Nuclear Power Research

Nuclear Power: A Fair Trail

Nuclear energy has long been a hot button issue; it has divided the senate, it has divided political parties, towns, and even families. It is impossible to be neutral on the issue of nuclear power. People either feel that any potential gains are out weighed by the possible threat of radiation exposure, or they feel that an almost completely clean energy source is worth the almost non-existent threat of some sort of issue. If ten people were asked for their opinion on nuclear energy, it is very likely that one would receive ten very different opinions. There are groups on the right and left that oppose the expansion of nuclear power plants, and groups on the right and the left calling for it. Today, the inconstancies are sifted through and the facts presented. Today, nuclear power is on trail.

First it must be discussed what nuclear energy is, and what it is not. Put into layman’s terms, a nuclear power plant is a power plant that uses nuclear fission to heat water to, and often times beyond, its boiling point, and creating steam. This steam turns a large turbine generator, which generates electricity which is then sent out and used as it is seen fit (brain). This process is not much different from that of a coal power plant that most Americans are familiar with, except nuclear fission is used instead of coal. Nuclear fission, as is used in a nuclear power plant, is more accurately called induced fission because nuclear fission itself in fact happens naturally all the time and is called spontaneous fission (nuclear). What induced fission means is plant operators send a free neutron screaming through the particle matter, hoping it hits a atom (of either uranium-235 or plutonium-238) it causes the nucleus to absorb the neutron, making the element unstable and causing it to split. From this split, something very special happens; more neutrons are spit out (two or three depending on how the atom splits), causing more reactions (brain). This is key to the power plants processes. Now what causes the water to actually boil is the energy released from this reaction. This energy is made as result of the most famous scientific equation of all time; E=mc^2. The two new atoms made as a result of the fission and the two neutrons are lighter than the original atom being split, and this difference in weight is converted directly into energy in the forms of heat and gamma radiation. This heat released is what ultimately heat the water and make the whole process work (nuclear). The water also serves a second purpose inside a nuclear reactor. As the water circle through the reactor, the cool water cools down the control rods (the rods put into the water made of whatever element is being used in that particular plant). Without the circulating water and the operators being able to control how much of the rod is put into the water, a power plant would overheat and reach critical mass in no time.

There are also many different types of nuclear power plants. Now the science used to produce energy inside these plants are largely the same from plant to plant, and the components of the plants are largely the same: fuel, moderator (water in most cases, maybe lead), control rods, a coolant (again, water), a pressure vessel (where everything is stored), a steam generator, and a containment structure (big concrete and steel structure) (types). The two types of reactors found in America are pressurized water reactor and boiling water reactor, with pressurized water reactors being the most popular world wide as well, out numbering all other types of nuclear reactors combined. It is also the main reactor used to propel naval ships, to which it was originally designed to do (nuclear reactor). The design is distinguished by having a primary cooling circuit where water is constantly flowed through. This design serves a few purposes: one is to cool the core and prevent it from overheating, another is to allow the now hot water (heated form the core) the heat the water inside the secondary water holder, producing steam, turning the turbine. Then as the hot water gives energy in the form of heat to the soon-to-be steamed water, it cools down, and thus can be recycled to recool the core again (types). Another advantage of this design is that the water that touches and turns the turbine never actually comes in contact with the radioactive materials, limiting the amount of waste produced. This, in essence, gives the reactor twice the safety nets as that of a boiling water reactor (nuclear reactor). The beauty of this design is that it fixes itself. If the control rods are pulled out more, less reactions would take place, which would cool the water inside the primary cooling circuit, so then that water would heat the water in the secondary cooling circuit less, causing less steam, producing less energy (types).

A boiling water reactor is essentially the same as a pressurized water reactor except that instead of using two sets of water, it uses one (typres). The water used to cool the core is the same water used to turn the turbine and eventually produce electricity. The problem with this design is that twice as much water is exposed to radioactivity, and by proxy, so is the turbine and all other parts in the reactor (nuclear reactor). Other types of reactors include pressurized heavy water reactors (which uses a different type of fuel so needs a more efficient moderator, which in this case is heavy water), advance gas-cooled reactor (which use CO2 as to cool the core instead of water), and light water graphite-moderated reactor (which are exclusive to Russia and are considered unsafe for a number of a reasons, the main one being that it lacks the feedback feature that normal pressurized reactors have in the sense that less reactions will not cause less energy) (types).

