Nuclear Waste Dump In Australia, Nuclear Waste Management Crises In France, WIPP New Mexico USA

Nuclear Waste Dump in Australia

Describe about Nuclear waste dump in Australia, nuclear waste management crises in France, WIPP new Mexico USA.

Simply put, nuclear energy is the production of power through the process of splitting atoms where the energy produced in the process is used to heat and boil water that turns turbines for electricity generation. The nuclear technology utilises the energy emitted by splitting atoms of specific kind elements.

The first instances of the technology were developed in the 1940’s  when countries were particularly in the quest for atomic bombs. However, the bomb run came to a halt with the world war two in 1945 after the historic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

However in the early 50’s the nuclear competition shifted to the peaceful purposes of nuclear fission categorically for electric power generation. Nuclear energy is today among the world’s most promising and sustainable sources of power.  Production of this form of energy involves two kinds of processes:

Fission is the breakdown or splitting of large atoms into two and is accompanied by the release of an enormous amount of energy. Among the elements used in atomic splitting include  Uranium and Plutonium among other radioactive elements.  Virtually all commercial nuclear power generating plants in operation in the world today use the fission technique to produce heat which is converted into electricity.

The second process in which energy can be created is known as nuclear fusion. Fusion is the process of merging of two-minute atoms such as Hydrogen or Helium to produce heavier particles and massive heat energy in the end. It is established by scientist that nuclear fusion can result to huge amounts of energy as compared to fission. However, economically viable methods of power generation through nuclear fusion have not yet been established by the scientific fraternity though a lot of research is underway. When proven viable, the world energy scene could potentially be levelled and get complete disruption.

The world boasts over four hundred nuclear power reactors in the world today with almost a hundred concentrated in the United States of America.  These plants are such attractive to the host countries as they produce base load electricity twenty-four hours a day seven day a week without the release of environmentally hazardous contents including the mush fated carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Nuclear technology has undergone many enhancements since its infant days making it possible for the world at the moment to generate more electricity from nuclear energy than it did from all other sources combined during the early days of the technology, although the result is due to the rising demand for energy worldwide. Civil nuclear power currently possesses over 16,500 reactor years of know-how and equipment which is almost 12 percent of global electricity needs.

Nuclear Waste Management Crises in France

 Many countries in the world are building research centres for nuclear reactors to give a basis of neutron beams for scientific research and the creation of medical and industrial isotopes.

As it stands in the world, there are eight nations that are known to have the nuclear weapons capability while fifty-six nations have approximately two hundred and forty public research reactors and interestingly more than 30 percent of this countries are developing economies.

Globally thirty-one countries are hosting around four hundred and forty commercial nuclear power reactors with a total installed capacity of more than 380,000 MWe ( World Nuclear Association, 2016). There are also approximately sixty-five more nuclear power reactors are in the building which in their completion it’s expected to inject roughly eighteen percent of the current capacity. There also around one hundred and fifty in advanced planning stages in various states globally which when completed will factor in about half of today’s global capacity. However, a counterbalance comes in since with nuclear power reactors; there is a specific number of years that it can operate and hence while new ones are springing worldwide the old ones are retiring from service.

Nevertheless,  nuclear power reactors in use today result in the creation of radioactive nuclear waste which requires extreme caution in handling and storage. During the fission process of splitting atoms to discharge power, the smaller fragments that are left back often remain in excited states. In this state the small particles emanate dynamic elements that can potentially harm flora and fauna. This nuclear waste must hence be managed and kept out of the environment for the longest time possible, possibly hundreds and thousands of years, for this particle to lose most of their radioactive properties. Engineering systems to stay apt for that long is a daunting engineering and design task. The idea of the Australian government to take the initiative to create a nuclear waste dumping site for the world is what categorically forms the fundamentals of this article.

The project is a cash cow that could put millions into South Australia’s Treasury but now with the suggestion of the construction a nuclear waste deposit in the state fast gaining grip, the question remains whether the move will ever be safe. Regrettably this has yet to be established. The biggest dilemma this far has been public resistance to any plans for long-term storage amenities of high-level nuclear waste(chang, 2016).

WIPP New Mexico USA

No country in history has fruitfully built a long term nuclear storage facility in the history of nuclear power generation. The shift astonished many because South Australia leads nationally in renewable energy production and also because uranium prices and extraction had plunged after the Fukushima crisis (Campbel, 2011).

A commission led by ex-state Governor Kevin Scarce was given the task of groping development preferences in the range of uranium extraction, extended uranium processing, domestic nuclear power and the custody sophisticated radioactive waste management facility.

The imperial commission noted the primary emanating from the creation of an industry accumulating the world’s  second-hand fuel rods was the emanation of radiation into the natural environment, as well as the segments left behind discharging radiation which could be gasped or ingested by persons and other living organisms. The formed commission claimed that Finland and Sweden had both created safe amenities for the durable dumping of nuclear waste (Karp, 2016). They further explicate that perils could be moderated by keeping the waste in solid form in geologically stable areas, and some layers of wrapping and containers to avoid the waste from polluting groundwater.

However, Finland has led the world to issue a building license for a permanent underground nuclear waste storage facility. According to reuters news, the commissions information is contradictory given that the project was just given a go ahead to commence the construction (Anon, 2016). The Posiva Oy’s project in Olkiluoto  Island in Western Finland is expected to begin operations by 2023.

