Nuclear energy is sitting duck for terrorism
Nuclear power is a sitting duck for terrorism, and not the only option to solve global warming
If it was the only option I would got for it, but it is not. Wind energy alone could solve the energy crisis if the government was strong, and if with other energy solutions there is no requirement for nuclear energy. It is con trick to say we have to have nuclear energy. How can anyone seriously believe that the other energy solutions can make 60 % to 90 % of our energy demand but not 100%. What is there a law that won't let us go to the 100% threshold Why? This is not like football it isn't like trying to get a unbeaten record in the premier. The last time I looked Russia could not stop wind blowing to the UK. It could not ban us using our own clean coal or our own wave or hydro energy. While any stronger nation is capable of stopping us getting uranium from abroad or blowing up one of nuclear energy stations up.
What if there is a nuclear accident or terrorist attack. Do the politicians of today want to be seen in the same light that the Irish look on those who made them victims of the potato famine. Or in the ways the victims of the clearances look on the Duke of Sutherland, or in the ways Jews look on Hitler. Because if there is a terrorist attack and people find out the politicians did choose unnessacary danger over safety the politician responsible for building the nuclear energy stations will not be looked on as great men, they will be looked on as demonic bogey men.
It is not appropriate to build the staions and even the modern nuclear stations being built now, as they are not considered able to withstand a modern commercial airlines. When the con artist nuclear station people tell you they are, They are still built to defend against 2.5 ton aircaft jet, not against a 250 ton commercial airliner. Do you seriously think a 3 metre wall is going to stop a 250 ton commercial ailiner.
Too much trust is put in the nuclear lobby to tell us the truth, when what we are told often flies in the face of common sense.
Chernobyl could have been even worse it could have destroyed blown up Kiev too.
Civil liberties taken but we still build a nuclear station
Why does the media not give a hysterical reaction to the government idea to build more nuclear energy stations.
We have civil liberties being taken from us on the basis of protecting us form terrorism then we build nuclear stations that could kill atleast million people with a single accident or terrorist act.
UK Threat
I accept that an accident is unlikely, and can be prevented, but I say the risk no matter how small a risk of such an accident, is too big. Millions of people dying or an area being made uninhabitable, what is the point in taking a risk. There is a logical (for many a flawed) argument for nuclear weapons, to cause fear and damage other nations, but what is the logical argument in us building what are basically a form of a radioactive nuclear weapons for terrorism groups to blow up in our own back yard. In an era where terrorists groups fly planes in populated areas.
An article in the new scientist 26 May 2004 suggested that a UK House of Commons Defence Committee suggested that a aeroplane crash in Sellafield in Cumbria could cause at worst, "several million fatalities". So basically a British holocaust, could occur from these stations. What is the point in doing such a risk.
And off course it does not take a genius to see that planes are not the only way a station can be sabotaged. Conventional bombs, a elite trained group of terrorists could cause damage a nuclear plant that would have as a big or more of a damaging affect than any aeroplane crashing into one. What would happen if terrorist go into a nuclear energy station, what havoc could they wreck if they had been trained. Or more realistically a foreign nation we are at war with. How difficult would it be for a foreign nation to train a SAS style elite group to take over one of the many nuclear energy stations the government is wanting to build and hold us to ransom with the threat of a death of millions or to carry out such an attack without giving away who they are. Safety procedures mean not a zit if a armed group with explosives and knowledge get into a station. Who is guarding the lethal stuff in the first place. This seems to be a very much a basis of trust there.
We should just a have a tough government which pushes through wind and renewable options, with clean coal alternatives, but no matter what risks of global warming we should never take the risk of long term nuclear stations dotted around the nation. People won't due if we build renewable energy instead of nuclear stations. There is no consistent government evidence that wind could not make up what we lost in nuclear. I am fed up this way the government and the nuclear lobby try to pretend it makes you a idealistic fantasist if you wind energy can answer the issues. There is no logic to say if wind energy can answer 10% it cannot answer 30%. It may mean working harder but so what. We are eventually going to have to build wind turbines anyway when uranium runs out. Do we really want to have resource war with China over uranium.
