"NEVER THINK OF SETTING U P NUCLEAR POWER PLAN *WHAT IS NUCLEAR POWER PLANT? *ITS ADVANTAGES. *ITS DISADVANTAGES.

*ITS RISKY 4 OUR COUNTRY. NUCLEAR POWER PLANT: Nuclear power stations wor in pretty much the same way as fossil fuel-burning stations, except that a "chain reaction" inside a nuclear re actor ma es the heat instead. The reactor uses Uranium rods as fuel, and the hea t is generated by nuclear fission: neutrons smash into the nucleus of the uraniu m atoms, which split roughly in half and release energy in the form of heat. Car bon dioxide gas or water is pumped through the reactor to ta e the heat away, th is then heats water to ma e steam. The steam drives turbines which drive generat ors. WHERE THE FIRST LARGE SCALE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT WAS OPENED? ANS:The first large-scale nuclear power station opened at Calder Hall in Cumbria , England, in 1956. Some military ships and submarines have nuclear power plants for engines. Nuclear power produces around 11% of the world's energy needs, and produces huge amounts of energy from small amounts of fuel, without the polluti on that you'd get from burning fossil fuels. NUCLEAR POWER PLANT IN BANGLADESH: Bangladesh has agreed to the first ever nucle ar deal with Russia, which is to be built at Rooppur. Several memoranda of under standing have been signed between Bangladesh and Russia over the last three year s for building the two VVER-1000 type nuclear reactors, with technical and finan cial assistance from Russia. The state minister for science and technology had given both some good and bad n ews on the Rooppur Nuclear Power Project after he had returned from Moscow (DS, March 17). Tal ing to The Daily Star he said that Russia would provide 85% of th e fund required to build the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant as state loan on soft t erms. He further stated that Bangladeshi students would get scholarships to stud y nuclear science and technology at a specialised university in Russia. This is the good news. The bad news is that teachers from Russian University wil l visit Bangladesh to teach nuclear courses at Dha a University (DU) and Banglad esh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Foreign academics are welco me if they come for collaboration in research or teaching advanced courses in wh ich we have no expertise, and similarly our scientists and engineers can also go abroad for higher studies or for specialised training programmes. SHORT HISTORY ABT NUCLEAR POWER PLANT: In late 1960s, Bangladeshi engineers built and operated the Karachi Nuclear Powe r Plant (KANUPP). The project manager, the deputy plant superintendent, several shift supervisors and plant operators of KANUPP were all from Bangladesh. Accord ing to a survey by the Times in mid 1970's, Bangladesh, along with few other cou ntries, was considered to possess the potential to develop nuclear weapons. Some Bangladeshi nuclear engineers, settled in Canada, had the expertise to buil t and commission nuclear power reactors in Argentina, South Korea and Romania. M any Bangladeshi nuclear scientists and engineers also held vital and renowned po sitions at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy in Vienna. Nuclear scientists and engineers from Bangladesh are also nown to have taught n uclear science and technology-based courses at universities in Saudi Arabia and Libya. Several nuclear experts from Bangladesh helped Iran to build its nuclear

infrastructures during the initial days of its nuclear power programme.

"Russia will build two nuclear power plants, and each of the units will produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity," said Yeafesh Osman, a junior minister in charge of Bangladesh's Science and Technology. Osman and Sergey Kirien o, director general of Russian state-controlled nuclear corporation Rosatom, signed the intergovernmental agreement in the capital Dha a on Wednesday in the presence of Bangladesh Prime Minister Shei h Hasina. The nuclear power bloc s will be set up in Rooppur town, about 170 ilometers no rthwest of and they will be funded by Russia. Osman said the construction of the plants would begin in 2013, and it would ta e nearly five years to complete.

