NUCLEAR
SAFETY EXPERT’S QUALIFICATIONS MUST BE QUESTIONED BY PEOPLE FOR THEIR SURVIVAL
(Are
the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu and her cabinet
Ministers experts to confirm the safety of Kudankulam nuclear reactors and ruin
the life and culture of Tamilnadu?)
by
Prof.T.Shivaji Rao, Director, Center for Environmental Studies, GITAM
University, Visakhapatnam.
http://www.barc.ernet.in/egreport.pdf (See Biodata of experts, pages73-77)
(Tamilnadu state expert committee on
nuclear safety for Kudankulam nuclear plant)
http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?262028 (Dr.M.R.Srinivasan, a Mechanical Engineer)
(For qualifications of Tamilnadu experts, see at the end of this
article or search in the websites)
http://tshivajirao.blogspot.in/2012/04/impossibility-of-nuclear-safety-as.html
http://www.sckcen.be/neptuno/leaflets/Neptuno_nuclear_safety_2005.pdf
(Training course, France)
http://www.enstti.eu/Pages/Training.aspx
(Training course on nuclear safety, Germany)
In India the term expert is defined in Section 45 of the
Indian Evidence Act, 1872. The Act deals
with what kind of Evidence must be given which may have to be proved before the
court and the public. It also specifies
which persons and by what manner the evidence must be given by which any fact
is to be proved.
According to Sec 45 of the Evidence Act an expert is defined
as a person who is specially skilled. An
expert to be a competent witness need not acquire special knowledge or skill
professionally. It is sufficient if he
has made a special study of the subject or acquired special experience
therein. Sometimes opinions of experts
on a topic also differ. For instance when positive assertion is made
by one expert that the signature on the will is that of the testator and a
second expert casts certain doubts but no positive interference is provided by
the second expert that the signature is not genuine the court has no option
except to accept the opinion of the first expert.
However the competency of the expert must be shown perhaps by
the nature of his studies that he was
possessed of necessary qualification or that he has acquired relevant skills
therein by experience. Expert should be
subjected to cross examination on an issue of contention because an expert like
any other witness is fallible and the real value of his opinion consists in the
rightful inferences which he draws from what he has himself observed and not
from what he merely surmises.
The expert’s evidence is only a piece of evidence and the
weight to be given to it has to be judged along with other evidence as it is
there to corroborate with the other relevant evidence. Hence if we have to arrive at consensus or a
common agreed opinion on crucial issues Scientific and technical, one must know
that experts like other persons can be influenced by their interests,
background levels of knowledge and beliefs in a special subject under
consideration. When the background of a
scientist or expert is known the reason for his taking a particular view on a
crucial problem of public importance can be explained.
While honest differences exist in the interpretation of data
among some experts, sufficient data may not be available in some cases to draw
any scientific conclusions. If experts
differ in the risks involved in making a choice between two alternate courses
of action for achieving the same goals of economic development, a decision has
to be taken on the basis of what enlightened American experts call as “the
doctrine of comparative consequences”.
If we assume that expert “X” is right and we follow the policy and the
choice he supports what will be the consequences if this expert turns out to be
wrong in the long run? If we assume that
expert “Y” is right and we follow his policy and the choice he supports what
will be the consequences if this second expert turns out to be wrong in the
long run? Hence on the basis of least
costs of damage the final choice has to be made on the course of action to be
followed in going ahead with any economic development programme in the fields
of irrigation, water, power and industrial growth.
According to Section 51 whenever the opinion of any person is
to be treated as relevant the ground on such opinion is based must also be
relevant. An expert may give account of
the experiments he performed and investigative work done by him by study, field work or literature survey for
the purposes of forming his opinion on the given subject. If the opinion of the expert is to be
accepted the reasons upon which such opinion is based must also be inquired into.
Opinion of an expert is no evidence without his assigning any reasons for such opinion. The correctness of the opinion can be
estimated only when the reasons upon which it is based are fully explained. If the reasons are frivolous or inconclusive
the opinion of the expert becomes worth nothing. Hence the value to be given to the opinion of
an expert depends not only on the cogency of reasons on which it is based but also on the competence of the
expert to form such a reliable opinion.
In European countries like France and Germany several
training courses on nuclear safety are offered to several batches of competent
persons from the nuclear industry focused on pressurized water reactors, Boiled
Water Reactors and VVER reactors. After
attending these courses on nuclear safety the candidates must be able to attain
sufficient skills
1) To grasp the fundamental safety
related characteristics of nuclear reactors and the high inventory of
radioactive substances
2) To master the concept of defence in
depth at different levels of defence like successive physical barriers, highly
reliable protective safety systems, small, medium and large reactor accidents and the methods
of their management.
3) to identify the clear-cut
responsibilities of the nuclear plant operator and the supervisory regulatory
board with emphasis on the need for constructive interaction between the
independent operating and regulating agencies.
4) to identify the crucial aspects of
safety culture in all the major responsible organizations of the nuclear plant
in which every safety related issue is to be duly attended to according to its
importance.
5) to continue monitoring the human
performance in operation and maintenance of the reactors as determined by a
well designed man-machine interface and to evolve clear operating procedures
and highly focused training programmes to ensure highest level of safety.
6) to chalkout clear-cut principles and
procedures for deterministic and probabilistic safety analysis.
7) to evolve the basic principles of
quality assurance and quality control in the design, construction, operation
and maintenance of a nuclear reactor
8) to conduct investigations on
meteorological parameters, seismic parameters and the possibilities for cloud
bursts, intense cyclones and tsunamis and socio-economic data for identifying
suitable sites for the reactors.
