
Use of nuclear technology gets green light in Rwanda - ericdanielski
https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/use-nuclear-technology-gets-green-light-rwanda
======
mikece
“Living near a nuclear energy plant is like living near a nuclear bomb which
can explode and cause more damages [said an MP]...”

This is typical of people who aren’t educated about nuclear power. To have a
minimally functioning fission bomb you need enrichment north of 98% whereas
nuclear power plants use fuel that is only enriched to 2%. It’s like comparing
the hydrogen peroxide you but at the grocery store to the purified stuff
that’s used in liquid rocket experiments. Yes, there is uranium in a nuclear
power plant just as there is in a nuclear bomb but the type and enrichment is
so different as to make them practically not the same thing.

~~~
standardUser
"This is typical of people who aren’t educated about nuclear power."

This is typical of people who are aware of Chernobyl and Fukushima. There have
not been utility-scale many nuclear power plants in the history of the world.
The fact that two out of ~600 failed catastrophically makes natural gas, wind
and solar look really safe by comparison (especially since they are all
cheaper and do not produce radioactive waste that lasts forever). How many
catastrophic energy plant failures can you name that were not nuclear?

~~~
jiggawatts
The Banqiao and Shimantan dam failures in China killed ~170K people.

The Machchu-2 dam failure killed 5K people in India.

The South Fork dam failure killed 2K people in the US.

Coal mining directly killed over 100 people annually up until the mid 1980s,
and continues to kill 10-30 people annually.

Oil drilling in general kills about 100-110 people annually.

There's not much good data for wind turbines, but generally wind power kills
10+ people annually, either due to fires in the turbine housing or falls.

There have been a number of deaths at various power plants, often due to
electrocution or steam boiler explosions.

The only truly safe power utility-scale power source in widespread use is
solar.

BTW: Fukushima killed 1 person directly due to the nuclear material. Even
Chernobyl only killed between 30 to 80 people directly, depending on how you
count it.

If you want to count _indirect deaths_ due to Chernobyl and Fukushima, then
you also have to compare that to indirect deaths due to traditional power. You
don't want to know how many people diesel, oil, and coal kill annually!

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> The only truly safe power utility-scale power source in widespread use is
> solar.

Apparently a fair number of people die from solar as a result of falling off
of roofs.

~~~
jiggawatts
I'm only considering utility-scale power. Those are ground-level, not rooftop
installations.

If you want to include all forms of "home" power generation, including heating
and cooking, then wood fireplaces are mass-murderers, killing tens of
thousands due to particulate pollution and carbon monoxide poisoning. Not to
mention homes burning down and killing the occupants.

------
grecy
I spent a month in Rwanda in late 2018, and it's an extremely impressive
little country.

It fascinates me that we hear so little of them, our media only wanting to
bring us the gripping headlines (which are of course all bad)

\- By far and away the cleanest country I've ever been to on the planet (WAY
better than Canada/USA/Australia)

\- They have a thriving tech sector, developing phone apps, hardware and other
software that is in use all over East Africa

\- Extremely well educated, kind and considerate population. The young people
especially were very eager to speak English and discuss the outside world.
They knew more about a ton of stuff than I do (just a simple Software Engineer
/ traveller)

\- Their economy is booming.

I wish them all the best!

~~~
stephenhuey
My trip was in 2014 and I concur with how clean and beautiful it is. In
addition to the capital being an impressive city, another amazing opportunity
awaiting you there is visiting mountain gorillas. I just uploaded a video of
my experience a few days ago:

[https://vimeo.com/stephenhuey/gorillas](https://vimeo.com/stephenhuey/gorillas)

~~~
grecy
It's half the price in Uganda!

Here's me:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vhZ03OKKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vhZ03OKKE)

------
ciarannolan
What is Russia's geopolitical angle here?

The gulf between peaceful nuclear program and weapons-grade nuclear program is
vast and easily detectable.

>A Plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies on Monday, June 15, 2020, voted
the law approving the ratification of the agreement between Rwanda and Russia,
on cooperation in the construction of the Centre of Nuclear Science and
Technology on the territory of Rwanda.

>The agreement was signed in the Russian city Sochi, on October 24, 2019.

>The Centre will develop integrated nuclear energy solutions which the
Ministry of Infrastructure expects to be beneficial to the advancement of
several sectors of the economy especially agriculture, healthy, education,
sciences and industry.

~~~
krastanov
Russian companies build reactors and other similar tech. Like any other
country, Russia is helping domestic industry grow. Same thing done by most big
European countries, the US, China, etc.

~~~
ciarannolan
Do you mean they're helping their domestic peaceful nuclear energy industry
grow?

