Summers 1

Nick Summers

Aughenbaugh

English 12

3 February 2017

The Advantages of Nuclear Power

Nuclear power has many advantages but first this is how nuclear power is produced:

When the heaviest element, uranium was bombarded with neutrons, it was

discovered that instead of inducing radioactivity as did other elements, something

different happened. This process was named fission. When fission occurred, not

only were two lighter elements and a lot of radiation produced, but also more

neutrons. It was clear that these neutrons could in turn also cause fission,

producing more neutrons and developing a chain reaction which might spread

throughout all the uranium present.

In the fission of uranium 235 nucleus, the amount of energy released is about

60,000,000 times as much as when a carbon atom burns. Most of the energy from

fission appears as kinetic energy as the fission products shoot apart and quickly

share their energy with their surroundings, thus producing heat. (Rinkesh)

Nuclear power is advantageous because it avoids many of the harmful issues that fossil

fuels have on the environment, with the advent of molten salt reactors, the cost of electricity will

increase only by one percent at most, the amount of waste produced is small compared to coal,

the heat created through fission can be used in many useful ways ,the risks to the average
 Summers 2

american that something catastrophic will happen to a nuclear facility are extremely low, nuclear

power guarantees the world an indefinite supply of fuel that will not affect the resources required

for other applications.

The environmental problems caused by burning fossil fuels can be easily avoided by

using nuclear power. Global Warming, the changing of Earths climate, is caused by the burning

of fossil fuels as well as Acid rain which is destroying forests and killing fish.(Cohen) When a

fossil fuel like coal is burned greenhouse gases are released. Greenhouse gases, like Carbon

Dioxide, deflect sunlight in turn heating the planet up. The surface of the Earth could raise from

2.5 degrees to 10.4 degrees fahrenheit within the century. Methane, another greenhouse gas, is

released when mining for fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases are not emitted by nuclear power.

(Fridell 118)

Molten- Salt reactors are relatively new form of nuclear reactors:

The greater efficiency of molten-salt reactors makes them smaller for a given

capacity. More importantly, they operate at atmospheric pressure, which

eliminates both the threat of explosion and the need for a large containment

structure, the visual signature of today's fission plants. In combination with the

pervasive relative simplicity of molten-fuel reactors, elimination of the

containment structure renders molten-salt facilities relatively small and

inexpensive. Such reactors also lend themselves to factory manufacture, further

reducing their cost. (Williams)

Some new reactors can consume existing nuclear waste:

 Summers 3

As the term "breed-and-burn" suggests, next-generation fission technologies are

related

to and provide the benefits of reprocessing. An independent benefit of

molten-salt technologies is that the fissile material can remain in the reactor until

it is completely consumed, thereby producing dramatically less waste. In today's

solid-fuel reactors the fuel is clad in metals that can tolerate only a limited amount

of neutron bombardment, necessitating removal of the fuel long before it is fully

consumed. This distinction is the basis of the claim by the MIT [Massachusetts

Institute of Technology]-based startup, Transatomic Power, that waste production

can be reduced from tons to kilograms, increasing by a factor of 30 the energy

obtained from a given quantity of fuel. Refueling frequency is also reduced in

molten-salt reactors by the continuous removal of neutron-absorbing xenon,

whose accumulation in solid-fuel reactors also reduces the time that fuel can

remain in the reactor. (Williams)

France has benefitted from reprocessing, for the past decade 80 percent of its electricity

has been produced by fission. (Williams) The cost of producing electricity will only raise by one

percent at most because there are very few uses for Uranium and breeder reactors satisfy energy

needs for billions of years:

The high energy density and availability of coal make it misleadingly attractive.

Hargraves concludes that at least one of the next-generation breed-and-burn

fission technologies can produce electricity for about $0.03/kWh, making it

cost-competitive, even with coal. (Cohen)

 Summers 4

The amount of waste created by nuclear power is extremely small:

We have been bombarded with propaganda about the potential dangers of

long-lived radioactive waste from nuclear reactors. But these wastes have the

extremely important advantage of being very small in volume and can be easily

contained so they can be buried deep underground. (Cohen)

Coal burning creates harmful wastes that end up seeping into the ground:

The results of an analysis ... indicate that the wastes from coal burning, including

those that end up in the ground, are far more dangerous. These include chemical

carcinogens like beryllium, cadmium, arsenic, nickel, and chromium, which

unlike the nuclear wastes, last forever. (Cohen)

Molten-Salt reactors actually have the ability to break down nuclear wastes. These systems

utilize fissile material more efficiently than other reactors:

Some companies in the United States are focusing on creating "burner" reactors.

