Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power
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This storage facility near the site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant currently houses nuclear waste.
What's nuclear power's biggest advantage? It doesn't depend on fossil fuels and
isn't affected by fluctuating oil and gas prices. Coal and natural gas power plants
emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change.
With nuclear power plants, CO2 emissions are minimal.
According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the power produced by the world's
nuclear plants would normally produce 2 billion metric tons of CO2 per year if
they depended on fossil fuels. In fact, a properly functioning nuclear power plant
actually releases less radioactivity into the atmosphere than a coal-fired power
plant [source: Hvistendahl]. Plus, all this comes with a far lighter fuel
requirement. Nuclear fission produces roughly a million times more energy per
unit weight than fossil fuel alternatives [source: Helman].
And then there are the negatives. Historically, mining and purifying uranium
hasn't been a very clean process. Even transporting nuclear fuel to and from
plants poses a contamination risk. And once the fuel is spent, you can't just throw
it in the city dump. It's still radioactive and potentially deadly.
On average, a nuclear power plant annually generates 20 metric tons of used
nuclear fuel, classified as high-level radioactive waste. When you take into
account every nuclear plant on Earth, the combined total climbs to roughly 2,000
metric tons a year [source: NEI]. All of this waste emits radiation and heat,
meaning that it will eventually corrode any container that holds it. It can also
prove lethal to nearby life forms. As if this weren't bad enough, nuclear power
plants produce a great deal of low-level radioactive waste in the form of
radiated parts and equipment.
Over time, spent nuclear fuel decays to safe radioactive levels, but this process
takes tens of thousands of years. Even low-level radioactive waste requires
centuries to reach acceptable levels. Currently, the nuclear industry lets waste
cool for years before mixing it with glass and storing it in massive cooled,
concrete structures. This waste has to be maintained, monitored and guarded to
prevent the materials from falling into the wrong hands. All of these services and
added materials cost money -- on top of the high costs required to build a plant.
Nuclear Catastrophe and Reactor Shutdown
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A glimpse of the aftermath from the largest earthquake in history and the ensuing tsunami that tore Japan apart and led to its
nuclear catastrophe.
Remember, at the heart of every nuclear reactor is a controlled environment of
radioactivity and induced fission. When this environment spins out of control, the
results can be catastrophic.
For many years, the Chernobyl disaster stood as a prime worst-case example of
nuclear malfunction. In 1986, the Ukrainian nuclear reactor exploded, spewing 50
tons of radioactive material into the surrounding area, contaminating millions of
acres of forest. The disaster forced the evacuation of at least 30,000 people, and
eventually caused thousands to die from cancer and other illnesses [source:
History Channel].
Chernobyl was poorly designed and improperly operated. The plant required
constant human attention to keep the reactor from malfunctioning. Meanwhile,
modern plants require constant supervision to keep from shutting down. Yet even
a well-designed nuclear power plant is susceptible to natural disaster.
On Friday, March 11, 2011, Japan suffered the largest earthquake in modern
history. A programmed response at the country's Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear
facility immediately descended all of the reactor's control rods, shutting down all
fission reactions within ten minutes. Unfortunately, however, you can't shut down
all radioactivity with the flip of a switch.
Nuclear waste continues to generate heat years after its initial run in a power
plant. Similarly, within the first few hours after a nuclear reactor shuts down, it
continues to generate heat from the decay process.
The March 2011 quake manifested a deadly tsunami, which destroyed the
backup diesel generators that powered the water coolant pumps and that the
facility had turned to after it couldn't get power from Japan's grid. These pumps
circulate water through the reactor to remove decay heat. Uncirculated, both the
water temperature and water pressure inside the reactor continued to rise.
Furthermore, the reactor radiation began to split the water into oxygen and
volatile hydrogen. The resulting hydrogen explosions breached the reactor
building's steel containment panels.
Simply put, the Fukushima-Daiichi facility had many countermeasures in place to
shut down operations in the event of severe seismic activity. They just didn't
count on losing power to their coolant pumps.
Plants such as Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi facility, Russia's Chernobyl and the
United States' Three Mile Island remain a black eye for the nuclear power
industry, often overshadowing some of the environmental advantages the
technology has to offer. You can read more about exactly what happened in How
Japan's Nuclear Crisis Works.
Introduction:
One of the scariest things about nuclear power is when something goes wrong
and an accident occurs. Radiation is released into the environment and people
get hurt. Two of the most famous nuclear accidents occurred at the Three Mile
Island reactor 2 in the United States and the Chernobyl reactor 4 in the former
Soviet Union. In this text we will discuss these two disasters, along with
correcting a few common misconceptions about nuclear accidents.
Three Mile Island:
On an island 10 miles from Harrisburg
Pennsylvania resides the Three Mile Outside View of the Three Mile Island
Nuclear Power Plant
Island Nuclear Power Station. There are
two reactors at the plant, dubbed Unit 1
and Unit 2. One of them is inoperable.
Unit 2 experienced a partial reactor
meltdown on March 28, 1979. A partial
nuclear meltdown is when the uranium
fuel rods start to liquefy, but they do not
fall through the reactor floor and breach
the containment systems. The accident
which occurred at Unit 2 is considered to
be the worst nuclear disaster in US
history. Why did it happen? There are Photo Courtesy Nuclear Regulatory
many reasons for the accident, but the Commission
two main ones are simple human error
and the failure of a rather minor valve in
the reactor. In the following paragraphs, we will explain how it was possible for
the accident to happen and both its psychological and physical effects on the
American people.
No one was directly injured as a result of the accident. However, some
radioactive gas and water were vented to the environment around the reactor. At
one point, radioactive water was released into the Susquehanna river, which is a
source of drinking water for nearby communities. No one is really sure what
effects these radioactive releases might have had on people living near the
power plant.
Chernobyl:
About 80 miles (130 km) north
of Kiev, in what is now the
Ukraine, is located the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
At this plant the worst reactor
disaster to ever occur took place
on April 26, 1986. It happened
largely because normal reactor
operations were suspended; an
experiment was to take place in
the reactor. As a result, normal
safety guidelines were
disregarded, and the accident
occurred. However, as with
most accidents of this type, it
was a result of many small
mistakes adding up to create a
catastrophe. In the following
paragraphs, we will outline just
how the event transpired:
The effects of the disaster at
Chernobyl were very widespread. The World Health Organization (WHO) found
that the radiation release from the Chernobyl accident was 200 times that of the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs combined. The fallout was also far-
reaching. For a time, radiation levels in a Scotland were 10,000 times the norm.
30 lives were directly lost during the accident or within a few months after it.
Many of these lives were those of the workers trying to put out the graphite fire
and were lost from radiation poisoning. The radiation released has also had long-
term effects on the cancer incidence rate of the surrounding population.
According to the Ukrainian Radiological Institute over 2500 deaths resulted from
the Chernobyl incident.