Duty of Centre, State to respond to fears over Kudankulam plant
Rejecting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's remarks blaming the Centre for failing to convince the people about the safety of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, social activist Medha Patkar on Monday said it was the collective responsibility of both the Central and State governments to respond to the genuine apprehensions of the local community living close to the upcoming nuclear reactors.
“The Union government alone cannot be held responsible for the establishment of the project as it was the Tamil Nadu government that facilitated the project by way of giving land and other assistance to the Centre and hence it is the collective responsibility of both Central and State governments to ensure the safety and sovereignty of its citizens,” said Ms. Patkar, who met the people observing fast at Idinthakarai, a coastal hamlet near the plant site.
As news of Ms. Jayalalithaa's statement reached Idinthakarai, the organisers, led by coordinator S.P. Udhayakumar discussed the gist of her letter to the Prime Minister and her appeal to them to give up their nine-day fast. Ms. Patkar reached the spot shortly after noon and joined the discussion.
Dr. Udhayakumar later said the anti-KKNPP protest, which started at Idinthakarai on September 11, had since spread to other parts of Tamil Nadu, with various organisations holding different forms of protest against the nuclear power generation programme. “Any decision on the future course of the protest can be taken only after consulting all these leaders,” he said. A decision was likely on Tuesday, he added.
Solidarity
After the indefinite fast commenced at Indinthakarai, leaders of various political parties, including Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam president and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Vijayakanth, met the agitators and expressed solidarity with their cause.
With almost all local families taking part in the agitation, the villagers have started centres at Uvari, Kudankulam and Vairaavikinaru to prepare gruel and feed the children and the aged.
Initially, 127 protesters went on an indefinite fast, but 23 of them have since been hospitalised, leaving 104 continuing their hunger strike.
Ms. Patkar said the people had started questioning the safety of the nuclear power programme after sensing the risks involved in it following the Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima accidents and the adverse impact on the land, air and water being caused by such programmes. Though several conditions would be laid down initially for project clearance, none of these assurances would be honoured at the stage of execution.
Keywords: Kudankulam Nuclear Project
The fear about radiation, particularly the genetic effects is grossly mis-represented and blown out of proportion. It has been proven medically that at exposures below the limits set by ICRP would lead to no ill effects. Public around nuclear power sites in India are exposed to less than 5 percent of the limit for public dose prescribed by ICRP. Studeis by the Regional Cancer Research Centre, Thiruvananthapuram have show that no deleterious effect could be noticed which is attributable to radiation in high natural background areas with 10 times higher than the limits. When this is the fact how a small percent of the radiation background that might be received around nuclear power stations lead to any genetic effect or cancer incidence as stated by some in the press? Even the progenies of atomic bomb explosion in Japan no genetic effects have been noticed.(United Nations).
Nuclear Plants are just Silent killers of mankind and Nature in the long run.a Physics Expert,Angela Merkel,Chancellor of West Germany has scientifically analysed short-term advantages and Lon-term disadvantages of Nuclear power to the people in the light of Chernobyl and Fukushima Disasters and ultimately concluded that safety is a pure Myth in Nuclear reactors and decided to close down all the Nuclear plants in Germany and opted for other inexpensive and safe Renewable Energy resources.She realised that to-day Solatr power is much cheaper than nuclear energy along with other resources like Natural gas,Geo-thermal,Bio-mass,Wind,and even thermal energies. Greenpeace has produced a working plan for alternate energy for all European countries.India is geographically better placed in terms of the availability of alternate energy sources like Hydro-power,natural gas and Bio-mass and hence India must give up Nuclear plants to protect people and their progeny against Nuclear plant.
France gets 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy, US gets 28%. Trombay is bang in the middle of Mumbai; Kalpakkam is right next to Chennai. How many people have been killed in all nuclear accidents so far? On the other hand, nearly 4000 people die every year in Chinese coal mines. We are not even mentioning health related issues created by coal based thermal power plants. "Not in my backyard syndrome" is not going to help anyone. Nuclear plants can not be constructed everywhere. They being more dangerous than some other form of energy is pure canard.
What is the alternative to this nuclear plant to the power starved Tamil Nadu? There are several angles to this discussion involving opportunity costs, risks, viability, social progress etc. We are focusing only on the risks and underestimating the social upside of economic progress to the region.
To address the earlier comment, Solar power has its own limitations - Photovoltaic cells are still fairly expensive to develop and manufacture, making the electricity produced more expensive than power from other resources. Solar power stations take up large areas of land. Also silicon used to manufacture photovoltaic cells comes from mining process that can destroy whole areas of land.
While I agree to the views of Mr. Iyer, I would not be in favour of total closure of Nuclear Power Plants. The waste disposal might not be so safe in case of Nuclear Power plants, and risk is high. But one must remember, High Risk – High Gain, Low Risk – Low Gain. Whether you want put your money in Savings Bank or Mutual Funds or Equity Market? We can not scrap the projects outright, for political reasons. We can not afford to spoil the international relationships, there by sending wrong message to the international community. At the same time, we can not risk our lives. Therefore, genuinely we must take utmost care for safety concerns and should not compromise for whatever reasons. Enhanced safety could slightly increase the cost per unit of power. Besides, we must all rise to the fact that the initiatives so far taken in the direction of SOLAR TECHNOLOGY is not sufficient and we can really make the most out of it. It is safe, never depletes, creates large scale employment.