These systems are able to maintain a higher power density and use nuclear waste

as a fuel source for the reaction. (Downs)

The heat produced by fission can be used in many ways like answering the problem of

Carbon Dioxide free transportation and seawater desalination. Nuclear power creates ammonia

which is the answer to the transportation issue:

The answer is the synthesis of ammonia [NH3]. NH3 synthesis is among the most

promising exploitations of heat from fission. NH3 can be viewed as an especially

effective medium for hydrogen storage and delivery. The infrastructure for NH3

production and distribution is already widespread. NH3 has about half the energy
 Summers 5

content by weight of gasoline, but its much lower cost gives it a

price-performance advantage. Most importantly, NH3 burns to form air and

water. (Williams)

The heat from fission can be used to filter seawater:

Fission also offers a choice between electrically powered reverse osmosis and

traditional distillation as means to produce potable water. Distillation can use

fission-produced heat directly, whereas reverse osmosis is very energy

demanding, and can use fission-produced electricity. (Williams)

The chances of a catastrophic risk occurring are extremely small:

This advantage can perhaps be expressed more clearly by saying the risk to an

average American of a very large nuclear power program in the United States is

equivalent to the risk of a regular smoker smoking one extra cigarette every 15

years, or to the risk of an overweight person increasing his weight by 0.012

ounces, or of raising the U.S. highway speed limit from 55 to 55.006 miles per

hour. (Cohen)

These risks or dangers come from more military interested programs:

Concerns raised by incidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were seriously

aggravated by recent events at Fukushima. Such dangers are not intrinsic to

fission, but stem from military priorities favoring fuel rods comprised of

metal-clad ceramics. Ceramics conduct heat poorly, and active cooling (powered

externally) is required to prevent overheating, melting and rupture of the

cladding.(Williams)
 Summers 6

The relationship between the development of nuclear power and the development of bombs are

not related:

There are much easier, faster, and cheaper ways for nations to develop nuclear

weapons than through a nuclear power programme. All nuclear weapon states

have developed their bombs independently from their electricity generation

facilities, and any nation with a serious desire to obtain nuclear weapons could

and would do the same. (Cohen)

There are a large amount of arguments that say nuclear is unsafe or too risky. Some say

that accidents are common:

The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale uses a seven-level

ranking scheme to rate the significance of nuclear and radiological events: levels
1-3 are "incidents," and 4-7 are "accidents," with a "Level 7 Major Accident"
consisting of "a major release of radioactive material with widespread health and
environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended
countermeasures." Under these classifications, the number of nuclear accidents,
even including the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini, is low.
But if one redefines an accident to include incidents that either resulted in the loss
of human life or more than $50,000 in property damage, a very different picture
emerges. (Sovacool)

If incidents are included the number of accidents increases greatly:

At least 99 nuclear accidents meeting this definition, totaling more than $20.5
billion in damages, occurred worldwide from 1952 to 2009or more than one
incident and $330 million in damage every year, on average, for the past three
decades. And, of course, this average does not include the Fukushima
catastrophe.(Sovacool)
 Summers 7

Old reactors that are still in use are more likely to meltdown or worse:

It is now standard practice to extend the life of reactors from their design
parameters of 25 years to 40 years and longer. It seems foolish at best to take such
a gamble on complex technology that operates under high temperature and
pressure. Any "unlikely" loss of coolant-capacities may result in explosions,
meltdown, and significant release of radioactivity into the environment.
(Josephson)

Nuclear facilities also have no place to dispose of waste safely

Utilities and reactor operators still store spent fuel and other nuclear waste in and
around reactors, since no truly secure, permanent repository has been built. In the
US, 70,000 tons of spent fuel sits at 103 reactors around the country within 75
miles of 125 million people. In Russia, 50,000 tons of spent fuel remains at power
stations. (Josephson)

These waste depositories are also susceptible to terrorist attack:

Storage pools of spent nuclear fuel are likewise vulnerable to terrorist attacks that
could disperse lethal levels of radioactivity well beyond the plant perimeter. The
accidental release of radioactivity, whether from a reactor accident, terrorist
attack, or slow leakage of radioactive waste into the local environment, poses the
risk of catastrophic harm to communities and to vital natural resources, such as
underground aquifers used for irrigation and drinking water. (Natural Resources
Defense Council)

Nuclear power is an answer to several issues ranging from environmental to financial and
despite risks the advantages are too many to ignore. It is a source of power that will last this
planet for billions of years.
 Summers 8

Works Cited

Cohen,Bernard L. Nuclear Power Has Many Advantages and Few Risks. Nuclear Energy. Ed.

Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Current Controversies. Rpt. from The

Nuclear Power Advantage. 22 Oct. 2009. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 10 Jan.

2017

Downs, Siouxzanna. Atomic Power-Saving Lives. UN Chronicle 52.3 (2013):46. MasterFile

Main Edition. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.

Fridell, Ron. Open For Debate: Environmental Issues. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish

Benchmark, 2006. Print.

Josephson, Paul. "Nuclear Power Poses Threats to Safety and the Environment and Should Be
Scrapped." Nuclear Power. Ed. Lynn M. Zott and Helga Schier. Detroit: Greenhaven Press,
2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Japan Nuclear Crisis: Seven Reasons Why We Should
Abandon Nuclear Power." Christian Science Monitor (14 Mar. 2011). Opposing Viewpoints in
Context. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.
 Summers 9

Natural Resources Defense Council. "Nuclear Power Is Not a Sound Strategy to Fight Global
Warming." Nuclear Power. Ed. Lynn M. Zott and Helga Schier. Detroit: Greenhaven Press,
2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Nuclear Facts." Feb. 2007. Opposing Viewpoints in
Context. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.

Rinkesh, Advantages of Nuclear Energy. Conserve Energy Future. Conserved Energy Future.

2017. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Williams, Arthur R. Nuclear Power Is the Best way to Address Climate Change. The

Environment Ed. Lynn M. Zott. Farmington Hills, MI Greenhaven Press, 2014. Opposing

Viewpoints. Rpt. from Nuclear Power: The Only Available Solution to Global Warming.

Physics Today (Apr. 2013) Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Jan. 2017.