What are the Cons of atomic energy?

Answer 1

#1) Uneducated public fear of what they don't understand. (see the answer above mine...)
#2) Improperly trained operators.
#3) Idiot designers not using proven safe technology to try to save a buck. (which could actually cause the MOST damage...)

Chernobyle was essentially due to using about the stupidest "coolant" ever thought of for a reactor.... a flamable liquid metal.

The worst (publicised) US accident ... TMI3 was due to idiot operators disabling the automatic protection systems.

The REAL worst US accident was also due to idiot operator error ( "HEY Bubba Watch THIS!" were probably the guy's last words... ) and is the reason the US Army has never been trusted to operate another reactor.

Answer 2

Not being able to use the binding energy of the nucleus of an atom means that there isn't much energy available.

That is why we need to switch away from atomic energy such as coal and towards nuclear energy.

As for nuclear power, there are a lot of idiots who think that a badly designed communist reactor melting down after the communist government ordered it into an unstable state and the plate operators run a test on that hard to control reactor with a serious design flaw in an unstable state. Something that would never have happened in a western reactor.

To make things even dumber they think that a 21 year old accident is an argument against nuclear power when it's actually an argument for nuclear power because of the simple fact that they can't come up with anything more recent (has coal power gone 21 years without an accident that killed people? what about natural gas? what about wind? the answer to all three is NO).

Answer 3

Waste - There are no facilites that can guarentee that radioactive wastestorage won't leak or that such a facility, much less government, can survive for the 90,000+ years, or the half-life, that will still be extremely toxic to life in general and humans in particular even then.

Expense of Construction - These plants are not cheap! My guess is half a billion per plant in start up costs.

Expense of Decommissioning - It is huge!

ROI - Return on Investment in the long run is negative.

Risk - Even though the government has exempted Nuke plants from lawsuits, the hazards of a meltdown are horrendous. Think Chernoble.

Unreliability - Rancho Seco and most other N plants are more often offline than online.

Pollution - Even though it's claimed that there's no airborne pollution, the heat from the water used to cool the reactor is HOT in both senses of the word! The water is recycled back to the sea is both slightly radioactive and is hot - which is often dumped back into the sea.

Totally undefended from terrorist attacks. The industry decided that it was too expensive to defend, and theyvre decided taking the risk it won't happen is better for the bottom line....

Human error - There isn't a lot of room for any - think Homer Simpson here! ;-Þ.

Answer 4

A big mushroom cloud in your own backyard