tritium escapes outside the plants and infests the area.
Tritium gas is currently used in certain illuminating devices, as phosphorus can easily be made to glow, by the electrons emitted by the radioactive material. These device, known as ‘trasers’, are used to make self-powered lighting key-chains, exit signs, and watches. The military experiments make use of the similar properties of the radioactive radium in order to make gun sights for fire arms, but has recently been replaced by tritium, since exposure to the radium has greatly increased the risk of getting bone cancer.
40 to 50 employees ingested contaminated water from the water cooler on the premises of heavy water reactor-1, which has been closed for maintenance. Their urine samples were showing increased tritium levels.The most abundant isotope of hydrogen, protium, has one proton and no neutrons in its nucleus. Deuterium is isotope of hydrogen with one proton and one neutron in its nucleus and is stable and non radioactive. Tritium nucleus has one proton and two neutrons. Deuterium oxide or heavy water is used in nuclear reactors. Tritium is produced in the reactors and is radioactive. Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years, meaning that 5.5% of tritium will decay into non radioactive helium-3 every year. Tritium decays to helium-3 atom plus emission of an electron and an electron neutrino and when inhaled and ingested, it can result in radiation poisoning. Radio active normal water ingestion from water coolers have happened in CIRUS reactor in Trombay due to malfunctioning check vales.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) developed the Candu-6 reactor in the early 1970s. The CANDU-6 is the only reactor AECL has sold. Nine CANDU-6s have been built internationally in China (2), Argentina (1), South Korea (4) and Romania (2). Two were built in Canada in New Brunswick and in Quebec. Despite its current promotion of the prototype Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR), the CANDU-6 remains central to AECL’s business plans. AECL hopes to sell additional CANDUs to Argentina, Romania and Turkey India etc. Ontario abandoned its plan to build a CANDU-6 reactor in 2006 as design did not meet safety requirements. AECL is marketing antiquated reactor design. In 1972, AECL started up a prototype reactor called Gentilly-1. The magnitude of positive reactivity by Gentilly-1 was so great it could not operate stably. Containment would not withstand an explosive power pulse of Gentilly-1 from failure of the emergency shut down system and Gentilly-1 was permanently shut down in 1977
CANDU Design has positive reactivity flaw and could experience an explosive power pulse. All new CANDU reactors were mandated to have two independent emergency shutdown systems, that diverged from the approach taken by most other international regulators. The ability of CANDU shutdown systems to operate under accident conditions has not been confirmed by test or experience. Confidence in the estimated effectiveness of CANDU shutdown systems in accident situations is low because of the significant uncertainties in modeling such situations. The CANDU and Chernobyl RBMK reactor designs both exhibit positive reactivity. A significant contributor to the 1986 Chernobyl accident was positive reactivity. The Chernobyl accident spurred Canada’s nuclear regulator to reassess its assumptions regarding the hazards posed by positive reactivity in CANDU reactors. Studies showed a high degree of uncertainty in the assumptions underlying safety assessments for CANDU reactors.
New international safety standards preferred reactors with negative reactivity. AECL complained that the application of international standards would have negative impacts on the marketing prospects of the CANDU-6 internationally and would reflect badly on operating CANDUs in Canada. If modern international safety standards were strictly applied, a reactor with positive reactivity such as the CANDU-6 could not be built. In 2008, AECL was forced to abandon the commissioning of two small MAPLE reactors at Chalk River because they exhibited uncontrollable positive reactivity.In 2001, AECL began a marketing push in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom for its prototype Advanced Canada Reactor (ACR). Unlike the CANDU-6, the ACR is intended to have negative reactivity in order to meet modern licensing requirements. To do this, it uses slightly enriched uranium instead of natural uranium, and light-water cooling.
The CANDU is a pre 911, 2001 design and was not designed to resist a terrorist attack and are vulnerable to terrorism. In 2006, Ontario abandoned its plan to build a new CANDU-6 because of the design changes required to meet post-September 11th safety requirements. While requirements for reactors to be more robust against terrorist attacks continue to evolve since September 11th, it is clear that the CANDU-6 would not meet current standards if they are applied rigorously. AECL is interested in selling additional CANDU-6 reactors to countries such as Turkey, India and Jordan. The economic re-building and extending the life of CANDU reactors, of nuclear power station, is weak and dependent on the modern regulatory requirements and upgrades to the reactors. India does not have a independent and proper Nuclear Safety Commission or safety requirements to protect its citizens as all things are done in house.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) bribed officials in Argentina and South Korea in the 1970s in order to obtain reactor sales. Those bribes totalled at least $22 million. As recently as 1994, AECL’s agent in South Korea was convicted and imprisoned in that country for corruption and bribery, after giving a bribe to the head of KEPCO, the Korean state utility that owns and operates that country’s nuclear power plants. AECL has in the past disguised bribes as agent fees like that was done by the Bofors thief Rajiv Gandhi. AECL’s corrupt practices are never stopped and will benefit the UPA government.
Canada has shut down one third of its own nuclear power reactors due to technological problems. AECL is selling the same flawed technology to other countries. In 1996, CANDU performance was by far the worst of all major reactor types. In Canada, there have been no new reactor orders since 1978 like in USA, where the last uncancelled reactor order was placed in 1973. AECL’s attempt to sell CANDU reactors to Turkey at Akkuyu Bay in December 1996, was cancelled because of a nearby earthquake fault. Terrorists do not need nuclear weapons if they can trigger a catastrophic radiation release by sabotaging or bombing a nuclear power plant. Potential security threats to a nuclear plant in India is both internal and external. India is in a terrorist war with muslims of India and Pakistan. CANDU reactors,or other reactor designs, can experience catastrophic accidents. CANDUs have had their share of serious accidents, and it is only a matter of time before a disastrous accident occurs.
BARC is pouring an enormous amount of radioactive waste in to the Mumbai sea. Similar thing is happening all over the world at the nuclear installations. This unseen undersea radioactive contamination, is finding its way into the food chain. If one goes around the fish market in Mumbai with a Geiger counter I’m sure that one could detect radiation. Other non nuclear agencies are also dumping radioactive waste in to the sea. Italian mafia is dumping European radioactive waste off the coast of Somalia. Europeans are finding that their raw and finished metal stocks are slightly radioactive and in some cases exceeding 70 microSieverts per hour. Western industrialized nations have been indiscriminately dumping their polluted metal waste material to the emerging world because in country disposal is both hazardous and expensive. Much of that came from decommissioned nuclear reactors that were sold into metal recycling industry
UK nuclear industry revealed many waste disposal sites planned and being used but was kept secret for decades. In US nuclear waste is stored in a salt formation 655 metres under the Chihuahuan Desert near Carlsbad in New Mexico. It has also chosen Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert as a potential repository for irradiated fuel from reactors. Deep underground repositories are being investigated in Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium and France. The consensus of scientists internationally is that burial in stable geological formations below 300 metres is likely to be the safest method of disposal in the long term. In India we are yet to see the detailed plan for waste disposal.
