My Blogs : First Opinion ; Radiation Protection Issues ; My Voice

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Friday, July 7, 2017

Rise in sea level went up since 1990s


This is the title of the news item in TOI dated June 28, 2017. What next?

The previously assumed leader of climate change deal, US President withdraws from the Paris Climate deal agreed, by over 200 nations, in December 2015. Now, the movement is without any strong leader to spearhead the compliance of the agreement by the nations.

As per the news item, the annual rate of sea level rise increased to 3.3 mm in 2014 from 2.2 mm in 1993. If it continues at the current rate it will rise to 33 mm in a century! Low lying coasts around the world will be under water.

In-spite of the melting of ice on land and the huge icebergs (floating mass of ice detached from a glacier and carried out to sea) in large quantities, the levels have arisen significantly for the simple reason that the volume created by the melting of ice is more than the volume of the water resulted from the melting of the ice. The space can easily accommodate the water without causing any rise in the sea level.

However, it is necessary that a popular and powerful leader should take up the responsibility to carry on this all important climate agreement so that the rise is contained to avoid flooding of sensitive industrial and nuclear installations which are located on the sea shores.
  

Saturday, May 27, 2017

End of nuclear power? It is only the beginning!

There was a report in TOI dated 21st may 2017 indicating that solar power is replacing nuclear power world-wide. Apparently, it may look like that, since widest possible negative publicity is given in the media for nuclear-related incidents and accidents highlighting trivial risk to the population by these occurrences. The risks are only on paper and there are hardly any fatalities related directly to the nuclear incidents/accidents, in real time.

Countries are spending disproportionately large amount of money on safety systems because mathematically some deaths can be predicted that too after two or three decades of exposures to radiation. This makes nuclear power a little more expensive than other modes of electricity generation. But things are changing fast! It is being proved that there are no observable health effects which can be directly attributed to exposure to low level radiation dose.

India should go for indigenous standardized nuclear power plants. Buy uranium from friendly countries. Reprocess spent uranium fuel to get fissile plutonium, a better nuclear fuel than uranium. Separate Cs-137 radionuclide which is the major part of the nuclear waste. Use this Cs-137 as radiation source for industrial applications, such as food irradiation or blood irradiator. The radiation safety scenario is creditable.  

Nuclear power is far less polluting than burning coal or oil in thermal power plants.


Friday, February 24, 2017

Uranium from sea water?

There was a news item in TOI dated 22 Feb. 2017 on “Harnessing N-Power from Oceans”.  Presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials like uranium and thorium in water, soil and rocks is known. However, the concentration of these materials in very low, in parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb). Recovering the elements at such low levels from such complex matrices is very difficult and not cost effective. Japanese and Indian researchers have done good amount of work in the extraction of uranium from sea water.

Uranium concentration in sea water is about 3 ppm (3 milligram of uranium in one cubic meter of sea water). If one multiplies this by the total volume of sea water, there will be billions of tons of uranium potentially available. As per Japanese study, the cost of uranium may work out to be over 300 USD per kg! May be, it can be the last desperate resort for producing uranium for power generation.

Do we have to resort this when other better options are available? Thorium is more abundant on the surface of the earth (ex. Monazite minerals on sea beaches). The thorium can be effectively utilised for power generation. India is one of the countries which extensively studied thorium fuel cycle for producing U-233 which is fissile material and can be used in nuclear reactors for producing power. Countries should focus on this instead of recovering uranium from sea water on commercial scale, at unimaginable cost.

Then there is unlimited fusion energy which can be harnessed. It is also satisfying to see the solar power being harnessed world-wide for producing electricity.