Nuclear power is good – it has an unfair reputation

Posted January 11, 2008 Comments

Humans need a lot of energy. We consume energy for light, heat, transport, food… Basically everything we do requires energy. The problem is that using energy in it’s popular forms is doing some serious damage to our environment.

Currently most of the energy we use comes from fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal) which we burn to create energy. Unfortunately burning those fossil fuels also pollutes the air and drives global warming. Global warming = bad.

So we need to change our habits (waste less energy) and we could change our energy sources (to those less damaging). There are renewable sources like solar and wind power which basically make use of the copious amounts of energy the sun beams down to earth every day. However, these sources are expensive, inconsistent, and chew up large amounts of space.

Nothing is ideal, but you should be rational and not emotional in your decisions.

There is another great option, also not ideal, but the best (in my opinion) currently available. Nuclear power has an unfairly bad reputation. When used properly it is an excellent energy source – and it produces no air pollution! As the Economist says:

  • Nuclear power offers the possibility of large quantities of electricity that is cleaner than coal, more secure than gas and more reliable than wind. And if cars switch from oil to electricity, the demand for power generated from carbon-free sources will increase still further. The industry’s image is thus turning from black to green.

The Economist has articles here, here, here and here describing that:

  • Nuclear power is very clean as the graph below shows.
  • Nuclear power can be safely generated. Even taking into account Chernobyl (4,000 dead) and Three Mile Island (0 dead) nuclear power is extremely safe – and getting safer.
  • Nuclear power can be generated cheaply. Initial costs are extremely high, but over time it makes economic sense. This would be especially true were the negative environmental costs of fossil fuels built into their already high cost.
  • There are pretty good ways of storing the radioactive waste generated.
  • Many previous nuclear protesters and “greens” are changing their minds and advocating nuclear power.

  • HollieBailey
    Thankyou very much for this i have a 3000 word essay to do and this was a big help, good information (:
  • yusudui
    your realllly reallly gayyy
  • Elliot Fraser
    Useful factual information
  • Sandi Heatrs
    Can you explain me about the advantages and disadvatages of nuclear power.
  • That’s a pretty open question Sandi! But also a good question so I’ll give a very brief answer...

    Advantages:
    - No greenhouse gases are emitted (practically no emissions)!
    - Over the lifetime of a nuclear power plant the cost of generating electricity is very low
    - The technology exists already and is remarkably safe
    - Nuclear power generation is consistent. You don’t rely on the sun or the wind.

    Disadvantages:
    - Nuclear power generation depends on fuels like Uranium which will eventually run out. That said, we have enough of these fuels (and we can improve their usage efficiency) to last a very long time.
    - Generating nuclear power generates radioactive waste that must be carefully and expensively dealt with. Compared to the negative effects of other power generation (including solar and to a certain extent wind) a pile of radioactive material that must be carefully handled is nothing.
    - Building a nuclear power plant is very expensive. That means that it takes time before you make a profit on a new nuclear power plant. But over time nuclear power generation is actually cheap.
  • Lance Headrick
    I have to disagree with the "nuclear power being inexpensive". If we ever stop using it we will still have to take care of the spent fuel and contaminated equipment for 20,000 years. That will be expensive. The risk that the ever increasing spent fuel contaminates the mass public is even worst and could not be priced.
  • I never stated that nuclear power is inexpensive. I did state that over the lifetime of a nuclear plant power generation is relatively expensive. That is a fact.

    Spent fuel is indeed a problem and possibly an expensive one. However, including this cost does not make nuclear power prohibitively expensive.

    Most importantly nuclear power is a lesser of evils. It is not even close to perfect, but it’s better than almost all of our current alternatives.

    Relatively safe (far less damaging than coal power generation) when properly regulated, relatively cheap, relatively green. Sure you have to take care of spent fuel, but that is something that we can do.

    In the long term I believe some sort of solar power generation will be our best option - right now I believe that nuclear power generation is our best option.
  • Lance
    "Over the lifetime of a nuclear power plant the cost of generating electricity is very low"

    This is misleading because of the

    1) cost of plant construction (you have to figure that in, industry does that is a big reason they don't build them.

    2) cost of storing waste over its self life must be figured in (how long will it have to be stored? 1000s of years, that will be expensive
  • Lance
    I think the problem with Nuclear energy in the United States is that we are dominated by the media and currently the media thinks that NUCLEAR is bad. Additionally, worriers think that if we reprocess our waste (producing weapon capable material) we are creating a greater availability for terrorists. Most countries using Nuclear Plants reprocess cutting down waste per cycle to less than 250 lbs a year (estimated on 2000lbs of spent fuel per plant per year). If terrorists really wanted this reprocessed fuel they can get it in Russia, France and likely couple of others.

    Lastly, we need to more vigorously explore a process to reverse U238 to U235 (U235 being stable) there by reducing even further the waste that is so problematic.
  • This graph comes from one of the articles that I referenced in the blog. This one. Unfortunately I see that it is now behind a pay-wall.

    Anyway, the units are actually included on the graph just under the sub-title (Grams of carbon equivalent per kWh). Basically, how much carbon is emitted per unit of electricity generated.
  • sahasrz
    where did u get the graph from?????
  • sahasrz
    Can you explain a bit more about the graph i.e
    units
    measurments
    stuff!!!!
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