Nuclear Energy and Radiation Wastes Management - Research Paper Example

Nuclear Energy and radiation wastes management Introduction In modern times, nuclear power has gained popularity as the most reliable source of energy in most of the developed countries. One of the factors that have led to the increase in use of nuclear energy across the world is the fact that it is thought to be a clean and efficient source compared to other forms like petroleum. Many countries have actually been doing research and investments in the creation and use of this energy in o0rder to bring down cost of energy, thus increasing the rate of their economic activities. Nuclear power refers to the way nuclear reactors are used to produce nuclear energy, thereby generating electricity, which is the n utilized for various domestic and industrial purposes. Nuclear power, in itself is a broad terminology that comprises aspects of nuclear decay, nuclear fission as well as nuclear fusion. Currently, nuclear fission for elements contained in actinide series of the commonly known periodic table generates vast amounts of nuclear energy especially when it comes to humankind’s direct services; this happens alongside processes in nuclear decay. In most cases, all this happens in the form of radioisotope thermoelectric generators and geothermal energy in different niche uses, thus making up the others. This paper examines the concept of nuclear power and radiations emanating from the process, examining the best ways of how wastes coming from the entire process can be controlled effectively to avoid any associated environmental dangers. 2. Nuclear Power At the moment, nuclear power has continued to generate great debates across various platforms across the world over its use and safety. Some of the proponents of this idea like IAEA, environmentalists in advocacy of this form of energy as well as the World Nuclear Association (WNA) have insisted that this form of energy is safe for use, both in homes and in industrial activities (Lacy and Ian, 25). They have further explained that nuclear power is an efficient and sustainable form of energy that ensures total reduction of carbon emissions, which have been responsible for the increase in global temperatures, thus causing global warming. On the other hand, opponents of the form of energy such a NIRS and Greenpeace international argue that this form of energy is very dangerous especially to the environment, because it has been responsible for the deaths of many people and destruction of the environment in many parts of the world (Adams, 24). In the same argument, they say that the process of installing nuclear power plants is very costly, something that can affect some countries willing to establish it especially the developing countries. Some of the dangerous accidents that have happened in the past comprise of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident that happened in 2011 as well as the Three Mile Island accident that took place earlier in 1979. Additionally, submarine accidents involving the nuclear have also happened in different places. As far as the number of lives lost on unit energy produced, analysis on the same has indicated that nuclear power causes fewer fatalities on unit energy generated compared to several other forms of energy used in the world. In the past, energy production, ranging from petroleum, coal, hydropower as well as natural gas have been responsible for majority of fatalities on unit energy produced because of energy accidents and air pollution effects. However, it should be noted that the economic costs incurred in the production of nuclear power are very high. In the same way, meltdowns in these plants can cause a large area to be uninhabitable for long periods. Another important factor related with this concept of the costs incurred in human evaluations especially for the affected populations as well as the lost livelihoods, which tends to be significantly high. 3. How nuclear power works Often, nuclear power stations operate in similar ways as those stations involved with fossil fuel-burning. However, for the nuclear station, chain reactions in the nuclear reactors are responsible for the production of heat. For fuel, the nuclear reactors make use of uranium rods as well as the heat, which is produced by nuclear fissions. Neutrons often smash in the nucleus of uranium atoms, splitting roughly in halves, thus producing energy, which is produced in the teams of heat (Krivit, 43). Water and carbon dioxide in form of gas is often pumped in the nuclear reactor in order to remove any excess heat. In this process, the water is heated, thus making steam, which drives the turbines that the drive the generators. At the moment, the modern nuclear stations that have been developed use similar types of generators and turbines in the same way conventional power stations work. In the United Kingdom, most of the power stations that produced nuclear energy area established at the coast so that they can use sea water for cooling the steam produced so that it can be pumped again. In this case, it is evident that they do not have large cooling towers such as those seen on power stations in some other places. For effective functioning, the power plants are often controlled using “control rods” that are made from boron for absorption of neutrons. When these rods are put in the reactors, they often absorb the neutrons, something that reduces the rate of the fission process. When more power is to be generated, the boron rods are raised again so that many neutrons crash into the uranium rods that releasing the energy in the quantities required. 