Our Radiant Life... poor Lynas

Dear friends, affiliates and environmentally concerned entities. I may not be a radioactive expert or specialist but in my course of studies and lines of duties this substance seems ubiquitous. In some situations they are used for noble reasons and in others their existence are much dreaded.

The title may connote to a preamble that I would presumably write concerning human health. In fact, this time it’ll encompass a part of the global border. It is about the environmental health. We are the inhabitant of this environment.  It’s a borderless, dynamic and interacting ‘multimedia’ that often reacts to every act of its dwelling human beings in planet Earth.

An Australian based MNC is amidst its establishment in Gebeng, Kuantan, Pahang. It is noted to process the Rare-Earth products that are used in many greener technologies and products. However, despite the green technology driven endeavor they are also generating by-products or rather waste that contains radioactive materials. The radioactive substance is said to be Thorium. (STAR, 12^th April 2011) I was in the ‘neighborhood’ a fortnight ago delivering environmental training to another MNC where I learnt more detail of this on-going investment effort. Apparently, this MNC has literally set its foot and embarked on early construction phases. I was astonished when told that once in operation they are proposing to dump their radioactive contaminated sludge waste on-site, that is, a form of surface impoundment or a landfill within their premise. As I remembered this industrial site was a reclaimed land from what was previously a wetland. It was in fact mangrove swamp. It immediately occurs to me that this ecosystem has once lost its life which was then an ecological pride as the supplier of aquatic life-stocks for human consumption. This environmental nursery is today a history. Until now this lost eco-heritage is already deformed as it transformed into an industrial site. Today it faces further insult by news that part of its already maimed ecological components are to become the burial area of radioactive containing waste. Before my ingenuous comments gets further or inferred as impeding national development plans let’s observe some basic research and experience about this substance.

Radiation

I believe in our hay-days in High School chemistry classes we came across names like Roentgen and Bacquerel (1895 and 1896 respectively) who discovered the X-ray. Then, as we specializes our higher studies we found Rutherford, Geiger, Marsden, Strassman, Fermi, etc. Basics told us that X-rays are not deflected by magnetic fields, unlike Alpha and Beta which are positive and negatively charged respectively. Hence, X-rays are behaving like Gamma-rays. Gamma-rays are not affected by electric or magnetic fields and they are extremely penetrating electro-magnetic radiation similar to X-ray but of much shorter wavelength. They will penetrate about 150mm of Lead and travel with the speed of light. [G.I Brown, Physical Chemistry, SI Edition, Longmann, pp 98] Remember E=mc²? I still keep my books!  Remember, it penetrates. But today as we pursue environmental health sciences we learnt that it also penetrates the human skin and into any internal organs and kills our cells along its radioactive pathways. What does it mean?

Applied Radioactive Technology

Atoms and molecules can be activated and/or decomposed by radiation other than that of visible, ultra-violet and infra-red light. High energy radiation such as X-rays and γ-rays or beams of protons and neutrons are being used to bombard certain substance to produce trans-uranic radioactive substances or isotopes. (Please correct me if I’m wrong). In other words, naturally occurring substances are subjected to ‘bombardments’ to form isotopes. Thorium is also known originating from Uranium, a natural radioactive substance which is present in varying concentrations in most of our rock structures holding the earth surface. Uranium, with mass number 238 and atomic number 92 forms an element with mass number 234 and an atomic number 90 when it loses an α-particle after the bombardment. The new element is called Uranium-X; it is an isotope of Thorium, periodic table group-4 with half-life 24.5 days.

Radioactive contamination occurs from where they are being mined, in forms known as tail-mining. In nature Uranium occurs as isotopes U-235 at 0.72% and U-238 at 99.2% of its ore. Small amount of Thorium-230, Radium 226, Radon-222 and Lead-210 are being released in mining sites. The western world’s production in 1986 (research immediately done after the Chernobyl accident) was about 37,000 tonnes Uranium. [Runnals, O.J.C “Prospects for the Canadian Uranium Industry” C.I.M Bulletin, Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Montreal, Vol.81, No.911, March 1988 pp. 137-142]

Nuclear Power Plants

According to a reputable source; the energy which can be obtained directly from 1kg of natural uranium is equal to that available from about 20,000kg of Coal. After enrichment Uranium are fabricated into ‘fuel-rods’ for use in nuclear reactors usually up to 2 years. Then, they are removed and still contain wastes in the form of valuable residual plutonium from uranium and fission products. They are cooled in ‘spent fuel storage bay’ to remove heat liberated in radioactive decay. This is the critical period that when tempered has led to the Three Mile Island reactor incident in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March 1979. [J.Glynn Henry & Gary W. Heinke, “Nuclear Waste”, Environmental Science and Engineering, Prentice-Hall International Editions, pp. 586] The critical factor here is the cooling of fuel rods in the ‘spent-fuel-storage-bay’. The fuel must be cooled, otherwise, its cladding temperature shall rise to a point where it could react chemically in the atmosphere and lose its integrity. Then, it simply means that an emission of radioactive matters into the atmosphere is under way. As I’m writing we are just a couple of months in the aftermath of the Fukujima Tsunami incident! We saw explosion of two reactors at least in all TV coverage. They claimed the Fukujima incident is different from that of Chernobyl. Of course they are as far as the technical causative factor is. But, aren’t they all nuclear reactors that exploded? And, similarly they’ve chosen it for economic reasons, that is, a financial viability in power supply. A good financial decision but when accident happened questions on the security of the facility in terms of safety, health and environment are apparently redundant.  Nonetheless, aren’t all the emitted ‘fugitive’ radio-isotopes reaching us?

