Aidan keogh
Professor Kelly
English 120 (11:10)
Nov, 22, 2012
Nuclear power and the quest for safe energy
When debating the safety of nuclear energy one of the main concerns that arises is the overall environmental impact of nuclear power generation, and despite the impression you might get from cartoons this is one area where nuclear energy really comes out ahead of other forms of generation. Since we don’t want to end up with a planet that is unsafe to live on, the environmental impact of a power plant is a strong indicator of long term safety. Most would agree that the biggest environmental threat we’re facing right now is global warming, fueled primarily by Carbon dioxide emissions. Of all the sources of CO2 emissions right now, the biggest portion is produced in the generation of electricity, totalling 40% of the total CO2 emitted each year (“Greenhouse gas emissions”). Of that 40%, the vast majority is because of burning fossil fuels: coal burning power plants emit a massive 960 grams of Carbon Dioxide for every kilowatt hour of energy they’re producing, and natural gas burning plants toll in at 443 grams per kwh, while nuclear sits at a mere 66 grams per kwh (Kleiner). This probably doesn’t mean that much to you unless you’re a petroleum engineer, but basically for the same amount of CO2 emitted, nuclear plants can put out 15 times as much energy as coal power plants. This would make it seem like nuclear is a pretty clean form of energy, but by now the question you’re probably wondering is “what about the waste?” Even though a lot of the discussion focuses on nuclear waste, the amount produced is actually negligible relative to the waste produced by other sources. The average plant generates about 20 metric tons a year ("Nuclear waste: Amounts and on-site storage”), and that might sound like a lot, to put it into perspective, those semis you see rolling down the highway generally weigh twice as much. According to the nuclear energy institute, “Over the past four decades, the entire industry has produced about 67,500 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. If used fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, this would cover a football field about seven yards deep.” ("Nuclear waste: Amounts and on-site storage”) Realistically, the amount of waste produced is never going to be enough to pose a serious environmental threat, and the benefit you’re seeing from reduced Carbon Dioxide emissions vastly overshadows any potential problem with the waste.
Another major concern held by many is that it may be unsafe to live near a nuclear facility due to health related risk, primarily cancer, however these concerns are based on misinformation. For those of you that do live near a nuclear plant, rest assured that there isn’t any correlation between cancer rates and proximity to nuclear plants. According to John Boice of the National Cancer Institute, “From the data at hand, there was no convincing evidence of any increased risk of death from any of the cancers we surveyed due to living near nuclear facilities." (“No excess mortality...”) The studies done by the NCI included 16 different types of cancer, and none of them were shown to have an increased risk near nuclear facilities, so any claim that living near the site puts you at an increased risk of cancer is unfounded. Some may point to incidents like chernobyl as counter examples, but that shouldn’t persuade you. I will elaborate on this further, but those kinds of accidents are only possible through mismanaged or outdated plants, and with the safety standards set in the U.S. the chances of that happening are almost nonexistent . You shouldn’t be afraid of a nuclear plant moving into your town.
Perhaps the biggest issues with nuclear energy when it comes to public opinion is the incredibly overstated risk of plant failures. The incidents most people are familiar with are three mile island, the infamous chernobyl explosion, and the fukushima disaster. The first two incidents can be attributed to the poor safety standards that were held at the time. Since the three mile island and chernobyl accidents in 1979 and 1986 respectively, we’ve seen massive improvements in reactor safety and protocols. Reactors in the U.S. are “designed to withstand extreme events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes,” and even terrorist attacks (“Safety and security...”). Even if the incredibly unlikely event were to occur, failures could never occur fast enough to outpace safety measures such as evacuations and other mitigating actions (“Safety and security...”). It should also be emphasized that any fuel enriched below 5%, the kind used in reactors, becomes physically impossible to explode like a nuclear bomb, so any explosion in a modern plant would be purely chemical, not nuclear (Stoiber). The obvious outlier here is the Fukushima disaster which happened just last year. The question becomes, how could the Fukushima disaster happen, even with modern safety standards in place? The clear answer is negligence on the part of the Japanese government. The Tokyo Electric Power corporation, or Tepco, had not followed the international safety standards adopted by Europe and the United States. Fukushima’s backup generators were not protected properly to ensure that they would continue to work in the event of a tsunami, and even then, after the failure the plant wasn’t flooded with seawater in a timely manner after the generators failed (Hibbs). If either one of these safety procedures were carried out, the disaster could have been avoided entirely. The problem wasn’t with the Nuclear Energy being inherently unsafe, but rather negligence on the Tepco’s part.
