12 ms·

Use of nuclear technology gets green light in Rwanda

83 points by ericdanielski 6y ago

TrainedMonkey 6y ago
> the Minister said that [some of] the imported foods into Rwanda are preserved using nuclear technology Huh, anyone knows what this is referring to?
- mhh__ 6y ago
  https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irradiation-what-you-need-know#:~:text=Food%20irradiation%20(the%20application%20of,food%20safer%20for%20the%20consumer https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irra.... Kills the bugs
  - chmod775 6y ago
    That or they're just running fridges with nuclear power ;)
- bayesian_horse 6y ago
  That's not that strange or extra-ordinary. Sometimes radiation is used to sterilize food to increase shelf life. It doesn't make the food radioactive though. The sources of such radiation are similar to those used for medical purposes. If I remember correctly, this is especially useful for spices. But probably other stuff, also.
- manfredo 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.
ciarannolan 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    Do you mean they're helping their domestic peaceful nuclear energy industry grow?
    - FpUser 6y ago
      It is a mutually beneficial deal. Nobody's "helping" anyone here.
      - jacobr1 6y ago
        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 6y ago
dghughes 6y ago
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
- mikedilger 6y ago
  The color green, the imagery of leaves. This symbol clearly invokes the natural and warm feelings commonly associated with blasting things with nuclear radiation.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > natural and warm feelings commonly associated with blasting things with nuclear radiation Try going outside sometime ;)
- a_bonobo 6y ago
  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 6y ago
mikece 6y ago
“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.
- patentatt 6y ago
  To be fair to the MP, however, he said it’s “like” living by a bomb, it was a metaphor. And there are examples in history of accidents at nuclear power plants that have caused damage to their surroundings. So his statement may not be indicative of misunderstanding the fundamentals of nuclear power.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    It’s an awful metaphor once you actually look into the statistics.
    - mpalczewski 6y ago
      Which statistics? Rate of unintended explosions? I believe the "steel man" argument is that living next to a nuclear power plant exposes you to unknown tail risks.
      - acidburnNSA 6y ago
        These statistics: http://origin.who.int/airpollution/en/ http://origin.who.int/airpollution/en/
      - ekianjo 6y ago
        Like statistics on something like 70 years of industrial experience with nuclear plants? How many centuries are required to make a point?
drcross 6y ago
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?
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Nuclear is not cost competitive against renewables and storage, correct. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a role in the generation mix as a small baseload component, but that role will require subsidies based on nuclear’s low carbon footprint. https://www.lazard.com/media/451086/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-130-vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/451086/lazards-levelized-cost-o...
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Nuclear actually doesn't have a role as baseload in a cost optimized grid, especially in a country at low latitude.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- credit_guy 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.
bluntfang 6y ago
Why is this political piece on the front page but I haven’t seen one article about George Floyd??
- FpUser 6y ago
  Because this particular outlet has their own idea on what gets to go to a front page. They've already written about George Floyd btw.
- kwistzhaderach 6y ago
  I mean it’s more about tech that politics. That’s what I understand HN to be about. If the cop used a drone to kill Floyd you’d probably have seen more articles about it.
ekianjo 6y ago
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 6y ago
  I highly doubt your second sentence is true
  - kolikotime 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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.
    - Google234 6y ago
      Some of techs I dream about are cheap personalized immunotherapies, batteries made out of simple materials with high densities, fusion, artificial general intelligences that are smarter than us...
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    Sounds more like Wakanda!
- pnako 6y ago
  In the west we're still primitives, using infrastructure like roads and supply chain logistics to achieve the same thing.
grecy 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    It's half the price in Uganda! Here's me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vhZ03OKKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vhZ03OKKE
gt565k 6y ago
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

83 points by ericdanielski 6y ago

> the Minister said that [some of] the imported foods into Rwanda are preserved using nuclear technology Huh, anyone knows what this is referring to?

mhh__ 6y ago
https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irradiation-what-you-need-know#:~:text=Food%20irradiation%20(the%20application%20of,food%20safer%20for%20the%20consumer https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irra.... Kills the bugs
- chmod775 6y ago
  That or they're just running fridges with nuclear power ;)
bayesian_horse 6y ago
That's not that strange or extra-ordinary. Sometimes radiation is used to sterilize food to increase shelf life. It doesn't make the food radioactive though. The sources of such radiation are similar to those used for medical purposes. If I remember correctly, this is especially useful for spices. But probably other stuff, also.
manfredo 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.

ciarannolan 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Do you mean they're helping their domestic peaceful nuclear energy industry grow?
  - FpUser 6y ago
    It is a mutually beneficial deal. Nobody's "helping" anyone here.
    - jacobr1 6y ago
      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 6y ago

dghughes 6y ago

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

mikedilger 6y ago
The color green, the imagery of leaves. This symbol clearly invokes the natural and warm feelings commonly associated with blasting things with nuclear radiation.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  > natural and warm feelings commonly associated with blasting things with nuclear radiation Try going outside sometime ;)
a_bonobo 6y ago
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 6y ago

mikece 6y ago

“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.

patentatt 6y ago
To be fair to the MP, however, he said it’s “like” living by a bomb, it was a metaphor. And there are examples in history of accidents at nuclear power plants that have caused damage to their surroundings. So his statement may not be indicative of misunderstanding the fundamentals of nuclear power.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  It’s an awful metaphor once you actually look into the statistics.
  - mpalczewski 6y ago
    Which statistics? Rate of unintended explosions? I believe the "steel man" argument is that living next to a nuclear power plant exposes you to unknown tail risks.
    - acidburnNSA 6y ago
      These statistics: http://origin.who.int/airpollution/en/ http://origin.who.int/airpollution/en/
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      Like statistics on something like 70 years of industrial experience with nuclear plants? How many centuries are required to make a point?

drcross 6y ago

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?

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Nuclear is not cost competitive against renewables and storage, correct. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a role in the generation mix as a small baseload component, but that role will require subsidies based on nuclear’s low carbon footprint. https://www.lazard.com/media/451086/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-130-vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/451086/lazards-levelized-cost-o...
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Nuclear actually doesn't have a role as baseload in a cost optimized grid, especially in a country at low latitude.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
credit_guy 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.

bluntfang 6y ago

Why is this political piece on the front page but I haven’t seen one article about George Floyd??

FpUser 6y ago
Because this particular outlet has their own idea on what gets to go to a front page. They've already written about George Floyd btw.
kwistzhaderach 6y ago
I mean it’s more about tech that politics. That’s what I understand HN to be about. If the cop used a drone to kill Floyd you’d probably have seen more articles about it.

ekianjo 6y ago

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 6y ago
I highly doubt your second sentence is true
- kolikotime 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.
  - Google234 6y ago
    Some of techs I dream about are cheap personalized immunotherapies, batteries made out of simple materials with high densities, fusion, artificial general intelligences that are smarter than us...
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  Sounds more like Wakanda!
pnako 6y ago
In the west we're still primitives, using infrastructure like roads and supply chain logistics to achieve the same thing.

grecy 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  It's half the price in Uganda! Here's me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vhZ03OKKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vhZ03OKKE

gt565k 6y ago

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