The furore over the Nuclear Power plant in Kuthankulam is not based on reason. We are putting up ambitious projects all over India to meet the growing demands of the ever increasing population. The main requirement for enhancing the life style of the nation is POWER, whether hydrolelectric, coal based, gas based,nuclear based. It is NOT politics based. It is the politicians who are raking up the issue on projects like these when they are very near completion, be it the Narmada Dam, the Tata car project in Bengal, the alumina project in Orissa. All for what pupose other than projecting themselves as front leaders and in the hope of garnering a few more votes from the gullible public. Natural disasters may affect dams, bridges, electrical transmission lines, railways, motor transport et al. Are we going to say NO to all such facilities simply out of fear that some day,some place a disaster MAY strike?
It is the utter failure of the advocates of nuclear energy, to convincingly allay the apprehensions of the people, whose ignorance is exploited by the vested interest and the governments at the state and the centre tend more often to succumb to the pressures not because they agree with their views but due to the fear of losing their votes.Coal fired thermal plants cause environemental pollution and how long will the country's coal reserves and imported coal can continue to feed the power plants.Has any serious study been made on the comparative cost benefit sustainability and maintenance issues of solar power vs nuclear power been made and the facts emerging from such studies reached the masses? What is he level of awareness of the disaster prevention and management techniques that will be put in places in these power plants and the arrangements for locating residential colonies at safer places/ distances should also be given due publicity. these issues should be addressed quickly.
It is unfortunate that social activist Medha Patkar had commented negatively on the free land and assistance given by the state government for a project that will meet the energy demands for the next century. Antagonist of Jayalalithaa government really takes advantage of the situation. The comments of social activist must have further intensified the apprehension of the local residents while they were already frightened on hearing a lot on the Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima catastrophes. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa must carefully handle the situation and should overcome the situation tactfully. The state government must position its stand in favour of the project and join with the Central government in taking all efforts to make the people understand the importance of a nuclear plant for abundant quantum of power needs in future. In the meantime a report prepared for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by state agencies concerned with the safety of Russia’s nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster had revealed that Russia’s reactors are found to be under-prepared for both natural and man-made disasters. The report evidently claimed that Russia’s nuclear plants lack relevant regulations for personnel to know how to deal with large-scale natural disasters or other serious contingencies. It established that electrical and safety-significant systems do not receive the attention they need, resulting in a lack of required protection. The report questioned on capabilities of Russian reactors to remain safe for extended periods of time if cooling systems fail. Russian reactors are vulnerable to the kinds of hydrogen explosions that tore through three reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi. In fact this was the cause for the people's movement against the Koodamkulam project.
I have never read so much nonsense in relation to Nuclear power as in this discussion. The protestors have no legitimate cause,whatsoever. The historic references to Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima are irrelevant: each of these had discrete and different failure mechanisms, and bear no relationship to the plant at this site. There is even a comment saying that Nuclear plants cause a kill-off of marine life, and that there is always radiation from these plants. This is utter falsehood. The Tamil Nadu CM's letter to the Prime Minister is nothing short of being politically exploitative of the unwarranted fears of the lay public. Every Civil society activist will find such an issue ripe for exploitation. With the generators now due to be commissioned, one has to wonder how such a plant could ever have been built in the first place, and not be opposed on the day of a start-up. The plant did not just suddenly rise at this site!
One of the major fact to be noted is that Nuclear Energy is one of the cheapest form of Energy Source, Already we are facing power problems almost 3-4 hrs daily and there are states where there are no electricity. So there is no other go for us other than to rely on Nuclear Power for another 20 years at least till the alternate measures are Identified and Implemented. One possible way to handle this is by educating the people on the safety measures.
A damaged nuclear installation can multiply the destructive potential of earth quakes, natural disasters, or even terror strikes. It is only fitting that the governments involve the local people in decision making when making public interest projects -- power stations, waste dumps etc. Governments now turn hostile as soon as some one raises objections whether they are genuine or not.
Only a threat of natural disasters cant stop the ambitious projects of production of atomic power.but other safety measures should be invented or provided for that.rehab of the dismantled societies is the one more problem which govt may face.
Undoubtedly Nuclear plants cause radiation hazards resulting in exponential increase of CANCER. The Marine Life in the sea is either destroyed or poisoned because of the effluents from the Nuclear Power Plant. Nuclear Power, it is claimed, is CLEAN POWER. This is untrue. Nobody counts the NUCLEAR WASTE. Till date no COMPLETELY SAFE method of disposing off the NUCLEAR WASTE has been discovered. Even the currently followed RISKY-DISPOSAL-METHOD is so expensive that if one were to include the cost of DISPOSAL too, the PU cost will become PROHIBITIVE. So instead of spending billions on carcinogenic, expensive Nuclear Power Plants, We can divert the funds on SOLAR POWER RESEARCH to obtain a TOTALLY CLEAN, RISK FREE power which is in abudance - especially in a TROPICAL country like India. Solar Power is a Technology where even the illiterate can participate upto generation process. This will lead to widespread employment with near uniform salary levels.
It is a pity, ignorance of the mass is always exploited by the power mongers. Nothing is perfect in anything. Unless there is a compromise no utility can be enjoyed. Let them think of the thousands of people who are going to working inside the campus. They are not illiterates. They are all well educated and experienced. With the local elections around the corner parties are singing choras songs. Once the elections are over, no one will be around. Let the people understand the true colours of the political parties instead of falling prey to them. What everyone needs to know is the truth and not blind protest. City of Chennai is just away from Kalpakkam and entire Trombey is next the installation.
These developments seen in the context of Central Governments move to dilute the terms and conditions of the agreement with the US, and the terms of reference to the Committee appointed by them to oversee implementation of the agreement clearly bear sinister moves to please the Nuclear Equipment selling countries, throwing interests of our people into the seas. The puppets dancing in the Govt. of India are exhibiting their total incompetency; they refuse to learn any lessons from history and from recent disasters in nuclear plans. They need to be brought to their senses in a bitter way, by people sacrificing their lives.
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