ISTANBUL – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News<\/p>\n
As the Japanese nuclear disaster unfolds, academics and professionals share their thoughts about Turkish plans on nuclear energy, its advantages and health risks. While experts from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, say all appropriate safety measures will be implemented at Turkish plants, former Harvard physicist and anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott expresses serious concerns about leukaemia and nuclear energy<\/strong><\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s government has decided to proceed full-steam ahead on plans to develop nuclear power despite the ongoing crisis at Japan\u2019s Fukushima reactor, but the decision has divided international nuclear experts.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cAs long as the Turkish Akkuyu plant is equipped with power sources that can withstand large forces of seismic movement and external fires, then emergency power sources can be used to circulate water and cool the plant,\u201d Mujid Kazimi, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, recently told the H\u00fcrriyet Daily News & Economic Review.<\/p>\n The first Turkish nuclear plant, which is to be located in Akkuyu in the southern province of Mersin, is to be built by Russia\u2019s state-owned Rosatom company.<\/p>\n \u201cThe type of accident that Fukushima suffered is called a blackout accident, where no power sources remain available to operate the pumps and valves,\u201d said Kazimi.<\/p>\n The nuclear plant in Akkuyu, which is expected to start production between 2016 and 2019, was signed for $20 billion and consist of four 1,200-megawatt nuclear units.<\/p>\n On average, 1 MW of power can supply electricity to as many as 300 U.S. households per year. According to TurkStat figures, the average person in Turkey consumes 540 kW of electricity in one year.<\/p>\n Another project in the Black Sea province of Sinop is expected to produce over 5,000 MW of energy.<\/p>\n Although several specialists have deemed the Turkish nuclear option an important policy, other academics have strongly condemned the programs as \u201clethal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTurkey is still radioactive from Chernobyl but the government is nonetheless building plants, severely increasing the chances of sterility, leukemia, and abortions,\u201d said Dr. Helen Caldicott, a former Harvard pediatrician and co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility.<\/p>\n \u201cLeaks are inevitable, considering that nuclear material infests our ecosystems, while having consequences like extremely high cancer rates, already seen across Turkey,\u201d she told the Daily News.<\/p>\n \u2018Nuclear needs to be part of the mix\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Regardless of Japanese concerns, Turkey has decided to continue its nuclear projects, while several academics have legitimized such choices by focusing on the extraordinary circumstances in Japan and Turkey\u2019s high safety measures.<\/p>\n \u201cTurkish facilities are being built on sites at a lower risk of earthquakes and the reactors are designed according to expected earthquake strengths in a given region,\u201d said Bilge Y\u0131ld\u0131z, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT.<\/p>\n \u201cJapan has earthquakes very often higher than the Turkish 6.2 rating, so nuclear plants should sustain such forces without any problems,\u201d she told the Daily News in an interview last week.<\/p>\n The failure of Fukushima was not related to lacking earthquake resistance, but due to the tsunami, which damaged power lines and \u201cdisabled the emergency diesel generators and the cooling capability,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It is therefore important for Turkey to apply earthquake safety measures, while equally relying on better back-up methods to supply cooling water and other safety measures, said Kazimi.<\/p>\n Safety measures would function \u201cas long as the Akkuyu sites are equipped with power sources that can withstand large forces of seismic movement and external fires,\u201d Kazimi said.<\/p>\n \u201cA suitably superior level of safety can be achieved in Turkey in running the nuclear plants,\u201d Y\u0131ld\u0131z said.<\/p>\n Turkey must rely on different methods of energy, with nuclear being an important and efficient contributor, Y\u0131ld\u0131z said. \u201cGiven energy demand, relying only on wind or solar is insufficient and larger-scale clean sources, such as nuclear energy, have to be part of the mix.\u201d<\/p>\n Nuclear power provokes \u2018leukemia and sterility\u2019\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Other academics have voiced pessimism about nuclear plans in Turkey, stating that it could lead to a serious contamination of the eco-system while endangering hundreds of thousands of lives throughout the region.<\/p>\n \u201cNuclear waste travels through algae, fish and our nutrition system \u2013 it is extremely dangerous and already causes cancer and leukemia in many places,\u201d said Caldicott.<\/p>\n \u201cTurkish nuclear plans are a major risk and it\u2019s simply a myth to promote the idea that safe nuclear plants can be built,\u201d she told the Daily News.<\/p>\n Non-nuclear academics have worried about increased natural disasters, large lobby groups favoring nuclear power and the limited technological remedies to confine nuclear spillage.<\/p>\n \u201cThese materials remain for hundreds of years \u2013 any spillage or waste is bound to affect us for centuries, as can be seen with cancer today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ISTANBUL – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News As the Japanese nuclear disaster unfolds, academics and professionals share their thoughts about Turkish plans on nuclear energy, its advantages and health risks. While experts from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, say all appropriate safety measures will be implemented at Turkish plants, former Harvard physicist and anti-nuclear activist Dr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":35033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}