How much safe is Nuclear Power Plant?

Increase in the number of reactors will increase the the possibility of exposure to radiation hazards.

by

Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi

Japan has raised its assessment of the accident at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to the worst rating on an international scale, putting the disaster on par with the 1986 Chernobyl explosion.

The decision to raise the alert level to 7 from 5 on the scale amounts to an admission that the accident at the nuclear facility, is likely to have substantial and long lasting consequences for health and for the environment.

Living with radiation can in fact be frightening. Plants making nuclear-weapons materials also pollute our environment. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, as well as other nuclear power plant accidents, have alarmed us. Nuclear waste is piling up.

What is radiation anyway? Although the term is broad enough to include sunlight and heat, radio waves and microwaves, it is most often used to mean ionizing radiation. Every radioactive substance contains unstable atoms, or radionuclides. They want to become something else- something stable- so they change or decay. With each change energy is released. A radionuclide may transform itself many times before becoming stable. An atom of radioactive uranium 238 goes through 14 changes before stabilizing as lead 206. These sequences are known as decay chains.

If body tissues and cells become ionized, abnormalities in DNA can result. Cancer and birth defects can also result from exposure to ionizing radiation.

Even more than Three Mile Island, the explosion at the Chernobyl power plant in soviet Ukraine confirmed the worst nuclear fears. Poor design magnified operator negligence to cause disaster. The explosion sent the graphite slabs of the reactor core through the roof, setting it afire and spewing radioactive materials around the world. Twenty percent of the plant’s radioactive iodine escaped, along with 10 to 20 percent of its radioactive cesium. Thirty persons died; 237 suffered severe radioactive injury. Chernobyl affected the health of many people throughout Russia. Around 600,000 were classified as being ‘significantly exposed’ and will have their health monitored their whole lives.

The main economic cost of the Chernobyl explosion was from the effect the fallout had on the agriculture. Enormous amount of milk in Poland, Hungary, Austria and Sweden were made unusable by the contamination from radioiodine and radioiodine and radiocesium. Also many countries across Europe had numerous amounts of vegetation burned because of contamination. A ban on many agricultural goods was placed in Eastern Europe. The longest effect the radiation had was on the reindeer and sheep in Sweden.

The Three Mile Island accident was a core meltdown in Unit 2 (a pressurized water reactor ) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg, United States in 1979.

The power plant was owned and operated by General Public Utilities and Metropolitan Edison. It was the most significant accident in the history of the USA commercial nuclear power generating industry, resulting in the release of up to 481 P Bq (13 million curies) of radioactive gases, and less than 740 GBq (20 curies) of iodine-131.

On December 12, 1952 a partial meltdown of a reactor's uranium core at the Chalk River plant near Ottawa, Canada, resulted after the accidental removal of four control rods. Although millions of gallons of radioactive water poured into the reactor, there were no injuries.

On October 1957 fire destroyed the core of a plutonium-producing reactor at Britain's Windscale nuclear complex - since renamed Sellafield - sending clouds of radioactivity into the atmosphere. An official report said the leaked radiation could have caused dozens of cancer deaths in the vicinity of Liverpool.

Other accident took place on Winter 1957-'58 when a serious accident occurred during the winter of 1957-58 near the town of Kyshtym in the Urals. A Russian scientist who first reported the disaster estimated that hundreds died from radiation sickness.

On January 1,1992 four tons of heavy water spilt at Rajasthan nuclear power plant (India).

Lots more are there to be listed.

Fears of radiation hazards from nuclear energy arise on the following counts:

1. release of radioactivity into the atmosphere.
2. doubts on safety of operating nuclear reactors and associated health risks.
3. management and safe disposal of radioactive waste.
4. possibilities of nuclear plant accidents including sabotage.
5. risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear power plants are subject to a number of hazards that may originate from outside. Among natural hazards are earthquakes, flooding of the site, ground settlement, etc. Other hazards could be accidents in near by industries, fire, aircraft crash, or sabotage such as bombing and missile attacks during war and terrorist activities.

