But given the record of all countries with nuclear power about honest disclosure, I think the idea of a league table of safe or less safe is laughable. They all lie, even the french tried to cover up the leaks at their plant. Now a large number of people are drinking bottled water cos the groundwater is so contaminated it's messing with the water supply.
Never trust a government with nuclear power, they're only marginally more trustworthy than a bond villain when it comes to the priority between public safety vs making a bomb or two. keep to the Fen Causeway
They all lie, even the french tried to cover up the leaks at their plant.
So how do you know about it? Because the info is public! And suddenly journalists realised that the info was public, and that minor incidents happened once in a while, and could be turned into a hysterical media circus at a time when news are rare. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
50 years ago we didn't know about a major release of radiation from Windscale errr Seascale oh bugger it Sellafield, {we changed the name so's it happened somewhere else} for 30 years. The scale of the Harrisburg explosion was downplayed for about 3 years, we knew about chernobyl in 2 days. So now that we discover that Areva, working for the French Govt, aren't quite so secure with their toxins as some might like, french journos finally discover the same skepticism the rest of us have. This isn't just a case of Summer silly season, this is a case of journalists losing religion. Nuclear power, even French nuclear power, isn't as safe as they wanted it to be.
After all, I fail to understand what is "minor" about releasing contaminants that render groundwater unusable for geologically significant periods of time. This stuff accumulates. A bit here, a bit there, maybe not so bad over a couple of politicians careers, but it's gonna be embarrassing trying to explain to people 1000 or 2000 years from now why half of France glows at night. Or maybe, as JMK said we're all dead anyway, but I'm less sanguine about pissing over my distant successors, even when I personally won't have any. keep to the Fen Causeway
The scale of the Harrisburg explosion was downplayed for about 3 years
The Three Mile Island accident was the most significant accident in the history of the American commercial nuclear power generating industry. It resulted in the release of a significant amount of radioactivity, an estimated 43,000 curies of radioactive krypton [1] (1.59 PBq), but under 20 curies (740 GBq) of the particularly hazardous iodine-131, to the environment.[2]
So yes, there was a tiny release of noble gases, but it was in no way a health hazard. Flying from Harrisburg to the other side of the country would have given you a larger radiation dosage than if you had stayed put, even if the plant was your closest neighbour.
It reminds me of when we got the fallout from Chernobyl and the media was in a frenzy over the fact that radiation levels were double the usual in the affected areas. They didn't mention that levels were three times the normal background in our second largest city and along our western coast because of the composition of the bedrock. Or that we had gotten far more fallout during the 60's because of Soviet nuclear testing in the Arctic than we got from Chernobyl. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
A less-than-neighbourly dispute ensued, and ended with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) culling 180 pigeons. Coincidentally, at about the same time the comedian Mark Thomas appeared on Channel Four taking Sellafield to task for contaminating seagulls. Every time a seagull flew over the nearby town of Whitehaven he sounded an air-raid siren to warn people to take cover from radioactive droppings. Concerned at the possibility that pigeons might be similarly afflicted, the RSPCA asked BNFL to check some of the culled birds. The results were shocking. An analysis by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food revealed that the pigeons' breast meat contained up to 50 000 becquerels of caesium-137 per kilogram--forty times the European Union's food safety limit in the event of a nuclear accident. In February last year, the ministry warned people within a 16-kilometre radius of Sellafield not to handle, slaughter or eat pigeons.
A less-than-neighbourly dispute ensued, and ended with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) culling 180 pigeons. Coincidentally, at about the same time the comedian Mark Thomas appeared on Channel Four taking Sellafield to task for contaminating seagulls. Every time a seagull flew over the nearby town of Whitehaven he sounded an air-raid siren to warn people to take cover from radioactive droppings.
Concerned at the possibility that pigeons might be similarly afflicted, the RSPCA asked BNFL to check some of the culled birds. The results were shocking. An analysis by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food revealed that the pigeons' breast meat contained up to 50 000 becquerels of caesium-137 per kilogram--forty times the European Union's food safety limit in the event of a nuclear accident. In February last year, the ministry warned people within a 16-kilometre radius of Sellafield not to handle, slaughter or eat pigeons.
Are French and American seagulls and pigeons any safer than British ones? or are the British uniquely incompetent at running these sites? Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell. Frank Borman
So it has more sites that badly contaminated from the early days, and more equipement that turned out to not be the best choices, and thus are also not easy to deal with.
France had the luxury of learning from UK and US mistakes, and chose the most practical, fully-tested technology for its plants - and used a single design, something that the UK miserably failed to do. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Plus the operators are cash-strapped and skipped on maintenance. Vessels and essential heavy parts are past their intended lifetime.
Sellafield reprocessing plant is a kind of soviet-style eco-disaster akin to the (former) sea of aral. Dunno exactly why they fucked up so badly on this one. Pierre
I don't think this was ever directly stated, rather various experts suggested that there was no design need for the waste pipe that ran out to sea at all and so began speculating on why it was there. then they found evidence of long term collection of cancer records in the NW that weren't conducted elsewhere and added 2 + 2.
Whether they made 4 or 5 I don't think was ever confirmed, but given the cavalier way the UK govt have treated the population as experimental animals on other occasions it wouldn't be remotely surprising. keep to the Fen Causeway
He dosent go sea fishing in the Irish sea anymore. Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell. Frank Borman
The government did not help, by holding frantic press conferences and promising measures to check water around plants (as if it were not done, which it of course was...).
So yes, hysteria. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
