Nuclear power: Deal, discussion and debates

The article compares some of the debates in which scientists and journalists participated. Looking at the current scene, the author concludes that they may not get any support from any politician, defending the nuclear cause.

K.S.Parthasarathy




Nuclear power: Deal, discussion & debates
By Dr. K S Parthasarathy
When the die appears to be cast, skeptics may wonder, how the protagonists and antagonists of the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement carry on discussions for hours at a stretch and that too on several sessions over many days! A blessing in disguise is the wholehearted participation of the media, opinion makers, policy planners and parliamentarians in the discussion and the debates on a topic such as nuclear power which interested only a handful of journalists over the past several decades!
Public learnt many facts. China which was far behind India is going ahead with an ambitious nuclear power programme. They do not mind breaking bread with nuclear vendors from any country so long as they get best deals from them. Their proletariat past does not inhibit them from securing nuclear technology from anyone.
India's hope for nuclear capacity addition in the near term will remain just a hope, without operationalising the civil nuclear agreement.
Indian nuclear power reactors are working at low capacity factors as there is a "mismatch between nuclear fuel supply and demand" (NPC Annual report 2006-07, confirmed recently in Parliament). India's uranium ore is of very low grade. Its uranium resources have been updated to 1,07,268 tonnes of U308 (DAE Annual Report, 2007-08).
During 2006, the production figures (in tonnes) for uranium reported by the World Nuclear Association were: World, 39429; Canada, 9862; Australia, 7593; USA, 1672; China 750; India, 177; Pakistan, 45; France, 5;
Scientists learnt a few lessons. Politicians will remain neutral in any nuclear debate when public is a party. They expect scientists to satisfy the public and the anti nuclear activists, though nuclear programme is a national programme. Scientists cannot depend on political leaders' support for nuclear activities such as uranium mining. Politicians may not correct wrong notions of the public, even when they know the facts; they believe that such efforts may erode their vote banks.
Right from 1947, Nehru's vision and Bhabha's mission on atomic energy coincided. After due discussions with the bureaucracy, they set up a sound administrative mechanism to respond swiftly, effectively and decisively to the demands from this nascent field. Scientists could not have asked for more!
It is instructive to look at the past discussions and debates. When Dr Bhabha organised the first National Symposium on Atomic Energy during November 26 and 27, 1954, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister and his entire cabinet, scientists from other institutions, industrialists and some members of Parliament attended the meeting. Nehru himself presided over the entire conference except for a short period when Mr. KD.Malaviya, a senior cabinet minister took the chair. Times have changed!
The symposium was Nehru's response to remarks in Parliament by eminent physicist Dr.Meghnad Saha and others. Nuclear scientists in India largely remained out of public gaze for long. Other than attending a few press conferences, media also paid no attention. Even mild criticism could upset scientists; they were not used to it. Occasionally, a few scientists portrayed journalists who challenged official views as trouble makers!
Very few journalists knew the intricacies of the subject. Those who knew could not get access to scientists. Scientists were reluctant to communicate. Mixing with the media was considered a risky occupation!
Many young journalists realised that they could make good copies by mixing news with "radiation and radioactivity". Newspaper headlines such as "Tarapur set to explode", "A bomb ticking somewhere in Hyderabad", were hilarious.
The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) was set up in November 1983. As per its mandate, AERB remains open with the public. The Members of the Board addressed a few press conferences, mostly, after the meetings of the Board. There were some controversies, but by and large press coverage was objective.
From August 9 to 11, 1986 Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya Vedchhi, an NGO dedicated to a non nuclear India, held a seminar on "Atoms in India" at Sasmira Hall, Worli, Bombay. Five officials from AERB and a few officials from Nuclear Power Board attended the seminar.
The NGO did not see any difference between nuclear power reactors and nuclear weapons. V R. Krishna Iyer (Former Judge of the Supreme Court) inaugurated the seminar.
We described the safety features of nuclear reactors, explained how high level radioactive wastes are "vitrified" dispelling the wrong notion that waste is stored in glass containers! we answered several questions from the audience. Probably, we could not convince everyone but the dialogue was satisfying.
Initiating a desirable shift in policy, Dr.M.R.Srinivasan, the then Chairman Atomic Energy Commission, opened the doors of AEC to its critics. Senior officers of DAE and AERB participated in many meetings.
On December 5, 1987, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Officer's Association (BARCOA) organized a panel discussion on "Issues in Nuclear Technology". Dr M.R.Srinivasan, Prof De, Chairman, AERB, Shri S.L. Kati, Managing Director, Nuclear Power Corporation and Shri M.H.P. Rao, former Director, Nuclear Power Board spoke.
The panelists included Amalendu Das Gupta (The Statesman), Praful Bidwai (The Times of India). Ivan Fera (The Illustrated Weekly), G.S.Bhargava (formerly of Indian Express) and Professor Direndra Sharma. For first time, antagonists and protagonists of nuclear technology shared the platform to discuss a wide range of topics.
The Government of Karnataka held a national workshop on nuclear power projects with special reference to Kaiga at Bangalore on December 10 and 11, 1988. Shri S.R. Bommai, Chief Minister of Karnataka inaugurated the workshop. Speakers included planners, economists, professors, anti nuclear activists and journalists.
Emotional outbursts and occasional melodrama sustained the audience' interest. Speakers who are used to sober discussions found it harder to cope with some amount of heckling! It was something like the massacre of the innocents. Dr. Srinivasan rose to the occasion. He marshaled facts and figures to articulate eloquently the international consensus on nuclear power.
While Shri Bommai was speaking, power failed prompting him to say that we cannot live without power. A picture in the Indian Express vividly portrayed the situation!
PTI Feature

Dwindling helium supply

A professor at Washington University stated that helium is being depleted rapidly and the supply will be over with in the next eight years. Science & technology without helium is unthinkable. This article reviews the status of availability of helium world-wide and refers to the effort made indigenously to extract helium from Indian sources.

K.S.Parthasarathy





Science Tribune April 25, 2008


Dwindling helium supply
K.S. Parthasarathy
During the first week of this year, Prof Lee Sobotka at Washington University warned that helium is being depleted so rapidly in the world’s largest reserve, outside of Amarillo, Texas, that supplies are expected to be depleted there within the next eight years.
“Helium is nonrenewable and irreplaceable……… unlike hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas or oil) there are no biosynthetic ways to make an alternative to helium”, he clarified. It is a rare gas with many properties critical to several applications in high technology.
As helium does not become radioactive, it is a good coolant in nuclear reactors. Helium is the primary coolant in Pebble Bed Modular Reactors, innovative reactors of 165 MWe, being installed in South Africa. Helium is used as cover gas in the Indian pressurized heavy water reactors
Helium being non-flammable is a safer gas to fill balloons than hydrogen. It is an ideal inert gas shield for arc welding. In some countries, helium is cheaper than argon, another gas used for the same purpose. Helium is an excellent protective gas in growing silicon and germanium crystals.
It is the pressurizing agent of choice for liquid fuel rockets. Helium is a leak detection agent to identify extremely tiny leaks. Helium’s role in nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry is unique. A world without helium is unthinkable!
Helium may be of primordial or radiogenic origin. NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite provided some evidence of helium gas left over from the big bang.
Uranium-238 and thorium-232 in the earth’s crust and mantle emit alpha particles which pick up two electrons and become radiogenic helium.
In the entire life span of the earth, only half of the uranium-238 atoms have decayed — yielding eight helium atoms in the process. Helium mixes with natural gas and will remain with it till it is extracted.
Helium that escapes into the atmosphere may be lost permanently. The atmospheric concentration of helium is very low at about 5.2 parts per million, too low to be harvested economically.
India currently imports virtually all its helium requirements of 10,000 normal cubic metres per month from the USA. Scientists at Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), an institution under the Department of Atomic Energy, did some pioneering work in the field; they estimated that thermal spring gases at Bakereswar and Tantloi in West Bengal contain 1.4 and 1.26 vol % of helium respectively. Extracting and purifying helium from thermal springs and monazite sands are not commercially viable proposals.
The Ministry of Science and Technology had set up a special task force in early 2005 to identify India’s helium reserves.
Taking into account the strategic importance of helium, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation set up a Rs 250 crore pilot plant at Kutralam in Tamil Nadu to produce 3,000 normal cubic metres per hour of helium from natural gas.
Poland, Russia, China. Algeria and Netherlands separate helium commercially from natural gas; helium is present in their oil fields at concentrations ranging from 0.18 and 0.9 vol percentage. In some US oilfields helium is present at 8 vol%.
The US government accumulated so far a reserve of 110 million standard cubic metres of this precious resource. In 1996, The US Congress decided to liquidate it by 2005 in such a way as to cause minimum market disruption.
A report from the National Academy of Sciences prepared on a direction from Congress assured that such a disposal of helium reserves will not have substantial adverse impact on US scientific, technical, biomedical, or national security interests.
The committee’s assurance on price stability through 2010 went wrong. The price of liquid helium is about $5 a litre; it rose more than 50% during the last year. The vagaries of the market place can hurt any dependent country
India’s decision to operate an indigenous plant to extract helium is strategically sound even if indigenous helium may turn out to be costlier than imported helium.

