The failure of fail-safes

Leakage raises safety concerns

Surendra Gadekar

The contamination of at least 55 workers at Kaiga nuclear power plant is a personal tragedy for them and their families. Those of us who have been opposing this dangerous and unforgiving technology are sympathetic to their plight. The incident raises serious questions regarding safety practices at our nuclear installations. The explanations offered by officials in the nuclear establishment have been inadequate and fanciful.

Note that nuclear power plants have been on “high alert” since the arrest of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana. Supposedly, security has been “beefed up”. So it is all the more surprising that anyone can “cause mischief” by adulterating drinking water in a cooler with tritium. The official explanation of it being the handiwork of a “disgruntled” employee raises more questions than it answers.

One, if some “insiders” are so callous as to attempt to cause serious bodily harm to random fellow workers, does it not say something about the process of recruitment itself and about the level of employee job satisfaction within the nuclear power corporation? What is to prevent more “disgruntled” elements from sabotaging vital reactor safety systems and putting the public and surrounding countryside at grave risk? If the heightened security system is so lax as to allow such shenanigans, how can people trust the nuclear establishment’s ability to provide fool-proof security?

Two, heavy water is expensive. It costs over Rs 20,000 to produce a litre. That such precious materials are easily available to any mischievous insider does throw light on the culture of casual disregard for waste and corruption in the organisation. Heavy water gets tritiated only after use in the reactor as moderator or coolant. That this used heavy water seems to have been stored on the premises is surprising because there’s no need to do so.

Newspaper reports of Dr Anil Kakodkar’s explanation have not been clear as to how tritium contaminated water in a cooler. There has been a mention of “tritium vials” having been added to the cooler. If this is true, it is even more worrying since although heavy water is expensive, its cost is peanuts compared to the cost of producing tritium — estimates range from $30,000 per gram to $100,000. If vials of purified tritium, a vital component of thermonuclear weapon systems, are available to any disgruntled element, we indeed have a much larger problem on our hands, especially given the planned rapid expansion of nuclear power infrastructure.
Surendra Gadekar is a physicist and
anti-nuclear activist

One malicious act can’t undo feats

Dr M.R.Srinivasan
I do not agree that the Kaiga nuclear plant is unsafe. In the recent event, there was no plant malfunction or escape of radioactivity from the plant. There is no danger to the general public.

What has happened is that someone working at the plant has indulged in a criminal act. It appears that a sample of reactor water containing a small amount of tritium was not taken to the laboratory as required, but was diverted.

This kind of problem is comparable to that faced in chemical industries handling poisonous substances or in pharmaceutical industry handling dangerous biological material. The safety of operation in these industries is ensured by strict supervision and surveillance and use of monitoring and detection devices. Similar practices have been used at nuclear installations also.

Of course, it was a lapse, and we have to have procedures in place that prevent diversion. We must strengthen both administrative and technological measures to prevent recurrence of similar events. Also, we must introduce an assessment of the psychological health of plant personnel, especially those showing distress, and counselling.

But we must assess the impact of this episode at Kaiga in an objective manner. India has been operating nuclear power units using heavy water since 1971. At present, India has 16 heavy water-type nuclear units in operation. Two more are due to start operating in 2010. A number of larger size units are being taken up for execution. The safety and operating records of these reactors have been very good. From the safety standpoint, the parameters of interest are: the collective radiation dose received by an operating person in a year, the background radiation at the boundary of the station, the radioactive discharges in a year, and heavy water loss in a year. All these parameters have shown a remarkable reduction over the years.

Similarly, the period for which a reactor unit has operated without interruption has exceeded one year on many occasions. In one case, it exceeded 500 days. One of the reactors at Kakrapara registered the highest capacity factor among all reactors generating power in the world. These achievements are a result of improvements in design, enhanced quality of equipment and materials, and above all the competent performance of our scientists, engineers and technicians. Therefore, the take-away from this is that while India has learnt to design, build and operate nuclear power units in a safe and reliable manner, we need to further improve our operational practices to prevent recurrence of the Kaiga incident.
Dr M.R. Srinivasan is former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission