Introduction to Nuclear Energy for
Civilian Purposes
- Most early atomic research focused
on developing an effective weapon for use in World War
II. After the war, the United States government encouraged
the development of nuclear energy for peaceful civilian
purposes while continuing to develop, test, and deploy
new nuclear weapons.
- The Experimental Breeder Reactor I
at a site in Idaho generated the first electricity from
nuclear energy on December 20, 1951.
- 16% of the world’s electricity
now comes from nuclear energy, 85% of which is concentrated
in industrialized countries. A total of 441 nuclear
power plants were operating as of February 2003. There
were also 32 nuclear reactors under construction (Nuclear
Energy Institute).
- In the United States alone, there are
103 nuclear power plants, which provide about 20% of
the nation’s electricity.
- A new nuclear power plant has not been
ordered in the U.S. since 1973.
- Today, President George W. Bush’s
energy policies call for a $15 billion federal subsidy
to build six or seven new nuclear power plants.
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1.
How It Works – The Scientific
Process Behind Nuclear Energy
- Nuclear energy relies on the fact that
some elements can be split (in a process called fission)
and will release part of their energy as heat.
- Because it fissions easily, Uranium-235
(U-235) is one of the elements most commonly used to
produce nuclear energy. It is generally used in a mixture
with Uranium-238, and produces Plutonium-239 (Pu-239)
as waste in the process.
- A nuclear power plant generates electricity
like any other steam-electric power plant. Water is
heated, and steam from the boiling water turns turbines
and generates electricity.
- The main difference in the various
types of steam-electric plants is the heat source. Coal,
oil, or gas is burned in other power plants to heat
the water. Heat from a chain reaction of fissioning
Uranium-235 boils the water in a nuclear power plant.
Some have compared this process to using a canon to
kill a fly.
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2.
How It Doesn’t Work –
Risks and Dangers of Nuclear Energy
- Proliferation Risks
- Plutonium is a man-made waste product of nuclear
fission, which can be used either for fuel in nuclear
power plants or for bombs.
- In the year 2000, an estimated 310 tons (620,000
pounds) of civilian, weapons-usable plutonium had
been produced.
- Less than 8 kilograms (about 18 pounds) of plutonium
is enough for one Nagasaki-type bomb. Thus, in the
year 2000 alone, enough plutonium was created to
make more than 34,000 nuclear weapons.
- The technology for producing nuclear energy that
is shared among nations, particularly the process
that turns raw uranium into lowly-enriched uranium,
can also be used to produce highly-enriched, weapons-grade
uranium.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
is responsible for monitoring the world’s
nuclear facilities and for preventing weapons proliferation,
but their safeguards have serious shortcomings.
Though the IAEA is promoting additional safeguards
agreements to increase the effectiveness of their
inspections, the agency acknowledges that, due to
measurement uncertainties, it cannot detect all
possible diversions of nuclear material. (Nuclear
Control Institute)
- Risk of Accident
- On April 26, 1986 the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl
power plant (in the former U.S.S.R., present-day
Ukraine) exploded, causing the worst nuclear accident
ever.
- 30 people were killed instantly, including
28 from radiation exposure, and a further 209
on site were treated for acute radiation poisoning.
- The World Health Organization found that
the fallout from the explosion was incredibly
far-reaching. For a time, radiation levels in
Scotland, over 1400 miles (about 2300 km) away,
were 10,000 times the norm.
- Thousands of cancer deaths were a direct
result of the accident.
- The accident cost the former Soviet Union
more than three times the economical benefits
accrued from the operation of every other Soviet
nuclear power plant operated between 1954 and
1990.
- In March of 1979 equipment failures and human
error contributed to an accident at the Three Mile
Island nuclear reactor at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
the worst such accident in U.S. history. Consequences
of the incident include radiation contamination
of surrounding areas, increased cases of thyroid
cancer, and plant mutations.
- According to the US House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations,
"Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences
(CRAC2) for US Nuclear Power Plants” (1982,
1997), an accident at a US nuclear power plant could
kill more people than were killed by the atomic
bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
- Environmental Degradation
- All the steps in the complex process of creating
nuclear energy entail environmental hazards.
- The mining of uranium, as well as its refining
and enrichment, and the production of plutonium
produce radioactive isotopes that contaminate the
surrounding area, including the groundwater, air,
land, plants, and equipment. As a result, humans
and the entire ecosystem are adversely and profoundly
affected.
- Some of these radioactive isotopes are extraordinarily
long-lived, remaining toxic for hundreds of thousands
of years. Presently, we are only beginning to observe
and experience the consequences of producing nuclear
energy
- Nuclear Waste
- Nuclear waste is produced in many different ways.
There are wastes produced in the reactor core, wastes
created as a result of radioactive contamination,
and wastes produced as a byproduct of uranium mining,
refining, and enrichment. The vast majority of radiation
in nuclear waste is given off from spent fuel rods.
- A typical reactor will generate 20 to 30 tons
of high-level nuclear waste annually. There is no
known way to safely dispose of this waste, which
remains dangerously radioactive until it naturally
decays.
- The rate of decay of a radioactive isotope is
called its half-life, the time in which half the
initial amount of atoms present takes to decay.
The half-life of Plutonium-239, one particularly
lethal component of nuclear waste, is 24,000 years.
- The hazardous life of a radioactive element (the
length of time that must elapse before the material
is considered safe) is at least 10 half-lives. Therefore,
Plutonium-239 will remain hazardous for at least
240,000 years.
- There is a current proposal to dump nuclear waste
at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
- The plan is for Yucca Mountain to hold all
of the high level nuclear waste ever produced
from every nuclear power plant in the US. However,
that would completely fill up the site and not
account for future waste.
- Transporting the wastes by truck and rail
would be extremely dangerous.
- For a more detailed analysis of the problems
of and risks incurred by the plan, see Top
Ten Reasons to Oppose the DoE’s Yucca
Mountain Plan
- Repository sites in Australia, Argentina, China,
southern Africa, and Russia have also been considered.
- Though some countries reprocess nuclear waste
(in essence, preparing it to send through the cycle
again to create more energy), this process is banned
in the U.S. due to increased proliferation risks,
as the reprocessed materials can also be used for
making bombs. Reprocessing is also not a solution
because it just creates additional nuclear waste.
- The best action would be to cease producing nuclear
energy (and waste), to leave the existing waste
where it is, and to immobilize it. There are a few
different methods of waste immobilization. In the
vitrification process, waste is combined with glass-forming
materials and melted. Once the materials solidify,
the waste is trapped inside and can't easily be
released.
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3.
Sustainable Energy Alternatives
There are many alternative energy sources
that are sustainable and do not pose the accident risks
inherent in nuclear energy production. These sources include:
- Bioenergy: biomass, such as plant matter
and animal waste, can yield power, heat, steam, and
fuel.
- Geothermal: renewable heat energy can
be harnessed from deep within the earth.
- Wind: turbines turning in the air convert
kinetic energy in the wind into electricity.
- Solar: the sun’s energy can be
captured and used to produce heat and electricity.
- Hydrogen: if produced by renewable
sources, it can power fuel cells to convert chemical
energy directly into electricity, with useful heat and
water as the only byproducts.
- Tidal: using the movement of the ocean
to power turbines and generate electricity.
- Many more sustainable resources could
be found and current resources improved if better technology
were available and if the government and utilities actively
promoted their development.
- Sustainable energy links:
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