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- Pawar's daughter on panel that will examine biotechnology Bill 1
- Monsoon arrives over Andaman Sea
- Gujarat pollution board gets a makeover in efficiency 33
- Chaos in the iron age 4
- Poison in disguise 2
- Auroville’s alternative galaxy 2
- 309,000 infants die on first day
- So much to give
- Stage set for GM crops
- Mirage of a river 2
- Environment ministry wants to restore night traffic through Bandipur tiger reserve 52
- A green facade 44
- Diesel: when bad policy makes for toxic hell 38
- Gujarat pollution board gets a makeover in efficiency 33
- What’s good insulation? 30
- How vulnerable are India's nuclear power plants to disaster 28
- Grand distraction called river interlinking 28
- Eat at your own risk 27
- Green energy takes toll on green cover 26
- Temporary solution, permanent jam 25
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Cover Story
Unanswered questions
The report of the Central expert group has responded to concerns but activists say it has sidestepped environmental issues
Reports have been piling up on the safety and environmental aspects of India’s most ambitious nuclear project, the 2,000 MWe Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP), in the wake of the protests that lead to a stoppage of work on the two Russian light water reactors. First, there was the finding of the 15-member A E Muthunayagam Committee, set up by the Centre, which submitted its report in December 2011 and then the report of the M R Srinivasan committee, a Tamil Nadu initiative that its chief minister J Jayalalithaa said was necessary to allay “people’s fears”. While the first report has been put out by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), the report commissioned by Tamil Nadu is not yet in the public domain.
According to interviews given by the former chairperson of Atomic Energy Commission, there is no shadow of Fukushima over Kudankulam. Srinivasan says he looked at issues like “deficiencies in safety at Fukushima reactor, geological factors (earthquakes, tsunami, etc) at Koodankulam” and came to the conclusion that “a Fukushima mishap will not happen here”. In sum, it appears to be an endorsement of the Muthunayagam report since Srinivasan’s four-member team concluded that the expert group “has answered all 44 questions raised by protestors”.
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M Pushparayan, leader of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), says this is expected since Srinivasan headed the site selection committee and picked the location for KKNPP in 1988. PMANE’s presentation on geographical vulnerability was based on 47 journal articles and seminar presentations, and raised issues such as volcanic eruption near the reactor, Karst formation during the past three years at three locations within 25 km of KKNPP and the potential for tsunami from slumps and faults in and near the Gulf of Mannar apart from shoreline instability. It also pointed to the possibility of dry intake due to sea withdrawal observed in southern Tamil Nadu coast since 2004.
In spite of the large number of studies, “NPCIL has unfortunately not looked into any of these before or during the construction of the two 1,000 MWe reactors,” says PMANE’s response to the Expert Group (EG) report. According to the latter, however, none of the issues is serious. Referring to the main worry of the fisherfolk about contamination of natural resources, EG notes that the project draws sea water from intake dykes for condenser cooling. To stop the fish from getting trapped, KKNPP uses “a unique fish protection system” that stops fish from entering the bays and returns them safely into the sea.
The other issue is the rise in sea water temperature and its implication for marine life, including fish and prawns. The approximate quantity of coolant water that will be released is 70 tonnes per day with a maximum delta T of 7 degree Celsius. “In fact the mixing will be very fast due to wave action and other water currents.” As a result warm water from condenser will be mixed instantaneously and lead to “a possible reduction of ambient sea water temperature”.
But PMANE says the dangers could be immense when all six 1,000 MWe reactors begin operations. The discharge of 7.2 billion litres of hot water into the sea every day by each reactor could well destroy the fish. Besides, there is the question of the chemical and radiological composition of effluents. “The EG provides data which are gross underestimations and contradictory with the information provided by NEERI and NPCIL officials earlier,” it notes.
Another charge it makes is that the KKNPP reactors 1 and 2 violate the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board instructions of 1998 that require two sources of water to ensure adequate water supply in the event of a cooling loss accident, which it terms “the largest potential hazards of reactors”. Citing independent studies, the collective says the dependence on desalinated water alone is a safety hazard. EG says the storage capacity in tanks is adequate for the reactor for 10 days in case of power failure even though the regulatory requirement is seven days. The debate continues.
