Blog

PIB – May 16 , 2019

ECONOMY

Infrastructure: Nuclear Energy

Context

  • The Vice President of India Addressed Scientists and the Staff of Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), in Hyderabad today, on the occasion of 70 years of exploration and research by the organization.
  • The Vice President of India has said that nuclear electricity could significantly reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and has the potential to meet increasing energy demand in the country.

What is Nuclear Electricity?

  • Nuclear power is a clean and efficient way of boiling water to make steam, which turns turbines to produce electricity.
  • Nuclear power plants use low-enriched uranium fuel to produce electricity through a process called fission—the splitting of uranium atoms in a nuclear reactor.
  • Uranium fuel consists of small, hard ceramic pellets that are packaged into long, vertical tubes. Bundles of this fuel are inserted into the reactor.
  • A single uranium pellet, slightly larger than a pencil eraser, contains the same energy as a ton of coal, 3 barrels of oil, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

How a nuclear reactor makes electricity?

  • A nuclear reactor produces and controls the release of energy from splitting the atoms of uranium.
  • Uranium-fuelled nuclear power is a clean and efficient way of boiling water to make steam which drives turbine generators. Except for the reactor itself, a nuclear power station works like most coal or gas-fired power stations.

The reactor core

  • Several hundred fuel assemblies containing thousands of small pellets of ceramic uranium oxide fuel make up the core of a reactor.
  • For a reactor with an output of 1000 megawatts (MWe), the core would contain about 75 tonnes of enriched uranium.
  • In the reactor core the uranium-235 isotope fissions or splits, producing a lot of heat in a continuous process called a chain reaction.
  • The process depends on the presence of a moderator such as water or graphite, and is fully controlled.

 

Two examples of fission of a uranium-235 atom

  • The moderator slows down the neutrons produced by fission of the uranium nuclei so that they go on to produce.
  • Some of the uranium-238 in the reactor core is turned into plutonium and about half of this is also fissioned similarly, providing about one third of the reactor’s energy output.
  • The fission products remain in the ceramic fuel and undergo radioactive decay, releasing a bit more heat. They are the main wastes from the process.
  • The reactor core sits inside a steel pressure vessel, so that water around it remains liquid even at the operating temperature of over 320°C.
  • Steam is formed either above the reactor core or in separate pressure vessels, and this drives the turbine to produce electricity.
  • The steam is then condensed and the water recycled

What are the Benefits of Nuclear Electricity?

  • Each uranium fuel pellet provides up to five years of heat for power generation.
  • And because uranium is one of the world’s most abundant metals, it can provide fuel for the world’s commercial nuclear plants for generations to come.
  • Nuclear power offers many benefits for the environment as well.
  • Power plants don’t burn any materials so they produce no combustion by-products.
  • Additionally, because they don’t produce greenhouse gases, nuclear plants help protect air quality and mitigate climate change.
  • When it comes to efficiency and reliability, no other electricity source can match nuclear.
  • Nuclear power plants can continuously generate large-scale, around-the-clock electricity for many months at a time, without interruption.
  • Currently, nuclear energy supplies 12 percent of the world’s electricity and approximately 20 percent of the energy in the United States.

Nuclear energy’s contribution to global electricity supply

  • Nuclear energy supplies about 10% of the world’s electricity.
  • At present 31 countries use nuclear energy to generate up to three quarters of their electricity, and a substantial number of these depend on it for one-quarter to one-third of their supply.
  • Over 17,000 reactor-years of operational experience have been accumulated since the 1950s by the world’s 454 nuclear power reactors.

 NUCLEAR POWER IN INDIA

An outlook

  • India has a largely indigenous nuclear power programme.
  • The Indian government is committed to growing its nuclear power capacity as part of its massive infrastructure development programme.
  • The government has set ambitious targets to grow nuclear capacity. At the start of 2018 six reactors were under construction in India, with a combined capacity of 4.4 GWe.
  • Because India is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty due to its weapons programme, it was for 34 years largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant and materials, which hampered its development of civil nuclear energy until 2009.
  • Due to earlier trade bans and lack of indigenous uranium, India has uniquely been developing a nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its reserves of thorium.
  • Since 2010, a fundamental incompatibility between India’s civil liability law and international conventions limits foreign technology provision.

India’s Nuclear Programme

  • The first nuclear power plant in the country was set up at Tarapur, Maharashtra on turnkey basis by GE, USA.
  • It was comprised of two nuclear reactor units. The units became operational in October 1969.
  • The first stage to work on the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) began with the construction of RAPS-1&2 at Rawatbhata, Rajasthan.
  • Since beginning from 1983 and over a span of two and a half decades, India has built 16 nuclear power units using its own technology, materials, and equipment.

