Jaitapur - A guinea pig for untested reactor?

The Japanese are the world’s experts in earthquake-resistant designs. Japan is a country that has a very good disaster management organisation throughout their nation. They often rehearsed working team to handle such emergencies. In contrast, in India, we are most disorganised and unprepared for the handling of emergencies of any kind of even much less severity. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board’s (AERB’s) disaster preparedness oversight is mostly on paper and the drills they once in a while conduct are half-hearted efforts.

In case of earthquake engineering, the strategy of Nuclear Power Corporation is to have their favourite consultants cook up the kind of seismic data which suits them, and there is practically no independent verification of their data or design methodologies. A captive AERB, which reports to the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), makes the overall nuclear safety management in India worthless. Today, the AERB merely serves as a lap dog of the DAE and the prime minister’s office (PMO).

When that happens, dangerous species of radioactive fission products in the gaseous and micro-dust and droplet form could spread over large areas, depending on wind conditions. Even a millionth gram of some of these substances, if ingested or breathed in, could seriously raise the cancer risk for individuals, especially in children and infants.

It is true that it is unlikely that the kind of a devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan may strike any of the Indian nuclear plants. But the earthquake-resistant designs and tsunami abatement measures we have taken in our nuclear plants need a high-level, in-depth review by an independent expert group, predominantly consisting of non-DAE, non-NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited) experts. Ever since the UPA government has taken over in 2004, the collusion between the PMO, the DAE, NPCIL and the various corporate houses in India and abroad has substantially increased. This closeness was deliberately engineered by the PMO, initially to bring home the Indo-US nuclear deal, but afterwards the continuity of this closeness between the corporate business houses interested in nuclear power and the concerned supervisory government agencies is distorting and damaging independent government decisions to be taken in the public interest, whether it be in the choice of import of reactors and their cost, the environmental impact of such imported reactors, or their potential deficiencies and dangers. This is certainly fast leading this country towards large economic losses and a sharp increase in the potential for hazardous reactor accidents in India.

India has built 18 Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) on our own. We have mastered the design through carefully learning from the mistakes of the past, and are currently moving on to build 700 MWe units of this type. We have three generations of Indian engineers who are familiar with the PHWR. If we need more nuclear power, the safest route is to consolidate and expand on our PHWR experience, import natural uranium, and build more PHWRs. Instead, the government is scattering our energies and talent in getting imported reactors like the French EPRs in Jaitapur, of which neither Indians nor the French know much about. If, in a PHWR, a major accident occurs, we have Indian engineers and scientists who are totally familiar with the details, who can jump in and rapidly bring the situation to normal. For Indian engineering teams to react in a similar timely and effective manner against an accident in one of the planned imported reactors will be next to impossible for at least few decades to come.

The first objection is that the Evolutionary Pressurized Reactors (EPRs) to be built in Jaitapur, having not been commissioned anywhere in the world, is a non-existent reactor whose potential problems are totally unknown even to Areva, its developer, let alone India’s Nuclear Power Corporation. A reactor has to be physically built and then only it can be tested, and the EPR is therefore a totally untested reactor, even if Areva claims they have combined various best design features on paper in conceiving the EPR. The reliability and safety of EPR will be extremely low and unknown until, through different stages of operation and testing over years, all indicated problems are rectified.

Why should people of Jaitapur be subjected to the high risk of providing an unknown reactor in their backyard? This decision of the government is all the more perplexing when we know that India has already built about 18 PHWRs on its own over the last four decades and has perfected its design through extensive years of operation, and we can continue to expand nuclear power in India by setting up more 700 MWe PHWRs of our own design.

Secondly, the promoters (NPCIL & Areva) are totally silent about the serious problems that India, and especially the local community, has to face after operations start and the spent-fuel starts accumulating at the site. The higher burn-up spent fuel from EPRs has its own unique hazards at the storage and transportation stages, unlike in the case of current LWRs, which use lower burn-ups. Besides, the reprocessing of such fuel will be extremely complex, the per MWh production of usable plutonium from this plant will be notably low, and these two reasons combined will make EPRs least useful as plutonium producers for India’s move through indigenous thorium-based fast breeders for the future.

Thirdly, we are buying into all these high risks at an enormous cost to the tax payers. An EPR will cost no less than Rs. 20 crore per MWe, if the government does not hide much of the costs through invisible subsidies. As against this, an Indian PHWR will cost at the most Rs. 8 crore per MWe. Why not purchase natural uranium alone from abroad and multiply the number of 700-1000 MWe PHWRs, for which India does not require any technology imports?

