Bio Products Opportunity

Twenty years after Chernobyl, where is nuclear power plant safety headed?

It is the 20th anniversary year of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, where a reactor testing at Chernobyl (now in Ukraine) went terribly wrong on the night of April 25th-26th. This led to the world’s worst nuclear disaster involving radiation exposure and explosions. Other nuclear power plant accidents include Chalk River, Canada in 1952, Windscale Pile No. 1, England in 1957, East Germany (near Greifswald) in 1976, Three Mile Island, USA in 1979, Tokaimura, Japan in 1999 and Mihama, Japan in 2004 (http://www.infoplease.com). Some of these disasters led to immediate deaths, chronic diseases like thyroid cancer and leukemia, and major damage to the environment such as groundwater contamination and burning up of plants and trees. Property was rendered useless while expensive rehabilitation, remediation and monitoring programs were carried out. The nuclear power plant disasters were due to either or all of these: improper reactor design, equipment failure and human error.

Twenty years after Chernobyl, where is nuclear power plant safety headed? The world’s worst nuclear disaster led to a major overhaul of safety plans in nuclear power plants so that improved safety measures are now deeply embedded into design and operation. Regulatory controls are established in most countries. Failsafe mechanisms are based on state-of-the-art technology. Containment is given high importance now than in the pre-Chernobyl days. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has developed a series of Safety Standards including reactor design, operation, fuel handling and storage, fires and explosion protection, radiation protection and radioactive waste management (http://www-ns.iaea.org). The Convention of Nuclear Safety entered into force in 1996 and works by encouraging members to submit for peer review their reports on implementation of obligations of the IAEA Safety Fundamentals. According to IAEA, all countries with operating nuclear power plants are parties to the Convention.

The Chernobyl reactor design itself, regarded as ‘flawed’, was an ‘RBMK’ type: high powered, cooled with water and moderated with graphite. There are still eleven such reactors in Russia and one in Lithuania (http://www.world-nuclear.org). Nuclear scientists and environmentalists alike are constantly pressing for the decommissioning of these units. However, according to IAEA, these RBMK units are now safety updated with a different control rod design, more control rods, increase in fuel enrichment from 2 to 2.4 %, rapid shut down sequence down to 12 seconds from 19, manual reactor trip and at least 81 additional absorbers to inhibit operation at low power where the RBMK reactor turns highly unstable (http://www.iaea.org). Ironically, at Chernobyl, the sarcophagus (protective thick concrete box) built to contain radiation from the melted reactor core is now crumbling twenty years after being hastily constructed. The sarcophagus shelter contains more than 200 tons of uranium and nearly a ton of radio-nuclides; plans to stabilize the shelter and construct another concrete shield over it (to last for several decades) are falling into place under the tutelage of the Chernobyl Shelter Fund (http://www.iaea.org).

In North America, the chance aversion of a major disaster at the Three Mile Island in 1979 raised several questions and concerns. This is in turn resulted in many changes in the way nuclear power plants are designed, operated and protected. According to U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), all reactor designs in the USA are inherently different from that of the flawed Chernobyl design. To avoid another Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, stronger containment measures, operational controls and protection against lapses, continued vigilance and review of any signs of weaknesses are mandatory practise. The NRC regulates the operation, operator licensing and new reactor licensing of nuclear plants (http://www.nrc.gov). It has an office that oversees Emergency Preparedness and Response plans. Protection plans have expanded to now include strategies against sabotage and terrorist attacks on nuclear energy plants.

Nuclear plant operators the world over are connected through the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), formed in 1989 with a goal of ensuring the highest level of safety standards in the nuclear energy industry. The four arms of its safety mission are peer reviews, operating experience, professional and technical development, and technical support and exchange. Peer review is the heart of its operation and is conducted by a voluntary WANO team who are invited to stay for two weeks at a nuclear power plant. The team assesses the organization, administration, operations, maintenance, engineering support, radiological protection and operating experience. Other areas examined include industrial safety, plant status and configuration control, equipment performance and condition (http://www.wano.org.uk).