In the history of reactors three major accidents are counted of. The first happened in Windscale, England, in 1957, the second case was in the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the USA in 1979. The third and most tragical event occurred in the 4th unit of the Chernobyl power plant in 1986. The 1957 reactor fire at Windscale was possibly the most serious nuclear accident to occur outside the Soviet Union. Large amounts of assorted radio-isotopes were released. Government records altered in cover-up and the name was changed to Sellafield. The accident led to discharges of between 600 and 1,000 TBq of iodine-131, between 444 and 596 TBq of tellurium-132, between 22.2 and 45.5 TBq of caesium-137 and about 0.2 TBq of strontium-90. An estimate of 1369 TBq of Polonium-210 was also released during the fire. It is estimated that due to the fire some 1000 lives were lost due to cancer etc.
Europeans do not consider nuclear energy as an option to tackle the energy supply. There is no more nuclear renaissance in the West. In Bulgaria, Germany, France and Romania the number of people who think nuclear reactors can be run safely has fallen. EU citizens consider that the current share of nuclear energy in the energy mix should be maintained or reduced and they don’t want to increase nuclear power. They feel that there is no security to protect nuclear power plants against terrorist attacks. Another major danger is radioactive waste associated with nuclear energy. Paki terrorists will target our nuke plants and limiting nuclear damages is anti Indian. India should look for green alternates. Placing solar battery panels on the roofs of 10% of houses and buildings and constructing as many windmills at parks and other places as possible could generate 120 million kw, equivalent to the electricity generated by dozens of nuclear reactors.
Human cost and environmental costs are high for nuclear power. Stop the mad rush to nuclear power in India which is capital intensive. After the Three Mile Island accident nuclear power projections were wind down in West. Once the power production is over we have to dismantle the site. Disposal of radioactive waste is a major problem. India has pursued the CANDU type reactors of CANADA. Canada stopped such reactors as these are inherently unsafe due to positive void coeffient and does not meet the 911 safety criteria. CANDU reactors release 20 times more tritium than other type reactors that are in use elsewhere. This result in dangerous discharge of tritium, a highly poisonous radioactive contaminate, similar in toxicity to radon in to the environment. Tritium a low energy beta emitter, and once ingested can damage cells, proteins. Once tritiated water is inside it cannot be detected and result in a slow death. So living near a nuclear power plant in India is not advisable.
Major accidents were seen in Windscale, England, in 1957, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the USA in 1979 and the meltdown of the 4th unit of the Chernobyl power plant in 1986. After 30 years of no nuclear power construction USA has no nuclear manpower to decommission its old reactors and want radiation coolies from India and this is the only reason for this agreement. A survey of official records since the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown in 1979 shows there have been more that 23,000 accidents at U.S. nuclear reactors and the number is increasing. In 1986, there were more than 3,000 reported accidents, up 24 percent since 1984. On first January 1992 about four tons of heavy water was spilled at Rajasthan nuclear power plant . On 13 May 1992 the tube leak caused a radioactive release of 12 Curies of radioactivity from Tarapur nuclear power station supplied by America. Thousands of such incidents were never reported. India is sitting on a powderkeg nuclear disaster.


NALGONDA URANIUM MINES MY ARTICLE PUBLISHED YEARS BACK
Huge deposits of Uranium were found by the Atomic Minerals Division in about 1337 hectares across Lambapur, Namapuram, Yellapur and Peddagutta villages of Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh. The Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) is planning to set up Rs 600 crore plant in Nallamala region.
Uranium is a nature’s gift to us. We already have Jaduguda uranium mines in Jharkhand which is being operated by UCIL. Uranium is very important for nuclear programme and some Western nations like France have occupied African nations for the sake of uranium deposits. It is very important that we exploit this natural resource urgently and what we should do is to avoid pitfalls we had from such mines at Jaduguda. Our Supreme Court on Aug 30, 1999 issued notice to the Union Government, Uranium Corporation of India; the Atomic Energy Commission and the Deputy Commissioner, Singhbum district of Jharkhand on a public interest petition seeking a direction to take immediate steps to insulate people living in the vicinity of the Jaduguda uranium mine from the hazards of untreated effluents and pollution of uranium mining in the wake of alarming reports that villagers were affected by the radiation from mines. There are environmental impacts for any such uranium opencast mines. One important requirement is to resettle the population in and around the area. It was seen in Jaduguda uranium mines, that women faced reproductive problems like spontaneous abortion, infertility; children are born with physical and mental deformities. Even crops and trees have shown deformities in that area. The Nalgonda district is already facing fluoride problem and this mines will add further difficulties for the population and hence large scale resettlement of population from five to ten kilometer radius of the mining and tailing ponds area is a must. Our lessons at Jaduguda will come a long way to avoid the pitfalls we observed there. It was found that that the radiation from nuclear waste crippled the Jaduguda Tribals. Nuclear wastes should be piped to the treatment area from the mines rather than use drains as this will prevent seepage and consequent subsoil water contamination. As we lack honest civic administration or political administration, such precautions should be implemented under the supervision of AP High court and some retired Judges should be made the chairman of any committee formed for such supervision.
The track record of Dept of Atomic Energy or that of UCIL was bad in safety aspects so far. Newspapers claimed that the biggest radiation overexposure in India occurred at the Kalpakkam Reprocessing Plant in Tamil Nadu on 21st January 2003 to some six staff. This came out in the open after three months back when BFEA, the employee association of this BARC facility gave a strike notice. This claim of biggest radiation accident is not true as the worst accident had happened at Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) in the seventies, when the whole plant was contaminated with fission products. A stage had come when every employee at Tarapur was overexposed and workers and engineers were sent from BARC and other atomic energy establishments for the repair jobs at TAPS. The radioactive contamination had spread in and around Tarapur and up to the railway station there. Tarapur was the worst in terms of nuclear accidents and yet so far the public is not aware of it. It is no wonder then that the president of BFEA, R.K.Shenoi was transferred to NRG facilities, Tarapur for his trade union activities, by the Department of Atomic Energy.