Even in the evaluations and negotiations of cost, the safety and liability of imported reactors, the official nuclear agencies today are operating hand-in-glove with their friends in the corporate houses and federations. Under the circumstances, these government agencies must be visibly de-linked from corporate influences first and made truly independent, before the public can be expected to believe any of their assertions.

Courtsey: Dr A Gopalakrishnan, former chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Government of India

For Further reading:

• Pressurised heavy water reactor (PHWR)
•  Evolutionary Power Reactor or European Pressurized Reactor (EPR)

Endosulfan Banned???

The Conference of Parties to the Stockholm Convention in Geneva on last Friday approved the recommendation for elimination of production and use of endosulfan and its isomers worldwide, subject to certain exemptions. The actual decision is to list technical endosulfan and related isomers in Part I Annex A to the Convention with specific exemptions for production as allowed in the Register of Specific Exemptions and/or use on crop-pest complexes as listed with the decision. This would require 173 countries, which are parties to the Convention, to take steps for a ban on production and use of endosulfan. However, exemptions will be available for five years, extendable for another five years. The listing takes one year to be effective.

Exemptions will be available for application of endosulfan against 44 pests in 22 crops — cotton, jute, coffee, tea, tobacco, cowpeas, beans, tomato, okra, eggplant, onion, potato, chillies, apple, mango, gram, arhar, maize, paddy/rice, wheat, groundnuts and mustard. The pests include aphids in most of the exempted crops, bollworms, jassids, whiteflies, thrips and leafroller in cotton, Bihar hairy caterpillar and yellow mites in jute and berry borer and stem borer in coffee. For tea, application of endosulfan is allowed for a host of pests including caterpillars and tea mosquitoes. Endosulfan will be allowed to be used against hopper and fruit fillies in mango and several pests in tomato. In rice, use will be permitted against white jassids, stem borer, gall midge and rice hispa and in wheat against termites and pink borer, besides aphids. 

Many of these crops are commonly cultivated in India. Nevertheless, we do not have control on the use of the pesticides. It is impossible in a country like ours to track down the use of the pesticides. Even though the ban is in force, on the use of this pesticide on other crops, we will not be able to have control on its use. In this circumstances, the ban remains only procedural. It is required to have an immediate and complete ban of Endosulfan.

Civil Engineering Notes

Hi,
The Notes on Engineering Mechanics and Design of Steel Structures posted here is moved to an independent blog for Civil Engineering Notes. You can access the contents using the link : http://ce-notes-vg.blogspot.com/ .
Please follow the link to access the blog : Civil Engineering Notes by Vaisakh G .

THE LEANING TOWER

The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Torre pendente di Pisa) or simply the Tower of Pisa is the campanile (freestanding bell tower) of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa. It is situated behind the Cathedral and is the third oldest structure in Pisa's Cathedral Square (Piazza del Duomo) after the Cathedral and the Baptistry. The height of the tower is 55.86 m (183.27 ft) from the ground on the low side and 56.70 m (186.02 ft) on the high side. The width of the walls at the base is 4.09 m (13.42 ft) and at the top 2.48 m (8.14 ft). Its weight is estimated at 14,500 metric tons (16,000 short tons). The tower has 296 or 294 steps; the seventh floor has two fewer steps on the north-facing staircase.

Construction of the tower occurred in three stages across 177 years. Work on the first floor of the white marble campanile began on August 8, 1173, during a period of military success and prosperity.

Due to a mere three-metre foundation, set in weak, unstable subsoil, a design that was flawed from the beginning, the tower began to sink after construction had progressed to the third floor in 1178. The tower would almost certainly have toppled if the construction was not halted for almost a century, because of continuous battles. This allowed time for the underlying soil to settle.

In 1272 construction resumed under Giovanni di Simone, architect of the Camposanto. In an effort to compensate for the tilt, the engineers built upper floors with one side taller than the other. Because of this, the tower is actually curved. Construction was halted again in 1284, due to the defeat of Pisans in the Battle of Meloria. The seventh floor was completed in 1319. It was built by Tommaso di Andrea Pisano, who succeeded in harmonizing the Gothic elements of the bell-chamber with the Romanesque style of the tower. There are seven bells, one for each note of the musical major scale. The largest one was installed in 1655. The bell-chamber was finally added in 1372. In 1987 the tower was declared as part of the Piazza del Duomo UNESCO World Heritage Site along with the neighbouring cathedral, baptistery and cemetery.

