How much more efficient? Nuclear fission is nearly 8, times more efficient at producing energy than traditional fossil fuels. Because nuclear energy is more efficient, it requires less fuel to power the plant and therefore creates less waste as well.
However, there are disadvantages of nuclear energy to keep in mind when considering if this power source is the best form of environmentally friendly energy for our future. Here are some of the main cons of nuclear energy.
Despite being relatively inexpensive to operate, nuclear power plants are incredibly expensive to build—and the cost keeps rising. In addition to the expense of building a power plant, nuclear plants must also allocate funds to protect the waste they produce and keep it in cooled structures with security procedures in place. All of these costs make nuclear power quite expensive.
One of the first things most people think of when they hear nuclear power plant is the disaster at Chernobyl. The Fukushima power plant crisis in showed that no matter how safe nuclear power plants are designed to be, accidents can and do happen. While radiation might sound scary, we are constantly exposed to small amounts of radioactivity from cosmic rays or radon in the air we breathe.
Storage of radioactive waste is a major challenge facing nuclear power plants. As technology improves, we will hopefully find better ways of storing radioactive waste in the future.
Nuclear power plants have a greater impact on the environment than just the waste they produce. The mining and enrichment of uranium are not environmentally friendly processes. Open-pit mining for uranium is safe for miners but leaves behind radioactive particles, causes erosion, and even pollutes nearby sources of water. Nuclear power presents a unique threat to our national security because it is powered by nuclear energy.
Terrorists might target nuclear power plants with the intention of creating a disaster, and the uranium used to produce the power can be turned into nuclear weapons if they end up in the wrong hands. For these reasons, security surrounding nuclear materials and nuclear power plants is extremely important. And, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pointed out, the plant is unusually close to an exceptionally dense city, which would make a meltdown particularly catastrophic.
That millions of Americans rejoiced when the plant's closure was announced is no surprise. It has invested heavily in wind farms to this end. But with three natural gas plants set up to help provide the power hitherto generated by Indian Point, emissions are likely to go up following the plant's closure.
Nuclear critics argue that this rise is temporary, and that expanding wind power will eventually replace Indian Point's output. Nuclear New York's Detering rejects this logic. We want to displace fossil fuels. It's a scenario likely to occur repeatedly in the coming years as plants are deconstructed throughout the country. Already on track to miss its gas emissions target , California will lose two reactors in -- and a fifth of its carbon-free electricity with them.
While the developed world grapples with decarbonizing, populous developing nations contend with another issue: Ramping up power by any means necessary. China is the world's biggest investor in nuclear power -- 49 reactors are up and running, to be joined by 18 more in the coming years -- but the capacity of its planned coal plants exceeds that of the US' active fleet.
It's just what you'd expect: The richer countries," said Clarke. What sells in these countries is not climate mitigation, that's a long-term issue. It's not just public perception and safety concerns that's hampering nuclear energy adoption, but the more pedestrian worries of time and money.
This is true in the US too: With no carbon pricing, increasingly cheap natural gas is more economical than tightly regulated nuclear. Asuka reasons that it's unhelpful for developing countries or those aspiring to meet deadlines to start building plants now, since they cost so much and take so long to build. He argues that investment should go into energy conservation and renewable technologies. A handful of companies building the next generation of nuclear reactors think they can change that.
Nuclear power plants are massive investments. That's without factoring in delays and budget overruns, which are common. The US model for nuclear power plant production is particularly inefficient. Each state has its own utility standards and safety regulations, requiring power plants to be tailored to their locale. South Korea managed to halve the cost of nuclear energy between and using similar methods.
X-Energy, one of several companies building safer and less expensive "Gen IV" nuclear reactors, hopes to reverse that trend. X-Energy's pebble-bed designs run on nuclear fuel encased in up to , billiard-sized graphite balls -- which the company says makes a meltdown physically impossible. Leaks and meltdowns happen when the metal structure in which nuclear fission occurs melts or ruptures.
At Chernobyl, for instance, operator error caused a steam explosion that blew a nuclear reactor open, unleashing radioactive gas and debris. X-Energy encases its nuclear fuel inside a billiard-ball-sized graphite encasing. It claims meltdowns are impossible in its reactors.
