Final Class Review: Things that you might want to know

First of all, I would like to emphasize that my previous post said that “rumours said that it would be build in Negeri Sembilan”. See the word rumours there? Besides, I’m quite sure our government is keen to build it at least 20km radius away from residential area or otherwise they might lose in the next general election.

A lot of people keep asking the questions related to NPP safety issue. The truth is it is better for you guys to concern on road safety issue rather than NPP. My classmates had done an amazing job posting stuffs related to safety and thus I believe most of you already knew the facts such as 5 layers barrier which consists of the uranium fuel pellet ceramic shell, zirconium fuel cladding, 20cm hardened steel reactor pressure vessel, 4cm steel sheet containment vessel, and  1 meter thick concrete containment building. Even if a plane crashes into it, the worst case is that ONLY the 5^th layer which is the 1m concrete containment building got damage.  

Some people questioned why use an aircraft as an example? What if someone drop a nuclear bomb instead? This is because if someone dropped a nuclear bomb, you might concern on the nuclear bomb itself rather than the NPP. Nuclear bombs have over 90% of uranium enrichment whilst NPP have only 3%. What about earthquakes? What about tsunami or tornado or other natural occurrence disaster? NPP is built directly on the rock stratum which means at least around 50 to 100 meters below ground level. Still can’t get the relationship? Earthquake tremors in the subsoil which is the ground level are 2–3 times greater than tremors in the rock stratum as the weak structure of the subsoil amplifies earthquake tremors. In addition, Low centre of gravity also means better stability. For further understandings, you could read on mechanical resonance and couple harmonic resonance. It is actually proven that natural occurrence disaster is like an ant pinching your toes for NPP by looking at Japan, a nation well known as earthquakes and tsunami prone. In addition, United States of America with its hurricane or tornado prone.

Ok enough on the external part. If you take a look into the internal part, you might say that these guys who designed the NPP are more than paranoid. I believe that there is no need for me to mention it in depth so I’ll give some simple example. Instead of 1 pump required to safely operate the reactor, there are 2 more pumps available for use in case of emergency. But pumps normally run on electricity, what if the electricity fails? Then comes the auxiliary power, 4 diesel generator placed in two different building is available to manage this issue. Then what if there is insufficient water supply? Then we have water supply from at least 2 different sources. If the reactor overheats, then we have the emergency core cooling system (ECCS). You can read it from my classmates’ blog if you wish to know more on ECCS. As for me, I’ll stop here. What I can conclude is that for the reactor safety, every possible threat is considered beyond possibilities. They plan for the worst but expect for the best. This includes the fuel and waste management.

Here comes the best part. Some people quoted “I know that everything is done and maintained at extremely high standards, but that is for developed countries. I’m not convinced with Malaysia”. The best thing about NPP is that actually you don’t have to trust your government or even your own people (if you prefer not to) for this case. Malaysia is had signed The Treaty on the Non - Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons or also known as Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT or NNPT). You could read the treaty for 2005 at

http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npttreaty.html.

You could even search elsewhere if you prefer. This means that we are and never will be alone. We have almost the whole world working together to ensure NPP safety as for them “one accident anywhere means accident everywhere”. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will closely monitor and inspect everything related to nuclear in countries that had agreed on NPT or NNPT. Fuel waste management... There is a shortcut to overcome this matter as the Russians offer a complete package. They design the NPP, they build the NPP, we run the NPP, and they take back ALL of its waste either from building phase, assembly phase, operating phase, and even depleted fuel. Which reactor is not a great deal. Basically all we need to do is get most Malaysians to agree, equip our citizens with basic knowledge, develop more expertise in this field, and pay around RM3.5 billion initial cost.  Don’t look at that RM3.5 billion.... Recently our government announced RM12 billion for solar energy development which is more than 3 times the amount for the NPP.