The other side of the nuclear power option
Saturday, 3 July 2010
Nerun Yakub
The government, as the latest developments indicate, is going forward with a plan to set up a nuclear power plant to mitigate Bangladesh's energy crisis. A Russian technical expert team has already been working on the prospect of setting it up at Rooppur, an old site designated for that very purpose in the 1960s by the then Pakistan government. It is considered a prestige project. Proposals have reportedly been received from China, South Korea as well, but the Russians have clearly won in the bid to clinch a state-to-state deal for at least a l000 MW nuclear reactor. We are told that a clearance certificate and technical and financial support worth US$ 3,66,000.00 from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has already been received during the caretaker government to prepare the Rooppur site for the purpose.
Earlier attempts to buy a nuclear energy plant did not materialise for various reasons. The last such attempt was in the mid-1990s when a Canadian company nearly sold one of its very controversial CANDU reactors to Bangladesh. Mercifully, it did not happen. The nuclear energy enthusiasts were of course unhappy, but it was a victory for those who argued that the billion-dollar project would simply be a prescription for disaster.
Even today, the 'no-nuclear' activists remain convinced that atomic power cannot be a viable answer to Bangladesh's energy problems, for it is neither economically sustainable nor environmentally safe. A nuclear reactor cannot increase the supply of electricity quickly or cheaply because such projects are hugely capital intensive and take as long as a decade or more to build and commission. Therefore, for Bangladesh, a technologically weak, poor and densely populated, land scarce country, it would make more sense to look up to the sun and other renewables for the long term. And for the short term, let us make judicious use of our own available fossil fuels as well as imported ones, they say.
Engineers and scientists of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission hold the view that nuclear technology delivers one of the safest and cheapest forms of electricity and that there are no greenhouse gas emissions. But this is considered by the no-nuclear activists as a lie laced with a little truth and that is the most dangerous lie, as someone said, and nowhere is it more applicable than in the nuclear industry. The no-nuclear activists allege that nuclear energy enthusiasts suppress the complex web of difficulties and dangers that this kind of energy source can pose. Contrary to the claims that a 1000MW plant would be cost effective, data from already constructed power reactors reveal that there are, according to the critics of nuclear power plant, tremendous cost-overruns due to unforeseen problems over safety concerns, construction errors and other snags. Greenhouse gas there may be none, but radioactive poisoning of the neighbourhood is a fact, even without accidents.
An engineering consultant, Ahmed Fazlul Kabir, who had been involved in evaluating the structural safety of several nuclear power plants in the US, mentions some examples of cost overruns in an article written for the now- defunct The Bangladesh Observer about 15 years back. In the early 1970s, the two-reactor Daiblo Canyon Nuclear Power plant in the USA, designed to generate 1100MW per reactor, was estimated to cost US$500.0 million, but after 90 per cent of the project was completed a new earthquake fault was discovered close to the plant. Seismologists declared the plant was not capable of withstanding an earthquake of such magnitude as indicated by the fault. So plant completion was delayed by five years and the cost tripled to US$ 1.5 billion.
Then in 1981, when the plant was about to start operations, final inspections uncovered many more errors in the design and construction process, improper quality control, poor documentation and the like. After another five years spent on identifying and correcting all these faults, the plant finally started producing electricity -- but ten years behind schedule and a cost overrun of about US$8.0 billion. Another nuclear plant in Texas, originally estimated to cost about US$i.0 billion to construct, ended up with a bill of US$9.0 billion due to construction flaws, insecure welding, inadequate quality control and shoddy documentation. According to Dr Kabir, for this reason, several electrical companies which had invested in nuclear plant construction, went bankrupt or were on the verge of bankruptcy.
The most important of all concerns, however, is safety. In the Philippines the government had to abandon a nuclear power plant for safety concerns, after about US$1.5 billion had been spent. Operating a nuclear power plant is far more complex than any other kind of power-generating system, or any other industrial facility, for that matter, because of the unique nature of the atomic elements involved. If accidents occur the consequences can be devastating. Just recall the reports following the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. Hundreds died due to immediate exposure to massive doses of radiation when the explosion occurred. The Ukranianian Ministry of Health estimated it killed 125,000 at least. About ten years later a WHO conference agreed that the 'explosive increase in childhood thyroid cancer in Belarus, the Ukraine and the Russian Federation can be directly linked to nuclear radiation.' Another report from Israel suspected that as many as 22,000 cancer patients in Israel were immigrants from areas near Chernobyl. Even low levels of exposure to radiation depletes people's immune system, making them more susceptible to common illnesses.