4. Nuclear power accidents and incidents In the past, many people and property worth millions have been destroyed where nuclear power stations have failed. The failure may be attributed to various causes, ranging from human to system errors. For this reason, extreme care is supposed to be taken by people working in the power plants in order to reduce the chances of these incidents happening. The environmental impact arising from nuclear reactions can take long period of time to mend, something that opponents to this kind of power explain that should be effectively checked before deciding to launch the project in any environment. Nuclear power radiation accidents can be described as the events that have caused significant effects on people, the particular nuclear facility as well as to the lives of people and animals. Examples of the consequences felt from these facilities include large release of radioactive elements in the environment, reactor core melts as well as the lethal effects felt by people and other living organisms in their natural habitats. A good incidence involving a key nuclear accident is one where a power plant’s reactor core happens to gets damaged, leading to significant quantities of radioactivity being released in the environment. A good example of such an accident was in 1986, the famous Chernobyl disaster. It is important to realize that the impacts emanating from nuclear accidents have become a key agenda on global energy discussions from the time of construction of the first reactors in the world in 1954 (Domenici and Blythe, 71). Some of the technical measures that are have been deemed effective in reducing the risk of nuclear accidents include minimizing the amounts of radioactivity that are released in the environment. Despite the adoption of these measures, several incidents of human errors have led to minor and major accidents in nuclear power plants, both of which have devastating effects on the environment. Across the world, approximately 99 accidents have been recorded in power plants. Since the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, a total of about 57 accidents have happened. Additionally, 57 % of these accidents that have taken place have been in the United States (Scarborough, 45). 5. How the Chernobyl disaster was handled The Chernobyl accident was a very catastrophic accident that involved the nuclear plant that happened in 1986 in Ukraine. This nuclear plant by then was under the express jurisdiction of the then Soviet Union (Krivit 90). During the accident, there was a huge explosion that was followed by fire, releasing large amounts of radioactive wastes in the environment that spread to many places including Europe and USSR. As far as costs and causalities are concerned, this was the most catastrophic nuclear accident to have happened in the world’s history. The battle in controlling the contamination from the accident involved more than 500, 000 workers with a total more than 18 billion rubles being involved (Krivit 123). After the incident, the accident brought serious consequences to the environment including killing of aquatic life in the adjacent Pripyat River and other underground sources. Many people reported increased cases of thyroid and other kinds of cancers because of the exposure to radioactive elements. Additionally, many deaths were reported because of exposure to these rays with thousand others being evacuated to countries deemed safer, increasing the severity of the incident. This incident prompted a raft of measures that were thought effective in averting related accidents involving nuclear plants and associated reactions. First was the signing of a contract that would see an effective plan of waste management so that a plant would be established to store the 25,000 elements resulting from such nuclear assembly plants in 1999. The UN also stepped in with the launch of its UNDP program in order to help save the affected area, since then countries dealing with nuclear power have established better and effective systems that they can use dealing with probable incident to avoid any environmental harm. 6. Nuclear power radiations and wastes Different kinds of wastes often emanate from different nuclear reactions. Some of them happen in the power plants or in other places that uses the radioactive technology, which is similar to that which emanates from the nuclear power plants. The effects of these wastes depend on the way it is handled; in this case, when poorly handled, it can have various devastating effects on the environment, killing plant and animal life as well as that of the people living in those areas (Casper, 42). Mostly, wastes from radioactivity are those containing radioactive materials. The radioactive wastes are often the by-products from the nuclear power generation plants as well as other applications from nuclear technology and fission like medicine and research. It is important to realize that all forms of radioactive elements are very hazardous to the environment as well as the different kinds of life in their natural habitat. For this reason, the government takes the duty of protecting its citizens and the environment from the effects of these radioactive elements. It is important to realize that naturally, radioactivity decays with time; for this reason, the radio wastes are supposed to be carefully confined and isolated in special disposal facilities for a certain periods of time until they are deemed harmless to people and the environment. The period through which the radioactive wastes are supposed to be stored is depended on the kinds of wastes and the particular radioactive isotopes present. Generally, the period varies from few days to for isotopes that are short lived to thousands of years especially when one decides to dissipate the portions that are unspent of the “spent nuclear fuel.” At the moment, some of the approaches to managing the radioactive wastes involve segregation and then the storage of the short-lived wastes, the near-surface discarding of low and intermediate level wastes as well as the partitioning/transmutation or deep burning of the various high-level wastes resulting from the nuclear power plants. 