Radiation exposure is a fact of life and should be accepted as an occupational hazard by those who work in the Nuclear field and it is like the hazard our Jawans face in the war front. What is required is transparency and accountability so that we avoid pitfalls in the future and avoid wasteful expenditure in the name of national interest. Our plentiful Thorium reserves can be irradiated and converted to U233 fuel that can be used in future breeder reactors. France had trained many of our engineers and scientists in fast breeder technology and a research centre was setup by DAE at Kalpakkam. For India this route is a highly wasteful in terms of our precious resources and we should stop funding the fast breeder programmes and this could save us some Rs 3200 crores. We should also develop uranium enrichment technologies.
UCIL had claimed that the mining will not cause any adverse impact on environment and public health. I have never heard such a tall claim. They also claimed that the water from mining area will not reach Nagarjunasagar which is located nearby because of impervious granite rock formations. There are always fault lines in such rocks and water can definitely reach the reservoir if not immediately, but in due course, and this probability is further increased as the seismic level in these region is quite high. They also claimed that where the tailings pond where uranium waste would be dumped is 10 metre lower than the Akkampally drinking water reservoir which is quite near. Akkampally reservoir is a drinking water source for Hyderabad city. This is also not a good argument as over time, water bodies at higher levels could get contaminated from lower lever sources due to rainwater flooding and similar natural reasons. All these could be overcome by suitable design and proper planning. We should look for maximum credible accidents and carry out independent detailed environmental impact assessment studies, to mitigate all problems. Bad planning and implementations could cause death knell of even Hyderabad city so that all clearance should be given after ensuring proper implementations of protective arrangements to prevent contamination of the drinking water sources. Recent studies have shown that statistically significant cancer cases will be present in surrounding human populations after a period of just 20 years of the existence of even fuel fabrication plants.
In the Banjara Hill area, in Hyderabad, the rocks there have up to 25ppm of Uranium in it and the resultant radioactive radon gas that can cause lung cancer could be high there. A six to seven fold increase in lung and respiratory tract related infections due to pollution is reported in Hyderabad compared to the 1999 figures. With new Uranium mines that can contaminate the drinking water sauces to the city, the dangers to the city are increasing. If the mining project is not implemented without utmost care and seriousness, it could adversely affect some 2.4 crore people in six districts of Andhra Pradesh. Based on the past performance of our Atomic Energy Establishment, one should move away from Hyderabad if the operation of the Uranium mines in Nalgoda is started.
DAE use daily wage workers for working in radiation environment. I used to see Andhra labourers along with their kids sitting on the lawns of the plutonium plant in BARC. The lawns are contaminated with radiation. The radiation exposure to these workers or their kids were never monitored. From the beginning BARC used to have a radiation protection division that is supposed to monitor radiation exposure to all nuclear field related personnel in all establishments in India. DAE had failed in this mission and that staff and visitors are routinely exposed to radiation from even in diagnostic clinics using the X ray units all over India. What USA wants from India is coolies to get exposed in USA like we expose our labourers to radiation damage. Another reason for the treaty is to sell all the junk design that is lying with US firms that are 3 decades old.
Nuclear agreement was signed by President George W.Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh July 18, 2005,with out finalizing any details, and now hiring lobbying firms to canvass it in USA. Government of
India has hired Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, headed by former US ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, and the Venable Law firm, at a cost of $ 1.3 million to the Indian tax payer. US corporates that wants to get contracts in nuclear construction in India have hired
one of the most expensive lobbying firms in Washington known as Patton Boggs, to push the Indo-US nuclear agreement in the US Congress,.US corporations that never got any nuclear contracts, for the last 30
years in USA, as not a single nuclear power reactor was constructed in USA for the last 30 years will take away the contracts that is normally given to L&T, BHEL by DAE. This is one more reason for the agreement.
US president Carter on 20th February 2006 along with the US Senator Barbara Boxer is calling for Nagaland to secede from India that too at a time the current US president Bush is expected in India in March 2006 for a visit. Apparantly Jimmy Carter is pressurizing their CIA man Manmohan Singh to help Nagaland to break away from India.. It will be wise if we do not proceed with the agreement that is not in our national interest. We should never trust US on any nuke agreement as US has gone back on an earler nuke agreement we had on TAP I.
In 1979 at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania and in 1986 at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union there were serious nuclear accidents. TMI had a profound impact on the public’s view of commercial nuclear power. The TMI plant was a
pressurized light-water reactor one of its type was supplied to us and India suffered radiation deaths from it. Chernobyl was the worst reactor accident in history, with 31 people dying of direct radiation
which could eventually near some 4000 fatalities. It also found that most of the five million people living in contaminated areas received doses of radiation when the No. 4 reactor exploded, spreading contamination over Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and parts of Western
Europe, that resulted in the evacuation and relocation of 350,000 persons. If US has to start nuke power after a lapse of 30 years, its manpower has to come from India and this is another reason for this
agreement. US nuclear power plants, its accumulated waste are also vulnerable to terrorist attack. US require low level workers to clean up any radiation mess and that can only be carried out by Indians.
In the early nuclear days, reactors that used plutonium were promoted for offering a solution to the world’s energy problems. Not only do they use plutonium as a fuel, but it was claimed that they even produce or breed more of it during operation. Over the years, all fast breeder reactor programs have turned out to be costly technical failures, whether in France, US, Japan, UK, or Germany. The only fast breeder reactor operating today, with numerous technical problems, is the experimental BN-600 in Byeloyarsk, Russia. USA has none of the type of reactors we are interested or have experience in it.as a working nuclear reactor for power production. So it is very evident that the treaty is a treachery on India and is of much importance to USA. Our Breeder reactors envisage Thorium to U233 conversion and US does not have this knowhow.
Americans are not an intelligent community and never had brilliant fellows. They solved the problem by taking in even Nazi scientists to develop their rockets, and now taking all intelligent immigrants
like our Tamil and Andhra Brahmins. It in the nuclear field that the Americans never got many outsiders, with the result that they continue to commit blunders at the highest level. In 1977 Jimmy Carter signed an executive order which banned the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the US. US thought that when the spent fuel is processed and the Plutonium is separated, it could possibly be stolen, and terrorists might be able to use it to make atomic bombs. Carter and his lot knew that Plutonium is used in atomic bombs, but really did not know that the plutonium separated from the reactor was not useful for making the bomb as that Plutonium contains all types of plutonium isotopes and such bombs will not explode. To get bomb quality plutonium, we have to limit the burn up of uranium. So this foolishness by the Americans has resulted in the accumulation of reactor waste over a long period of time. One reason for this nuke agreement is to make us process their waste.
