Invest in solar, not nuclear energy
Monday, 23 March 2009
Fauzia Zebun
Nuclear energy should not be an option for a stark poor country like Bangladesh where proper up keep of even low-tech installations is so deplorable. It is very worrying indeed that lobbyists are once again active in trying to brainwash the key decision-makers into procuring a nuclear plant on the pretext of meeting people's demand for electricity for homes, factories and irrigation. That would be simply suicidal given the fact that apathy is built-in in the national psyche of Bangladesh.
There are very potent reasons why anti-nuclear activists all over the world are crying themselves hoarse trying to drive sense into the very powerful nuclear plant manufacturers and their agents. The accident record in the world should deter every right-thinking government from burdening the nation with so-called development initiatives that serve more to enrich lobbyists and sellers rather than deliver on the promises made to the people at large.
Canada, the UK, the USA and Switzerland, who were among the pioneers of nuclear energy, had all experienced major reactor accidents by the 1960s. According to a US Senate report, over 150 nuclear reactor accidents of various degrees ------ including Chernobyl in April 1986, the worst so far ---- were reported to the international atomic energy organisations in at least 15 countries. Yet, it was not until the meltdown at Chernobyl that the nuclear industry finally started admitting that there had been so many mishaps. However, they continued to deny outright that anyone had ever died directly from a nuclear accident. Deaths and debility from cancers and congenital defects, after all, are not direct causes !
The dangers of atomic energy are unique and inherent in the very nature of the element involved. This has been revealed by major disasters and research on all levels of radioactive fallout, be it from leaks in civilian reactors, medical use, bombs or bullets. But sales agents have too often been heard to dismiss the fear of accidents, claiming that all mills and factories have some amount of risks, and development projects cannot stop just because of that ! How can anyone who really understands the risks trivialize them or equate the health effects with those of non-nuclear installations ?
The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, a Boston-based group of scientists, that has been relentlessly trying to raise awareness, states categorically that even perfectly functioning nuclear power plants are 'committing pre-meditated random murder ...... because some risk is associated with any dose of radiation, however small.'
Radiobiologists suspect that emission from nuclear reactors in Canada, India, the US and Britain may be linked to birth defect clusters and leukemias in the neigbourhood. In India's Rajasthan, high levels of cogenital malformations have been reported among babies born in the villages near the heavy water nuclear reactor at Kota. Studies of Chernobyl victims over the years have also been revealing that even low-level radiation have been causing mutations in their DNA, the molecule that carries information on to generations after generations.
The real hazard of radioactive contamination then is not in the actual numbers dying but in the insidious genetic injury to the human race as a whole, according to Dr Gofman, a medical physicist-turned -activist.
About a decade ago, commission-seekers close to the then government had been very busy trying to revive the dormant Roopur project, a remnant of the Pakistan period. It is probably the same lobby that is active again, trying to take advantage of the crisis in the energy sector to sell a notoriously capital-intensive atomic plant. Instead, Bangladesh should go for the development of solar energy and persuade more enlightened home-grown investors and advanced 'donors' to help finance sustainable energy projects.
'No nuclear power has yet devised a foolproof method of safe waste disposal. The horrendous problems posed by the growing quantities of high and intermediate level radioactive waste is now persuading many advanced governments to call for a total phaseout of nuclear power. But that has not stopped nuclear plant manufacturers from trying to sell small and medium sized reactors to Third World countries. They are allegedly offering lucrative support services in the desperate attempt to secure sales thereof.
Nuclear energy should not be an option for a stark poor country like Bangladesh where proper up keep of even low-tech installations is so deplorable. It is very worrying indeed that lobbyists are once again active in trying to brainwash the key decision-makers into procuring a nuclear plant on the pretext of meeting people's demand for electricity for homes, factories and irrigation. That would be simply suicidal given the fact that apathy is built-in in the national psyche of Bangladesh.
There are very potent reasons why anti-nuclear activists all over the world are crying themselves hoarse trying to drive sense into the very powerful nuclear plant manufacturers and their agents. The accident record in the world should deter every right-thinking government from burdening the nation with so-called development initiatives that serve more to enrich lobbyists and sellers rather than deliver on the promises made to the people at large.
Canada, the UK, the USA and Switzerland, who were among the pioneers of nuclear energy, had all experienced major reactor accidents by the 1960s. According to a US Senate report, over 150 nuclear reactor accidents of various degrees ------ including Chernobyl in April 1986, the worst so far ---- were reported to the international atomic energy organisations in at least 15 countries. Yet, it was not until the meltdown at Chernobyl that the nuclear industry finally started admitting that there had been so many mishaps. However, they continued to deny outright that anyone had ever died directly from a nuclear accident. Deaths and debility from cancers and congenital defects, after all, are not direct causes !
The dangers of atomic energy are unique and inherent in the very nature of the element involved. This has been revealed by major disasters and research on all levels of radioactive fallout, be it from leaks in civilian reactors, medical use, bombs or bullets. But sales agents have too often been heard to dismiss the fear of accidents, claiming that all mills and factories have some amount of risks, and development projects cannot stop just because of that ! How can anyone who really understands the risks trivialize them or equate the health effects with those of non-nuclear installations ?
The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, a Boston-based group of scientists, that has been relentlessly trying to raise awareness, states categorically that even perfectly functioning nuclear power plants are 'committing pre-meditated random murder ...... because some risk is associated with any dose of radiation, however small.'
Radiobiologists suspect that emission from nuclear reactors in Canada, India, the US and Britain may be linked to birth defect clusters and leukemias in the neigbourhood. In India's Rajasthan, high levels of cogenital malformations have been reported among babies born in the villages near the heavy water nuclear reactor at Kota. Studies of Chernobyl victims over the years have also been revealing that even low-level radiation have been causing mutations in their DNA, the molecule that carries information on to generations after generations.
The real hazard of radioactive contamination then is not in the actual numbers dying but in the insidious genetic injury to the human race as a whole, according to Dr Gofman, a medical physicist-turned -activist.
About a decade ago, commission-seekers close to the then government had been very busy trying to revive the dormant Roopur project, a remnant of the Pakistan period. It is probably the same lobby that is active again, trying to take advantage of the crisis in the energy sector to sell a notoriously capital-intensive atomic plant. Instead, Bangladesh should go for the development of solar energy and persuade more enlightened home-grown investors and advanced 'donors' to help finance sustainable energy projects.
'No nuclear power has yet devised a foolproof method of safe waste disposal. The horrendous problems posed by the growing quantities of high and intermediate level radioactive waste is now persuading many advanced governments to call for a total phaseout of nuclear power. But that has not stopped nuclear plant manufacturers from trying to sell small and medium sized reactors to Third World countries. They are allegedly offering lucrative support services in the desperate attempt to secure sales thereof.