WHAT WOULD A TSUNAMI DO FOR A BREEDER REACTOR?
Risto Isomaki
HELSINKI, MARCH 2011 (IPS) - The idea of a breeder reactor programme has been re-awakened by concerns related to global warming. Many governments see nuclear power as a partial solution to our carbon dioxide problem. Our present nuclear reactors, however, can only provide for a minuscule part of our energy needs, writes Risto Isomaki, an environmental activist and awarded Finnish writer whose novels have been translated into several languages.
In this article the author writes that sufficiently-concentrated natural uranium deposits might last for 80-100 years for the present number of nuclear reactors. In practise this means, that if we want to multiply the production of nuclear power, we have to use breeder reactors, which produce more nuclear fuel than they consume generating electricity. However, all the breeder reactors which have been constructed, thus far, have used liquid sodium or lithium as their coolant. Both metals explode when they contact water or air. It is very difficult to construct the cooling pipes of a breeder reactor in such a way that they cannot be damaged by a very large tsunami.
But India is already constructing a 500-megawatt sodium-cooled breeder reactor to Kalpakkam, on the coast of Tamil Nadu. The final goal of India's nuclear programme is to construct 600 gigawatts of breeder reactors by 2050. These breeders would have to be located in coastal areas because they need huge amounts of cooling water. If the programme is carried out, the human species will soon have an official expiry date, for the first time in our history. That will be the day the next giant tsunami hits a major stretch of India's coastline.
(*) Risto Isomaki is an environmental activist and awarded Finnish writer whose novels have been translated into several languages
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE UNITED KINGDOM// (END/2011)