[K.S. Parthasarathy is former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board]

Radiation epidemiological studies near nuclear facilities

This article criticizes authors who bypass the conventional peer review process and get articles published in news media.Only vigilant journalists can arrest this lamentable trend

K.S.Parthasarathy





April 17, 2008

Radiation epidemiological studies near nuclear facilities

There is evidence that the cancer rates in population groups exposed to high doses of radiation will be relatively high. But the evidence at low doses is controversial. A few specialists believe that low dose radiation is beneficial to man (the Hindu, September 29, 2005)!

The limitations

Many specialists want to know whether very low levels of radiation caused by permitted radioactive releases from nuclear power plants, uranium mines, mills etc can cause excess cancers in man or not.

They do not appreciate the limitations of epidemiology. They believe that they can get a deterministic answer to a purely probabilistic question! That too using a statistically weak study.

“…. there is often a tendency to carry out epidemiological studies concerning the induction of cancer in radiation workers and members of the public which are not supported by a statistically valid data base or whose result are misinterpreted or misused”. Drs Joan M. Davies and Hazel Inskip eminent epidemiologists wrote in the foreword to their book on the topic. (Davies and Inskip, 1986)

A paper titled “Meta- analysis of standardized incidence and mortality rates of childhood leukaemia in proximity to nuclear facilities by Baker and Hoel in the European Journal of Cancer Care (2007) illustrates the dilemma...

The authors reviewed studies from one hundred and thirty six sites in nine countries.

Although the analysis showed consistently elevated rates of leukaemia, the authors of such papers found that radiation dose due to environmental discharges from the facilities are too low to account for the excess cases.

In several studies, the leukaemia death rates remained unchanged before and after start up even in regions with elevated rates!

Low excess risk

A study at 62 sites in USA, revealed leukaemia death rates to be higher before start up of the nuclear facility when compared with those after start up. Some authors found excess leukaemia in regions where nuclear facilities were expected to come!

In these studies, no one brought out one point; excess risk, if any, is extremely low and zero risk cannot be rules out.
Recently, a section of the media published reports on a study by the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) claiming adverse health effects in villages within the radius of 2.5 km from the uranium mine in Jadugoda. Their conclusions remain unsubstantiated. (Unsubstantiated till published in a peer reviewed journal).
Bypassing peer review

The authors presented their “study” at a conference on “Nuclear Weapons: The Final Pandemic Preventing Proliferation and Achieving Abolition” during October 3-4, 2007 at London.

Peer review

They successfully circumvented the traditional scientific peer review and publication process by using the media. Only vigilant journalists can arrest this lamentable trend. The full paper which the organisers of the London Conference sent me showed how "cherry picking" can masquerade as epidemiology. At the very outset, the authors stated thus: “We assumed that specific health problems related to uranium mining was affecting the indigenous people disproportionately in the study villages compared to the reference villages”.

Questionnaire

Then they searched for evidence to support the assumption! “A structured questionnaire was developed…. and was introduced on the heads of families of each house hold by a team of investigators.

The investigators, 34 in number, were men and women from the vicinity of Jadugoda”. Their areas were carpet –bombed with weird stories on uranium hazards for the past few years!

Brazen admission

“ Responses to some of the variables in few of the interview schedules were not found to be satisfactory and such responses were not considered for data analysis” the authors brazenly admitted to “cherry picking” of the data. None of the medical committees of qualified specialists, which surveyed Jadugoda villages found any disease which could be related to radiation exposure. Based on media reports and other documents an advocate filed a Public Interest Litigation (No 188 of 1999) in the Supreme Court of India seeking judicial intervention to have the necessary steps taken to safeguard the health of the population.
“In view of the affidavit filed by respondent No 3-Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, that adequate steps have been taken to check and control the radiation arising out of uranium waste, we do not find any merit in the petition.
It is accordingly dismissed” the Supreme Court stated in its judgment on April 15, 2004.
Specialists know that it is impossible to get conclusive evidence from studies with a weak data base. However, such studies will continue often as public relations exercises! No one wants to call a spade a spade!
K.S.PARTHASARATHY
ksparth@gmail.com
[K.S.Parthasarathy is former Secretary Atomic Energy Regulatory Board]

Atomic bomb survivors, cancers

Recently,researchers found that there was statistically significant increase in the adult cancers among those exposed in utero to the atomic bomb radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over al, all studies conclude that ionizing radiation is a weak carcinogen
K.S.Parthasarathy



Date:03/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/seta/2008/04/03/stories/
2008040350041700.htm

Atomic bomb survivors, cancers

In utero exposure - cancer link was unknown

Study confirms that ionising radiation is a weak carcinogen

The study of atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki continues to provide very useful information on the effects of radiation on man.

Recently, Dr Dale Preston and co-workers examined the incidence of solid cancers in 2,452 atomic bomb survivors who got exposed to different radiation doses while they were in their mothers’ wombs.

They also evaluated the incidence of cancer in 15,388 persons who were younger than 6 years at the time of bombing. Both groups belonged to the age range of 12-55 for the period of 1955-1999.
Dose-related increases

They reported dose-related increases in the incidence of solid cancers in both groups (The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, March 19, 2008). Scientists knew that radiation exposure to foetus increases risks of childhood cancers and exposure in childhood is associated with increased risks of adult cancers. But until now they knew little about whether in utero radiation exposure leads to increased risks of adult cancers.
Heat rays

When U.S. aircraft dropped the bombs, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had an estimated population of 310,000 and 250,000 respectively.

About 90,000-140,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000-80,000 in Nagasaki died immediately or within two to four months after bombing, resulting from collapse of houses caused by the blast and from heat rays and fires and radiation exposure.

In the 1950 Japanese national census, nearly 280,000 persons stated that they “had been exposed in the two cities” (The Hindu, September, 6, 2001)

One of the myths about the atomic bombing is that radiation released by atom bombs has been killing tens of thousands of persons in the two cities.

The deaths in areas of about a kilometre diameter are attributable to the effects of explosion and heat. Till 1990, RERF recorded 7,827 cancer deaths among the 86,572 persons who, the RERF included in its Life Span Study cohort.

Radiation exposure might have caused 421 excess cancer deaths (334 solid cancers + 87 leukaemias) among them (Radiation Research, 1996).

In 2007, researchers released the second general report on the incidence of solid cancers among the members of the Life Span Study. They based the analyses on 17,448 first primary cancers diagnosed from 1958 through 1998 among 105,427 cohort members with individual dose estimates, who were alive and not known to have cancer prior to 1958 (Radiation Research, July 2007). For all solid cancers as a group, scientists estimated that about 850 cancers were due to atomic bomb radiation exposure.

RERF, a bi-national Japan-U.S. scientific organization dedicated to studying the health effects of atomic bomb radiation took over the task of accumulating scientific results of significant versatility, quality, and quantity, through its studies of radiation effects on human health, with generous cooperation and support from A-bomb survivors and their family members (RERF release, March 5, 2008).

According to RERF, the majority of atomic bomb survivors are approaching their so-called cancer-prone years. “Cancer mortality associated with radiation exposure is expected to reach its peak during the next 10 years.

With great advances in genomic and other research, various powerful analytical techniques have become available.

Without a doubt, many important findings can only be produced at RERF by collecting, storing, and analyzing valuable clinical samples, such as cancer tissues, from the world’s largest prospective cohort for whom accurate and widely distributed dose information is available,” RERF noted.

“…These studies have important implications for risk assessment of low-dose medical and occupational exposures, since such exposures are expected to increase”, RERF argued.
Study’s confirmation

Overall, the study confirms that ionizing radiation is a carcinogen; also that it is a weak carcinogen (Scientists estimate that about 850 out of 17,448 solid cancers recorded during 1958 through 1998 may be due to radiation exposure).

The excess cancers may not have been noticed in the normal course.

K.S. PARTHASARATHY
FORMER SECRETARY, AERB

(ksparth@yahoo.co.uk)

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

Use uranium in nuke power

This article is reprinted from PTI Feature
K.S.Parthasarathy


Use uranium in Nuke power

By K S Parthasarathy

Recent discussions on the alleged hazards of uranium mining reminded me of Nigel Holloway's argument that if one has the concerned to reduce long term radioactivity in the environment, the policy should be "Uranium-don't leave it in the ground" (ATOM, June 1990). The best way is to mine it and burn it in nuclear power plants. He proves it by using elementary calculations.

