nuclear-news

No Nuclear is Safe Nuclear

World is learning: No nuclear is safe nuclear, The Spec.com , Ray Cunnington ,  Aug 03 2011 Saturday observance of Hiroshima bombing reflects on atomic weapons and atomic power Suddenly, old dangers become new again. As South African activist and retired Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu says: “The nuclear power crisis in Japan’s Fukushima power plant has served as a dreadful reminder that events thought unlikely can and do happen. But it must not take another Hiroshima or Nagasaki … before (some leaders) finally wake up and recognize the urgent necessity of nuclear disarmament.”

At noon on Saturday, Aug. 6, Project Ploughshares and Hamilton’s Mundialization Committee are reviving the tradition of holding a public observance at City Hall to commemorate the 1945 nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their citizens by the world’s first atomic bombs.

This year, however, because of the earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima, the focus cannot be limited only to events that took place 66 years ago. An immediate concern is to recognize some underlying problems with nuclear technology that have often been downplayed.

It is an inconvenient truth about physics that the splitting of the atom inside a nuclear reactor not only creates heat, but also produces plutonium, which gradually accumulates along with other lethal elements and radioactive wastes, some of which remain active for millions of years. The plutonium not only has to be safely stored, but can be used to build bombs. A bomb the size of a small suitcase might require 20 kilograms, but it is portable, and could be carried in a light plane, a backpack, or even on a bicycle. Security costs at nuclear power stations are therefore particularly high.

Around Japan’s stricken coast, toxic radioactive agents like cesium, iodine, plutonium and strontium are already being absorbed by fish and shellfish, while airborne particles continue to contaminate the land. Not since the Chernobyl disaster and the outcry following the huge radiation plume that covered much of Europe, has the safety of nuclear power been so strongly called into question.

In Hamilton this Saturday, Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, a university environmental health lecturer, will be the keynote speaker. No doubt she will caution there is no safe dose of radiation; that even the smallest dose can cause cancers and other health problems. It is already predicted that nearly half the male population in Canada and slightly less than half the female population will be diagnosed with cancer at some time in their lives. Since only 5 to 10 per cent of cancers are due to inherited genetic mutations, one needs to ask what is causing the other 90 to 95 per cent?

It appears the rapidly multiplying cells of the developing fetus, and the developing breasts of young girls in puberty, are particularly vulnerable. For this reason Goldin Rosenberg believes it is imperative to place the most stringent controls on radioactive carcinogens discharged from nuclear facilities into drinking water and air….

http://www.thespec.com/opinion/columns/article/572852–world-is-learning-no-nuclear-is-safe-nuclear

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August 4, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general