Peaceful uses of nuclear energy increasing worldwide.

Peaceful uses of nuclear energy increasing worlwide

A major report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the Conference detailed its role in promoting international co-operation in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

In 1957, it stated, there were 10 prototype nuclear power units world wide, with an installed capacity of 214 electrical megawatts MW(e). By the end of 1984, some 345 nuclear power units were in operation--including 22 plants in nine developing countries. Total installed capacity was about 220,000 MW(e), including nearly 9,000 MW(e) in developing countries, amounting to an average of 13 per cent of total electricity generated world wide, 45 to 60 per cent in some countries.

International co-operation in the supply of materials and equipment and in technology transfer has made possible nuclear power development in many countries, the report stated. Radiation protection standards promoted by the Agency through international information exchange and assistance programmes helped to expand the use of isotope and radiation techniques, in particular with regard to food and medical supply irradiation, the sterile insect technique, medical diagnostic methods, industrial control techniques and hydrological investigations.

The nuclear power industry in recent years experienced two major accidents: at the TMI-2 power plant (Three Mile Island) in the United States in March 1979 and the Chernobyl-4 power plant in the USSR in April 1986. The Chernobyl accident would have a serious impact in several areas, the Agency warned.

Trends: The predicted slow-down in growth of nuclear power in the second half of the 1980s is related primarily to economic factors--slow growth of electricity demand, high initial investment costs and unavailability of capital. Those factors are particularly acute for developing countries.

Availability of small and medium-sized power reactors could improve the situation, since they could be integrated into smaller electricity grids, with lower total capital costs than larger plants. It is considered unlikely that such reactors will be made available by manufacturers unless a significantly larger market develops.

The IAEA predicts that the increased use of tracer techniques is likely to be more rapid in agriculture and industry. Radiation sterilization techniques for medical products is expected to increase, as is radiation treatment in polymer improvement, surface curing and degradation of agricultural waste into secondary energy products.

Increasing attention will be given to large-scale food irradiation and biological control of agricultural pests through the sterile insect technique. The rapid development of computer science in hydrology has made possible development of hydrological models to predict more accurately the behaviour of systems under a given set of conditions. These models can now be independently verified through the use of environmental isotope techniques.

Nuclear techniques have widespread uses in many countries, in such areas as food and agriculture, human health, industry, hydrology, and science and technology, the IAEA stated.

Food and agriculture: The IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) conduct a joint programme to establish the potential of isotopes and radiation technology to increase agricultural production, reduce production costs, improve food availability and quality, protect agricultural products from spoilage and minimize pollution of food and of the environment.

Nuclear applications are routine in such areas as plant breeding, production and storage of food, pest control, soil fertility studies, animal health and production, and studies of pesticide residues. The sterile insect technique has been successfully employed on a large scale to control such pests as the Mediterranean fruit fly and the tsetse fly.

Human health: Radionuclide and radiation applications are now well established in medicine. Small amounts of radioisotope tracers are used for diagnostic and research purposes, and radiation sources are employed in diagnosis, therapy and research. Radiotherapy continues to be an important means of cancer treatment, and radionuclides are the primary source of radiation, especially in developing countries. The IAEA collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO) in disseminating comparatively simple techniques of brachytherapy for cancer of the cervix.

Studies on radioactive tracers have provided valuable new information on essential trace elements in nutrition and on health hazards associated with occupational and environmental exposure to toxic substances. The same techniques are used to monitor levels of toxic substances in food, air and water, providing a basis for regulation and control.

Industry: Industrial applications involve automatic process control, non-destructive testing (NDT) of materials and products, and processing and sterilization by means of irradiation. The IAEA strongly supports the transfer of these techniques to developing countries when economic and social benefits would result.

NDT techniques, in which the material or product being analysed remains intact, are becoming more extensively employed in process and quality control. An estimated 400,000 persons are directly concerned with NDT activities world wide. High doses of ionizing radiation are used to sterilize pre-packed, ready-to-use medical supplies for "infection-free' health care services.

Hydrology: Isotope techniques are used in water resource investigations and the allied fields of sedimentation and geothermal exploration to assess the potential of underground water sources for exploitation and to identify leakages from dams and reservoirs. The increasing cost of oil has provided an impetus to research on geothermal energy, which involves evaluating temperatures of fluids at great depths using isotope techniques.