Anit-nuclear activists oppose uranium mining because they believe that uranium may be used for producing nuclear weapons. To many, there is no alternative until countries that have nuclear weapons (some of them across our borders) accept nuclear disarmanment and dismantle their arsental.

Activists criticize the Government for pursuing uranium mining project; they feel that growth of nuclear power is economically wasteful, environmentally harmful and at risk of catastrophic accidents. This view needs closer scrutiny.

All power sources have adverse impacts. We do not enjoy the luxury to reject any now on the ground adverse effects.

Coal is a very impure material. A thousand mega watt coal-fired power station releases annually 5.2 tons of uranium and, 12.8 tons of thorium besides 10 other elements including mercury and arsenic. We cannot be indulgent towards coal power and consider nuclear power to be environmentally harmful.

Many believe that nuclear power has a new dawn. USA expects to construct 30 new plants. Nuclear power is a reality, fear of accidents not withstanding! Some European nations retain anti-nuclear posture; they import electricity from France which produces 78% of its electricity from Nuclear reactors!

These nations are slowly but surely shifting away from their proposed nuclear phase out!

Thirty countries produce countries nuclear power; France (78 per cent); Belgium (54 per cent); South Korea (39 per cent); Switzerland ( 37 per cent); Japan ( 30 per cent); USA (19 Per cent); Russia (16 per cent); India produces less than three per cent. We must enhance it to 10%.

If, nuclear power was economically wasteful and environmentally harmful, why so many countries depend on it for their daily needs!

There were nuclear accidents; one in 1979 at the Three Mile Island in USA and the other in 1986 at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reviewed the accidents. This led to improvements.

No one abandoned nuclear power because of these accidents! Electric companies connected 50 out of the currently operating 104 nuclear power reactors in USA to the grid since 1979; nineteen of these after 1986. Canadian companies connected all the fourteen operating reactors in Canada to the grid after 1979. Fifty-three out of 59 French reactors came on line after 1979.

We need uranium. Then only the capacity of our reactors will reach the earlier figures of over 80 per cent annually from the present 63 per cent.

Is nuclear power costly? The power from units 1 and 2 of the Tarapur Atomic Power Station is the cheapest non hydro power in the country at Paisa 93 per unit. Power from other nuclear reactors costs between Rs. 1.81 to Rs. 2.79 per unit. These rates are not high, as fifteen out of the 49 Indian generating stations sell power at higher cost, varying between Rs. 3.07 to Rs. 7.94.

Until now, the anti nuclear groups were quoting the "careful scientific health survey" of "Anumukti" in some mining villages to prove the adverse health effects. The Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), which conducted another survey with support from the Ploughshares Fund (this US agency paid $20,000 to IDPD) now, competes with "Anumuthi".

Both "Animate" and IDPD successfully circumvented the traditional, scientific peer review and publication process by exploiting news papers and periodicals. They dished out reports littered with stories of human interest invariably spiced with melancholy and drama. They used telling pictures of human suffering to condition the viewers to connect any disease with the agent that allegedly caused it. This is a lamentable trend.

The activists produced two films. "Buddha weeps in Judged" and "Judged-The Black Magic", "acclaimed documentaries" for the activists! To others, they are skillfully edited pieces mixing carefully selected scenes and quotations to bias the viewer to a certain point of view. Shakeel Ur Rahman, the secretary of the national council of IDPD is very grateful to the film maker as the film "supported" their findings at a London conference (the Telegraph, March 5, 2008).

The paper from IDPD is a typical example of how "cherry picking" can masquerade as epidemicology!

At the very outset, the authors stated thus: "We assumed that specific health problems related to uranium mining was affecting the indigenous people disproportionately in the study villages compared to the reference villages". Then the agency goes on searching for evidence to support the assumption.

IDPD chose a structured questionnaire with 34 investigators from the vicinity of Jadugoda" and used them to collect data to prove their assumption. The arrangement helped. They belong to the villages which were carpet- bombed with weird stories on uranium hazards by motivated anti-nuclear activists for the past few years!

"Responses to some of the variables in few of the interview schedules were not found to be satisfactory and such responses were not considered for data analysis" the authors brazenly admitted to "cherry picking" of the data!

"If those were receive funds carry out such studies, is not incumbent on them to publish the results in scientific journals? I asked the Ploughshares Fund.

Ms Paul Carroll of the US agency clarified that the agency did not have such an explicit expectation in this case. "We invest not only money but confidence in our grantees, and would expect that they would conduct research and writing in keeping with the standards for the field".

She promised to pursue my line of questioning with Dr. Arun Mitra, the project director for their grant at IDPD and would convey his response to me. None of the medical committees of qualified specialists, which surveyed Jaudugoda villages found any disease which could be related to radiation exposure. Based on media reports and other documents an advocate filed a Public Interest Litigation (No 188 of 1999) in the Supreme Court of India. On April 15, 2004, the Supreme Court dismissed the Petition. The court explicitly stated that it did not find any merit in the petition.

Voice of sanity must prevail over fear and ignorance. The nation must benefit from mining uranium, a virtually useless metal except as a nuclear fuel. (PTI)

Uranium:Mine It and Burn It in Nuclear power Plants

PTI Feature

24 March 2008

Is nuclear power costly? The power from Units 1 & 2 of the Tarapur Atomic Power Station is the cheapest non hydro power in the country at Paisa 93 per unit. Power from other nuclear reactors costs between Rs 1.81 to Rs 2.79 per unit. These rates are not high, as fifteen out of the 49 Indian generating stations sell power at higher cost, varying between Rs 3.07 to Rs 7.94.-by K S Parthasarathy

Uranium:Mine It and Burn It in Nuclear power Plants

-by K S Parthasarathy
Former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board

Recent discussions on the alleged hazards of
uranium mining reminded me of Nigel
Holloway’s argument that if one has the concern to
reduce long term radioactivity in the environment,
the policy should be “Uranium-don’t leave it in the
ground” (ATOM, June 1990). The best way is to
mine it and burn it in nuclear power plants. He
proves it by using elementary calculations.
Anti-nuclear activists oppose uranium mining
because they believe that uranium may be used for
producing nuclear weapons. To many, there is no
alternative until countries that have nuclear
weapons (some of them across our borders) accept
nuclear disarmament and dismantle their arsenal.
Activists criticize the government for pursuing
uranium mining project; they feel that growth of
nuclear power is economically wasteful,
environmentally harmful and at risk of catastrophic
accidents... This view needs closer scrutiny.
All power sources have adverse impacts. We do
not enjoy the luxury to reject any now on the ground
of adverse effects.

Coal is a very impure material. A thousand mega
watt coal-fired power station releases annually 5.2
tons of uranium and, 12.8 tons of thorium besides
10 other elements including mercury and arsenic.
We cannot be indulgent towards coal power and
consider nuclear power to be environmentally
harmful.

Many believe that nuclear power has a new
dawn. USA expects to construct 30 new plants.
Nuclear power is a reality, fear of accidents not
withstanding! Some European nations retain antinuclear
posture; they import electricity from France
which produces 78 % of its electricity from nuclear
reactors!

These nations are slowly but surely shifting away
from their proposed nuclear phase out!
Thirty countries produce nuclear
power; France (78%); Belgium (54%); South Korea
(39%); Switzerland (37%); Japan (30%); USA
(19%); Russia (16%); India produces less than three
percent. We must enhance it to 10%.
If, nuclear power was economically wasteful and
environmentally harmful, why so many countries
depend on it for their daily needs!

There were nuclear accidents; one in 1979 at
the Three Mile Island in USA and the other in 1986
at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
reviewed the accidents. This led to improvements.
No one abandoned nuclear power because of
these accidents! Electric companies connected 50
out of the currently operating 104 nuclear power
reactors in USA to the grid since 1979; nineteen of
these after 1986. Canadian companies connected
all the fourteen operating reactors in Canada to the
grid after 1979. Fifty-three out of 59 French reactors
came on line after 1979.

Is nuclear power costly? The power from Units
1 & 2 of the Tarapur Atomic Power Station is the
cheapest non hydro power in the country at Paisa
93 per unit. Power from other nuclear reactors costs
between Rs 1.81 to Rs 2.79 per unit. These rates
are not high, as fifteen out of the 49 Indian
generating stations sell power at higher cost, varying
between Rs 3.07 to Rs 7.94.

