Massive Burden Cost Of Waste Disposal

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

In fact, nuclear energy is constituted as an unacceptable hazard. The consequences are extremely serious even though the opportunities of a nuclear accident happening are very small especially building the nuclear power plant in this small-sized island ─ Hong Kong.

Furthermore, a serious nuclear accident occurred on 26th April, 1986 ─ Chernobyl disaster. After the disaster, the country needs to reconstruct the affected area and a large amount of money is necessary. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics planned to use one billion and two hundred million to rebuild the affecting area (CIA video on Ukraine) so we can imagine if such an accident occur in Hong Kong, a large amount of money is necessary for reconstructing the affected area. This causes a massive of money are lost. Moreover, people who are still surviving should be evacuated from the disaster area. However in Hong Kong, Hong Kong people need to leave Hong Kong so as to leave the disaster area to reduce the chance of getting radioactive diseases. Just like Chernobyl disaster, more than one hundred and thirty-five thousands of residents were left the danger area(CIA video on Ukraine). This causes the capital of Hong Kong lost and Hong Kong may be returned to undeveloped city and need to start again.

Form the survey conducted by students studied at HKCC, nearly seventy percent of interviewees do not have confidence of technology of generating electricity with nuclear power. Also, about twenty percent of them express that nuclear accidents are harmful to humans and ecosystem so we can imagine that how people in Hong Kong scared about building nuclear power plant in Hong Kong.

Too short for isolation

There is not enough distance to isolate the nuclear power plant from the urban area of Hong Kong. As you know, Hong Kong is a small island only. However, the population density is very high. (CIA World Factbook) The density was about six thousand and seven hundred citizen per kilometers square and it was in ranked four in 2011. (A website from marimari) Hong Kong is a small-sized island covering one thousand and ninety-five kilometer square. After the calculation, we can know that there was about seven million and three hundred thousand in 2011 and the population density is still rising nowadays.

There was an earthquake caused the explosion at Fukushima nuclear power plant. (BBC News, 2011) Damian Grammaticas reported that the evacuation zone has been extended to twenty kilometers around the Fukushima nuclear power plant. That meant the area which was affected about one thousand and two hundred kilometers square and larger than that of Hong Kong. Most of Hong Kong people are living in urban area of Hong Kong. Even though the nuclear power plant is built in the boundary of Hong Kong, most of the citizens will still be affected when the explosion of nuclear power plant occurs so building a nuclear power plant in Hong Kong should be banned.

Radiation particles stored in human body cannot be healed

Besides, the radiation particles from nuclear power plant will store in human body that cannot be healed. It is ironic that nuclear power is a double-edged knife to human. Although nuclear power can generate electricity effectively, it produces nuclear wastes and emits radiations which are harmful to human. Solid wastes with radioactivity will be produced after generating electricity. If the solid wastes are not handled well, they will emit radiation particle such as technetium-99 and Iodine-129 which are highly radioactive (Verrezen F, Hurtgen C 1992). Explosion of nuclear energy will release radiation energy. The radiation energy absorbed by unit mass of the material called absorbed dose and the measure is in sieverts (Sv). For a normal person, the maximum annual dose that people absorbed in the public is 0.005 Sv. There will be no apparent health effect below 0.1 Sv. Cancer may occur between a dose 0.1 and 2 Sv. 1 to 10 doses can cause acute radiation sickness with symptoms like nausea, vomiting and so on. A sudden large dose of 10 Sv or above can cause fatal and a nuclear explosion can cause a dose over 10 Sv (Radiation Health Unit Department of Health, 2007). More importantly, radiation will affect the next generation’s health. As the radiation received by pregnant women, there is a risk of giving a birth of deformed child. Hence, the deformed child will have some congenital defects such as handicapped, cancer, etc. Chernobyl Children International (1991) claimed that there are 6,000 children are born every year with genetic heart defects in Ukraine and more than 3,000 will die for lack of medical attention from the consequences of Chernobyl disaster. The above effects brought by nuclear power cannot be healed because the damage to the human body is permanent. Hence, we should consider of the potential effects caused by nuclear power before building a nuclear power plant in Hong Kong.

Very high building cost

Using nuclear power is not cheaper than using thermal power. First, the construction costs and maintenance costs of nuclear plant are more expensive than that of thermal power plant. The construction costs of nuclear plant are 2 billion to 8 billion US dollar per each nuclear reactor. For Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station, the construction costs are up to 4 billion US dollars. On the other hand, the construction costs of 5000MW thermal power plant are 650 million US dollars. The construction costs of nuclear plant are nearly 6 times more expensive than that of thermal power plant. In addition, the maintenance costs of nuclear power plants are very expensive. To maintain nuclear plant, it needs a lot of nuclear experts who have lots of high technology knowledge about nuclear to monitor the operation of nuclear plant. In 2011, more than 20 million US dollars would be spent on the safety of nuclear plants in China. If there is any accident happen in nuclear plants, it also needs lots of money to repair the equipment. For example, Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was meltdown more than two year, is still in unstable condition. Thousands of gallons of radioactive water have been found. The example shows that it would need much money to repair and solve the problem made after any accident.

Very high land cost

Second, nuclear power plant needs large area of land to build. The land resource in Hong Kong is very previous and the area is small. Also, people cannot live near nuclear power plant. It will waste lots of land resource. The place where is near nuclear power plant cannot be developed. In addition, nuclear power plant should be built near the coastal area. Unluckily, lots of islands in Hong Kong are too small for building nuclear power plant. If plant was placed in unban district, it would cause lots of conflict of economic. For example, if plant placed near beach, water would be warmed and polluted by nuclear. As a result, residents or tourists would go to the beach near nuclear power plant because of low water quality. The value of area near nuclear plant will be decreased.

Massive burden cost of waste disposal

Third, Cost of waste disposal will be a massive burden in future. A site for nuclear waste should be carefully chosen to avoid contaminating the environment. In fact, the U.S. took the wrong choice and made a huge mistake titled as "A Legacy of Risk, Cost, and Inefficiency" in the Hanford Nuclear Waste Site. ‘Dumping the nuclear waste equals throwing a can to rubbish bin’ is what the U.S. thought as before. Due to the lack of knowledge of radiological waste, the Hanford Nuclear Waste site operated since 1944, continuously used for 50 years. DOE (the Department of Energy) has discovered the contamination and started to remediate. But the totally cost is very high approximately $90 billion, even went higher year by year." In 1998, the DOE received $1.07 billion for cleanup programs at Hanford, compared with $1.78 billion in 2002 and $1.95 billion in 2003." Hong Kong government could not bear the huge cost of nuclear waste disposal with the inestimable inflation. Moreover, there was contamination around the West Valley Site which operated more than half century. Report from Synapse found that "Complete Waste Excavation is less expensive than Buried Waste. Over 1000 years, Complete Waste Excavation Alternative costs $9.9 billion while Buried Waste Alternative costs between $13 and $27 billion depending on if a catastrophic release occurred accidentally or not." Unfortunately, there were still some areas excluding from the cost estimated such as public health costs, waste transported to other sites and hazardous wastes. Since Hong Kong is small, the residents are affected by the radioactive waste and the waste need to transport to other places for processing. So, the above areas must include in the total cost and it will be much higher. Also, from the online article, the cost of waste disposal for each plant is approximately $5.5 million per year. The decommissioning cost is even more expensive costing $500 million which equals to $2.6 million per year for each plant that operates more than 40 years. According to the above data, the cost of nuclear disposal is a heavy load to Hong Kong.