Nuclear power is the future

29th March 2013

By: Kelvin Kemm

  

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Near the end of the nineteenth century, scientists were becoming aware of the existence of atoms. The philosophical concept of atoms had been mentioned hundreds of years earlier, but early scientists had no means of finding out if they existed. When atoms were scientifically shown to be a reality, people then imagined “hard little indivisible balls” but then worried about how electric charge would balance out in these balls. Remember, nobody had any idea of electrons.

Then, just over a century ago, to everybody’s amazement, Sir Ernest Rutherford, with a rather simple experiment, discovered that the atom was mainly space, with a small hard centre, which came to be known as the nucleus.

Then it was realised that, in the case of a few very large atoms, nuclear radiation was coming from the nucleus. In other words, it was giving off particles, so the nucleus was not a stable solid blob.

People began to wonder if the nucleus could be split. Opinion was divided. Intriguingly, the maths showed that an amazingly large amount of energy would be given off if a nucleus split. Since atoms were so small, the amount of energy that could be produced from one atom was still very small by day-to-day human standards.

But people wondered: What if a whole lot of atoms could be made to split at nearly the same time?

The scientists of the time thought that that was unlikely, since no mechanism was known that could cause this to happen. Then the scene changed dramatically – physicist Enrico Fermi managed to produce a chain reaction in uranium. This chain reaction was the multiple splitting of atoms that was needed to be able to get useful amounts of nuclear energy out of uranium – maybe. This was all very theoretical, but the beginnings of nuclear power had been discovered.

Fermi built a nuclear reactor in a disused squash court at the University of Chicago. I can just imagine him wandering over to the university authorities and saying: “Hi, good morning. Do you mind if I use that old squash court to build a physics experiment?”

“Well, yes, it is not being used, so I suppose it would be okay. What do you want to build?”

“A nuclear reactor.”

“A nuclear what? What is a nuclear reactor anyway?”

“Well, I want to split a few atoms. I build a pile of graphite blocks, then sort of push uranium pellets into the blocks and the atoms should split.”

“Yes, sure, you can use the squash court. Just make sure you sweep all the graphite powder out afterwards – we don’t want the building maintenance people to complain that you damaged the building.”

“Yeah, sure, I would hate the maintenance guy to . . . er . . . blow his top.”

Now one can look back at the history which unfolded. Fermi was successful, and his squash court reactor worked. It showed that nuclear chain reactions were possible, and it transpired that not too long a time passed before the reality of the Second World War produced the political will, plus the money, to accelerate nuclear research and development to the point that the nuclear bomb was constructed – and used.

That then became the worst public relations birth of any new technology that one could imagine. Nuclear science burst onto the scene, so to speak.

Nuclear science has since then suffered from public fear, misunderstanding and a great deal of unwarranted negativity.

However, nuclear is the fuel of the future. There is nothing else one can do with uranium other to than use it in a nuclear reactor, but there is a lot that one can do with coal instead of burning it.

Coal is a major source of valuable chemicals and it would be much better to turn coal into petrol, lipstick and boot polish, as is currently done by Sasol in South Africa.

Another nuclear fuel is also available, and that is thorium. The richest thorium mine in the world is in South Africa. There is a great deal of thorium around the world, and it has other great advantages; for instance, it cannot be used for nuclear explosives, so weapons use concerns are eliminated and nuclear power can be spread to many countries.

As far as the emissions that mankind puts into the air, water or the ground are concerned, I am all in favour of reducing all emissions possible. Nuclear power is by far the best energy source in this respect, since it produces no emissions into the air or water.
Nuclear also produces no emissions into the ground.

“Ha,” someone will say, “what about burying nuclear waste?” Yes, burying nuclear waste is an option, but it is very safe.

Firstly, there is so little of it that it is easily contained. High-level waste produced by a large nuclear power station over some 20 years will fit into a medium-sized swimming pool.

Secondly, the waste is carefully packed into protective containers so that it does not come into contact with the ground.
Further, at the end of its life, nuclear fuel looks exactly the same. When it comes out of a reactor as it looked when it went in, there is no ash or residue or anything. It is only the nature of the atoms that has changed, so the material is easily handled – no ash, soot or liquid runoff.

Of course, it is highly radioactive, but then it is highly qualified people who handle it, just like only qualified people handle explosives or toxic chemicals on our gold mines.

For countries large and small, nuclear power is the future – it holds wonders of reliable affordable power. It is not new; it is a proven technology with a long pedigree.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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