Experts dispel fear about Rooppur waste

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Nizam Ahmed Management of nuclear waste from the planned Rooppur nuclear power plants is most unlikely to become any major problem, official experts said on Friday refuting the concern of certain environmentalists. The nuclear power plants may turn out to be a threat for the people living around, in case of leakage of any nuclear waste, the environmentalists earlier stated. The government signed an inter-governmental deal with Russia last Thursday for setting up two nuclear power plants to generate 1,000 megawatts (mw) of electricity at each, at Rooppur in Pabna, some 200 km northwest of the capital Dhaka. Setting up the two nuclear power plants was a part of the government's mega plan to generate 20,000 mw of electricity by 2021, officials of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) said. Though the authorities claimed the plants would be set up by next five years, experts said it would take, at least, seven years, including a minimum period of a couple of years to conduct a full-fledged socio-environmental study. The country currently generates about 5,000 mw of electricity against the demand for more 7,000 mw. According to the norms of International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) every country cannot properly preserve the nuclear waste. "So the Russians will take away the waste, as a precondition of IAEC, because from the nuclear waste, nuclear bomb can be processed," Prof. Mohammad Tamim, a former adviser to the past caretaker government told the FE. However, environmentalists claim there are other toxic elements which, if exposed, may cause severe health hazards. "Accident is accident," said Tamim, who is also head of the department of mineral resources engineering of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. "Hopefully, there may not be any problem except accidents", he added. Under the terms of last Thursday's deal, Russia will supply necessary fuel for the entire life-period of the nuclear power plants, and take back the fuel that are spent, said officials of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC). "The plants, to be made with the latest available nuclear technology, will pose no threat to the environment or public health," a senior official of BAEC told the FE. The construction of the plants would cost up to $2.0 billion, he said. The details of the deal and its terms and conditions have not, however, been yet made public. The environmentalists are concerned over non-disclosure of such things and have demanded an open discussion on the issues involved. The waste is generally radioactive, and thus toxic. There are also a few different kinds of waste, depending on how it is produced, Oracle Think Quest (OTQ) said in its website. Russia will also support technical support for finalizing the necessary legislation for the proposed nuclear plant in Bangladesh and extend necessary cooperation for development of nuclear science and technology in the country, officials of the ministry of science and technology said. Unlike the Fukushima reactors of Japan, the planned nuclear power plants will be earthquake-proof and tsunami-protected, they said. Nuclear waste is produced in many different ways, the Oracle said. It said there were waste produced in the reactor core, waste created as a result of radioactive contamination, and waste produced as a by-product of uranium mining, refining, and enrichment. The 99 per cent of radiation in nuclear waste is given off from fuel rods spent. However, fuel rods make up a relatively small percentage of the volume of waste. The largest volume of nuclear waste is composed of the left-overs from the mining process. This waste, however, doesn't give off much radiation. Some of the nuclear waste is extremely long-lived, meaning that it lasts for a long time without its toxicity decreasing all that much, and some of it is short-lived. Some types of nuclear waste are considered to be of high-level and some are of low level. The difference is in the amount of radioactive nuclei in relation to the mass of the waste. If there are a large amount of radioactive nuclei relative to the amount of waste, it is considered to be a high level of nuclear waste, OTQ said.