Koodankulam: We just need common sense to stop it !

Urbi Sinha

 

I love to keep an eye on Worldwide Socio-economic issues and dreaming for a better World where all people will have equal rights.

From 1st May, the people of Idinthakarai have again started their hunger strike. Last 25th jayalalitha had sent a letter to the PM to inform that nuclear fuel will be charged within a few days on the 1st reactor of Koodankulam.

May be I’m repeatedly trying to hit the same nail on head, but I can’t resist. Aren’t these points mentioned below sufficient enough to consider Koodankulam N-Plant a national issue? Why has it been taken as a local problem? We are the same people who lit candles and chant “Anna” to eradicate corruption from our country. Where is that voice of protest now? Why are we considering this as an issue of a single state? Why only the TN friends who are protesting will find themselves alone in this fight? where is that famous “unity in diversity”? Or is it only a phrase that just sounds nice without any real existance? Isn’t it our responsibility also – towards nature, towards our generations to come? Can’t we exert immense pressure on the Govt from different levels of our society? Won’t it be correct for all of us to stand by the people of IDINTHAKARAI at their time of need? Mass has immense power, and these social networking sites are also not to be taken lightly. We have witnesssed how the powerful modi was unmasked.

Those crippled children who will be born as an effect of this Koodankulam, they will be a part of our country. What are we going to answer them? Won’t we all become murderers when those children will die in their mother’s womb? Today’s silence will invite many fatal issues in future, and will put us in front of questions whose answers are not known to any of us.

1) Each typical 1000-megawatt nuclear reactor manufactures 33 tonnes of thermally hot, intensely radioactive waste per year. Nuclear reactors consistently release millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the air and water each year. These isotopes include the gases like gases krypton, xenon and argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs, migrating to the fatty tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs, near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements, which emit high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in the eggs and sperm and cause genetic diseases and deformed babies.

2) Tritium, another biologically significant gas, is also routinely emitted from nuclear reactors. Tritium is composed of three atoms of hydrogen, which combine with oxygen, forming radioactive water, which is absorbed through the skin, lungs and digestive system. It is incorporated into the DNA molecule, where it is mutagenic and results in malignancy.

3) Four of the most dangerous elements made in nuclear power plants include Iodine 131, released during nuclear accidents at Sellafield in Britain, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the US, Strontium 90, another power plant product that lasts for 600 years, Cesium 137, yet another product which also lasts for 600 years and Plutonium 239, one of the most dangerous elements known to humans.

4) More than 200kg of Plutonium is made annually in each 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant. Plutonium can last for 5,00,000 years and is the best fuel for nuclear weapons. Only 5kg is necessary to make a bomb and each reactor makes more than 200kg per year.

5) Waste contaminates a huge area in its vicinity for thousands of years. Even if there is no nuclear accident, an area of 30-35 km radius around each of the units gets contaminated by nuclear radiation regularly. Radio active waste has severe impact on vegetation including agriculture.

For data thanks to “India has safer alternatives for energy, it must shun nukes” by Antony P U.

 

 

 

 

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