Nuclear energy as a major fuel supply is gaining support from all sides including the environmental community, what with technological advancements and awareness combined to pave the way to a safer production of nuclear energy. Since Chernobyl, we’ve come a long way.

Sincerely,
Chitra Gowda, Editor

Original post by Moderator

Would this vacation season be the one where you’ll see more people fueling up on ᭉ? Is the ethanol industry ready to meet the demand?

Spring is here! With the warmer weather people are talking of upcoming vacations this year; car trips to the Grand Canyon, Disney World, Niagara Falls and other places of interest. There’s another buzz going around: would this vacation season be the one where you’ll see more people fueling up on 85% ethanol fuel at the gas pump station? Is the ethanol industry ready to meet the demand? These are some of the questions we’ll be looking into for this month’s editorial.  

The 85% ethanol (and 15% gasoline) fuel is commonly called ᭉ and mainly produced from corn in the US although it can just as well be obtained from molasses and sugar cane. Many car manufacturers’ products are compatible with the use of ᭉ Daimler Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and Nissan are some of them (http://www.e85fuel.com). Cars that can run on E85 are called ‘flexible fuel vehicles’ (FFVs) and regular gas can be used in them as well.

Last year, US President George Bush signed the Energy Policy Act which declares a renewable fuel standard (RFS) to start at 4 billion gallons this year and to grow to 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel in 2012 (http://www.ethanolrfa.org/). What do these numbers mean in the larger picture of actual consumption? The US motor gasoline consumption is around 150 billion gallons per year (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov). Ethanol fuel will hence account for only 2.7% of the total gasoline used in the US in 2006.

The US Department of Energy has compared fuel costs on cars run with regular gas and with ᭉ the latter costs more on an annual basis but greenhouse emissions are lesser with ᭉ. See http://www.fueleconomy.gov for comparisons between cars based on fuel costs, emissions and miles per gallons. For example, the owner of a 6 cylinder, 3.5 L Chevrolet Impala will spend $1620 USD on gasoline every year as compared to a higher expense of $1901 USD on ethanol fuel. Mile per gallon (MPG) obtained using E85 is lower than that achieved with the use of gasoline. However, for the same car, greenhouse gas emission, as carbon di oxide, is 7.4 tons/year with gasoline, and 5.9 tons/year with E85. Ethanol, like other alternate fuels, will not contain methyl tert butyl ether (MTBE), a carcinogenic fuel additive now banned in several states of the US. Almost all states in the US have ethanol gas stations but the same cannot be said for other countries. The high costs of producing and transporting ethanol fuel as well as the need of specialized dispensing equipment result in increased prices per gallon at the consumer’s end. These factors will impact the extent of E85 fuel use.

On the other hand, besides benefits to the environment, local production of ethanol fuel is expected to reduce the dependence on fuel imports from other countries, provide jobs and strengthen rural economies (http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca). It may very well be the next decade before technological advances allow ᭉ to achieve the same MPG and cost the same as regular gasoline. Switching over to ᭉ will then be easier on consumers who would expect the same if not better service from the fuel they use.

Sincerely,
Chitra Gowda, Editor

Original post by Moderator

The earth’s temperature is steadily on the rise. For the world over, 2005 was not only another warm year; it was the warmest in history.

The earth’s temperature is steadily on the rise. For the world over, 2005 was not only another warm year; it was the warmest in history. It is estimated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) that an average increase of upto 1 0F has happened since the late 19th century. By the next century a further increase of 2.2 to 10 0F will occur http://yosemite.epa.gov.

