The major environmental impact and problem of nuclear energy is the spent fuel which is classified as high-level waste as it is highly radioactive and releases huge amounts of radiation which could lead to health problems. It is a problem as the amount HLW produced each year is rising by 12,000 metric tonnes each year and it is dangerous because it can lead to radiation poisoning, mutations, and radioactive contamination which can cause severe problems. Some of the radiation released is ionizing and will penetrate the human body and could potentially cause health problems:
However, most will affect humans by contamination of crops, animals, milk etc. When the contaminated crop is eaten or drank it could cause radioactive poisoning in a cell which will have the same effects as in the above diagram. Data from the Office of National Statistics show that people living around the Bradwell nuclear plant in Essex are 10% more likely to contract prostate or breast cancer, however, this data has not yet been confirmed and validated.
Currently HLW (High-level waste – highly radioactive substances) is stored in containers made of steel, concrete and lead to minimize the amount of radiation they release but the government is looking for a more permanent method to get rid of the HLW. The containers are currently stored at government owned facilities around the world but many countries in Europe are now looking at burying containers deep underground, but this is not entirely safe as if some of the spent fuel were to escape from the containers it would cause major radioactive contamination in the area which could mutations for centuries. Alternatives to this include continuing to store the HLW waste above ground, dispose of it in the sea in special containers, burying it under the seabed, launching it into space. The problems of all of these are that they are very expensive and would cost billions of pounds to do it with all nuclear waste; cheaper alternatives include disposing of radioactive waste on remote islands and in ice sheets as they cannot affect anyone in these area. Scientists are also researching re-processing and transmutation which if successful would chemically decrease the mass of the product as well as decrease the radioactivity and life of the radioactive product. Many people think that radioactive waste can explode but this is a misconception, used fuel cannot explode as it has been spent and is not flammable so the chances of the containers breaking and causing a leakage are minimal. The nuclear waste is also a problem because if it were to be stolen it could be used as a disastrous weapon to expose people to radiation.
Yet another thing that people are scared off that supports Alan’s claim is the consequences of a radioactive leakage or explosion. Minor radioactive leakages would not really affect the surrounding area as the radiation would be less concentrated and spread out, however a major leakage could affect human health by radioactive contamination as shown in the diagram below.
However it is unlikely there will be a major leak if the dome is regularly well maintained and repaired, radiation emitted will be kept inside the dome by the concrete and lead and only minor radiation releases may occur. This table shows how many deaths there have been due to the generation of nuclear power compared to the generation of other energy sources.
This table shows that between 1970-92 there have been only 31 immediate deaths due to the production of nuclear power and they were all workers compared to the 6400 workers killed by producing coal. However this data is not totally valid for two reasons; firstly, there are fewer nuclear power stations than of power stations that use fossil fuels so the chance of death in a fossil fuel power station is greatly increased. Also this table only takes into account IMMEDIATE death and the major factor of a nuclear disaster is the radiation emitted, this radiation will not cause IMMEDIATE death in most cases but mutations which could lead to death as time passes.
An even more unlikely event is nuclear explosion is even more unlikely as for a nuclear explosion to take place the reactor core would have to go into meltdown. A meltdown occurs when the chain reaction becomes uncontrolled and nuclear fission happens simultaneously at a high speed, however with new technology nowadays, it is highly unlikely a power plant will go into nuclear meltdown as the control rods would stop this and the uranium is highly purified. As long as the power plant is maintained well, there should be no problems such as leakages and explosions; if there were to be an explosion like in Chernobyl there would be massive radiation release and immense heat that would almost certainly cause death in the power plant which is why there were 47 deaths in the Chernobyl incident. In terms of something going wrong and nuclear waste Alan is correct as nuclear waste and nuclear disasters can ‘cause lots of damage to the environment when something goes wrong and is dangerous to humans’.
Here is a table showing nuclear power plants that have had to be repaired or shut down:
This table shows all the nuclear cores that had to have major repairs or had to be de-commissioned. The most horrific disaster being at Chernobyl which led to 47 fire-fighters and workers dying; again this does not give a big picture as many deaths and mutations would have happened after the event as radiation can cause very severe health problems such as cancer. Some research has shown that there is a trend of more children in Chernobyl being born with leukaemia than anywhere else in the world even after 20 years. The table also shows the environmental effect caused by the nuclear problem worst one in the UK being the Windscale incident where a major radiation leak led to farms being contaminated, resulting in a huge operation that included the culling of animals and careful disposal of animal products such as eggs and milk. All of these sites have now been made safe but the effect on the environment has been huge; however as you can see from the table there have been no major incidents since 1989 even though the number of nuclear power plants has dramatically increased. One of the countries that are prospering with nuclear power is France with 80% of its electricity coming from nuclear energy sources. This shows that new nuclear core technology is working and that the chances of a major incident happening are becoming smaller every year. It should also be mentioned that nuclear plants use a ‘defence in depth’ strategy that uses maximum security to insure that no problems occur within a nuclear plant, these include a highly skilled force or armed guards to prevent tampering, more than £20 million on a variety of safety systems with back-ups and robust physical barriers as well as many other technological enhancements; it is estimated that just over a quarter of the cost of building a nuclear plant is spent on safety and security.
