2007 Nuclear Hearings
Koeberg Alert participates in a parliamentary portfolio committee inquiry into the Nuclear Industry, delivering submissions and hearing from widows and workers exposed to radiation during the 1996 Pelindaba accident. It is also revealed that routine emissions of radioactive isotopes such as Strontium-90 (90Sr) and Caesium-137 (137Cs) from Koeberg exceed European Safety guidelines. Allowable limits had to be raised in order to accommodate the plant. 90Sr is a by-product of nuclear fission which is found in nuclear fallout and presents a health problem since it substitutes for calcium in bone, preventing expulsion from the body. 137Cs because it is a long-lived high-energy beta emitter with a half-life of 30.17 years is one of the two principal medium-lived fission products, along with strontium-90, which are responsible for most of the radioactivity of spent nuclear fuel 137Cs beta decays to barium-137m (a short-lived nuclear isomer) then to nonradioactive barium-137, and is also a strong emitter of gamma radiation. 137Cs has a very low rate of neutron capture and cannot be feasibly disposed of, but must be allowed to decay. The committee is also told how both the Tweelopiespruit and Wonderfonteinspruit in the Krugersdorp-Randfontein area have been contaminated by uranium mine tailings caused by South Africa's nuclear and mining industry.
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