Tags: Cover Story, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), Chernobyl, China, Climate change, Conflicts, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Earthquakes, Energy, Europe, Finance, Fishworkers, France, Fukushima, Geology, Germany, Global, Groundwater pollution, India, Japan, Kanyakumari, Kudankulam, Marine Fisheries, Marine Life, Methane, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Natural Disasters, Nuclear Accidents, Nuclear energy, Nuclear power, Nuclear Power Corporation Of India (NPCIL), Nuclear Power Plants, Nuclear Safety, PMANE, Shale Gas, South Korea, Tamil Nadu, Tirunelveli (D), Tsunami
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Among the major unresolved problems of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) is water. KKNPP requires fresh water as moderator and as coolants and its entire requirement are met through desalination plants. Strangely, the Expert Group set up the Central Government on the safety aspects of KKNPP is silent on two critical issues. One is the question of drinking water requirement of the campus. The reserve water available in two tanks meant to store potable water is 1425 m3, whereas the daily requirement is 1272 m3. Even if the consumption is reduced when the supply chain breaks down, the reserve may not last more than 2-3 days.
The other issue is the possibility of failure of the desalination plants due to causes other than grid failure. The expert committee considered grid failure alone as the only probable event. If the grid fails, the reactors will shut down automatically and hence the coolant requirement will be about 800 m3 for two reactors. (All reactors rely on grid power for maintaining their safety related pumps and instrumentations as the grid is more reliable than the reactors.) A desalination plant is a complicated machine for cleaning and sterilizing a chemically and biologically complex medium. That machine can also fail due to wear, tear and corrosion or due to an attack of marine organisms like jellyfish, called fouling agents by the industry. With global warming, jellyfish are poised to recapture the empire they lost some 600 million years ago. Their intrusion in desalination plants, ships and power plants has been on the increase during the last couple of years. In July-August 2011, nuclear power plants in Japan, Scotland and Israel were shut down due to their ingress, a feat that half a century of anti-nuclear activism could not achieve!
KKNPP with a capacity of 2,000 Mwe does not have pipes drawn from off-site locations or elevated water towers unlike other campuses. For instance, the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) has 28,400 m3 of fresh water for its reactors of with an installed capacity of just 440 MW(e) and the campus is augmenting its water reserve with an additional reserve of 750 m3 as recommended by the Fukushima Task Force.
Despite the stringent conditions laid down by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, it has not pulled up NPCIL for its inaction on fresh water at KKNPP. It is clear that NPCIL did not do its homework before signing the contract with the Russians. They constructed the KKNPP campus in violation of the terms and conditions laid down by the AERB. Since the backup for coolant water is insufficient, the commissioning of the reactor will be a dangerous gamble.
VT Padmanabhan
We are scared of nuclear power and yes we have a reason for that. The reason is that we are scared...! When Thomas Edison invented his generator and began producing and providing electricity many people were so scared that they stopped opening their doors. They preferred dark nights to light.
Similar kind of fear has take over us.
We forget that energy in any form is hazardous. Look at that tiny match-stick-it can cause havoc if misused or used by an innocent child.
Question is that should we go back to caves?
V.K. Joshi
A question for you is if you can take a risk A, does it mean you can take risk B too when A and B are not related at all.?
By saying yes to nuclear plant, you vouch for the children to be born. A electric generator can be switched off within one's life. A nuclear reactor creates demons that outlive with a great danger for several hundred years that covers your generation and a few more to be born. It lives even when it is not operational.
There is huge difference between A and B. People are scared of the differences here.
Some one below has clearly answered if we should go back to caves.
Vel
A nuclear accident, unlike other accidents, can ruin our habitats and us for years to come. To protect our Earth, we should be prepared to even go back to caves should we fail in other sources of energy. NO TO NUCLEAR MONSTER. Jai Hind!
