U.S. Nuclear power - more pros and some cons?

Question

Location to residential areas: They could be built on the same location to replace conventional coal and oil power plants. Nuclear plants don't not pollute the local air.
Terrorist attack: Unlikely- they were designed during the cold war to withstand nuclear missile attacks.
Nuclear waste disposal: U.S. has plenty of unpopulated areas for this. Not the greatest solution, but better than having Florida underwater in a few hundred years due to global warming.
Electromagnetic radiation: no more that current elctric power plants.


Solar and wind energy are not feasable since neither would provide suffieceint power to heat your home and drive your car. With Nulcear both would go electric.

Answer 1

Let me preface this with I LOVE green generation and promote it.

However, I power up 20% of Virginia from nuclear powered generation. We operate as base load plants. That means we are always at 100% power. Why? Because even with the cost of all the regulatory required oversight, training and licensing, engineering and security measures; we are simply the Lowest cost producer of electricity in the industry. Yes, this includes the cost of storage for our waste fuel. One day the Federal government will make good on the promise of a final storage place and our cost per Mega Watt Hour will go down even further.
(P.S. there is no such thing as super heated water...its steam and we don't release it, some places may evaporate a lot of water in cooling towers but it comes right back when it rains)

Recap:
Nuclear plants cost less to operate than fossil plants.
Nuclear plants cost less to build (per unit of electricity generated) than renewable sources of the same capacity such as solar or wind.
Nuclear plants can produce much larger amounts of generation in the same environmental area as a wind farm/solar plant.
Nuclear plants have higher capacity factors (more likely to be making electricity) than most other plants.
Nuclear plants do not affect the environment around them such as some hydro power networks.
Waste nuclear fuel storage has a smaller footprint than your trash, is less hazardous than your medical waste, and once in its final resting place can never be more dangerous than a big hunk of hot steel.

Answer 2

The problem with nuclear power is that it is unsustainable. Nuclear power relies on uranium which is being mined out rapidly. At current rates, uranium will be gone on this planet in less than 50 years, and if we build a bunch more nuclear power plants that number would drop even more. In order to replace oil, the U.S. would have to build at least 1,000 more nuclear plants costing $3 billion dollars per plant. That's huge. Then there's the task of replacing all the gas powered vehicles out there with electric powered ones. That conversion process would take many decades and we would be out of uranium by then.

On the subject of nuclear waste, I believe nothing justifies dumping it into the ground. That's just as disgusting as global warming, and I wouldn't choose between those two evils.

Oil is going away quickly too, and nothing can replace it. No one will be using oil in 40 years because it will be too expensive to extract in that time. Without oil this industrialized world of 6.5 billion people will stop running. I look forward to this. Industrialized civilization is an ugly world.

Answer 3

Hello =)

Whatever the downsides of Nuclear Power, we must address them at once, and replace all fossil fuel burning electric plants as soon as possible.

The "few hundred years" you speak of is no longer realistic for the polar ice caps to disappear. It seems likely within this coming century...maybe within 50 years......

Wind farms are taking their place nationwide. It makes good sense, where possible, but we could never supply all of our power from wind, and reduction in consumption is not a realistic goal. Of course we make appliances more and more efficient, but at the same time, we keep adding "gadgets" to our "necessities" list. The end result is that our power consumption increases. 75 years ago, 25 amp service was sufficient in all households. 50 years ago, 100 amp service was sufficient. Now, our "standard" is 200 amp, but that is becoming insufficient in many cases. Yet governments talk of "conservation" as a plausible means of reducing greenhouse emissions?? I don't hardly think so....

Russia has opened many waste storage facilities for Nuclear wastes. They have more unusable land than anyone else in the world. They also need the money. I don't really see waste disposal as a serious issue any longer. Russia also has the capacity to "reprocess" nuclear wastes into low-grade fuels. We have never developed this technology. This sort of "nuclear recycling" can help boost Russia's economy, while reducing the amount of waste that has to be stored over the long term.

Namaste,

--Tom

Answer 4

the problem will become self evident if you understand what happens when you put AC voltage around a DC battery. Then compair what the earth looks like voltage wise compaired to the power generators we make on it. Also nuke plants make alot of super heated water that has an effect on global warming too.

Answer 5

I think Washington state provides an excellent agreement with your points here--especially after their recent sustained blackouts due to not having nuclear power plants.