nuclear-news

Investments in Brazilian nuclear energy projects will exceed US$6.5bn by the end of the decade, the sector’s national association Aben has told BNamericas.

Aben president Edson Kuramoto says the industry has made a full recovery after the negative publicity surrounding Japan’s Fukushima disaster last year.

Brazil will boast at least four new nuclear generation facilities before 2030. Projects underway include the Angra 3 power plant in Rio de Janeiro state that will increase the country’s installed nuclear capacity from 1.99GW to 3.40GW by 2016.

“The nuclear area in Brazil is extensive, covering electric power generation, the production of radiopharmaceuticals and radioisotopes as well as the whole fuel cycle,” Kuramoto said.

“There are also investments in uranium enrichment facilities, gasification and production of uranium minerals.

“The nuclear submarine project is in full swing, with the construction of the test facility reactor that will be used in the submarine.”

Kuramoto says the industry has rebounded strongly after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake on Japan’s east coast triggered the meltdown of Fukushima’s reactors.

While the incident prompted Germany, Switzerland and Italy to abandon their nuclear power ambitions, Brazil has no such plans.

“The accident did have an impact, but it was much smaller than what analysts had predicted,” Kuramoto said.

“More than 20 months have passed and many countries have announced the construction of new plants and others have decided to begin nuclear programs.

“The impact has been diluted and the pre-Fukushima growth rate is returning. If not for the global economic crisis, growth in the industry would be even more pronounced now than before the accident.”

According to Kuramoto, the expansion of nuclear power will provide crucial reinforcement to Brazil’s energy matrix.

“Due to the exhaustion of the country’s hydroelectric potential beginning in 2030, the participation of large-scale thermoelectric plants will increase and so will new opportunities for nuclear plants,” he said.

“Wind energy depends on an intermittent source and therefore does not give greater security to the national electrical system. But they are complimentary and will be utilized.

“In the same way other renewable sources will be used in an intelligent way, guaranteeing the grid’s reliability.”

http://www.bnamericas.com/story.xsql?id_sector=10&id_noticia=601265&Tx_idioma=I&source=
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Radiation Accident in Brazil Stirs Misgivings Over Nuclear Program

By MARLISE SIMONS, Special to the New York Times

Published: October 13, 1987

Brazilian scientists have questioned the Government’s ability to manage an independent nuclear energy program after what they described as an inadequate response by the authorities to anaccident two weeks ago involving highly radioactive material.

Already 35 people have been hospitalized, contaminated with dangerous cesium 137 powder that spilled from a broken hospital irradiation machine. Doctors say they fear that some 50 adults and children may contract cancer as a result of direct contact or excessive exposure to the material.

”Control over radioactive equipment is practically nonexistent,” said Dr. Jose Goldemberg, rector of the University of Sao Paulo and also a prominent nuclear physicist. ”Omission in a case like this is unpardonable.”

He and other scientists have denounced the ”irresponsibility” of doctors who left the hospital machine in a clinic that they vacated in the city of Goiania. Scavengers sold the machine to scrap metal dealers who opened it about two weeks ago. The capsule containing the cesium 137 was opened and the phosphorescent powder was passed around among friends and family of the junk dealer. The accident came to light Sept. 28 when people who had been exposed to the substance became ill. Commission Under Fire

But scientists have most bitterly criticized the nation’s Commission for Nuclear Energy, the body in charge of licencing and monitoring all of the country’s sources of radioactivity. The Goiania incident and several other problems with radioactivity that have occurred since then, Dr. Goldemberg said, have proved ”the commission is incapable of carrying out its task.”

Another prominent physicist, Jose Leite Lopes also cast grave doubts over Brazil’s ambitious new nuclear program. ”It is evident that all this has resulted in serious doubts about the nation’s capacity to handle technology,” he said. He added that the Government had ignored the findings of a special commission that had urged far-reaching changes in monitoring and other procedures affecting all nuclear activities.

Brazilian and foreign radiation specialists have also said that the Goiania incident has demonstrated that the authorities were ill-prepared for any accident involving the release of radioactivity. They have noted that technicians measuring radioactive contamination ran serious personal risks when at first they worked with bare hands and faces and wore only baseball capsand ordinary overalls and shoes rather than thick protective and disposable gear. At least one technician was contaminated. ”It would be funny if this was not such a tragic case,” one physicist said.

Hospital nurses reportedly also received contaminated patients without the necessary precautions while ambulances transporting them were not decontaminated for several days. Extreme Caution Needed

Experts say that the handling of the dangerous cesium 137 from an irradiation machine requires extreme caution. ”The activity of such units is very high,” said an American physicist who specializes in radiation protection. ”Cesium 137 takes about 30 years to lose half of its strength, and 200 to 300 years for the radiation to become insignificant.”

The spilled cesium l37 came in a compressed form, from which dust particles spread as people handled it and moved it to different sites. Contaminated people, cars and animals spread it further around the city.

The Goiania accident has served to dampen the excitement stirred here only last month with the announcement that Brazil had joined the small number of nations that have the ability to enrich uranium, a crucial step not only toward building an atomic bomb but also toward developing an independent nuclear energy industry.

But the accident and the response to it have had still greater impact among the 100,000 inhabitants of Angra dos Reis, a town near Brazil’s only functioning nuclear power station. Since its inauguration in 1985, the plant known as Angra I has suffered constant problems and has been forced to suspend operations so often that it is nicknamed the firefly.

More disturbing though, it was discovered two years ago that there was no adequate evacuation plan for the area, nor were there roads and vehicles enough to transport a large population in case of an emergency.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/13/world/radiation-accident-in-brazil-stirs-misgivings-over-nuclear-program.html