Nuclear Power as Electricity: Energizing Rays Or Raze On Nigerians November 10, 2008 |  Arizona-Ogwu L.Chinedu (Archives)

"Four sites in the northern part of the country and three in the south have been selected tentatively as locations for the nuclear power stations through which the Federal Government hopes to generate electricity"...Daily Punch (Published: Friday, 7 Nov 2008).

 

Amazing how Nigeria’s “elected” government and their kitchen agency nicknamed “Nuclear Regulatory Agency”, filled with dud and brain -dead opportunists, seem to think they are running things whether we like it or not.Every decade or so, those with a vested interest in this deadly dangerous technology seek to get the public to swallow the nuclear pill and that's happening again. The promotion has consistently been based on falsehoods. For example, in a heavy push years back during a “fuel-scarcity” that included lines at the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries breakdown. Even from IBB corner, the claim was that if we had nuclear power somehow, this energy shortage wouldn't happen. But evidently, electricity in the United States is generated with oil. Nuclear power has nothing to do with oil or gas. 

 

As if that warning doesn’t augur well, this government seems to display how care(less) “they” can be and failed to understand that during fission; very harmful radiation rays are released. The most harmful of which are gamma rays. When the human body is exposed to radiation, it can cause tumors and can do extreme damage to the reproductive organs. For this reason, problems associated with radioactivity can be passed on to the victim's children as well. That is why radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants is so dangerous.

 

But instead of saving souls out of the present predicament, they kept spanking and guess they can regulate poison into our dead economy; the hard left doesn’t bother to win their bid but continue to rant on. Individual Nigerians should have their say but if your agency wants to contribute in the politics of ruining (running) our economy through poison production, we seek your permission to get evacuated into the mars.

Recent study shows that nuclear reactor plant components, such as valves, pumps, steam generators, and vessel internals ca undergo aging. Because the condition of these aging, safety of Nigerians lives must be considered before the approval of this proposal, the safety research should focused on (1) developing guidelines for assessing the condition of components at the end of the current license period, (2) devising methods for monitoring age-related degradation during the license renewal period, and (3) where possible, identifying approaches to mitigate age-related degradation effects.   

Currently, the big pitch as the global warming crisis is acknowledged (after years of the vested oil interests denying it): nuclear plants don't emit greenhouse gasses and contribute to global warming. In fact, the overall nuclear cycle necessary has significant greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. This so-called "nuclear fuel chain" includes uranium mining and milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication, use in nuclear reactors and disposal of radioactive wastes.

The quality of our air, water, soil, and food are rapidly deteriorating. Animal extinctions and loss of plant life escalate, while cancer rates and other immune system related diseases soar. Many scientists believe that there is a strong correlation between these anomalies and the increasing levels of radiation in the environment. Now, more then ever, it is important that we fully examine the appalling state of nuclear power and weapons so that we can make better decisions affecting the lives of those who will follow us. Be sure to read Nuclear Power

A standard 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactor contains the equivalent radiation to that released by the explosion of 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs."--This is a meaningless comparison without specifying when we are measuring the activity. A significant fraction of the ionizing radiation release in the first 2 seconds of a nuclear explosion is the radioactive decay of fission products. If you make the comparison within a second of detonation, the "Hiroshima-sized bomb" has produced vastly more radioactivity than the entire reactor cores in the world combined. The residual radiation of an atomic bomb decays at a different rate than reactor core fission products, so about 2 years after detonation/reactor shutdown Candiotti’s ratio is correct.

The so-called" noble" gases ... are readily absorbed by humans through the lung and deposit in the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs. Triturated water is absorbed directly through the skin, lung and digestive tract and is incorporated directly into the gene, which is a bit removed from the nuclear release. The U.S. EPA states that tritium is one of the least dangerous radionuclide because it emits very weak radiation and leaves the body relatively quickly.

This quantity of plutonium if (and only if) properly deposited in the body would give about a 63% chance of producing cancer, in general. "Properly deposited" would be inhaled in the form of particles small enough to not be expelled naturally; injection of plutonium, in contrast, is rather inefficient at producing a body burden. Plutonium is preferentially deposited in the liver and bones, but deposition in the heart is not mentioned which contrasted with the fate of excess iron....it causes lung cancer, liver cancer, bone cancer and leukemia.

Operational safety is a prime concern for those working in nuclear plants. Radiation doses are controlled by the use of remote handling equipment for many operations in the core of the reactor. Other controls include physical shielding and limiting the time workers spend in areas with significant radiation levels. These are supported by continuous monitoring of individual doses and of the work environment to ensure very low radiation exposure compared with other industries.

Concerning possible accidents, up to the early 1970s, some extreme assumptions were made about the possible chain of consequences. These gave rise to a genre of dramatic fiction (eg The China Syndrome) in the public domain and also some solid conservative engineering including containment structures (at least in Western reactor designs) in the industry itself. Licensing regulations were framed accordingly.

One mandated safety indicator is the calculated probable frequency of degraded core or core melt accidents. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) specifies that reactor designs must meet a 1 in 10,000 year core damage frequency, but modern designs exceed this. US utility requirements are 1 in 100,000 years, the best currently operating plants are about 1 in 1 million and those likely to be built in the next decade are almost 1 in 10 million.

However apart from this accident and the Chernobyl disaster there have been about ten core melt accidents - mostly in military or experimental reactors - Appendix 2 lists most of them. None resulted in any hazard outside the plant from the core melting, though in one case there was significant radiation release due to burning graphite. Regulatory requirements today are that the effects of any core-melt accident must be confined to the plant itself, without the need to evacuate nearby residents.

