Brazil's Nuke Industry Vows Safety, Fights Critics

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Thursday October 28 10:53 AM ET 

Brazil's Nuke Industry Vows Safety, Fights Critics  

ANGRA DOS REIS, Brazil (Reuters) - Tropical birds sing against a 
backdrop of palm-lined beaches, while on the fringes of this rain 
forest paradise Brazil's only nuclear reactor hums quietly away, 
awaiting its next mysterious shutdown.  

Brazil's nuclear power industry, for decades the focus of debate over 
its true level of safety, seems determined to stifle all its critics 
as it enters the new millennium.  

The nuclear complex at Angra dos Reis has come under repeated fire 
since its only reactor, Angra I, began operations in 1985. Critics 
charge it has a dangerously high level of shutdowns, a disastrous 
location and a patchy emergency plan.  

But Angra's management insists all is well and has slated a second 
reactor, Angra II, to come online early next year with double the 
energy potential of Angra I -- already capable of supplying power to 
a city of 1.2 million inhabitants.  

Angra dos Reis, a picturesque bay nestling against a backdrop of 
sheer cliffs and lush tropical forest some 80 miles (130 km) west of 
Rio de Janeiro, at first sight seems a strange home for a nuclear 
power complex. Built mostly in the 1970s when Brazil was under 
military rule, it has attracted its share of criticism from 
environmentalists worried about the effect a nuclear disaster would 
have on nearby forest and marine life.  

``There are enormous problems with the location, it is 
catastrophic,'' said Ruy de Goes, campaign coordinator for Greenpeace 
Brazil and a specialist on nuclear issues.  

'Typical Lack Of Vision'  

``It was a sparsely populated region, close to water ... but (there 
was) the typical lack of vision for the future,'' he said, adding 
that while Angra II was a more modern plant, Angra I had always been 
``scarred'' with problems.  

In its defense, Angra's management points out that the complex is 
next to seawater needed for cooling the condensers and equidistant 
from Brazil's three largest energy consumers -- the states of Minas 
Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.  

Doubts have also been raised about Angra's geological suitability, as 
the consequences of a serious earth tremor in an area accommodating a 
nuclear reactor could be catastrophic.  

``We wouldn't have built a nuclear plant on soil which wasn't 
solid,'' said Ronaldo Fabricio, president of Eletrobras Termonuclear 
(Eletronuclear), the Rio-based body charged with overseeing Brazil's 
nuclear operations.  

``It is a very stable area, but despite that the plant has been 
designed to withstand an earthquake the level of six on the Richter 
scale,'' he said. ``If that happened, Sao Paulo would be destroyed 
and Angra would be the only thing in Brazil which would remain 
intact.''  

Over the years, the plant has hit the headlines of Brazil's 
newspapers with its unenviable record for shutdowns -- nearly a dozen 
since June 1998. Its critics say this number of shutdowns is far 
higher than would be normal for maintenance and fuel changes, often 
the official explanation for stoppages.  

``Angra has a history of incidents but not accidents. There has been 
no leak outside, only inside the plant. There is also a chronic 
problem with the steam generator,'' de Goes said, citing corrosion in 
piping and minor cracks in fuel rods.  

Angra's management admits minor but contained leakage has occurred 
inside the reactor vessel and says the cracks in the rods are due to 
a design incompatibility. It says the number of shutdowns is high but 
still acceptable, pointing out that this year it has been operating 
at 96 percent of grid availability.  

``There have been a lot of shutdowns, but we have never had any 
problems with the nuclear area,'' Fabricio said.  

Government Drags Heels On Nuclear Waste  

One of the main complaints of environmentalists is that the 
government has not adopted a definitive solution for nuclear waste 
produced at Angra. Legislation has been mired in Congress for years, 
and for now low and medium grade waste is stored in steel drums while 
spent fuel is deposited in water tanks within the reactor area -- a 
solution experts say is relatively safe provided the storage period 
does not exceed 15 or 20 years.  

``What is inadmissible is the lack of solution,'' said Greenpeace's 
de Goes. ``At the moment they lump together all grades of waste as a 
temporary solution,'' he said, although he conceded this was not 
dangerous in itself.  

While Angra's management says it would dearly like to see a final 
decision by Brazil's watchdog National Nuclear Energy Commission 
(CNEN), it insists the current situation with waste storage poses no 
threat to the environment.   

Experts say the plant's fuel elements account for only some 50 tons 
of waste per year, a relatively small amount and easily manageable. 
The waste can be compressed with water, cleaning materials and 
filters so the overall volume is low.  

``We are waiting for the commission to define the place where the 
final deposit will be placed. As soon as we have this set up, we will 
just move the waste to that place,'' Kleber Ribeiro Consenza, 
operations superintendent at Angra, said.  

According to the United Nations atomic watchdog, Brazilian safety 
officials have requested advice on the bituminization of low and 
medium grade waste. Bitumen, glass and concrete are three standard 
materials used to embed waste.  

Hans-Friedrich Meyer at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy 
Agency (IAEA) said the nuclear industry worldwide was tending to 
store its waste on site rather than transport it elsewhere -- for 
political and financial reasons.  

``You save money by waiting because the transport problem gets 
smaller and smaller. The less radioactivity you have to protect the 
environment from, the more the radioactivity decays by itself. That's 
its natural law,'' Meyer said.  

``The politicians are also in favor of it and it's only the opponents 
of nuclear power who say it's not settled. In the longer term you 
have to settle it but these are not mountains of waste, they are 
manageable amounts.''  

Questions Linger About Disaster Plan  

De Goes said Angra's location, with a backdrop of cliffs and 
occasional sheer drops to the sea, could compromise emergency escape 
routes. But supporters say an accident at a reactor such as Angra I 
might occur once in 10 million years.  

The current emergency plan delineates the outlying area into 
concentric zones extending up to 10 miles (15 km) from the complex 
under direct command of Eletronuclear. Areas further away are under 
Rio state's civil defense forces.  

It also incorporates CNEN recommendations based on the 1979 U.S. 
Three Mile Island incident and the 1986 Chernobyl accident in 
Ukraine, the worst nuclear accident in history.  

``What has changed a lot from the past ... is that now, if there had 
to be some movement in the population, it would only be done very 
close to the plant,'' said Everton Carvalho, institutional relations 
coordinator at Eletronuclear.  

``The priority today is that people are informed. Experience has 
showed that the tendency is toward having people stay at home due to 
the exposure to particles. That possibility is very remote but if it 
happened it would only be local.''  

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/scperle

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