After that terrible accident the nuclear industry started to reveal a lot of skeletons in its cupboard. Mishaps and leaks covered up or denied before, then made news and many countries declared a phase-out of nuclear energy altogether. In fact, with the exception of France and Japan, the rich world has stopped ordering new reactors, but China, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, Pakistan and India have not said no yet, which is a huge mistake for Asia, though very good news for the industry's vendors, as The Economist put it glibly.
The disposal and storage of the radioactive waste material produced by a nuclear power plant is a major problem. It is in fact intractable. The uranium fuel rods inside an operating reactor vessel become extremely radioactive due to fission reaction and these 'spent' fuel have to be replaced by new ones after specified periods of time. And these have to be stored in enclosed pools of water to prevent hazardous radiation from spreading around. The spent fuel rods remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years and storing them safely without leakage of radiation into the environment is almost impossible. One such pool in India's Bihar state was reported to have dried up completely some years ago and the wind was blowing fine radioactive dust far and wide.
Nuclear waste management is a continuing challenge even in the rich countries. They have been trying to bury high-level waste in deep vaults underground or in secret locations in deep seas and distant lands where government monitoring and civil society awareness is absent. Unfortunately even educated people in Bangladesh do not apply their minds to this aspect. Informed communities in the developed world stand up against any attempt to bury nuclear waste in their neighbourhood, because no matter how fortified the containers are, they might leak sooner than imagined, and contaminate the environment and groundwater. Nuclear power can be competitive only if the cost of decommissioning old reactors and dealing with the extremely hazardous waste is not counted. The developing world should not go nuclear but rather persuade rich countries' investors to come in with environmentally and economically sound renewable energy projects.
The government, as the latest developments indicate, is going forward with a plan to set up a nuclear power plant to mitigate Bangladesh's energy crisis. A Russian technical expert team has already been working on the prospect of setting it up at Rooppur, an old site designated for that very purpose in the 1960s by the then Pakistan government. It is considered a prestige project. Proposals have reportedly been received from China, South Korea as well, but the Russians have clearly won in the bid to clinch a state-to-state deal for at least a l000 MW nuclear reactor. We are told that a clearance certificate and technical and financial support worth US$ 3,66,000.00 from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has already been received during the caretaker government to prepare the Rooppur site for the purpose.
Earlier attempts to buy a nuclear energy plant did not materialise for various reasons. The last such attempt was in the mid-1990s when a Canadian company nearly sold one of its very controversial CANDU reactors to Bangladesh. Mercifully, it did not happen. The nuclear energy enthusiasts were of course unhappy, but it was a victory for those who argued that the billion-dollar project would simply be a prescription for disaster.
Even today, the 'no-nuclear' activists remain convinced that atomic power cannot be a viable answer to Bangladesh's energy problems, for it is neither economically sustainable nor environmentally safe. A nuclear reactor cannot increase the supply of electricity quickly or cheaply because such projects are hugely capital intensive and take as long as a decade or more to build and commission. Therefore, for Bangladesh, a technologically weak, poor and densely populated, land scarce country, it would make more sense to look up to the sun and other renewables for the long term. And for the short term, let us make judicious use of our own available fossil fuels as well as imported ones, they say.
Engineers and scientists of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission hold the view that nuclear technology delivers one of the safest and cheapest forms of electricity and that there are no greenhouse gas emissions. But this is considered by the no-nuclear activists as a lie laced with a little truth and that is the most dangerous lie, as someone said, and nowhere is it more applicable than in the nuclear industry. The no-nuclear activists allege that nuclear energy enthusiasts suppress the complex web of difficulties and dangers that this kind of energy source can pose. Contrary to the claims that a 1000MW plant would be cost effective, data from already constructed power reactors reveal that there are, according to the critics of nuclear power plant, tremendous cost-overruns due to unforeseen problems over safety concerns, construction errors and other snags. Greenhouse gas there may be none, but radioactive poisoning of the neighbourhood is a fact, even without accidents.