Ignatius Fernando
While Rajiv Gandhi was linked with the Bofors deal, he also signed an agreement with USSR for importing the unusual type of reactors from Russia. The Janata Dal Government also followed the same ethics to re-enter into another agreement with Russia to import the light water reactors of VVER type which are considered unsafe even at that time. Moreover, nuclear power was three times more costly than hydro-power and twice more costly than thermal power and yet inspite of its negligible contribution to national power, yet for the benefit of contractors and politicians while being simultaneously harmful to public health and welfare, the deal was struck inspite of objections from the public since 1988 itself. Prof.Shivaji Rao the International Environmental expert who published a book with title “Nuclear Plants are Silent Killers” in 1989 and also published a paper on Environmental Impacts of Kudankulam Nuclear Plant 1990 in the magazine Religion and Society, Vol.XXXVII, No.2 June 1990 by highlighting the Risks involved.
The nuclear industry continued to mislead the Tamil Nadu Chief Minster, the Prime Minister and the members of the state legislature and Parliament and went ahead with the construction of the project by violating all the rules and regulations under different laws. Recently, the nuclear plant authorities again misled the Chief Minister and Prime Minister who are unknowingly proclaiming that nuclear power is absolutely safe while the heads of Germany and Japan have confirmed that nuclear safety is a myth and also decided to phase out all the nuclear plants in their country by 2022 and by 2030. It is said that fools rush in where angels fear to tread, which means that inexperienced and rash people will attempt to do things that wiser people are more cautious of.
Since the state and central governments are not interested in the safety of the common people the public have to protect themselves as per sec 51 A(g) of the Indian constitution in the interests of their future generations as well. Even God cannot help those who refuse to help themselves by discharging their duties as responsible citizens of India.
US PROVIDES SCIENTIFIC SAFETY STANDARDS TO EVACUATE AMERICANS IN JAPAN
Under the guidelines for public safety that would be used in the United States under similar circumstances, the NRC believes it is appropriate for U.S. residents within 50 miles of the Fukushima reactors to evacuate.
Among other things, in the United States protective actions recommendations are implemented when projected doses could exceed 1 rem to the body or 5 rem to the thyroid. A rem is a measure of radiation dose. The average American is exposed to approximately 620 millirems, or 0.62 rem, of radiation each year from natural and manmade sources.
In making protective action recommendations,the NRC takes into account a variety of factors that include weather, wind direction and speed, and the status of the problem at the reactors.
Attached are the results of two sets of computer calculations used to support the NRC recommendations.
In response to nuclear emergencies, the NRC works with other U.S. agencies to monitor radioactive releases and predict their path. All the available information continues to indicate Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Territories and the U.S. West Coast are not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity.
With regard to evacuation of Americans living in Japan in the neighbourhood of Fukushima nuclear plant the US Government calculated the impacts of radioactive pollutants from the Fukushima reactor accident and took into consideration the disaster management zones which were limited to about 20km and found the underestimated values for disaster management which in USA extend up to 80km from the nuclear plant. Having found that Japanese standards for evacuation of potential victims is too inadequate Americans calculated the distances up to which excessive radiation dose will extend and found that the risky zone extends upto 80km and so US advised their nationals in Japan to evacuate upto 80km from the Fukushima site to ensure public health and safety and the following air pollution modeling studies were done for this purpose. Inspite of these values Japanese Government applied safety measures for evacuation upto 30km compulsory zone and upto 40km voluntary evacuation zone although the excessive radiation was found in locations upto about 60km from Fukushima reactors.
In the case of Kudankulam plant the plant authorities failed to follow these safety standards. Moreover NPCIL and AERB told the Supreme Court that they are not concerned to implement all the levels of safety because the key component relating to the 5th level of safety pertaining to the off-site disaster management plan is the total responsibility of the state Government and the local District Collector who is not duly qualified to implement total safety measures. Thus the Prime Minister and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu are totally misleading the public by stating that the nuclear plant is completely safe without really knowing the total aspects of safety of nuclear power.
T.V.Rama Rao,M.Com
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