nuclear-news

No plans to make Kolar gold mine a nuclear dump yard

“Above all, the capping of nuclear liability for protecting the interest of nuclear suppliers and the virtual impossibility of extending insurance coverage, speak of the incalculable and unfathomable magnitude and range of risk in the affair”

The Hindu

No plans to make Kolar gold mine a nuclear dump yard

TNN | Nov 28, 2012, 01.22 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Kudankulam nuclear power plantoperator Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd(NPCIL) on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it has not identified the abandoned Kolar gold mine as a dump yard for spent nuclear fuel. 

NPCIL executive director Ashok Chauhan said its earlier affidavit narrating the development of an underground chamber in Kolar gold mine had led to unwarranted speculation in a section of media about converting it into a site for storage of nuclear waste.

The NPCIL had said in its November 7 affidavit, “Keeping in line with the international developments, the initial focus of work in the 1980s mainly centred on setting up generic underground research laboratory (URL) in one of the abandoned mines in India and resulted in the development of an underground chamber in Kolar gold mine located in south India.”

It said permanent geological disposal of vitrified high level radioactive waste in specifically designed geological repository (DGR), located at a suitable depth in a carefully selected site constituted the end point of management of spent fuel.

Answering allegations by petitioner G Sundarrajan through advocate Pranav Sachdeva about lack of preparedness to store spent fuel from KNPP, the NPCIL said the need for managing KNPP would arise only a few decades from now.

NPCIL said, “Current efforts within the Indian geological repository programme are directed towards granite based URL. In India, we have granite rock formation spread all over the country. As such, setting up of a deep geological repository is not much of a technological challenge, but as the case internationally elsewhere, it is more of socio-political issue.”

It informed the court, which is hearing the PIL alleging that essential safety measures identified after the Fukushima disaster had not been put in place at KNPP, that India had decades of experience and expertise in management of radioactive waste.

“It is recognized that the technologies currently adopted are adequate and safe, but research and development efforts continue for improvement of existing technology and development of new technologies so as to enhance process performance and meet future challenges,” NPCIL said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-plans-to-make-Kolar-gold-mine-a-nuclear-dump-yard-NPCIL/articleshow/17394082.cms

Nuclear waste is forever

A. R. M. RAMESH

March 11, 2012

Warnings have, by and large, been discarded perhaps ever since the forbidden apple was eaten. So is the fate of the warning from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown almost on the ides of March last year, on March 11, 2011 to be precise. Nuclear apologists who earlier professed that lessons had been learnt from Chernobyl and that design modifications had been made in reactors to avert another accident are now brushing aside Fukushima as a very rare chance occurrence of earthquake followed by tsunami, something not applicable to Indian conditions. But the bottom line could as well be that the risk in a nuclear reactor is perhaps unpredictable and inherent.

In the cry for ensuring safety and, more particularly, in the proud assurances by the scientific community and the administrators on the state-of-the-art measures of safety, what has been conveniently hidden under the blanket is the unsolved problem of disposal of nuclear or radioactive waste. Annually, 30 tonnes of radioactive waste is generated in a1000-MW reactor. Can any expert panel of the State or the Centre or, for that matter an internationally reputed body of experts, assure us that the problem of the nuclear waste has been solved?

With the half life of nuclear substances in use running into tens of thousands of years, disposal of nuclear waste is a misnomer in phrase. Radioactive wastes are just hidden (vitrified & sealed in containers) with the knowledge and consciousness of the nature of their hazards. Science as it stands now can do nothing to reduce radioactivity of the waste once it has been created on short-term considerations. It is said that in the nuclear countries as much as three lakh tonnes of radioactive nuclear wastes remain accumulated.

What is the sanctity and tenability on which the government and the scientific community seek to consciously and deliberately accumulate a toxic substance on the off chance that it may be possible to get rid of the same at a later date with scientific advancement? Mr. Abdul Kalam says we have to dare to make history. How would we be judged for daring to commit future generations for several millenniums to come to tackling highly toxic waste we do not have the knowhow to make safe except hide it in steel and concrete containers? Is it science at all to speak of its safety not in terms of centuries but in terms of several millenniums, even while the scientific community is quite uneasy, to say the least on its disturbing potential?

Astounding options

The very fact that scientists are thinking aloud on the astounding options of “throwing” the waste beyond our biosphere by launch vehicle, besides sea-based options, deep-hole disposal and geological disposal (an ongoing project of gigantic dimension in Finland) not only highlights their consciousness of its dangerous potential but also pooh-poohs the idea of nuclear energy being an ecologically acceptable and cheaper option.

Above all, the capping of nuclear liability for protecting the interest of nuclear suppliers and the virtual impossibility of extending insurance coverage, speak of the incalculable and unfathomable magnitude and range of risk in the affair.

But then the State plunged in darkness is power hungry. Business houses, manufacturers, traders and perhaps housewives as well lament the delay in switching on the Kudankulam reactor. The fact remains that from 1400 MW in 1947 the electricity generating capacity went up to 1,82,000 MW in 2011 by more than 100 times with renewable energy sources yet remaining to be tapped a great deal.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article2982263.ece

November 28, 2012 - Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized