This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 12 Jul 2006, by Semjon.
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12 Jul 06
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Unfortunately, it seems that there are no existing procedures that Ireland can take that will likely prevent nuclear waste from adversely affecting their environment or remove the risk that a major accident poses to their country. The Irish Government faces an uphill battle, that is made harder when further development produces large economic benefits.
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More recently in 1983, it was discovered that on three separate occasions, a mixture of radioactive waste, solvent, and water was directly discharged into the Irish Sea. The level of radioactive contamination in the water around Sellafield was reported as being 100 to 1000 times the normal level which led government officials to close 40 km stretch of beach north and south of Sellafield.
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The first of these was in 1957, when a large fire at the reactor core forced the operators to flood the core with water, and then entomb the fuel piles with concrete.(10) As a result of the fire, a highly radioactive cloud traveled south-east over England and Europe.
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In Dublin, Ireland's most populous city, over 300,000 people (almost 10% of Ireland's population) would have to be evacuated over 40,000 square kilometers if such a disaster were to happen.
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If vapor happened to be released from one of these silos it could result in a disaster much worse than Chernobyl.
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Sellafield has eleven silos full of radioactive nuclear waste. Each silo contains an amount of waste eight times the amount that was released by Chernobyl in 1986.
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Since 1952, Sellafield has been dumping radioactive waste into the Irish Sea. This sea is now considered one of the most radioactive bodies of water in the world. Fish, shellfish, and sea plants in the Irish Sea contain substantial amounts of radiation.
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