Some European countries such Italy and Austria to name only a few, have already renounced nuclear energy and closed down their existing nuclear power plants. Others, like Germany and Switzerland have announced, following the Fukushima reactor catastrophe that they plan to abandon nuclear power in the near future: Germany by the year 2022 and Switzerland by the year 2034 or slightly later.
Many people living near nuclear test sites were subsequently affected by radioactivity and some regions in the vicinity of these test sides were, years later, still heavily contaminated.
Unfortunately, for most of these contaminations and incidents, lile to no data has been published on the num- ber of affected persons and the health and environmental implications. Only in 2009, did the French government decide that people living near French nuclear test sites on French islands in the South Pacific Ocean affected by nuclear tests should receive indemnity payments.
The crash over Canada of a Russian satellite (Kosmos 954) in 1978 powered by a nuclear reactor, scattered radioactive debris all over Northern Canada.
Two US military aircraft carrying nuclear weapons, crashed, one of them near Palomares in Spain (1966) and the other near Thule in Greenland (1968); the bombs didn’t explode, but a major regional contamination came as a consequence of the crash.
A medical instrument containing a 137Cs source put away on scrap near Goiânia in Brazil (1987) where the radiation source was not dispose safely, causing an im- portant contamination of the scrap dump, four deaths and some 50 injured.
And finally three heavy reactor accidents with severe damage to the installations:
At the (underground) Experimental Nuclear Power Plant (CNL) near Lucens/VD in Switzerland (1969), fortunately with no environmental consequences, as the report to the Swiss Authorities concluded
At the Windscale Nuclear Reactor in Cumberland (now Sellafield), Cumbria, UK (1957),
At the nuclear power plant of TMI5 near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the US
Many people living near nuclear test sites were subsequently affected by radioactivity and some regions in the vicinity of these test sides were, years later, still heavily contaminated.
Unfortunately, for most of these contaminations and incidents, lile to no data has been published on the num- ber of affected persons and the health and environmental implications. Only in 2009, did the French government decide that people living near French nuclear test sites on French islands in the South Pacific Ocean affected by nuclear tests should receive indemnity payments.
The crash over Canada of a Russian satellite (Kosmos 954) in 1978 powered by a nuclear reactor, scattered radioactive debris all over Northern Canada.
Two US military aircraft carrying nuclear weapons, crashed, one of them near Palomares in Spain (1966) and the other near Thule in Greenland (1968); the bombs didn’t explode, but a major regional contamination came as a consequence of the crash.
A medical instrument containing a 137Cs source put away on scrap near Goiânia in Brazil (1987) where the radiation source was not dispose safely, causing an im- portant contamination of the scrap dump, four deaths and some 50 injured.
And finally three heavy reactor accidents with severe damage to the installations:
At the (underground) Experimental Nuclear Power Plant (CNL) near Lucens/VD in Switzerland (1969), fortunately with no environmental consequences, as the report to the Swiss Authorities concluded
At the Windscale Nuclear Reactor in Cumberland (now Sellafield), Cumbria, UK (1957),
At the nuclear power plant of TMI5 near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the US