The next issue that arises is the potential terrorist threat that comes along with having large amounts of enriched uranium being used for power generation, while this is a legitimate concern it isn’t one that’s impossible to solve. The risk is that if terrorists can get their hands on the enriched uranium used for reactors, then they could be able to make nuclear weapons out of the uranium. Don’t be confused though, these would not be the same nuclear bombs that are used by the military, or that were dropped on Japan during WW2. The uranium used for weapons is generally much more enriched than the kind used for reactors, on the order of 80% fissionable, while reactor grade uranium is usually only 3-5% fissionable, however the lowly enriched uranium could still be used in devices known as “dirty bombs” which use regular explosives to spread nuclear material, making the area uninhabitable after the explosion. While developed nations can be trusted to keep a close tab on their uranium, the same can’t be said about many developing countries. Thankfully, there is a solution to this problem, and it’s called thorium (“Thorium”). Small, non threatening, amounts of Uranium can be used to prime thorium so that it will work in a nuclear reactor, but it remains impossible to use as a bomb. Unfortunately it is quite a bit more expensive than uranium currently, but the other benefits you see from thorium makes it ideal for use anywhere you can’t trust with large amounts of uranium.
A major factor that many people don’t realize when it comes to the safety of nuclear energy is how few people have actually died as a result of nuclear energy. It may sound callous to simplify an issue like this, but there is no perfect source of energy that won’t cause any deaths, and until there is our goal should be to cut down on the risks as much as we can . To put all of this into perspective it is necessary to compare the deaths associated with nuclear energy to that of some other kinds of power generation. In a study comparing the estimated deaths caused by different power sources, Coal was estimated to be responsible for around 1,500 times as many deaths as nuclear for the same amount of energy produced (Wang). Oil was estimated to be responsible for around 900 times as many, Natural gas was estimated to be responsible for 100 times as many deaths, and even solar was deemed responsible for 10 times as many deaths after you account for accidents that happen with installation (Wang). With infamous events like Chernobyl, you might be wondering how that could even be possible, but when you consider that fewer than 50 deaths have been directly attributed to Chernobyl as of 2005 (Wang) it becomes a lot more clear that Nuclear power is nowhere near as deadly as many people assume. These figures don’t make Nuclear power any safer, but it should make you wonder why so much time is spent debating the safety of nuclear power while we all drive cars running off of a far more deadly substance that we rarely bat an eyelash over. Perhaps it’s because being blown up in a fiery mass of radioactive material is a lot scarier than accidentally falling off of your roof trying to install solar panels, even if the latter is much more likely to happen.
Despite clearly being one of the safest sources of power in numerous different areas, nuclear energy continues to be the only source that constantly has its safety questioned. We continue to burn more and more fossil fuels, which are more dangerous in almost every respect than nuclear. All the while, expanding our nuclear industry remains politically unpopular because so many consider it unsafe. With the threat of global warming approaching, and the sustainability of fossil fuels in question it becomes increasingly clear that we can’t afford to discount one of our best options based off of assumptions we made watching silly cartoons.
Works Cited
“Greenhouse gas emissions” United States Environmental Protection Agency. 14. June.Hibbs, Mark And James M. Acton. "Fukushima Could Have Been Prevented." The New
York Times. The New York Times, 10 Mar. 2012. Web. 09 Dec. 2012.
<nytimes.com/2012/03/10/opinion/fukushima-could-have-been-prevented.html>
Kleiner, Kurt. "Nuclear energy:assessing the emissions" Nature.com, oct. 2008. Web. 20"No Excess Mortality Risk Found in Counties with Nuclear Facilities" National Cancer
Institute. USA.gov, 19 Apr. 2011. Web. 01 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/nuclear-facilities>
"Nuclear waste: Amounts and on-site storage” Nuclear energy institute. 2012. Web. 20.
Nov.2012<http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/nuclear_statistics/nuclearwasteamountsandonsitestorage/ >
Regulatory Comission, 29 Mar. 2012. Web. 09 Dec. 2012.
"Thorium." World Nuclear:. World Nuclear Association, Aug. 2012. Web. 06. Nov. 2012.
<http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html>Wang, Brian. “Deaths per twh by energy source.” Next Big Future. 13 Mar. 2011. Web.
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