KKNPP: Safety features constantly being upgraded

KOLLAM: Expressing confidence over the safety of Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP), Kasinath Balaji, site director of KKNPP, said that even though nuclear accidents had happened, the number of people affected were very few.Addressing students at a national summit on  held as part of CONJURA’12,  at Thangal Kunju Musaliar College of Engineering here on Thursday, he said that every technology and engineering had its own risk.“Even though nuclear accidents have occured in Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, if you analyse, the number of people affected is very less. Three Mile Island caused no fatalities; Chernobyl caused certain fatalities to firemen who fought the fire. The Fukushima in Japan, had not caused any fatality to the public,” he said.Balaji said that the fatalities that occurred in this technology were significant. Based on such operational experience there will be new methods and discoveries to develop new technologies for non-recurrence of such accidents and to take care of the mankind. In the nuclear industry the safety features are continuously upgraded, he said.Terming the criticism that radiation released from reactors will affect generations as a myth, he said that scientific findings had proved the technological features and the engineering of the nuclear power plants which were being built, would not cause any change in the radiation environment that naturally exists.He said that human safety had always been the overriding priority, in implementation, in nuclear industry. “The safety of nuclear plant starts with design, construction, commissioning, operation & maintenance.  All our reactors are environmentally certified under ISO 14001,” he said.Later experts from the KKNPP answered the questions of the students and held presentations on various safety aspects of the nuclear reactors.