The nuclear energy industry uses the "you can't talk about how vulnerable it is to terrorism on the basis that this would give terrorists an idea". Well I think they would have done their own work by now.
Much of the defence on nuclear energy is based on the theory that the chances of an accident are unlikely. Well if someone is there to cause sabotage, then it is not unlikely. Even if it is unlikely so what, the risk is too great to create it.
Another
theory is the problems in nuclear industry only occur because we have been slow
to invest in the industry and that if we had invested, the safety problems would
not be there. Well is there not a point where when you have to build a containment
structure and metres thick (to prevent a risk which it seems some in the nuclear
lobby claim cannot happen anyway), that you start to see this is not worth the
risk. The worst a wind turbine will do is damage your view. You don't have to
rely on expensive military defences to protect your source of energy.
Containment building
These basically cover the station from attack, and the outside from radiation.
The domed building is designed to withstand earthquakes and a direct hit by a airliner.
The argument is a Containment shield will protect a plant. It is to contain the escape of radiation, and attacks. Well what happens if a terrorist blows a whole in the Containment building with a conventional bomb, before setting off the nuclear meltdown what are we going to have to do then. The argument is the Containment shield will protect against any airliner.
If you can get a bunker busting bomb how can a nuclear station have a shield so strong it could stop any conventional bomb or every any plane. Or what would one of these modern thermobaric weapons do to a Containment shield. So surely no matter how strong they make a shield it will never be able to stop a planned terrorist attack. The nuclear lobby put forward numerous studies suggesting a shied surrounding the station is so strong, no missile or plane can get through. That is what was said about the skyscraper situation.
In 1988, Sandia National Laboratories did a test of a jet fighter to a large concrete block at 481 miles per hour. The airplane left only a 2.5-inch deep gouge in concrete. Although the block was not constructed like a Containment building missile shield, the results were considered indicative. A study by EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, concluded commercial airliners did not pose a danger. Yet this was before the current generation of airliners. A World trade center was considered safe for it's generation of airliners. Who knows how strong the airliners of the future will be. A study in 2002 by Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), stated a airliner plane crashing into a containment structure would not damage critical sections of a nuclear energy station. A Boeing 767 was selected as a aircraft because of it's weight. Yet there are now larger aircraft. This aircraft was made in the eighties. The study said that as the nuclear stations are so low, in terms of height, the surface of the ground would affect the ability of any pilot to direct an aeroplane at speed. Well that did not seem to make much difference to the pilot who crashed an aeroplane into the pentagon at ground level.
The nuclear lobby say nuclear stations are the safest features in the USA, and the same is said in virtually every western nation they are situated in. Yet numerous TV shows show people getting into these plants with no army training. There are numerous news claims of people getting into these stations with a hang glider or just climbing over the wall. You have to take the published reports with skepticism. Conspiracy theories say the reports that get published in nuclear safety are those that give a clean bill of health.
There is a verified claim on the internet that classified reports from a major US Laboratoy showed a well placed truck bomb would not have to enter a site's property to destroy vital equipment, leading to a release of radiation.
There is no defence against a rogue employee opening up the station to a terrorist group. And this is a real fear with intelligence people of a rogue employee doing so (blackmail, bribery, force, or deliberately). An aeroplane or aircraft can be used to supply a terrorist group to inside the site. The mechanism, to defend a nuclear station from a terrorist will never be fool prooth.
And there is the obvious fear that although one aeroplane may not destroy a containment shield 3 or four may have an affect especially if they are packed with explosives. It is not difficult to see a terrorist group getting more than one aeroplane on a day.
Numerous tests in the USA found elite teams of former army men were able to break into control rooms of nuclear power stations on numerous occasions in test sessions. Are they seriously going to guard these stations with small armies and even that won't be enough.
