Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the world's largest source of emission-free energy. Nuclear power plants produce no controlled air pollutants, such as sulfur and particulates, or greenhouse gases. The use of nuclear power in place of other energy sources helps to keep the air clean, preserve the Earth's climate, avoid ground-level ozone formation and prevent acid rain.
Nuclear power has many benefits over its competitors, including oil, coal, wind, hydroelectric, and near-term solar power. Nuclear power is opposed by those with good intentions but a poor understanding of the risks and benefits of modern nuclear plants relative to the alternatives, and how safety has improved over time. Nuclear power is looked upon suspiciously because its association with the nuclear bomb as well as the emotional salience of "radioactive waste."
A single kilogram of uranium can produce more energy than 200 barrels of oil, and uranium is about as common as tin. Thorium, three times more abundant than uranium, can also be converted into uranium-233 (which is too unstable to be used for bombs) and broken down for similar quantities of nuclear energy.
Nuclear power plants are relatively expensive to build. The lower initial cost of gas, oil, and coal plants has thus made them more economical in the last few decades, but with the rising cost of fossil fuels, that is changing. Global warming is another concern.
The second reason more nuclear plants have not been constructed is safety fears primarily based on the Chernobyl accident, which killed 30 people. By comparison, per terawatt of energy produced, hydroelectric power kills 885, coal kills 342, natural gas kills 85, but nuclear kills only 8. Fossil fuel pollution kills over 10,000 in the United States per year due to respiratory problems. But nuclear plants are emissions-free, and 95% of spent fuel can be reprocessed, producing very little waste, which can be adequately contained at reasonable cost.
Anti-nuclear opponents, such as Greenpeace International and Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), believe that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment.
[edit] Nuclear Radioactive Waste
Nuclear waste is very dangerous and must be sealed up and buried for many thousands of years to allow the radioactivity to die away. For all that time it must be also kept safe from earthquakes, flooding, terrorists and everything else. This is difficult.
On average, a nuclear power plant annually generates 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel, classified as high-level radioactive waste. 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. 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.
[edit] Nuclear Proliferation
A connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons exists because both require fissile materials. Some of the technology that can be used to produce or purify a fissile material for a nuclear power plant could also be applied to producing nuclear weapons.
Many technologies and materials associated with the creation of a nuclear power program have a dual-use capability, in that they can be used to make nuclear weapons.. When this happens a nuclear power program can become a route leading to the atomic bomb or a public annex to a secret bomb program. The crisis over Iran’s nuclear activities is a case in point.
