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58 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
58 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
SECRET DOCUMENTS REVEAL DANGER OF WORLDWIDE NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS
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On March 11, 1987, NBC broadcast a documentary, "Nuclear Power:
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In France It Works." It could have passed for a lengthy nuclear power
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commercial. Missing from anchorman Tom Brokaw's introduction was the
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fact that NBC's owner, General Electric, is America's second largest
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nuclear power salesman and third largest producer of nuclear weapons
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systems.
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One month after the NBC documentary, there were accidents at two
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French nuclear installations, injuring seven workers. THE CHRISTIAN
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SCIENCE MONITOR wrote of a "potentially explosive debate" in France,
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with new polls showing a third of the French public opposing nuclear
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power. That story was not reported on NBC News.
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NBC's policy which produced the "nuclear power works" commercial
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and censored the news about two nuclear accidents is typical of the
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international silence about reactor incidents which help explain the
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industry's undeserved reputation for safety.
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The lid to Pandora's nuclear safety box was partially opened last
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year when the West German weekly DER SPIEGEL published 48 of over 250
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secret nuclear reactor accdient reports compiled by the International
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Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The report of previously secret IAEA
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documents was translated into English for the first time and published
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in David Brower's EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL.
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Some of the "incidents" you never heard about: February 1983 --
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Bulgaria's Kozluduj nuclear power plant lost pressure in the primary
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cooling system; June 1983 -- three of four pumps failed in Argentina's
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Embalse nuclear plant; August 1984 -- the primary cooling system in
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West Germany's Bruno Leuschner plant in Greifswald burst; October 1984
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-- engineers at the Chooz A reactor on the French-Belgian border
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discovered numerous "breaks" and "broken welding seams" on the
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critical control rods of the 17-year-old reactor; 1984 --
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Czechoslovakia's Jaslovska Bohunice reactor spilled radioactive
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coolant into two reactor containment units due to the failure of 72
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defective bolts in the circulation system; January 1985 -- at
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Pakistan's Kanupp reactor, radioactive heavy water leaked while being
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transferred through a rubber hose; February 1985 -- during a fuel rod
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experiment in East Germany's Rheinsberg reactor, a measuring device
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stuck into the center of the reactor caused a leak of radioactive
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water; April 1985 -- radioactive water and sludge swamped two rooms of
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an auxiliary building at Belgium's Tihange reactor; December 1985 --
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emergency power in Canada's Pickerikng reactor failed in three
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separate units for five days.
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DER SPIEGEL said that in several of these previously unreported
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nuclear slip-ups "a meltdown was a real possibility." Worse yet for
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Americans, DER SPIEGEL found that human error "is most advanced in
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North America ... sometimes with hair-raising results." A survey of
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official records since the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown in 1979
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shows there have been more than 23,000 mishaps at U.S. reactors -- and
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the number are increasing. In 1986, there were more than 3,000
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reported incidents -- up 24 percent over 1984. The chilling
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conclusion: "Humanity has been sitting on a powderkeg as a result of
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reliance on the 'peaceful' use of the atom."
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SOURCES: EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL, Summer, 1987, "Secet Documents
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Reveal Nuclear Accidents Worldwide," by Gar Smith with Hans
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Hollitscher, pp 21-24; EXTRA, June 1987, "Nuclear Broadcasting
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Company," p 5.
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