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UN Wants to End Confusion About Chernobyl
Index:
UN Wants to End Confusion About Chernobyl
Fears raised for safety of nuclear sites
China casts doubt on import of German nuclear plant
Nuclear operators seek U.S. money for new reactor
Radioactive Wastewater Spills Into Rhine
Boat crews in Bikini nuke test to be polled on health in
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UN Wants to End Confusion About Chernobyl
VIENNA (Reuters) - Although the world may never know the full impact
of the world's worst nuclear disaster, the United Nations nuclear
agency wants to put an end to the confusion for millions of victims
of the Chernobyl accident.
The disaster occurred 18 years ago, at 1:24 a.m. on April 26, 1986,
when an explosion at Reactor 4 of the Ukrainian power plant spewed a
cloud of radioactivity across Europe and the Soviet Union.
Around 30 people died from radiation exposure after the accident,
nearly 2,000 children later developed thyroid cancer and thousands of
other fatal illnesses have been blamed on it. More than 100,000
people were resettled, causing physical, economic and psychological
hardship.
Among the millions of people whose lives were affected by the
disaster, thousands may have developed cancer and died as a result.
But poor records and corruption have prevented the accurate
registration of the workers who helped put out the fire and entomb
the smoldering nuclear plant in 1986.
"We have an epistemological problem," said Abel Gonzalez, head of
radiation and waste safety at the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA).
"In Chernobyl, you can say that the only concrete sick persons that
you can (identify) are the (1,800) children who got thyroid cancer
and the workers who were over-exposed. All the rest, we don't know."
Not only is there a limit to the ability of the nuclear experts to
understand the full impact of Chernobyl, but contradictory studies
and statements about the disaster have confused the millions of
people whose lives were affected by it.
"People living in the affected villages are very distressed because
the information they receive -- from one expert after another turning
up there -- is inconsistent. People living there are afraid for their
children," Gonzalez explained.
Over the years, wildly varying reports have put the Chernobyl death
toll as high as 15,000.
For this reason, the IAEA has established the Chernobyl forum, whose
task will be to give "authoritative, transparent statements that show
the factual situation in the aftermath of Chernobyl," said Gonzalez,
who represents the IAEA on the forum.
The forum will bring together Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, the IAEA
and all other U.N. organizations involved in Chernobyl. It will
review all the studies and statements on Chernobyl, filter out the
good, throw out the bad and present a clear summary to next year's
U.N. General Assembly.
REGISTRATION WAS DISASTROUS
A native of Argentina, Gonzalez is no stranger to the Chernobyl
story. From 1989 to 1991, he headed a huge IAEA study of the health,
environmental and radiological impact of the disaster on villages and
towns in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine that suffered the worst
contamination.
He was always convinced that many cases of leukemia would appear
among the 600,000 so-called "liquidators" who worked frantically in
the spring of 1986 to put out the fire in the molten reactor and
entomb the plant in a concrete sarcophagus.
"I was personally convinced that leukemia in the workers -- the
liquidators -- would be detected. But until now it has not appeared,"
he said.
Gonzalez said that this may be because some of the people who were
granted the status of "liquidator," which gave them free public
transport and other perks, never actually worked at Chernobyl but got
liquidator cards through contacts.
"I saw this with my own eyes," he said. "Someone with the liquidator
card who never worked there."
As a result the liquidator register is almost useless.
"If proper registration had been done, probably you would have seen
some leukemia in workers. But the registration is such a disaster
that it will be very, very difficult," he said.
Because of this, the question of how many people have died as a
result of the accident may never be properly answered.
"It is an issue that is impossible to settle because there are two
different types of deaths -- the deaths that you can check that they
happened and the ones you can only imagine."
BLAMING CHERNOBYL
The Soviet Union's misinformation and overall mismanagement of the
disaster resulted in a tendency of victims to attribute all kinds of
illnesses to Chernobyl which may have nothing to do with it.
