Nuclear Power: The Truth.

This is an essay I wrote for an English class, entitled "No Nukes is not Good Nukes". Enjoy, and may it enlighten you.

Despite the need for more energy, power companies never seem to use one option: nuclear power. Their reasons are understandable, but that makes it no less unfortunate. Especially since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the people of the United States have protested the building of any nuclear power plants. Given the misinformation about nuclear reactors spread by the media and groups like Greenpeace, this is also understandable. However, nuclear power is safer and more economical than fossil fuels, dams, windmills and solar power.

Before the safety of nuclear power can be argued, a basic understanding of how it works is necessary. A nuclear reactor uses fission, or the splitting of atoms, such as plutonium or uranium, to create heat, which is transferred to a coolant, such as water or helium. The coolant is used to turn a turbine.

Despite the criticisms by “environmental” groups on the safety measures taken in nuclear reactors, what does exist is very thorough and the likelihood of a complete failure is low. In the case of Three Mile Island, which was a turning point against the domestic use of nuclear power, Petr Beckmann points out in The Health Hazards of not Going Nuclear “within hours … the industry had flown in teams of experts; one such team engaged in almost Naderite ‘what-if’ fantasies. What if the pump now slowly cooling the core fails? We use the other primary loop.” (Beckmann i). However, spare cooling systems aren’t the only safeguards ensuring the nuclear reaction doesn’t become uncontrollable. There are also control rods containing moderators, such as boron, which absorb some of the energy in the neutrons, which in turn helps prevent the reaction from getting out of hand. These control rods are inserted into the reactor vessel to throttle the reaction. On top of all that, the reactor vessel is surrounded by a concrete and steel containment vessel, which not only is built to withstand a small airplane crashing into it, but also protects workers around the reactor from radiation.

However, safety systems aren’t infallible, as was demonstrated in the Chernobyl incident, which was caused by a mixture of human error and design flaws. The cause leans heavily towards human error. At Chernobyl, the operators deliberately turned off or disabled almost all the safeguards, which had been put in place to prevent the radiological disaster Chernobyl became, to conduct an experiment. They first placed the control rods too far into the reactor, causing the power output to drop dramatically. To compensate for the drop, all of the rods were pulled out beyond both the limits set by the automatic controls and safety regulations. When the reaction got out of hand, roughly 30 times the output it was designed for, a shutdown was ordered, and the rods were reinserted. This was stopped by fuel rods fracturing and blocking the control rods, which on insertion initially caused a spike in the reaction due to a design flaw. This colossal screw-up culminated with a steam explosion, which spread radioactive material across Europe (Chernobyl). The likelihood of a disaster like Chernobyl is extremely low at this point. While the reactor at Chernobyl did not have one, modern reactor designs have containment vessels, which ensure there is something to contain any materials leaked from the reactor, as well as accidental or planned explosions. In addition, the personnel working at Chernobyl at the time of the accident were poorly trained to deal with the experiment which caused the failure. American reactor workers are typically well-trained, and typically don’t experiment with the safety mechanisms.

When the safeguards do fail, humans can step in and do their best to cover all possibilities. For example, at Three Mile Island, in addition to having two back up cooling systems, a diesel generator was flown just in case the power failed and the generator already at the plant didn’t work (Beckmann i).

Another concern raised by the opponents of nuclear energy is the effects of the radiation. However, the amount of radiation taken in by any people outside a reactor would have a negligible effect on their health. The International Commission on Radiological Protection, or ICRP, limits the amount of radiation a worker can receive to 10 milliREMs per week, or a total of 520 mREMs per year (ICRP par. 3). To have any noticeable symptoms of radiation sickness, a worker would need to be exposed to about 96 years worth of the ICRP limit within a few hours. If a worker is exposed to 200 years worth of radiation within a few hours, they still have a roughly 90% chance of survival.

However, the media has encouraged people to associate radioactivity with extremely high rates of cancer and other similar diseases. While it is true that radioactivity does cause increased rates of cancer, the increase is negligible when the radiation is spread over hundreds of thousands of years. While it is true that the waste from a reactor is radioactive, the radiation emitted is spread over hundreds of thousands to millions of years, depending on the element. In addition to the negligible effects of the radiation, the amount of waste is reduced even further by reprocessing it, removing any remaining useful isotopes from the waste.

