In my opinion, the public’s response to nuclear energy proves worse than the actual drawbacks. Like the fact that many people died as a result of the evacuation from the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s meltdown, even though the radiation was only strong enough to gradually kill one employee through cancer. Nuclear is very efficient, but has drawbacks that, like many other alternative energy sources, are improving through technological innovation. Mostly, i think people dislike nuclear energy because of its connection to nuclear weapons. GQA is not about my opinions however, so let’s break down nuclear energy:
Photo by Ajay Pal Singh Atwal
Materials
Earth has a decent amount of uranium; people mine this naturally-occurring metal on every inhabited continent. Uranium is not renewable. Using the current method for producing nuclear energy, scientists estimate earth contains enough for 80 to 230 years. Once the fuel rods expire, they can be mostly replenished and reused. A few countries already do this. However the process costs a lot and the materials produced in the process can be used for nuclear weapons unlike usual, energy grade plutonium. Scientists predict that they will soon be able to extract plutonium directly from ocean water economically. Recycling and ocean harvesting plutonium would provide us with energy for tens of thousands of years.
Currently, miners dig a pit, burrow underground, or drip water and chemicals into the earth and suck them up along with the uranium. Pit mines cost wildlife habitat and remove plant cover which lets precious topsoil blow away; they also cause erosion and landslides. The process carries the usual mining risks for workers like cave ins and using heavy machinery.
Nuclear plants also use a lot of concrete. Making concrete takes a lot of sand from sensitive river ecosystems. Concrete can’t be broken down and made into like new concrete either. The process of making nuclear energy also requires hafnium and beryllium. Industrialists need these rare metals for other growing modern technologies and they can’t simply recycle them once the plant is decommissioned because the rare metals will remain radioactive for many generations. Radioactive isotopes prove very difficult and costly to remove from within metals, so they are usually disposed of instead.
Australian pit mine photo by Calistemon
Transportation
All the building materials and fuel materials have to be shipped in. Most uranium comes from outside the US on ships, trains, and trucks, so, as usual, transporting it emits carbon dioxide. If an accident happens en route, radioactive materials can seep into the environment and cause problems. However, the process has been accident free since 1965 and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates a 1 in 1 billionth chance of a spill. The fuel material is solid state and packaged to withstand a wreck without leaking.
Space
The metal, Uranium, has 92 protons in each atom as compared to elements like the gas, hydrogen, which has only 1 proton. Because the process for making nuclear energy involves splitting these dense atoms, nuclear energy can produce a lot of energy with very little fuel. This also means that nuclear energy shines in how little land it needs to work as compared to other energy sources. It takes only a little over 1 square mile to operate a nuclear plant. It needs a water source, usually a large lake, river, or ocean for cooling. It also needs a uranium mine. The above ground pit mines don’t seem to be enormous and, naturally, the below ground mines don’t take up much land. Even considering transportation and mining space, nuclear energy uses less space than any major energy source except natural gas.
Cost
The price of nuclear energy proves very hard to calculate. Different reports give different costs. On one end, Americanprogress.org cites 27 cents per kWh. On the other Holdren suggests 6.4 cents per kWh. A better measure may be the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), which considers the bigger picture costs over the energy sources’ lifespan, often including factors like construction, maintenance, and fuel all together as a group. A chunk of nuclear energy’s budget also goes to security, legal battles, and safety regulations. For cost, the cheapest fossil fuels and some of the decreasingly expensive renewables beat nuclear energy. Investors often pass on nuclear because of the large cost just to get started. Nuclear plants in the US also tend to go overtime and over budget during construction. Why do they go over budget? Because policies often change. Then the plant under construction will suddenly need to alter its design midway through. However countries like France, Canada, and Japan managed to keep their prices steady over the decades and South Korea managed to actually decrease their costs! So construction processes can improve, especially if public fears of nuclear energy mellow.
world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx
Scientific Resource Publishing by Joseph R. Laracy
“Life” Span
Many plants are running longer than anticipated because they are operating without serious problems or signs of senility. In the US, they apply for new licences every 20 years and research shows that they should be able to operate up to 80 years without trouble- although 40 years is the current average “life” span. Fossil fuel plants last 30 to 50, solar panels last 25 to 30 years, wind turbines 20 to 25, biomass plants last about 30 years, and hydroelectric plants last 64 years on average, though they are quoted at 25 to be safe.
Output
Why look at the output? Because if we are going to use electricity (and people want to) it makes sense to reap the most watts from the fewest resources to reduce environmental impact. All energy production costs something, whether extracting metal for wind turbines or the gasoline to transport trash to a biomass plant.