An engineering consultant, Ahmed Fazlul Kabir, who had been involved in evaluating the structural safety of several nuclear power plants in the US, mentions some examples of cost overruns in an article written for the now- defunct The Bangladesh Observer about 15 years back. In the early 1970s, the two-reactor Daiblo Canyon Nuclear Power plant in the USA, designed to generate 1100MW per reactor, was estimated to cost US$500.0 million, but after 90 per cent of the project was completed a new earthquake fault was discovered close to the plant. Seismologists declared the plant was not capable of withstanding an earthquake of such magnitude as indicated by the fault. So plant completion was delayed by five years and the cost tripled to US$ 1.5 billion.
Then in 1981, when the plant was about to start operations, final inspections uncovered many more errors in the design and construction process, improper quality control, poor documentation and the like. After another five years spent on identifying and correcting all these faults, the plant finally started producing electricity -- but ten years behind schedule and a cost overrun of about US$8.0 billion. Another nuclear plant in Texas, originally estimated to cost about US$i.0 billion to construct, ended up with a bill of US$9.0 billion due to construction flaws, insecure welding, inadequate quality control and shoddy documentation. According to Dr Kabir, for this reason, several electrical companies which had invested in nuclear plant construction, went bankrupt or were on the verge of bankruptcy.
The most important of all concerns, however, is safety. In the Philippines the government had to abandon a nuclear power plant for safety concerns, after about US$1.5 billion had been spent. Operating a nuclear power plant is far more complex than any other kind of power-generating system, or any other industrial facility, for that matter, because of the unique nature of the atomic elements involved. If accidents occur the consequences can be devastating. Just recall the reports following the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. Hundreds died due to immediate exposure to massive doses of radiation when the explosion occurred. The Ukranianian Ministry of Health estimated it killed 125,000 at least. About ten years later a WHO conference agreed that the 'explosive increase in childhood thyroid cancer in Belarus, the Ukraine and the Russian Federation can be directly linked to nuclear radiation.' Another report from Israel suspected that as many as 22,000 cancer patients in Israel were immigrants from areas near Chernobyl. Even low levels of exposure to radiation depletes people's immune system, making them more susceptible to common illnesses.
After that terrible accident the nuclear industry started to reveal a lot of skeletons in its cupboard. Mishaps and leaks covered up or denied before, then made news and many countries declared a phase-out of nuclear energy altogether. In fact, with the exception of France and Japan, the rich world has stopped ordering new reactors, but China, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, Pakistan and India have not said no yet, which is a huge mistake for Asia, though very good news for the industry's vendors, as The Economist put it glibly.
The disposal and storage of the radioactive waste material produced by a nuclear power plant is a major problem. It is in fact intractable. The uranium fuel rods inside an operating reactor vessel become extremely radioactive due to fission reaction and these 'spent' fuel have to be replaced by new ones after specified periods of time. And these have to be stored in enclosed pools of water to prevent hazardous radiation from spreading around. The spent fuel rods remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years and storing them safely without leakage of radiation into the environment is almost impossible. One such pool in India's Bihar state was reported to have dried up completely some years ago and the wind was blowing fine radioactive dust far and wide.
Nuclear waste management is a continuing challenge even in the rich countries. They have been trying to bury high-level waste in deep vaults underground or in secret locations in deep seas and distant lands where government monitoring and civil society awareness is absent. Unfortunately even educated people in Bangladesh do not apply their minds to this aspect. Informed communities in the developed world stand up against any attempt to bury nuclear waste in their neighbourhood, because no matter how fortified the containers are, they might leak sooner than imagined, and contaminate the environment and groundwater. Nuclear power can be competitive only if the cost of decommissioning old reactors and dealing with the extremely hazardous waste is not counted. The developing world should not go nuclear but rather persuade rich countries' investors to come in with environmentally and economically sound renewable energy projects.