TREES contaminated by radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster are
to be burnt to produce electricity. 杏吧原创s from the US and Belarus are
planning the construction of a power plant fuelled by timber from around the
crippled reactor. They claim this is the best way of cleaning up the
area.
The pilot tree-burning plant will be built in Belarus during a two-year
project directed by scientists at the Sandia National Laboratories in
California, the Belarussian Institute for Power Engineering Problems in Sosny,
and Wheelabrator Environmental Systems, a New Hampshire company that specialises
in generating power from waste. The project will cost $1.6 million, and
will be financed by the US Department of Energy and the government of Belarus.
The pilot plant鈥檚 precise location has yet to be decided.
Belarus imports 90 per cent of its fuel and electricity, so local sources of
energy are badly needed. 鈥淏iomass-derived power is ideally suited to their
society,鈥� says Larry Baxter, a chemical engineer at Sandia.
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About a quarter of Belarus鈥檚 land is still contaminated by radioactive
caesium and strontium from Chernobyl, mainly in the heavily forested southeast
of the country.
Baxter claims that 鈥渕ore than 99.9 per cent鈥� of the radionuclides in the
trees can be trapped as ash inside the biomass plant. This would have to be
disposed of as radioactive waste. He argues that modern filtering technologies
and electrostatic precipitators can remove all but the tiniest particles from
the smoke. Only particles less than 3 micrometres in diameter could escape, he
claims, and these are likely to contain 鈥渧ery little鈥� radiation.
Baxter predicts that biomass power stations could decontaminate Belarus鈥檚
forests within 40 years, compared to the centuries it would take for the
radioactivity to decay naturally to acceptable levels. 鈥淚f nothing is done with
the forests,鈥� he says, 鈥渢hey will eventually burn in a forest fire, releasing
large quantities of the radionuclides with no cleanup at all.鈥� The area around
Chernobyl has already suffered several forest fires since 1986.
鈥淭he plan is to replant the forests as they are harvested,鈥� says Baxter. This
will be done, he insists, in a manner that protects watersheds and promotes
regrowth.
Not everyone is convinced by the idea, however. 鈥淚t is an interesting
proposal,鈥� says Duncan Laxen, an air quality consultant based in Bristol. 鈥淏ut
it would have to be carried out with considerable care to ensure that it does
not create more problems than it solves.鈥