ATTENTION DANGER!!!!!
Our dear politicians have undertaken the construction of an ITER fusion power station, on a remarkable natural site, at the confluence of the Verdon and the Durance, in the town of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in the Bouches-du-Rhône, in about forty kilometers north of Aix-en-Provence, on the borders of three other departments (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Var and Vaucluse).
Cadarache is located on a 1 hectare site, the activities of which are distributed around several research and development platforms on nuclear energy.
The decision to build ITER in Cadarache was taken at a meeting in Moscow on June 28, 2005. The ITER reactor is under construction on a 180 hectare site outside the current limits of the Cadarache center and CEA properties. .
It is very important to note that the Cadarache site is located on the Aix-en-Provence - Durance fault, in the direction of NNE-SSW, the most active in France, and close to another, that of the Trévaresse , direction EW, which caused the most serious earthquake ever recorded in France, the 1909 Earthquake in Provence.
According to the Nuclear Safety Authority, 6 installations of the Center will have to be shut down for non-compliance with the seismic standards currently in force.
And they want to set up a nuclear fusion test center? Do they not realize the danger involved?
The budget, initially estimated at 10 billion euros (50% for construction and 50% for operation), will undergo an increase from 3 billion to 20 billion.
Do you not think that it is an aberration, that even today, the research budget is used in nuclear? Wouldn't you prefer your taxes to be used for research in the field of solar energy?
Nuclear fusion is a cleaner process we are told because there would be no radioactive waste: ITER Organization has however planned to produce more than 30 tonnes which will be stored on site after decommissioning. This project is thus presented as a solution to the unmanageable management of nuclear waste which has accumulated for 000 years in millions of barrels stored around the world (in Cadarache, in Siberia, at the bottom of the sea ... ). We have been waiting for a solution on the storage of this waste for 40 years and the research budgets allocated to find solutions are infinitely small compared to that available to the ITER project.
This project has never had the validation of the international scientific community. It has been condemned by renowned scientists, such as the Japanese Nobel Prize for Physics Masatoshi Koshiba: “ITER is extremely dangerous from the point of view of safety and environmental contamination. (...) Tritium is highly toxic with a lethal dose of 1 mg ”. The 2 kg of tritium present in ITER "could kill 2 million people. (...) The radioactive flow of 2 kg of tritium is roughly the same level as that produced by the Chernobyl accident".
Deuterium constitutes 0,015% of the hydrogen atoms and can be extracted from seawater for about $ 5 ⋅kg.
As for tritium, its half-life or half-life is too short to find it other than in trace amounts. It is only known how to manufacture it in small quantities and at a cost of $ 30 per gram in 000 [2004].
One of ITER's challenges is precisely the production by the reactor itself of the tritium it needs. The fusion reaction of deuterium and tritium releases one and only one neutron, in all cases (compared to a fission, that of U235 producing 2,4 neutrons on average, that of Pu 239 producing 3). Ideally, this neutron is captured by a deuterium nucleus, regenerating the lost tritium nucleus. This is very far from being systematic: the neutron, having no charge, is insensitive to confinement, and in the end the neutron flux is almost isotropic. In addition, it is very fast at birth (14 MeV), therefore very penetrating, and quickly leaves the plasma to cause serious damage to the structure.
The idea is to use these neutrons coming out of the plasma to regenerate tritium, by reaction with lithium. Indeed, when it captures a neutron, the lithium 6 nucleus decays into an α particle and a tritium nucleus. But it is illusory to hope to recover all the leaking neutrons with this method, which would nevertheless be necessary to maintain the reaction. It is therefore necessary to multiply the leakage neutrons to compensate for those absorbed by the structure. This is possible for example by the reaction of a neutron on a lead nucleus, which releases two neutrons. Hence the lead / lithium mixture envisaged for the covers.
It remains to extract the gases from this mixture, to separate them and to reinject the tritium into the plasma. Indeed, helium is also present in the lead / lithium mixture, the alpha particle emitted by lithium during its disintegration will quickly slow down, capture two electrons and therefore change into conventional helium.
