With Nuclear Rebirth Come New Worries
Date: Sunday, January 13, 2008 @ 18:35:19 UTC
Topic: General
By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer
(AP) -- Global warming and rocketing oil prices are making nuclear power fashionable, drawing a once demonized industry out of the shadows of the Chernobyl disaster as a potential shining knight of clean energy.
... However, some countries
hopping on the nuclear bandwagon have abysmal industrial safety records
and corrupt ways that give many pause for thought.
China has 11 nuclear plants and
plans to bring more than 30 others online by 2020. And a Massachusetts
Institute of Technology report projects that it may need to add as many
as 200 reactors by 2050.
Of the more than 100 nuclear reactors now being built, planned or
on order, about half are in China, India and other developing nations.
Argentina, Brazil and South Africa plan to expand existing programs;
and Vietnam, Thailand, Egypt and Turkey are among the countries
considering building their first reactors.
The concerns are hardly limited to developing countries. Japan's
nuclear power industry has yet to recover from revelations five years
ago of dozens of cases of false reporting on the inspections of nuclear
reactor cracks.
The Swedish operators of a German reactor came under fire last
summer for delays in informing the public about a fire at the plant.
And a potentially disastrous partial breakdown of a Bulgarian nuclear
plant's emergency shutdown mechanism in 2006 went unreported for two
months until whistle-blowers made it public...
Read the whole article: http://www.physorg.com/news119421128.html
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