The gamma radiation released initially and the beta radiation released by the two new atoms after the fission is what worries people (the top ten). The half-life (how long it takes half of the element to die away naturally) of uranium-235 (the most common element used in nuclear energy fission) is approximately four and a half billion years (with a B), which means that this radioactive waste produced by the plants, the only waste produced by these plants, will be around for quite some time, emitting radiation the entire time (Brain). This worries people for valid reasons, as exposure to high levels of radiation have been linked to several medical risks (including cancer and death) and all the workers who stayed behind to work on the Chernobyl plant all died within weeks of the accident (Adam). Critics of the Critics say that you can stand next to the fence at a nuclear power plant and be exposed to less radiation than you would inside your own home (Brand). The problem with this is that it fails to truly look at nuclear energy as a whole, it just looks at the end result. As of 2007, there were four hundred and seventy working nuclear power plants (Nuclear). These plants produced fifteen percent of the world’s energy. But in order to supply these plants with the necessary materials, the nuclear power industry must dig up mountains of potentially dangerous elements, and not all of them can be used or processed right away, leaving literal mountains of radiation lying around (the top ten). Then on the other end of the process, as mentioned earlier, you do have waste produced by the plants. While it is true that the nuclear power industry is the only energy industry to completely take care of its own waste, it is also true that it has the most dangerous waste. It has also been proven that the disposal methods used by the nuclear power energy are ineffective at best. The containment centers that power plants use to store the radioactive waste have been proven to leak and release radiation into the surrounding environment (the top ten). Even in the act of mining uranium, radioactive material is let loose into the air, contaminating the surrounding everything: air, water, trees, animals and people. This radiation is one of the leading causes of worry for critics who say that the benefits do not outweigh the environmental cost of nuclear power. Many of them call for a complete shut down of all nuclear power plants and the ending of all future plans to build more.

One thing that nuclear energy believers like to toss around is that you are exposed to high levels of radiation while getting x-rays (it is what makes x-rays work) and while in flight (natural radiation found at such high altitudes. The radiation level is actually double that of a sea level city in a high altitude level city such as Denver) (Candris). The difference of course is that you are allowed to choose if you get on a plane or not and there are very few situations in which you are forced to get an x-ray. But power plants are different. No one asks the residence of a town if they want a nuclear plant there before they build it, they just build it. And moving is not always an option for any number of reasons, so residents are possibly exposed to deadly radiation by something completely out of their control. Even if plants were forced to poll residence before being allowed to set up camp, you still have a majority of people risking death for a minority for no other reason than in hope of lowering their energy bills (the top ten).

Critics are also quick to bring up (and for good reason) the safety of these plants. Chernobyl was without question the worst nuclear disaster in world history. On the twenty-sixth of April, 1986 at approximately 1:30 in the morning, the unthinkable happened; a series of explosions rocked the nuclear power plant located in Pripyat, Ukraine (then Ukrainian USSR). The plant was running a series of test on the number four reactor, when without warning there was a surge in the power output. In response to this surge, the on-site engineers attempted an emergency shut-down of the plant, which resulted in a second output surge, which caused one of the reactor vessels to be ruptured, causing the first series of explosions. This caused the graphite moderator components to ignite, sending radioactive smoke into the night sky. This plume of radioactive smoke flew all over Europe and Western Russia, mostly settling in Belarus according the USSR. The accident was attributed to fifty direct deaths, and anywhere from four thousand to a million attributable deaths, depending on whom you ask. One of the major factors in the cause of the disaster is that, as mentioned earlier, water must constitantly be flowing through the reactors in order to keep them cool enough to not overheat. When the surge of power reached the electrical grid, it caused a worst case scenario inside the plant and actually turned the water off. Now the engineers of plants like this believed they had this covered by installing generators to the plants water pumps. The problem is that the pumps took about a minute to start up and begin working. This gap in water pressure, it is believed, is what caused the disaster, or at least what caused it in a technical sense. The true problem lays with the leaders of the plant. The gap of power in case of electrical failure was well known to be a major issue, so instead of going to the proper authorities with requests for their tests, they instead went the plant manager, and ignored several safety protocols along the way. This human error is the true cause of the disaster, not and technical failure. Critics cite this disaster as a strong case against the use of nuclear plants, showing how simple it is for a disaster to occur, and how slim the margins of error at these plants are (Adam).

