Report of the People's Movement Against Nuclear
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
REPORT OF THE PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT AGAINST NUCLEAR ENERGY (PMANE) EXPERT COMMITTEE ON SAFETY, FEASIBILITY AND ALTERNATIVES TO KUDANKULAM NUCLEAR POWER PLANT (KKNPP) 12th December 2011 1 Executive Summary The Committee appointed by the Peoples Movement Against Nuclear Energy studied various reports, documents and papers on KKNPP in particular and nuclear energy and ionizing radiation in general. A 38 page report by the Central Expert Group (CEG) was made available to us. Besides responding to the assertions of the CEG report, we are also bringing forward our own studies that are relevant to the reactor safety.. Most of the documents that were asked by PMANE were not shared to the technical committee including the site evaluation study and other documents. Despite this handicap the committee has gone in depth and analysed various issues. This compilation is divided into four parts. Part I deals with the site‐specific problems of KKNPP. These includes (i) a review of geological and oceanographic studies in around KKNPP, (ii) inadequate provision of fresh water in the nuclear island and the township, (iii) limestone mining at the nuclear site, (iv) construction of a township for tsunami survivors within the sterilized zone which apparently escaped the attention of NPCIL, (v) contradictions and false statements by several expert groups that have studied the nuclear facilities during 2011 and (vi) possibility of station black out beyond a month due to space weather anomalies. Part II deals with the human health concerns of low level radiation. This is based on epidemiological studies conducted among the (i) bomb victims of Hiroshima‐Nagasaki, (ii) down‐winders of Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS), (iii) workers of nuclear facilities and their families in India and (iv) people living in high natural background radiation in Kerala. Part III is an in‐depth study of the effects of releases of radioactivity and 700 billion liters of hot water from each reactor every day on the marine eco‐system. The impacts include depletion of fisheries and multiplication of heat‐tolerant organisms like jelly fish. The depletion of fisheries will negatively impact the livelihood of fisher‐people and the food sovereignty of the people in general. Jelly fish attack can be a problem for the intake pipes for reactor coolant and raw water for desalination plants. Part IV deals with other safe and sustainable alternatives for electricity generation and contains a detailed analysis of fuel shifting. In short, the infra‐structure built with so much of investment will not have to be abandoned. 1 PART 1: KKNPP SPECIFIC SAFETY RELATED ISSUES 1.1) Geology and Oceanography Kudankulam site is transected by sub volcanic intrusive cutting into the granulite grade of metamorphic rocks. The configuration of these sub volcanic intrusive, brought out by a recent ground magnetic survey, deems a horst‐graben structure criss‐crossing the E‐W trend of the coast. These sub volcanic bodies have bisected the near surface crust in the form of plugs to the west and in the form of dyke swarms to the east, indicating a severe crustal dilation to the east. It is also suggested that crustal thinning and mantle upwelling have led to the emplacement of mantle hybrid rocks as dykes and plugs, near (200 meters deep) sub‐surface. Places around Kudankulam have experienced small volume volcanic eruptions in the years 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2005. The nearest eruption occurred at just 26 kilometers away from the KKNPP site. The products of these eruptions have been confirmed by various researchers as the ones produced by volcanic activity. One cannot rule out such eruptions at the site itself. Issues of subduction, fire and impact of high speed missiles emanating from the burst need to be addressed. Various researchers have found undersea volcanoes and volcano vents in the Gulf of Mannar (GoM) ever since 1975. Kudankulam site is located at about 100 kilometers from these structures. A magnetic survey conducted in the GoM in the year 1994 had revealed extensive emplacement of its crust by basltic rocks, eventually making the crust just 1‐5 kilometers thin. A 1978 study by the volcanologist P.He de r var i places this site as one that belongs to the Indo Australian seismic zone. The presence of dykes of trachytes, alkali basalts, sovites, phlogopite ‐ carbonatitic breccias and lavas, floats of volcanic bombs, ash tuffs and brecchias in Kudankulam site bring to the mind the case of High Radioactive Waste Repository at the Yucca Mountain, Nevada, USA, which has been put on cold storage after two decades of research. The presence of slumps in Gulf of Mannar puts forward the possibility of submarine landslides causing near field mega tsunamis. Presence of sill holes at Pannayarkulam, 10 km away from Kudankulam indicates that this region might be a karst