The graphite encasing nuclear materials used in X-Energy's reactors can withstand temperatures of up to 3, degrees fahrenheit, around 1, degrees more than the heat that caused Chernobyl's meltdown. Even if a reactor was torn apart, all radioactive elements would still be contained within the graphite casing. They can make the worst mistake but still cannot melt down the reactor. Must Read What is a nuclear power station?
One side effect of nuclear power is the amount of nuclear waste it produces. It has been estimated that the world produces some 34,m 3 of nuclear waste each year, waste that takes years to degrade. Pro — Cheap to run Nuclear power plants are cheaper to run than their coal or gas rivals.
The amount of energy produced is also superior to most other forms. Con — Expensive to build The initial costs for building a nuclear power plant are steep. South Africa scrapped plans to add 9. The stakes between a plane crash are very different. With a plane crash… a few hundred die. There is actually precedent in America for companies to run energy related utilities until the break and wreak havoc on the environment.
It is a well known fact that the executives behind oil pipelines run their pipelines until they break and spill thousands of gallons of oil because it is cheaper to do that than it is to run regular maintenance. Those are the people who will be running Nuclear Power Plants. If they see that an option is cheaper… they will do that regardless of the cost to human lives.
And with Nuclear power… as stated before… an accident can cause thousands of kilometers of land to be unlivable for decades and will disproportionately affect poor people. Also… I think it is smart to be skeptical of the safety assessment claims that are being produced by…. Possibly… just possibly… they have a stake in making the industry appear very safe? They said that any given Nuclear Reactor only had a core damage frequency of about 1 every 10, years.
We have currently gone through 17, reactor years collectively. Given those odds we should have only experience maybe 1 core damage event… or none. We have experienced 11! And also… very poor planning! That will continue to happen… especially if these are run by companies. I agree that we need to assess the risk and determine if it is worth it from there… using science and date… but the problem is… the only risk assessments we have are coming from the industry itself… and has history has shown… they have been very wrong on that!
Fusion… may be better since it produces less radioactive waste, but we are not able to sustain fusion yet so all of the current Nuclear Power Plants are talking about fission. By becoming more efficient and scaling up renewables, society could save the uranium for cool stuff like powering interplanetary spaceships. Having studied energy through Harvard, I can assure you I am far from ignorant and far from convinced nuclear is a sound environmental or economical option.
SMRs are constantly just around the corner, as are most nuclear breakthroughs. The US takes pride in their strong nuclear safety culture because they developed the technology the correct way, as opposed to others who tried taking shortcuts. IMO, Nuclear plants would be better off under the direct supervision of the Navy, much the same way as hydroelectric dams are owned by federal agencies.
The Navy has an impeccable safety record, access to the best technologies, a well-developed supply chain, and people would be more comfortable knowing that the owner is not in it just for the profits.
The worlds reactors have been running for a collective total of 17, reactor years. According to the risk assessment of the Nuclear Power industry, a reactor would only have 1 core damage event every 20, years.
If their assessment was correct… we would have had only 1 or no meltdowns… again… we have had 11 in the world… total. In other words, they were off by a lot. Fermi 1 power plant repaired, returned to service, and operated until research it was a technology demonstrator power plant. Subsequently, Fermi 2 power plant was built and put into service, and has operated safely ever since. In , some fuel elements suffered damaged, SRE was repaired and returned to service.
It shut down in The plaintiffs produced an analysis of the incident prepared by expert witness Arjun Makhijani. In August ground water under the former Sodium Reactor Experiment was sampled to determine the presence of tritium, which was undetected.
The source of the funds was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of The survey was scheduled to be completed in September In December , the EPA released the results of testing done at the site.
Background levels. Low background levels. Nevertheless, a settlement to the lawsuit was reached. They should apologize and commit all their physicists and nuclear engineers to catching up to where we would be if not for their short-sightedness and outright stupidity five decades ago!! Or at the very least choose to ignore your history because it is inconvenient. Truth is there have been a lot of nuclear power plant accidents that resulted in radioactive waste spilling out into the environment.
Not nearly to the scale of those three, but still enough to negatively affect the lives of poorer communities. Poor people. Remember Love Canal? Not a Nuclear power plant, but is definitely indicative of the type of care companies in America take with their waste management.
