Washington, D.C. As the demand for more electrical power increases, societies have a choice of at least eight energy sources: coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, gas, wind, solar, refuse-based, and biomass. Although each form of energy generation has advantages and disadvantages, the case for nuclear power production appears strongest.
Like coal, uranium as fuel for nuclear energy is relatively inexpensive. Very different from coal as energy source, nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases or cause acid rain.
Building and maintaining nuclear plants, however, as well as the long-term waste storage are costly. By comparison, the availability of uninterrupted hydroelectric, wind, or solar energy is much less reliable and far more limited. Biomass and refuse-based fuels are far less efficient.
Now is the time for Americans to prepare for their future needs of nuclear power because over the next 25 years the U.S. Nuclear Energy Commission’s licenses will run out for most existing nuclear plants. There are at least five valid reasons why nuclear power ought to be the major mode of U.S. energy supply.
(1) Uranium, the source material, is abundant. (2) The energy produced per amount of material consumed is the highest available. (3) Costs are competitive with coal, the world’s main energy source. (4) Plutonium, a by-product of commercial nuclear plant operation, can also be used as a fuel. (5) Nuclear energy provides benefits other than electricity generation.
The biggest barrier to expanded nuclear energy production is the fear of accidents that might release large amounts of health-threatening radiation. A recent study by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found that, after the worst nuclear reactor accident ever at Soviet Russia’s Chernobyl in 1986, 47 members of the cleaning crew died from radiation and nine children died of thyroid cancer, out of some 4000 that fell ill with it. Fortunately, the assumption that hundreds would die from radiation poisoning did not come true. It has also been established that the Chernobyl disaster was caused by gross mismanagement of the radioactive material. By comparison, thousands of coal miners worldwide die in accidents every year.
The claim that people living in the vicinity of nuclear plants are more likely to contract cancer continues to be researched. So far, however, the evidence has not been conclusive. A joint Japanese-American study showed that, out of 120,000 survivors of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 800 died of the after-effects of radiation. That fortunately is far less that had been predicted.
Last not least, there is the lingering fear of radioactive waste that will indefinitely remain hazardous to all life. The waste originates from the nuclear fuel cycle and the reprocessing of nuclear materials. Other sources of radioactive waste include medical and industrial uses, as well as naturally occurring radioactive materials concentrated as a result of the processing or consumption of coal, oil and gas, and some minerals.
How to dispose safely of nuclear waste is one of the most pressing problems for all countries with long-term nuclear energy production plans. In the U.S. high-level radioactive waste is stored temporarily in spent fuel pools and in dry cask storage facilities. This allows the shorter-lived isotopes to decay before further handling.
The U.S. Department of Energy made the controversial proposal to locate a permanently secure storage facility for spent nuclear reactor fuel and other radioactive waste deep in the Yucca Mountains in Nevada. The waste material would be melted into glass wrapped in high-grade steel and deposited at least 1600 yards deep in rock salt.
Recently, a growing number of environmentalists--among them Patrick Moore, one of the cofounders of Green peace--have ceased their opposition to nuclear energy because it stands to liberate us gradually from the much more immediate and less manageable threat of the polluting fossil fuels.