RC Blog

Nuclear Power - Clean Energy?

News - posted by Administrator on Thursday, February 18 at 11:43am

The first new nuclear reactors since 1974 are slated to be built in Atlanta, Georgia:

“The largest investment in clean energy history” promises thousands of jobs, reduced dependence on foreign oil, and an energy production process with zero carbon emissions.  Sounds dreamy, doesn’t it?  But how “clean” is nuclear power?
A byproduct of nuclear power production is harmful radioactive waste that we currently have no effective means of storing. 
Breakdowns in the power production process can expose workers, communities, and surrounding ecosystems to this radiation.  While plant safety has improved since Chernobyl, accidents continue to occur.
Nuclear power is generated from uranium, a non-renewable, fossil fuel which is obtained through uranium mining.  Uranium is obtained through open-pit and underground mining, often on land previously occupied by indigenous peoples, and produces radioactive waste.  This process, too, poses risks, as one New Mexico community experienced “when an earthen dam, operated by the United Nuclear Corp., failed and let loose 94 million gallons of toxic wastewater into the north fork of the Rio Puerco on Navajo Nation lands.”
Uranium is enriched to be used as fuel for nuclear power.  However, this capability can be a step toward the highly enriched uranium used in nuclear weapons.  Remember the debate around Iran?  Our choice to approve nuclear power sends a message to other nations that constructing reactors is desirable, and in fact, the “technology of tomorrow.” 
The technology of tomorrow will be paid for in taxpayer dollars, but what is the cost to our health and to the earth? 

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Comments

I appreciate the recitation of problems with Nuclear Power AS CURRENTLY DESIGNED.

What few people know is that all this “Radio Active Waste” is in fact feul for Next Generation Nuclear, and using only the current stock of wate, we won’t need to mine any more Uranum for a thousand years.

There are two New Types of Reactors proposed which eat up current waste:

1) LFTR (Liquid Thorium Flouride Reactors), and we already have enough mined thorium. They burn Thorium and Waste Uranium.

2) IFR (Integrated Fast Reactors) these burn Uranium.

Basically, Nuclear research has been ongoing, SLOWLY, because of political and social opposition.

These are not pie-in-the-sky dreams. I’d encourage readers to learn all they can and eschew knee-jerk anti-nuclear sentiments.

Paulbee | submitted on 02/19/2010, 6:05am

This certainly does send out the message that enriching uranium is desirable.  The US constantly points out we are the world leader, so is the the direction the world needs to go now?

DB | submitted on 02/19/2010, 11:44am

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