The Kudankulam radiation leaks

The proponents of the  nuclear project sought to pooh-pooh the safety concerns raised by anti-atomic power campaigners last year. In response to adverse criticism of that nuclear plant, the High Commission of India in Colombo, issuing a media statement on Sept. 27, 2012, declared that it had ‘high safety standards’ posed no threat to Sri Lanka’. The Indian government assigned utmost attention to nuclear and radiation safety, including the safety of operating personnel, public as well as the environment, the High Commission claimed, noting that Kudankulam was a ‘state-of-the-art plant compliant with the highest safety standards available in the nuclear industry today and the safety measures instituted at the plant are of the highest order’.

But, alas, the Kudankulam plant’s first 1,000 MW capacity unit completed in October last year has already developed leaks even before being commissioned, as a veteran Indian journalist pointed out in an article we reproduced on this page yesterday. Nuclear fuel rods were loaded in spite of vehement protests by residents and environmentalists a few months ago, but not a single unit of electricity has been produced due to leaks, we are told. The People’s Movement against Nuclear Energy has vowed to lay siege to the power plant if any attempt is made to commission it in a hurry. It looks as though Kudankulam plant had become India’s nuclear version of Sri Lanka’s coal-fired Norochcholai power station, which has come to be dubbed ‘Always Breakdown’. We fervently hope that Kudankulam won’t turn out to be Asia’s Chernobyl! If something goes wrong there—absit omen!—Sri Lanka will feel the impact within a matter of few hours, as experts have pointed out.

In answer to what Sri Lanka intended to do in view of a possible radiation leak at Kudankulam, some local atomic wizards claimed that an early warning system would be installed. But, of what use is it in the event of a nuclear disaster? In such an eventuality, we will be lost between Kudankulam and the deep blue sea! There will be nothing that we would be able to do except running into the sea like lemmings and drowning ourselves before being killed by radiation. Cynics may say it is much better to go the way of all flesh at once blissfully ignorant of what really hits you instead of dying many times before death after being warned of a nuclear accident, against which there is no defence.

When we took up the issue of Kudankulam and questioned the wisdom of our atomic pundits who never so much as made a whimper of protest against that project for obvious reasons, they chose to insult us and ridicule our knowledge of nuclear energy. Yes, we don’t claim to be experts on that highly specialized branch of science. All we know is that radiation is extremely harmful and atomic energy is something dangerous that must be avoided as far as possible because of disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. It was a little boy who made a pompous emperor, who paraded his ‘new clothes’, wearing nary a stitch and claiming that they were visible only to the intelligent, realise that he was actually in the buff. That intrepid squirt had no doctorate in textile and clothing technology, did he? But, he had commonsense which our atomic experts sadly lack.

Today, mum’s the word on the part of our loud-mouthed Atomic Energy Authority bigwigs. All our efforts to elicit a response from them came a cropper yesterday as they would see no Kudankulam, hear no Kudankulam and speak no Kudankulam. Have they been gagged in the run-up to the UNHRC sessions in Geneva as Sri Lanka is trying to avoid another diplomatic knuckle sandwich at the hands of India? Or, is it that their silence has to do with something else? Will the newly appointed Technology, Research and Atomic Energy Minister, Champika Ranawaka clarify the government’s position on the Kudankulam leaks?

Source: The Island (Sri Lanka)