Decommissioning Nuclear Facilities

The IAEA 51st General Conference was the setting for the launch of a new international initiative aimed at bolstering cooperation between organizations involved in the decommissioning of nuclear installations. Called the International Decommissioning Network (IDN), the initiative will act as a conduit for the flow of skills and information from those Member States with proven decommissioning expertise to those facing the challenge for the first time or whose programs are constrained by lack of resources.

Around the world more than 350 nuclear installations - including research and medical as well as power reactors - are ageing and approaching the end of their operational life-span. Decommissioning a nuclear facility is a complicated and costly process. Some have already been shut down and await the complicated and the costly task of decommissioning. The decommissioning is a process by which the facilities are cleared of industrial and radioactive contamination so that they may safely be used for other purposes. Many of these facilities are small and widely distributed geographically and the decommissioning strategies need to be tailored to cope with limited experience, infrastructure and funding.

Formed just a year ago, the International Decommissioning Network (IDN) is changing the way knowledge, expertise and information are shared between Member States. It was noted that many developing member states have become sources of very specific technical expertise in decommissioning of nuclear fuel cycle facilities (Source: IAEA News). The IAEA should serve as a nodal agency to collate and disseminate the decommissioning knowledge to Member States without much red tapism.

Nuclear Science for Food Security: Plant Breeding Technique Can Help Beat World Hunger (IAEA News)

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called for increased investment in a plant breeding technique that could bolster efforts aimed at pulling millions of people out of the hunger trap. IAEA scientists use radiation to produce improved high-yielding plants that adapt to harsh climate conditions such as drought or flood, or that are resistant to certain diseases and insect pests. Called mutation induction, the technique is safe, proven and cost-effective. It has been in use since the 1920s.

This year, shortages combined with increasing demand have created a new global food crisis. At its root: adverse weather conditions linked to climate change, the diversion of land for the cultivation of bio-fuels, and a tendency to live on food credit. As usual, the poor are hardest hit by rising prices. In addition to the more than 850 million people worldwide who were already going hungry, millions more now are being pushed below the one-dollar-a-day poverty level.

For decades the IAEA, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has assisted its Member States to produce more, better and safer food. In plant breeding and genetics, its expertise is helping countries around the world to achieve enhanced agricultural output using nuclear technology.

Already more than 3000 crop varieties of some 170 different plant species have been released through the direct intervention of the IAEA: they include barley that grows at 5000 meters (16,400 ft) and rice that thrives in saline soil. These varieties provide much needed food as well as millions of dollars in economic benefits for farmers and consumers, especially in developing countries.

Plants produced using induced mutation are cultivated throughout the world. Others are being developed, seeking to enhance agriculture and resolve problems caused by climate change or disease/insect pests. In India, Mutant groundnut series "TAG" has early maturity, high pod growth and greatly improved harvest rates. Total domestic seed sales amount to 132,000 tons and cover 6.5 million hectares (16.06 million acres). Good going.

Nuclear decay data – New by ICRP

Committee 2 of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has the responsibility for providing dose coefficients for intakes of radionuclides by workers who are occupationally exposed and by members of the public exposed to radionuclides in the environment. During the past thirty years, these coefficients have been based on the energies and intensities of emitted radiations tabulated in Publication 38 issued in 1983. That publication, developed during the preparation of Publication 30, addressed 820 radionuclides – 764 with half-lives greater than 10 min and 56 with half-lives less than 10 min as either decay products of a longer lived isotope or a radioisotope of potential interest in nuclear medicine.

The new publication announced by the ICRP supersedes Publication 38 and provides data on the energies and intensities of the emissions of 1251 radionuclides. Unlike in the publication 38, the data are provided in electronic form on a CD rather than printed tables. The data will serve as the basis for calculation of absorbed doses in organs and tissues of the body and the evaluation of localized depth dose distributions. All radioisotopes of elements of atomic number through 100 (hydrogen to fermium) with half-lives greater than 1 min for which the nuclear structure information were sufficient for a meaningful assessment of the nuclear and atomic emissions are included in the publication. This includes 922 isotopes of half-life greater than 10 min and 329 isotopes of half-life less than 10 min. This departure enables presenting the data in a form need by the dosimetrist and the inclusion of the continuous energy distributions of beta particles and that of neutrons which accompany spontaneous fission.
(Source: ICRP Website)

The gaping holes in Indian Atomic Power Plant security!

It was reported by Mumbai Mirror that there are 30 gaps in the 3-km boundary wall of Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS). The paper reports that the security measures are abysmally poor! This is a shocking revelation to hear after the Terrorist’s outrages in Mumbai. Even the CISF personnel who guards the power plants could be bribed (a paltry sum of Rs.100) to get an entry to any body! Mr. Ramamurthy, Director, TAPS 3&4 even thanked Mumbai Mirror for “awakening us”! Was he sleeping? The statement of the kind “TAPS is safe” is NOT acceptable to the public.

There are nuclear power plants operating in Tarapur, Kalpakkam and Mumbai, which are very close to the sea. It is now proved beyond doubt that the terrorists came to Mumbai via sea route on one dinghy, and country’s sea shores (8000 km long) are ill-guarded or hardly guarded. The government should immediately wake up to this reality and do all possible to avoid a possible NUCLEAR TERRORISM which has fear-dimension, a million times more, than what Mumbaites have gone through recently.