7. Environmental and health effects of nuclear radiations It is important to note that radioactive contaminations that are released into the environment are of critical concern because of their effects on people, animal life as well as the entire ecosystem from radionuclides. In this case, radionuclides refer to the carcinogens resulting from this process, at high doses; these elements have the potential to cause sicknesses and even death of the people affected. Some of the health concerns emanating from radiation exposures are based on various factors including the specific kinds of radiations, amount of energy delivered, length of time that these exposures happen, the specific organs that receive the radiations as well as the attributes of the person exposed to the radiations. It is interesting to realize that credible scenarios involving the radiation doses to the people from contaminations in the environment depend on the internal exposures as opposed to the external. This means that one may not clearly understand the kind of damage suffered from the initial exposures to these radiations until an internal assessment of the extent of harm suffered has been diagnosed. In this case, the internal effects suffered are due to the radionuclides, which are inhaled from the air or ingested. When they reach inside the body, the radionuclides are called internal emitters. This is because, while in the body, these radionuclides go on imparting energy to the adjacent tissues within the body. This is the reason why the effects of these nuclear radiations are dangerous from within the body. 8. Types of radioactive wastes 8.1 Low-level wastes These kinds of radioactive wastes are mostly generated from laboratories, hospitals and factories. They are also produced in the course of the nuclear lifecycle. Most often, these wastes include rags, tools, clothing and papers among others that harbor small quantities of short-lived radioactivity. These kinds of radiations are very safe and posses no major problems when handled; however, they always need to be disposed in safe ways as garbage after their use. Some people decide to bury these tools after use in shallow and small landfill sites. In order to reduce their volumes they are sometimes incinerated or compacted before being disposed. Across the world, these wastes make about 90 percent of the world volume; however, only one percent of it is a radwaste. 8.2 Intermediate-level waste These wastes contain great levels of radioactivity and sometimes require special kinds of shielding (Miller, 87). These kinds of wastes comprise of chemical sludges, resins as well as various kinds of reactor components. Additionally, these wastes comprise of the contaminated materials emanating from the decommissioning reactors. Across the world, these wastes make up to 7 percent of the available volume, comprising of about 4 percent of the entire radioactivity wastes. These wastes can be solidified in bitumen or concrete for effective disposal. Generally, while the short-lived wastes emanating from reactors are buried when disposing, the long-lived wastes are often buried in the deep underground. 8.3 High level wastes These wastes make up about three percent of all the radwastes, holding approximately ninety five percent of radioactivity. They comprise of highly-radioactive fission elements having long-lived radioactivity. It is important to realize that these wastes often generate considerable quantities of heat, which means that the need constant cooling and shielding in the process of transportation and shielding. After the used fuel has been reprocessed, the waste separated is then vitrified by effectively incorporating it in borosilicate glass, also known as Pyrex (Scherer, 67). It is often sealed in canisters that are made of stainless steel for them to be effectively disposed deep underground. Alternatively, when the reactor fuel is use dup, it is often not reprocessed; for this reason, all the radioactive isotopes tend to remain in it. The used fuel that is effectively treated as a waste is supposed to be encapsulated, making it ready for safe disposal. 9. Conclusion In conclusion, it is important to note that in as much as nuclear power can have diverse ramification effects on the health and natural environment. People should not fear to use nuclear power as a source of energy. It is important to realize that nuclear power plants are not atomic bombs ticking to blow. Most of these plants are not always prone to disasters like meltdowns. When the reactors become extremely hot, the boron rods are lowered in them in order to reduce their temperatures. Nuclear power plants are often made with effective and reliable technology which provides an assurance for safety in the course of its operations. The advantages from this form of energy, when effectively handled should prompt countries to invest in nuclear as an important and reliable form of energy. Nevertheless, a comprehensive feasibility study is supposed to be conducted prior to investing in this form of energy. Works Cited Adams, Troon. Nuclear Energy: Power from the Atom. St. Catharines, Ont.: Crabtree Pub., 2010. Print. Casper, Julie. Changing Ecosystems: Effects of Global Warming. New York: Facts on File, 2010. Print. Domenici, Pete, and Blythe Lyons. A Brighter Tomorrow: Fulfilling the Promise of Nuclear Energy. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield :, 2004. Print. Krivit, Steven B. Nuclear Energy Encyclopedia Science, Technology, and Applications. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2011. Print. Lacy, Ian, and Ian Lacy. Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century the World Nuclear University Primer. London: World Nuclear UP ;, 2006. Print. Miller, Debra A. Nuclear Energy. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2010. Print. Scarborough, Kate. Nuclear Waste. Mankato, Minn.: Bridgestone, 2003. Print. Scherer, Lauri S. Nuclear Power. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven, 2010. Print. Read More