The energy-starved South Asian nation has acute energy shortages. Hardly any off ice or factory goes unaffected by power cuts, sometimes lasting for hours. The government also faces difficulties in managing the angry mobs that often att ac and ransac the power offices. According to statistics from the country's Power Development Board, only half of the country's 150 million people have access to electricity. It produces on an average 5,000 megawatts of electricity a day, with a deficit of more than 1,000 megawatts. DISADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANT: Nuclear Power generates radiation, which can be harmful or even fatal to infecte d people. A nuclear meltdown can often occur which will release massive amounts of radiati on into the community. Extremely radioactive nuclear waste is produced by nuclear power plants. This st uff can't be just thrown out. The US plans to move all its nuclear was to an und erground dump by the year 2010. Currently it is stored in the plants. Nuclear waste dumps can spontaneously combust without warning. Nuclear reactors only last for about forty to fifty years, so where they are ext remely productive, they brea down and are costly to replace. There are international dangers too. Some reactors produce plutonium which can b e used to ma e nuclear weapons. If the whole world were to use these, they would have unlimited access to nuclear weapons. Poisonous waste is produced; some of which is highly radioactive. Disposal of this radioactive waste has not been safely achieved. The power station is very expensive to build. When the costs are ta en into acco unt, the electricity produced by the power station is relatively expensive. Careless disposal of waste in the past has led to pollution of land, rivers and the ocean. SOME ADVATAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANT: Many people around the globe are convinced that one of the best solutions on how to free ourselves from being dependent on fossil fuels is using more nuclear po wer. Nuclear power is by many presented as the clean, reliable energy source, co mpletely on par with renewable energy solutions li e wind power, and solar power . Is nuclear energy really clean energy sources, and what about safety ris s, ar

e they really as minimal as nuclear plant owners say they are? The safety of nuclear power is usually referred to some possible events that cou ld lead to unwanted radioactive materials release li e that unfortunate event th at happened in Chernobyl more than 20 years ago, bac in 1986, when one nuclear reactor exploded which resulted in a severe release of radioactivity. When peopl e tal about the nuclear power safety they usually want to now what are the cha nces of nuclear reactor exploding. From current point of view chances for this a re really minimal 8almost negligible), and accidents li e Three Mile Island and Chernobyl really loo very unli ely, especially given today's maximum safety mea sures that are required in all nuclear power plants around the globe. Nuclear power is therefore almost completely safe regarding the possible explosi on of nuclear reactor(s) but there is one issue that is much more important in t he nuclear power story, namely the radioactive waste. Radioactive waste is reall y the biggest disadvantage that nuclear power has. Radioactive waste has a lifes pan of 5000-10000 years, and current methods of storing this waste still do not provide total guarantee, since 5000 years time of potential danger is very long time to worry about. The thing you should also now that on average, a nuclear p ower plant annually generates around 20 metric tons of high-level radioactive wa ste. When you ta e into account every nuclear plant on Earth, the combined total number climbs to roughly 2,000 metric tons each year. This is whole lot of wast e that needs to be safely stored each year. With nuclear power plants there is also the ris of possible terrorist attac th at could even wipe out an entire region in one foul swoop. So nuclear safety iss ue despite introduction of many new safety measures still remains major hurdle t o nuclear power because although ris s are extremely low, the consequences of po ssible nuclear accident could be fatal. Basically, what I'm trying to say here i s that sta es are simply too high, even with such small safety ris s. Safety therefore still remains the biggest disadvantage of nuclear power plants, though this is not the only disadvantage of nuclear power. The other disadvanta ge of nuclear power are high operational costs, especially since lot of money ha s to be spent on safety. Building nuclear power plant also doesn't come cheap. Nuclear power also has some advantages that need to be mention here. Nuclear pow er doesn't depend on fossil fuels to produce electricity, and therefore the bigg est advantage of nuclear power are minimal CO2 emissions; in case of nuclear pow er these emissions are mostly associated with the life cycle of uranium, namely with the emission of gases during mining and transporting uranium. Also, when it comes down to reliability very few other energy sources are as rel iable as nuclear power is. All what it ta es for constant generation of electric ity is uranium, and there is still plenty of uranium left on our planet. Nuclear power plants also have very high efficiency, even comparable with coal power pl ants, meaning they can produce lot of electricity. These two factors, reliability and efficiency, are the two main reasons why in 2 007 a respectable 14% of the world's electricity came from nuclear power. The Un ited States produces the most nuclear energy, with nuclear power supplying aroun d 19% of consumed electricity. France, for instance, produces more than three qu arters (78%) of its electricity from nuclear power plants.