Photos Of Us......

Spent Fuel Management

Fig 1: Fuel Reprocessing Cycle

             The figure above shows the cycle that a spent fuel would go through. The composition of a spent fuel would be as figure 2 below. As you can see, only 3 % of the spent fuel is fission products which are not retrievable. Most of it could be recycled but it depends on the owner of the nuclear power plant. 1% of the spent fuel is plutonium which could be sent straight to the fuel fabrication centre and the 96% of Uranium would be spent to enrichment plant and then the process continues.

E=mc²

Einsteins famous theory E=mc² is closely related to the Nuclear fission process. This equation explains how energy is turn from mass to energy in a form of heat and radiation. This energy release of turning mass into energy is called the binding energy theory and this binding energy is energy released in when fission takes place in a nucleus.

E=mc²

E :- Energy released when mass is turn into energy

m :- mass defect ( mass lost due to binding energy in an atom)

c:- speed of light 300,000,000 (meters per-second)

In a fission process when an atom splits into 2 certain amount of mass will be annihilated or lost in the form of energy which is the binding energy and this is the energy that we harvest in a nuclear reactor to produce usable electricity. Whereby, the lost mass times multiply with the speed of light, we can estimate the amount of energy produced in a fission process.  

4 Types of Reactor and Their Explanation

           As said by my group partner, there are 4 main types of reactors which are the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) , Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor (AGR), Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor or CANDU reactors.

           The way to look at the table is, first look at the major features. That is the row that tells you what type of reactor that is. For instance, AP 1000 is a type of PWR power plant and EPR is European Pressurized Reactor. The rest you could google it up and it will be interrelated to the types that I mentioned above. Then move on to vendor and you will find the name of the vendor and from there we can find where is the origin of that technology. One of the main criterion that is used for choosing the reactor is the output power. Its measured in MWe. Different types of reactor produces different amount of power.

           Next is the plant efficiency and this value is the value that shows that out of all the excess heat, only that percentage of electricity is successfully converted. Then we can see the design life and nowadays its commonly made to up to 60 years. We could also see the amount of time needed to construct a power plant as well and the lesser it is the better it is. There is another row as well for "Extensive use of Prefab". What that refers to is the prefabrication of the construction parts and and assembling it at the construction site compared to conventional method of building the parts at the site. This would also reduce the time needed for construction of power plant.

            Then you can see the containment row, it shows the amount of containment layer exist in the power plant. The more the better for this. Then there is safety system, and there is two types which are active and passive. The active ones has a higher chance of failing since it depends on some mechanisms which depends on electricity. If there is a power break down, then this mechanism doesn't work. Its better to have passive safety systems then. Next is the core catcher function, which is also another important safety feature in a reactor and the availability of it is good for our country. Fuel lattice type just explains to us the fuel rods assembly. The last is the availability of steam generators. A BWR reactor wouldn't have steam generators since it works by creating steam by itself. For the PWR reactor, the heat produced from fission would be transferred to the steam generator and the steam would rotate turbine for power. One of the best reactors for Malaysia is the AP1000 of the PWR type.

Exam Review

The exam was challenging.

Review on "The Green Lecture Series"

The first part of the lecture was about "Global overview of Nuclear power".The worlds energy demand is increasing each year. To fulfill the energy demand more new power plants are build and the one of the green and substantial power plant is the nuclear power plant.The nuclear power generation technology is been around for almost more than 30 years. Our government has decide to go nuclear by the year 2021. Malaysia might have its own fulling operational nuclear power plant by the year 2021.In the future we might go in the hydrogen economy and the first Nuclear power plant will be the stepping stone of the hydrogen economy for Malaysia

In the second part of the lecture was on "Why Nuclear Energy is Green and Sustainable". The reason why people say Nuclear Energy is that the Nuclear Power plants doesn't emit any kind of green house gases as its by product. At this state of time this criteria is considered a very impotent factor for a power source due to the increasing concentration of green house in our atmosphere. Other than that, the  fossil fuel  source is depleting in a very high rate and  the supply of fossil fuel would end in another 100 years or so. Therefore, it is not sustainable unlike nuclear power. The nuclear power is considered sustainable  because the amount of nuclear fuel that we use for the whole life spend of a Nuclear Power plant which is around 60 year compared to fossil fuel. therefore with the use of little amount of fuel and the amount of uranium which is available; the uranium supply could last us for more than 3000 years.

Nuclear Waste Management

              This has been a debut of most people around the world for quite some time now. This is one of the main concerns of people who are anti nuclear around the world and even if Malaysia is about to introduce nuclear power plant in the country, this would be the main issue discussed.
          
              To contain the nuclear waste, the final disposal facility should be located several hundred meters underground. It was found that rocks and sands in the earth's crust would be able to block most of the radiations from coming out of the nuclear waste facility. Scientist have found a natural nuclear reactor that had reactivity and also highly radioactive waste product which stayed put without the elaborate containment we use today on nuclear power plant waste." More than a billion years later, everything is contained within a few meters of its source." (quoted from http://geology.about.com/od/geophysics/a/aaoklo.htm).
            

Fig 1: Underground waste management facility

             The modern waste management facility would look like this. With the disposal canister and all the protection in it, leakage of radiation is impossible but still scientist and engineers have designed the canisters for the worst conditions.The canister itself would look like this. With all the impact absorbers and all the layers of protection it is expected not to leak any radiation.

Fig 2:Disposal Canister

                           For those who are wondering that the radiation is not leaking but it is actually harming the environment by the leakage of the radioactive waste, the solution for it has already been done. It was found that if the radioactive waste is mixed with glass the waste would become immobilized. Which means it would not leak into the environment.