Canada's nuclear fallout

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080222.w-aecl23/BNStory/National/home

Canada's nuclear fallout

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

February 23, 2008 at 1:17 AM EST

DEEP RIVER, ONT. — He was a newcomer to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, a refugee from the Crown-owned nuclear facility at Chalk River who brought with him a sparkling bit of inside knowledge.

His colleagues were reviewing a set of safety upgrades, designed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to modernize the NRU, the 50-year-old research reactor that supplies more than half of the world's medical isotopes.

"Staff in Ottawa were totally convinced that the were in," said one CNSC insider who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The new man knew better: Not all the upgrades were done.

...

[NNadir]

1. This reminds me of the time that coal plants that couldn't capture carbon dioxide were built.

Regulators noticed that the were spewing tens of billions of tons of highly destructive waste into the atmosphere with no regard to surrounding populations, numbering in the billions.

The regulators couldn't give a rat's ass. Oh wait, there are no regulators for the dangerous fossil fuel plants that kill indiscriminately with bizarre inattention to risk by a stupid and distracted public.



In fact, the nuclear industry is totally open about this problem at Chalk River - which will, unremarked by dumb fundie radiation paranoids - likely cause deaths because radioisotopes will not be available to sick people, who depend on nuclear technology for their lives. On the other hand, there is no evidence whatsoever that the failure to make "safety upgrades" would have lead to a single loss of life. So, in effect, as usual, the anti-nuke fundie cult is trading certain death for theoretical risk.

Here are some remarks about the matter from a nuclear industry website:

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS/Investigations_accusations_over_isotope_crisis_150208.html

Nuclear energy doesn't need to be risk free to be better than every other form of energy on earth. It merely needs to be better than everything else, which it is. Simply because people play selective attention to energy risks - http://ventdubocage.net/accident18.htm">For instance you will never find a fundie anti-nuke with the intellectual or moral integrity to give a rat's ass about this accident (in French) or http://ventdubocage.net/accident6.htm">the injurees, and evacuations connected with this incident (Report in French, video narration in Danish) or http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/052005/reg_052005054.shtml">this fatal accident or this statistical report on safety from the wonderful German government about their shiny new toys http://renknownet.iset.uni-kassel.de/renknowNET/obj.download;jsessionid=8d339f2630d61dc2d458d53e47178045cf24c1c05bd2?objName=135&lang=de">involving 1141 lightning repair events, 1608 ice failure events or 1562 storm related failures.

In the last case, what is interesting that for each 100 operating years of the energy system, 10 storm failure events are on average required. That's a failure rate of about 10%.

This of course, is not to say that the form of energy - which, although it is a trivial form of energy still produces a significant number of fatalities, injuries, property destruction and environmental pollution, is as bad as the dangerous fossil fuels about which the anti-nuke fundie cult couldn't care less. This form of energy does not need to be risk free to be superior to dangerous fossil fuels. In fact, there are no forms of industrial energy that are as dangerous as dangerous fossil fuels. Still the point is well made that anti-nuke fundamentalists want to ignore the risks of all forms of energy except nuclear energy. This is morally, intellectually, and scientifically dishonest and arbitrary. Because of the nature of the crisis before humanity, the exposure of such arbitrary bad thinking should be immediately confronted.