Tritium is radioactive. It is a dangerous gas if inhaled. In the form of tritiated water, it can enter the food chain and bind to the body, leading to lesions and mutations in DNA. ASN recently, in its “White paper on tritium” published on 8/07/2010, revealed that the possible consequences of this radioelement on the environment and living organisms had been underestimated, and that the estimate of risk was incorrect, that further research was needed. The authors of this white paper conclude that "the reassessment of the toxicity of tritium requires a review of the practices concerning the discharges and the storage of tritiated waste", thus giving reason to the already old warnings of the Research and Information Commission. independent on radioactivity.
The Japanese Nobel Prize for Physics Masatoshi Koshiba expresses reservations [30] in view of the problems posed by fast neutrons: “in ITER, the fusion reaction produces high energy neutrons, 14 MeV, a level never before reached. […] If scientists have already experienced the manipulation of low energy neutrons, these 14 MeV neutrons are quite new and no one at the moment knows how to manipulate them (...) S ' they have to replace the absorbers every six months, this will cause operations to stop which will result in an additional cost of energy ”.
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes affirmed that the change of scale between the existing prototypes and ITER has not been mastered and that there is no proof that it will even be able to provide energy: “knowing quite well the superconducting metals , I know they are extraordinarily fragile. So, to believe that superconducting coils used to confine the plasma, subjected to fast neutron fluxes comparable to an H bomb, will have the capacity to resist throughout the lifetime of such a reactor (ten to twenty years), me seems crazy ”[35].
Researchers André Gsponer and Jean-Pierre Hurni affirm that ITER would be a good deal for the military: once ITER is operational, there would be on the Cadarache site permanently 2 kg of tritium with an annual flow of approximately 1,2 kg , that is to say enough to supply an arsenal of several hundred nuclear warheads doped with tritium [37].
According to Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1991, “the ITER project was supported by Brussels for reasons of political image (...) a fusion reactor is both Superphénix and the La Hague reprocessing plant at the same location ”[39]. As a former CEA engineer, he has many reservations about the ITER experimental reactor and the many difficulties of the project such as the instability of plasmas, thermal leaks and the fragility of superconducting metals.
It seems obvious to me that this is only a money and political story, who still believes in technical progress? Technology will not save the world, and despite the growing need for energy from various lobbies, I especially believe that each of us is deeply challenged.
We will have to deprive ourselves a bit and become resonable: The billions that we are can never be all at the same “standard of living” if we continue in this direction. And to live it is obviously not necessary to consume blindly as shown so well by our “developed” countries to the rest of the world.
How long will it take to wait for universal awareness to arise?
It is almost too late (if not already).
The worst thing is that our "standard of living" depends on the misery of others.
Sad fate.
Waiting,
MOBILIZE, IT'S VERY URGENT, FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY.
And don't forget the attachment,
thank you, and thank you.
https://www.econologie.info/share/partag ... EvRYcP.doc
NAME First name The
address
Mr president of the
INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE
TOWN HALL
Jean Santini square
13115 SAINT-PAUL-LEZ-DURANCE
PUBLIC INQUIRY on
THE AUTHORIZATION TO CREATE THE BASIC NUCLEAR INSTALLATION "ITER"
Mister President,
I refuse the technocratic spending and dangerous choice that represents the ITER project. Here is the explanation of the reasons.
This project has never had the validation of the international scientific community. It has been condemned by renowned scientists, such as the Japanese Nobel Prize for Physics Masatoshi Koshiba: “ITER is extremely dangerous from the point of view of safety and environmental contamination. (...) Tritium is highly toxic with a lethal dose of 1 mg ”. The 2 kg of tritium present in ITER "could kill 2 million people. (...) The radioactive flow of 2 kg of tritium is roughly the same level as that produced by the Chernobyl accident". Today in the documents of ITER organization, we can read that the tritium, ITER fuel, would be 4 kg present on the site.
This project is set up on a seismic fault, next to the CEA Cadarache. In addition to the risk of attack and human error, why take the additional risk of such a site in a seismic zone? Is this not an aberration? standards can be met but they only provide for what is economically viable. I object by common sense to a nuclear installation being built on a seismic fault.
Nuclear fusion is a cleaner process we are told because there would be no radioactive waste: ITER Organization has however planned to produce more than 30 tonnes which will be stored on site after dismantling. This project is thus presented as a solution to the unmanageable management of nuclear waste which has accumulated for 000 years in millions of barrels stored around the world (in Cadarache, in Siberia, at the bottom of the sea ... ). We have been waiting for a solution on the storage of this waste for 40 years and the research budgets allocated to find solutions are infinitely small compared to that available to the ITER project. When in the 40s France embarked on its all-nuclear program, the problem of waste nevertheless had to be quickly resolved thanks to scientific research: we will find out! Did we really believe it among scientists? or were we already lied to? I oppose the production and storage of additional nuclear waste.
