( Nuclear power plant .Photo credit:Wikimedia.org)
The non-peaceful or military use of nuclear energy as a weapon of mass destruction has created nuclear phobia in many people’s mind, and understandably so. The second atomic bomb ending World War 11 killed or injured 70,000 people in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Tens of thousands died three days earlier when the American bomber, Enola Gay, dropped the first weapon of mass destruction, the first atomic bomb, over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Since then, suspicion that nuclear energy may be used for non-peaceful purposes has made the use of this source of energy an even more contentious issue and has threatened diplomatic ties as between United States and Iran, United States – North Korea, and India – Pakistan.
However, nuclear energy, other than its use for non-peaceful purposes, has great use in many aspects of life:
a ) Medicine
Oncology is an area dedicated to using radiation therapy to treat cancer by directing high energy rays or particles ( Ionizing Radiation) at the cancer cells to destroy them. A popular machine for doing this is a Linear Accelerator which is available in many Nigerian hospitals including National Hospital, Abuja. X-ray machines and all forms of scanning machines use low doses of radiation to make internal tissues and organs visible without opening-up the patient in diagnosis. Nuclear Medicine is yet another area in which the so-called radiopharmaceuticals like Radioiodine are administered as drugs and used with imaging techniques in diagnosis and treatment.
b) Gamma Irradiation
The 20-tonne capacity Gamma Irradiation Facility in Sheda, near Abuja, uses a 340 Kilocurie Cobalt-60 source. It works by passing ionizing radiation through foods like beans, tomatoes, spices etc. to disinfest them by killing the mould, micro-organisms as well as insects and their eggs thereby increasing their shelf life. In most countries, spices are by law not allowed in unless they are irradiated to remove mould or industry fungi. Irradiation is also used to delay sprouting in yams, onions; disinfect medical equipment, strengthen cables and treat artefacts to stop them from decaying.
c) Research
Research reactors like the 30 kilowatt Neutron Research Reactor, the Nigerian Research Reactor (NIRR-1), in the Centre for Energy Research and Training, CERT, Zaria, can be used for training and in elemental analysis of minerals and other products useful in the petroleum and other industries. It can also be used in soil fertility analysis. It uses 90% enriched Uranium-235 which is fissile or Uranium-bomb-making grade, as nuclear fuel. The one kilogram nuclear fuel lasts 10 years and under the registration conditions of the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority, NNRA, it will be shipped back to the manufacturers when it is spent and its useful life is over. The reactor went critical on 30 September, 2004 and has been completely manned by Nigerians without any accident. There is also a 1.7 mv (mega electron volt) Tandem Accelerator in the Centre for Energy Research and Development, CERD, in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, for similar work. It is so sensitive that instead of conducting tests in Parts Per Million (PPM), it can test in Parts Per Billion. There are only two of such in Africa. The other is in South Africa.
Nuclear science is also useful in research into the understanding of processes like Photosynthesis using radio-Carbon as a tracer as well as in dating. The Piltdown man was accepted as an archaeological find in 1912 and thought to be the bridge in evolution between ape and man. However, in 1953 using Fluorine dating techniques, the bones were actually shown to be the skull of a man with the jaw of Orang-utan. From the bones, both the man and Orang-utan lived in the Middle Ages. Similar to Fluorine dating is Carbon dating. Carbon 12, 13, and 14 are the isotopes of carbon. C-14 which is radioactive has a half-life of 5,760 years and the level in archaeological items is used sometimes to estimate the age of the item.
d ) Power and Others
Nuclear energy is used to power many submarines, large naval ships and some spacecraft. Over 150 naval vessels are powered by nuclear energy in the world today, the first being the USS Enterprise, an American aircraft carrier, built in 1964. The U. S., U. K., Russia and France all have nuclear submarines. Small nuclear reactors (BES-5 reactors fuelled by
Uranium-235) were used (1967 – 1988) by the Russians to power their Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellites (RORSAT) satellite series used to monitor merchant vessels. The Reactor Cores are designed to be ejected into the so-called Disposal Orbit, which is a much higher orbit, at the end of the mission.
