ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News
As the Japanese nuclear disaster unfolds, academics and professionals share their thoughts about Turkish plans on nuclear energy, its advantages and health risks. While experts from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, say all appropriate safety measures will be implemented at Turkish plants, former Harvard physicist and anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott expresses serious concerns about leukaemia and nuclear energy
Turkey’s government has decided to proceed full-steam ahead on plans to develop nuclear power despite the ongoing crisis at Japan’s Fukushima reactor, but the decision has divided international nuclear experts.
“As long as the Turkish Akkuyu plant is equipped with power sources that can withstand large forces of seismic movement and external fires, then emergency power sources can be used to circulate water and cool the plant,” Mujid Kazimi, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, recently told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
The first Turkish nuclear plant, which is to be located in Akkuyu in the southern province of Mersin, is to be built by Russia’s state-owned Rosatom company.
“The type of accident that Fukushima suffered is called a blackout accident, where no power sources remain available to operate the pumps and valves,” said Kazimi.
The nuclear plant in Akkuyu, which is expected to start production between 2016 and 2019, was signed for $20 billion and consist of four 1,200-megawatt nuclear units.
On average, 1 MW of power can supply electricity to as many as 300 U.S. households per year. According to TurkStat figures, the average person in Turkey consumes 540 kW of electricity in one year.
Another project in the Black Sea province of Sinop is expected to produce over 5,000 MW of energy.
Although several specialists have deemed the Turkish nuclear option an important policy, other academics have strongly condemned the programs as “lethal.”
“Turkey is still radioactive from Chernobyl but the government is nonetheless building plants, severely increasing the chances of sterility, leukemia, and abortions,” said Dr. Helen Caldicott, a former Harvard pediatrician and co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
“Leaks are inevitable, considering that nuclear material infests our ecosystems, while having consequences like extremely high cancer rates, already seen across Turkey,” she told the Daily News.
‘Nuclear needs to be part of the mix’
Regardless of Japanese concerns, Turkey has decided to continue its nuclear projects, while several academics have legitimized such choices by focusing on the extraordinary circumstances in Japan and Turkey’s high safety measures.
“Turkish facilities are being built on sites at a lower risk of earthquakes and the reactors are designed according to expected earthquake strengths in a given region,” said Bilge Yıldız, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT.
“Japan has earthquakes very often higher than the Turkish 6.2 rating, so nuclear plants should sustain such forces without any problems,” she told the Daily News in an interview last week.
The failure of Fukushima was not related to lacking earthquake resistance, but due to the tsunami, which damaged power lines and “disabled the emergency diesel generators and the cooling capability,” she said.
It is therefore important for Turkey to apply earthquake safety measures, while equally relying on better back-up methods to supply cooling water and other safety measures, said Kazimi.
Safety measures would function “as long as the Akkuyu sites are equipped with power sources that can withstand large forces of seismic movement and external fires,” Kazimi said.
“A suitably superior level of safety can be achieved in Turkey in running the nuclear plants,” Yıldız said.
Turkey must rely on different methods of energy, with nuclear being an important and efficient contributor, Yıldız said. “Given energy demand, relying only on wind or solar is insufficient and larger-scale clean sources, such as nuclear energy, have to be part of the mix.”
Nuclear power provokes ‘leukemia and sterility’
Other academics have voiced pessimism about nuclear plans in Turkey, stating that it could lead to a serious contamination of the eco-system while endangering hundreds of thousands of lives throughout the region.
“Nuclear waste travels through algae, fish and our nutrition system – it is extremely dangerous and already causes cancer and leukemia in many places,” said Caldicott.
“Turkish nuclear plans are a major risk and it’s simply a myth to promote the idea that safe nuclear plants can be built,” she told the Daily News.
Non-nuclear academics have worried about increased natural disasters, large lobby groups favoring nuclear power and the limited technological remedies to confine nuclear spillage.
“These materials remain for hundreds of years – any spillage or waste is bound to affect us for centuries, as can be seen with cancer today,” she said.
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