The Environmental Impact and Its Probable Mechanism.

I tend to view the environmental impact from the course of nature or at least the science we learnt from observing and studying about nature. As from the standpoint of Meteorological Air Pollution, the following are factors that influence the dynamics, mobility and severity of the escaped radio-isotopes to us i.e. our planet’s character;

Horizontal Atmospheric Motion

·         Equatorial heating and Polar cooling

·         Effects of the Earth’s Rotation

·         Influence of the Ground and the Sea

Vertical motion in the Atmosphere

·         Air density change with temperature and humidity

·         Air density change with pressure

·         Atmospheric stability

·         Mixing heights

·         Moisture/humidity

Winds

·         Velocities

·         Wind directions

[Noel De Nevers, Air Pollution Engineering, McGraw Hills, pp. 71-93]

So, have we any report about how much radioactive deposition is in our air? Can we read it as readily as the A.P.I (Air Pollution Index or in Bahasa Malaysia as Indeks Pencemaran Udara) status which was promptly published in many major tabloids and the TV news? Could we have R.F.I (Radioactive Fall-out Index) for instance then? I know that the measuring instrument is as portable as our hand-phone now. Why not?

Our Radiant Life – Exposed!

We are indeed exposed to certain level of radiation all our life! It comes from nature itself that is our flora and fauna. The Carbon Isotopes from some trees are emitting radiations too but at very low strength and that they have ’half-life’ of just seconds or a few minutes. That’s not detrimental to our health or the environment due assimilative and recovery factors of the human body and the environment. However, this does not preclude us from preventing ourselves from excessive exposure to hazardous forms of radiation that would annihilate our sustainability. Ironically, studies have reported that staying inside brick, stone, and cemented buildings are more susceptible to radioactive exposure as compared to breathing atmospheric air outside. “Although the foregoing radiation hazards from waste have posed problems, by far the largest hazard results from the natural evolution of Radon from traces of Uranium contained in soils, rocks and building materials. As we have moved from caves to tents to buildings, and as those buildings have been sealed to conserve energy, the Radon content of the air we breathe have increased. Currently, the average North American spends 80-90% of the day inside, and the average exposure to atmospheric Radon as a consequence is such as to produce an estimated 10,000 lung cancers per year in the U.S” [Cohen, B.L “Health Effects of Radon from Insulation of Building”. Health Physics 39 (1980); 937-941].

The Plight of Gebeng, Kuantan

In the case highlighted in the plight from some of our affected colleagues in Kuantan, it appears that the raw materials consumed by the company are non-radioactive in nature. However, it is believed that their production waste (or, by-products as claimed) contains Thorium. Its concentration and radiation level is still unknown to me as yet. I’m not surprised that the nation of origin of this company did not allow for the waste to be transported back to them. Their government knew what Thorium-containing ‘by-products’ are. In fact according to our colleagues from his e-mail, an agency there called ARPANSA regulates and monitor Radioactive Management Plan reports by companies in similar cases. In addition to that, such activities are subscribing to the Environmental Impact Assessment requirements of that particular country. In Malaysia, we have often extolling the virtues of the strict requirement of the Environmental Quality Act, 1974 and its enforcement agency, namely, the DOE. Environmental campaigns spurring high levels of environmental conscience amongst younger Malaysians who now serves both the government and corporate including MNC seemed to have worked in the sense that we know what is bad for the environment is bad for us.

But, in cases such as this, are we or our government who are ignorant, indifferent or callous to the plight of our ‘environmental-colleagues’? The arrival of such issue is no indictment of our nation’s progress – unless, of course, it is ignored. So, having said that should we narrow down responsible parties who are representing Malaysians in ensuring our sustainable development as follows?; THE HONORARY NO.1, THE YBs and LAW/POLICY MAKERS, MIDA, MITI, AELB, UPEN, DOSH, DOE, etc. (an array of others actually). We do hope the foreign team of experts who are invited to perform an assessment on this matter on-site in June would be publishing their reports to the public as well.

Finally, it’s reverting to the power that governing policy-makers wield, in this context, foreign investments versus local sustainable development. This power has great potential use and abuse. I believe that Malaysians with clear conscience on sustainable development shall implore that this power be exercised with great deal of fiduciary and moral responsibility while serving us – the people who shares responsibility in preserving our environment – Our Heritage. (Added: 27/03/12): - So, is LYNAS the issue, or, those 'with' them that are targeted? I shall leave that luxury of discretion to all honourable readers.

Written and posted to affiliates via the e-mail in April 2011 by Khalid Mohd Ariff.