Ginna Nuclear Power plant in New York puts out 581 megawatts with just one reactor running at capacity while Palo Verde in Arizona puts out 3,937 megawatts with its 3 reactors. So an average 1,000 megawatt plant can supply a decent-sized city like Seattle (724,000 people) with dependable electricity. Nuclear plants also have an efficient, average capacity factor of 93%, meaning they regularly produce almost as much energy as they possibly can. Nuclear beats out all other usual energy types in capacity.
Nuclear power also proves especially useful for regions with high population densities and little space (like Japan) because other renewable options like wind turbines take up a lot more room while biomass produces much less energy per hour. Nuclear energy outranks other energy sources in terms of producing energy more quickly, steadily, and with little interference from environmental and seasonal factors like rain on solar panels or lack of rain flowing downstream into hydroelectric dams.
Emissions
Because the energy comes from splitting atoms instead of burning stuff, nuclear plants release no carbon dioxide! The steam from their big, iconic towers is just water vapor coming from their cooling systems. And El-Hinnawi’s report on the International Atomic Energy Agency website (iaea.com) states that, “Compared to the risks from gaseous emissions produced by fossil-fuel-operated power plants, the risks from discharges from nuclear power plants during normal operation are negligibly small“. According to sciencedirect.com, nuclear power emits less CO2 in its “life” span than any current energy source other than hydropower. That “life” span includes all the steps: mining, transportation, construction, maintenance, and disposal. In its lifetime, Nuclear releases between 4 and 110 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour. Renewables release about as much CO2 and fossil fuels release much more.
https://physicsworld.com/a/how-green-is-nuclear-energy: "A comparison of direct greenhouse-gas emissions (red bars) and full-life-cycle emissions (blue bars) produced by different energy technologies. After including the environmental impacts of mining, extraction and enrichment, the greenhouse-gas emissions from the full nuclear fuel cycle are revealed to be on a par with those of sources like wind and solar power, while all three are much less than those of fossil fuels."
Waste
Physicians for Social Responsibility stated that “Among its 98 nuclear plants the US produces 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste and 12 million cubic feet of low level radioactive waste in the U.S per year.” While renewables have a very direct line from input to energy production with minimal waste, and we are breathing in fossil fuels’ waste from our warming atmosphere, only nuclear energy has to deal with spent fuel. 97% of the by-products of the whole nuclear energy process lose radioactivity within a few decades. They do little known harm to life around them.
After 40 years, the radioactivity of spent plutonium decreases to about one-thousandth of what it was at the beginning. However it will keep emitting some radiation for hundreds of thousands of years. No human civilization has lasted anywhere near that long, so experts are unsure how to prevent people from unwittingly exposing themselves to radioactive waste once we aren’t around to ward them away. At the moment, nuclear plants store waste on premises because the US has no disposal site. Nuclear wastes are still solid, but to protect us from the floods and other disasters spreading them around, experts have agreed that they should be stored underground for the long term.
While efficiently carting off a very high percent of the uranium, mines leave some behind along with other naturally occurring but still dangerously radioactive elements. The tailings must be ingested to cause damage. Some of these remain radioactive for several years. Like the underground radioactive waste repository, these stored tailings need some maintenance to prevent them from spreading to the air and groundwater.
Water Use
Nuclear plants source water from oceans and rivers. Fish get sucked in and killed. The water is used to cool the process and is released 25 degrees F warmer. The released water has much less dissolved oxygen and a higher Ph, which may sound abstract, but significantly harms aquatic life. Many aquatic organisms can’t tolerate a change that high and die. Others can and end up overpopulating, leading to an ecological imbalance. The coolant water that nuclear plants release is kept separate from nuclear materials and is checked for radioactivity before being dumped, so it drops very few radioactive isotopes and these spread out in water to do even less damage.
Radioactivity
As far as my research shows, enough radiation can kill any living thing. Different kinds of organisms have different tolerances. Radiation can pass up the food chain from flora to herbivores to carnivores. The weather and water currents can spread radioactive particles around. It seems like scientists have humanely decided not to do much research on low level radiation’s effects on animals. In humans, and so probably in animals, radiation can cause: nausea, vomiting, fetal problems and death, male sterility, DNA damage, cancer, internal bleeding, reduced thyroid function, skin burns, hair loss, and exhaustion. Flora, similarly, suffer stunted growth, decreased lifespan, stress, sterilization, tumors, and offspring abnormalities that seem to pass on down through the generations. If the organism stops getting hit with radioactivity, its cells can regenerate.
