Frequently Asked Questions abt Nuclear Power

Frequently Asked Questions abt Nuclear Power Plants:

Why we must look into nuclear technology?

Nuclear power technology is crucial and regarded as one of the alternative energy source to replace the depleting fossil fuel (petroluem and gas) energy sources and a solution to curb global warming. Power generated from nuclear power plant releases very less precentage of global warming gases and it is GREEN. Many have seen the disasterous part of the devastation created and can be created by nuclear weapons. Hence the inertia has grown very high even a significant advantage of nuclear technology has always been an debating issue everywhere in the planet.

As for Malaysia, we depend more on power plant which uses coal, fuel oil and natural gas as they their fuel. This leads one point where soon there will shortage for this fossil fuels. Hence we have to find an alternative energy source to meet our escalating power demand.

Is nuclear power plant costly?

Yes it is. It is double the cost of building a coal powered plant. But the cost to purchase fuel for nuclear power plant is very cheap compared to coal power plant. In a year to generate 1000 megawatt(MW) energy, coal plant needs 2 Million tonnes of coal whereas a nuclear power plant needs 30 tonnes of uranium. This is where a solution to curb global warming is attained!

What happens to the radiation from nuclear power plant?

Nuclear power plants sometimes release radioactive gases and liquids into the environment under controlled, monitored conditions to ensure that they pose no danger to the public or the environment.  These releases dissipate into the atmosphere or a large water source and, therefore, are diluted to the point where it becomes difficult to measure any radioactivity. 

By contrast, most of an operating nuclear power plant's direct radiation is blocked by the plant's steel and concrete structures. The remainder dissipates in an area of controlled, uninhabited space around the plant, ensuring that it does not affect any member of the public.

Do we entitle to any form of radiation naturally?

Yes, we are. Since the beginning of time, all living creatures have been, and are still being, exposed to radiation. Nonetheless, most people are not aware of all the natural and man-made sources of radiation in our environment. Example of natural radiations are cosmic radiation, terrestrial radiation and internal radiation. Cosmic radiation are the stream of radition sent by the sun and planets from the outer space.

Terrestrial radiation are from the mother earth herself, where the presence of radioactive materials (including uranium, thorium, and radium) exist naturally in soil and rock. In addition, water contains small amounts of dissolved uranium and thorium, and all organic matter (both plant and animal) contains radioactive carbon and potassium. Some of these materials are ingested with food and water, while others (such as radon) are inhaled. The dose from terrestrial sources varies in different parts of the world, but locations with higher soil concentrations of uranium and thorium generally have higher doses.

All people have internal radiation, mainly from radioactive potassium-40 and carbon-14 inside their bodies from birth and, therefore, are sources of exposure to others. The variation in dose from one person to another is not as great as that associated with cosmic and terrestrial sources.

How to dispose radioactive wastes from nuclear power plant?

Radioactive wastes are the leftovers from the use of nuclear materials for the production of electricity, diagnosis and treatment of disease, and other purposes.
The materials are either naturally occurring or man-made. Waste products from nuclear power plant can be categorized into two main category which low-level waste  and high-level waste.

Low-level waste includes items that have become contaminated with radioactive material or have become radioactive through exposure to neutron radiation. This waste typically consists of contaminated protective shoe covers and clothing, wiping rags, mops, filters, reactor water treatment residues, equipments and tools, luminous dials, medical tubes, swabs, injection needles, syringes, and laboratory animal carcasses and tissues. The radioactivity can range from just above background levels found in nature to very highly radioactive in certain cases such as parts from inside the reactor vessel in a nuclear power plant. Low-level waste is typically stored on-site by licensees, either until it has decayed away and can be disposed of as ordinary trash, or until amounts are large enough for shipment to a low-level waste disposal site.

While high-level radioactive wastes are the highly radioactive materials produced as a byproduct of the reactions that occur inside nuclear reactors. High-level wastes take one of two forms:

1. 
   
   Spent (used) reactor fuel when it is accepted for disposal
2. 
   
   Waste materials remaining after spent fuel is reprocessed

(1.)Spent nuclear fuel is used fuel from a reactor that is no longer efficient in creating electricity, because its fission process has slowed. However, it is still thermally hot, highly radioactive, and potentially harmful. Until a permanent disposal repository for spent nuclear fuel is built, licensees must safely store this fuel at their reactors.

(2.)Reprocessing extracts isotopes from spent fuel that can be used again as reactor fuel. Because of their highly radioactive fission products, high-level waste and spent fuel must be handled and stored with care. The only way radioactive waste finally becomes harmless is through decaying process, which for high-level wastes can take hundreds of thousands of years, the wastes must be stored and finally disposed of in a way that provides adequate protection of the public for a very long time. It is possible to create such facility as the countries like US, France, Russia, Korea and Japan have created their own high level storage disposing facility. If Malaysia can build a nuclear power plant with the collobaration between country like Russia. Where as part of the deal they offer to dispose the nuclear waste produced by their client at their own disposal facility, and the issue of disposing (dumping) nuclear waste will not be a problem for Malaysia.



High-level Disposal



courtesy of Azrudi Mustapha, TNB NUCLEAR DIVISION