Until now, the anti nuclear groups were quoting
the “careful scientific health survey” of”Anumukti”
in some mining villages to prove the adverse health
effects. The Indian Doctors for Peace and
Development (IDPD), which conducted another
survey with support from by the Ploughshares Fund
(this US agency paid $20,000 to IDPD) now,
competes with “Anumukti”
Both “Anumukti” and IDPD successfully
circumvented the traditional, scientific peer review
and publication process by exploiting news papers
and periodicals. They dished out reports littered with
stories of human interest invariably spiced with
melancholy and drama. They used telling pictures
of human suffering to condition the viewer to
connect any disease with the agent that allegedly
caused it. This is a lamentable trend.

The activists produced two films. “Buddha
weeps in Jadugoda” and “Jadugoda-The Black Magic”,
“acclaimed documentaries” for the activists! To
others, they are skillfully edited pieces mixing
carefully selected scenes and quotations to bias the
viewer to a certain point of view. Shakeel Ur
Rahman, the secretary of the national council of
IDPD is very grateful to the film maker as the film
“supported” their findings at a London conference
(the Telegraph, March 5, 2008).

The paper from IDPD is a typical example of
how “cherry picking” can masquerade as
epidemiology!
At the very outset, the authors stated thus: “We
assumed that specific health problems related to
uranium mining was affecting the indigenous people
disproportionately in the study villages compared
to the reference villages”. Then the agency goes on
searching for evidence to support the assumption.
IDPD chose a structured questionnaire with
34 investigators from the vicinity of Jadugoda” and
used them to collect data to prove their assumption.

The arrangement helped. They belong to the villages
which were carpet –bombed with weird stories on
uranium hazards by motivated anti nuclear activists
for the past few years!

“ Responses to some of the variables in few of
the interview schedules were not found to be
satisfactory and such responses were not considered
for data analysis” the authors brazenly admitted
to “cherry picking” of the data!
“If those who receive funds carry out such
studies, is it not incumbent on them to publish the
results in scientific journals?” I asked the
Ploughshares Fund.

Ms Paul Carroll of the US agency clarified that
the agency did not have such an explicit expectation
in this case. “We invest not only money but
confidence in our grantees, and would expect that
they would conduct research and writing in keeping
with the standards for the field.”

She promised to pursue my line of questioning
with Dr. Arun Mitra, the project director for their
grant at IDPD and would convey his response to
me. None of the medical committees of qualified
specialists, which surveyed Jaudugoda villages
found any disease which could be related to
radiation exposure. Based on media reports and
other documents an advocate filed a Public Interest
Litigation (No 188 of 1999) in the Supreme Court
of India. On April 15, 2004, the Supreme Court
dismissed the petition. The court explicitly stated
that it did not find any merit in the petition.
Voice of sanity must prevail over fear and
ignorance. The nation must benefit from mining
uranium, a virtually useless metal except as a nuclear
fuel.

Coal-fired power plants take hits

The article in the Tribune reviews the status of building new coal-powered power plants in the USA. There is strident opposition, primarily because of the concerns on global warming.

K.S.Parthasarathy



Coal-fired power plants take hits
K.S. Parthasarathy

Coal-fired power plants are taking hits from all sides. The unkindest cut to future coal-fired power generation came recently when Samuel Bodman, Secretary, the US Department of Energy (DOE), declared that the Bush administration had decided to withdraw funding to FutureGen, the US government’s effort to develop a “clean coal” power plant.

The plant would have turned coal into hydrogen-rich synthetic gas, generating electricity while pumping carbon dioxide underground for permanent storage (The Wall Street Journal, WSJ, February 2, 2008). The project had international participation.

The DOE found that the cost of the project soared to $1.8 billion, nearly double the original estimates.

Now activists appeared to have shifted their attention from nuclear power plants to coal-fired plants.

Referring to the example of Richard D. Libert, a Republican, a cattle rancher and a retired army lieutenant colonel, the New York Times observed that “an increasingly vocal, potent and widespread anti-coal movement” is developing in the West.

Besides filing law suits, the environmentalists assert that “these coal plants don’t make any sense, whether from an economic or environmental or property-rights standpoint”.

On October 18, 2007, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), USA, rejected a permit to Sunflower Electric Power to construct a pair of 700-megawatt, coal-fired electric power plants in Holcomb, a town in the western part of the state; the department believes that the greenhouse gas emitted by it threatens public health and the environment.

The decision marks a victory for environmental groups that are fighting proposals for new coal fired plants around the country.

We do not know of the impact the decision will have on coal power plants. In the USA, all combustion facilities need permits. The KDHE’s decision is the first of its kind taken by a government agency citing carbon dioxide emissions as the reason to reject a permit.

“It would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health, if we do nothing”, The Washington Post quoted Roderick L. Bremby, Secretary of the KDHE, as saying.

The writing on the wall was clear. On April 2, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act gives US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the authority to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Court cases around the country had been held up to await the decision in this case. Among them is a challenge to the environmental agency’s refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, now pending in the federal appeals court.

Between 2000 and 2006, US utilities submitted over 150 coal plant proposals. By 2007, they constructed 10 of them; 25 additional plants were under construction. But during 2007, 59 proposed plants were cancelled, abandoned, or put on hold.

Concerns about global warming played a major role in 15 of these cases. Coal plants are being eliminated from long-range plans. The renewables are elbowing them out.

Of the 59 plants which took the hits, 44 were abandoned by the utilities themselves because of increase in construction costs, insufficient financing or failure to receive expected government grants, lowering of estimates of power demand and concerns about future carbon regulations.

Citigroup Inc, J.P.Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley, three of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks announced the formation of The Carbon Principles, climate change guidelines for advisors and lenders to power companies in the United States.

The new environmental standards will make it harder for companies to get financing to build coal power plants in the U.S. The banks will factor in the cost of emission capping regulations while lending money.

Twenty something in the Wall Street rather than ‘environmentalists’ decided the fate of nuclear power in the 70s and 80s!

With the development of clean coal technology stalled, nuclear power appears to have a brighter future; not quite, nuclear power is equally costly. Future energy options remain unpredictable.

K.S. Parthasarathy is former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board

Image gently, bring down CT dose to kids

Excessive and avoidable radiation dose to children undergoing CT scan examinations is currently the most important radiation safety issue which attracted the attention of
several professional associations in USA. Thirteen of them jointly started the Image Gently web page which provides valuable information on the topic. An article in the Science & Technology section of the Hindu a muti-edition daily carries my article on the topic.

K.S.Parthasarathy



Date:06/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/seta/2008/03/06/stories/2008030650071500.htm
________________________________________
Back Sci Tech



Image gently, bring down CT dose to kids
Last July, 13 U.S. associations including the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the Society for Paediatric Radiology (SPR), the American College of Radiology (ACR) and the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) founded the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Paediatric Imaging.
Collective effort
They launched the Image Gently campaign as a collective effort to bring down radiation doses to children. Its objective is to ensure that medical protocols for imaging children keep pace with technology advances (medicalphysicsweb, February 1, 2008).
Specialists became aware of the safety significance of paediatric CT examinations when the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) expressed serious concern on unnecessary radiation doses to children (AJR, February, 2001). On November 2, 2001, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Public Health Notification on the topic.
In December 2001, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board brought the USFDA advisory to the notice of the managements of CT Units in India.
Image acquisition
The growth of CT use in children has been driven primarily by the decrease in the time needed to perform a scan — now less than 1 second — largely eliminating the need for anaesthesia to prevent the child from moving during image acquisition (The New England Journal of Medicine, NEJM, November 29, 2007). The children get exposed to radiation doses higher than necessary because many technologists use the same x-ray exposure factors for Computed Tomography (CT) examinations of children as those used for adults. Children are more sensitive to radiation than adults, as their tissues are developing.
U.S. figures
Nearly seven million CT procedures are carried out annually in the U.S. among children of all ages, with 33 per cent on children under 10 years of age. Surveys at 71 CT Units in India revealed that on an average 8.9 per cent of CT procedures are on children; paediatric protocols are not used in 32 of these installations. These centres are exposing children to unjustifiably high radiation doses.
CT examination is beneficial, when it is medically needed. But there is a need to reduce dosage.
Tube current
Researchers from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi demonstrated that the doses to children can be halved without reducing clinical benefits simply by lowering the tube current (Clinical Radiology 2005).
David Brenner, Eric J. Hall from Columbia University argued that there is direct evidence from epidemiological studies that the organ doses corresponding to a common CT study result in an increased risk of cancer. (The NEJM, 2007). “The evidence is reasonably convincing for adults and very convincing for children,” they asserted.
Dr Marilyn J. Goske, who chairs the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Paediatric Imaging, conceded that there may be disagreement within the medical community about the accuracy of the risk models.
Indisputable fact
“These arguments will not be settled in the near term. However one fact is indisputable; we must continue our efforts to do a better job of reducing radiation dose to children if and when they need a CT scan”, she wrote in an editorial (The AJR, February 2008)
Child-sizing a must
Goske suggested that the technologists must reduce or “child-size” the amount of radiation used; scan only when necessary; scan only the indicated region and scan only once; multiphase scanning is usually not necessary in children.
Everyone handling a CT Unit must read http://www.pedrad.org/associations/5364/ig, the Image Gently web page. Medical literature contains protocols to reduce radiation doses; many of these are scanner specific and not transferable to other units (Image Gently, 2007).
CT centres in India, in consultation with manufacturers may develop appropriate protocols using the “Paediatric CT Protocol Guidance” published at the Image Gently website. Those who do not, must not carry out CT examinations of children.
K.S. PARTHASARATHY

FORMER SECRETARY, AERB
© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

It is a versatile imaging tool

Date:14/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/seta/2008/02/14/stories/
2008021450031500.htm



It is a versatile imaging tool

Scanners that use combined positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) have been proving their potential as versatile medical imaging tools since 2000 when they became commercially available.

