Human Rights Day in Riverlea

Community Alerts/Dawn Anderson/Soweto-Riverlea/22/03/18

Riverlea Johannesburg it was a day of Community Awareness.   The Department of Nuclear Sciences presentation was not informative. South Africa is in a grip of an electricity crisis, with load shedding becoming an almost daily occurrence. The shortage of electricity and poor state of Eskoms coal-fired power stations has led to leading energy industries experts scrambling for answers. Supporters of nuclear power argue that nuclear power will provide safe and clean electricity however, others argue that nuclear power is to costly, complicated to build on time and will leave a legacy of dangerous radioactive waste

Plutonium Is one of the most dangerous radioactive substances for human beings,when released into the atmosphere it interacts with natural biochemical cycles.  The radiation hazard of plutonium is due to its alpha activity, the specific value of which is 200,000 times greater than that of another alpha emitter uranium 238

Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years

Once inside the human body, plutonium remains there forever, destroying the surrounding tissue with strong ionizing radiation.Even an insignificant of plutonium can cause severe even fatal, damage to the body.   Alpha particles have low penetration depth: they are stopped by clothes and the skin. However, plutonium can enter the body via the respiratory or digestive tracts.All nuclear power plants, even in the course of regular accident-free operation emit radioactive waste in gaseous, liquid or solid form. So, decide guys if you want to expose our community to another disaster.

By Dawn Anderson