According to the leader of the project, Janne Mokka, the project to be undertaken is based on the research carried for forty years. Clearly, being the pioneering project, it is not right for the commission to site the project as an example.  Sweden has such plans, but according to Posiva, it is a few years at the back of Finland further explaining the reason why it might not be the safest idea for Australia to jump into the boat yet.

Furthermore, Finland deep geological burial sites are running on high costs and sophistication.  Following more than seventy years of commercial nuclear power processes, no country on earth has an ultimate dumping site for mixed waste and the segment is scattered with futile ventures, timeline holdups and enormous cost overruns.

Globally, radioactive waste management is a mounting and unsettled management issue and environmental problem. One thing the South Australian state should think about is the fact that if nuclear waste management was so clear-cut or money-spinning venture, then it could have been done by nations like France and the US which have the largest nuclear production facilities in the world (Nowlin, 2016).

To make the situations even more complicated, we as a nation have narrow nuclear industry know-how and infrastructure and we run short of the authoritarian structure to deal with such waste.  Furthermore, a couple of state and federal laws explicitly prohibit such actions with no bipartisan political backing in a profoundly dubious and disputed Australian civic field(Rani et al. ,2016).

Australia’s miserable track record in regards to the administration of our humble accumulation of radioactive waste wants to add more doubts for the confidence in the global aspiration.

French’s nuclear industry commenced its nuclear power production roughly five decades ago. Ever since the beginning, the supervision of nuclear waste has been fundamentally neglected due to the complexity of the handling process and limited technology. To date massive amounts of waste linger in the unconditioned and unsteady state, records of historical disposal location are missing or varnished. Among the world’s largest disposal sites near the La Hague reprocessing place is seeping out into the underground water. Clear evidence is rising that a newly constructed nuclear dumpsite in the Champagne region of France is also seeping out radioactive elements into the ground water. The French nuclear waste authority ANDRA has a little record of the vast numbers of popular waste categories and its feared that many haven’t been acknowledged by the Chief waste producers EDF and Cogema. It’s also a rising worry even to the French due the states at both disposal sites(Hatch, 2015).

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, USA, is a placement location for long-standing mid level waste from the America’s nuclear weapons agenda. The plant contains approximately 171,000 waste facilities that are secured in salt caverns six hundred and forty metres below the ground. In 2014 February the facility, which is considered as high-level got a major setback after an explosion occurred to one of the barrels seriously compromising the integrity of the installation. The contaminants are feared to have extended through the 3000 feet channels through the ducts into the environment and atmosphere (Thakur 2016).

The accident led to twenty-two employees on site receiving low-level interior radiation contact. It is believed a chemical reaction was triggered between nitrate salts and organic waste used as an absorbent produced adequate heat levels to melt fasteners on at least one drums. However, research on the same have failed to make a replica of the chemical reaction that took place in that fateful event. Hundreds of such drums are still packed within the location resulting to questions whether these deep geological dump sites are any safer or just a time bomb waiting to explode into humanity and the general ecosystem (Thakur et al. 2015).

Conclusions

From a political stand view, the idea of placing a nuclear dumpsite may appear as a very lucrative move. However, politicians and other stakeholders pushing on the matter should critically analyse the situation and learn from other events before putting up with the idea. It sounds absurd that a country with infinitesimal knowledge in a subject is so confident to take a global challenge. I agree that ambition and confidence pays, however embracing nuclear the nuclear dumpsite idea sounds rather like Australian masses knocking on heaven doors. The whole thought should fast be put to a halt to allow the fast runners to make their move quickly, after all, they got the brains behind the entire project. It’s imperative for Australia to focus on what we know best-mining uranium.

References

Anon, (2016). .

Campbell, R., 2011. Fukushima Nuclear Crisis. DIANE Publishing.

Hatch, M.T., 2015. Politics and nuclear power: Energy policy in Western Europe. University Press of Kentucky.

Karp, P. (2016). Inquiry backs plan to store world’s nuclear waste in outback Australia. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/15/inquiry-backs-nuclear-waste-dumps-for-outback-australia [Accessed 23 May 2016].

NewsComAu. (2016). Why small errors can mean big nuclear problems. [online] Available at: https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/eric-schlosser-exposes-our-nuclear-delusions-at-festival-of-dangerous-ideas/news-story/8c07f4215ba3aeebbecda332b40889fa [Accessed 23 May 2016].

Nowlin, MC 2016, ‘Policy Change, Policy Feedback, and Interest Mobilization: The Politics of Nuclear Waste Management’, Review Of Policy Research, 33, 1, pp. 51-70, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 May 2016.

Poppiti, J. and Sheffield, R., 2016. Investigation of an Accidental Radiological Release in an Underground Disposal Facility. Health physics, 110(2), pp.S39-S47.

Rani, N, Shrivastava, J, & Bajpai, R 2016, ‘Long-term performance assessment of nuclear waste and natural glasses in the geological repository: a geochemical modelling’, Current Science (00113891), 110, 2, pp. 214-219, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 May 2016.

Thakur, P., 2016. Source term estimation and the isotopic ratio of radioactive material released from the WIPP repository in New Mexico, USA. Journal of environmental radioactivity, 151, pp.193-203.

Thakur, P., Lemons, B.G., Ballard, S. and Hardy, R., 2015. Environmental and health impacts of February 14, 2014, radiation release from the nation’s only deep geologic nuclear waste repository. Journal of environmental radioactivity, 146, pp.6-15.