Here is a table I’ve compiled with data from various reliable sources such as the BNES, Wikipedia and many others:
I have put the data into graphical form so it can easily be interpreted, firstly we will look at the number of deaths associated with each source of power:
This graph shows that the most deaths have come from nuclear power at 4056 deaths. It must be expressed that only 51 of these were immediate within the first ten days of the incident occurring. However, other biased sources such as Greenpeace have estimates the figure closer to 10,000 but no other major organisation has backed up making it invalid. It also shows that coal is the second most energy source that has caused death with a massive 3992 deaths with hydro-electric at 3776 deaths and oil at 3270 deaths not far behind. This evidence supports Alan’s claim about nuclear power being unsafe as it obviously is disastrous. However to get a likeliness of these deaths occurring I have created another chart showing the number of incidents that have happened to cause these mass deaths.
This graph clearly shows that incidents are more likely to happen in the production of coal with a total of 35 major incidents while nuclear power only has one major incident that has caused mass death. Interpreting this I would point out that even though nuclear power has the highest death toll, all these deaths have occurred in one disaster as well as this, I would also like to point out that there have been no such commercial nuclear incidents in the Western countries such as the UK, France and the USA, this means the likeliness of a nuclear disaster is very minimal in the western world even though the countries with the most power stations are in the western world: USA (104 nuclear plants), France (59 nuclear plants and the UK (29 nuclear plants)l; none of these countries have experienced nuclear disasters making Chernobyl a one off incident. Many sources including the Australian Uranium Association have also pointed out that apart from Chernobyl; nobody has ever died as a result of exposure to radiation due to a commercial nuclear incident.
Nuclear power plants can have a positive effect on the local people as a nuclear power plant will create many jobs, raising the area’s economy and in some case the positive multiplier effect takes place, increasing people’s quality of life. As well as this a nuclear power plant will also attract other support companies to locate in the area again increasing the quality of the region. However there are also problems because even though most nuclear power plants are surrounded by grassy areas that have great biodiversity, the house prices in the area are likely to decrease as nobody wants to live in the area as there is always the small risk of a radioactive leak or explosion; this makes the surrounding area somewhat socially unstable. As people do not want to live around the nuclear power plant, the area is normally turned into an area which attracts animals and plants, as this is normally untouched by humans it can lead to a great biodiversity in the area, which could in future provide different industries such as tourism.
Nuclear Power has also been a huge success in other countries. This list taken from the World Nuclear Association shows the top 5 countries by the % of electricity from nuclear power plants:
- Lithuania - 80% of its electricity from nuclear power
- France - 78% of its electricity from nuclear power.
- Slovakia - 57% of its electricity from nuclear power.
- Belgium - 55% of its electricity from nuclear power.
- Sweden - 50% of its electricity from nuclear power.
Further evidence is provided that nuclear power is a success in other countries by this graph from the Nuclear Industry Association.
It shows that nuclear energy is growing as are all the other energy sources most of which are likely to fall due to the lack of fossil fuels left.
To conclude, both Susie and Alan’s statements are correct. Susie is correct because nuclear power is safe as long as power plants are well maintained and repaired quickly, there are also rarely any problems due to the highly purified uranium-235 which is why there has only been one major disaster. However Alan is also correct because in the event of something going wrong it is disastrous on the environment and very dangerous to humans as the Chernobyl incident has proven with the death toll reaching over 4000 as more people die from fatal cancers caused by the radiation contamination. In my opinion nuclear power is the way forward, as France have proven, because it is a ‘clean’, reliable and efficient source of energy by producing 78% of its electricity by nuclear power as do a few other countries. There is plenty or uranium to provide the whole world with energy; the problem of disasters are also becoming minimal as new technology makes the chances of a nuclear leakage or meltdown slimmer and slimmer. The government will need to switch to nuclear power to meet their carbon emission target of a 60% cut in carbon emissions by 2050, the new technology being developed everyday and the robust security systems make a nuclear leakage very unlikely, it statistical terms very near impossible as out of the 250+ nuclear stations in western Europe none have created a massive health problem. The only major problem is the disposal of the spent fuel rods which are classified as high-level waste; if this problem can be solved indefinitely then nuclear power would be the perfect source of energy for years to come. For the government to solve the nuclear debate they will have to educate the public in an unbiased way and let them choose if nuclear power should be used or not because current figures show that nearly half of the public are undecided on whether or not nuclear power is the way forward. Many members of the public are afraid of a nuclear explosion but it should be emphasized that a commercial-type reactor can under no circumstances explode like a nuclear bomb. However recent research, as mentioned before, has revealed that around 12 million people will die due to likely floods if global warming continues compared to the 4000 that could die in a major nuclear disaster.