What does this mean for our planet? The implication is a change in the earth’s atmosphere itself. Higher levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide result in the warming of the earth’s surface. This leads to drastic temporal and spatial changes such as changed weather patterns, rise in sea levels, warming of the North and South Poles, heat waves, increase in the occurrences of storms, hurricanes and flooding. These have a grave impact on human and animal life, property and the environment. The causes of global warming are well documented. Vehicular and industrial emissions from the burning of fuels contribute to carbon di oxide and other gases that trap the sun’s heat close to earth’s surface, producing a greenhouse effect. Livestock gas emissions (pun not intended!) are also a major contributor to global warming ‘greenhouse’ gases. In 2005, it is estimated that 6500 million metric tons of carbon equivalent emissions were released to the atmosphere, a 25% increase since the industrial revolution 150 years ago http://www.eia.doe.gov.

Measures aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale include international emissions trading as per the Kyoto Protocol. Around thirty-five industrialized countries have agreed, under the Protocol, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 5% of their 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012 http://unfccc.int. Yet to emerge sustainable development technologies include carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the use of ‘cleaner’ fuels like hydrogen or ethanol and tapping into winds, solar or geothermal energy. CCS involves the trapping of the carbon di oxide gas (produced when coal is burned) deep inside the earth’s surface for permanent storage http://www.nrdc.org. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published a full report on CCS, available at http://www.ipcc.ch. The use of cleaner fuels from biomass is still in the nascent stages of production, but show promise as alternate sources of fuel for generations to come. Cost effectiveness will play a major role in deciding the fate such greenhouse gas reducing measures supporting the principles of sustainable development. Practices already in place include use of energy efficient appliances and vehicles, while hybrid cars (electricity-fuel combination) have carved a small but steadily growing niche in the car market.

According to USEPA you, as an individual, can change what happens to about 4800 pounds of carbon equivalent (which is roughly 32% of the emissions per person) in three key areas: electricity you use in your home, waste you produce and personal transportation http://yosemite.epa.gov. Something as simple as using a compact fluorescent light bulb instead of an incandescent bulb can help reduce around 700 pounds of carbon emissions per bulb, besides saving your money on energy bills http://www.nrdc.org. Food for thought!

Sincerely,
Chitra Gowda, Editor

Original post by Moderator

Drinking water quality has always been an issue of concern for people globally. How will the changing legistlation help consumers?

legislation that arose from the Walkerton incident included the ‘Safe Drinking Water Act’ of Canada in 2002, a set of rules governing the supply of safe drinking water, but fell short of providing strategies on protecting water at the source. These came later in 2004 with an Ontario draft legislation on watershed based source water protection based on Justice O’Conner’s recommendations. The draft can be accessed at http://www.ene.gov.on.ca.

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently developed a comprehensive handbook on watershed restoration and protection strategy plans, available at http://www.epa.gov.

EPA has also formulated the Watershed-Based National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permitting Policy http://www.epa.gov.

Source protection plans offer a means to prevent or mitigate point and non point sources of pollution to surface water and groundwater in a watershed. They are ‘preventive maintenance’ schemes rather than applications of treatment solutions. Ontario’s draft legislation mentioned above is based on the ecosystems approach where water quality and resources are not only protected but also enhanced. The EPA’s NPDES permitting policy promotes the use of watershed-based permits by point sources, thus regulating discharge on a watershed scale. All watershed based source water protection plans are holistic and encompass elements such as identifying and regulating pollution sources, water budgeting, federal and provincial funding, and delineating areas of concern.

In spite of the growing awareness on water quality issues, incidents like the Kashechewan First Nation reserve (James Bay, Canada) have occurred. A boil water advisory has been in effect for more than two years at Kashechewan, due to unstable chlorine levels and E. coli contamination. In October 2005, an emergency was declared, all residents were told to stop drinking the water altogether, and were airlifted to a different location.

The need of the hour is implementation backed by strong legislation. Once the latter is in place, funding is typically mandatory. The watershed based approach will help protect our water resources and ensure clean drinking water for generations to come.

Sincerely,
Chitra Gowda, Editor

Original post by Moderator