Compliance Testing of Grissom AFB Central Heating Plant Coal-Fired Boilers 3 and 5, Grissom AFB, Indiana

1988 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Garrison
Keyword(s):  
Central Heating ◽  
Compliance Testing ◽  
Heating Plant

Everyday Radioactive Goods? Economic Development at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena E. Stawkowski
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Rural Schools ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Nuclear Test ◽  
Central Heating ◽  
Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site ◽  
Local Media ◽  
Heating Plant ◽  
Eastern Kazakhstan

I first heard of “radioactive coal” in the summer of 2012, when I was living in the small village of Koyan, one of many settlements in Eastern Kazakhstan that hosted the Soviet-era Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site. A scandal over the sale of radioactive coal had erupted in the fall of 2011 when local media began reporting on a train from Kazakhstan carrying more than eight thousand tons of it (in 130 wagons) to a heating plant in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Upon discovering that radioactivity in the shipment was eight times higher than normal, Kyrgyz authorities had it removed from the Bishkek's central heating plant. Rather than discarding it, they put it to use elsewhere, including in the heating stoves of more than one orphanage, a kindergarten, and several rural schools. When media covered this development, public outcry forced Kyrgyz politicians to demand that the coal be returned to Kazakhstan; allegations of corruption and arrests of Kyrgyz officials ensued. Political wrangling over responsibility and refunds meant that negotiations between Kazakh and Kyrgyz authorities took more than a year to complete. Finally, Kazakhstan allowed the coal to be returned.

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