A PET scanner uses small amounts of radioactive pharmaceuticals targeted at specific organs, bone or tissues. Development of radiopharmaceuticals such as fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG) which can act as a marker for sugar metabolism enhanced its potential u se. FDG contains Fl-18, a positron emitting radionuclide, whose presence will help to trace and locate the sites where the molecules get accumulated.
Special camera

A special camera that works with a computer provides pictures of the area of the body being imaged. Cancer cells often grow and multiply uncontrollably. They consume enormous amounts of energy. Basically, this energy comes from burning glucose.

Cancer cells metabolise sugar at higher rates than normal cells, and the radiopharmaceutical is drawn in higher amounts to cancerous areas (Society of Nuclear Medicine [SNM] Release, December 12, 2007)

PET scans produce three-dimensional images of the precise distribution of FDG in the body; FDG plays the role of a marker for the disease and its spread. CT scans on the other hand show the details of the anatomical structures.

Since 2000, when Beyer, Townsend and others introduced the concept of PET-CT imaging, state-of-the–art CT imaging technology has been combined with high-end PET systems (The Journal of Nuclear Medicine [JNM], January 2007).

Recently, researchers claimed that PET-CT imaging is superior to conventional imaging in detecting cancers in children (JNM, December 2007). The modality provides additional information, possibly sparing young patients from being overtreated.
Plaque inflammation

PET-CT offers a superior view of atherosclerosis plaque inflammation — a process in which deposits of fats, cholesterol, cellular waste products and other substances, collectively called plaque, builds up in the inner linings of the artery and limits the flow of blood through it (innovations-report.com, June 6, 2006).

PET-CT may be able to assess biologically active plaques; these are of concern as they may lead to “deadly consequences when they misbehave.”

Disease processes may obstruct blood vessels. Specialists insert prosthetic grafts to restore and ensure blood circulation.

According to Ora Israel, director of nuclear medicine and research operations at Rambam Health Care Campus, in Haifa, Israel, graft infection is a rare, but potentially severe complication occurring at a rate ranging between 0.5 and 5 per cent following prosthetic vascular reconstruction (ZAMP Bionews, June 5th, 2007).

Infection imaging

PET-CT imaging effectively diagnoses and differentiates infection, Israeli researchers noted at the 54th Annual Meeting of the SNM. Surgeons remove the infected blood vessel grafts in a complex surgical procedure.

“Sparing unnecessary high risk operations in patients…is of major significance” Dr Israel clarified. “PET-CT imaging can effectively diagnose graft involvement and differentiate it from infection that affects only soft tissue…in its vicinity,” she added (ZAMP Bionews, June 5th 2007)
Cancer screening

Can we justify using PET-CT for population screening for cancer? “Recommendations and decisions regarding cancer screening should be based on reliable data, not good intention, assumptions or speculation …”

“…We conclude from the available data that neither CT nor PET-CT cancer screening is currently warranted…The clinical and statistical relevance of occasionally detected cancers is likely too low to justify population wide screening efforts with these modalities” (The JNM, Supplement, January 2007).

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the scientific publication of the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM), U.S., published two supplements on PET-CT, one in 2005 and the second in January 2007. Both are available on the web.

As on January 2007, specialists are using more than 1700 PET and PET-CT units in the U.S. India has 15 PET scanners, nine of them are PET-CT; more will be installed in the near future.

Indian nuclear medicine specialists have been providing excellent service though the facilities available in India are too meagre.

Diagnostic nuclear medicine services are admittedly lucrative. Nuclear medicine physicians must collaborate and initiate well focused clinical research and development programmes to improve their professional competence and to create more specialists in the country.

K.S. PARTHASARATHY

Former Secretary, AERB
ksparth@yahoo.co.uk

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

MRI Images show damage caused by secondary smoking

January 3, 2008
MRI images show damage caused by secondary smoking
Bright images of minute structural damage in smokers’ lungs were obtained

• Prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke may
cause passageways in the lungs to break down
---------------------------------------------------------------
• The scanner measured how far the helium atoms
Moved or diffused inside the lungs
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The health impact of second hand smoke has been very controversial (The Hindu, May 23, 2003). Physicians always suspected that second-hand smoke caused microscopic structural damage deep into the lungs. The damage was too tiny to be detected by any medical imaging tool.
Happy ending
Their suspicion had a happy ending, when Dr. Chengbo Wang, a magnetic resonance physicist and his radiologist colleagues in the Department of Radiology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia teamed up with specialists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine to obtain bright medical images of the microscopic structural damage in the lungs of smokers by using a special type of magnetic resonance imaging.
They presented their findings on November 26 this year at the 93rd annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) at Chicago. They studied 60 adults between ages 41 and 79; Forty five of them never smoked. They divided the non-smokers into groups with low and high exposure to second hand smoke.
The high exposure group smokers had lived with a smoker for at least 10 years, often during childhood (EurekAlert, November 26). The 15 current or former smokers formed the control group.
The research groups inhaled a mixture of nitrogen and He-3, a special type of helium made by polarizing it to make it more visible in the MRI. The researchers adjusted the MRI to take images showing this helium gas in the tissue.
The scanner measured how far the helium atoms moved or diffused inside the lungs during a time period-1.5 seconds-in the present study. The researchers could detect changes deep in the airways and sacs in the lungs.
Prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke may cause the passageways to break down; they may become enlarged; holes may develop. The helium atoms moved greater distance than in the lungs of normal subjects.
One-third of the non-smokers with high exposures to secondhand cigarette smoke had structural changes in their lungs similar to those found in smokers.
Paradoxical results
The researchers interpreted these changes as early signs of damage, representing very mild form of emphysema. Emphysema is a major cause of death in the US and is commonly found in heavy smokers (EurekAlert, Nov 26).
The researchers got some paradoxical results. Among two-thirds of the high exposure group of non-smokers, diffusion measurements were lower than those in the low exposure group.
Dr Wang argued that diffusion is lower in the group as their airways narrowed because of chronic bronchitis. Dr.Katarzyna Macura of John Hopkins School of Medicine, who moderated the RSNA session, noted that the results should be considered preliminary.
Study too small
She wanted animal studies to elucidate and confirm the apparent structural differences (medpage TODAY, Nov 27). She clarified that the study was too small to provide evidence of a cause and effect.
The detection of minute changes in lung is possible now because nearly 30 years ago scientists at Mainz University developed techniques to polarize nuclear spins of isotopes such as helium-3, an isotope which is extremely rare in nature. He-3 became available via the beta decay of tritium (CERN courier, Oct 2, 2001).
Scientists could use a laser beam to polarize helium gas; polarized helium-3 gas is more visible on MRI. Optical pumping of metastable helium-3 atoms can supply relatively large amounts of highly polarized gas.
The magnetic signals from these are a thousand times as large as those normally seen magnetic resonance imaging (CERN Courier, Oct 2, 2001).
Storage and transport of polarized gas from laboratory to hospital is a major challenge. The polarized helium atoms would lose their spin orientation when they collide with the walls of their containers.
Gas storage
Scientists found that they can store the gas at pressures of up to 10 bar for more than 100hours in glass vessels with their inner surfaces coated with a few mono layers of caesium.
Researchers at the Mainz University demonstrated the potential usefulness of He-3 techniques in human lung imaging in 1995. Dr. Wang and his colleagues applied the technique to study microscopic changes in the lungs of smokers.
Dr. Wang hoped that a conclusive study that demonstrates that breathing secondhand smoke can injure the lungs will push legislation prohibiting public exposure.
K.S.PARTHASARATHY
former Secretary, AERB
(ksparth@yahoo.co.uk)

Bhabha’s dream comes true

This article reminds the reader of the early years of atomic energy in India. Dr Bhabha wanted that the Government should use tyhe then available fairly inexpensive electric power to produce heavy water. He wanted the company producing heavy water should be under the Defence Ministry, The produce should be left to the Atomic Energy commission for its own use or sale. It took several years to fulfill Bhabha's dream.The Heavy Water Board, the agency producing heavy water lives up to the expectations of Dr.Bhabha.

