Archive for the ‘Nuclear Leaks’ Category

March 22, 2011
Nuclear Townhall

Levels of iodine-131 were 126.7 times higher than the limit set by the government and cesium-134 was 24.8 times higher, while cesium-137 was 16.5 times higher, according to a study conducted Monday by Tokyo Electric Power Co. on seawater collected about 100 meters from the crippled plant’s drainage pipes.
 
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said there was no immediate cause for alarm but that a future ban on seafood from the area was a possibility. “It is not necessary at the moment," Edano told a news conference Tuesday morning. "But it is necessary to collect data from a wider range and firmly continue to have experts analyze them."

Japan has already put a ban on spinach and milk from the immediate area around Fukushima after elevated levels of radioactive iodine and cesium were discovered over the weekend. Government officials have been anxious to avoid public panic over food supplies and export commodities.
 
Ingestion through the food chain proved to be the principle form of damaging exposure to radiation at Chernobyl. Iodine-131 that landed on fields in the region was ingested by cows, which passed it through as milk that was ingested by people in the region. Iodine-131 migrates to the thyroid gland where gives heavy doses of radiation, especially in children whose thyroids are particularly active. Four thousand cases of thyroid cancer resulted, mostly among children, leading to 10 fatalities. All these events took place behind the Iron Curtain, however, and Soviet officials were completely unprepared. There was no distribution of iodine pills and no effort to monitor ingestion. Iodine-131 has a half-life of only eight days and disappeared entirely after two months, so the danger is short-lived.
 
Cesium 137 and 134 are bigger problems because they have longer half-lives and because they mimic sodium and potassium and can take up long-term residence in the body. Cs-134’s half-life is 3-1/4 years and Cs-137 is considered the worst danger, with a half-life of about 30 years. Strontium-90, which mimics calcium and has a half-life of 29 years, is the other fission by-product that is considered the worst long-term danger.
 
At this point the levels of all these elements are not a cause for alarm. But Japanese officials said they would be monitoring the dangers. "As part of our country’s nuclear power policy, it has been necessary to be able to monitor the level of radiation to ensure it was all right,” said Edano. "The public may have anxiety over the fact that the level has exceeded the standards . . . but I would like them to understand that these numbers are extremely conservative."


Read more about it at the Japan Times
 

You can see the gradual awakening to the realities of the World Nuclear Renaissance in the thorough but flawed report on AOL news, which calls the current situation a "Race for Nuclear Power."

Judy Pasternak’s report is alert to developments that have so far escaped the mainstream press.  In the past few months alone the following developments have occurred:

    * Tunisia signed an agreement with the U.S. to share nuclear technology
    * Russia singed a similar agreement with Kuwait last Monday
    * France has similar agreements with both Tunisia and Kuwait
    * Jordan signed an agreement with Mitsubishi and Toshiba to allow it to bid on reactors there
    * Egypt picked a location for its first reactor
    * Saudi Arabia announced a whole section of Riyadh, the capital, will be powered by nuclear
    * Sudan, Algeria, Libya and Morocco have nuclear programs in the early stages

From there on, however, the article goes on to feature hand-wringing by various American public officials and non-proliferation groups that all this is going to lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. None of them find the time to lament that almost no American companies will be participating as principals in this rapid nuclear development – or that an American presence might be helpful in quelling proliferation concerns.

There is also the usual skepticism that these efforts really have anything to do with providing energy and that "[l]ooming in the background is the widespread suspicion that the rush for civilian nuclear power is also covert preparation for a nuclear arms race." .

"Having nuclear power is a symbol of national prestige and a politically popular project. It showcases scientific and technological knowledge," Harvard University’s Martin B. Malin, an expert in arms control and international relations in the Middle East, and director of the Managing the Atom project at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. tells AOL. "But it’s really the presumed security implications" of nuclear power that are the real draw for these countries,  "They are nervous about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and would like to have some capacity in the nuclear realm."

The article does note that all Middle Eastern countries do not have oil and that many are running short of electricity – protesters in Egypt recently blocked highways after power outages.  It also notes that countries with large fossil fuel reserves can benefit by selling them abroad rather than using them at home.  It even quotes William Tobey, a former senior nonproliferation official in the Bush administration saying, "This can be good for the United States and for the worldwide supply, because oil and natural gas are fungible."

But then follows this inexplicable and unattributed sentence:

"But that scenario might not necessarily make a dent in global greenhouse gas emissions, an often cited benefit of nuclear power."

This, of course, is the mantra of  professional environmental activists arguing that because the uranium enrichment in Paducah, Kentucky uses 1000 megawatts of coal to produce the nation’s enriched uranium supply, that nuclear power will not reduce greenhouse gases as advertised.

Altogether, though, AOL offers a clear-sighted view of what’s going on in the world – something sorely missing in general press coverage of nuclear energy.

Read more at AOL News

If nothing else, the blowout at an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and several recent coal-mining disasters have emphasized one thing – no form of energy generation is completely safe.

Meanwhile, what’s the case against nuclear?  A tritium leak at Vermont Yankee that didn’t make it off the property. A charge that intake pipes at Indian Point are killing too many fish larvae. And of course the ever-present charge that the minimal emissions from reactors are causing cancer clusters.

Patrick Moore points out the safety record of the nuclear industry in an interview with the Burlington Free Press. Better yet, David Frum says the oil industry should take a lesson from the nuclear industry in learning how to upgrade its safety record.

Read it at the Frum Forum

Then come back to Nuclear Townhall and give us your thoughts

- William Tucker