An outer concrete building serves as the final outer layer, protecting the steel containment vessel. This concrete structure is strong enough to survive the kind of massive damage that might result from earthquakes or a crashing jet airliner. These secondary containment structures are necessary to prevent the escape of radiation/radioactive steam in the event of an accident. The absence of secondary containment structures at Chernobyl allowed radioactive material to escape.
Advantages of nuclear power
The main reason why people want to see nuclear power being used more is that it doesn’t depend on a dwindling supply of fossil fuels, and is environmentally clean unlike fossil fuels. When fossil fuels are burnt they give off a variety of pollutants. Burning any fossil fuel gives off carbon dioxide, which causes global warming and climate change. This is a major problem in today’s world and it may cause the polar caps to melt resulting in rising sea levels. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the power produced by the world's nuclear plants would normally produce 2 billon metric tons of CO2 per year if they depended on fossil fuels. [4] Coal and Oil contain sulphur impurities: this forms sulphur dioxide when burnt, and causes acid rain. Nitrogen oxides are also produced when fossil fuels are burnt: this causes smog and city pollution. Nuclear power does not involve combustion so no pollutants are given off. This means it does not cause climate change and rising sea levels and it doesn’t cause acid rain.[5] Switching to nuclear power from our current power source of fossil fuels will slow down pollution and global warming.
Nuclear power is also cost effective. Constructing nuclear power plants has very high capital costs but low operating costs and even lower fuel costs. This means that once a plant is up and running, the costs are very low. The table on the right is from a Royal Academy of Engineering report [6] in 2004 showing the operating costs of different energy sources. This shows that the operating cost for nuclear power is low compared to other energy sources. The only ones which match nuclear energy in cost are gas and coal: both of which pollute, and if there is a carbon tax introduced, their costs will increase. Wind power, despite being renewable and not polluting, costs far more than nuclear power.
The low fuel costs also mean that changes in the price of fuel will not affect the cost of generating electricity by much. The graph on the right, from the Nuclear Energy Institute website[7] using data from Ventyx Velocity suite, shows how the cost of electricity production from oil and gas has increased over the last few years. While the cost of using coal has remained similar, coal is the heaviest polluter, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide. Oil reserves are only expected to last for a few decades. Most oil is exported by OPEC, which consists of some unstable countries such as Iraq and Iran. The price of oil fluctuates a lot, for example in 1973 because of the Yom Kippur war between Israel and the Arab states (which export large amounts of oil) and in 1979 due to the Iranian revolution, and this causes the price of electricity generated from oil to be unstable. In contrast, the price of uranium is stable, there is a plentiful supply, and it is exported by more politically stable countries such as Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan. This makes nuclear power a very reliable source of energy. Also because only a tiny amount of uranium is needed to generate a large amount of power, the uranium can be bought in advance and easily stored. Most countries can’t store more than a few months supply of fossil fuel reserves.[5] Uranium is as common as tin: at current consumption levels, the supply of uranium is expected to last for 100 years, with even more expected that hasn’t been discovered. Also more advanced reactors are being developed which will use less uranium.
Despite the worries about nuclear power being dangerous because of accidents like Chernobyl, nuclear power is in reality very safe. According to Berol Robinson of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (EFN) ‘In the half century of the Nuclear Age, about one or two deaths per year have been attributable to nuclear energy. This includes Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986).’[5] On the other hand, coal mining accidents happen far more frequently which suggests that fossil fuel power is similarly dangerous, in addition to being polluting. The Chernobyl accident was due to it being poorly designed and improperly operated, with a lack of consideration for safety, which was quite common in the Soviet Union. Nuclear reactors today have reliable safety measures: France, which has 59 reactors which produce 76.2% of the country’s electricity[8], has only ever had 1 incident, a minor accident in 1980 with no fatalities. While nuclear power does produce waste, this is all stored securely and monitored, as opposed to the waste products of burning fossil fuels. The stored nuclear waste is stored in has no effect on the surrounding environment.
There are new, more advanced reactors being researched and developed, which will make nuclear power an even better option. There are breeder reactors, which are designed to produce more nuclear fuel than it consumes, meaning less fuel is needed altogether. A pebble bed reactor is designed to work in high temperatures in a helium atmosphere so it has no need for expensive cooling systems (huge cooling towers). Thorium reactors use thorium to make uranium-233 which can be used as a nuclear fuel. Thorium is more abundant than uranium and is believed to produce less nuclear waste so it could be used as an alternative.