K.S.Parthasarathy



SCIENCE&TECHNOLOGY
Friday,February 1,2008,Chandigarh,India
Bhabha’s dream comes true
K.S. Parthasarathy
Scientists and engineers in the Heavy Water Board (HWB), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) have every reason to be proud. They fulfilled the dreams of Dr Homi Bhabha whose death anniversary was on January 24. The Board exported heavy water to South Korea seven times and once to China.
Last year, HWB supplied 4,400 kg of high quality, nuclear grade heavy water to Spectra Gases Inc. USA. HWB is emerging as a major exporter of this commercially important strategic material. A peep into history is in order.
In a note on the organisation of atomic energy research in India, sent to Jawaharlal Nehru on April 26, 1948, Dr Homi Bhabha wanted that the government “should explore immediately the possibility of utilising the cheap hydroelectric power in India for manufacturing heavy water on the one hand to our own requirements in a pile and on the other for sale to other countries”.
He desired that the government should come to an agreement with the Governments or atomic energy agencies of one or more countries such as Great Britain, France and Norway. “…that was the quickest and the most desirable way to develop atomic energy in India” he argued
Why did he bracket Norway with France and Great Britain? He knew that Norway had the knowhow to produce heavy water, an essential raw material to produce atomic energy. In 1942, Norway was producing 1.5 tons of heavy water annually at its Rjukan plant. (Smart Norwegian saboteurs damaged the plant in 1943;They did not want Germans to get any advantage. The old hydro power station and plant have been preserved as the monument of Norway’s heavy water industry.)
The “factory should be set up for the purpose under the Defence Ministry and put under the same security measures as the armaments factories of that Ministry”. Bhabha drove home the strategic importance of heavy water.
He wanted that “the heavy water produced should be at the disposal of the Atomic Energy Commission for use or sale”. Bhabha wanted to thwart a possible future turf war with the army!
At the second meeting of the Board of Research on Atomic Energy held in Bombay on 9th and 10th April 1948, Bhabha secured approval for three resolutions; one of which recommended that the government should investigate the feasibility of producing heavy water in India.
In the note enclosing the resolutions, Bhabha proposed to Nehru the setting up of a three Member Atomic Energy Commission directly under the Prime Minister as “the present Board……..cannot be entrusted with this work since it is an advisory body…….composed of 28 members including officials, scientists and industrialists”. “Secret matters cannot be dealt with under this organisation”, Bhabha asserted.
In 1954, Dr Bhabha convinced Nehru about setting up a fertiliser cum heavy water plant at Nangal. He argued that cheap electric power (1.35 paisa per kilowatt-hr, revised later to 6 paisa per kilowatt-hr!) will be available from the Bhakra-Nangal Hydel Project. Nangal plant produced the first drop of heavy water on August 9, 1962. Nangal plant was the largest plant of this type in the world.
Bhabha waited for over 14 years (from April 1948 to August 1962) to realise his dream to produce heavy water indigenously. The Heavy Water Board executed the first export order to South Korea in May 1998, just under 36 years later.
If Dr Bhabha were alive today, he would have congratulated the board for its achievements. He might have also expressed his dissatisfaction, as it took too long to fulfill his dream.
HWB faced many trials and tribulations (the difficulties in operating heavy water plants with fertiliser factories, power scarcity, export controls, poor national industrial infrastructure among others) in mastering a technology known only to a handful of advanced countries.
HWS has an impressive list of achievements, including energy conservation measures, maintenance of high capacity factors for the plants and product diversification among others.
The board kept the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited in good humour by supplying heavy water to the pressurised heavy water reactors in the country.
Overall, the board lives up to the expectations of Dr Bhabha,the architect of nuclear India.
Dr K.S.Parthasarathy is former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.

Missing footprints of A-bomb fallout in Himalayan ice fields

The article highlights the fact that nuclear fallout footprints were missing when a US-Chinese team examined the ice cores collected from a glacier in the Tibetan Plateau. The researchers observe that this may mean dwindling fresh water supplies for half the Indian population after a few decades
K.S.Parthasarathy




Missing footprints of A-bomb fallout in Himalayan ice fields
It means dwindling fresh water supply in future to half the Indian population
________________________________________
The total area of glaciers in the Tibetan plateau may shrink by 80 per cent by 2030
Glaciers worldwide are a barometer for global warming
________________________________________
Ice cores drilled from the peak of a Himalayan ice field in 2006 by researchers revealed a chilling reality. Unlike the cores retrieved worldwide, the ice cores from the Himalayan glaciers did not contain the footprints of fallout radioactivity from nuclear weapons testing.
Lonnie Thomson, distinguished professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University and a researcher from the Byrd Polar Research Centre, who led the team revealed the findings while addressing the American Geophysical Union at San Francisco on December 12, 2007.
The radioactive fallout from 520 atmospheric tests during the 1950s and early 1960s spread far and wide and deposited on various surfaces. The missing radioactivity originating as fallout from atmospheric tests during the 1950s and 1960s routinely provides researchers with a benchmark against which they can gauge how much new ice has accumulated on a glacier or ice field (EurekAlert, Dec 11, 2007). In 2006, the joint US-Chinese team drilled four cores from Naimona’nyi, a glacier 6050 metres high on the Tibetan Plateau. Missing nuclear fallout markers means that this Tibetan ice field has been shrinking at least since the atom bomb tests 50 years ago. Melting ice from the Himalayan glaciers is the source of fresh water for Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra.
Thompson estimated that there are about 12,000 cubic metres of fresh water stored in the glaciers throughout the Himalayas.
Radioactivity signals
They release melt water each year and feed the rivers downstream. These ice fields are shrinking. If they are eventually lost, 500 million people who depend on glacier-fed streams will suffer critical shortage of water.
The radioactivity signals from strontium-90, caesium-136, tritium (H-3) and chlorine-36 were present in ice cores from Polar Regions and from tropical glaciers around the globe.
This means that the ice fields from these regions retained snow that fell during the last fifty years.
Ice cores
In 2000, Dr Thompson led a team of researchers and retrieved ice cores from Kilimanjaro’s northern ice fields. They found fallout footprints only 1.8 metres below the surface.
“By 2006, the surface of that ice field had lost more than 2.5 metres of solid ice (and hence recorded time) — including ice containing that signal.
Had we drilled those cores in 2006 rather than 2000, the radioactive horizon would be absent — like it is now on Naimona’nyi in the Himalayas” Dr Thompson said (EurekAlert, 2007). “If what is happening on Naimona’nyi is characteristic of the Himalayan glaciers, glacial melt water will eventually dwindle with substantial consequences for a tremendous number of people,” Dr Thompson warned. Researchers estimate that there are nearly 15,000 glaciers within the Himalayan mountain chain forming the main repository for fresh water in that part of the world. The total area of glaciers in the Tibetan plateau may shrink by 80 per cent by the year 2030 (EurekAlert, Dec 11).
D.P. Dobhal, a glaciologist with the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, regularly measures the changes in the size and volume of the Chorabari glacier in the Himalayas (The NYT, July13, 2007).
Chorabari’s snout
Dhobhal estimated that the Chorabari’s snout (where glacier melt water empties out in to the river) retreated 29.5 ft every year for the last three years (The NYT, July 17,2007). According to the New York Times, the Indian Space Research Organization, using satellite imaging to gauge the changes to 466 glaciers has found more than a 20 per cent reduction in size from 1962 to 2001 with bigger glaciers breaking into smaller pieces each retreating faster than its parent.
Mean air temperature
Glaciers worldwide are a barometer for global warming (The NYT, July 17, 2007). The New York Times quoted a recent study which found that the mean air temperature in the northwestern Himalayan range had risen by 2.2 degrees Celsius in the last two decades, a rate considerably more than the rate of increase over the last 100 years.
The impact of global warming is getting attention worldwide. Professor Thompson based his findings on scientific observations. Other studies corroborated them.
Let us hope that Professor Thompson’s predictions may not come true; what is worrying is that it may remain so; just a hope!
K.S. PARTHASARATHY
Former Secretary, AERB
( ksparth@yahoo.co.uk)
© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

