Nuclear Power Plants or Solar Power - - which is better and WHY?

Answer 1

Solar by a wide margin. Given that solar power uses a free fuel, and the technology is simple as a stone with no moving parts why is there even a discussion about this. The argument has always been that solar power 'costs' more. Possibly true, if you don't figure in all of the upstream and downstream expenses that have to be covered. Ferinstance...coal....cheap and abundant, but the total costs in polluted water, dirty air, transportation costs, disposal of ash residue and of course the lives of miners are never figured in...just the profit per kilowatt hour. Natural gas shares the same cost in water resources though less of the other burdens, but burning anything seems rather 19th century as a primary way to generate electricity. Hydro power has the advantage of being clean, but there's a cost there as well...dams ain't cheap, and they have a limited life span and massive maintenance costs. Without the federal tax breaks and tax money used for construction of major dams the profit margin would be reduced to near zero. Nuclear plants involve so much monkey motion and investment that the entire concept is a joke...not to mention the still unanswered question of what to do with the waste...waste that includes decommissioning these massive structures as they reach their design limits. Solar is much 'mo better...coupled with natural gas backup we'd be a lot better off!

Answer 2

Both have advantages and disadvantages.

Solar, obviously, only works when and where there is sunlight. And panels take up a large amount of space because our energy conversion rate (based on current technology) is very poor. Thus, they are good for small isolate installations, or space usage -- but not effective (yet) on a mass scale.

Nuclear avoids all those problems, but has an infrastructure threshold cost -- you cannot have a tiny nuclear plant that powers one device, they way you can have a tiny solar cell.

People talk about the dangers of nuclear power, but statistically it's far less than the horror stories. At most estimates, we would need to have one full nuclear meltdown per month to equal the environmental and health damage currently caused every month by the coal industry. What's our melt-down rate -- one per 10~20 years? Making nuclear over 100x safer than the current coal industry. And nuclear waste is no more dangerous than the original raw fuel itself, which is just buried in the ground right now.

But it's not an all-or-nothing approach -- we can develop better solar applications for small-scale use, while pursuing fusion technology to eliminate the waste problems.

But both are much better approaches than fossil fuels.

Answer 3

The main thing that comes to mind to me is Solar, Wind and Hydro is green where nuclear power is not. Nuclear cost more but it is just not seen because it is our tax money that pays for the install of the plant. It is our tax money that gaurds and moves the waste when it starts leaking. And then think about having to gaurd it and clean it up for the next 10,000 years.

Then one more Plus for Solar is that it is yours for keeps. Nuclear power is rental. Normal people pay electric bills from the time they are 18 till they the day they die. So if you are 78 years old when you die and just paying $100 per month for electric without adding in inflation and fuel taxes and other taxes on electric. You will rent $72,000 in electric and have nothing to show for it. If you ad in the inflation you will pay well over 100 grand maybe even 200 grand. How many solar power systems could you install for that much money?

Answer 4

Nuclear Power Plants are not environment friendly, too costly to be suitable for poor countries, it has all the possibilities to go for a bomb and last but not the least there is every possibility of one Chernobyl and Indian style leakage and death of thousands of innocent people who even does not know how to spell 'Nuclear" on the other hand Solar Power is environment friendly, law cost, no bomb ambition, not disaster and affordable by any poor nation of the world.

Answer 5

Nuclear, no doubt.

Producing solar batteries requires lots of fluoride acid to clean the silicone.
Fluoride acid is highly toxic and the process leaves much more toxic waste than reprocessing of nuclear fuels.

Also, production of solar batteries generating the same power as a nuclear reactor requires much more energy.

Answer 6

No contest. Solar reflector plants are scalable to different sizes, even to the size of a household. They can be manufactured with low tech systems.

Nuclear power plants have been proven to be dangerous and depend upon Uranium which (like oil) is depleted and fluxuates in price. Take a look at Hubbert's curve. It applies to nuclear power.

Answer 7

Solar isn't going to melt down, or produce toxic waste with a half life of 10,000 years.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

nuclear for sure,,,produces more energy .steam turbines,,,solar sucks,,,good for a few batteries,,,and some electric motors.chow freepress