13 Mar 2024 : The Hindu Editorial

Topic 1 : How is nuclear waste generated?

Introduction :

Recently, India loaded the core of its long-delayed Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) vessel, bringing the country to the cusp of stage II — powered by uranium and plutonium — of its three-stage nuclear programme. But the large-scale use of nuclear power is accompanied by a difficult problem: waste management.

Nuclear waste

• Radioactive (or nuclear) waste is a by-product of nuclear reactors, fuel processing plants, hospitals, and research facilities.
• It can be in gas, liquid, or solid form. The level of radioactivity can also vary depending on the radioactive waste.
• The waste includes uranium, plutonium, and other highly radioactive elements made during fission.
• They have extremely long half-lives. This means it take long time periods before the waste settles to a safer level of radioactivity.

Handling nuclear waste

• Handling the spent fuel is the main challenge — it is hot and radioactive, and needs to be kept underwater for up to a few decades.
• Once it has cooled, it can be transferred to dry casks for longer-term storage.
• Nuclear power plants also have liquid waste treatment facilities.
• Small quantities of aqueous wastes containing short-lived radionuclides may be discharged into the environment.
•  Japan is currently discharging, after treatment, such water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
• Other such waste, depending on their hazard, can be evaporated or chemically precipitated to yield a sludge to be treated and stored, absorbed on solid matrices or incinerated.
• Liquid high-level waste contains almost all of the fission products produced in the fuel.  It is vitrified to form a storable glass.

• The vast majority of the radioactivity in the waste from as Only uranium and plutonium can be used as fuel.
• Once spent fuel has been cooled in the spent-fuel pool for at least a year, it can be moved to dry-cask storage.

• It is placed inside large steel cylinders and surrounded by an inert gas.
• The cylinders are sealed shut and placed inside larger steel or concrete chambers.
• Some experts have also rooted for geological disposal where the waste is sealed in special containers and buried underground in granite or clay.
• Reprocessing — the name for technologies that separate fissile from non-fissile material in spent fuel — is another way to deal with the spent fuel.
• Here, the material is chemically treated to separate fissile material left behind from the non-fissile material.
• Importantly, reprocessing also yields weapons-usable plutonium.

Nuclear waste disposal by India

•  In India the nuclear waste disposal is based on the concept of – ‘Delay and Delay’, ‘Dilute and Disperse’, ‘Concentrate and  Contain’.
• Because India reprocesses its spent fuel, the fission products will have to be stored, at least for a while, in the form of liquid waste, which poses accident hazards.
• India has reprocessing plants in Trombay, Tarapur, and Kalpakkam.
• The wastes generated at the nuclear power stations during the operation are of low and intermediate activity level and are managed at the site itself.
•  They are treated and stored in on-site facilities, that such facilities are located at all nuclear power stations and that the surrounding area is monitored for radioactivity.

Way forward

In the Indian context, India should construct a deep geological repository for disposing of high-level waste. The government has to give priority to the areas having remoteness from the environment and the absence of circulating groundwater in such construction.

Topic 2 : Why India urgently needs a legal framework for genomics

Context

The last two decades have seen unprecedented advances in genomics. These advancements have come in the background of our ability to sequence, analyse and interpret genomes at an unprecedented scale, along with an emerging and expanding corpus of evidence to act upon the genomic information for healthcare decision making.

India and genomics

• India has not been too far behind in human genomics, with the announcement of the first genome sequencing in 2009, 1,000 genomes in 2019 and recently concluded 10,000 genomes last week.
• These efforts undoubtedly have contributed to significant insights into diseases in the population, estimates of the prevalence of many conditions, and more importantly serving as baseline data for decision making, apart from its utility in accelerating research.
• However, given the large, diverse and stratified population encompassing over 1.4 billion people, it would mean we need to be ambitious, while at the same time pragmatic, to ensure that the benefits of genomics are not lost out to our people.
• Apart from significant impetus in sequencing individuals at scale, to match similar efforts across the world, a well-thought-through legal and policy framework and wider and integral participation of industry is essential to accelerate this in India.
• Many countries have been proactive in formulating legal and policy frameworks to ensure the benefits of the technology are widely accessible while also accelerating research and development.

Equity and diversity

• Data protection is one of the important components that urgently require a legal framework.
• Despite significant established capacity and expertise in India, a significant number of samples from India are sequenced and/or analysed by companies abroad with little oversight and regulation.
• Another issue is the fragmentation of genetic data with a number of organisations providing genetic testing services, the data remain in silos.
•  Without a framework for collecting summary information, the data remains inaccessible for public health decision-making.
• Discrimination based on genetic information is indeed a real concern due to the lack of laws preventing it.
• Equity and diversity in genetic data also is a concern that needs to be addressed especially in a diverse country like India, as unregulated market forces could widen the already acute barriers to access to better healthcare, especially for the poor and ethnic minorities.
•  Lack of equity could result in less research, less insights/ evidence for clinical decision making and eventually exclusion of such groups from access to the benefits of genomic technologies.
• Evidence-based use of genomics and mechanisms to ensure the quality and validity of genomic tests is therefore key.

For a better future

• The value of the right guidance and policies in advancing human genomics cannot be overstated.
• Clear policies foster trust among stakeholders, encouraging collaboration and innovation in this rapidly evolving field.
• By emphasising ethical principles and aligning policies with societal needs, human genomics research can realise its full potential in advancing healthcare, improving outcomes, and enhancing the quality of life.
• With proper oversight, genomic research can revolutionise healthcare, offering personalised treatments, disease prevention strategies, and diagnostic tools.

Way forward

India has the potential to be a leader by enabling genomics for the masses, at an unprecedented scale opening up unprecedented opportunities and heralding a better and healthier future for its people, but only if it puts the best foot forward.