Perhaps, the most recognised peaceful use of nuclear energy is in electricity generation. By 2008, there were 440 nuclear power stations in 31 countries producing 17% of world’s electricity:
Lithuania — 87.32%, France — 78.25%, Belgium — 57.93%, Sweden — 52.63%.
Heat from nuclear power stations is also used in de-salination plants to remove salt from sea water and make it safe and good for drinking, by distillation.
Only 40% of people in the world today have access to electricity, most of them in the more developed world. It is estimated that between 2010 and 2015, Nigeria will require 25,000 to 30,000 mw of electricity. Total output from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, is about 3,700 mw from total grid capacity of 6,000 mw. About 67% of total electricity demand is met by self-generation and accounts for 22% of total capital cost in Nigeria. The Energy Commission of Nigeria, ECN, puts the cost of such self-generated electricity at 19.05 naira/kwh as against 7.86 naira/kwh as generated by PHCN. Energy is therefore said to be one of the most expensive inputs in Nigerian industries. This has consequences: The most significant of which is that production cost rises and exports suffer, you therefore tend to produce below capacity and employ fewer people. South Africa, less than half Nigeria’s population, with her two nuclear power plants, produces 40,000 mw; U. S. – 900,000 mw.
Seventy-seven per cent of electric power plants in Nigeria use fossil fuels. These fuels are not inexhaustible. An Inter-Ministerial Committee on Power Generation estimates the reserve of oil at 34 billion barrels and gas at 4,293 billion cubic metres. Africa has 8% of world Uranium reserves, Australia – 35%, Russia and other USSR Republics – 29%, Canada – 13%. Actual production is: Canada – 33%, Australia – 15%, Nigeria – 10%. This endowment in Uranium is a good point for those making a case for Nigeria to go nuclear and diversify her energy mix. Nuclear electricity also causes less green gas pollution Forty million kilowatt-hour (kw/h) of electricity can be produced from one tonne of natural Uranium compared to 16,000 tonnes of coal and 80,000 barrels of oil burnt for the same output. Carbon Dioxide emission in generating one kw/h of electricity is one kilogram for coal, 0.5 kg for gas and only 10 grams for nuclear power. The challenges of global warming are fast making nuclear and renewable energy sources more attractive. In the Kyoto Protocol, it was planned that Carbon Dioxide emissions be reduced by 60% by 2050. So, even developing countries rich in oil and gas like Venezuela, Iran, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Libya etc., are today going for nuclear electricity. While a nuclear power plant can work steadily, non-stop, for 50 years, a fossil fuel-fired plant must be shut every year, or so, for maintenance. Some renewable sources like solar and wind, while environmentally-friendly, generate very little and depend on the vagaries of the weather.
Those opposed to nuclear electricity keep remembering the worst accident in a nuclear plant used to generate electricity in the world, the fire in Chernobyl Nuclear Power station, a Light Water Graphite reactor, on April 26, 1986 in which about 30 people died, 300 suffered radiation sickness and another 3,000 developed Thyroid cancer, a mild form of cancer. The other accidents were in Tokai-Mura in Japan in 1999, Core Meltdown at the Three Mile Island in U. S. in 1979, and the first of such accidents in the world in Windscale, U. K., from an early Plutonium Production reactor in 1957. These are the only accidents since the first commercial nuclear plant for electricity generation in Obninsk, Russia on June 26, 1954.
Since then, safety standards have improved. Up till today, more people drown when dams overflow or excess water is released in hydro dams. In the recent incident in Fukushima, Japan, when higher than normal radiation leaked out, science and technology did not fail. Nuclear Power Plants in Japan, as in U. S., are built on earthquake-proof technology as is required by law in quake prone zones. The plants automatically shut down when the quake occurred and suffered no damage. Stand-by electric generators came on to power the water pumps cooling the system to remove residual heat. However, the tsunami that followed submerged the standby generators, cutting off power to the pumps, and this caused the system overheat and radiation leak. There was no death and no one suffered serious injury.
There is always a lesson to be learnt as a people in quest of rapid economic growth and development face tough options in search of energy to power their aspirations. The best choice, as history has shown, is to minimize the risks while aiming very high without forgetting, of course, to leave a better world for the children.
* Obiechina Obba, a science journalist, writes from Abuja.