Rem is one measure of nuclear radiation. High rem damages cells in humans and animals and causes the illnesses listed above. 1000 rem would quickly kill an adult. Low rem increases the risk of cancer. For scale, a typical 3 hour plane flight gives passengers .001 rem. A typical chest x-ray gives .01 rem. And, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the average human living within a mile of a nuclear plant receives only 0.001 rem a year. Average Americans (most of whom don’t live near a nuclear plant) receive .62 rem a year; 80% of their exposure average comes from natural sources like the ground and the sky. Nuclear energy production accounts for 0.01% of the average American’s exposure. So it seems like normally functioning nuclear reactors aren’t wiping anything out and drop only small amounts of radiation.
National organizations set standards and regularly check radiation emissions from nuclear plants, so we know that they give off very little radiation and lots of the radiation decays quickly and becomes tame as it dissipates into the air and water. The US allows exposures of 0.025 rem. So, even to the workers, functioning nuclear plants are not harmfully irradiating people. Interestingly, coal plants release many times more radioactivity into the air, people, and crops around them than nuclear plants do.
Nuclear plants have had only 2 major accidents among the 18,500 cumulative reactor-years of commercial nuclear power happening in 36 countries. An earthquake and a tsunami hit hit Japan’s Fukushima plant in 2011. Though exposure to the radiation killed 1 plant worker 7 years later, the overheated reactor released 7300 rem per hour for a while! However, the area is now safe to visit, though some of the most exposed spots near the reactor continue to be locked down. The Soviet Union’s plant, Chernobyl, melted down in 1986 because of substantial human errors in a plant lacking numerous recommended safety measures. It released 30,000 rem per hour!
Fukushima’s Daiicho and Chernobyl’s accidents show that nuclear radiation can kill plants and animals, cause harmful changes in cell divisions, reduce virility, and imbalance ecosystems. Despite some damage from radiation and changes in the numbers of different species, wildlife have repopulated Fukushima and Chernobyl and are thriving. Nuclear energy technology continues to improve on efficiency, safety from human error, and security from murderers taking plutonium. They have layers of safety measures. For instance, some of the newer micro plants take up less than a mile of space, self-cool when they heat up, can remain safe even during power loss, and need to be refueled only once every 2 years.
Comparatively minor accidents happen more frequently. If a natural disaster like a flood happens at a uranium mine, it can spread radioactive isotopes to its environment. 43 of the 61 nuclear power plants currently operating in the US have spilled at least once. 43 sites have leaks beyond the 20,000 picocuries per liter of radioactive tritium that the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe. 1 picocurie equals 1 trillionth of a curie, which is a gram’s worth of radioactive radon. So it sounds like a lot, but it isn’t. Though Tritium rapidly spreads out and fades so investigators usually can’t even detect it in the environment around nuclear plants, it can harm bodies when swallowed. Materials scientist Gaetan Bonhomme says that releasing tritium in the water stream is the best way to dilute it, though not necessarily the safest way. Tritium could continue to have human impact after a little less than its 12 year half life. Since tritium doesn’t seem very deadly and wasn’t released in the first nuclear bombs, scientists know little of its effects on people. Also, it has been lightly covering the earth since nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s.
If an accident happens to new uranium en route to a plant, spent radioactive materials leaving a plant, or if the metal tank containing old materials is punctured, these radioactive particles can seep into the ground and water and cause problems. Different kinds of isotopes last from a few hours to 80,000 years. However, the process has been accident free since 1965 and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates a 1 in 1 billionth chance of a spill in transit. The power source is a metal in solid state and is packaged for disaster.
Photo by Yasemin Atalay
Development
While nuclear energy seems to have plateaued in many nations, some are developing the technology. Nuclear technology shows even better potential with fast reactors. They use 99% of their nuclear fuel leaving little waste that breaks down within 300 years. It consumes nuclear waste from the other kinds of plants. It safely cools itself if the plant lapses. And it is hard to make into bombs. Also, China National Nuclear Corporation and TerraPower are progressing towards releasing a Traveling Wave Reactor that could recycle used plutonium to produce energy by 2026. And scientists continue to optimistically hunt for fusion, the safer, more efficient, cheaper, perhaps ultimate, energy source.
Conclusion
Many Americans seem to perceive nuclear energy as more dangerous than climate change. That leaves us reliant on more harmful and less steady power sources. All the major forms of generating electricity cause at least some harm to the environment and electricity is integral to modern society. True, some unknowns remain, like: can we economically construct nuclear plants on schedule? Can we economically recycle nuclear fuel? Can we economically use ocean water? How does radiation affect wildlife? How should we store nuclear waste without it escaping or being removed? To summarize my assessment: uranium extraction causes some damage, it leaves radioactive pollutants, and disposing of its seemingly eternal waste is problematic. However, it provides CO2-free, dependable energy very efficiently and compactly and the plants can last a pretty long time.
