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Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker, activists oppose spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Kudankulam

Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker, activists oppose spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Kudankulam, India Today, 4 Oct 21, 

Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker M Appavu and activists have opposed the spent fuel storage facility located on the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project site.

Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker M Appavu and several activists have raised objections against the setting up of a spent fuel storage facility on the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project site.

Appavu, who is also the MLA from Radhapuram district, stated that if there is any mishap, southern parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala will face severe impact and requested the Centre to create the ‘Away From Reactor’ storage facility at the unused Kolar Gold Mines in Karnataka or Thar desert.

“The facility should be located in an area that is uninhabited”, stated Appavu while cautioning about increasing Chinese presence in Sri Lanka posing a threat.

Once Sri Lanka was a friendly nation, now China has a port there and its dominance is increasing with the port being used for military purposes. So, I request the Union government to use the abandoned Kolar mine fields”, said Appavu.

Environmental activist Soundarrajan claimed that the issue is of far more importance as AFR is not the solution here but construction of Deep Geological Repository.

However, to construct a DGR itself will take a minimum of 20 years of study and construction. A DGR must be built in such a way to withstand 24,000 years of geological impact as the amount of time taken for the nuclear waste to decay.

Activists are worried that Kudankulam having 6 nuclear plants and 3 AFR storage would become a ticking bomb and cause a much bigger disaster than Fukushima or Chernobyl………….. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/tamil-nadu-assembly-speaker-activists-spent-nuclear-fuel-storage-facility-kudankulam-1860534-2021-10-04

October 5, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, wastes