Back to nuclear power, Fukushima is still abandoned and it is not safe for residents to return yet. The cause of the Fukushima disaster was out of their control as it was caused by environmental disasters. Off the coast of Japan, they are still finding traces of radioactive contamination from the accident. This is potentially linked to a spike in cancer rates among… you guessed it… poorer coastal communities.
Chernobyl was a disaster caused by human carelessness… you know what else is a disaster caused by human carelessness? The BP oil spill off the coast of Florida. Or any of the other oil spills running through America.
And why is that? Because American companies would rather run things until they break than properly maintain them. Is that speculation? The major oil companies literally stated that it was cheaper to run the pipelines until they broke and spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the environment than to hire workers to perform regular maintenance and inspections.
And you want to put those same companies in charge of nuclear power plants? I worked on, slept near, and operated a reactor for 20 years! You pussies think you know everything! The Havard PHD is absolutely correct in his blog. Oh great… anecdotal evidence that ignores the science, nuclear proliferation and actual risks of nuclear energy… how profound.
Not to mention that Nuclear is far too expensive now and takes way too long to build a single power plant… or that every dollar spent on nuclear could have gone to other clean energy investments that could take a larger chunk out of our carbon footprint than nuclear for less money. Assuming the historic capability of connecting 11 reactors annually to the grid, the world will be able to increase nuclear capacity by about 20 percent over 34 years. This is nowhere close to what would be needed for a significant contribution.
Doubling that production rate, under the most current IEA 2 Degree Scenario, would allow nuclear energy to contribute to just 7 percent of the required carbon dioxide emission reductions by Overall… any investment in nuclear energy is essentially a waste of money right now. Nuclear energy requires decades to get set up and see a return.
Without increasing our carbon footprint significantly during conatruction due to you know… having to power all the complex equipment and machinery to build them? That sounds like a pretty big fantasy to me….
This article inaccurately suggests Yucca Mountain was a political decision. Should a canister go critical, or simply leak, contamination would spread readily below the mountain.
Imagine that US has aged facilities, many not even shut down, yet. Jordan ought reconsider why SC billions of dollars invested are coming to a halt, including excessive construction costs, excessive operating costs, excessive costs following catastrophic failure, are few Jordan does not address when wearing his rose colored glasses. Author here. My statement that the decision was strictly political is based on a report by the Government Accountability Office — an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress.
You can access the report via the imbedded link in the article. In accordance with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Secretary of Energy was specifically given the opportunity to state any technical or safety issues associated the Yucca Mountain site.
No issues were reported. Your second paragraph primarily focuses on the economic feasibility of nuclear power. Because there are in fact a number of highly educated people in the scientific world, not worried about grant money that firmly detest that human activity is the leading cause for any warming or cooling of the Earth. Furthermore, it seems your research is done poorly, and leans on the side of political fulfillment rather than empirical evidence gathered from all sources.
To suggest that no organization of national or international standing disputes the claims is beyond dishonest, and borders propaganda. The founder of the Weather Channel, and founding member of this climate change scare has come out and called for a stop to this idea that it is set in stone that people are causing climate change. Controlling industry through regulatory product is a great deal of power, especially if one can condense that power and control global industry.
The means of production have been a target by those seeking power for a very long time, stretching back to recorded history. Hello Eric, I ask that you please reconsider the legitimacy of your source. They are using the incredibly effective tool of spreading false information to make the public uncertain, thus undermining progress in climate action. If you will, take a look at the pages below. That would be a good source of information without much of a political slant.
I am not a hater good job guys. You really helped me out with my ELA projects. Hope to see other great work like this in the future. Great article, and nice to see some calm facts rather than the anti nuclear rants with little or no perspective of comparative facts to support their views.
Clearly no one wants the nuclear plant in their garden but we dont want air pollution we dont want the radioactivity released by burning fossile fuels we dont want the ever increasing climate events which as you say is accepted to be caused by human actions although unfortunately so much misinformation and outright propaganda still abounds on this topic, hardly surprising considering the unimaginable large amount of money the fossile fuel industry generates.
If we dont want to use less electricity and reduce consumption then nuclear energy is our only real source of energy with the scalability to supply all our needs. Nuclear energy works today. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow… maybe not for a few decades… but eventually they will be. Because humans make mistakes… and beyond that we cannot control environmental disasters.
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