Radium

236 meters long. The North Sea Producer, prized possession of Maersk, the number one ship owner in the world, has served the petroleum industry in the North Sea well for 18 years. This former tanker was launched in 1984 in Denmark under the name Dagmar Maersk and was converted 12 years later into a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO). It was stationed in the Mc Chulloch oil field north of Aberdeen. The North Sea Producer retired in 2015 on the banks of the Tees next to the shipbreaking site of Able UK in Hartlepool where the former French aircraft carrier Clemenceau was demolished, and from there left Europe under tow. Maersk chose Bangladesh for the end of its life. In the last 9 years, 161 workers have been killed on the beaches of Chittagong. Maersk was not impeded by these facts. What really counts is selling at the best price. The scrappers of Bangladesh offered more than $6 million US for the North Sea Producer. May 2017, Chittagong. Suspended dismantlement of the North Sea Producer. © Sajjad Chowdhury

As Robin des Bois published in its quarterly bulletin “Shipbreaking” #47, in its kilometres of pipes the North Sea Producer contains radium scales. Radium is naturally present in the underwater substratum, the exploitation of gas and oil concentrates the radium in the pipes and tanks. Radium scales are highly toxic through inhalation and contact. For example, during the maintenance and dismantlement of the Lacq gas field in France, Total Production produced more than 2000 tons of metal contaminated by Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material. The official destination of this waste was the Soulaines storage center in Aube department under the responsibility of ANDRA, the National Agency for the Management of Radioactive Waste. Norway exploits a storage center for radioactive residuals from the petroleum offshore industry.

Only in French.

Marie Curie was an outstanding researcher and an adventuress of the atom. The President of the Republic chose to pay tribute again to the one who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for having discovered radium.

A century after this discovery, dozens of areas are polluted by radium residues throughout France. The location of these sites, radiological control, and extraction of contaminated materials consume a lot of money and time and face a major liability: lack of storage sites for radioactive waste from the first generation.

Radium water fountains or radium vaporizers were used in the first half of the twentieth century to enrich the water with radon, descendant of radium. In this time period, they didn’t mistrust radioactive gas but rather boasted of its virtues.

Today these ornamental objects find themselves in attics, flea markets, and bric-a-brac sales.

Only in French.

Only in French.

Only in French.

Only in French.

Only in French.