Chernobyl. Never again? Dangers of Nuclear Energy
Nobel Prize in Physics, Dr. Hannes Alfvén, said "The nuclear industry is not exactly the technological paradise with its propaganda to dupe the public, but a hell of technology in which nothing works as should. "
This hell, the result of an experimental and imperfect technique, has been denounced by numerous citizens groups, including ADENEX. Our reasons and our arguments have been continually downgraded by power companies, but without being properly challenged. We have been described as enemies of progress or ignorant.
However, the time, unfortunately, has helped those who oppose nuclear energy. The nuclear program in the world has suffered a slowdown really spectacular and the public has become aware of the danger posed by nuclear plants and other facilities that are part of the nuclear cycle (mining, refining plants, uranium enrichment, radioactive cemeteries, etc.)
Now 19 years of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power has passed. On April 26th 1986 people saw the meltdown of one of the nuclear reactor complex in Ukraine. The radioactive cloud was detected on April 28th in Stockholm (Sweden) and following this, the alarm spread throughout the world. What the advocates of nuclear energy had been told for years that it was impossible had happened. The catastrophe was already under way and nothing could stop the devastating effects of radiation.
One week after the accident, the radioactive cloud had reached the Iberian Peninsula and Japan. They had to evacuate nearly 150,000 people between whom there was an increase of 2,000 cases of cancer. An area similar to Valencia, and was razed in the coming years, between 647,000 and 970,000 people suffer from different types of cancer. They have already killed over 30,000 people, and at least 7 million have been contaminated by radioactivity. According to WHO 500,000 people died due to the Chernobyl accident. In Spain, it is expected that between 250 and 370 cases of cancer were a result of this accident.
Researchers at the Vavilov Institute of Genetics, Moscow, University of Leicester (UK) and University of Texas (USA) have found alterations in DNA of germ cells (those involved in reproduction) both children and animals living in areas affected by the Chernobyl accident. This means that these children of Chernobyl can transmit genetic alterations of unforeseeable consequences to their offspring.
The accident at Chernobyl is not an exceptional occurrence. Today there are in operation around the world nearly 500 nuclear reactors. This means that an accident of similar characteristics can threaten us, from a statistical point of view, every two years.
Upon reaching 19 years of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power, we want to call attention to the Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant, an insecure and dangerous place, we can have in Extremadura the disaster such as Ukraine.
The Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant, in addition to general problems of any nuclear facility, has some specific factors, making it even more dangerous.
Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS), which is essential for the safety of the plant, has never been proven to work. Therefore, in case of loss of coolant, no one can guarantee that there is a meltdown (which was precisely what happened at Chernobyl).
Almaraz nuclear power station is now a graveyard of highly radioactive waste, including plutonium, which has a life of 24,400 years. But the ANC is not prepared to accommodate this waste, whose final storage for tens of thousands of years, it has no solution.
In case of accident in the ANC, there are no resources or personnel Extremadura prepared to respond to an event of this nature. The Emergency Plan is a document unusable, because among other reasons unknown to the public and by many agencies. The only hospital in the county is in evacuation zone. There are no adequate means of transport to evacuate the population and, despite the tragic lessons of Chernobyl, which showed that the effects of a nuclear accident affecting thousands of miles away, there are no measures planned for cities such as Cáceres, Trujillo, Plasencia, Coria, etc…
19 years after Chernobyl, after understanding better the devastating effects of the accident that occurred there, closing the Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant is more necessary than ever. We would not like children having the sad look that we saw in many children in Ukraine, whose life was marked by some "atoms for peace", as the eminent Austrian physicist Robert Junk, "in no way differ from the atoms for war. "
ADENEX Energy Working Group