- Because of lobbying efforts of anti-nuclear groups, an impression has been created that nuclear power is unsafe. Today, civil nuclear power operators have more than 13,000 reactor years of experience. Safety has always been a high priority in the nuclear power industry. More than a third of the cost of building a reactor is the cost of safety systems.
The notorious Chernobyl accident in 1986 served as a reminder of the importance of adequate safety systems. The system was an open system and not protected within a containment vessel. The earlier Three Mile Island accident in 1979 was a clear demonstration of the efficacy of safety and containment systems. Thirty people were killed at Chernobyl as a result of high levels of radiation and hundreds more were injured or badly affected. The Chernobyl type reactor is no longer operated without containment safety systems. The Three Mile Island incident demonstrated that a similarly serious malfunction could be safely contained and as a result of the accident, there were no injuries or deaths - Hydroelectric power plants account for 16 percent of the world's energy. The building of one single hydroelectric dam (The Grand Coulee) cost 75 lives. Failure of the Teton Dam killed 14 and obliterated a town in the greatest flood in North America since the last Ice Age. The St. Francis Dam in California collapsed in 1928 killing 450 people, and in 1979, the Machu Dam in India killed 2,500.
Coal power is even less safe as a source of energy. An average of 100 coal miners are killed each year in the U.S. in coal mine accidents. Another 100 die annually transporting coal.
Compared to nuclear power, hydroelectric power causes 110 times more deaths, coal 45 times more deaths, and natural gas causes 10 times more deaths than nuclear power. Even factoring in terrorism, waste disposal, major accidents and deliberate sabotage, nuclear power costs less in human life than any other source of power. - Coal power sources result in strip mining of more than 65,000 acres of undeveloped land per year. Some 2 million acres over underground coal mines have subsided. A coal-fired plant releases 11 million tons of CO2 annually along with sulfur, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, beryllium and uranium. Coal plants release more than 50 times as much radiation as nuclear plants.
Hydroelectric dams can have a devastating impact on the surrounding ecosystem, especially where dams are too close together. Spawning salmon in the Columbia River basin have been reduced from 16 million to less than 200,000 since 1932. Fur-bearing mammals that feed on the salmon have declined by 97 percent. Game birds and winter songbirds in the basin have declined by 97 percent or more.
A solar power plant generating as much energy as a 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant would cover 127 square miles of land with mirrors that would have to be washed weekly to keep them working, and they require significant federal funding to make them economically feasible
It would take 50,000 windmills, scattered over a 300-square-mile area to equal a single nuclear plant in output. Just one windmill farm near San Francisco has killed eight times as many bald eagles in one year as the entire Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
There is nuclear stored in uranium in the crust of the Earth sufficient to last a thousand years. Sufficient nuclear-generated electrical power could make practical such artificial oil production technologies as thermal depolymerization, which turns waste into a light oil product that can fuel automobiles. If all the agricultural waste in the U.S. were processed this way, we could replace 4 million barrels of oil annually, more than we currently import from the Middle East. - Nuclear energy produces no environmentally harmful gases or chemicals and only barely detectable levels of ionizing radiation--less than standing in the sunshine for a few minutes.
New third generation nuclear reactors are smaller, simpler and sturdier and less expensive to construct. Nuclear-produced electricity promises once again to bring down the cost of power and has proven an extremely economical source of power in many emerging nations
The fuel is easy to transport because so little of it is needed, unlike the tons of coal and oil needed for other power plants.
Nuclear waste is extremely hazardous, but relatively simple to dispose of safely and takes up relatively little space compared to the vast quantities of waste produced by other forms of power. The nuclear power plants of the world produce about 30 kilograms of atomic waste per 1,000 people. This is usually held on-site in storage for the life of the plant. After 40 years, the spent fuel has just one-thousandth of its initial radioactivity left, making it easier to dispose of. Disposal teams will encase the spent fuel and bury it deep in the earth where it becomes progressively more inert. - Startup costs are quite expensive, but nuclear technology generates so much energy using so little fuel that costs are rapidly recovered by the plant operators. Initial nuclear development costs have already been covered by government scientific projects, which brought the technology to commercial viability, so the cost of nuclear power is now totally consumer-supported.
Waste disposal concerns and anti-nuclear groups have delayed establishment of safe waste containment facilities.
Issues related to nuclear non-proliferation and security issues have caused delays in approval of construction projects. - Nuclear power's safety record is remarkable when compared with other major sources of power. Already safely providing power worldwide, nuclear reactors can drastically reduce the environmental impact of power generation worldwide. The operation of nuclear plants does not threaten birds or wildlife and does not alter ecosystems. Nuclear power generation costs fewer human lives than virtually any other source of power in history. Most importantly, increasing the amount of nuclear power production could rapidly reduce a country's reliance on foreign oil, gas and other energy sources.
next post