A multinational task force of engineers, mathematicians and historians gathered on the Azores islands to discuss stabilization methods. It was found that the tilt was increasing in combination with the softer foundations on the lower side. Many methods were proposed to stabilize the tower, including the addition of 800 metric tonnes of lead counterweights to the raised end of the base.

On January 7, 1990, after over two decades of stabilization studies, the tower was closed to the public. The bells were removed to relieve some weight, and cables were cinched around the third level and anchored several hundred metres away. Apartments and houses in the path of the tower were vacated for safety. The final solution to prevent the collapse of the tower was to slightly straighten the tower to a safer angle, by removing 38 cubic metres (50 cu yd) of soil from underneath the raised end. The tower was straightened by 18 inches (45 centimetres), returning to its 1838 position. After a decade of corrective reconstruction and stabilization efforts, the tower was reopened to the public on December 15, 2001, and was declared stable for at least another 300 years.

Prior to restoration work performed between 1990 and 2001, the tower leaned at an angle of 5.5 degrees, but the tower now leans at about 3.99 degrees. This means that the top of the tower is displaced horizontally 3.9 metres (12 ft 10 in) from where it would be if the structure were perfectly vertical.

In May 2008, after the removal of another 70 metric tons of earth, engineers announced that the Tower had been stabilized such that it had stopped moving for the first time in its history. They stated it would be stable for at least 200 years. After a phase (1990–2001) of structural strengthening, the tower is currently undergoing gradual surface restoration, in order to repair visual damage, mostly corrosion and blackening. These are particularly pronounced due to the tower's age and its exposure to wind and rain.

Two German churches have challenged the tower's status as the world's most lop-sided building: the 15th-century square Leaning Tower of Suurhusen and the 14th century bell tower in the town of Bad Frankenhausen. Guinness World Records measured the Pisa and Suurhusen towers, finding the former's tilt to be 3.97 degrees.

In June 2010, the Guinness Book of World Records certified Capital Gate as the “World’s furthest leaning man-made tower.” The new record shows that the Capital Gate tower has been built to lean 18 degrees westwards; more than four times that of the world famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. Investigation and evaluation, which was made by a Guinness appointed awards committee, started in January 2010, when the exterior was completed.

Capital Gate’s construction commenced in September 2007; the tower’s completion is scheduled for late 2010. From its foundations right through its pinnacle, Capital Gate is a unique building and among the most technically challenging engineering projects in the world. Some key features stand out amongst others are (i) It’s gravity-defying 18 degree lean, widely believed to be the most inclined in the world (ii) The continuous twist of its form which ensures that the tower looks different from every angle (iii) The unique nature of the floor plate, each floor is unique

The foundation contains an incredibly dense mesh of reinforced steel that sits above 490 piles, drilled 30 meters underground to accommodate gravitational, wind and seismic pressures.

The core of the building is a pre-cambered, ‘slanting’ core that pulls in the opposite direction to the lean. It straightens as the building grows, pulled into a vertical position by the change in the centre of gravity of the building as concrete was poured onto subsequent floors.

The floor plates up to the 12th level are stacked vertically over one another. Between levels 12th and 29th the floor plates stagger over each other, in relation to the lean and twist of the shell, by between 800 to 1400mm and then back to 900mm. Between the 29th storey and the top storey, the range is between 900 and 300mm in relation to the line of the façade.

Capital Gate’s shell comprises a super-strong exo-skeleton called the diagrid, that provides a clear, unobstructed floor plate, using much less steel than a conventional structural frame.

Guinness appointed awards committee found the Capital Gate surpassed the Pisa tower in its slant. However that tower has been deliberately engineered to slant is not able to shadow the glory of the “real” leaning tower.

Vaisakh G.

Why "NO" to BT Brinjal

Let us evaluate WHY we sholud say "NO" to BT Brinjal.

