CRED-NB is a member of the SMR Information Task force that publishes regular bulletins send to federal and provincial legislators. This month the topic is radioactive small modular reactors.
Every nuclear reactor, large or small, runs on neutrons. The core of the reactor is swarming with these subatomic projectiles. Each time a neutron splits a uranium atom, energy is released and radioactive waste is created.
Indeed, the broken fragments of uranium atoms are fiercely radioactive materials called “fission products”, and they accumulate in the fuel. Used nuclear fuel is millions of times more radioactive than unused fuel because of the fission products. This “high-level radioactive waste” must be isolated from the environment for many millennia.
But some neutrons penetrate into the structural materials of the reactor, making them radioactive too. When a stray neutron is absorbed by a non-radioactive atom, that atom is often “activated” –it becomes radioactive.
When a nuclear plant is dismantled, much of the rubble is too radioactive to be reused for other purposes. Such radioactive “decommissioning waste” must be kept out of the food chain and the water for tens of thousands of years.
Read the full bulletin HERE.
Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB) 