Accident casts fresh doubt on nuclear safety

[ensho]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.nuclear25nov25,0,810881.story


there was a radiation leak at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa., less than 100 miles north of Baltimore up I-83. One hundred and fifty workers were evacuated, and 20 people were exposed to radiation.

The leak didn't get a lot of attention here, but Marylanders should care - not only because Three Mile Island is not very far from us but also because Calvert Cliffs in Southern Maryland may be the site of the first new nuclear power plant to be ordered since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Electricité de France (EDF), the largest merchant of nuclear power in Europe, has purchased an almost 50 percent share in Constellation's nuclear holdings and will try to build a new nuclear power plant in our state with millions of dollars in federal loan guarantees.

Last week's leak is the latest reminder that nuclear power, despite its proponents' claims, can be dirty and unsafe. And there are disturbing questions about EDF's safety record. Last month, it was accused of dumping more than 1,500 tons of spent fuel near a town in Siberia, where the waste was discovered in metal cans. EDF claims it is sending the material to Russia to be "reprocessed." Environmental experts quoted in Britain's Telegraph newspaper say that 13 percent of spent fuel from its plants is shipped over there, and it is "really dirty stuff."

EDF has other problems in France, where 15 of 58 reactors it owns are currently off-line. As reported this month in the Economist, one investment bank attributes the company's trouble with reliability in electricity production to under-investment and large maintenance costs from EDF's aging nuclear power fleet. Another expert quoted in the article commented that more attention was being given to international expansion and less to local French operations. One site, Tricastin, has repeatedly been in the news for leaks and mishaps - as it was again two weeks ago, when its Unit #2 had to stop refueling because the fuel assembly got stuck, just as it had last year. Also last year, there was a 30,000-liter spill of a uranium solution that contaminated two nearby rivers for a time. Another event at Tricastin last year caused the low-level radioactive contamination of 45 workers.

-snip-

These recent reports recount worker and environmental contamination, mishandling of nuclear waste, lack of reliability in producing electricity and fiscally risky policies at EDF. As laid out in Scientific American, as well as in the works of Maryland's own clean energy scholar, Arjun Makihani, from the Takoma-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, EDF's biggest problem may be that it is marketing an old, expensive and dirty solution to our energy crisis.

Three Mile Island reminds us that when there is a mishap at a nuclear power plant - unlike at wind, water and solar plants - what leaks out is radioactive.
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no to new nuke plants

[Name removed]

1. Deleted sub-thread

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[northernlights]

6. cripes. another freep that took a wrong turn

Were you all drinking all weekend? Or do you just not know your left from your right?

Criminies -- take your hatred of planet earth back to freeperland. You really, really, really don't want to hang around here among the libruls. We smell, dontcha know? And what with all the freepers declaring it open season on libruls, you don't wanna get to close. You might get shot by friendly fire.

[Duckhunter935]

2. I love these non-problems

The system works

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the small amount of radiation detected at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant is not significant.

Specialist John White has told ABC News that there is no indication that radiation at the plant exceeded or even approached regulatory limits.

The commission sent investigators to the central Pennsylvania plant after a small amount of radiation was detected.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9148703

[NV Whino]

3. Amusing

that you think any amount of radiation leak is a non problem.

[Duckhunter935]

5. not just me

Specialist John White has told ABC News that there is no indication that radiation at the plant exceeded or even approached regulatory limits

[Odin2005]

8. 16 millirems IS a non-problem.

People get around 700 millirems a year, nearly all from natural sources. It's no different than getting a few X-rays done while in the hospital.

[Turbineguy]

4. A couple of points

Ensho is DU's in-house nuclear industry watch dog.

Some people watch Glenn Beck, others watch Joe Scarborough, but ensho watches nuclear plants ("so you don't have to" as the saying goes). It is this diversity of interests that make DU such a valuable asset.

Nuclear power is inherently dangerous, made safe only by regulation and careful engineering and operation.

So I suggest that however anybody feels about nuclear power, pro-or-con, that feeling does not spill over toward ensho who is merely reporting the news.

[usregimechange]

7. We should still be in the research phase with this technology

[Dogmudgeon]

9. Damn, I was downwind and I didn't even turn into a nuKKKular zombie!

Last week's leak is the latest reminder that nuclear power, despite its proponents' claims, can be dirty and unsafe.

Last week's leak is the latest reminder that the anti-nuclear "movement" is straining at ever-smaller gnats in a frantic struggle to remain relevant.

And it's "Makhijani", not "Makihani". So much for Dr. DuBois' concern cred.

--d!