European Union promised more than 200 million Euros to finance efforts to prevent another Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster for early closing of reactors in Bulgaria , Armenia etc, but these did not materialize so far. Many nuclear plants there are operating in earthquake zone like in India’s case. In India we never discuss the issue of earthquake or tsunami as we are totally ignorant about it. For eg, BARC reactors are in earthquake zone and yet they are not designed for it. RAPP is another earthquake zone. Tsnami which affected the nuke installation in Tamil nadu is not even known to any of the design engineers of Atomic Energy. So much for our nuke installations. US supplied Tarapur units were a national disaster in terms of contamination and radiation exposure.UK bill is £50bn to clean up the nuclear material that has already been created and the amount India has to spend is not even estimated. Placing solar battery panels on the roofs of 10% of houses and buildings and constructing as many windmills at parks and other places as possible could generate 120 million kw, equivalent to the electricity generated by dozens of nuclear reactors.
9500 tons of Uranium in Meghalaya ( News 4-7-05) and also has enough nuclear fuel for the next 40 years as per the CAG report in newspapers on 22-2-2009. We should scrap the nuke deal which is meant to stop our nuke testing program and nothing to do with our nuclear power programme or fuel requirement. India has 319,000 tons of Thorium that is sufficient for 2500 years. Thorium can be converted to U233 which is a fissionable nuclear fuel. USA has no nuclear fuel and are importing it from Russia etc. The nuclear treaty is worse than signing NPT as per our retired AEC chairman Setna. The agreement was done using ISI CIA agent Manmohan Singh and ISI, CIA, OPUS DEI, KGB agent Sonia. Menon was promoted over many and three extensions given to a characterless anti national traitor Anil Kakkodkar to get the nuke deal signed. The treaty is a trechery on India by the christian controlled congress party of India. Anti Indian christian Congress wanted 70% foreign FDI in the Banking sector and the communists stopped it and saved India from meltdown like that happened in USA. One cannot start a nuclear plant in Kerala as the ordinary persons are aware of the dangers of nuclear power. But in Maharastra, Tamil Nadu etc the ordinary persons have no knowledge of the dangers of nuclear waste or nuclear power plants. Even the politician are of very low IQ in Maharastra. Ordinary citizens of Marastra are ready to belive the corrupt politicians like Sharad Pawar of Dhabol power plant and Enron fame.Sharad Pawar has converted Maharastra in to a suicide belt by surrendering the seed business to multinationals. The onion price rise has another reason which is the 300% rise in its seed price supplied by multinationals. What India requires is few research reactors that supply medical and industrial isotopes to the whole of India. These research reactors will produce sufficient Plutonium for our Bombs. But policies of Manmohan made India inferior to Pakistan with around 80 bombs with India against around 95 nuclear bombs with Pakistan.
Reproduction of fish populations are affected in the ocean exposed to nuclear fission products from past atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. The Fish Population Declined following the nuclear tests. Very large declines of fish-populations was observed, after low-altitude nuclear tests. Gradual recovery to pretesting levels have been observed both in the Atlantic and Pacific, strongly suggesting that the eggs of fish and the developing young are far more sensitive to internal radiation from low-level fallout than had been anticipated, very much as in the case of the human-embryo and fetus.
The University of California, home of the Manhattan Project – the atomic bomb project that never ended, will forever be known as the University that poisoned the world. Uranium in environment is causing a global epidemic of diabetes. WHO says that global diabetes rates will increase 10 times by 2030. Animals are also affected and this is accelerating the collapse of the web of life. Mass extinction of all species like the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago. Uranium in drinking water in Los Angeles doubled in 2007 alone, from depleted uranium bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006 depleted uranium was reported in the UK in 7-9 days after bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan. High increases of diabetes is seen in Tasmania, and 50% of the Tasmanian Devil population has been exterminated by mouth cancers since 1993, when uranium mining doubled in Australia. The radioactive dust is carried in southern hemisphere atmospheric circulation patterns to Tasmania in a matter of days.
The European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) says that chronic exposure to low-Ievel ionizing radiation is up to 1000 times more biologically damaging than the International Committee on Radiation Protection (ICRP) standards and risk model predict. This was based on 550 epidemiological studies of exposed populations, an independent low-Ievel ionizing radiation report for the European Parliament. The ICRP standards and risk model are based on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb studies, which were deceptively conducted by the U.S. Government, in order to protect the future development of a nuclear weapons program. Public health impact from global pollution by depleted uranium is worse than the fission products, and was not officially measured or reported from bomb testing. All atomic and hydrogen bombs have thousands of pounds of depleted uranium packed as “tamping” around the small plutonium core weighing less than 20 lbs.
There was major contribution from depleted uranium to global radioactive pollution due to atmospheric testing. A global diabetes epidemic beginning in 1945 with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has had a major contribution from the effects of uranium pollution from atmospheric testing, nuclear power plants, and depleted uranium weaponry introduced to the battlefield in 1991. Uranium is particularly damaging to the pancreas, insulin production, information flow, and cell function. And diabetes in pregnant women has a serious effect on the foetus. Pancreatic cancer mortality in Japanese males increased 12-fold between 1945 and 1965, during the peak of atmospheric testing. Nuclear fission power plants has problem of high-level waste disposal. Building new plants would be a serious mistake. There is no future for nuclear power as of now. Nuclear fusion efforts should continued. Electricity generation from this source is very attractive but it may take another half a century.
Battlefield uranium weapons should be illegal under various conventions of war. Uranium is not localized and the uranium aerosols are long lived in the environment and are able to travel thousands of miles. It was detected in Reading in UK and the DU was used in Baghdad a distance of 2500 miles. This was a lesson learnt during the atmospheric nuclear tests of the 1960s and the subsequent Strontium-90 in milk, and during the Chernobyl accident. The use of battlefield uranium weapons, like the new bunker busting bombs which have more than 1 ton of uranium in the warhead and can result in significant exposure to the public in many countries. Uranium is a powerful genotoxic stressor. The ceramic sub micron Uranium oxide particle can cause heritable genetic effects in areas where uranium has been used and these particles generated.
