Is nuclear power unavoidable?

Question

With fossil fuels running out over the next 100 years or so, and the energy we require from renewable sources not sufficient enough to keep the country going, is nuclear the only alternative?

Answer 1

One of the realities of the energy debate is that it really does take a portfolio of technologies. Nuclear clearly has a part to play, as does wind, solar and other renewables. Coal certainly isn't going away anytime soon either.
There simply aren't enough resources to cost effectively build just one kind of power generation plant for all the world's needs.
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has some great discussions about this if you're interested enough to find them.

Answer 2

Nuclear energy is not the only alternative to fossil fuels. We have learned how to harness other materials as fuel: water, sunlight, biomaterial.....

Increasing the percentage of our country's energy that is produced by nuclear fission is a next step if we wish to conserve what little fossil fuel we have left and reduce the amount of pollution we spew into our atmosphere. Developing new types of nuclear reactors is vital to extending the life of the fuel cycle with the remaining known uranium supplies we have. Right now there is enough uranium to last way past our lifetimes using the current fuel cycle where we (1) burn the uranium fuel in a reactor (2) and bury it in a repository (someday!). But there are reactors that can create fuel as they burn it! (Look up: Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor.) We can also reprocess spent nuclear fuel. (Only about half of the fissionable material is used in a reactor.) Reprocessing can save most of the unfissioned fissionable material for use in another reactor; AND reduce the volume of highly radioactive waste to a fraction of what it would be if we buried the fuel assemblies whole! There has also been some talk about reusing nuclear waste as a power source since there is still so much energy produced from nuclear fuel decay (we say in the industry, the waste is still "hot").

All in all, if we want to see the stars at night and protect out children from asthma and chronic earaches, we need to use an amalgam of clean, renewable fuels, INCLUDING nuclear!

Answer 3

Unfortunately, nuclear energy is not the viable alternative it is often seen as.

The cost of building the plant, maintaining it, handling waste etc. is very expensive and people seem to forget that Uranium is a naturally occurring mineral which is also finite and will run out along with the rest. At best, nuclear energy can only be a stop gap until we harness a more sustainable and renewable energy source.

These may include tidal energy, hydroelectric (except people don't want the countryside flooded) solar power, wind etc. to the more experimental sources such as harnessing the thermal energy of the earth by pumping water through a very deep pipework where it will be heated by the extremely hot inner layers of the earths crust to be turned to steam, where it can then drive turbines to produce electricity.

Whatever the answer, we can be sure the funding will only ever come when our backs are against the wall and the world leaders are forced into action. Unfortunately, the 'not in my lifetime' attitude is very strong.

Answer 4

Although Nuclear power wont solve all our problems and there are actually several very good reasons against Nuclear power it is inevitable that more of our energy is going to come from Nuclear power

BUT, Nuclear power is not the answer to all our problems for example, if everyone started using Nuclear Power the radioactive waste would be immense in size and there simply isn't enough for it to be our sole energy source

What we need ( and this is the only really viable option) is to have a balanced energy source system, where a bit is solar, a bit is wind, a bit is . . . ( you get the idea) we will also find a source like Hydrogen that is clean and amazing and that will fuel most of our energy needs but not all, and that is why we need balnced energy sources, as a I have already stated.

So, basically, Nuclear power isn't the best form of power but we need it to stop Global Warming as quickly as possible.
Also, eventually our energy will come from a mix of sources

Answer 5

Hell, I never thought that I would ge a Green Earther, but over the last 10 years I have been moved that way.
There are some erudite answers from other answerers and I agree that nuclear power is inevitable, but it will never be enough and we will run out of fissible gunk soon enough and have an inheritance of nasty, radio active stuff flushing around the world doing heaven knows what.
We need to ration the use of nuclear to tide us over a period in which humanity has to come to realise that constant population growth, increasing consumerism, open ended travel and so on that abuse our energy resources are not sustainable on the space-ship named Earth.
We have to move to better use (HUGELY LESS) use of energy, to harness renewables such as wind,sea and solar (and others to be found?) and to balance human enterprise with resources. If we do not then in 50 years this planet will start to die and mankind with it. Cataclysmic maybe, but I see a headlong dive into an abyss of energy abuse right now and it leads to nowhere. The next World War (and there will be one) may be nuclear and could be caused by nations seeking resources such as water, uranium and other energy sources.....even as basic as carbon based fuels such as oil and simple coal. Heck, what's Iraq about after all?

Answer 6

Of course nuclear fission reactors are not the only alternative. We have alternatives now. Unfortunately, the core of this issue is an unwarranted feer of nuclear energy. There are countless organizations fearmongering and pulling the world away from nuclear energy. When it comes down to it, it's almost as safe as any other form of "alternative energy" and has its niche in our supply. We also have ways of storing the waste produced in our reactors, it's simply politicians that are holding us back. The country has been lied to enough that they don't want nuclear waste within a million miles of them no matter how safe it is. There are also financial problems, but of course, they are normally overstated and have many non-sense expenses thrown in to appease people.

To clear up a few statements in this list of answers so far:

Hydrogen is NOT an energy source. We want to use energy sources to create hydrogen which can possibly replace gasolines. It's a means of transportation for energy.

CERN is constructing ITER, which is an international fusion reactor, not France alone. It is NOT a commercial reactor, simply a test-system. I believe it will have the generation capabilities of a commercial reactor but costs are currently topping $10 billion which is far in excess of how much of a feasible nuclear fusion reactor will cost.

Answer 7

Depends which one you're on about, Fusion or Fission. Fission was as a result of trillions ( yes thats right) of dollars invested over the course of the second world war and the cold war, whereas fusion is the more attractive proposistion. This type of reaction takes place on the sun, and while there would still be nuclear waste there would not be the same amount and the fusion reaction would last for 10,000 years. For this reason i think that goverments have been reluctant to invest in Fusion because they cannot imagine the world order in 10,000 years, or whether we will still be around in 10,000 years.

Answer 8

No or Yes. No, Nuclear fission is avoidable and should be. Yes to Nuclear fussion as being developed by a consortium of Nations and France is building a working model, due to be completed in about 10 years. Bye the bye the Sun uses fussion.

Answer 9

Nuclear will run out too.

If we replaced all sources of energy with nuclear tomorrow, known fissile material would last about 2.5 years. If we switched to fast breeder reactors we could get that to 25 years at the cost of tons more weapons grade material.

Answer 10

There is no limit to renewable fuels. It will be more widely used and more resources will be tapped. However, nuclear will supply the major chunk of our power, as it produces a lot of power from little fuel. but nuclear fuel is also limited and will not last long.