1. Effective non-pesticide pest management and Integrated Pest Management exists and is being practised by farmers.
   The question of internal destruction of pests is dangerous to the health of the consumer. The integrated pest management systems, in combination with good farming practices, are the only healthy solution to good crops. A healthy farm ecosystem is the key to pest management. This includes selection of good seeds, appropriate irrigation system and improving soil quality.
2. The experiences with a few other GM crops released in India and other parts of the world, especially Bt cotton, shows that over a period of time the total pesticide usage in GM crops has gone up due to increased secondary pest attacks and in some cases due to tolerance developed by the target pest. The Nagpur case study of the pest attack on Bt cotton plants shows that Bt does not have a foolproof mechanism to remove pest threat.
3. Controlling pests with single toxic molecules either produced in factory or plant cell is an unscientific way of managing pests. Pests should be managed, not killed.
4. The studies on non-target pests at best were inadequate and inaccurate. The studies have been focused on a limited number of insects and for only a limited period of time.
5. The studies were also done with a surrogate protein and not with the modified Cry1Ac used in Bt brinjal.
6. As Bt brinjal is created to produce the Cry1Ac toxin in every cell, the 'pesticides' have actually moved from exterior to the interior of brinjal, and this cannot be removed by washing as in the case of the usual pesticide at present.
7. The studies on soil microflora were for a very short period. The impact of the break down products of the protein Cry1Ac on soil micro flora has not been conducted.
8. India is a centre of origin and diversity of brinjal which has been cultivated here for over 4000 years. There are about 2000 varieties grown across India.
9. The transgene transfer to local and hybrid varieties of brinjal will effectively destroy our brinjal diversity. As a general rule GM crops should not be cultivated in the center of origin as it could lead to the loss of original varieties by transgenic cross pollination.
10. Inadequacy of tests:No third party or independent tests have been conducted so far on the Bt impact on human health.
11. The longest study has been a 90 day sub-chronic test on a healthy adult rat. This does not address the possible health impact on humans of Bt brinjal as brinjal is a regularly eaten vegetable.
12. Significant chronic toxicity studies including carcinogenicity studies have not been conducted.
13. Brinjal itself has an inherent property of allergenecity which may be enhanced further in the Bt variety.
14. When pesticides were first introduced and promoted, they were said to be harmless to human health. However, tough lessons have been learnt since then about the actual effects of pesticides. Genetic Engineering will have huge and as yet unknown implications for human health
15. Brinjal in India is often eaten lightly cooked. In traditional medicine brinjal is used in its raw form. In its raw form the Cry1Ac toxin in the Bt brinjal is active and extremely dangerous.
16. The human digestive system is mildly acidic only in the stomach, where the food resides briefly before it passes to the duodenum. The medium then changes from mildly acidic to alkaline to aid the working of the digestive enzymes of tryptase, amylase and lipase. The rest of the human alimentary canal remains alkaline till the end. Hence if the Cry1Ac toxin is active in alkaline medium, there will be a high absorption of the toxin into the human system leading to high toxicity in the human body.
17. While India at present lacks a labeling and liability regime, there are also concerns that it will not help even if we have a labeling law in place as only a miniscule quantity of Brinjal or, for that matter, any vegetable is packed and sold.
18. Studies on the accumulation or wash-out time span on this specific endo-toxin in Bt. brinjal
    have not been done. Historically the absorption and accumulation of the endo-toxins can be carcinogenic to humans.
19. The existing assessments have completely overlooked the impact of Bt brinjal on the Indian systems of medicine. Given that brinjal and related plants are used in Ayurveda, Siddha and so on this is a significant lapse. It is not clear, therefore, whether the entry of Bt brinjal could make Indian systems of medicine/practices ineffective or even toxic, with regard to use of brinjal.
20. In Ayurveda around 14 varieties of the brinjal are being used for medicinal preparations. Each one differs in its medicinal properties. Any intrusion in the basic nature will alter the Rasa (Taste), Guna (Property), Veerya (Potency), Vipaka (End Taste) and Prabhava (Synergetic Property) of the drug. These properties are coded for each drug and according to these codes the physicians are able to select a particular drug for a specific ailment. Transgenic changes would alter these properties and create a new plant with unknown coding. While doing agronomic studies Bt brinjal has not been compared with best agricultural practices like non- pesticide management or integrated pest management practices being successfully undertaken in the country.
21. Majority of the farmers in India are small and marginal farmers, so the possibility for maintaining isolation distances is inexistent. There is no guarantee that the prices will actually go down. On the contrary increased input costs could increase the price of Bt brinjal. The Bt cotton example shows that the seed cost increases substantially with GM crops thereby increasing the input costs.
22. Organic farmers would be at risk as there would be no mechanism by which contamination by the transgene could be stopped. This would lead them to lose their certification and markets. This is evident from the examples from what happened in the case of Bt cotton.
23. While Mahyco shared the truncated gene cry1Ac construct they developed with the public sector research institutions, there are conditions in the MoU stopping these institutions from developing their own hybrids or having a free hand in marketing of the OPVs.
24. None of the public sector products would reach the market for another two years as they are yet to complete their trials. By then Mahyco, who have their GM brinjal hybrids ready, would completely dominate the markets. Thus the technology sharing is just a Trojan horse to get their product

These are not my arguments, but those i found in the website of Ministry of Environment and Forest, Government of India (http://moef.nic.in)

Say "NO" to B T Brinjal

We have been discussing about BT bringal for quite a few days now. The latest breaking news is that former Monsanto MD says no to BT Brinjal. Scientists in huje majority asking for a ban on BT Brinjal now. Now, the former Monsanto India Managing Director Mr. T.V. Jagdishan joined them. Plans for introducing BT Brinjal in India was oposed from the very begining itself by Green Peace India. People joined them in tons to protest in every part of the country.

