Brazil looks to Nuclear Power
Brazil is looking to expand its nuclear power programs and plans on having a new plant operational by the time they host the FIFA World Soccer Championship in 2014.
The Brazilian government has authorized the company, Electronuclear, to go back to work on the nation’s third nuclear power plant.
Work on the Angra 3 reactor, near Rio de Janeiro, has been stalled for 22 years by a lack of money and political issues.
But the administration of President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva is turning to nuclear power to meet electricity needs that are growing with the country’s booming economy.
“Things have changed a lot, and today it’s clearer to everyone that nuclear energy has a role to play in the Brazilian electrical system, just like the other forms of producing electricity, which can’t be dismissed,” said Leonam Guimaraes, an Electronuclear spokesman.
Brazil is the 10th-largest energy consumer in the world, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. It’s the third-largest consumer in the Western Hemisphere, behind the United States and Canada.
The two operational nuclear power plants in Brazil supply about 3 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
«The quantity of radioactivity, which is present in a reactor, is larger than the quantity of radioactivity spread by a nuclear bomb – significantly larger.», (Prof. Dr. C. F. von Weizsäcker, nuclear physicist)
«Since a reactor in one day produces as much radioactivity as a 50-kt nuclear explosion, and fuel in a reactor has typically been there for an average of two years, a typical nuclear reactor has in its core the long-lived radioisotopes from 30 megatons of fission.», Prof. Dr. Richard L. Garwin (nuclear physicist), »Can the World Do Without Nuclear Power?«, Nuclear Control Institute, 9.4.2001
Please inform the public regarding the «Climatic Change caused by Radioactivity»:
• A nuclear power plant produces each day the same amount of radioactivity than 4 nuclear bombs the size of Hiroshima!
• The 5 Swiss nuclear power plants contain radioactivity approximately the size of 10’000 Hiroshima nuclear bombs! This in the production of 2 years.
This inconceivable amount of radioactivity – this «Climatic Change caused by Radioactivity» – threatens and destroys the foundations of life for our and all future generations. The physical half-lives are completely irrelevant, as they are eternal from a human perspective. Also irrelevant is the calculated probability for accidents, as the potential for damage is far too gigantic. The nuclear physicist Garwin says: «Reactor accidents … too horrible to think about.» A trustworthy banker would advice: «We do not buy these shares» and insurances don’t cover this risk anyway.
Upon the election of Barack Obama, it was the German politician Hans Dietrich Genscher, who reminded strongly and multiple times to the global top priority: The complete abolition of all nuclear weapons!
Beside the financial crises and despite the «Climatic Change caused by CO2», we should not forget this. And we shouldn’t forget as well, that this – the abolition of all nuclear weapons – finally is only possible together with the abolition of all nuclear power plants, therefore the switch to Natural Power (electricity from renewable energies) is a pre-requisite. The nuclear conflict in Iran is one but not the only example of this undividable relation between nuclear weapons and nuclear power.