Since 1945, the University of California and the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Labs together with other nuclear states have blanketed Planet Earth and the global atmosphere with accumulating uranium and fission products with an unknown biological outcome. Low level uranium contamination, even below EPA drinking water standards, is an estrogen or hormone disruptor at a minimum, which means it will have a global affect, and not just on females of many species. Infertility will increase in each future generation because of chronic low-Ievel ionizing radiation exposure, cancers of reproductive organs in females will increase, and the viability of future generations will decline.The link between diabetes and uranium exposure is also significant to the reproductive system, since pregnant women who have diabetes and little health care produce unhealthy babies. The impact of uranium on the pancreas and production and function of insulin, another hormone, is very significant damage to another system.
Uranium is an endocrine-disrupting chemical. It is like the herbicide atrazine, pesticide DDT, plastics-bisphenol A compound found in Nalgene that was banned from baby bottles. Populations exposed to environmental uranium will have increased risk of fertility problems and reproductive cancers. Exposure to uranium and its daughter elements has been linked to lung cancer, kidney damage and bone disease and other medical conditions, from degenerative nerve disease and birth defects to a variety of other cancers. Tailings piles contribute to U contamination in water sources. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limit for drinking water standard for uranium is 30 micrograms per liter and the Canadian standard is 20 micrograms. These carcinogens cause a cell’s DNA to mutate, eventually leading to cancer. Radiation causes the fragile chains of DNA to break, also leading to errors and mutations.
After a series of Bomb blasts since 1993, to 26/11 it is clear that the problem of Mumbai is not to go away. The muslim terrorists will now concentrate on our nuclear installations in Mumbai. It will take only one suicide bomber to lay waste Mumbai if the terrorists are concentrating their attention on our plutonium plant or one of the many nuclear reactors in Trombay. Already LeT operatives are in place in our Air Force and the regular crash of MIG21 could be one of the end results of that. Our nuclear secrets are in the hands of Pakistan as many of the muslim staff who worked in DAE and went to Gulf nations was debriefed by Pak delegations to which I am a witness. So it is only a matter of time that our Trombay will become another Chernobyl and I advise all Mumbaites to plan for relocation as our IB or Govt. is unable to protect these installations. Remember that Sonia and Manmohan were working for ISI and even removed the ban on SIMI and Sonia even went to the extent of defending SIMI in parliament.
As per US Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules a nuclear plant builder should have a damage insurance guaranteed by the U.S. government. In our case GOI have to give a similar guarantee if the plant were to be built in India so that if a Chernobyl happens, the US industry or the Indian company that built it will not be liable for any damages. This make the tariff from a nuclear power plant built by a U.S. company in India costlier besides subsidizing the U.S. firm’s investment in India. Because of this provision, no new nuclear plant has come up in USA for the last 30 years after the Three Mile Island accident. Bush violated the 123 agreement which said other countries would be called into play if fuel supply to India was disrupted. Bush now says no legal binding on fuel. WITH TERRORISM IN INDIA BY CHRISTIAN MAOISTS AND MUSLIM TERRORISTS, A CHERNOBYL IS WAITING TO HAPPEN ANY TIME NOW. AND IF TWO SUICIDE BOMBERS ATTACK A NUKE INSTALLATION, PLACES LIKE BOMBAY WILL BE LIKE CHERNOBYL
NPCIL is the only govt unit that can install nuclear power plant in India. Uranium is not the only issue, but the component suppliers including the reactor vessel worldwide is very acute. Japan Steel Works is the only supplier of reactor pressure vessels except Russia and its capacity is just five vessels per year and it cannot meet India’s demand. JSW order book is full till 2016 and buyers have to pay a premium of $100 million for booking a new vessel. There are only 80 nuke plant component suppliers and 200 certifications companies whereas thirty years back these figures were 400 and 900 respectively.The annual nuke plant constructions in the world is less than 4. Indian demand cannot spur production, as US or Europe are not going for nuke power plants anymore. Plant construction around the world is less than four a year. Indian firms cannot invest the huge sums for nuclear component fabrication as certification to IAEA standards have become mandatory with the nuke agreement.
Nuclear power in France works,was a documentary that went missing after a month. The reason was that there were accidents at two French nuclear installations, injuring seven workers. A third of the French public now oppose nuclear power. Nuclear safety is not there for any nuclear power plant as was seen in Indian incidents. More than 250 secret nuclear reactor accident reports were kept secret.Some of the underreported incidents:
February 1983 — Bulgaria’s Kozluduj nuclear power plant lost pressure in the primary cooling system;
June 1983 — three of four pumps fail in Argentina’s Embalse nuclear plant;
August 1984 — the primary cooling system in West Germany’s Bruno Leuschner plant in Greifswald burst;
January 1985 — at Pakistan’s Kanupp reactor, radioactive heavy water leaks while being transferred through a rubber hose;
April 1985 — radioactive water and sludge swamp two rooms of an auxiliary building at Belgium’s Tihange reactor.
In several of these previously unreported nuclear slipups, a meltdown was a real possibility. A survey of official records since the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown in 1979 shows there have been more that 23,000 accidents at U.S. nuclear reactors and the number is increasing. In 1986, there were more than 3,000 reported accidents, up 24 percent since 1984. India is sitting on a powderkeg nuclear disaster as a result of reliance on the peaceful use of the atom and we may not require muslim terroists ofIndia and the Paki muslim terrorists to do the damage.
The Guardian reported on 14 November 2006 that Al-Qaida is plotting nuclear attack on UK. more nuclear power stations means grater risk of terrorist attack. New generation of nuclear power stations proposed for the UK is more susceptible to terrorist attack. US nuclear power plants ARE ALSO vulnerable to attack BY MUSLIM TERRORISTS. Nuclear waste storage facilities in 103 US reactors esp the cooling ponds in which spent radioactive fuel is kept could be severely damaged by aircraft, high-powered weapons or explosives. If the water drained from the cooling ponds, the zirconium alloy fuel cladding would overheat and burst into flames and could release large quantities of radioactive material into the environment. A large cloud of lethal radioactive fallout could be released by a terrorist attack on the nuclear waste. Such an attack on a cooling pond could release more radioactivity than the Chernobyl reactor accident in Ukraine in 1986. Such a release would cause thousands of deaths from cancer.