Another hit to the nuclear energy industry is the waste that is produced is plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons. Six hundred and twenty thousands pounds were produced in the year 2000 alone, and it only takes eight pounds to produce a bomb the size of the one America dropped on Japan during World War Two. The temptation for a government, such as America’s (which is known for producing nuclear arms), to harness this plutonium and use it to stockpile an insane amount of nuclear weapons is simply too much of a burden to put on any one government, and too much of a threat to pose to the rest of the world. While it is true that the plutonium can be reused to make more nuclear energy, it is a less efficient fuel, and thus rarely used in such a fashion. The fact of the matter is, this is too great a threat too allow to sit idly by. Even if countries like Iran are truly developing nuclear reactors for civilian use, they can still use the by-products to produce very powerful bombs, creating a threat to every free country on the map (the top ten).

Another thing to consider is that the risk of accident is simply too high. Chernobyl has already been mentioned, but there have been other accidents. In March of 1979, accidents at the Three Mile Island plant in Harrisburg, Pennyslvania caused a partial core meltdown in unit two. This was the worst nuclear disaster in American history, and hopefully will stay the worst. The disaster started when the core began to leak coolant. Luckily the plant had planned for just such a problem and had emergency coolant valves in place for just such a day. What they did not plan on was a control room operator to misread the screen and think that there was in fact too much coolant. As opposed to flooding the core with extra coolant, the operator drained the core of what coolant it did have left. This caused an obvious problem. To compound the problem, nuclear radioactive gas began to leak out of the core as well. Luckily America has enough infrastructure in place that the problem was able to handled carefully but swiftly and after extensive research it was declared that there would be no cancer cases as a result of the partial meltdown (NRC). It will never be known however, just how close America came to having its own Chernobyl. The US government has in fact said that if a Chernobyl sized meltdown were to occur, it would kill more people than the bombing of Nagasaki (the top ten).

This is not to say, however, that there are not valid arguments for nuclear power dependence. Many supporters of nuclear energy say nuclear energy is the only practical “green” energy (Brand). They show that if all energy was produced with nuclear power the amount of waste is about a coke cans worth of uranium per person per lifetime, where as if all energy was produced with coal it would take sixty-eight tons of coal per person per lifetime (Will). While at first glance this may seem to be pretty damning evidence in support of nuclear energy, what it fails to take into account is the level of toxicity of these levels of waste. If one coke can of uranium is deadlier than sixty-eight tons of carbon, which one is the world truly better off with?

The pro-nuclear power camp also has arguments for those who say that nuclear energy is just too risky. That too much could go wrong and too many people could die.

This table clearly shows that more people died between the years 1970 and 1992 than died working at nuclear plants. Not just a few either, but massive amounts of people, in the thousands. The argument here is “how can nuclear energy be dangerous? Look how few plant workers die.” But this is ignoring the true argument. Yes, it is true that fewer plant workers die under normal operation procedures. What it fails to account for is the people who would die if the plants were to malfunction for some reason. In all three of the other plants, worst case scenario is that the workers in the plant and maybe some close to the plant get injured or worse. But if a nuclear reactor plant were to meltdown inside of America, it would be a catastrophe on levels never before seen.

Where nuclear power enthusiasts make their strongest case is of course in the financial sector. According to the Energy Information Administration, the only fuel source that has a lower operation, maintenance, and fuel cost per kilowatt hour is hydroelectric, but hydroelectric energy simply is not practical to supply energy for all of America. In fact, it has a third less cost than fossil steam energy (think coal), and two thirds less than gas turbine energy (natural gas) (Devil’s).

In conclusion, the looming energy crisis is something that must be seriously considered from all sides before anyone jumps to a conclusion and decides anything is our energy savior. While nuclear energy may have a few merits to it, such as cost, availability, and practicality, it also has many issues that must be addressed before America hitches its future on nuclear energy’s back. Nuclear energy has the potential to kill thousands of people before anyone is aware of how to stop it, whether by accident (Chernobyl) or by countries harnessing the waste into nuclear weapons and using them on one another. The effects of nuclear on the environment have not been properly studied and containment techniques of the nuclear energy plants have been proven to leak. If nuclear energy were to utilized further, and new information came out damning it as an energy source due to the deadliness of its waste, it would be too late because of the astounding half-life of its by-products. In the end, it is too big of a risk for America or the world to take to assume nuclear energy is safe. Until further research is done and more advanced containment techniques are developed (the sun anyone?), Nuclear energy should be at least slowed, if not halted all together.