No one is aganist the advancement of biotechnology. At the same time authorities has to ensure that the recent devolopment should not interfere with the biological chain as well as the biodiversity of the world. More over, before going for farming, it should be tested properly and assurance has to be made that it is safe. But here, the Government of India is trying to make India a lab to test Monsanto's newly devoloped BT Brinjal. While discussing BT Brinjal, we should extend our discussion to BT Cotton which made the life of farmers more misserable.

Now we should ensure that a moratorium will not lead to the back door entry of BT Brinjal or the other 55 food crops in different stages of trial in the country. Stringent monitoring measures should be put immediately in place to ensure that no releases of GM crops happen and a strong message should be sent out by making the GM devolopers liable for accidental or illegal releases. Moratorium is a good step towards charting the path of sustainable agriculture and food security for our country.

Inveiw of the recent negative growth of our agriculture sector, we could no longer allow anyone to handicap our agriculture sector. Now Science and Technology minister Mr. Prithviraj Chavan is trying to change the rule of the game. He infact copied word by word from studies by biotech seed companies including Monsanto. He is presenting and undemocratic GM bill to ease the legalisation of BT Brinjal, rice and more crops which may affect the agricultural sector in India.

So please sign the pettition here: http"//greenpeace.in/safefood/chavan-petition/ to join the others already on the move and try to educate the society about the dangers of GM food.

Study & Struggle

An article written by me in June 2007

Texts say that India is Democratic state; with most efficient system of Democracy that world had ever seen. Here citizens have a lot of rights and privileges. Unfortunately here there are no such democratic rights in the Indian college campuses (?). Here comes the new verdict upon this issue from the High Court of Kerala. Yes, India is becoming a country, where even the speech becomes crime. Every court verdict is carrying a new face and phase of prohibition and restriction to the society. Prohibition of union, speech, protest, politics… so and so. Judiciary is doing its work in framing a culture and a society, which surrenders before the ideology of dominating classes in the era of globalisation.This is the other side of the corporate business. The attempts for ‘apoliticalization’ of the students had started even during the periods of British Raj. Because rulers know education is the source of power. So it is there, where the unions and protests must be oppressed. It is in the campuses, where the active and thoughtful youth are present; who respond and protest without any chains and restrictions; who vigorously explode against unjust. Yes, the duty of campuses is to create revolution. A student is ‘a disturber of the status quo’!The rulers always feared campuses. A student society, who get involved in the studies, just like book-worms; where pain and pressure builds up outside, had never evolved here. These students had always experienced the greatness of politics, which shared their brotherhood with unknown person, which taught to light the candle of mercy, which showed how one’s personal defeat got dissolved in the everybody’s victory. Now we see the prohibition of this sky of feelings.As we early said, these attempts had a long history. Even during post-independence era, when the school politics got prohibited, we said, “Good, why these kids need politics?”Then, they separate the pre-degree course from the colleges and make it plus two in the schools. Thus they succeeded in sending ‘broiler chickens’ to the college campuses. Now it is turn of college politics. Why? Why these men are collapsing the ‘rising democratic India? We have to turn our fingers towards the new world order, new economic order, and new social order. Here courts are not recognizing the real issue of this order.But it is the duty of the students to recognize this issue. Now we can go for an appeal. But keep our powder dry. If we don’t do it, it means we give up politics. It we have an idea; we will fight for it. If we don’t have any these, then it is better to give up politics. Because, this freedom, not to get recognised by the courts. It is a Constitutional Right. And if Constitution does not allow this, it is a Human Right, which has to get asserted. This is the freedom struggle.If we want to be slaves, if we like invasion, then it will be better. If India is determining to be a intellectual colony, a cultural colony, an economic colony, then present policies are enough. Like that, if students want to be slaves, then there is no need of union and politics. Unless you have the urge for freedom, there would not be a fight for freedom!

“ You will say that a man has to live not as numbers or as columns, but as man. They will wear you handcuffs. We are free. To get arrested, jailed and even to get hanged.”“Hasta la Victoria Siempre!!!”

VAISAKH G.