The infamous Indian Point nuclear power plant, located about thirty miles north of Manhattan, was shut down early last year amid massive protests. For many concerned about the safety and the environment, the shutdown was a major victory after decades of protests, but not just America, countries around the world are slowly shutting down their nuclear power plants, especially Germany, England, and some European Union countries that have already closed most of their nuclear power plants. Shut down nuclear power plants. They even announced that why not set up a new centre? Despite the low cost of production, why do they take this step?
Italy became the first country to permanently shut down all its previously operating nuclear power plants. After the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in March 2011, Germany permanently shut down eight of its seventeen reactors. By the end of last year, three more plans have been phased out in the country. Belgium, Taiwan, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland are gradually moving away from nuclear power generation. Even France's total electricity demand is supplied by seventy-seven per cent from nuclear power plants. The people of France have also put a lot of pressure on the government to shut down nuclear power plants. Where France thought to install at least 200 nuclear reactors by the year 2000, the number of active reactors has dropped to only 69. The United States has not built any new nuclear power plants in the last thirty-three years. In 1978, the number of active nuclear reactors in the United States was sixty-seven. Another hundred and fifty-six were in full swing. Later, about two hundred more furnaces were planned to be built. So that four hundred furnaces can be established within two thousand years. In addition, in the next ten to fifteen years, at least one hundred old and small furnaces will be closed.
Why? Lithuania and Kazakhstan have also closed their only nuclear power plants. Austria never put their first and only nuclear power plant into operation despite the completion of construction. It would be wrong to say that it has not been used. Austria has used its only nuclear power plant for museum and movie shooting.
Due to economic, political and technological reasons countries like Cuba, Libya, North Korea and Poland have started the construction of their first nuclear power plants. But could not finish. Some countries have made a policy decision that under no circumstances will they build nuclear facilities. One such country is Australia. Although Australia has a steady supply of uranium, the main raw material for nuclear power plants. It can literally be called the freeze out of nuclear power as countries one by one withdraw from building and operating nuclear power plants. Basically, three nuclear accidents have affected the shutdown of this power worldwide. These are the partial disaster of the Three Mild Islands in the United States, the Chornobyl disaster and the latest Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
Due to the use of electricity, the course of the world began to change in the twentieth century. Gradually, people began to depend on electricity to an extreme degree. And the excessive electricity demand continues to grow. For a long time, the main raw materials for power generation were coal and gas and petroleum. Then came nuclear power, in which the controlled fission of radioactive uranium converts the peak thermal energy into electrical energy. Nuclear technology in power generation started seventy-four years ago today. The United States was the first to use nuclear power to produce electricity. But the benefit of nuclear power generation reached the mass people at the hands of the then Soviet Union. As the production cost is lower and more electricity is produced, the advanced countries of the world started to build nuclear reactors one after another to meet their excessive electricity needs. However, the effects of nuclear accidents have been a matter of practical debate since the first nuclear reactors were built. Yet nuclear power plants were the main source of electricity generation in the developed world. But what has happened is that people are now starting to think of alternatives to nuclear power plants. Those nuclear plants that cost billions of dollars to be closed.
In 1989, the disaster thriller religious film The China Scene was released in Hollywood. The film raises the question of how safe nuclear power plants really are. Twelve days after the release of The China Syndrome, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. This movie showed how the internal faults and dangers of nuclear power plants are kept secret. But it is not an event that did not happen in reality. Thousands of gallons of radioactive material spilt out of the plant in May 2000 while repairing broken equipment at the Anglo One nuclear power plant in Brazil, and the news was kept secret for four months in Brazil itself.
The management company did not report this news to the government resulting in massive health risks to a large number of people. According to the records, there have been about a hundred small and big accidents all over the world. However, in other accidents, the danger exists largely only during the accident period. There the horrors of nuclear disaster can continue for ages. Because the half-life of radioactive elements is long. Harmful rays will be emitted from it for many years and there is no way to stop it. That is, the impact of a nuclear disaster is much greater and longer lasting. For example, we can talk about the city of Chornobyl. Since the explosion of the nuclear power plant in nineteen eighty-sixes, no people have lived there until now. We have already mentioned three such incidents. In addition to the three major incidents, nuclear power plant accidents at various times have created extreme fear and anxiety among the general public and experts. As a result, the common people of all countries are protesting to stop the construction of nuclear power plants in different countries of the world. There is one more terrible evil of nuclear power plants. A large number of radioactive isotopes are released into the atmosphere and water every year through nuclear reactors. These isotopes include inert gases such as krypton, xenon, and argon, which are fat-soluble and can easily be transferred to the fatty tissue of the body, including the reproductive organs if inhaled by a person living in the vicinity of the reactor.
However, the gamma rays emitted from radioactive elements can induce genetic changes in the eggs and sperm and initiate various hereditary diseases. In 2008, the German government conducted a study on children living near sixteen of its commercial nuclear power plants. As a result, it can be seen that the more you go towards the nuclear power plant, the more the risk of cancer in children, especially neo come, increases. There is another problem with nuclear power plants. Which is never discussed much.
We know that the main raw material of nuclear power plants is uranium. But the amount of uranium in the world is very little. According to the latest information, there are about thirty-five million tons of hybrid uranium in the world. At present, about sixty-seven thousand tons of uranium are being used every year.
If used at this rate, the current reserves will be exhausted within fifty years. And if almost all of the world's current electricity needs were to be provided to nuclear power plants. But it could only run for nine years. It is understood that the price of uranium will gradually increase in the future as well as the cost of electricity production will continue to increase.
Well, let's say you decide to shut down the nuclear power plant after considering the various problems and risks mentioned above. But that work is very easy? Let's look again at the Chornobyl accident. According to the information received so far, it took about four billion dollars to close this power plant. Moreover, the lifespan of a nuclear power plant is not eternal. Just like thirty years. As complex as the process of building it is, the process of decommissioning or rebuilding it at the end of its lifespan is equally complex and costly. Despite so many problems and complications, the construction of nuclear power plants worldwide has not stopped. The main reason for this is that nuclear power plants require very little fuel to run. As a result, the amount of waste produced from nuclear power plants is also very less. According to the World Nuclear Association, there are currently more than four hundred and fifty nuclear power plants in thirty-one countries. The names of India and Pakistan in South Asia are also on that list. Most recently, Bangladesh has been added to that list. Bangladesh's electricity sector mainly stands on natural gas. The country's energy sector depends on this natural gas. However, natural gas and coal reserves within the country are very limited and Bangladesh has not yet achieved the capacity to properly extract what is there. As a result, Bangladesh has to rely largely on imported liquid petroleum for electricity generation. To meet the huge electricity demand of populous Bangladesh, the initiative to build the first nuclear power plant was taken around the year 1961. For that purpose, around 260 acres of land near Padma river in Rooppur of Pabna district and 32 acres of land were acquired for a residential area. In continuation this, as the third country in South Asia, the work of setting up the first unit nuclear power reactor named Ruppur One in November 2017 started. According to the target, this unit is supposed to produce electricity from the year 2023. Now the question is whether the Rukpur nuclear power plant can somehow become the cause of our misery?
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