Some 130 crore people have died since nuke tech has been in vogue. By suitably defining the effect of radiation this figure is reduced to zero. Radioactive fish from the sea is being caught off the Mumbai seashore, since the BARC was started as most of the liquid radio active waste is simply dumped in to the sea. Same is true for all other nuclear plants including nuke power stations. With no independent monitoring, that was facilitated by the Chidambaram,as AEC chairman people are being irradiated from radiation in DAE facilities. Even without a terrorist attack the poor present leadership of AEC, has made the safety of Indians a big question mark. If there is a terrorist attack, with a dirty bomb, the only option for the public is to leave the place.
In the seventives, one professor sent a neutron souce back to BARC by post without any shielding and it came to the table of a scientist in Hot laboratory. Seeing the condition of the old capsule he thought of checking for radiation,and found to his horror that it was a highly radioactive capsure. In the seventies, radioactive aluminium scap tubes stored in the BARC compound were found to have been stolen and later it was found that they were used as construction material for the Janata colony that is adjacent to the BARC colony in Anushakti Nagar. Lakhs of radioactive devices are in use in hospitals, for which there is no long-term disposal plan. These are tiny capsules of radioactive cesium isotopes; cobalt-60 pellets. Radio active Americium241 is present in smoke detectors and they have to be disposted of as radioactive waste. Yet india has no practical plants that works at the ground level. On 21.07.06 and on 29.01.07 India lost Indidustrial Gamma Radiography exposure device containing Ir-192 source. On 26-8-2009 a radiography device, weighing around 28 kg, fell off the vehicle near Ambedkar Chowk in Pimpri, on the outskirts of Pune while being transported from Mumbai. It was picked up a group of street boys and taken to a nearby village. This could be collected back as the loss was detected after few hours. Hundereds of such cases happen but are never reported as the AERB that is responsible for monitoring it is under DAE and they always try to hush up the incidents. Last year radioactive stainless steel buttons cast in Vipras foundary in pune,reached France after machining and trasportion through many firms exposing everyone along the way. French workers were exposed and it became an international news. Yet the case was never followed up in India. Thus buying and steel or stainless steel product is a dangerous thing in india. In AP, a hospital cobalt source went missing and health minister said that it was washed away by rain. Govt hospitals radioactive waste is ending up in scrap and it end up radio active steel in many Indian homes as furniture. Nuclear power is a one way street that can contaminate every thing. In Mexico a hospital radiotherapy machine with cobalt 60 was sold as scrap for $10 and tons of radioactive steel entered USA. . In USA some 4363 radioactive sources have been lost, stolen or abandoned, over the past 10 years and in India in this regard no information is availble. These lost materials are dangerous and can kill public.In India there is not even a record of how many radioactive sources exist nationwide. If the radioactive material falls into terrorists’ hands could end up in a dirty bomb, or one that uses conventional explosives to scatter radiation. Oncology doctors or X ray technicians or those living near nuclear plants or daily wage workers working in radiation environment will have a shortened lifespan. DAE had failed in this mission to monitor and regulate the radiation eqipkents. Staff and visitors are routinely exposed to radiation in diagnostic clinics using the X ray units all over India as proper shielding for walls are not provided and radiation badges are not given to these staff to limt their exposure to the permissible limit.
There were many instances of radiation spreading from our nuclear plants.Once a staff from the Plutonium plant had stolen radioactive gold seal of a pump from the plant in BARC. Once a dog that ingested radioactive water when it fell in a pool in the plutonium plant escaped from BARC to outside carrying Pu burden in its body.
Various ancient sites in Indian continent, could be highly radioactive. While we were developing India’s nuclear bomb at BARC, we were trying to find ancient hints about its construction in our Hindu Vedas. Mohenjo Daro and Harappa ancient Indian cities were destroyed in a nuclear blast some 6000 years back . In Mohenjo Daro, in an epicentre 150 feet wide, everything was fused, melted, crystallised; 180 feet from the center the bricks are melted on one side, and human skeletons are highly radioactive even today like that was observed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. bit.ly/9fFOmI, bit.ly/cPvH8E,
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reported that it is notified of about 200 lost or stolen radioactive sources each year and that since 1983 20 sources had been accidentally melted at steel works and other foundries. IAEA says it is aware of 49 meltings world-wide at 1998 and the situation is aggravated by increasing amounts of scrap originating from decommissioning of nuclear reactors, weapons and submarines. As per general information 65 meltings of radioactive steel have occurred world-wide. As a result, radioactive materials are entering the public domain in an uncontrolled manner are creating a serious risk of radiation exposure for workers and the public. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that over 2300 reports of radioactive materials found in recycled metal scrap.
On 21 December 1994 a load of mixed alloy scrap described as titanium turnings but was radioactive due to depleted uranium swarf, was delivered to ELG Haniel Ltd in Sheffield in UK. In March 2000 it was discovered that a waste tip manager from Suffolk had been carrying a radioactive 12 kg lump of depleted uranium in the back of his van for about 6 months because he thought the metal might have some value. In 1996 Georgian soldiers receive severe exposures from sources left by departing Russian troops. In January 1999 two Turkish scrap dealers were exposed to a Cobalt 60 radiation source on the outskirts of Istanbul and were hospitalised. They were trying to break up a 2-ton block of iron and lead they had bought weeks before. In March 1999 an Amsterdam hospital gave a medical instrument containing 114 kilos of depleted uranium to a scrap dealer.
In February 2000 three scrap yard workers in Thailand died after breaking open an abandoned radiotherapy device and receiving fatal radiation doses from a Cobalt 60 source. In April 2000 Uzbek State customs committee reports the interception of radioactive scrap travelling to Pakistan from Kazakhstan. In April the Science and Technology Agency, Japan, investigated a case of contaminated waste stainless steel imported from the Philippines and detected at the gates of Sumitomo Metal Industries in Wakayama City, near Osaka. Another incident occurred in May at the Kobe Steel plant, Kakogawa City 23. There have been evidence from contamination in consumer products and there are pleny of unreported radiation exposure incidents.
Italy is a key route for transport of radioactive scrap involving Italian organised crime. The report says that between January 1997 and October 1999 113 incidents were recorded. An estimated 5,000 tonnes of radioactively contaminated metals are entering Italy each year. Interpol alerted in February 1998 that Britain was being targeted by Russian criminals trading scrap metal contaminated with radioactivity. Scrap metal contaminated with radioactivity is smuggled into the UK. In May 2000 the Avesta Steel plant in Sheffield melted a small plutonium 238 source that is most likely to have been an abandoned cardiac pacemaker which itself an unregulated radioactive source.