If you look on the internet you find numerous wensites that talk of hand held devices that could break a hole in a typical containment building weaponry. Conventional weaponry is getting stronger not weaker. For the increase in strength of the containment building there is an increase in strength of conventional weaponry. There are devices that were created in the sixties that are hand held that many say could penetrate a containment structure let alone modern specially designed weaponry. Look at the M-72 LAW.
I don't believe any containment structure can be so strong it can stop any explosion. I think this is a con trick by the nuclear lobby. I don't think the scientists who put forward the pro nuclear research are all crooks. But I feel the ones that are supportive of them get published and ones that aren't are not published. So you end with skewed debate where the fearful fact gets played down.
The risk are too great and a red carpet to terrorism.
What if the nuclear lobby does work like the tobacco lobby in working hard to fund pro nuclear info, and to suppress anti nuclear info. Or if it works hard to support any evidence which is supportive of it and to suppress any that is negative.
What if Octanitrocubane or RDX was used.
Terrorist truck bombs have blown up attacks on a eight floor building in the Khobar Towers, and a massive concertete reinforced Oklahoma building with a bomb.
These just used TNT, and a fertilizer and nitromethane mixture.
In the Beirut blast
A suicide bomber detonated explosives, equivalent to 12,000 pounds (about 5,400kg) of TNT. The force of the explosion collapsed a four story cinder block building to rubble, crushing those inside. It is said by a US federal district court judge to have been the largest non-nuclear blast ever (deliberately) detonated on the face of the earth. The force of the explosion, was quoted by in the book on the history of the Marine landing force, knocking bases off concrete support columns, which measured fifteen feet in circumference, these were reinforced by steel rods.
What if they try a gunpowder style plot, and build up a massive supply of explosives outside a nuclear station. There is no way a nuclear station could withstand a massive attack.
The "take risk" brigade
It is now fashionable for brave new world scientist brigade to say being against nuclear energy is sign of cowardice, or a being risk adverse to a extreme extent.
They would say stuff like:
Well you could add poison to the water supply, and kill millions of people so why don't we ban the water supply. Or someone could fly another plane into a skyscraper so we should never build another skyscraper. Or chemical or oil refinery could bow up so we should never build them either. The you are cowardly custard and we have the gut to make progress happen argument:
Well I say Rubbish, I accept we have to takes risk but should avoid risk if there is a safer alternative. If you want to go rock climbing go on then but don't take someone who does not want to, and tell people the real risks don't con them with some rubbish that nuclear energy is safe. We know about dirty bombs, and Chernobyl, and we know it could have been worse. If you have a safer alternative that gets you to where you want to go as quick, you take the safer option. You have no right to take people on the heavy risk option without telling people.
There is no logic behind the argument that is the only option we can got for renewable energy and clean coal.
What worries me about nuclear is how cunning the pro nuclear lobby. Studies have suggested 200,000 people will die as a result of the Chernobyl accident while other studies suggest the number is low as 54. I cannot take the last figure seriously it seems to suggest nuclear energy is not damaging. Look even the forest behind the nuclear plant died. It makes you wonder about a industry where reports range from 54 to 200,000. I cannot seriously believe the 54 figure, the area for 30km around the plant has been evacuated. The forest around the plant is dead.
Have the government not heard of Chernobyl
The Chernobyl disaster was a major accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986 at 01:23 a.m. The power plant is located near Pripyat, Ukraine. An explosion at the plant was followed by radioactive contamination of the surrounding geographic area.
It was the worst accident ever in the history of nuclear power. A plume of radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the Western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and Eastern North America. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus, according to official post-Soviet data.
