Is it safety or political will?

The June 12 report in The Daily Star (TDS) that Kuwait has agreed to finance a 450-megawatt power plant in Chittagong and to sell fuel on deferred payments is a hopeful sign for a country mired in and hindered by all encompassing political unrest, economic malaise of poverty and price spiral, poor governance with politicisation, corruption and most importantly, leadership ineptitude.

TDS further reported that Bangladesh buys petroleum products worth $1.5 billion annually. With ever depleting reserves of crude oil and ever increasing global thirst for petroleum products and their price hikes Bangladesh's foreign oil bills will only see an upward trajectory.

Some recent articles in TDS seem to have opened up the debate on nuclear power with renewed interest. Although the article by Khalid Shams (TDS April 29) disappointed me greatly, a May 29 rebuttal (letter to the editor) by Dr. Anwar Hossain (my former colleague and Chairman of BAEC) induced me to write this piece in defense of nuclear power.

Khalid's arguments against Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) are primitive and predated and were aptly applied against the Rooppur Nuclear Power Project (RONUPP) when it was first conceived in 1961. That was 45 years ago. Also much has advanced since the 1979 Three Mile Island and the 1986 Chernobyl NPP accidents. Today NPP's designs are safer than before and there is no new technology to add to make them any safer.

When it comes to deciding on the sources of electricity generation, the rational criteria are physical safety, environmental pollutions, cost economics, production reliability and stability of fuel supply. These criteria place nuclear power ahead of all other known sources of energy supply.

As of May, 2006, there were 441 NPPs generating electricity in 30 countries worldwide and in 11 countries 27 new plants were reported to be under construction. Of these, 103 commercial NPPs are producing electricity in the US. These plants are, on average, 24 years old, and are licensed to operate for 40 years with an option to renew for an additional 20.

Today, NPPs supply about 20% of the US electricity needs each year. NPPs provided some 16% of the world's electricity production in 2004. Countries that harnessed the largest percentage of their electricity in 2005 from nuclear source were: France, 78.5%; Lithuania, 69.6%; Slovakia, 56.1%; Belgium, 55.6%; Ukraine, 48.5%; Sweden, 46.7%; Republic of Korea, 44.7%; Bulgaria, 44.1%; Slovenia, 42.4%; Hungary, 37.2% ;and Finland, 32.9%.

Will the nuclear sceptics tell me why so many countries harnessing nuclear power would risk the health and lives of their citizens?

In the US and elsewhere, a nuclear power plant is protected by multiple safety systems and physical construction using the so-called “defence-in-depth” strategy. This strategy is designed to protect the public from radiological hazards in the event of a reactor malfunction also protects the reactor's fuel and safety systems from attempted sabotage. There are emergency procedures in place specifically for security situations, including automatic shutdown of the reactor in the event of an attack or a serious malfunction.

The dome that houses the nuclear reactor (also the facility where spent fuel is stored) is designed to be impermeable to catastrophes. The structure is built by steel reinforced concrete (4 to 5 feet wide with thin steel liner) coupled with multiple, redundant safety and plant shutdown systems, to withstand the impact of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and airborne objects such as wide-body commercial aircraft with a very substantial force. The reactor vessel itself is made of steel that is about six inches thick.

For years, America's commercial nuclear power industry has ranked among the safest places to work in. In 2005, the industry's safety accident rate--which indicates the number of accidents that result in lost work time, restricted work or fatalities--was 0.24 per 200,000 worker-hours. The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics ascertained that it is safer to work at an NPP than in the manufacturing sector and even in the real estate and finance industries.

Believe it or not, experts estimated that even if you live next door to a NPP, you would still expose yourself to less radiation each year than you would receive in just one round-trip flight from New York to Los Angeles. Further, to get the same amount of radiation exposure as released from a single diagnostic medical x-ray you would have to live near a NPP for over 2,000 years (yes, over 2000 years).

An NPP cannot explode like an atomic bomb. A bomb converts a large part of its U-235 or plutonium into fission fragments in about 10-8 seconds (that is, 0.00000008 seconds) and then flies apart. This is because a bomb is made of a very compact mass of nearly pure fissionable material, so the chain reaction causing neutrons don't have to travel far to hit another fissionable atom. A power plant is far too big to convert an important part of its fissionable material before it has generated enough heat to fly apart.

People are concerned about both low- and high-level radioactive wastes; the latter, though smaller in volume is somewhat technically problematic. With the rise of nuclear electrification, the volume of spent fuel and other wastes has risen substantially; but is still small and should not be the only deterrent against harnessing nuclear power.

The costs (reactor operations and maintenance plus spent fuel) of producing electricity at a nuclear power plant have been declining over the past decade. In 2004 the average production cost for the U.S. nuclear fleet was 1.68 cents per kwh, down from 3.

63 cents in 1987. In addition, there are no unexpected additional costs.

The estimated average electricity production cost in 2004 for nuclear energy was 1.68 cents/kwh (down from 3.63 cents in 1987), for coal-fired plants 1.90 cents, for oil 5.39 cents, and for gas 5.87 cents. Thus NPPs provide low-cost, reliable power at stable prices and are also essential for cutting energy dependence on foreign sources.

The criterion of reliability is measured by capacity factor -- the percentage of electricity actually produced to relative plant capacity (potential amount the plant is designed to produce). The average capacity factor for U.S. nuclear plants was 89.6% in 2005, compared to coal at 72.6% percent, natural gas at a range of 15.6 to 37.7% (depending on the kind of plant), heavy oil steam turbine at 29.8%, hydro at 29.3%, wind at 26.8%, solar at 18.8%, and geothermal at 75.5%. These statistics are compelling evidence that NPPs are stable source of power generation.

Since there is no scepticism on the question of stable nuclear fuel supplies and the fact that today's nuclear power is the most eco-efficient of all energy sources this article skips any further dialogue on these issues.

In view of the growing need for electricity, the Rooppur Nuclear Power Project (RONUPP) first conceived in 1961 went through numerous national and international feasibility studies and reviews both before and after independence. The latest joint study conducted in 1987-88 by M/s Lahmeyer of Germany and M/s Motor Columbus of Switzerland, reaffirmed the technical, economic and financial viability of the project but it failed to come into being for lack of foreign financing.

Subsequently, a number of reactor suppliers have shown interest when a privatisation policy was proposed which included participation in generating electricity through choices of Build, Operate and Own (BOO) or Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT). In 1997 the IAEA responded positively for providing technical assistance. The same year the government of Bangladesh reviewed the overall situation and decided to go for nuclear power. Hopes were raised only to be dashed. Another decade will soon drown in history having not seen the political will releasing RONUPP out of the incubator.

Dr. Abdullah A. Dewan, formerly a nuclear physicist at BAEC, a nuclear engineer from North Carolina State University, is professor of economics at Eastern Michigan University.