"A woman brings her baby sick with leukemia and says it is caused by
Chernobyl. How do you explain to her that if Chernobyl had never
happened her child might still have leukemia?"
According to a 1996 article by Atomic Energy Insights, around 200,000
women aborted fetuses due to unfounded fears that the children would
have birth defects.
Gonzalez said he was not undermining the seriousness of the disaster -
- merely pointing out that the ability to clearly identify illnesses
caused by Chernobyl is severely limited.
"I don't want to undermine that this was a catastrophe," he said.
The IAEA has often said that the Chernobyl changed the way the world
looks at nuclear power. Unknown before April 1986, when newspapers
first carried front-page headlines about the accident, Chernobyl is
now a household word and the biggest public relations problem for
supporters of atomic energy.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said that it was an important milestone
for the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
"Chernobyl was a tragic but important turning point for the IAEA,"
said ElBaradei. "It prompted us to focus unprecedented energies and
resources to help the affected people and ensure that such a serious
accident would never happen again."
What is clear, ElBaradei said, is that it "had a disastrous impact on
life, health and the environment in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and
prompted fear and concerns in other nations of the world about the
effects of radiation."
---------------------
Fears raised for safety of nuclear sites
(CNN) Security upgrades ordered at nuclear weapons sites after the
September 11 attacks may not be fully in place for five more years,
auditors say.
The delay has led to the possibility that plutonium and weapons-grade
uranium might have to be removed from some facilities.
Investigators with the General Accounting Office said Tuesday the
Energy Department's 2006 deadline for meeting its new security
requirements at weapons labs and other facilities probably is not
realistic, short by possibly as much as three years.
At the same time even that program, based on assumptions developed
last year about the kind of terrorist assault that might be expected
given the 9/11 attacks, is being revised, administration and
congressional officials acknowledged.
For the first time, the Energy Department is asking security planners
to prepare for the possibility that a terrorist would try to take
over a facility holding nuclear material, barricade himself inside
and try to fashion a crude nuclear weapon and detonate it in a
suicide attack.
Security plans previously have been designed under an assumption that
a terrorist would break in to steal the material and could be
thwarted on the way out.
Some lawmakers and private watchdog groups have said that some
facilities would be impossible to defend against a suicide assault
and that plutonium and highly enriched uranium at those sites should
be relocated.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., asked why it took nearly two years
from the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon for the Energy
Department to develop its revised May 2003 assessment of the kinds of
terror attacks security forces probably would have to defend against.
He also wanted to know why it will take another two to five years to
deal with the increased risks.
"We know the terrorists will not wait that long to try to exploit
lingering vulnerabilities in our nuclear complex defenses," said
Shays, chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee dealing
with nuclear security.
Energy Department officials acknowledged their latest security plans
won't be fully in place everywhere the government has weapons-grade
material until the end of 2006. They characterized the GAO assessment
that another three years might be needed as overly pessimistic.
"Today, no nuclear weapons, special nuclear material or classified
materials are at risk anywhere within the nuclear weapons complex,"
Linton Brooks, head of the DOE's National Nuclear Security
Administration, told the subcommittee members.
Brooks acknowledged risk always exists but assured the lawmakers,
"People looking for a soft spot would be ill-advised" to target DOE
facilities. "There are no soft spots."
Shays said that some of the sites should be closed, or at least their
nuclear materials transferred elsewhere. It "should have been
immediately obvious" that the government "has too many facilities
housing nuclear materials" and that consolidation is needed.
Plutonium and weapons-grade uranium are being kept at nearly a dozen
facilities within the DOE weapons complex including five national
laboratories.
Brooks said the department is reviewing the weapons complex to
determine where material can be consolidated, either in more secure
areas within facilities or at other sites. Plans already are in place
to move plutonium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico to the Nevada Test Site.
"But consolidation is not a panacea," Brooks said.
He said he opposes moving the plutonium at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in California to another location, for example,
because scientists there need the material to assess the weapons
stockpile properly.
