June 5, 2004
* Wind - Four nations accounted for 86% of installed capacity in 2001 (Denmark, Germany, Spain and US)
April 4, 2004
Denmark - wind power - public opposition
Denmark, the world leader in wind technology, is preparing to scale down the number of windmills in the countryside...
A Danish plan to scrap 900 existing turbines and replace them with with 175 new windmills has also failed to placate the public. The turbines will produce twice as much electricity between them, but will be taller and noisier, critics say.
[Source: Renee Mickelburgh et al., "Huge protests by voters force the continent's governments to rethink so-called green energy", Sunday Telegraph (London), April 4, 2004, p. 28]
Denmark - wind power - nearby homes become impossible to sell
Erwin Thorius, president of Denmark's National Association of Neighbours to Wind Turbines, said that people living near windmills found it impossible to sell their homes.
[Source: Renee Mickelburgh et al., "Huge protests by voters force the continent's governments to rethink so-called green energy", Sunday Telegraph (London), April 4, 2004, p. 28]
January 2, 2004
Wind - air pollution from back-up power
... Denmark, the most wind-conscious [nation on the continent], is the bad boy... of Europe as regards air pollution ..., needing traditional fossil fuels, which add to greenhouse-gas emissions, to supplement its wind farms when the wind doesn't blow.
[Ref: Julian More, "Tilting at windmills in sunny Provence", International Herald Tribune, January 2, 2004]
August 19, 2003
Sweden - criminal charges against Barsebaeck plant referred to prosecutor
Sweden's Act on Nuclear Activities codifies a central tenet for reactor safety: "This is a basic principle, that you shut down if something's not right and you cannot immediately find out why", is how Judith Melin, Director General of the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) described the requirement at a press conference today. SKI has concluded that Barsebaeck-2 management violated this requirement when it allowed the plant to continue operating after an unsuccessful January 3, 2003 attempt to correct an abnormal flow condition in feedwater system. The flow problem had been noticed months earlier. When the plant finally shut down on January 16, it was discovered that some components called thermal mixers, which had been replaced during summer outage, had broken and pieces had come loose. Christer Viktorsson, director of SKI's Reactor Safety Office, told the press conference that there was a risk of eventual fuel damage and safety margins were compromised.
The regulators concluded that the continued operation in the face of uncertainty represents a clear violation of the law, at least for the post-January 3 period, and very possibly even during prior period. This is the first time that SKI has referred criminal charges related to reactor safety to a prosecutor. The regulators also have concluded that there's a safety culture problem at the plant, and will not allow Barsebaeck to restart until specified improvements are made.
Barsebaeck management disagrees with the regulator's conclusions. Their position is that neither regulations nor laws were broken.
Barsebaeck, which is visible from Copenhagen, has some pretty adamant opponents in Denmark. Criminal charges don't seem likely to make any Danes feel better about the nearby plant. The low INES scale rating of the feedwater flow event (INES 1) may temper reaction from Denmark. But not all. Here's how Copenhagen Mayor Jens Kramer Mikkelsen reacted to SKI's announcement: "We've said for years that it's complete stupidity to have a nuclear plant so close to a major city. The Swedes have always defended themselves by saying that Barsebaeck has such good safety", Mikkelsen told the Danish newspaper Politiken. "Now, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has to stand up and say to the Swedes: 'Keep your promise to everyone in the region and close Barsebaeck.'" His opinion was echoed in Danish tabloid B.T.: "It is difficult to accept that our sister nation has completely ignored Danish protests about Barsebaeck for many years... Shouldn't the Swedes take the opportunity to take Danish protests seriously and take steps to shut down the doleful plant?... The cocky attitude to nuclear power characterises Swedish society, which is hierarchical and politically correct to a degree that's almost painful."
[Refs: Associated Press, "Swedish prosecutors asked to investigate alleged violation of safety standards at nuclear plant", August 19, 2003; BBC News, "European press review: Nuclear no", August 20, 2003; Radio Sweden (Stockholm), "Criminal investigation into Swedish nuclear power plant", August 20, 2003; and Ariane Sains (Stockholm), "SKI files legal case against Barsebaeck", Nucleonics Week, August 21, 2003, p. 1]
* Denmark 1998
1986
Mean individual dose to
Danes from Chernobyl accident (over 50-year period) is projected to be
160 microSieverts. The collective dose to
Danes over the same period is projected to be
820 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]
[Source: Nuclear Energy Agency (2000), as presented by THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER: A Study Conducted at The University of Chicago, August 2004, p. 2-5]