India : Nuclear Technology Scenario

India: Nuclear Technology Scenario
by K S Parthasarathy
RECENT developments in nuclear technology and allied fields have given nuclear advocacy groups and their well-wishers in India, an inspiration for calm contemplation; an occasion to assess the weaknesses of the programme and to appreciate its inherent strengths.
India has made laudable progress in operating the entire nuclear fuel cycle consisting of mining, milling, fuel fabrication, nuclear reactor operation and spent fuel management. The latest annual report of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE, 2006-07) amply demonstrates “a paradigm shift in terms of far greater mobilisation of resources and technologies” for uranium exploration activities.
The Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD) established over 6600 tonnes of additional uranium resources at Lostoin, Wahkyn, West Khasi Hills in Meghalaya, Chitrial, Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh and Rahul, Sikar district in Rajasthan. The agency is leaving no stones unturned to locate uranium resources across different regions in the country.
Prospecting and drilling for the precious resource continued with renewed vigour in several areas in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. AMD estimated over 120 million tonnes of total heavy mineral resources as an inferred category along the 30 km coastline in Puri district, Orissa. The operating units of the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) showed improved capacity utilisation during the year. Narwapahar mine and Jaduguda plant maintained their excellent performance; the quantity of uranium ore they produced and processed, respectively exceeded their production capacities.
The Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) met the fuel requirements of all the operating pressurised heavy water reactors and boiling water reactors. NFC supplied the entire initial full core fuel requirement of unit 3 of the Tarapur Atomic Power Project (TAPP-3), the reactor internals of unit 6 of Rajasthan Atomic Power Project (RAPP-6), the coolant tubes and Garter springs for replacement in Units 1 and 2 of the Narora Atomic Power Station and the first supply of titanium half alloy hydraulic tubes (a critical component in the Light Combat Aircraft) for the Aeronautical Development Authority. The scientists and engineers at the India Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research operated the Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) at Kalpakkam without any failure of the mixed carbide fuel used, for a record length of time. Four sodium pumps operated trouble free for 5,50,000 hours. The experience gained in operating FBTR will be invaluable in our fast breeder reactor programme.
The construction of the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) and related facilities at Kalpakkam is on course. The manufacture of a few important systems and components of the 300 MWe Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) being developed by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre have been completed.
During 2006-07, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) achieved the target capacity addition of 1300 MWe in the Xth plan with the commissioning of two nuclear power reactors of 540 MWe capacity at Tarapur (TAPP-3 and 4) and two units of 220 MWe at Kaiga (Kaiga-3 and 4). Unit 4 of the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station operated continuously for 373 days, breaking an earlier record. Unit 1 of the Kaiga Atomic Power Station operated non-stop for 356 days. Units 1 and 2 of the Tarapur Atomic Power Station, the first nuclear power station in the country, recorded the highest power generation since the station began its commercial operation.
The total generation including wind power generation at Kudankulam was 398 million units more than the last year. But the overall capacity factor for the nuclear power plants was low at 63 per cent. The annual report of NPCIL for 2006-07 noted that the capacity factor will improve proportionately when the mismatch between fuel supply and generation is resolved, shortly. NPCIL successfully completed the life extension and safety up-gradation of unit 1 of the Narora Atomic Power Station (NAPS-1) within the estimated cost and time. The Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT) and NPCIL developed various laser-based tools indigenously to reduce radiation exposure to workers involved in en masse replacement of coolant tubes at NAPS-1; this was possible as the duration in which the coolant tubes were removed and replaced became shorter, when these advanced tools were used.
NPCIL concentrates its research and development (R&D) activities in 21 areas in nuclear and electronic systems. These include new and improvised technologies to enhance safety, safety experiments to validate design parameters, methods to reduce operation and maintenance costs of operating units, management of radioactive waste, ageing and degradation studies, remote inspection, maintenance, emergency handling and refurbishment/repair technologies, indigenisation of processes, equipment and components, development of electronics and computer-based systems for new projects and up-gradation of systems for existing nuclear power plants among others.
The sophisticated tools used by NPCIL included a “remote operated vehicle” to carry out in situ inspection to identify locations where suspected leakages on the steel liners in the calandria vault of KAPS-1 occur and an indigenously developed automatic cutting/beveling machine for feeder pipe replacement during the en masse coolant channel replacement campaign. This helped to reduce plant outage time and to save substantial foreign exchange.
The NPCIL’s annual report for 2006-07 indicates that its R&D expenditure was Rs 120.43 million or 0.33 per cent of the turnover. It registered a considerable increase over the amount for 2005-06 of Rs 61.9 million or 0.17 per cent of the turnover.
The enchanting mustard fields with Narora Atomic Power Station in its background, the colourful and beautiful birds like the Red Avadavat at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station, the mixed group of painted storks, grey pelicans and cormorants near the Kudankulam project site and a variety of butterflies at the Madras Atomic Power Station; NPCIL’s annual report contains the images of “a microcosm of the ideal eco-friendly biosphere.” I wonder how the NPCIL staff missed the shoal of colourful fish swimming against the water currents at the outfall of Rajasthan Atomic Power Station. Nuclear stations in India show that they can exist harmoniously with flora and fauna at each location.

Radiation workers and infertility,impotence

Radiation workers and infertility, impotence

There is no scientific evidence that radiation exposure will cause impotence

Temporary sterility may occur at a lower dose of 0.15Gy (150mGy) in a few months post exposure

All available resources need to be used while counselling persons exposed to radiation

Ill-informed radiation workers have very exaggerated notions about the health effects of ionizing radiation. Fortunately, they are a minority. They rarely get opportunities to clear their doubts. Often, they are reluctant to ask. More so, if their doubts are on intensely private topics such as the impact, if any, of radiation exposure on fertility and sexual performance!

Sterility due to radiation exposure is a deterministic effect.

These effects do not occur until the radiation dose reaches a minimum threshold. For instance, the threshold dose for permanent sterility in the male for a single absorbed dose in the testes is about 3.5Gy (3,500mGy) to 6Gy (6,000mGy).
Speedy recovery

Temporary sterility may occur at a lower dose of 0.15Gy (150mGy) after a few months post exposure. It may continue for some months.

The exposed person will recover after a few months. (Gy is a unit of radiation dose; since Gy is large, milligray (mGy) — a dose equal to one thousandth of a Gy — is commonly used; the annual dose limit for radiation workers recommended by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) is 30 mGy for x-rays, gamma rays and electrons; average dose to radiation workers is a fraction of a mGY to a few mGy).

The annual reports of AERB contain relevant details about the radiation doses to workers in India (please see www.aerb.gov.in ).

As the doses received by different groups of radiation workers are several hundred to several thousand times lower than the threshold dose, no worker will suffer sterility due to radiation exposure.

Workers in India have been handling radiation sources for the past several decades. Over the years, there were a few serious incidents involving high radiation doses to individuals who carried sources inadvertently.

There has not been even a single instance of any worker becoming permanently sterile due to occupational radiation exposure. There is no scientific evidence that radiation exposure will cause impotence.
Scientific facts

Publication 60 of the ICRP contains scientific facts about radiation exposure and health effects including sterility. Patients trust their physicians. But few physicians have adequate knowledge in the subject. This became evident during the radiation protection appreciation programmes arranged by AERB a few years ago.
Wrong advice

According to WHO, 10 to 15 per cent of Indian couples are sterile. An exposed person may not get the right advice if he approaches homeopaths and doctors practicing alternative medicine; they are not equipped to offer counsel.

I came across an instance in which in spite of the ‘advice,’ he received, an exposed worker was worried over his erectile dysfunction, which he wrongly attributed to radiation exposure.

Apparently, he had less faith in the really competent physician who offered correct advice!

Scholarly discussion with facts and figures on radiation and its effects has a role to play during medical counselling; but that alone may not reassure an exposed worker.

While researching to write this paper, I asked Dr Robert Brent, Distinguished Professor of paediatrics, radiology and pathology, Thomas Jefferson University, whether he has an information package to counsel exposed workers. Dr. Brent has counselled many thousands of patients, particularly pregnant women, on effect of radiation on the unborn, during his distinguished career over several decades. He contributed significantly to address the topic at the Health Physics Society Ask the Expert (HPS ATE) web site.

“We have many answers on the HPS ATE website that pertain to these questions, however, the anxiety level of the questioner is usually high and they want a personal answer to their questions and concerns.

Each exposure is different as are the circumstances; generic answers do not help these contacts.

They want the personal touch and that is what we give them. The risk of cancer from low exposures of radiation is very anxiety provoking and an erudite generic paragraph just does not solve the contact’s concern,” Dr Brent responded to an e-mail message. Counselling persons who were exposed to radiation is a challenging job. A specialist can do it competently if he uses all the resources available to him.

K.S.PARTHASARATHY

Former Secretary, AERB

( ksparth@yahoo.co.uk)

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

CT scanning: safety issues

The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE), UK, has just now published its report on the impact of personally initiated X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning for the health assessment of asymptomatic individuals. Every one must be read this, as it is a scholarly assessment of a powerful medical imaging tool.