Presents Nuclear Energy Scenario of India

  • As of 2017, India has 22 nuclear reactors in operation in 8 nuclear power plants.
  • The Union Cabinet cleared the building of 10 new nuclear power plants in May, 2017.
  • The new reactors would be in addition to the ones that are expected to come on stream by 2021-22, and are expected to add 6700 MW in addition to the current capacity of 6780 MW from 22 reactors.

New development

India- Russia signed nuclear plant pact

  • At the 18th India-Russia Annual Summit (2017), India and Russia signed an agreement to set up two units at Kundakulam Power Plant, Tamil Nadu.
  • This pact is significant to give a big boost for India’s clean energy requirements.
  • Each of the two units will have a capacity to produce 1,000 MW of Power.

Operating Nuclear Plants in India

Power Plant Location Capacity

MW

State
Tarapur Atomic Power Station Tarapur 1,400 Maharashtra
Kakrapar Atomic Power Station kakrapar 440 Gujrat
Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant kaiga 880 Karnataka
Rajasthan Atomic Power Station Rawatbhata 1,180 Rajsthan
Madras Atomic Power Station Kalapakkam 440 Tamil Nadu
Narora Atomic Power Station Narora 440 Uttar Pradesh
Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant Kudlukulam 2,000 Tamil Nadu

Effect on Environment

  • The government argued that these power reactors would strengthen the global efforts to combat climate change.
  • However, climate change is not the only environmental problem the world is facing today.
  • No greenhouse gasses are emitted in Nuclear Power generation and in this way environmental costs are significantly less.
  • Nuclear power poses threat to environment and public health.
  • All the nuclear reactors produce hazardous radioactive waste materials.
  • These radioactive wastes remain for thousands of years.
  • Nuclear reactors are also capable of catastrophe events. Example: Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and the Chernobyl Disaster.

Way forward

  • Nuclear power is an alternative to fossil fuels and has lately emerged as an initiative to sustainable development.
  • Nuclear energy though is critical for India’s energy security but is not panacea for the problem. People of India have right to have safe and sustainable energy.
  • It is being widely considered as a solution to global warming and climate change.
  • Future development should depend upon cost benefit analysis taking into account all the externalities involved in various components of energy mix.
  • It is most likely that policy will get incline strongly in favor of non-conventional sources of energy that is solar, wind and biomass.
  • However, debates have raged over nuclear power with regard to its environmental impact and social costs and risks involved, especially in a developing country like India.

ENVIRONMENT

Conference of the Parties (COP 14) to Basel Convention

Context

  • The 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (COP 14) was held in Geneva, Switzerland.
  • There were three meetings–
  1. Basel Convention (COP-14)
  2. Rotterdam Convention (COP-9)
  3. Stockholm Convention (COP-9)
  • The theme of the meetings this year was “Clean Planet, Healthy People: Sound Management of Chemicals and Waste”.

 What is Basel Convention?

  • The Basel Convention is an international treaty on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal.
  • It was adopted in 1989 by the Conference of Plenipotentiaries in Basel, Switzerland.
  • That was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries (LDCs).
  • The Convention is placed under the United Nations Environment Programme.
  • The Convention was opened for signature on 22 March 1989, and entered into force on 5 May 1992.
  • 186 states and the EU are signatories to the Convention.
  • Haiti and the United States have signed the Convention but not ratified it.
  • It does not address the movement of radioactive waste.
  • The Convention is also intended to minimize the amount and toxicity of wastes generated, to ensure their environmentally sound management.

Outcomes of Basel Convention (COP-14)

  • Agreement on a legally-binding, globally-reaching mechanism for managing plastic waste.
  • The Geneva meeting amended the 1989 Basel Convention on the control of hazardous wastes to include plastic waste in a legally-binding framework.
  • it would empower developing countries to refuse “dumping plastic waste” by others.
  • Developed countries like the U.S. and Canada have been exporting their mixed toxic plastic wastes to developing Asian countries claiming it would be recycled in the receiving country.
  • Now the resolution has been adapted that contaminated and most mixes of plastic wastes will require prior consent from receiving countries before they are traded, with the exceptions of mixes of PE, PP and PET.
  • The meeting also undertook to a ban on two toxic chemical groups – Dicofol and Perfluorooctanoic Acid, plus related compounds.

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