High-level Waste", that is deadly to humans and harmful to the environment. Spent Fuel is usually produced in solid, manageable quantities but it remains radioactive and as a result is dangerous, for thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands of years.
Nuclear power plants also create large quantities of what is known as "low level" waste. This waste isn't as dangerous as high level waste, but is still extremely dangerous and great care needs to be taken in the handling, storage and disposal of the material.
The Pressurized Water Reactor (the most common kind of reactor) has a water-cooled core and this water becomes radioactive and therefore waste material. In this type of reactor, super heated water circulates through piping while highly pressurized, which dissolves ions from the interior wall of the pipe. These ions generated from the core of the reactor are inundated by neutrons, some becoming radioactive. They then either go back to lining the inside wall of the pipe, creating a radioactive pipe or keep circulating causing the water to become radioactive. In steel piping the most common Ion is iron. Iron isotopes are the most common and when it acquires a Neutron it does not become radioactive but when steel is used to produce the pipe cobalt is typically added to strengthen the pipe walls. When a neutron is absorbed by cobalt it becomes radioactive. Nuclear engineers use ion-exchange resins to remove cobalt from the enclosed system. There is a problem with this, however, as a disproportionate amount of non-radioactive iron ions are trapped by the resins.
Doctor Sellergren and Doctor Narasimhan have solved the problem by developing a polymer that traps cobalt ions but ignores iron. Molecular imprinting, a technique of manufacturing the material in the presence of ions from cobalt and then isolating those ions in a bath of hydrochloric acid. Resulting in holes that are the same size as cobalt ions that will trap cobalt ions that flow into them, therefore a relatively tiny amount of polymer can "mop up" a lot of cobalt that is radioactive.
A new development from the scientific team are radioactive disposal beads, that is, polymer beads that absorb the Radioactivity in the pressurized water as the water runs over them. These beads would be easier to dispose of than large amounts of waste that is low-level. Dr. Narasimhan also believes that this polymer could be used help in the clean up of decommissioned nuclear power stations by decontaminating the steel pipes.
There are 439 nuclear power stations operating in the world today, 40 are in the process of being built now. According to the Atomic Energy Agency 70 more plants will be constructed within the next 15 years.
Those seeking career opportunities in nuclear power in the 21st century are looking to Asia where there is dynamic economic growth and a potentially large market for new nuclear facilities. In Asia's growing economies demand for electricity frequently is greater than the supply. To gain control over a rising pollution problem, even China and India who rely on coal for their electricity, are turning to nuclear power.
Large nuclear industries have already been developed in South Korea and Japan, generating 39 % of the electricity in both countries from 73 reactors.
Japan has 54 nuclear reactors and South Korea has 19, yet both governments plan to build more.
Accidents and the falsification of safety reports in the 90's have not deterred other regional governments, either. The World Nuclear Association (WNA), reports that approximately 100 nuclear reactors are operating in east and south Asia. In western Europe only Finland has plans to develop one new reactor, while the U.S. Is contemplating the development of a new generation of nuclear reactors.