To move material from another DOE facility, the Y-12 complex near Oak
Ridge, Tennessee, could take decades, probably cost billions of
dollars and accomplish little in the short term, Brooks said. Current
plans would consolidate the material within the Y-12 complex.
Citizen groups and watchdog organizations have singled out Lawrence
Livermore, near residential areas 40 miles from San Francisco, and
the expansive Y-12 complex as among sites having significant security
shortcomings.
"Both face serious physical security challenges, perhaps
insurmountable challenges," testified Danielle Brian, executive
director of the Project on Government Oversight, a private watchdog
group that has worked on security at weapons complex facilities with
government whistle-blowers.
"Clearly they will not be able to comply with the new (security)
directives," Brian maintained.
In addition to Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Y-13, weapons-grade
nuclear materials are at the Hanford reservation in Washington state;
Savannah River complex in South Carolina; the Pantex facility in
Texas; Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory; the
Argonne National Laboratory in Idaho; and Sandia National Laboratory
in New Mexico.
----------------
China casts doubt on import of German nuclear plant
BEIJING/BERLIN, April 27 (Reuters) - China on Tuesday cast doubt on a
controversial plan to import a mothballed nuclear plant from Germany.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pushed the deal -- estimated at
around 50 million euros ($60 million) -- during a trip to China last
year. But he was heavily criticised by his junior coalition partner,
the Greens, and Reuters reported last month that the government was
likely to drop the plan.
"As far as I know, companies from both sides have made some
preliminary contacts, but all those contacts have stopped," Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in Beijing. "At present
there is no such contact."
Under these circumstances Prime Minister Wen Jiabao will probably not
raise the issue during his meeting with Schroeder in Berlin next
week, the spokesman added.
German government sources said Berlin was still investigating whether
a deal might be feasible, but the government was under no time
pressure.
Leading Greens politicians welcomed Tuesday's Chinese statement,
implying that the deal was off.
The plant, in Hanau near Frankfurt, was mothballed in 1995 without
ever going into service, amid growing opposition to nuclear power.
The industrial group Siemens AG, which built it and owns it, declined
to comment.
Critics said the plant, designed to reprocess plutonium to make mixed
oxide, or MOX, fuel rods for nuclear power stations, could be used to
manufacture weapon-grade nuclear material.
They also said the export would smack of hypocrisy, since Germany is
committed to phasing out nuclear power on its own soil.
When Schroeder unveiled the deal he said the German government had no
legal grounds to ban the sale, since China had guaranteed the plant
would not be used for military purposes.
Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, also a Greens member, said he had
read the reports with interest but declined further comment. "As the
minister responsible for the audit procedure I must refrain from
stating any opinion."
------------------
Nuclear operators seek U.S. money for new reactor
NEW YORK, April 26 (Reuters) - A consortium of nuclear power
companies presented a proposal to the U.S. Department of Energy on
Monday to share the estimated $800 million cost of developing a new
reactor.
None of the companies have committed to build a new nuclear plant.
That decision will depend on the cost of a new reactor compared with
the price of competing technologies and the future regulatory
environment, the consortium, NuStart Energy Development LLC, said.
The companies did agree to complete the engineering design work and
prepare construction and operating license applications for two
reactor designs by General Electric Co. and British Nuclear Fuels'
Westinghouse.
The consortium said it will choose one of the applications to file
with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review and approval.
After NRC approval, any member of the consortium could use the
license to build a new nuclear plant.
Of the nine companies participating in the consortium, six have
pledged $1 million a year plus the labor of their work forces for
seven years, totaling about $42 million.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal power agency, will not
provide any money, but its employees will work with the consortium on
the application process.
GE AND WESTINGHOUSE
GE and Westinghouse, the reactor vendors, would pay the largest share
of the costs, about $200 million each over seven years, since much of
the work concerns the engineering designs.