As far as the environment goes and as long as we can figure out a long term waste disposal method, it seems to me that nuclear beats fossil fuels and some forms of “green” energy and is worth considering in the green energy mix.
Photo by Ana Itonishvili
Nuclear Misgivings Bonus Round Questions:
Isn’t all the smoke coming out of the stacks CO2 or something radioactive terrible?
No, it’s water vapor coming off as a byproduct of the cooling process.
Doesn’t the radioactivity cause mutations?
Technically yes, but Hollywood doesn’t earn the big bucks for being a good science communicator. While animals near Chernobyl developed facial malformations; extra appendages; abnormal coloring; and reduced size, and cattle and pigs proved especially susceptible to radiation-caused mutation among domestic animals, and cows exposed to fallout and fed radioactive feed produced radioactive milk, dramatic mutations like this occur very rarely. Both radiation and mutations occur naturally. Humans commonly absorb radiation from flying, concrete, and x-rays without significant harm. Somewhere between 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 1,000,000 cells divisions result in a natural mutation depending a lot on the gene. Mostly radiation just kills cells.
Can people steal nuclear material and make it into bombs?
Technically yes, but it’s not worth the trouble. Nuclear bombs need a concentration of plutonium 239 over 93%. The fuel of nuclear plants has the wrong mixtures of atoms for making bombs. To make a nuclear bomb from stolen power plant material, dangerous people would need to break through heavy security; steal a dangerously radioactive substance that requires big, heavy, shielding; transport that to a processing facility, and then spend months to a year processing it with specialized equipment run by highly skilled and specialized scientists. Nuclear fuel made into nuclear bombs proves more volatile to work with and decays more quickly. Explosively-inclined groups likely have more straightforward options. Terrorists could steal plutonium and mix it with conventional explosives to disperse radioactive isotopes as a “dirty bomb”. These are trouble to clean up, but the range covers only a few blocks and sickens more than kills.
Can terrorists fly planes into nuclear plants to detonate them?
According to the Brookings Institute, nuclear reactors are “among the sturdiest and most impenetrable structures on the planet—second only to nuclear bunkers.” Nuclear regulators require that plants be able to withstand aircraft impacts. Check out this PDF article (that didn’t give me viruses) detailing how very hard it is to release radioactivity from kamikazeeing a nuclear reactor. If a plane perfectly hit an older, less fortified, running nuclear reactor, the worse case would be the release of some radioactive isotopes. Only the plane would explode. Also, hospitals around nuclear plants carry iodine to extract radiation from human bodies. Final proof: Al Qaeda considered and scrapped plans to target nuclear plants; instead, they set their sights on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Disclaimer: Other people’s websites and books might be worse (or better) than mine. They might have false, rude, inappropriate, unbiblical, or otherwise disagreeable content on them. They might have taken down or changed their website since i last viewed it in 2020-2021. None of those issues are my problem. I include the sites because they were useful to me as i wrote or they might be useful to you.
Sources:
Graph on land use
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-energy-land-use-economy/
Interesting article i recommend on sustainability and nuclear energy: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/03/24/is-nuclear-power-a-renewable-or-a-sustainable-energy-source/?sh=5209ca6d656e
Graph comparing kwh costs of fossil fuels and nuclear http://nuclearconnect.org/know-nuclear/applications/energy
Graph comparing costs ff and nuclear
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11132930/nuclear-power-costs-us-france-korea
Graph showing nuclear cost:
https://www.scirp.org/pdf/oje_2020061113560030.pdf
Why are so many environmental advocates against nuclear energy?
Helpful interview especially for those worried about nuclear energy and bombs:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/etc/faqs.html
Interactive radiation “thermometer”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/terrorism-and-nuclear-energy-understanding-the-risks/
https://www.nj.gov/dep/rpp/llrw/download/fact05.pdf
(graph safest cleanest)
Graph emissions https://physicsworld.com/a/how-green-is-nuclear-energy/
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/05/what-does-nuclear-power-really-cost/
https://cwf.ca/research/publications/embracing-nuclear-for-canadas-energy-future-part-two-nuclear-energy-is-cheap-energy/ graph costs over time
https://physicsworld.com/a/how-green-is-nuclear-energy/ More in-depth overall look
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2006/05/is-nuclear-power-scalabl-html
https://www.energysage.com/about-clean-energy/nuclear-energy/environmental-impacts-nuclear-energy/
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