The
accident raised concerns about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry,
slowing its expansion for a number of years, while forcing the Soviet government
to become less secretive. The now-independent countries of Russia, Ukraine, and
Belarus have been burdened with the continuing and substantial decontamination
and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident. It is difficult to tally accurately
the number of deaths caused by the events at Chernobyl, as the Soviet-era cover-up
made it difficult to track down victims. Lists were incomplete, and Soviet authorities
later forbade doctors to cite "radiation" on death certificates.
The 2005 report prepared by the Chernobyl Forum, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO), attributed 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer), and estimated that as many as 9,000 people among the approximately 6.6 million most highly exposed, may die from some form of cancer. Specifically, the report cited 4000 thyroid cancer cases among children diagnosed by 2002.
Although the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and certain limited areas will remain off limits, the majority of affected areas are now safe for settlement and economic activity.
There are two conflicting official theories about the cause of the accident. The
first was published in August 1986 and effectively placed the blame solely on
the power plant operators. The second theory, proposed by Valeri Legasov and published
in 1991, attributed the accident to flaws in the RBMK reactor design, specifically
the control rods. Both commissions were heavily lobbied by different groups, including
the reactor's designers, power plant personnel, and by the Soviet and Ukrainian
governments. The IAEA's 1986 analysis attributed the main cause of the accident
to the operators' actions. But in January 1993, the IAEA issued a revised analysis,
attributing the main cause to the reactor's design.
Comparison with other disasters
The
Chernobyl disaster caused a few tens of immediate deaths due to radiation poisoning;
thousands of premature deaths are predicted over the coming decades. Since it
is often not possible to prove the origin of the cancer which causes a person's
death, it is difficult to estimate Chernobyl's long-term death toll.
Other man-made disasters with very high death tolls include:
The
failure of the Banqiao Dam (Henan, China, 1975) – where an estimated 26,000
people died from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics
and famine.
The Bhopal disaster (India, 1984) – the BBC gives the death
toll as nearly 3,000 people dead initially, and at least another 15,000 have died
from related illnesses since.
The Great Smog (London, United Kingdom, 1952)
– where medical services compiled statistics and found that the fog had killed
4,000 people initially, and another 8,000 died in the weeks and months that followed.
The Johnstown Flood (Pennsylvania, United States, 1889) – 2,209 killed.
Evacuation
Soviet authorities started evacuating people from the area around Chernobyl
only on the second day after the disaster (within 36 hours). By May 1986, about
a month later, all those living within a 30 km (18 mile) radius of the plant—about
116,000 people—had been relocated. This area is often referred to as the
zone of alienation. However, radiation affected the area in a much wider scale
than this 30 km radius.
According to reports from Soviet scientists, 28,000 km² (10,800 mi²) were contaminated by caesium-137 to levels greater than 185 kBq/m². Roughly 830,000 people lived in this area. About 10,500 km ² (4,000 mi²) were contaminated by caesium-137 to levels greater than 555 kBq/m². Of this total, roughly 7,000 km² (2,700 mi²) lie in Belarus, 2,000 km² (800 mi²) in the Russian Federation and 1,500 km² (580 mi²) in Ukraine. About 250,000 people lived in this area. These reported data were corroborated by the International Chernobyl Project.
Greenpeace
Greenpeace claimed contradictions in the Chernobyl Forum reports,
quoting a 1998 WHO study referenced in the 2005 report, which projected 212 dead
from 72,000 liquidators. In a report, Greenpeace suggested there will be 270,000
cases of cancer attributable to Chernobyl fallout, and 93,000 of these will probably
be fatal, but state in their report that "The most recently published figures
indicate that in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine alone the accident could have resulted
in an estimated 200,000 additional deaths in the period between 1990 and 2004."
Blake Lee-Harwood, campaigns director at Greenpeace, believes cancer was likely
to be the cause of less than half of the final fatalities and "intestinal
problems, heart and circulation problems, respiratory problems, endocrine problems,
and particularly effects on the immune system," will also cause fatalities.
