A realistic essay on the subject was carried in a local English daily on March 2 which clearly and succinctly described how our government is wasting hard earned foreign exchange to set up a potentially fatal nuclear power plant and risking undesired radiation danger across Bangladesh that will add an incurable and fatal hazard for the people. We are actually wasting money and bringing in potentially fatal radiation danger to add to our multiple problems. In our national interest, we should cancel this proposal once for all. If we are so keen to have nuclear power, we can go for a radiation-free and much safer U238 nuclear power plant that can be bought from China and some other countries.
Instead of this dangerous and catastrophic power source, we should go for generation of methane gas from all towns and cities in Bangladesh where night-soil (solid human excreta) is dumped away by the municipalities. This can be anaerobically decomposed to produce methane gas, the fuel needed for gas-fired power plants. All the materials needed for the anaerobic digesters (mild steel plates) are locally available. The cost will be very small and can easily be financed by the authorities across the country in the next few years.
Unfortunately nothing was said by the writer of the article on handling and storage of spent nuclear fuel rods which too is a potential source of contamination of our sub-soil if it is to be buried locally. Russia has refused to take back the spent fuel rods. This very important and potentially dangerous radiation source cannot just be ignored. Our best and only solution is to abandon the idea of having a dangerous U236 fuelled nuclear power plant. All the money spent to date should be written off in the interest of overall radiation safety of our population for whom radiation sickness will be a future national tragedy of colossal magnitude which has no remedy.
The writer now retired and 84 has decades of hands-on experience in thermal power plants in many industries in the public and private sector industries in Bangladesh
Engr.S.A.Mansoor
[email protected]
- Friday, 22 November 2024 |
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