9) To conduct investigations on
background radiation levels routine discharge of air, water and soil pollutants
from the reactors and identify their impacts on plant, animal and human life in
different ecological systems.
10) To prepare Environmental Impact
Assessments (EIA) reports including the risk analysis, accident scenarios chalkout
to identify the path of dispersal of radioactive emissions due to possible explosions of the
reactors, emergency response systems, disaster management
11) To prepare the environmental impacts
of decommissioning of the reactors radioactive waste treatment systems and
disposal methods.
12) To prepare cost benefit analysis
reports of the nuclear plant and
alternate sources of energy that may be more safer, less costly and socially
acceptable.
In one of the training programmes on nuclear safety in Europe
the following topics are included under the training programme on Nuclear
Safety
1)
Design of Nuclear
Power plant
2)
Basic principles
of nuclear safety
3)
Radiation protection
in nuclear facilities
4)
Safety
classification of structures, systems and components
5)
Internal and
external hazards
6)
Deterministic accident
analysis
7)
Probabilistic safety
analysis
8)
Human performance
9)
Operational safety
10) Surveillance programs – Maintenance
11) Severe accidents
12) Plant renewals, modifications and upgrades
13) Regulatory control
14) Emergency preparedness and response
15) Safety culture
In addition to the above courses a nuclear safety expert must
also receive instruction and field training in
1)radiological impact assessments on plant, animal and human life on the basis
of the background level radiation and the man made radiation and their impacts
on the DNA in the cells including the possibility of repair mechanisms,
mutations and cell death.
2)surveillance of routine radioactive isotope releases into
the air, water and soil environments and food materials for radioactive
pollutants like tritium, Iodine, Cesium, Strontium, Plutonium
3) radiological impact assessment of accident releases on the basis
of the nature of accidents in the reactor and their core content in terms of
radioactivity, source terms and their dispersal under fluctuating
meteorological conditions to different distances upto 100km and above
4)emergency preparedness, disaster management on the basis of
such reports prepared by the United Kingdom in case of Sizewell reactor of
110MW capacity as presented in several websites including the case study on
Kudankulam nuclear plant
5) the methods for involving the people in the nuclear plant
management by inviting the people to get awareness about the full working of
the nuclear plant reactors at Kudankulam and also to convince the people that
the Environmental impact assessment reports pertaining to site selection based
on potential earthquakes, hidden faults likely to be activated and potential
adverse meteorological conditions like cloud bursts, major cyclones and
tsunamis. For convincing the local population that the plant authorities have
taken all the measures to ensure that the plant cannot fail even if all the
sources of power fail simultaneously and to ensure that even if the water is
not available for cooling alternate steps have been taken by using alternate
methods of cooling as provided for the saving of the Reactors No.5 and 6 at
Fukushima in Japan.
A nuclear safety expert must be treated as a person who has
studied for his academic degree/ diploma courses in most of the above subjects or has gained
experience by research or field training and thereby mastered the key subjects
and gained sufficient command over the main subjects and other collateral subjects
dealing with nuclear plants and their impact on environmental safety to make sure that the reactors do not become counterproductive
to public health, natural resources and
national economy and prosperity in the
long run.
In the light of the
above qualifications of a nuclear safety expert almost all the members of the
expert committees constituted by the Union Government and the Tamilnadu state
Governments to assess the nuclear safety of Kudankulam reactors do not get
qualified as experts as per the Act and
they should come before the public to
answer all their questions on nuclear safety.
Since the experts failed to
convince the people on Nuclear safety their reports must be rejected by the people and
the Governments as well.
Otherwise the inaction by Tamilnadu and Union Governments becomes
tantamount to a direct declaration of nuclear war against the millions of
people of southern districts of Tamilnadu.
Just as patriots like Mahatma Gandhi , Pandit Nehru and Kamaraj Nadar continuously fought against the foreign rule
of Britishers to secure freedom for
India for developing a social welfare state the people of Tamilnadu must take
up this Kudankulam issue as a second war of independence by agitating for their
right to life, livelihood and the Environment as envisaged by the late Prime
Minister Mrs.Indira Gandhi under article
51 A(g) of the constitution of India. For qualifications of the Expert members
on Kudankulam see the following websites and decide on the quality of their
expertise knowledge on Nuclear safety.
TAMILNADU
GOVERNMENT EXPERT COMMITTEE ON KUDANKULAM NUCLEAR PLANT
Tamilnadu
Chief Minister CM Jayalalithaa today named 4 member committee to analyse the
safety and assess people's fear.
1) M.R. Srinivasan, former Chairman,
Atomic Energy Commission and member of the experts committee,
2)
S. Iniyan, Director of Centre for Energy Studies, Anna
University,
Professor, Director center for Energy Studies,.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University, Chennai- 600 025,
3) D. Arivuoli, Professor, Department
of Physics, Anna University
Professor, Department
of Physics, Anna University - Chennai, INDIA and Editorial Board Member,
International Journal of Bio Sciences and Technology . Dr. D. Arivuoli, Professor of Physics, Anna
University did his MSc Materials science and PhD (crystal growth) at Anna
University Chennai, INDIA.
4)
L.N.
Vijayaraghavan , former IAS office are
the other members on the committee.
B.Com(Hons),M.Com,
I.A.S(72:TN) Principal Commissioner& Commissioner of Civil Supplies, Plot 986, TVS Colony, Anna Nagar Western Extension,
Chennai-600101, Tamil Nadu 26547170 ® ccs@tn.gov.in
2 comments:
I think before they even make a proposal of nuclear, the people should know about it for their protection and safety.
Nice blog tthanks for posting
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