The melting a cardiac pacemaker resulted in about 16 tonnes of metal and slag being contaminated with radioactive plutonium 238 that has a half life 86 years and had to be disposed of as radioactive waste 27. Once melted, contaminated metals find their way into new products. In Spain in May 1998 a Caesium 137 source entered the smelting process in the Acerinox plant in Algeciras, near Cadiz 28 releasing a plume of contaminated off gases which triggered detection monitoring equipment between 25 May and 2 June in France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria and resulted in some temporary detection measurements up to 1,000 times higher than background radiation levels. Some detection points were 2,500 km from Algeciras.
Skoda engine parts mainly cylinder heads have been cast from contaminated radioactive metal. About 100 cylinder heads were produced of which 60 were traced and 40 were never located. Whole railway wagons were produced with radioactive steel in Slovakia and it was detected only when wagons went to Autria where they triggered radiation monitors at the crossing point. In Taiwan radioactively contaminated steel in pipes and fittings were identified in buildings containing 1,600 apartments constructed between 1982-83. In mid-1998 around 6400 people had been identified as living in this radioactive environment for up to 16 years. People still occupy these apartments as they have no option, and have cancers and congenital disorders and unusual chromosomal and genetic damages.
Cobalt 60 pellets from discarded radiotherapy equipment in Mexico in 1983, were melted in foundries in the United States and the reinforcing bars for concrete and table legs were manufactured out of it. This was discovered on 16 January 1984 when a lorry carrying rebars passed close to the Los Alamos laboratory, USA, and set off the radiation alarms designed to warn of radioactive material leaving the site. In the intervening period significant volumes of potentially contaminated metal had been produced and distributed by several foundries. In Mexico, surveys were made of 17,600 houses which could have incorporated contaminated rebars and as a result 814 houses were demolished. In the USA, a search for the table legs, which covered 1400 customers, revealed 2500 contaminated items which were returned to Mexico for disposal. Some 4000 people were exposed.
Radioactivity was detected in the well water in Chember area in the seventies, but were not told to the public and they are still using it in many places. Radon makes the Banjara Hill area in Hyderabad not a good place to live as the rocks contains 28ppm or Uranium. Contaminated scrap arising from decommissioning nuclear reactors in USA, Europe is set to flood Indian market as more and more nuclear plants are decommissioned. In Taiwan radioactive steel used in 1,600 apartments exposed 6400 people for 16 years. 65 meltings of radioactive steel have occurred world-wide and radio active railway wagons in Slovakia, radioactive Skoda engine cylinder heads, contaminated rebars produced in USA resulted in the pulling down of 814 houses in Mexico, contaminated 2500 steel table legs exposed some 4000 Americans etc are just tip of the iceberg.
There is no regulatory controls or clearance required for lightly radioactively contaminated metals for reuse in consumer goods or for engineering or industrial purposes. Consequences are very severe additional small radiation doses which people could receive from lightly contaminated consumer products will result in damaged future generations. Contaminated scrap arising from decommissioning nuclear reactors in USA is set to flood Indian market. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission permitted BNFL to recycle contaminated scrap recovered during its $200 million decommissioning work at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant, Tennessee, despite the absence of nationally agreed clearance levels. Oak Ridge is estimated to hold 100,000 tonnes of assorted contaminated scrap metal including 6,000 tonnes of contaminated nickel estimated to be worth $41 million but presently further free release has been refused by the US Energy Secretary.
In 2008 radioactive stainless steel buttons cast in Vipras foundary in pune,reached France and installed in 600 Otis lifts. News came on Oct 22, 2008 that France’s Mafelec firm delivered thousands of lift buttons to Otis lifts that were sent from India and 20 workers were exposed to excessive radiation. Radioactive Cobalt-60 laden stainless steel were sent to Mafelec by two Indian firms, Bunts and Laxmi Electronics, and they in turn purchased the inputs from SKM Steels which in turn sourced its materials from a foundry called Vipras Casting in Pune. Dutch customs discovered that an Indian shipment of industrial flanges delivered to three companies at four sites in western, southern and central Sweden were radioactive. In India this was never followed up and never tracked the persons who were exposed to excessive radiation. Thus buying and steel or stainless steel product has become a dangerous thing in india as these could be the furniture and utensils.
In 2007 there were big Pakistan government advertisement in major Urdu newspapers asking the members of the public to inform officials, if they found any lost or stolen radioactive material. In AP, a hospital cobalt source went missing and health minister said that it was washed away by rain. Govt hospitals radioactive waste is ending up in scrap and it end up radio active steel in many Indian homes as furniture. Nuclear power is a one way street that can contaminate every thing. In Mexico a hospital radiotherapy machine with cobalt 60 was sold as scrap for $10 and tons of radioactive steel entered USA. In USA some 4363 radioactive sources have been lost, stolen or abandoned, over the past 10 years and medical facilities have lost track of nearly 1,500 pieces equipment with radioactive parts since 1996. In India in this type of information is not published. These lost materials are dangerous and can kill public. bit.ly/aEWGqJ
In USA about 1.6 million tons of radioactive scrap consisting of gold, silver, carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminum, nickel, and copper that came from decommissioned nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons and the oil and gas industries are waiting for lowering of per year exposure for radiation to the public, so that these can be recycled. But the fact is that the long term exposure to low levels of radiation can be more hazardous than short term exposure to high levels, resulting in a six to eight times greater cancer risk. Tbe nuclear installation decommissions produce large quantities of radioactive metals and it is melted for re use for making containers of nuclear industry and for producing steel granules for heavy concrete shielding. Italian police have seized 30 tons of radioactive steel exported from China sent from in May 2007 that had arrived in the northern port town of La Spezia in Italy.  bit.ly/ayB35D,
Oncology doctors, X ray technicians, those living near nuclear plants, daily wage workers working in radiation environment will have a shortened lifespan. DAE had failed in this mission to monitor and regulate the radiation equipments and exposure of radiation workers. In India almost all hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres, are not constructed as per the HTM standards or its equivalents. Walls and doors require mandatory lead sheet lining but not seen even in corporate hospitals. Its own staff, visitors,pedestrians,even the consultants, parking area below are regularly exposed to radiation. The doctors, staff dealing in X ray units or radiopharmaceuticals are never seen wearing the mandatory TLD badges, with which the personal exposure can be monitored so that they are never over exposed. Shoddy and shortcut way things are done in India, which is shameful in a country like ours where as these things are enforced even in African nations and India needs to enforce this with an independent authority.
