New Delhi, March 14: Sections of the global nuclear science and engineering community are bracing themselves for a possible swing of public opinion away from nuclear power as Japan appears to teeter on the edge of a nuclear disaster.
Hydrogen explosions have blown the concrete walls and ceilings that made up the outer shells of two reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power station in northern Japan but the primary reactor vessels housing the radioactive cores remain undamaged.
The impact so far places Fukushima between America's Three Mile Island in 1979 — no radioactivity release despite a core meltdown — and the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in April 1986 that led to a massive environmental release of radioactivity.
But since the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan's reactors, anti-nuclear activists have intensified their campaign for a halt to planned expansion of nuclear energy, saying the incidents in Japan highlight the inherent dangers of nuclear power.
"Once again, we're reminded of the inherent risks of nuclear power, which will always be vulnerable to potentially deadly combinations of human error, design failure, and natural disasters," said Karuna Raina, a campaigner with Greenpeace India.
The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, a non-government agency in India, today called for a moratorium on all civilian nuclear activity and a transparent public safety audit of all nuclear reactors in the country.
"We're told nuclear plants are prepared for emergencies — what's happened now?" said Wilfred DeCosta, a coalition member. "After Three Mile Island, Russia went ahead with nuclear plans, after Chernobyl, Japan continued, is India going to learn now?"
Anticipating such attacks, the nuclear science community — in India and elsewhere — has launched an exercise in public reassurance about a technology that has long evoked bitter controversy over safety.
Nuclear engineers assert it is premature to draw conclusions from the events in Japan. "Many opposed to nuclear power will try to use this to call for changes," said a nuclear engineer in a US university who requested anonymity.
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) in the US said that although Japan experienced a "worst case" scenario, even the most seriously damaged of Japan's reactors had so far not released radiation at levels that would harm the public.
"These were decades-old reactors — the next generation of reactors are designed with fail-safe cooling systems," said Swadesh Mahajan, a nuclear physicist at the Institute of Fusion Studies at the University of Texas, Austin.
Members of the nuclear science community also point out that the annual human health impacts of coal power plants far exceed the casualties associated with the worst of nuclear accidents — Chernobyl. A Clean Air Task Force in the US estimated last year that air pollution from coal power plants may have contributed to some 13,000 premature deaths during 2010, and more than 20,000 heart attacks per year.
The Chernobyl accident caused 57 direct deaths — and an epidemiological investigation suggested that it may have caused about 4,000 cancer deaths over some years.
India's atomic energy department today said the country's pressurised heavy water reactors had different designs from those of the boiling water reactors (BWRs) in Fukushima and "have multiple redundant and diverse shutdown systems as well as cooling water systems".
The Tarapur Atomic Power Station has two US-made BWRs — similar to the ones in Fukushima — but, the atomic energy department said, they had been renovated and upgraded with additional safety features consistent with latest safety standards.
Sections of the nuclear industry believe a full investigation of the sequence of events in Japan will eventually make nuclear energy even safer.
"We will incorporate the lessons learned into the design and operation of US nuclear power plants," the NEI said. "When we fully understand the facts surrounding the event in Japan, we will use those insights to make nuclear energy even safer."
Singh seeks review
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Parliament today that the country's atomic energy establishment had been asked to undertake an immediate review of all safety systems of India's nuclear power plants to ensure that they would be able to withstand the impact of earthquakes and tsunamis.
India has 20 operating nuclear reactors with an installed capacity of 4,780MW. Eighteen are indigenous pressurised heavy water reactors, and two are boiling water reactors of the type in Fukushima. Singh said Indian nuclear reactors had met safety standards in the past. The Kakrapar atomic power station continued to operate safely during the Bhuj earthquake of January 2002 and the Madras Atomic Power Station was safely shutdown during the tsunami of December 2004.