Accidents in nuclear power plants in the past have been attributed mainly to operation errors, design deficiencies and a series of equipments failures. But the accident in Japan is the first case due to earthquake.

Controversies regarding actual number of deaths, the quantity of radioactivity released and delayed effects still persist.

The demand for energy in several countries is being substantially met through nuclear reactors. It is feared that the phenomenal increase in the number of reactors during the last 40 years or so has increased the possibility of exposure to radiation hazards and accidents.

Growing Sunflower in Jadugoda of Jharkhand State, India can minimize radioactive pollution.

Growing Sunflower in Jadugoda of Jharkhand State, India can minimize radioactive pollution.
by

Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi

Exposure to nuclear radiation is affecting the health of miners and villagers at Jadugoda in Singhbhum district in Jharkhand State located in Eastern India, which is India’s first uranium mining. Jadugoda, literally meaning "magic land", intrigues an outsider. The promise of magic enthralls; the mystery of the unknown attracts. But closeness reveals not innocence but an intention, dangerous and deliberate. According to different N.G.Os working among the tribal peoples of Singhbhum said the radiation may not bring sudden dramatic illness but slowly undermines the health of the people living in the surrounding villages.
The diseases include blood in cough, ulcer, swelling of bone joints, asthma, eye problems, etc.The people in the Jadugoda area are affected not only by radiation from tailing dams but also by lack of safety at the mines. Fatigue, lack of appetite, respiratory ailments are wide spread. Increases in miscarriages, impotency, infant mortality, Down’s syndrome, skeletal deformities and different skin diseases, children with big heads, thalassemia have been reported.

The contamination of soil and ground water with radionuclides poses a serious problem in areas affected by the precipitation and use of nuclear materials such as uranium, tritium, cesium, strontium, technetium and plutonium.

A need for a cost effective and environmentally safe procedure to reclaim such lands have become a main priority. Large efforts have been conducted to reclaim contaminated lands. In recent years use of plants to remove radionuclides from the soils and the water (Phytoremediation) are gaining importance.

Phytoremediation is the use of certain plants to withdrawal chemicals, compounds, and heavy metals from the soil. Knowledge of these plants, and specifically their biology, has allowed for innovative techniques to reclaim contaminated soil sites. Not all plants have the same capability to withdrawal such things as nickel, lead, cadmium, and arsenic. However, some plants can tolerate high levels of heavy metals and other toxic chemicals. These plants are referred to as hyper accumulators. The best plants used in phytoremediation are those plants that have hay crop characteristics that are tall, high yielding, fast growing, and easy to harvest.

Not only do these plants uptake the unwanted material, but such plants also limit the movement of materials within the soil, and in some cases those materials can then be extracted from the plant and reused.

With the help of plants, scientists have been able to start reclaiming the soil and water surrounding Chernobyl Russia. Scientists have found that sunflowers can remove radionuclides from the soil as well as water, when grown hydroponically. These sunflowers can reduce the amount of uranium concentrations in the water by up to 95%. The sunflowers are then harvested and the radioactive material within the plant is disposed of properly.

The tests used sunflower plants to pull radionuclides from a pond contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl accident. According to scientists, these tests demonstrate that rhizofiltration is a practical way to treat radionuclides, including uranium, cesium, and strontium found in groundwanter.
The roots of the Sunflower cultivar (Helianthus annuus L.), when submerged in water, quickly accumulate heavy metals and radionuclides.

In Jadugoda where the peoples are most affected with radiation, growing Sunflower can be seen as one of the important methods to minimize toxic metals from the water and soil.
To grow well, sunflowers need full sun. Jharkhand State receives sufficient sun rays through out the year. Seeing the favourable climatic conditions, local people and NGOs must be motivated to go for sunflower plantation in the affected areas.

We have become too set on thinking that man can do things better than nature itself. Phytoremediation proves us wrong. We have relied on our technologies and our manmade devices too much. We have become so use to this way of thinking that we have ignored some vital nature processes. Once we understand these processes and what they entail we weave ourselves more tightly into the web of life, and thus become closer to living in harmony with nature.