~~~
FpUser
It is a mutually beneficial deal. Nobody's "helping" anyone here.

~~~
jacobr1
The "help" is the government supporting a private enterprise. Cronyism that
"helps" the political class and the company, but possibly not Russian
citizens. Or maybe it does. Maintaining a domestic nuclear industry is
certainly strategic.

~~~
FpUser
All big strategic companies are supported by their respective governments one
or the other way. Nothing is wrong about it. And the Government will have
their cut in return eventually. I think it helps Joe Schmoe in the end as
well.

------
dghughes
Here is the symbol used in the US for food that has been irradiated the
process called radurization. I'm not sure how common it is and I've never
looked for the symbol. I do recall years ago how people were upset about
"radioactive food" due to irradiation. It's done using gamma rays or x-rays
not particles.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radura)

~~~
a_bonobo
Many if not most modern plant cultivars had at some point irradiation used on
them to increase mutation rates to find interesting mutations with higher
yield, higher resistance etc.

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding)

This has worked especially well in rice, chances are between 5% and 25%
depending on country you're eating rice from a cultivar that has been bred
using radiation.

That's done in these cool-looking atomic gardens where you have a radiation
source in the middle and then plants are seeded in circles around it. The
inner-most circle dies, the outer-most circle stays the same, the middle is
interesting to breeders, you can see those on google earth, there's a picture
here: [https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/atom-garden-
eden/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/atom-garden-eden/)

It's one of the things the consumer would be very upset about if told, but has
been living fine with for decades, like the fact that your insulin, your
washing powder, and your contact sense solution is made by genetically
modified bacteria.

~~~
m4rtink
Yep, this is funny - people have problem with GMO where we have atleasts some
idea what the modification did but at the same time most of what people eat
was created by radiation induced random mutation.

------
drcross
While i'm not fundamentally anti nuclear the long lead time and high cost of
installation surely makes renewable and battery storage a serious contender
against nuclear at this stage, right?

~~~
credit_guy
Rwanda is a small country, about the size of the Massachusetts state in the
US, but with double the population. It's in the mountains, lots of forests and
lakes. No deserts. Not a lot of unused land where you can mount solar panels.
Nuclear makes sense for them.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Rwanda is roughly 6.5 million acres in size. Half of its roughly 200MW of
total generating capacity comes from hydro and solar, the other half coming
from natural gas and biomass thermal generation. To replace existing thermal
generation would be ~12k acres of solar, and another ~12k acres for every
additional 100MW in solar generating capacity desired (or inter connectors to
other grids in the region). I also assume that rooftops are available for
solar.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Their current generating capacity is not coming close to meeting their needs,
with around 85% of it's energy use coming from firewood.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Your point is taken. I think it's incredibly valuable the fuelwood used for
cooking and lighting is deprecated for off grid solar solutions, not only for
health reasons but to stem the deforestation Rwanda faces from it's reliance
on fuelwood for its energy needs.

------
gt565k
Hope that plant gets built, but I mean just look at Bulgaria, where corruption
is rampant. We haven't been able to complete the Belene Nuclear Power Plant
for 30 years now.

Doubt the Rwandan plant will get built any time soon.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belene_Nuclear_Power_Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belene_Nuclear_Power_Plant)

------
ekianjo
Rwanda is a very interesting player in Africa. They are experimenting with
many technologies that the West can only dream of. They use drone deliveries
for emergency medicines as well with good success, between plants that
manufacture them and hospitals dozens of kilometers away.

~~~
Google234
I highly doubt your second sentence is true

~~~
kolikotime
They do have a very proactive government that deploys experimental technology
in highly public pilots. That you doubt it’s not true is purely because it’s
an African country.

~~~
bobbydroptables
Maybe what he's getting at is that the technologies the west "can't dream of"
were invented in the west. Drones, for example. The west doesn't use drones to
deliver medicine because it has very well developed infrastructure to deliver
medicine.

It is cool Rwanda is doing this but I would guess the west has dreamed of
drone deliveries of things and decided that its current system is ok.

------
TrainedMonkey
> the Minister said that [some of] the imported foods into Rwanda are
> preserved using nuclear technology

Huh, anyone knows what this is referring to?

~~~
manfredo
You can blast foods with gamma radiation and then can it or otherwise put it
in an airtight seal. The gamma radiation kills all foods and microbes that
would cause it to decay. Gamma radiation is just photons (unlike alpha and
beta radiation) so it doesn't case the food to become radioactive.

It would enable canning food without preservatives.

~~~
opwieurposiu
Typically you put the food in the can and the cans the box and then blast the
whole box in one go.

Very useful for countries with limited access to refrigeration.

This is also a common method for sterilizing single use medical stuff, band-
aids, sutures, iv tubes etc.

