I applauded the move to consider nuclear energy as a power source for Singapore. Is it dangerous? Knowing Singaporeans, I guess a Singapore reactor will be safe enough so much so that an ant will not drown in the drains of a nuclear reactor. We Singaporeans need to prove our heritage that we are indeed Kiasu enough. Nuclear Fission as an energy source is a 60 years old technology. Typically it consisted of using Uranium-235 and Uranium-238 mixture with byproducts being Plutonium-239. Plutonium-239 is the real issue. It is the fuel for nuclear reactors but it is also the ingredient for nuclear bombs. Bear in mind that the half-life of Plutonium-239 is 24 000 years. You need to transport and store it safely for the next 24 000 years! And that is half-life!

Chernobyl

An accident that of Chernobyl power plant is highly unlikely in a modern day nuclear plant. The worse it can get is about that of Chernobyl. A nuclear explosion is theoretically impossible for a nuclear reactor. It is easier for you to win Toto than to have an explosion in a reactor. The usage of Light Water reactors which create a negative feedback loop to prevent meltdown basically made accidents of any nature impossible.

With that, should we start using nuclear energy as a alternative source? There is one tiny little thing that I need some convincing. On one end, we see some claiming that that the amount of fossil fuels needed to mine uranium far exceed the benefits of nuclear power in that the coal being used to enrich uranium to be used as reactor fuel will need a nuclear plant to run for 2 decades before it can be recouped. On the other end we have the USA Department of Energy’s cheerful report of the abundance of uranium, its low costs and that one ton of natural uranium is equivalent to burning 16,000 tons of coal or 80,000 barrels of oil. The question lingers that the 80,000 barrels of oil is it nett of the energy needed to convert natural uranium to reactor grade fuel?

Two things we need to look into, is nuclear energy really green? Are the unknown dangers of radioactivity invented out of the blue by mad scientists intended to scare the wits out of us? I really hope for fusion reactors. That would save us a lot of headaches pondering over these two questions. But the Iter project is still a long way to go and we are not even talking about Cold Fusion! The brief respite we have from the oil prices may not last long and oil is a rapidly diminishing resource. I doubt we can wait for nuclear fusion energy to be commercially available. The only feasible alternative despite the risks is nuclear fission. Hopefully some smart Alexes think of something else. We don’t have much time though. The time needed for prototype to mass implementation of any conceivable alternative energy sources can be decades. It isn’t very comforting that the results from Iter project is named DEMO!