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in the country and any accident could have a disastrous affect on human beings, animals, environment and ecology. However, accepting the blatantly false arguments made in the statements and affidavits of officials of the DAE, the Bombay High Court dismissed the writ petition at the admission stage itself. Both the Bombay PUCL and the Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal filed appeals before the Supreme Court against the decision. The atomic energy department again repeated its argument that disclosure of the documents would harm national security. On January 6, 2004, the bench of Chief Justice of India and Justice S B Sinha dismissed both the appeals. cdlxxix Some months later, another PIL petition was filed in the Supreme Court regarding the hazardous impact of uranium mining being done by the UCIL in Jadugoda, Jharkhand. The petition made a prayer to the Court to direct the UCIL, the AEC and other concerned authorities to take all possible steps under a time bound programme to ensure that the radioactive effluents generated by the mining and allied activities of the Jadugoda uranium mines are controlled and treated properly so that the same do not cause serious hazards to the health and lives of those working or living in or around the Jadugoda uranium mines. In response, the Chairman of the AEC filed an affidavit stating under oath that adequate steps have been taken to check and control radiation arising out of uranium waste. Accepting this bare-faced lie, on April 15, 2004, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition stating that it did not see any merit in it. cdlxxx Let us take a look at the state of India's nuclear installations – it should give all of us sleepless nights! Part 2: Uranium Mining Uranium Corporation of India Ltd, a subsidiary of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), has been mining uranium in Jharkhand for over four decades now. It presently operates five underground mines in the region, and also commissioned an open cast mine in 2009. Untruths unlimited UCIL operates these mines in flagrant violation of Indian laws. Even though India’s Atomic Energy Act states that there should be no habitation within five kilometers of a waste site or uranium-tailing pond and even though Jadugoda has been in operation for more than 40 years now, seven villages stand within one and a half kilometers of the danger zone. One of them, Dungardihi, begins just 40 meters away. More than 30,000 people live within the 5 km radius from the tailing ponds. cdlxxxi The corporation's website claims that “UCIL has a track record of adopting absolutely safe and environment friendly working practices in Uranium Mining and Processing activities.” It claims that it regularly monitors external gamma radiation, radon concentration, and concentration of radionuclides in surface and ground water; while refusing to make radiation data public, citing the Atomic Energy Act of 1962, it nevertheless asserts that there is no radioactive contamination of the 118
area due to uranium mining. cdlxxxii Its website claims that “the diseases prevalent in the villages around UCIL workings are not due to radiation but attributed to malnutrition, malaria and unhygienic living conditions etc.” cdlxxxiii Shocking carelessness The reality is the exact opposite. The mining practices followed by UCIL completely disregard the fact that uranium is radioactive, and that the waste from the mines continuously emits the highly carcinogenic radon-222 gas, and the mill tailings contain uranium decay products like the highly radioactive thorium-230 with a half-life of 80,000 years (see Chapter 3 for a more detailed discussion). It callously dumps the waste from the mines in the open cdlxxxiv , and the mill waste in unlined tailing ponds cdlxxxv – seepage from which will obviously contaminate the soil and groundwater. The three tailing ponds are spread over an area of 100 acres and are estimated to contain tens of millions of tons of radioactive waste. cdlxxxvi The corporation has not taken the slightest precautions to protect the health of the people living in the vicinity of the mines from radiation release. Its utter callousness and unconcern is eloquently brought out in numerous surveys of the area around the mines by independent experts, including: field trips in 2001 and 2002 by Professor Hiroaki Koide from the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University, Japan cdlxxxvii; surveys by the well known physicist Dr. Surendra Gadekar and medic Dr. Sanghamitra Gadekar in 2000 and then again in 2005 cdlxxxviii; and the more recent survey by a team of doctors from Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), the Indian chapter of 1985 Nobel Peace Prize recipient International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) cdlxxxix in 2008. They found that: � The uranium mines were located on adivasi land. The adivasis were simply removed from their lands by force, but no attempt was made to resettle them at a suitable distance from the mines. Consequently, they continue living on the edge of the mines. Without explaining the risks, they were offered employment as uranium miners, which they willingly accepted as they had been deprived of their lands. They were thus doubly exposed to radiation: as miners, and along with their families, to the radioactive dust blowing from the tailing ponds. � No safety measures have been taken by the company. The waste is carelessly dumped in the open; the ore is transported to the mills in uncovered dumpers; the tailing ponds are not fenced off properly, and people freely walk across them, not knowing that they are thus getting exposed to gamma radiation. � The company has also supplied waste rock from the mines for construction of roads and houses! � It is suspected that radioactive wastes from various parts of India have been abandoned in these tailing ponds. This is suspected because the tailing pond in Jadugoda has a high concentration of Cesium-137, one of the fission products of Uranium which is found in the 119
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NUCLEAR ENERGY Technology From Hell
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Introduction Part I: Government Pla
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yet to find solution to the problem
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Mithivirdi: A powerful movement of
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eing proposed to be set up in the c
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nuclear power plant accident, in ou
