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March 26, 2007
Nuclear 'not the solution' for global warming
"[W]e voice serious concern that nuclear energy is being presented as a solution to climate change... [T]he current debate seeks to downplay the environmental, waste, proliferation, nuclear liability and safety issues and seeks to portray nuclear energy as a clean, safe and problem free response to climate change." This is from a joint statement by the environment ministers from Austria, Iceland, Ireland and Norway, following a meeting in Dublin. The "inherent risks" and problems associated with the nuclear energy option remain, they said and it "can not therefore claim to be a clean alternative to fossil fuel use."
[Source: RTE.ie (Ireland), " Nuclear 'not the solution' for global warming", March 26, 2007]
December 6, 2001
Jiri Nemecek writes in Prague newspaper, Hospodarske noviny, of Austria's demonization of Czech Republic over the Temelin nuclear plant. Austria relies on imported electricity to meet demand when its hydro plants can't keep up, such as in winter, and Nemecek notes that while the Austrian boycott of Czech electricity -- even from the coal plants there -- puts Austria in the rather anti-environmental position of buying Albanian coal plant production (with no controls on sulfur emissions) instead of buying the relatively clean output from Czech coal plants.
1986
Mean individual dose to Austrians from Chernobyl accident (over 50-year period) is projected to be 610 microSieverts. The collective dose to Albanians over the same period is projected to be 4,600 person-Sieverts. The projections take into account inhalation from the passing cloud, ingestion through the food chain, and external irradiation from deposited radioactivity, and are based on the MESOS dispersion model developed by Helen ApSimon of Imperial College, as applied by W. Nixon, of the Safety and Reliability Directorate of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. [Ref: Nuclear News, "Chernobyl doses across the continent", January 1987, p. 62]