Over the years,
nuclear power plants were built or have been built to generate electricity form
the nuclear power for the purpose of saving world's resources. Then, the danger of the nuclear power can not
be ignored as well. The most horrible
nuclear accident in twenty-five years in Japan
First of all, the biggest
problem with the nuclear power plants is the radioactive waste generated during
the production of energy, which, to every people, is an undesirable and
dangerous by-product. The radioactive
waste produced from nuclear power plant is harmful because it is almost
impossible to dispose of without destroying or harming the environment. As long as the emissions of the radioactive
materials from nuclear power plants are released outside of the power plants,
they go into the air, water, and soil; thus, they are influential to all living
things in the environment and are detrimental as well. Moreover, solid waste products generated from
the nuclear reactor that are radioactive too, cause long-term problems. In this point of view, radioactive nuclear
wastes are usually put inside tangible constructions and buried under the
ground because by this manner, it is found to be efficient at containing
radioactivity. Then, these locations to
contain radioactivity must be taken care of for thousands of years to make sure
that the toxic wastes are not set free by mistake as that could contaminate the
whole planet. The action described above
all actually, would be an endless process unless there are better ways to get
rid of those radioactive waste. Because,
by the time the radioactivity from today's nuclear wastes are poured down,
there would be new radioactive waste to dump from tomorrow's nuclear plants, posing
the fact that the radioactive and dangerous remaining lasts for thousands of
years, and eventually making them virtually a permanent hazard. In short, nuclear power plants are damaging
toward the environment in the perspective of their
radioactive wastes.
Second, a nuclear accident that resulted in controlling and manipulating the reactors wrongly
would be happened easily. The danger here is that the heat the reactor produced would go
beyond the ability of the reactor coolant to contain, causing the nuclear
reaction. Typically, a cooling system
is created to remove the heat from the core of the reactor and transport the
heat to another area of the nuclear power plant, where the boiling energy can
be constantly produced electricity or did other work. In other words, the hot coolant is used as a
heat source for a boiler, and the steam from that boiler powers is under the pressure; then, one
or more steam turbine driven electrical generators. Sometimes, the heat of the reactor would get
out of control. And, this could cause system
failures, and then the radioactivity would be released into the
environment. Even worse, according to "the reacting
nuclear material burns or melts through its containment vessel into the ground,
and then into the water table. This
would throw a huge cloud of radioactive steam and
debris into the atmosphere. Accidents of
this type have the potential to release radioactivity over an immense area." Similarly, Stephanie
Cooke reported that "the reactors themselves were
enormously complex machines with an huge number of things that could go wrong."
Having a look into the terrible nuclear
accident occurred at Three Mile in 1979, which resulted from an unexpected chain
reactions of many mistakes. In other
words, one reaction affected another one until the reactor itself cooled
down. To find out the reason, Charles Perrow (1984) in his book Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk
Technologies, concluded that " the failure at Three Mile Island was a consequence of the system's
immense complexity. Such modern high-risk systems were prone to failures
however well they were managed. It was
inevitable that they would eventually suffer normal accident. Therefore, we
might do better to contemplate a radical redesign, or if that was not possible,
to abandon such technology entirely." In brief, according the reasons illustrated
above, reactors are considered dangerous either in the view of how they work or
how they are manipulated.
Third,
the
expense is very high as concerning the construction of the nuclear power plant,
the life time of a nuclear reactor, and the way of generating electricity. Building the nuclear power plant is the first
huge cost. According to the 2005 federal Energy Policy Act, several larger subsidies should be
included when concerning of building a nuclear power plant. For one thing, two billion would be paid to
companies for any costs on getting the license and replacing new reactors,
which the money could buy six reactors. And,
that payment includes days of the delay by Nuclear Regulatory Commission or
litigation. For another, almost eighty
percent of the cost of a nuclear power plant is from loaning. Then, if three nuclear power plants are
unable to pay their debts, six billion dollars, due to Congressional Budget
Office's calculation, would be the total cost.
Still another, in the first eight years of the nuclear power plant's
operation, five hundred and seventy million would be provided for liability
insurance and tax credit. The other one
is that two hundred and ninety million for research and development. In other words, the construction would not be
financially feasible without those subsidies.
Besides, nuclear reactors' life time are short and break down easily, and they are
costly to be replaced. Usually, a
nuclear reactor only lasts for about forty to fifty years, so it is extremely
productive. According to a staff at the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission, he reported that "building a new 1,000 megawatt (MW) reactor
could cost up to $7.5 billion." In
the view of that fact, it is horrible to imagine how incredible the expenses
will be if reactors break down one by one.
Moreover, the nuclear power is considered to be more expensive when
generating electricity. According to the United States Department of Energy, when all costs
are factored in, nuclear power costs an estimated $59.30/MWH. This is expensive when compared to other means
of generating electricity, such as, clean wind power is $55.60/MWH; coal
$53.10/MWH; and natural gas $52.50/MWH.
In short, due to the previous-mentioned aspects, the expenditure of the
nuclear power is tremendously high.
In conclusion, it is obvious
that although nuclear energy remains one of the most important technologies of
the present, the many drawbacks might make it be replaced in the future.
References
References
1. Prabhakar
Pillai (2012). Advantages and
Disadvantages of Nuclear Power. Retrieved December 3, 2012, from
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/advantages-and disadvantages-of-nuclear-power.html
2. Edwin Thomas (n. d.). Advantages and Disadvantages of Nuclear
Technology. Retrieved December 3,
2012, from http://www.ehow.com/about_4741367_advantages-disadvantages-nuclear-technology.html#ixzz2DzvgwYsL
3.
Wikipedia (2012). Nuclear power plant. Retrieved December 3, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_facilities
4. Advantages & Disadvantages on Nuclear
Power. Retrieved December 3, 2012, from http://www.ehow.com/about_4780053_advantages-disadvantages-nuclear-power.html#ixzz2DzvMPTZV
5.
Wikipedia (2012). Template:Nuclear power plant safety. Retrieved December 18, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nuclear_power_plant_safety
6. the_man101
(2006) Retrieved December 3, from http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070522054924AAJ35tD
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The High Cost of Nuclear
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