ENVIRONMENT

Other fields of nuclear industry influence

In fact, nuclear power plant influence on environment is very wide and in some cases it is presented in fuzzy way. Therefore it can appear to not be serious. Reality is different. According to [115], effects of fast nuclear industry development are very serious, but they are hidden. Main problems concerns old uranium mines in Kirgizstan and Russia, where the ore extraction taken place without adequate standards. Even today large areas are contaminated by radium and thorium. Theirs half-life are adequately 3 000 and 150 000 years! Management of nuclear wastes in the beginning of nuclear industry was highly inappropriate. For example, Russia was acting in accordance with the philosophy: "throw and forget", as well as China (they were throwing nuclear wastes from the mine to the rivers). But European countries was not much better. French fuel reprocessing facility in La Hague was causing liquid emission directly to the sea. Radioactivity of wastes was 17 million times higher than natural. Those are examples of contamination from normal operation. Additional radioactivity is introduced by serious outages in nuclear facilities like Chernobyl or Japanese Fukushima.

By many scientists, nuclear energy is presented as a clean and safe source of energy. They present data in which nuclear power plant is safer than for example fossil fuel power plant. It is possible, but only when the influence will be distributed among all world population. But for those living next to nuclear facilities situation is different. Especially during serious accident - people are dying due to irradiation. But theirs death or health problems are postponed. Destruction of human body due to radiation is not immediate. Cancer need average 10 years of incubation [107]. Effects like miscarriages or new-borns with congenital malformations also are not brought exactly after irradiation, but after enough long living in contaminated area. It is the reason why negative influence on human health is so easy to be hidden.

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