Accident types
A loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) is a mode of failure for a nuclear reactor; if not managed effectively, the results of a LOCA could be catastrophic to the reactor, the facility that houses it, and the immediate vicinity around the reactor facility. Each nuclear plant's Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) exists specifically to deal with a LOCA.
Modern reactors are designed to prevent and withstand loss of coolant, regardless of their void coefficient, using various techniques. Some, such as the pebble bed reactor, passively shut down the chain reaction when coolant is lost; others have extensive safety systems to rapidly shut down the chain reaction, and may have extensive passive safety systems (such as a large thermal heat sink around the reactor core, passively-activated backup cooling/condensing systems, or a passively cooled containment structure) that mitigate the risk of further damage.
A nuclear meltdown occurs when the core of a nuclear reactor ceases to be properly controlled and cooled due to failure of control or safety systems, and fuel assemblies (containing the uranium or plutonium reactor fuel and highly radioactive fission products) inside the reactor begin to overheat and melt. A meltdown is considered a serious nuclear accident because of the possibility that a nuclear meltdown will defeat the reactor containment and potentially release highly radioactive fission products into the environment.
What if radioactive gases rising from the molten mass escape and, and under meteorological conditions, are carried to a populated area, causing deaths of millions.
Several nuclear meltdowns of differing severity have occurred throughout the history of both civilian and military nuclear reactor operations. Nuclear meltdowns are typically characterized by severe damage to the nuclear reactor in which it occurs. In some cases this has required extensive repairs or decommissioning of a nuclear reactor and in more severe cases it has required civilian evacuations. A nuclear meltdown does not cause a nuclear explosion because the core geometry and composition of a nuclear reactor does not permit a significant fraction of nuclear fuel to be burned without thermal effects stopping the reaction. However, there have been nuclear meltdowns in which steam explosions have occurred due to the fuel being rapidly overheated from an uncontrolled power excursion accident.
Criticality accidents
A criticality accident (also sometimes referred to as
an excursion or "power excursion" occurs when a nuclear chain reaction
is accidentally allowed to occur in fissile material, such as enriched uranium
or plutonium. The Chernobyl accident is a example of a criticality accident. In
a smaller scale accident at Sarov a technician working with highly enriched uranium
was irradiated while preparing an experiment involving a sphere of fissile material.
The Sarov accident is interesting because the system remained critical for many
days before it could be stopped, though it was safely located in a shielded experimental
hall. This is an example of a limited scope accident where only a few people can
be harmed, while no release of radioactivity into the environment occurred. A
criticality accident with limited off site release of both radiation and a very
small release of radioactivity occurred at Tokaimura in 1999 during the production
of enriched uranium fuel.
Decay heat
Decay heat accidents are where the heat generated by the radioactive
decay causes harm. In a large nuclear reactor, a loss of coolant accident can
damage the core: for example, at Three Mile Island a recently shutdown (SCRAMed)
PWR reactor was left for a length of time without cooling water. As a result the
nuclear fuel was damaged, and the core partly melted.
Transport
Transport accidents can cause a release of radioactivity resulting
in contamination or shielding to be damaged resulting in direct irradiation. In
Cochabamba a defective gamma radiography set was transported in a passenger bus
as cargo. The gamma source was outside the shielding, and it irradiated some bus
passengers.
In the United Kingdom, it was revealed in a recent court case that a radiotherapy source was transported from Leeds to Sellafield with defective shielding. The shielding had a gap on the underside. It is thought that no human has been seriously harmed by the escaping radiation.
Equipment failure
Equipment failure is one possible type of accident, recently
at Bialystok in Poland the electronics associated with a particle accelerator
used for the treatment of cancer suffered a malfunction. This then lead to the
overexposure of at least one patient. While the initial failure was the simple
failure of a semiconductor diode, it set in motion a series of events which led
to a radiation injury.
A related cause of accidents is failure of control software, as in the cases involving the Therac-25 medical radiotherapy equipment: the elimination of a hardware safety interlock in a new design model exposed a previously undetected bug in the control software, which could lead to patients receiving massive overdoses under a specific set of conditions.
