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Corruption in Pacific rim countries means that nuclear power safety is unlikely

Karamoskos points to an international transparency-and-corruption scale compiled by Transparency International (partially supported by AusAID) as a reasonable indicator of whether countries can take on the complex safety responsibilities of nuclear power. Indonesia doesn’t rate highly on this scale, coming in at 100 of 183 countries on the Corruption Perception Index; Vietnam and Bangladesh are worse, at 112 and 120 respectively. India ranks 95th.
“That’s my first and foremost concern — do these countries have the underlying principles … to foster a robust safety culture?”

Asia’s Nuclear Feeding Frenzy Global Mail By  Clare Blumer October 30, 2012
How safe is the Pacific rim, where 100 reactors in 10 years are planned, some in earthquake-prone, developing nations? Ask the fish.

“You can’t decontaminate that forest,” says Australian radiologist Dr Peter Karamoskos about Fukushima, the region of Japan hardest hit by last year’s deadly earthquake and tsunami.
“The stuff is on the ground — in the leaves, in the trees,” he says, referring to the radioactive matter that has blanketed the region since the disaster. Inside the 20 kilometre exclusion zone, radiation from the earth — known as “ground shine’’ — is so bad people are still not allowed to enter. It was August this year when he joined a small group from the World International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Congress in Hiroshima to visit the heart of the disaster in Fukushima, where the nuclear power plant is still in meltdown damage-control.
The disaster has been given the highest rating of 7 (major accident) on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, a dubious honour shared only by Chernobyl’s 1986 meltdown.
Outside the exclusion zone the government has overseen a big cleanup of topsoil and other highly radioactive matter, enabling locals to return to their homes. But any physical demarcation between contaminated land and decontaminated land is undermined when it rains — when radioactive cancer-causing isotopes (caesium-134 and caesium-137) get washed into the waterways.
This trouble in nearby waters was evident in new research, published in Science Magazine’s October 26 issue, showing that fish off the coast of Fukushima — particularly bottom-dwelling fish — still have elevated levels of two types of caesium in their flesh, nearly 20 months after the disaster. The research categorically showed that radioactive matter is still leaking into the Pacific Ocean…..
despite the Fukushima disaster, there is a growing boom in nuclear power development across the Asia Pacific….
the use of nuclear energy by developing countries in the Asia Pacific region — some of which are prone to earthquakes — worries Karamoskos, who also represents the public-health interests on Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Authority committees.
“The problem with nuclear power is it has the potential, when it goes bad, to go bad on a grand scale, as we’ve seen with Fukushima and Chernobyl,” he says. “It’s not good enough to build a nuclear reactor and then have a nuclear regulator that is inexperienced, or compromised, or lacks independence.”
Karamoskos points to an international transparency-and-corruption scale compiled by Transparency International (partially supported by AusAID) as a reasonable indicator of whether countries can take on the complex safety responsibilities of nuclear power. Indonesia doesn’t rate highly on this scale, coming in at 100 of 183 countries on the Corruption Perception Index; Vietnam and Bangladesh are worse, at 112 and 120 respectively. India ranks 95th.
“That’s my first and foremost concern — do these countries have the underlying principles … to foster a robust safety culture?” he asks. http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/asias-nuclear-feeding-frenzy/434/

November 1, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | ASIA, safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties