On 28 November 2011 01:14, jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:
Read about radioactivity and half life. Also those readings from Geiger counters tell you less than half a story.
Indeed. Even when they operate, nuclear plants display extreme gluttony while consuming natural resources. Some points (I don't have the energy to look up numbers at the mo) for Koodankulam:
- A very large area of the Bay of Bengal will lose its aquatic life due to effluents from the plant, which will be dumped in sea.
- A vast area of inhabited and arable land around the plant needs to be evacuated to comply with IAEA/AERB norms.
- Each of the reactors I think uses up about 1000 megalitres of water every year (ie, pumps in, is used to cool the reactor, absorbs radiation and then is dumped into the sea). I think that's more than the entire irrigation needs of TN.
- A nuclear reactor has about 30-40 years of life, but needs to be babysat for close to a century.
- The nuclear waste from a reactor has extremely stringent disposal norms. As a matter of fact, I haven't heard much about the waste disposal plans - it is all mysterious at the moment.
Binand