Human error
Human error has been responsible for some accidents, such
as when a person miscalculated the activity of a teletherapy source. This then
led to patients being given the wrong dose of gamma rays. In the case of radiotherapy
accidents, an underexposure is as much an accident as an overexposure as the patients
may not get the full benefit of the prescribed treatment. Also, humans have made
errors while attempting to service plants and equipment which has resulted in
overdoses of radiation, such as the Nevvizh and Soreq irradiator accidents. In
Japan two minor millennium bugs came to light
In 1946 Canadian Manhattan Project physicist Louis Slotin performed a risky experiment known as "tickling the dragon's tail" which involved two hemispheres of neutron-reflective Beryllium being brought together around a plutonium core to bring it to criticality. Against operating procedures, the hemispheres were separated only by a screwdriver. The screwdriver slipped and set off a chain reaction criticality accident filling the room with harmful radiation and a flash of blue light (caused by excited, ionized air particles returning to their unexcited states). Slotin reflexively separated the hemispheres in reaction to the heat flash and blue light, preventing further radiation of several co-workers present in the room. However Slotin absorbed a lethal dose of the radiation and died during the following week.
Lost source
Lost source accidents are ones in which a radioactive source is
lost, stolen or abandoned. The source then might cause harm to humans or the environment.
For example, see the event in Lilo where sources were left behind by the Soviet
army. Another case occurred at Yanango where a radiography source was lost, also
at Samut Prakarn a cobalt-60 teletherapy source was lost and at Gilan in Iran
a radiography source harmed a welder. The best known example of this type of event
is the Goiânia accident which occurred in Brazil.
The IAEA have provided guides for scrap metal collectors on what a sealed source might look like. The scrap metal industry is the one where lost sources are most likely to be found.
Others
Some accidents defy classification. These accidents happen when the
unexpected occurs with a radioactive source. For instance if a bird grabs a radioactive
source containing radium from a window sill and then was to fly away with it,
returning to its nest and then the bird dies shortly afterwards from direct irradiation
then it is the case that a minor radiation accident has occurred. As the act of
placing the source on a window sill by a human was the event which permitted the
bird access to the source, it is unclear how such an event should be classified
(if is a lost source event or a something else). Radium lost and found describes
a tale of a pig walking about with a radium source inside; this was a radium source
lost from a hospital.
Also some accidents are "normal" industrial accidents which happen to involve radioactive material, for instance a runaway reaction at Tomsk (see red oil) caused radioactive material to be spread around the site.
For a list of many of the most important accidents see the IAEA site.
Analyses of nuclear power plant accidents
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) requires each nuclear power plant in the US to have a probabilistic risk
assessment (PRA) performed upon it. The two types of such plants in the US (as
of 2007) are boiling water reactors and pressurized water reactors, and a study
based on two early such PRAs was done (NUREG-1150) and released to the public.
However, those early PRAs made unrealistically conservative assumptions, and the
NRC is now generating a new study.
I am a member of the labour but I am against nuclear there are too many link with labour and nuclear industry
Labour links with nuclear industry
Nuclear lobbyist Alan Donnelly was a former Labour MEP
Chancellor Gordon Brown's brother, Andrew, is EDF's head of media relations in the UK.
Yvette
Cooper, housing and planning minister, wife of Mr Brown's buddy Ed Balls. Her
father is a trade union official Tony Cooper, who has been head of the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority.
Weber Shandwick's UK arm has been headed by Colin
Byrne, the Labour Party's former chief press officer.
Former energy minister Brian Wilson has been a non executive director of Amec Nuclear, (a client of BNFL) a government owned nuclear reactor operator.
Lord Cunningham, Tony Blair's former cabinet enforcer is ex chairman of the Friends of Sellafield campaign.
These
people are not crooks, but the links are too strong.
Misspell
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