The sources used are reliable and are based on nuclear power as it is being used today, for example in France. One of the major groups in favour of nuclear power is EFN, who are environmentalists, whose main goal is for more nuclear power. The EFN document from which I used information was written by a physicist and an environmentalist with a PhD so it should be reliable. The data is from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Nuclear Energy Institute of the US both of which are reliable organisations whose members will have real knowledge and experience.
Disadvantages of Nuclear Power
There are several reasons why many people are against nuclear power. One of these is the fear of safety. The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl (right) in 1986 showed the world the dangers of nuclear power, and this could happen again. Chernobyl caused 56 direct deaths and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency that there may have been more than 4,000 deaths from thyroid cancer that can be caused by exposure to radiation released from the plant.[9] The radioactive fallout has spread as far as parts of the UK where around 370 farms are affected.[10] If we want to make sure disasters like this, affecting thousands of lives, have absolutely no chance of happening again, we need to stop using nuclear power.
One of the problems that has always been associated with nuclear power is the production of nuclear waste. According to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) ‘It produces enormous amounts of carcinogenic toxic radioactive waste, some of which is dangerous for thousands of years. No safe solution has yet been devised to store it. In particular, there is evidence of cancer clusters linked to nuclear power production. Building new nuclear power stations would increase the most toxic high level waste five-fold.’[11] While toxic waste does decay, it happens very slowly so it needs to be stored for millennia. Radioactive waste is very expensive to store. It can be so radioactive that it damages the container that it is stored in, and needs to be closely guarded and watched to ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. While nuclear power plants are cheap to run, the storage of nuclear waste is a huge cost that also needs to be taken into account. Nuclear waste is also a target for terrorists because of how dangerous it is. If for example it contaminates the water supply it could potentially affect millions. A nuclear power plant could also be the target of a terrorist attack. This could be far more dangerous than the Chernobyl accident.
The fuel for nuclear power comes from uranium, which is extracted by uranium mining. This is an often overlooked part of nuclear power. According to CND ‘it has taken the lives of many miners all over the world causing environmental contamination, cancers and nuclear waste.’[11] Uranium mining is also polluting, so nuclear power is not as clean as it may seem. Since uranium is mined using open pit mining, it devastates large areas of the landscape.
Many groups say that nuclear power will not cut affect carbon emissions by much. Greenpeace UK say ‘Even if Britain built ten new reactors, nuclear power can only deliver a 4 per cent cut in carbon emissions some time after 2025. Even the Government admits this (Sustainable Development Commission figure). It's too little too late at too high a price.’[12] This is because electricity generation only accounts for a third of all of Britain’s carbon emissions.[11] Nuclear power can only be used for generating electricity, not for transport or industry, where the rest of the carbon emissions come from. Nuclear power plants take time to set up. According to CND ‘A new nuclear power station will take at least 10 years to build and longer to generate electricity.’[11] Climate change is happening now, and 10 years is too long. Wind farms can be up and running in less than a year.
Groups opposed to nuclear power suggest that renewable energy sources are used instead, as well as cleaner fossil fuels. According to Greenpeace ‘The real solutions to the energy gap and climate change are available now. Energy efficiency, cleaner use of fossil fuels, renewables and state of the art decentralised power stations like they have in Scandinavia.’ [12] Renewables such as wind and solar power can be implemented easily and they are completely safe and clean. Germany uses renewables successfully: The share of electricity from renewable energy in Germany has increased from 6.3 percent in 2000 to about 15 percent in 2008.[13] This shows that we can also increase the share of renewable energy in a short space of time. Fossil fuels can also be improved to make them cleaner, for example removing sulphur impurities so no sulphur dioxide is released.
The main sources I have used for my research are the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Greenpeace. CND are a well established group and they specialise in nuclear weapons and nuclear energy so their research is likely to be reliable. Greenpeace’s research may not be reliable because they are a wide organisations dedicated to protecting the natural world. This means their research may be biased.
Conclusion
Nuclear power has advantages and disadvantages, but in my opinion it is proven to be reliable and will be useful in reducing carbon emissions, being cheaper than renewable energy sources. There needs to be an alternative to fossil fuels because of the steady increase in price and the fact that they will run out in a few decades. Nuclear power is cheaper than other sources of clean energy, and doesn’t use up huge amounts of land for little power like wind and solar power. It is proven to be safe, from the fact that there has nuclear power for over 50 years and there are over 400 reactors in the world today.[8] There is the problem of nuclear waste, and limited supplies of uranium, but nuclear power is being researched all the time and new technologies such as breeder reactors and thorium reactors could make nuclear waste less of a problem, and use less uranium fuel. However supplies of uranium and thorium are finite and they will run out at some point, so the best option is probably to use more renewable energy sources like in Germany, as well as nuclear power.
References