Science and technology Janaury 4, 2008, Chandigarh, India


CT scanning: safety issues
K.S. Parthasarathy

ON December 19, the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE), UK, published a report on the impact of personally initiated X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning for the health assessment of asymptomatic individuals. Everyone must read this 83-page report (www.comare.org.uk/documents/COMARE12thReport.pdf) which comprehensively deals with the safety issues of CT scanning.

The report noted that in UK, some commercial CT services market CT scanning of the asymptomatic individual directly to the public as a form of preventative medicine to give individuals some peace of mind!

We are not far behind. Advertisements extolling the virtues of CT scanning have started appearing in India also.

CT scans promise greater diagnostic accuracy and an increased range of clinical applications; there is also the potential for greater radiation doses to individuals, from interventional techniques and from changes of practice within X-ray computed tomography (COMARE, 2007).

According to COMARE, a typical CT scan with an effective dose of 10 mSv is associated with a predicted average risk of fatal cancer induction of 1 in 2000 over a lifetime. (mSv is a unit of biologically effective radiation dose. A chest x-ray test exposes the patient to a dose of 0.02mSV)

The harm associated with a medically necessary CT scan is below that considered to be unacceptable, compared to the spontaneous fatal cancer risk of approximately 1 in 4.

“If 100,000 people undergo a CT scan every five years from age 40 to 70 years, receiving an effective dose of 10 mSv from each scan, then the estimated impact is approximately 240 excess fatalities…….. For scanning at higher frequencies (every two years or annually) this increases to 600 and 1200 fatalities, respectively.” COMARE cautioned.

The risk from repeated scans is unacceptable. Physicians must consider the use of alternative techniques using lower doses of ionising radiation or non-ionising radiation.

In any country, medical radiation exposure constitutes the major part of the radiation exposure from artificial sources of radiation. COMARE considered the detriment caused by radiation from the CT scan and also the subsequent psychological effects and potential physical detriment from further investigations.

Commercial CT services should provide comprehensive information regarding dose and risk of the CT scan, as well as rates of false negative and false positive findings. False negatives will lead to wrong feeling of good health, while tests that provide false positives may cause psychological trauma followed by more diagnostic tests.

The committee clarified that “it may not be possible to give an asymptomatic person a complete ‘all clear’ after a scan….It is also not clear whether CT imaging detects some cancers (eg lung) that are not as clinically as aggressive as those identified following presentation with symptoms”. Some cancers may be present at the individual’s death and would not have been life-threatening.

COMARE recommended that any individual displaying symptoms and requesting a CT scan from a commercial service should not be scanned and should be referred back to their physician.

The report considered in detail scanning of whole-body and three specific anatomical regions.

COMARE asserted that it is not possible to optimise exposure parameters for CT scans of the whole of the body. Services offering whole body CT scanning of asymptomatic individuals should discontinue to do so. CT should not be used to assess spinal conditions, body fat and osteoporosis in asymptomatic individuals (COMARE Press release, December 19)

COMARE concluded that there is no evidence that CT scanning for lung conditions is of benefit. However, cardiac CT scanning has been shown to have value for predicting cardiovascular risk and similarly CT colonography has the potential to detect small lesions. Both cardiac CT scanning and CT colonography should only be carried out in certain asymptomatic individuals.

The report recommended that CT scanning should only be undertaken on individuals with intermediate risk identified by a comprehensive cardiovascular risk assessment, unless the referral is by a cardiac specialist.

In view of the safety significance of CT scan units, they are subjected to licensing by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). It is illegal to operate a CT scan unit in India without obtaining a licence issued by AERB

Dr K.S. Parthasarathy is former Secretary, AERB

Nuclear news who is minding the shop

DAILY EXCELSIOR Julty 12, 2007 (PTI feature)

‘Nuclear’ news : Who is minding the shop ?

By Dr K S Parthasarathy

Recent controversies surrounding the visit of USS Nimitz, a nuclear aircraft carrier to Chennai, initially gave the false impression that there is no one to mind the shop!

Public had legitimate reasons to worry. The reassuring and prompt statements from scientists who knew the safety features of the reactors on board such ships and the lucid press release from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) allayed these fears to a great extent.

MOD had evolved the process of clearing the harbour for berthing nuclear vessels since January 5, 1988 when Indian navy inducted the nuclear powered INS Chakra into its fleet. The procedures included survey by an Environmental Survey Committee (ESC) set up by the Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister. MOD drew up a Radiation Safety Contingency Plan and implemented it prior to berthing of INS Chakra; the ship operated from 1988 to 1991.

From 15 February 2001 to 3rd November 2006, three nuclear powered ships from USA, three from France and one ship from UK visited India. There were ten visits; nine were to Goa and one to Mumbai. Indian Navy conducted the ‘International Fleet Review’ during which the French Nuclear Submarine Perle berthed in Mumbai harbour from 15 to 20 February 2001.

MOD intimates the ESC of an impending visit by a nuclear powered ship or submarine. ESC proceeds to the port well in advance before the arrival of the nuclear powered vessel and carries out a survey.

Movement of the nuclear powered ship takes place only during daylight hours, in good visibility and with escort tugs in attendance. No other ship is berthed within 200 metre radius of the nuclear powered ship. Ships berthed within 600 metre of the berth are kept at short notice, not exceeding tour hours, to get underway.

Radiation monitoring laboratories manned by scientists from Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO)/Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and Defence personnel, set up onboard a suitable ship, undertake frequent monitoring of water and air samples.

A standing ESC has carried out a detailed survey at Chennai and cleared the visit of USS Nimitz from radiation hazard point of view. The stingent radiation monitoring protocol in place includes periodic monitoring protocol in place includes periodic monitoring and analysis of air and water samples. The agency conducts these activities under the ambit of a well rehearsed Radiation Safety Contingency Plan over seen by a Crisis Management Group and a Crisis Management Cell comprising of scientists from DRDO, BARC, Defence Laboratory, Jodhpur, representatives of the Chennai Port Trust and the Indian Navy.

In spite of the well established and frequently rehearsed procedures in place, the visit of the carrier generated some controversy. Nobody discussed the issues so far though nuclear powered ships have been visiting Indian ports periodically. It is amusing to note that even as late as July 2nd this year news agencies continue to state that USS Nimitz is the first nuclear powered ship to visit an Indian port though the press release dated July 27 from MOD gave details of ten visits during 2001-2006. Our scientists and engineers have been operating nuclear facilities including several nuclear power reactors for the past many decades, a few of these are based at coastal areas. Scientists in the Environmental Survey Laboratories have developed state of the art capability to measure radioactivity in samples of air and water from the sixties.

Plant, site and offsite emergency plans are in place at every nuclear power plant. Preparing relevant documentation and enforcing appropriate plans with the help of scientists and engineers are routine functions for the concerned authorities.

In April 1994, a ‘‘scientist’’ working with an NGO reported that his team measured high levels of radiation in several parts of Lucknow, including MLA's hostel and a few posh areas. Many national dailies and local Doordarshan covered the news.

Three scientists from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) investigated the observations and unambiguously demonstrated that the reported increase in background radiation was due to a deficiency of the instrument. It was sensitive to light and indicated some spurious reading when its detector was exposed directly to sunlight with its window open.

The team measured radiation levels in the locations referred to in the NGO's press release and observed that they were within the range normally expected in that part of the country arising solely from natural background radiation.

AERB publicized the findings of the committee. Though the ‘scientist’’ working with the NGO accepted the conclusions of the committee on the spot, he repeated his claim later and said that he was confident he would ‘‘come out with clinching evidence’’ at an appropriate time.

In September 1994 a report from Washington stated that Pakistan was within hours of sending American supplied F-16 jets on a mission to drop conventional bombs on the nuclear reactors at Trombay. ‘‘Millions of people would have died and it would have been a holocaust beyond anything...had Pakistan attacked the two research atomic reactors, Dhruva and Cirus’’, the report warned.

In response to a senior journalist from a national news agency, I explained the topography of Trombay and the design features of the reactors. I explained that a nuclear facility may have plant, site and offsite emergency plans as appropriate. Detailed analysis has shown that releases, if any, from the reactors at Trombay even in an extreme emergency will not have any offsite impact. I told the journalist that the statement from Washington is ‘most absurd’. The item got wide media coverage and hopefully allayed some fear.

Nuclear and associated community must realize that, often, radiation or nuclear safety matters raise alarm totally disproportionate with any measurable harm. They must address these concerns promptly, honestly and openly. It is at times wiser to be proactive. Media is always receptive to those who are minding the shop !

PTI Feature