With the EPR and the fusion reactor project of which ITER is the prelude, the ASN Nuclear Safety Authority and the National Association of Local Information Committees ANCLI have addressed the problem of tritium. These nuclear installations will considerably increase the release of tritium into the atmosphere and watercourses.
Tritium is radioactive. It is a dangerous gas if inhaled. In the form of tritiated water, it can enter the food chain and bind to the body, leading to lesions and mutations in DNA. ASN recently, in its “White paper on tritium” published on 8/07/2010, revealed that the possible consequences of this radioelement on the environment and living organisms had been underestimated, and that the estimate of risk was incorrect, that further research was needed. The authors of this white paper conclude that "the reassessment of the toxicity of tritium requires a review of the practices concerning the discharges and the storage of tritiated waste", thus giving reason to the already old warnings of the Research and Information Commission. independent on radioactivity. The studies have not been carried out and I ask that we address them as a priority before continuing this program.
Finally, I note a lot of technical-scientific uncertainties in this project 100 times more complicated than a fission reactor, a lot of obstacles to overcome which are similar to impossibilities, in particular as regards the resistance of materials. It is irresponsible to build a "15 billion euro test bed".
1. In the plasma in which the fusion reaction is to take place, the temperature must rise to more than one hundred million degrees. As regards “the first wall”, that which is in contact with the plasma, the choice of the designers fell, for 70% of the surface, on beryllium, a metal which melts at 1287 ° C. No experimental study can justify this choice. We absolutely do not know how this coating will behave in contact with a very high temperature plasma, emitting neutrons six and a half times more energetic (13 MeV) than fission neutrons (2 MeV), knowing more than beryllium is notoriously toxic and carcinogenic.
2. The “fuel” mixture of a fusion generator consists of two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. If the first, non-radioactive, is abundant in nature, it is planned to operate ITER with tritium, radioactive, synthesized at great expense in nuclear reactors, designed for this. From the start, the designers of ITER knew that for this sector to become operational it would be necessary for the successor of ITER, DEMO, to carry out the synthesis of this tritium itself, which it needs, thanks to the bombardment by the fusion neutrons. a lithium "tritium blanket", surrounding the plasma chamber. This technique of regenerating tritium using bombardment with 13 MeV neutrons has never been tested. As the Japanese Nobel Prize winner emphasized, the resistance of materials under the effect of such bombardment has never been tested. It should be remembered that lithium melts at 180 ° C, vaporizes at 1342 ° C, burns in air like magnesium and explodes on contact with water (the coolant of future fusion reactors). Before launching this pharaonic project, shouldn't the elements of the tritium blanket have been tested on the JET, already built?
3. Beyond this lithium “tritium blanket” is the fragile superconducting magnet, necessarily cooled by a bath of liquid helium at - 270 ° C. The late Nobel Prize winner Gilles de Gennes was immediately very skeptical about the ability of superconducting elements to resist bombardment by 13 MeV neutrons. There is no guarantee that the tritium blanket, made of lithium (there is no other material capable of performing this function of regenerating tritium), can behave with respect to this flow, like a perfectly sealed barrier. There is then a major triple risk, with the lithium catching fire, local damage to the magnet, vaporization of liquid helium, (violent) destruction of the superconducting magnet and, beyond that, of the entire generator, with uncontrollable dispersion of a mass of radioactive and biotoxic products (all lithium compounds are, and we do not know how to extinguish lithium fires, since lithium explodes on contact with water and is even composed with nitrogen).
In the event of a problem, an explosion is possible with dispersion in the atmosphere of radioactive and highly toxic products making an entire area uninhabitable: I strongly object to this risk being taken for the inhabitants of the region.
Conversely, the methods for using renewable energies are known and do not require such scientific sophistication. Most have already proven themselves and do not carry the risks of the scale of nuclear facilities. Their deployment, thwarted by the nuclear lobby, is only a matter of political will. I ask that taxpayers' money be invested in the immediate implementation and development of these techniques.
Please accept, Mr. President, my respectful greetings
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