Nuclear Energy

Severe as these effects are, they pale before the most dangerous aspects of these nuclear parks.
The VVER-1000 Reactor: A Monster Reactor
The operating experience of the Russia built VVER-1000 reactors raises frightening safety
concerns! In the last couple of years, in the VVER-1000 reactors at Temelin in the Czech Republic
and at Kozloduy in Bulgaria, numerous control rods, which are supposed to arrest power excursion
or reactor misbehaviour, did not move as designed. That can be catastrophic, as the control-rod
mechanism is crucial to preventing a runaway fission chain reaction.
VVER-1000 poses other safety issues too, including the integrity of the pressure vessel
(which tends to become extremely brittle with routine neutron bombardment), reliability of the
steam generator and auxiliary shutdown system, and the layout of the plant, which involves the
crisscrossing of a number of steam-lines. In an accident, this could lead to broken steam-lines
whipping around and hitting electrical supply and control systems, intensifying the accident and its
consequences. dlxxix
These safety issues are so serious that in 1997, the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development cancelled all loans for VVER reactors in Eastern Europe. dlxxx Dr. Alexei Yablokov,
chairman of the Russian Federation National Ecological Security Council, and one of Russia's most
well-known experts on nuclear safety, has also admitted in a scientific study that the VVER reactors
are highly unsafe. dlxxxi The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the US Department of
Energy have in fact expressed the opinion that the VVER-1000 reactors cannot meet Western safety
standards, even if improvements are made in them! dlxxxii (This is not to say that Western standards
are very good.)
EPR – Serious Design Problems
The reactor to be constructed at Madban, Jaitapur is a European Pressurised Reactor (EPR),
which is supposed to be a Generation III+ reactor, that is, it belongs to the most advanced series of
reactors in the world. However, this reactor is of an unproven design, as it is not yet in operation
anywhere in the world. The first four reactors of this design are presently in construction around the
world, two in China and one each in Finland and France. The little information available about the
latter two reactors makes for scary reading.
As discussed in Chapter 3, the nuclear industry fallaciously claims that these reactors have
an improved safety level, whereas the reality is that these reactors are inherently more dangerous as
they are of huge capacity (1650 MW, as compared to 400-1000 MW for most present day reactors),
and so have much more radioactivity in their core. Then, in order to improve the fuel economy, the
EPR will use 5 per cent enriched uranium, as against the normal 3.5 per cent in current PWR
designs, which will enable its fuel burn-up to reach in excess of 70 GWd/tonne as against 30-40
GWd/tonne in current LWRs. This is being touted as an advantage of the EPR, but what is not being
stated is that such high burn-up leads to much higher radioactivity, and much higher toxicity of the
radioactive waste. Consequently, radiation doses to the workers and general public during leakages
140