PULSE of TURKEY No 20....................SATURDAY, JUNE 27th , 1998
TURKEY STEPS INTO NUCLEAR ENERGY
Reactors constitute no danger to the nation or environment, says President. The initiative has nothing to do with atom bombs. Nuclear norms are most sophisticated, radiation dangers minimal. Casualties of reactor accidents are unbelievable. Chernobyl has a special place in reactor accidents. Nuclear power distinguishes itself in electricity generation.
President Demirel reactivated on June 24th the Küçükçekmece research reactor, TC-2, in Istanbul with an appeal to the nation that it should not remain behind in nuclear energy as it did with steam and electricity in the past. “We are already lagging behind in this field. Let us join hands as a nation and make up for lost time and distance. I bought the land for the Akkuyu reactor back in 1970, but it is still lying empty,” he said, making an indirect reference to the March 12th, 1971 military takeover when all of Demirel’s energy investments were suspended.
There was absolutely nothing to fear about nuclear energy or reactors. “The most civilised nations, those who value life the most are not afraid of nuclear energy. Why should we be,” he demanded.
The President underlined that the EU countries obtained 30-35% of their energy from nuclear reactors and the world average was 17%. If Turkey dragged its feet further with this energy it would undermine its own development efforts. At the outset of the 21st century nations’ development rates would be measured, among other criteria, by the rate of their utilization of nuclear energy, he said.
Turkey’s efforts to have nuclear technology, assured the President, had nothing to do with wishing to have the atomic bomb. Turkey was a party to the nuclear nonproliferation agreements and it would abide by them.
Minister of State Batallý said at the ceremony that the political authority in Turkey had always supported the reactor projects, but they could not be achieved because of financial difficulties. Now that this finance question had been solved they would make investments in this field, he said.
The TR-2 reactor put into service by the President last week started to work in 1983, but was suspended in 1995 on grounds of operational security. Having since been rebuilt, it is now back in operation. It is capable of meeting Turkey’s demand for radioisotopes in medicine and industry.
How justified are reactor accident fears?
There is, indeed, a long and interesting story of Turkey’s efforts to enter the nuclear energy era, both in the military and in industrial fields. It is a story of adventurous achievements, as well as frustrations and failures in the hands of superpower obstructions.
One of the main factors used in this struggle for nuclear energy in Turkey is the worldwide fear of this energy. Much is said and written about the terrible consequences of having a nuclear disaster due to a reactor accident, but other than the grossly exaggerated Chernobyl affair, there have been no terrible reactor accidents in the world.
The first nuclear accident was reported in the UK, at the Windscale reactor of Scotland in 1957. Due to an accident called “core melt down” in nuclear technology, there was radiation leakage from the reactor that scared the whole world in whose memories the Hiroshima and Nagasaki tragedies were still fresh. Certainly, it must have shortened the lives of many people, as an English lady resident in Antalya testifies that her father died of cancer shortly after he made inspections at Windscale as an official in charge of this matter. But in official records no death toll was reported and Windscale has, rightly or wrongly, gone down in history as a reactor accident with no casualties.
The second accident was at the Threemile Island reactor near Chicago in 1979. Again, there must definitely have been victims of this radioactive leakage too, but it was also passed off with a low profile in the media and no casualties were reported.
As a matter of fact, the Windscale accident was a good warning to the Western world, and thereafter the USA took stringent measures against possible radiation leakages.
The standards of a reactor are now subject to an international convention to which Turkey is party . Under these norms, worked out after years of research between 1957 and 1965, a doctrine was developed. “We call it the doctrine of security in the western sense,” said a top nuclear energy specialist about these norms enforced since the mid-sixties. Under these norms, the walls of a reactor should be 2.5-3 metres thick, built with cement containing special chemicals preventing the infiltration of neutrons and radiation. They are resistant to any shock. Even if a jumbo jet falls on it from 13,500 meters altitude, or the severest earthquake takes place at 10 on the Richter scale, or even if the most powerful bomb blast is perpetrated against it, no harm would come to it. Every measure has to be taken to prevent any leakage from the reactor when the doors are closed, according to these security measures. Thanks to these measures, as soon as a leakage was spotted in the Threemile reactor, it was evacuated and its doors were closed, to let it rot to eternity.
Chernobyl accident was more dramatic, but not as much as claimed
The Chernobyl disaster in April 1986 was an exemption. It was an obsolete reactor and not equipped with any of these norms. It took place during the Communist dictatorship in the USSR and the radiation leakage was kept from the world for as long as possible. Swedish monitoring devices were the first to report the alarmingly high radiation leakage in Chernobyl. Eventually it came to daylight that there was a reactor accident in Chernobyl and thereafter there was a worldwide outcry with claims of a death toll of 30,000 and unimaginable economic damage to the world.
These outrageous stories are still haunting the world, but in reality the disaster was luckily nowhere near the dark picture depicted. The Soviets did the same as the Americans in the Threemile island event and poured over the reactor thousands of tons of sand and soil from the air and buried Unit 4 of the reactor. They were certainly not as quick and well equipped as the Americans were in 1979 and it resulted in some casualties. There are still claims that there may be leakages, but world atomic energy experts are constantly watching it to prevent new tragedies. They have already announced that “Further steps are needed to stabilize the sarcophagus built to confine the destroyed Chernobyl Unit 4”.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the Vienna-based IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) issued a report. An International Conference that gathered together 800 scientists and government officials in Vienna discussed the major social, health and environmental consequences attributed to the Chernobyl accident. The IAEA report reads:
“…The explosion on 26 April 1986 and early release of radionuclides resulted in 30 deaths, including 28 deaths attributed to acute radiation sickness. These fatalities occurred among the 134 plant staff, firefighters and emergency workers (liquidators) who initially responded to the accident and who suffered from severe radiation sickness that was treated in hospitals. Since then, over the past decade, whilst 14 additional patients have died, only some of these might be attributed to radiation exposure.”
According to the report there were also 800 cases of thyroid cancer among the children in the vicinity of the USSR, and to date three children have died of this illness.
About the “Environmental Consequences” the report affirms that “No dramatically obvious long-term impacts on populations or ecosystems have been observed…In general, no food produced by the collective farm system exceeds established international radiation levels, although some foods produced by private farmers do, as well as mushrooms, game and other wild foods.”
Nuclear energy is the cheapest to operate, but expensive to decommission
There are over 500 nuclear power plants operating or under construction today.
One-third of the EU’s electricity is generated by nuclear power plants, as President Demirel has underlined. It is particularly high in some European countries. Nuclear power’s share of electricity production remained high in 1995 in seven countries: Lithuania - 85.59; France - 76.14; Belgium - 55.52; Sweden - 46.61; Bulgaria - 46.43; Slovak Republic - 44.14; and Hungary - 42.30, representing close to half or more of their total electriicity use.
Throughout the world in 1995, total nuclear power generation grew to 2228 terawatt/hours of electricity that accounted for 17% of the world’s total electricity.
Nuclear power plants are popular because they are economic to run, and contrary to the claims of radiation dissemination are totally environmentally friendly. It is claimed that they are expensive to decommission when the reactor completes its lifespan, but who is bothered with the economic calculations of a few decades away. Whereas uranium and thorium are abundant and cheap and serve no other purpose than power generation, other energy resources are being depleted and becoming more expensive as they are exploited.
For all these reasons, Turkey, who imports half of its energy every year, has been trying to step into the nuclear industry since the late 1960s, and after several frustrations and disappointments, these efforts are heading for conclusion in the near future. (For an interesting story on nuclear energy in Turkey see the next article.) uras@ada.net.tr.