Mixed Thoughts About Malaysia NPP

Our government is trying to spread little by little about going nuclear in the future years. Many oppose as expected, although there are some agree for whatever it is, provided the energy is cheap. So I stumble upon a thought from our citizen about the matter. She's totally objecting nuclear and in her blog she questioned about;

1) Why are we throwing out so much money and expertise on a fuel that produces so much heat, which will requires a lot of water to cool it off, thus adding up to the lack of water for agriculture and basic utilities?

2) Why spend money on a fuel that produces a whole lot of toxic waste that we still don't know how to dispose without ever poisoning our land and our people?

I may be in the process of learning nuclear and how the plant works. But I will try to explain this matter from my point of view, with some help from what I've learnt in class. They are as follows;

1) Heat from nuclear power plant is never going to affect the agriculture and basic utilities. Here in Malaysia, we are surrounded by sea and yes, the sea water is one of the option for reactor cooling. To do this, the sea water (salt water) will be purified first before being used as a coolant for reactor cooling. After cooling is done, the water will be released to a reservoir. In our case, the sea nearby will become the reservoir. Unfortunately, no living creature will be able to survive the heat. This will happen to any energy power plant that uses sea water as coolant and reservoir, not just nuclear power plant.

2) As for the nuclear waste, it is nothing like the toxic waste we often see in the television. Uranium fuel will be recycled or reused for several times to its maximum point. To dispose, the uranium waste will be sealed properly and being transported to certain places which has no living things. The multiple barrier concept will be used too. Problem may occur when it comes to transporting the nuclear waste to the disposal area, no guarantee about the safety of the whole journey. The ultimate disposal of vitrified wastes, or of used fuel assemblies without reprocessing, requires their isolation from the environment for a long time. The most favoured method is burial in stable geological formations some 500 metres deep.

I will go into details with nuclear waste management in next post. Thank you

References : http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/wast.htm