Despite the claims made by nuclear energy’s opponents that nuclear waste would be a massive problem, the truth is quite different. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic ash generated by burning fossil fuels each year, a maximum of a few thousand tons of minimally dangerous elements seems almost trivial. The expended uranium can be sealed in blocks of glass resistant to many forms of destruction, then stored inside salt formations, where there is evidence of a lack of water for thousands of years. The lack of water is important, because if water were present, the radioactive material might be absorbed and carried into groundwater, and from there into people’s bodies. On top of that, salt formations would seal themselves in the event of an earthquake. Within the U.S., there are about 50,000 square miles of salt formations, which gives plenty of spots to dispose of the waste (Beckmann 103).

The alternatives to nuclear power aren’t as economical or safe in their use. Dams need a river with a drop that gives the water a large amount of energy once it reaches the bottom. Most places fitting that criteria have already been dammed, which gives little to no room for growth. While reactor problems can be contained fairly easily, a dam breaking is extremely difficult to stop and can kill thousands with flooding, which also destroys crops. Windmills are useless without wind to spin them, which isn’t constantly present in many areas. Texas, which gets the highest amount of power from wind out of all the states, experienced problems when a sudden change in weather caused the wind to die down, stopping the generation of more than 1,400 megawatts of electricity. This, along with problems in traditional power plants, caused many “interruptible” customers to suddenly lose power (Reuters).

Solar panels require sunlight, and to create any large amount of power huge numbers of square footage is required. In addition to the huge expanses of solar panels, the process for converting sunlight into electricity is extremely inefficient, with the latest panels converting only about twenty-five percent of the energy into electricity, while the rest becomes heat. To create one megawatt of electricity with twenty percent efficiency, we would need 3,660 square meters of solar panels above the atmosphere at the equator, which gets the most light. When atmospheric interference is added, the necessary amount of panels is almost doubled.

Fossil fuels can’t be synthesized, only mined or drilled for. Humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels may cause our downfall, because the supply of fossil fuels is finite, but our demand for energy is expanding. Once the supply runs out, we will be forced to rush other forms of power creation. However, that rush can be avoided by switching to nuclear technology, which is the easiest and most economical to use, early. In addition to the limits of the supply, burning fossil fuels releases various pollutants into the atmosphere and creates massive amounts of highly toxic ash, which must be disposed of. This ash is typically dumped in dumpsites, where it sits, allowing water to pick up the toxins mixed in and move them to places where they can be consumed by humans or animals. Not only is this ash sitting in holes, unprotected from water, it’s radioactive. The dumpsites where ash is left are actually more radioactive than any human-accessible area in a nuclear power plant is allowed to be.

Overall, nuclear reactors are the best choice for a source of electricity. They are safer than fossil fuels and dams, which are currently the main sources of energy. They are far easier to implement effectively in any environment, which isn’t true of solar panels or windmills. The waste produced is very small compared to how much electricity is generated and there are plenty of places it can be disposed of fairly safely. However, without a large movement advocating nuclear reactors, it’s likely the public will continue to protest their construction, making the cost of construction far higher than it otherwise would be. An increase in the cost of construction would increase the cost of electricity for the public, which would have an adverse effect on the entire economy.

Works Cited

Beckmann, Petr. The Health Hazards of not Going Nuclear. 10th ed. Boulder: Golem P, 1979. This entire book is dedicated to showing why nuclear power is the best energy source. The author doesn't try to argue it as perfectly safe, only safer than the alternatives.

"Chernobyl." 2 Sept. 2004. 8 Oct. 2008 . This site is takes an in depth look at the Chernobyl disaster. It contains accurate information and was very interesting to read.

Katoh, Kazuaki, Yuki Tateno, and Jun-Ichiro Tada. "ICRP Consultation Comments." ICRP. 29 Dec. 2004. 7 Oct. 2008 . This was a comment on the 2005 Recommendations article on the ICRP website, which I didn't have time to read. The information I used from it was in a different unit, so I converted it.

O'Grady, Eileen. "Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency." Ed. Carol Bishopric. 27 Feb. 2008. Reuters. 8 Oct. 2008 . This source was useful while talking about wind power, but beyond that contains very little helpful information.