region. These observations necessitate the need of volcanic hazards, karst hazard and tsunamihazard studies of the Kudankulam site before the reactor gets commissioned. Report of the P-MANE Expert Committee 2 1.2) Water Reserves and Availability at KKNPP The safety of the reactor core with spent fuel inside and the spent fuel pool depends ultimately on the availability of fresh water. Thousand odd employees and their families living in Anuvijay Nagar Township also require potable water. The potable water requirement of KKNPP is 1272 cubic meter a day. The two reactors require 6000 cub meters of water while operating and 1000 cubic meters while shut down. A year after commissioning, the spent fuel pools will also need water. Three desalination plants can produce the daily requirement of two reactors and the Township. One desalination plant will be on standby. The reserve water available at KKNPP campus are (a) domestic supply ‐1425 cubic meters (b) Fire water ‐2000 cubic meters and other industrial uses ‐8020 cubic meters. The Post‐Fukushima task force and the Expert Committee did not consider breakdown of the desalination plant. The desalination plants can fail either due to grid failure or due to damage of the machines or due to an attack from the jelly fish and other marine organisms. In the case of grid failure, the reactors will also be shut down. The reserve water is sufficient for maintaining the safety feature for 10 days. However, the township will face water shortage in about two‐three days. Where will they bring potable water if the grid failure lasts for more than three days? If the desalination plants fail due to other reasons, the reactors will have to be shut down immediately. Restarting may be delayed due to xenon poisoning. AERB had placed several conditions on the question of fresh water. None of these conditions like two physically protected pipelines connected to Pechiparai and Upper Kodayar reservoirs, storage of 60,000 cub meter of water inside the island etc. None of these conditions has been met. (Chapter 2 – Fresh Water Availability) 1.3) Limestone Mining in the Exclusion Zone During 1999‐2003, the India Cement Co was engaged in limestone mining at the KKNPP site. There is no mention of this additional industrial activity at the site in any of the documents of NPCIL. Even though this activity was happening even while NEERI was doing its site studies for the Environmental Impact Assessment, there is no mention of it in the EIA for KKNPP 1 and 2. They have meticulously documented the details of mining happening at a distance of 5 and 18 km from the site. Were these activities in accordance with the regulations on the coast? What was the need for this mining lease? More details in chapter 3. Report of the P-MANE Expert Committee 3 1.4) The un‐counted people in the Sterilization zone and Routine releases through stack The expert committee says that nobody lives within 2 km of the plant boundary. The CASA‐Nagar tsunami township lies within about a km from the boundary. There are about 2000 people living in 450 houses in CASA‐ Nagar. According to the rules, there should be no ‘unnatural’ population growth inside the sterilization zone. The township could have been constructed elsewhere, outside the sterilization zone. This could have prevented unnecessary exposure of children and women from stack emission. (Annual emission from stacks will be more than 30 trillion Bq of xenon, 14carbon, tritium and other radionuclides.) In the case of a radiological emergency, these are the people who would need to be evacuated immediately. Why KKNPP did not see them till now? (Chapter 4) 1.5) Flawed assumptions and false assurances of safety by the Expert Committees The reports of the Post‐Fukushima task forces, AERB and the Expert Group of the Central government contain a couple of faked data, flawed assumptions and false assurances. This chapter is a comparison of the reports dealing with the safety of KKNPP reactors. (Chapter 5) 1.6) Station Black Out beyond 10 days due to Space Weather Anomalies Space weather scientists and electricity planners in US and other countries are preparing for grid failures lasting for years as a result of solar tsunamis. According to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the probability of an event similar to the 1859 Carrington Event is one in hundred years. US NRC is currently considering a petition for rule‐making to protect the nuclear assets like the reactors and the spent fuel pool in the event of station black outs and desertion of the nuclear campuses. (Chapter 6 – Space Weather Anomalies and Nuclear Safety) PART II: HEALTH STUDIES SOMATIC AND GENETIC EFFECTS Health effects from ionizing radiation can be broadly classified into somatic and genetic effects. 2.1) Genetic effects ‐ Kerala High Background radiation region People living in coastal regions of Neendakara‐Chavara‐Alapat Panchayats in Kollam district of Kerala are exposed to higher natural radiation emanating from the monazite deposit in the beach sand.