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was subsequently endorsed by the he
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Atoms are so small that they can’
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called enriched uranium. [Note that
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of a nuclear power reactor. A typic
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Coolant: A liquid or gas circulatin
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Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor Hea
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Is Nuclear Energy Safe? Chapter 3 A
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iii. Gamma radiation: This is akin
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haematopoietic system). Radiation c
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Part III: Radiation Emission in Nuc
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The radioactivity from the tailing
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power plant contains an amount of l
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Tritium is a particularly scary mat
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Plutonium cxi Named after Pluto, th
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Firstly, reprocessing does not redu
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sports and fishing were also banned
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detail the impact of these 'once th
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We today know for a fact that the n
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Till 2005, there were at least 10,0
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The report mentions 16 “events”
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In an article published in The Nati
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Even asssuming that there will not
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fossil fuels. It has now come up wi
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Opinion of Credit Ratings Agencies
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it acknowledged that the expected c
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plant owners to use much more of th
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was the Vice-President of the USA):
Page 67 and 68: 6. Blithely Ignoring Health Costs S
Page 69 and 70: Is Nuclear Power Green? Chapter 5 S
Page 71 and 72: Energy Balance attempts to make an
Page 73 and 74: nuclear energy as compared to elect
Page 75 and 76: Table 1: Estimates of Total and Nuc
Page 77 and 78: � At the end of 2009, there were
Page 79 and 80: Therefore, despite all the optimism
Page 81 and 82: 1. Reviewing the Nuclear Renaissanc
Page 83 and 84: certification also runs out in 2012
Page 85 and 86: nuclear phase-out plans which are n
Page 87 and 88: lower house (Bundestag) to pass a b
Page 89 and 90: UK and French nuclear safety author
Page 91 and 92: The second and more important reaso
Page 93 and 94: eactor or two, but considering that
Page 95 and 96: Pre-Independence Period India’s N
Page 97 and 98: Secretary to the DAE. The 1958 Reso
Page 99 and 100: The reality has been quite differen
Page 101 and 102: Narora Uttar Pradesh PHWR 220 x 2 4
Page 103 and 104: Background Part III: US-India Agree
Page 105 and 106: 2. New Reactors Even before the Ind
Page 107 and 108: clearance, indicative of the fact t
Page 109 and 110: producing electricity from these re
Page 111 and 112: matters of negotiations”. cdxliii
Page 113 and 114: arm of Indian big industry, had ext
Page 115 and 116: India’s Nuclear Installations: Sa
Page 117: extremely sensitive material used i
Page 121 and 122: women complained of fatigue, weakne
Page 123 and 124: India: World’s most unsafe, most
Page 125 and 126: the AEC has not instituted an award
Page 127 and 128: The biggest deficiency in the Rajas
Page 129 and 130: The bed of the Thane creek, which i
Page 131 and 132: Fires have also occurred repeatedly
Page 133 and 134: workers are exposed to radiation, a
Page 135 and 136: can't catch anything else, and ther
Page 137 and 138: up in 1971 at Kalpakkam to lead the
Page 139 and 140: Tulsunde (population 800), Janshipa
Page 141 and 142: are going to be correspondingly hig
Page 143 and 144: governing the computers and systems
Page 145 and 146: guidelines.” It’s unbelievable
Page 147 and 148: The Sustainable Alternative to Nucl
Page 149 and 150: especially bad in the rural areas,
Page 151 and 152: of the human body. In particular, t
Page 153 and 154: While the costs of large dams are h
Page 155 and 156: Demand Side Management Potential to
Page 157 and 158: such absolutely non-essential uses?
Page 159 and 160: The US has the highest installed wi
Page 161 and 162: Solar water heaters are a very simp
Page 163 and 164: Renewable Energies: Poised for a Le
Page 165 and 166: (iii) Small Hydro Power The governm
Page 167 and 168: Indian villages are spread over wid
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Energy about the huge potential of
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anticipating a change in NSG rules,
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� Privatise the public sector, in
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countries - recycling rubbish in th
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inflows of foreign capital (also kn
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analyse. We must develop our politi
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xxvii I. Semendeferi, “Legitimati
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lxxxvii Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jam
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cliii The IAEA maintains an interna
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cciv Mycle Schneider, et al., “Th
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cclxxi “Nuclear power: a dangerou
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cccxxxv “The postponement of the
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cdi “Uranium imports boost Indian
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cdlxix Dhirendra Sharma, India’s
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dxxxviii “Nuclear power in India
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dxciii M. V. Ramana, ibid. dxciv Mu
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dclix Union of Concerned Scientists
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