| Nuclear power, is it really an answer to our energy needs? |
By: Bob Berry
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Nuclear power is operationally carbon neutral. That is it doesn't release any carbon into the atmosphere during operation. What about when a new plant is being constructed? Massive amounts of energy is used to produce the huge amounts of cement used in the construction of a nuclear power plant. There is also a lot of energy used to produce the steel and many components used in a nuclear power plant so they are far from carbon neutral. It takes many years of operation just to bring the carbon footprint of a nuclear power plant down to even halfway reasonable levels and by then they need repairs that cause much more carbon release.
Then there's th e safety issues. nuclear power isn't safe despite what proponents say. There's always the danger of accidental release of radiation and the problem of what to do with the radio-active wastes. Some people are saying there is technology available to safely store nuclear wastes. The Yucca Mountain facility is perhaps the best solution for long term storage but it may never be used due to political considerations. Even if it does get used the half life of nuclear wastes is so long that there is no safe way to store wastes in the long run. the half life of many of the waste products is measured in the tens of thousands of years. After those tens of thousands of years they are still very dangerous. They only loose half of their radioactivity in those tens of thousands of years and then another half of their radiation in another tens of thousands of years. There are technologies that can keep them safe for thousands of years but not for the millions of years that they will be dangerous.
So if nuclear power is not a good answer to our energy problems what is? Solar power is developed to the point where it is almost as cost effective with nuclear power in the short run if you ignore the short run costs of dealing with the wastes. Wind power is much less expensive than nuclear even in the short run and available sites for wind power are still very plentiful. Wave power is not fully developed yet but shows great promise. All of these can be put into use more quickly than new nuclear power plants can be constructed and are far less expensive than building nuclear power plants.
So why do people push nuclear power? The nuclear power industry has very good lobbyists.
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