The main safety concern has always been the possibility of an uncontrolled release of radioactive material, leading to contamination and consequent radiation exposure off-site. . Earlier assumptions were that this would be likely in the event of a major loss of cooling accident (LOCA) which resulted in a core melt. Experience has proved otherwise in any circumstances relevant to Western reactor designs. In the light of better understanding of the physics and chemistry of material in a reactor core under extreme conditions it became evident that even a severe core melts coupled with breach of containment could not in fact create a major radiological disaster from any Western reactor design.

At Chernobyl the kind of reactor and its burning graphite which dispersed radionuclide far and wide tragically meant that the results were severe. This once and for all vindicated the desirability of designing with inherent safety supplemented by robust secondary safety provisions and avoiding that kind of reactor design.

Mention should be made of the accident to the US Fermi-1 prototype fast breeder reactor near Detroit in 1966. Due to a blockage in coolant flow, some of the fuel melted. However no radiation was released offsite and no-one was injured. The reactor was repaired and restarted but closed down in 1972.

Much of the radioactive material would stick to surfaces inside the containment or becomes soluble salts that remain in the damaged containment building. Some radioactive material would nonetheless enter the environment some hours after the attack in this extreme scenario and affect areas up to several kilometres away. The extent and timing of this means that with walking-pace evacuation inside this radius it would not be a major health risk.

However it could leave areas contaminated and hence displace people in the same way as a natural disaster, giving rise to economic rather than health consequences. The use of nuclear energy for electricity generation can be considered extremely safe. Every year several thousand people die in coal mines to provide this widely used fuel for electricity. There are also significant health and environmental effects arising from fossil fuel use.

Many scientists have argued about long term storage for our nuclear waste. Many think the waste should be placed in concrete containers and buried far beneath the Earth's surface. Others say that some of the waste should be loaded into rockets and shot at the sun. Some countries have already decided on their plans. Canada is currently looking at a plan to bury their radioactive waste underneath the Canadian Shield. The United States has a plan to bury their waste underground in Nevada where some nuclear experiments and tests have already been conducted. So far, continuing debates have prevented much of anything from being done about nuclear waste. Unfortunately, after buried underground, the nuclear waste can take millions of years to decay.

It seems to me perfectly sensible for those who felt our wasting gas is better off than keeping our lives in the choice of nuclear energy were myopic to understand that nuclear power is evil. Nuclear power stations produce toxic waste which increases the amount of radioactive nucleotides in the environment and hence kills people; "evil" seems entirely appropriate. This is especially clear when one considers that we in Nigeria have an abundance of renewable energy sources including oil and gas.

Natural gas, along with oil and coal, is a fossil fuel and, similar to oil and coal, is found in underground reservoirs located in several areas of the Niger Delta of Nigeria. The primary component of natural gas is methane; a hydrocarbon. It can be used as a fuel in conventional steam boiler generators, like other fossil fuels. However, new technologies using natural gas as their primary fuel are far more efficient than older combustion technologies. New state of the art combined cycle plants reduce fossil fuel use by as much as 40 percent.

Combustion turbines are based on jet engines. With the combustion turbine technology, the natural gas is burned, creating superheated gas, which is then pressurized in pipes and used to drive the turbine. Combined cycle technology is really the coupling of two electric generation technologies, and boosts efficiency by using the same fuel to generate electricity twice. Natural gas may also be used in fuel cell technologies that rely upon chemical reactions to create electricity at much higher levels of efficiency than can be obtained from fossil fuel combustion.

Natural gas creates significantly smaller environmental impacts than coal. On a Btu basis, natural gas combustion generates about half as much carbon dioxide, or CO2, as coal, less particulate matter, and very little sulfur dioxide or toxic air emissions. Natural gas combustion may, however, produce nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide in quantities comparable to coal burning. Ongoing use of natural gas inevitably results in methane emissions, a very potent greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change. Natural gas drilling and exploration can negatively impact wilderness habitat, wildlife and public open space. Among the list of potential negative land impacts associated with natural gas are erosion, loss of soil productivity, increased runoffs, landslides and flooding.

If natural gas is compared to coal combustion, CO2 emissions are significantly reduced, but natural gas combustion still results in a net increase in CO2 emissions and therefore can contribute to climate change. Gas plant operations may result in significant impacts on water resources, depending on the type of combustion technology and plant design. Combustion turbines do not use significant quantities of water; combined cycle power plants do have a steam-cooling phase that may require significant quantities of water. Why nuclear station in the midst of abundant oil and gas?

If we say, Nigeria! go ahead!!, this would mean dozens of new nuclear power stations with their sinister and dangerous technology and the politics surrounding them, radioactive waste needing to be stored for millennia, and trains full of radioactive materials crossing the country effectively for ever. Add to these the obvious and enticing potential targets for international terrorists, a virtual police state of private armed forces to protect installations and, yes, you have a nightmare scenario.

Perhaps or fortunately, the sane answer is entirely feasible and achievable, whatever those with other vested interests might say. Nigeria should stop wasting most of the natural gas energy we produce and invest massively in solar, tidal, wind and other renewable energy sources, and adopt Contraction and Convergence now. Which political parties, stake-holders and this government have the honesty, realism and backbone to declare.

L.Chinedu Arizona-Ogwu

Founder; Nigeria4Betterrule

Writes from Port Harcourt

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