Demonstrators at the entrance to Sizewell Power station on Saturday afternoon
Sizewell: Iodine traces detected in air around power station
By Elliot Furniss
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
10:20 AM
RESIDENTS living near a Suffolk nuclear power station have been informed that traces of Iodine have been found in the air around the site.
The reactor dome of Sizewell B Nuclear Power StationBritish Energy, which is part of EDF Energy and runs the power station, has written to people living close by to keep them informed about the discovery, which is not isolated to Suffolk.
Traces of Iodine have been found at stations around the UK in the wake of the Japanese earthquake but Jim Crawford, station director at Sizewell B, said he expected the traces in Suffolk to have disappeared “within a month”.
He said: “We have measured trace quantities of Iodine - 131 in air samplers where none is usually detected, similar readings have been detected at other EDF Energy stations around the country.
“Iondine - 131 is produced by the fission of uranium atoms during operations of nuclear reactors.
“The Environment Agency have told us that findings of this kind are now tailing off and we would expect at this level all traces will have disappeared within a month.”
He said additional monitoring was being carried out and that the samplers showed that only “very low levels” of Iodine - 131 were present.
Mr Crawford said experts had confirmed that the concentration of Iodine was “extremely low” and was not of concern for the public or the environment.
The news came as protesters carried out their third annual beach camp beside the station and again raised fears about the impact of the Japanese disaster.
The camp, part of a weekend of international anti-nuclear awareness action, was organised by the Stop Nuclear Power Network.
Suffolk campaigner Mel Harrison said: “Around the world, people are questioning the safety of nuclear power in the wake of events in Japan.
“We may not have many major earthquakes in England, but the low-lying Suffolk coast is highly vulnerable to flooding, and rising sea levels and storm surges can be expected in years to come due to climate change. “What right do we have to gamble with our children’s future? What we need are community-based energy solutions, not more nuclear dinosaurs. When it comes to accidents at nuclear power stations its not a case of if but when.”
The camp, which started on Friday and ends today, features workshops, protests and talks and has been attended by campaigners from across the UK.
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21 comments
@martha farquhar. Anti-nuclear campaigners are very good at saying that they don't want nuclear power but can't deliver many decent arguments as to why (from a business or engineering perspective). Therefore, I'm not not prepared to take Mel Harrison's assertion that 'When it comes to accidents at nuclear power stations its not a case of if but when' without some evidence. Yes, we have witnessed four high-profile accidents at nuclear plants since the 1950s but the ratio of these events compared to the total number of nuclear plants in the world is negligible.
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Jason Ford
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Yes, the iodine will prtobably be from Fukushima and mostly yes, the power stations have been monitoring iodine since Fukushima and have a duty to report increased levels of certain nuclides. There is a monitoring system run for the government and regulators set up post Chernobyl, but the results do not seem to be published, at least yet.
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Peter Rowberry
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
"Sizewell C should be a Thorium reactor". Why isn't it then? The thorium reactor tha can produce electricity economically does not exist yet! If you want to stop new nuclear build and wait until one does and build renewable, sustainable energy sources in the meantime, (tide, wind, energy from waste, water mills etc) that is a huge HOORAY from me. My prediction is that the first Thorium reactor to distibute energy to the grid will not be built for another twenty five years and it will not be in the UK.
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Peter Rowberry
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
And whilst on the subject of silly names, how could anyone, if they felt the urge, have a meaningful debate with somebody called 'Bertie Shrimp'...? Watch out for that Iodine everyone... including the lady in the silly mask...
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Suffolk Boy
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
@Ruby: Aha! The plot thickens!
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martha farquhar
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Martha - Windscale was in Cumbria now known as Sellafield not Sizewell!
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Ruby
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
@JasonFord why should Mel Harrison do your research for you? If you are capable of typing into a comment box, you are also perfectly capable of typing a query into a search engine!
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martha farquhar
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
"How could anyone, if they felt the urge, have a meaningful debate with the lady in the picture who appears to be disguised as a duck...?" It is up to the EADT what picture they use. The quote is not from the lady disguised as a swan.
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plunk
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
RE: Jason Ford There is always a possibility of an accident at a nuclear power station. The IAEA say that disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima should only have a probability of once in 10 million years. To meet this requirement Sizewell should be able to withstand a 1 in 10,000 year flood. It would be interesting to see how British Energy work out what such a flood is. What about the 21m (70ft) Tsunami that hit the UK 8,000 years ago? Is it about time for another one.
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plunk
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Must be quite serious, that woman has morphed into a half duck
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andy allen
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
I think everyone is underestimating the effects of iodine-131, look what it's done to that poor demonstrator in your photograph.
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JOHN BURLS
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Strange how people who write in about these events more often than not feel the need to disguise themselves with silly names. How could anyone, if they felt the urge, have a meaningful debate with somebody called Suffolk Boy...?
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Bertie Shrimp
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Hmm. Reports of only iodine 131 as in various other locations. Is the focus on that because it is the isotope with the shortest half life and also the one that is easiest (cheapest) to deal with? What about caesium-37 and strontium-90 and even worse, Plutonium? Being an alpha emitter is very hard to detect and harmless outside the body, but a single particle inhaled into the lungs will remain, constantly irradiating the unprotected tissues (and can decay into even more deadly materials).
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Bertie Shrimp
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Sizewell C should be a Thorium Reactor - safer than coal
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zaax
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Strange how protesters at these events more often than not feel the need to disguise themselves with silly masks. How could anyone, if they felt the urge, have a meaningful debate with the lady in the picture who appears to be disguised as a duck...?
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Suffolk Boy
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
RE: "When it comes to accidents at nuclear power stations its not a case of if but when." Can Mel Harrison please provide some figures to verify this claim?
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Jason Ford
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Shame it takes a colossal disaster to raise awareness of the dangers of nuclear power...so who thought it wasis a safe option? Most people have never seen a reactor, to most they are out of sight out of mind residing on the beautiful coastlines of Britain and around the world. As 'origami penguin' says fallout does not respect geographical or national boundaries. More of us need to join the protestors and more importantly reduce energy to offset the need for more power.
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sue douglas
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
A very poorly-written headline. I'd be very surprised if there WEREN'T traces of iodine in the air at Sizewell. And probably anywhere else near the coast as well. The significant (if it is significant) point is that it's iodine-131. Any other isotope is irrelevant. Scientific ignorance or deliberate scare-mongering?
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beerlover
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
There's iodine floating about because these so-called "nuclear reactors" aren't safe. Higher rates of various forms of cancer and leukaemia occur in the areas around these sites. Changing the name from Windscale to Sizewell isn't enough to make them safe, you have to actually close them down.
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martha farquhar
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Isn't this likely to be fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan? The reason that this radioactive isotope is only being detected near nuclear power stations is because that's where all the detectors are situated. I'd expect to see similar levels detected in places well away from any nuclear installation. This underlines the point very well that emissions from nuclear power stations do not respect geographical and national boundaries. Nuclear power is an international issue, not just a local one.
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Origami Penguin
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
What happened to the Star's professional photographer? What was a horse doing there?
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Steve Blake
Tuesday, April 26, 2011