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Employees Association (BFEA) wrote to the director setting forth ten safety related demands, including the appointment of a full time safety officer. The letter also recounted two previous incidents where workers were exposed to high levels of radiation in the past two years, and how officials had always given some or the other excuse to explain away the failure to follow safety procedures. Once again there was no response from management. In desperation, some months later the union resorted to a strike. The management’s response was to transfer some of the key workers involved in the agitation and give notice to others; two days later, all striking workers returned to work. Finally, the union leaked information about the radiation exposure to the press. Once the news became public, the BARC director, in a press conference six months after the accident, grudgingly admitted this was the“worst accident in radiation exposure in the history of nuclear India”. In the same breath, he put the blame for the accident on “over enthusiasm” and “error of judgment” on part of the workers! He however refused to reveal anything about the exact medical condition of the workers, including the radiation dosage received by them, except that the workers were “cheerful”. dxl A reporter from Tehelka, an independent magazine published from Delhi reputed for investigative journalism, in 2010 tried to trace the whereabouts of the six workers who had been exposed to high level of radiation due to the accident. The medical superintendent of the DAE established hospital in Kalpakkam, told him: “One of them died, but not due to radiation. The rest are fine.” But his efforts to locate the five surviving worker came to naught.dxli Tehelka also found evidence of increase of cancer and other diseases among the 30,000 workers living in the five villages that fall within 5 km radius from the plant. While the local public health centre denied information to Tehelka about cancer-related deaths among workers saying the information was sensitive, DAE officials maintained that the radiation emission levels were too low to cause problems. dxlii More recently, in the Kaiga incident of 2009 (discussed in Part I above), where different reports say that between 35 and 250 workers were affected, the AERB in its press release of November 29, 2010 said that only two workers received a dose exceeding the 30 millisievert maximum limit stipulated by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. India's nuclear authorities also trivialised the hazards posed by tritium and claimed it was a non-toxic substance. Whereas tritium is a beta-ray emitter and can cause extensive, irreversible damage. dxliii The DAE can lie, and lie profusely, about accidents at its plants, deny that any radiation leakage took place, lie about the impact of this leakage on its workers, and nothing can be done about it. The Atomic Energy Act of 1962 makes it totally unaccountable to the people of India. Temporary workers The DAE's attitude to temporary workers is even more criminal. While the permanent workers have their union to protect their interests, the temporary workers have no such protection. The DAE ruthlessly takes advantage of their poverty and helplessness to make them do the most dangerous tasks, such as cleaning up radioactive materials. No record is kept of how many such 132
workers are exposed to radiation, and how much radiation they are exposed to. Writing about Tarapur in Business India in 1978, Bidwai reported that parts of the plant had become “so radioactive that it is impossible for maintenance jobs to be performed without the maintenance personnel exceeding the fortnightly dose ... in a matter of minutes”, and so instead of the regular employees of TAPS, outsiders were employed to carry out maintenance tasks, many of whom did not have knowledge of the hazards they were being exposed to. Obviously, the situation at Tarapur must only have worsened since then! Another newspaper reported that temporary workers were used to repair a leak a major radioactive leak from ill-maintained pipelines in the vicinity of the CIRUS and Dhruva reactors at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in 1991. The temporary workers who did this job were later given a bath, a new set of clothes, and packed off home. dxliv There are plentiful such anecdotal evidences of poor worker safety culture and workers health being compromised in DAE establishments. The reason why we have only anecdotal evidence is that outsiders do not have access to the health records of DAE workers. Part V: India’s Nuclear Reactors: Impact on People India's nuclear reactors are leaking radiation. Dr Gopinath, the then Director of the Health Physics Division at the BARC, disclosed at a meeting of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) in 1993, the numerical values of the radioactive discharges from Indian nuclear power plants. UNSCEAR was outraged and officially told the Indian government that these discharges were higher than the safe limits by about 100 times. dxlv That India's reactors are emitting radiation at several times the international norm has also been admitted by S. P. Sukhatme, then Chairman of the AERB, in 2002. dxlvi Not much information is available about the impact of these radiation leakages, both the routine releases of radioactivity and radiation released from the innumerable “incidents” at India's atomic reactors, on the health of people and animal-plant life around nuclear plants in India. The authorities have simply not done any studies. The only skeletal information we have is based on a survey done by two independent scientists in the villages around RAPS and some studies done on impact of MAPS and KARP on life of fisherfolk in the area. Renowned scientists Drs. Surendra and Sanghamitra Gadekar of Vedhci, Gujarat did a unique survey of the population living in five villages in the vicinity of Rawatbhata nuclear power plant in 1991. It is probably the only survey of its kind ever done in the country. The survey found dxlvii : A huge increase in the rate of congenital deformities A significantly higher rate of spontaneous abortions, still births and one day deaths of new born babies A significant increase in chronic diseases especially amongst the young, but no differences in acute infections 133
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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):
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6. Blithely Ignoring Health Costs S
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Is Nuclear Power Green? Chapter 5 S
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Energy Balance attempts to make an
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nuclear energy as compared to elect
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Table 1: Estimates of Total and Nuc
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� At the end of 2009, there were
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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 and 118: extremely sensitive material used i
Page 119 and 120: area due to uranium mining. cdlxxxi
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: Fires have also occurred repeatedly
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
Page 169 and 170: Energy about the huge potential of
Page 171 and 172: anticipating a change in NSG rules,
Page 173 and 174: � Privatise the public sector, in
Page 175 and 176: countries - recycling rubbish in th
Page 177 and 178: inflows of foreign capital (also kn
Page 179 and 180: analyse. We must develop our politi
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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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