Nuclear Power

Nuclear power has been an important topic when it comes to alternative power . On

one hand you have people praising it for its efficiency and on the other you can have those you

mention the dangers that can come with a meltdown. For years now the struggle between

those who support clean energy and those you support fossil fuels have argued over if nuclear

energy is the option moving forward in the future. In this paper I am going to break down what

nuclear power is, benefits from it, some drawbacks, and why these benefits outweigh the

drawbacks.

First when it comes to nuclear power we first must understand what it is . Though

nuclear energy was discovered in 1896 it wasn’t until 1948 in the United States that nuclear

energy was first used for electricity, and it was not until 1954 in Soviet Russia that the first

nuclear power plant started making electricity for a whole power grid . Nuclear power plants

create energy by using nuclear fission to create heat which then causes steam which is used

turn a generator and create electricity. There are multiple different types of nuclear power

plants throughout the world. The United States, for example, have two main types they use

which consist of pressurized water and boiling water reactors. Pressurized water reactors use

high amounts of pressure to keep the water from boiling during the process while boiling water

reactors just use the water boiling as its way of using the steam . What is most important, no
matter which kind of reactor is being used, is that the entire process takes place in a contained

environment so that no contamination reaches the outside world.

Now we are going to look at some positives when it comes to nuclear energy . When it

comes to advantages there are a few. One that I think is most important, especially in the

times we are in, is that it produces no greenhouse gasses. This aspect of nuclear energy can

make it a big pull because there has been such a big push towards clean and renewable energy

in recent years. Another bonus to having nuclear power plants is that they are much more

resilient against natural disasters, especially compared to clean forms of energy like wind and

solar farms which can be destroyed much easier. I think this is a smaller advantage that may be

easily overlooked by many. However the importance of the longevity of these structures

should not be overlooked. This also ties in with another advantage to having nuclear energy

which is its capacity to produce power. When it comes to yearly capacity, nuclear power blows

everyone else out of the water. With nuclear power plants who have the ability to be up and

running for about 93.5% of the year. Those numbers rage from almost double of the next

closest contender natural gas which comes in at 56.8% yearly run down, to almost four times as

much as the lowest ranking option of solar power who comes in at 24 .5% yearly run time. The

last big advantage I found came to job creation. Nuclear plants create more jobs than almost

any other form of energy. They create 0.5 jobs for every megawatt hour of electricity

produced. This is in comparison to 0.19 jobs in coal, 0.05 jobs in gas-fired plants, and 0.05 in
wind power. The only other power source that creates more jobs per megawatt hour of

electricity is solar power. Solar power generates at a rate of 1.06 jobs per mWh.

Next we are going to look into some disadvantages of nuclear power and why some are

so against it. Because nuclear energy revolves around fission of uranium the two biggest

disadvantages come in the form of radiation. The first is in the case of a reactor meltdown and

the second comes in the form of disposal of nuclear waste. In the case of a reactor meltdown

there are two big examples that show just how devastating this mishap can be and they are

Chernobyl and Fukushima. Both these instances caused large amounts of destruction to the

surrounding area. However these disasters do have an upswing and it comes in the form of

rarity. A minor meltdown many happen now and again but when it comes to severe

meltdowns there have been only four since the creation of nuclear energy . For me knowing

that nuclear energy was discovered in 1896 and to the present day we have only had four major

meltdowns makes the hype of them being dangerous for that reason seem much more like a

scare tactic than actual facts. Disposal of waste is the other major impactor of disadvantages to

nuclear energy. Low level waste is produced because of contact with the nuclear fuel on a day-

to-day bases which is either disposed of on site or sent to a low level waste facility in one of the

thirty-seven states that have them. High level waste, or the waste formed from the spent fuel,

is much harder to dispose of. This waste takes hundreds of thousands of years to finally break

down and become non-radioactive. In the United States alone there are eighty different
storage sites all close by current or old nuclear reactors. This also means that they are stored

usually next to rivers, lakes, and oceans which has the possibility of creating new problems if

there was ever a leak. The final disadvantage come in the form of scarcity . Uranium is not a

renewable source of energy like wind and water but instead a limited one . It is speculated that

at our current rate of consumption we have about eighty years of nuclear power left . This is

quite the problem because it makes nuclear power only a short term solution .

Now when it comes to advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power I think its

positives are heavily outweighing its negatives. For instance looking at how it is a limited

resource. Even if we only have roughly eighty years of nuclear power left it gives us an

opportunity to switch to a clean energy source to lower greenhouse gas emissions and if

anything buys us more time to find a more permanent solution the problem of climate change

without continuing to make it worse in the progress. There are ninety-six nuclear reactors

currently operating within the United States. They each generate around $40 billion to $50

billion in electricity sales and they directly create over 100,000 jobs . They generated 849.6

terawatt-hours in 2017. That's 19% of the total 4,460.8 terawatt-hours of total U.S. electricity

production in 2017. Still behind natural gas and coal which sat at 35% and 28% respectfully.

The biggest win from these 2017 numbers however was the carbon dioxide emissions cutback .

The nuclear plants prevented 573 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States

that would have been produced by other non-renewable resources. And finally when it comes
to safety nuclear power steps in again. It was shown in research done by Peter Lang that

showed if we had not cut back on nuclear energy when we did it would be running at a 10% of

its current cost. Not only that but it could have substituted for up to 186,000 TWh of coal and

gas generated energy which in turn could have prevented millions of lives lost during mining .

Putting all of this into perspective I think nuclear energy is the path to the future for

now. Given all the alternatives we have we need a powerhouse to help carry in an age of clean

energy and nuclear power has the ability to do that going forward.
 References

Amadeo, Kimberly. “Is U.S. Nuclear Power the Answer to Climate Change?” The Balance,

www.thebalance.com/nuclear-power-how-it-works-pros-cons-impact-3306336 .

Lang, P. A. (2017). Nuclear Power Learning and Deployment Rates; Disruption and Global

Benefits Forgone. Energies (19961073), 10(12), 2169. https://doi-

org.ezproxy.loras.edu/10.3390/en10122169

Mueller, Mike. “Nuclear Power Is the Most Reliable Energy Source and It's Not Even Close .”

Energy.gov, Apr. 2020, www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-

energy-source-and-its-not-even-close.

Qvist, S. A., & Brook, B. W. (2015). Potential for Worldwide Displacement of Fossil-Fuel

Electricity by Nuclear Energy in Three Decades Based on Extrapolation of Regional

Deployment Data. PLoS ONE, 10(5), 1–10. https://doi-

org.ezproxy.loras.edu/10.1371/journal.pone.0124074