Why do environmentalists oppose green nuclear power?

Question

Now that nuclear reactors can be made safely and emit no carbon, why not use them to save the earth? If your answer suggests adopting a lower standard of living, please keep it to yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

Answer 1

I am a nuclear engineer and have worked in the field of manufacturing nuclear fuel rods for commercial power plants for years.

First of all, no carbon emissions with nuclear power is nothing new. Nuclear power generation has never produced carbon as a byproduct.

Second, you still have the radioactive waste problem. Just by replacing the water with graphite as the moderator does not reduce the amount of this waste, it just changes it from a liquid waste to a solid waste.

Third, part of the safety mechanism of a pressurized light water nuclear reactor (PWR) design is, during an emergency shut down you can purge the moderator (water) and refill the reactor chamber with borinated water (a reaction poison) to kill the reaction immediately. With graphite being a solid it cannot be removed to be replaced immediately with a reaction poison. This leaves the reactor more at risk for full out meltdown.

So the bottom line is there are beneficial and detrimental factors to both systems designs and you are just trading a little extra safety in one area for a little less safety in another. There is not a "perfect design" and they all have their problems. But in the grand scheme of things, even with the radioactive waste, it is still the cleanest power available.

Hey Mister down there we can reprocess our fuel rods here as well, we just have to let them cool long enough to make it safe for the workers to do it. The first fuel rods from the first power plants here in the states are just now getting to the point where they can safely be reprocessed. Unlike other countries, we are not willing to subject our workers to radiological poisoning for a fast fuel cycle. Nuclear waste not only consists of long half life materials (500,000 years or more) but short half life materials (6 months or less) and everything in between. In general the shorter the half life of the radioactive element the more radiation it produces. So we wait for the short half life stuff to degrade to safer materials.

Answer 2

Because environmental groups are like ACLU controlled by special interest like wolf using lamb costume. The last thing coal, oil gas industry wants is an efficient nuclear rector, and somehow countries in Europe can reprocess nuclear fuel rods and reuse them unlike USA where they are treated like disposable batteries.
Would love to know two things expert could tell What id lifespan of casing holding nuclear fuel? And what ever happened to design where chain reaction was completely shut down by lead containers? Just remember PR used to sell plants safety in 50's. Don't understand safet issue, because your talking about stuff with half life of 500 years.

Answer 3

Forget the carbon, what about the nuclear waste?

Did they actually come up with a genuine plan to take care of all the radioactive sludge that nuclear plants produce and not just bury it in Yucca Mountain?

Answer 4

they do no longer oppose all of them. quite it quite is a hasty generalization do no longer you think of? So now that i've got been honest. specific they are greater in touch with regard to the nebulous concept properly-referred to as biodiversity than they are with people. humorous ingredient this biodiversity; hasn't quite appeared to take care of any species in any respect. properly, blue green algae must be seen an exception. The underlying subject between the agendas of the SC and GP is that no longer basically are there too many rattling human beings in this rock, yet they are the incorrect style of human beings. the form of people who think of that when it incorporates the survival of the human race (and that's how the completed worldwide warming argument is couched as being approximately human survival) sparing a snail darter; a desolate tract tortoise or a observed owl won't be important and is probable a luxury we can sick take care of to pay for. The greater rational individuals of the Sierra club are not to any extent further in charge The extremists have taken the reins there is not any actual debate interior of that corporation approximately any selections to what's now dogma. that is unhappy in a fashion. The Sierra club has now become like Exxon in that they have got made their plans and there is not any longer room for debate. Wind or photograph voltaic are genuinely small potatoes; we ought to money in on geo -thermal on a huge scale. it quite is the actual answer!

Answer 5

The nuclear waste

Answer 6

Ever hear of Love Canal, Three Mile Island or, Chernobyl ?

Answer 7

because nuclear power plants reproduce barrels and barrels of nuclear waste and we have no where to put it.