Far from being clean and green, the record for the emissions from the both the old and the new, replacement reactor are shown to emit radioactive fission products on a regular basis.
Google results for the search term “Xenon emissions Lucas Heights” (using a specific primary fission product, Xenon** (any isotope), commonly emitted during refuelling, which is a non reactive (noble) gas, in order to confine the search. The search results in 13,400 returns.
These include:
Poison gas leak from Sydney nuclear reactor spark cover up claims …
www.news.com.au/features/…/story-e6frflp9-1225911381815
29 Aug 2010 – The Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and government insists the release of … The release of the highly volatile radioxenon over several months last year … at the time and that the emissions were within public safety guidelines.
Xenon Emissions from ANSTO | Scott Ludlam
scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/…/xenon-emissions-ansto
23 Dec 2010 – Xenon Emissions from ANSTO … in Engadine, 3 km south-east of Lucas Heights in New South Wales, has been available on ANSTO’s website …
Xenon Emissions from ANSTO – 10 events between 2008 – 2009 …
greensmps.org.au/…/xenon-emissions-ansto-10-events-between-2008…
23 Dec 2010 – Xenon Emissions from ANSTO – 10 events between 2008 – 2009. Estimates Transcripts … Lucas Heights · Nuclear Pollution. Senate Standing …
Australian nuclear reactor leak coverup – The Australian Resistance
theaustralianresistance.webs.com/…/7129855-australian-nuclear-react…
21 May 2011 – The release of the highly volatile radioxenon over several months last year … The report into the release from Lucas Heights says the doses were “well … at the time and that the emissions were within public safety guidelines.
Radioactivity over Sunshine Coast likely to have come from Lucas …
antinuclear.net/…/radioactivity-over-sunshine-coast-likely-to-have-co…
6 days ago – It’s Lucas Heights, Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog, 14 Jan … Modelling of irradiation conditions and theoretical radioxenon emission rates …
Emmy Hoffmann – Open Science Portal
openscience.ansto.gov.au/collection/410
23 Mar 2011 – … on the global xenon background as measured by the International … Airborne Emission / Effluent at Lucas Heights Science & Technology …
Lucas Heights – Page 2
wotnews.com.au/news/Lucas_Heights/?page=2
The latest news about Lucas Heights sourced from hundreds of Australian news publishers, companies and blogs. … Xenon Emissions from ANSTO · spacer …
Headlamp – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlamp
4.3 HID (xenon) light sources ….. ECE headlamps’ aim angle is linked to headlamp mounting height. … The 1983 Austin Maestro was the first vehicle equipped with Lucas-Carello’s homofocal reflectors, which ….. with resultant less CO2 emission per vehicle fitted with HID lighting (1.3 g/km assuming that 30% of engine …
Consumercidal Happenings – Categories: Science/STS, Alternative …
www.consumercide.com/blog/index.php?cat=34
12 Apr 2011 – The Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and government insists the release of … “Xenon gases are highly volatile and, being inert, they are not susceptible to … at the time and that the emissions were within public safety guidelines.
An interesting aspect about the Xenon releases from Lucas Heights is the frequency of the reports from both from independent observers and government. Hou constant the emissions are remains to be seen. They probably peak at the frequent refuelings.
In relation to the new reactor, these reports have been noted since the Prime Minister opened the reactor in April 2007 (Source: ANSTON press release, Friday 20 April 2007, ANSTO Media Archive, http://www.ansto.gov.au/discovering_ansto/media_centre/media_release_archive/2007_media_archive )
I shudder to think what I will find when I have finished looking at the new reactor, and look at the impacts of the decades of emissions and contamination caused by the old reactor.
It is the ANSTO Bills which empower the Government in its quest to obtain, generate and store nuclear waste as I understand it.
Xenon is only one of the vectors by which the reactor contaminates the biosphere. The populations subject to those emissions fit category of “Downwinders”. These people are placed at additional risk and carry the human cost the reactor imposes.
The impacts reported in submissions to government regarding the old ANSTO reactor in 1997 were voiced in relation to the propsal to build the new reactor and I repeat portions of the Sutherland Shire Council’s 1997 submission here:
“In my own street, which lies less than 2.5 Km from the reactor, within 50 metres on each side of my house I can record:
1 case of leukaemia. A very fit male, died aged 41
3 cases breast cancer, 1 fatal. All in their 30s
1 female, died of cancer of the pancreas, aged 60
1 female, died of liver cancer, aged about 50
1 female, died of stomach cancer, in her 40s
1 female, ovarian cancer, in her early 20s, still being treated
A local doctor described a short street in Menai as “a place where I would not wish to live “. Two members of one family have died of cancer and there is one case of child leukaemia. It is close to the Little Forest Burial Ground. (nuclear waste burial ground)….The Review could see no evidence that permanent membership of the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) was crucial to Australia’s National Interest.” : Source: Michael Priceman, Convenor, Nuclear Study Group, 1997 Submission to the Senate References Committee on the Matter of Whether a New Reactor Should be Built to Replace the HIFAR Reactor at Lucas Heights or on Some Other Site in Australia”
http://ssec.org.au/our_environment/issues_campaigns/nuclear/submissions/1998_feb_22.htm
This submission reports the reality of the human experience of people living close to the old Lucas Heights Reactor, and of the failure by government to investigate and acknowledge the cause of so much suffering. The experience of the old reactor led to an awareness of the potential for harm from the emissions of the same substances by the new reactor. No matter how old the reactor, if it emits, it is emitting fission product. And the New Lucas Heights OPAL reactor emits. This is confirmed by reports written by Australian authorities.
What good is Australia’s membership of the IAEA? Australia is a uranium exporter. The role of the IAEA, under its Charter, is to promote the civilian use of nuclear reactors*. Though all nuclear reactors are potentially dual use. If in war Australia chose to drop portions of a powdered fuel rod, in the form of shell or bomb, upon an enemy position, it would be radiological warfare. www.defense.gov/pubs/dodhre/Narratv.pdf
Nuclear weapons are one means of militarising the output of a fission reactor. Spent fuel rods, being many thousands of times more radioactive than a new, unfissioned fuel rods, are also available for potential weaonisation.
To the extent that the reactor emits fission products, it is release of these same harmful substances into the biosphere which makes the Lucas Heights reactor, as any other reactor, a threat to public health and to the suffering of individuals in the affected communities.
* “Statute of the IAEA, ARTICLE II: Objectives
The Agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world. It shall ensure, so far as it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose.” http://www.iaea.org/About/statute_text.html
How much suffering has the nuclear industry created? Who are the beneficiaries of the “wealth” available to the industry?
Next: Looking at individual reports of Lucas Heights emissions.