The water sources near any nuclear plants are always contaminated.In BARC many nuclear reactors were in operation since 1960. Thousands of curies of radioactive liquid wastes resulting from split fuel rods were drained in to the Mumbai sea. Fish can accumulate some of the radioactive elements lakhs of times. Some studies have indicated high levels of radioactivity in marine life. Yet there is no restriction in fishing or any independent study was done on the daily catch of fish from Mumbai seas. The human life in India appears to be of no value for the government. Kakkodkar introduced lady shift engineers in the reactors, a practice, avoided world over.The reason is that the girls have all their eggs at the time of their birth, and a female at the reproductive age works in a radiation environment, the future generations will have serious genetic mutations. bit.ly/dd2Omm,
BARC staff bear the brunt of the ever present radioactive leakages, over-exposures, arising out of design deficiencies, poor maintenance, old power reactors, the hazardous nuclear installations like Apsara, CIRUS and Dhruva reactors,fuel reprocessing and waste treatment units. In seventives, a university professor sent a neutron souce to BARC by post to the table of a scientist. Nuclear reactor superintendents like Rakesh Kumar died of radiation induced brain tumour. So many such cases are hushed from the public view. Even the total absorbed doses by the staff are revealed to the that staff. Time to make AERB an independent organization outside DAE for the radiation health of India. Some 130 crore people have died since nuke tech has been in vogue. By suitably defining the effect of radiation this figure is reduced to zero. AERB should be independent of DAE and bring back BARC under AERB purview. There is a need to put DAE under a full time cabinet minister.
BARC is pouring an enormous amount of radioactive waste in to the Mumbai sea. Similar thing is happening all over the world at the nuclear installations. This unseen undersea radioactive contamination, is finding its way into the food chain. If one goes around the fish market in Mumbai with a Geiger counter I’m sure that one could detect radiation. Other non nuclear agencies are also dumping radioactive waste in to the sea. Italian mafia is dumping European radioactive waste off the coast of Somalia. Europeans are finding that their raw and finished metal stocks are slightly radioactive and in some cases exceeding 70 microSieverts per hour. Western industrialized nations have been indiscriminately dumping their polluted metal waste material to the emerging world because in country disposal is both hazardous and expensive. Much of that came from decommissioned nuclear reactors that were sold into metal recycling industry.
R. Chidambaram, who lied about the Hydrogen bomb, through an office memorandum dated April 25, 2000 while being the Secretary of the DAE, has ordered that the regulatory and safety functions at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and its facilities, which were being exercised by the AERB, were removed from the responsibility of AERB. This was assigned to be carried out through an ‘Internal Safety Committee Structure’ of the Director of the BARC to hide all such exposre to the staff working in BARC. The independent safety assurance and regulation has thus been made the responsibility of the same people who manage these installations, defeating the very principle of unbiased external scrutiny, which is at the core of any such regulation. The radiation exposures to BARC staff, will be hushed up.
Chidambaram when retired, he promoted another traitor Kakkodkar to that post. The traitor Kakkodkar was given three extensions by NDA and UPA and both were following antinational policies at the prompting of Americans. The last AERB chairman who retired recently S K Sharma has nothing to do with radiation protection, but everything to do with radiation destruction, as he is from the Reactor operations side and was responsible for dumping of thousands of curies of liquid waste in to the sea, that is now got in to the food chain of Mumbaikars. The policies of the DAE chairmen were to hide all mishaps from the public. If the public comes to know the true story of contamination from our nuclear programme, there will be no more Nuclear power programme in India. CANDU reactors release 20 times more tritium than the light water reactors that are in use elsewhere. This environmental poisoning by tritium, is similar in toxicity to radon but once ingested it can slow death.
The position of the Atomic Energy commission was occupied by illustrious scientists like Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha, who not only contributed to the science but was also a visionary who created our nuclear programme and brought in scientists and engineers of an excellent character. After Bhabha, was murdered by CIA in a plane crash, the next chairman was Dr. Vikram A Sarabhai who developed our space programme. was also murdered by CIA using their heart attack method. As per Kovalam staff where he died two ladies came out of his room after killing him. Kerala is the breeding ground of CIA. Eventually a dishonest Chidambaram became AEC chairman. Decay in political field is seen in research establishments. Chidambaram, systematically and deliberately refused to sit with his previous boss Shri P.K. Iyengar and clear his fake claim that May 11, 1998 Hydrogen bomb test was a success. They also started putting pliable AERB chairmen. bit.ly/drkbfc, bit.ly/9PgDyi,
With the best of technology, staff and finance, UK, USA and USSR had undergone serious nuclear accidents. India is about to follow it soon. Poor leadership of AEC, has made the safety of Indians a big question mark. If there is a terrorist attack, with a dirty bomb, the only option for the public is to leave the places like Mumbai. The first major nuclear accident was in 1957. The reactor fire at Windscale was possibly the most serious nuclear accident to occur outside the Soviet Union. Large amounts of assorted radio-isotopes were released. Government records altered in cover-up and the name was changed to Sellafield. The accident led to discharges of between 600 and 1,000 TBq of iodine-131, between 444 and 596 TBq of tellurium-132, between 22.2 and 45.5 TBq of caesium-137 and about 0.2 TBq of strontium-90. An estimate of 1369 TBq of Polonium-210 was also released during the fire. It is estimated that due to the fire some 1000 lives were lost due to cancer etc
Indo US civilian nuclear energy agreement was a treachery on India by the prime minister. Our nuclear bomb making capacity is curtailed with the coming Shut down of CIRUS reactor that was producing Plutonium on 31-12-2010. It was in the West’s interest to have this agreement to dump on India unsafe nuclear reactor types which India is not following or planned to follow. CANDU type was our power reactors, even though it contaminates the surroundings and cause cancer to tyroid problems, and does not meet the 911 criteria. Our Thorium based technology is not known to any other nation. As a person who designed and installed our first thorium fuel, I can say that our DAE is taking the nation down the drain. US has not constructed a single nuclear power plant in the last 31 years. In my opinion a terrorist attack in Trombay is simply inevitable and it could result in total Chernobyl type effect in Mumbai. It is time to shift Bhabha Atomic Cancer Centre out of Trombay to save Mumbai.
I support the call to stop the nuclear power plants completely in India. We should go for distributed solar plants. See my blogs
http://indousnuketrechery.blogspot.com/2005/10/indo-us-nuclear-trechery.html
http://www.sify.com/connect/blogs/blog_display.php?blogid=1574&pid=3430&page=0
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