France nuclear: Marcoule site blast kills one

[Denny Crane]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14883521

One person has been killed and four injured, one seriously, by a blast at the Marcoule nuclear site in France.

There was no risk of a radioactive leak after the blast, caused by a fire near a furnace in the Centraco radioactive waste storage site, said officials.

The plant's owner, national electricity provider EDF, said it had been "an industrial accident, not a nuclear accident".

There are no nuclear reactors at the southern French site.

The explosion hit the area at 11:45 local time (09:45 GMT).

"For the time being nothing has made it outside," said a spokesman for France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

The Centraco treatment centre belongs to a subsidiary of EDF. It produces MOX fuel, which recycles plutonium from nuclear weapons.

 

[Denny Crane]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-09-12/kenya-pipeline-blast/50366616/1

At least 61 Kenyans dead after pipeline explosion

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – A leaking gasoline pipeline in Kenya's capital exploded on Monday, turning part of a slum into an inferno in which at least 61 people were killed and more than 100 hurt.

 

[Denny Crane]

The first article will be talked about a lot on the news. I bet the second is hardly mentioned. Yet the second story is about a far worse disaster, in human terms.

 

[BrianFromWA]

In this month's Scientific American (p. 96) there's a chart that shows deaths per 100 gigawatts of power generated per year and the percent of deaths along the supply chain (exploration/extraction, long-distance transport, processing/storage, local distribution, power and heat generation, and waste handling). The results:

Hydro (0.27 deaths/100GW), >60% in power handling/heat generation
Nuclear (0.73 deaths/100GW), >60% in power handling/heat generation
Natural Gas (7.19 deaths/100GW), 10% exploration, 10% long-distance transport, ~45% Local Dist., ~23% power/heat
Oil (9.37 deaths/100GW), 10% exploration, ~45% long-distance transport, ~45% local dist.
Coal (12.00 deaths/100GW) >60% exploration/extraction

Photovoltain (0.02), geothermal (0.17) and onshore wind (0.19) "have not been used widely enough to link deaths to specific supply-chain stages"

 

[BrianFromWA]

And on the same page: "US Health Burden caused by Particulate Pollution from Fossil-Fueled Power Plants" (in mean cases per year)

4040 hospital admissions from pneumonia
9720 hospital admissions from cardiovascular ills
30,100 premature deaths
59,000 acute bronchitis cases
603,000 asthma attacks
5,130,000 lost workdays

(numbers from both posts from the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, which studied 1800 accidents worldwide over 30 years)

 

[BrianFromWA]

btw, we have regulated against the type of plutonium reclamation that the French (and others including India, China and Pakistan) do. It's another decision (applauded in this article) of Bush's that Obama reversed.

 

[jlprk]

The first article will be talked about a lot on the news. I bet the second is hardly mentioned. Yet the second story is about a far worse disaster, in human terms.

Last night I watched banned 9/11 commercials on YouTube. Your post about the relativity of death numbers reminds me of this one.

Nuclear (0.73 deaths/100GW), >60% in power handling/heat generation

Nuclear debate is more about the long-term than the immediate risk. Nuclear waste "keeps on giving" for thousands of years.

 

[Denny Crane]

Last night I watched banned 9/11 commercials on YouTube. Your post about the relativity of death numbers reminds me of this one.





Nuclear debate is more about the long-term than the immediate risk. Nuclear waste "keeps on giving" for thousands of years.

The reprocessed MOX waste at the facility in France has a 50 year half-life.

 

[Denny Crane]

btw, we have regulated against the type of plutonium reclamation that the French (and others including India, China and Pakistan) do. It's another decision (applauded in this article) of Bush's that Obama reversed.

I never understood the ban on reprocessing spent fuel. You generate the same volume of waste, but you get more lifetime from that volume.