If approved, that amount would be matched 50-50 by DOE research and
development funds, averaging $57 million a year for seven years.
In an effort to get a nuclear plant under construction by 2010, the
DOE has offered to share up to 50 percent of the cost of preparing an
application for a construction and operating license to the NRC.
The last power reactor to enter service in the United States was
TVA's Watts Bar in Tennessee in 1996.
The consortium members include units of Constellation Energy , French
utility Electricite de France 1/8EDF.UL 3/8, Entergy Corp. , Exelon
Corp. , Southern Co. , TVA, Duke Energy Corp. , GE and Westinghouse.
------------------
Radioactive Wastewater Spills Into Rhine
KARLSRUHE, Germany (AP) - About 8,000 gallons of radioactive water
poured into the Rhine river in southwestern Germany after a pump
malfunctioned at a nuclear plant, a power company said Wednesday.
The water leaked into the river Saturday night when a valve was
mistakenly left open, but he said the health risk was minimal, said
Dirk Ommeln of Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany's third-largest
energy company.
"The water was lightly contaminated," said Ommeln, who likened the
radioactivity exposure of drinking a gallon of the water to having a
dental X-ray.
The 7,900-gallon leak was not reported to the state Environment
Ministry until Monday, prompting criticism from the local government,
which requires immediate reporting for all incidents.
The ministry also said the contamination was not strong enough to
pose a health risk.
The spill occurred during testing of high-speed valves that move
wastewater into tanks. An unexpected increase in pressure blew out
one valve, allowing the contaminated water to enter the Rhine.
----------------
Boat crews in Bikini nuke test to be polled on health in
TOKYO, April 26 (Kyodo) - The city of Sukumo, Kochi Prefecture, will
conduct health surveys next month on crews from Kochi fishing boats
hit by the fallout from the 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test at Bikini
Atoll in the central Pacific.
The Kochi ships constituted about 30% of the estimated 1,000 Japanese
boats in the Pacific at the time of the fallout. The surveys are part
of local efforts to keep the memory of the Bikini incident alive
after 50 years.
The U.S. bomb test exposed the Japanese fishing boat Fukuryu Maru No.
5, known in English as the Lucky Dragon, and residents of Rongelap
Island to radiation.
But many other Japanese ships and people were affected by the ensuing
nuclear fallout of the bomb, which was 1,000 times more powerful than
the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Many of the fishermen in Kochi have died, while others, coupled with
aging, are apparently suffering different kinds of illnesses linked
to radiation exposure.
A total of 992 tuna boats were exposed to radiation at the same time
as the Lucky Dragon, which was fishing for tuna about 160 kilometers
east of the test site when the United States detonated the hydrogen
bomb.
Of the 992, 270 were ships from Kochi Prefecture, and it is believed
about 2,340 people based in Sukumo, Muroto, Tosashimizu and elsewhere
suffered the effects of radiation.
On March 24, the Sukumo city assembly adopted a written opinion
calling on the state to address relief measures for irradiated ship
crew and publicize materials and documents on fishermen affected in
the Bikini Atoll blast, citing medical compensation the United States
provided U.S. soldiers who were involved.
The city is planning to consult with the prefectural government to
investigate the current status of the survivors, and conduct health
checkups on them similar to ones provided for survivors of the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.
Because of a political settlement with the U.S. government, the
Japanese government has not recognized the crew members as nuclear
bomb survivors unlike atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and has continued to exclude them from relief measures
under Japanese law.
Under the political settlement of January 1955, the U.S. paid
compensation of 720 million yen to the Lucky Dragon crew and fishing
industry facilities.
Sukumo Mayor Seiji Nakanishi urged the national government to heed
the calls at the local level and not simply "shut the door" on them.
------------------------------------
Sandy Perle
Vice President, Technical Operations
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
3300 Hyland Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100 Extension 2306
Fax:(714) 668-3149
E-Mail: sperle@globaldosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/
Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.globaldosimetry.com/
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