nuclear-news

Safety record at Kalpakkam facility

*In 1987, a refuelling accident ruptured the reactor core.

*In 1991, workers were exposed to a radioactive heavy water leak.

*In 1999, another leak exposed 42 workers.

*In 2002, 100 kg of radioactive sodium leaked.

*In 2003, high-level radioactive waste was released into a work area, exposing six workers to nuclear radiation.

How pertinent is the nuclear option? Deccan Chronicle October 8, 2011 , By R. Mohan Democratic protests against nuclear plants are the flavour of the season.What began in Jaitapur has come down south to Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu and protests are bound to spread across the country to wherever nuclear power plants are being planned.

There is a fundamental conflict here between the aims of the government to arm the country with clean nuclear energy and the people’s fears over nuclear power plant catastrophes fanned further by the Fukushima experience.

When nuclear energy was first harnessed for widespread civilian use in the mid-50s, it was freely said that the power was so cheap and clean that even meters were not really needed. Electricity from nuclear reactors was to be given away free to the world, or so the early protagonists of N-power had us believe.

What added to the enormous costs of nuclear power as we know them today were the safety features that had to be built in to assure the world there would no catastrophic events. And then came the nuclear civilian liability laws making it incumbent on the producer to compensate fairly in the unlikely event of a disaster in the atomic production process.

The Three Mile Island experience (1979) showed quite the other face of safety, pointedly stressing the hazardous nature of the source, however clean such power might seem in an era in which global warming and other environmental concerns are in the forefront of human thought.

Strangely enough, India’s 20 nuclear power plants generate only 3% of the country’s electricity output….

Safety record at Kalpakkam facility

*In 1987, a refuelling accident ruptured the reactor core.

*In 1991, workers were exposed to a radioactive heavy water leak.

*In 1999, another leak exposed 42 workers.

*In 2002, 100 kg of radioactive sodium leaked.

*In 2003, high-level radioactive waste was released into a work area, exposing six workers to nuclear radiation.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/south/how-pertinent-nuclear-option-118