Do you believe nuclear power plants actually produce "clean" energy?

Question

If so, what do you consider the waste by-product that everyone seems to think belongs to Nevada as?

Answer 1

Clean as they produce no green house gases.

The waste that a nuclear power station creates in one year will fit under your desk.  

Compare this waste to that of a coal fired power plant.

Face it, some people have an irrational fear of modern technology.  It's reminiscent of the fear people had of the first airplane.

Answer 2

Nuclear energy is not really a "green" power source. It's by-product is radiation which will not decay in 100,000 years! There are better ways to produce green energy, but what we really need is some type of power source that is free of any kind of emission and produces as much energy as a nuclear reactor or higher. :-D

Answer 3

The energy is clean, definitely. Almost every large city in Europe has its own reactor producing power, and they haven't had any problem.

The problems in the US and Russia were caused by human error, or greed on the part of the reactor owners.

The waste problem in the US has been created by legislation based on ignorance. The fuel rods can be recycled instead of buried.

As fuel rods are used, bi products are created and build up in the rods until the rod can no longer sustain a reaction.

The spent rods can be shipped to South Carolina where there are facilities that can remove the bi products from the rods so they can be recycled. The cleaned rods can be returned to the reactor and continue being used, instead of throwing them away and producing new fuel rods.

Legislation by several states prohibit shipping fuel rods through those states. So instead of cleaning the fuel rods and reusing them, we are shipping them to Nevada and burying them.

P.S. the rods are actually pellets stacked on top of each other so they look like a rod.

Answer 4

I spent 6.5 years working in Emergency Preparedness at a Nuclear Power Plant in California. By virtually every standard of measurement they provide cleaner power that non nuclear power plants.

Answer 5

That waste byproduct is not spewed into the environment like CO2 is at the oil, gas and coal plants located in Nevada.  Thus nuclear energy is clean, except for a small amount of waste heat discharged into a river that hurts nothing.

Plus the coal ash left over by all of Nevadas coal plants, being mined straight from the earth, contains radioactive elements including uranium and thorium which didn't burn in the furnace.  All that goes straight to the landfill where it mingles with Nevada groundwater.

Answer 6

Its common to dislike nuclear power for fear that we will all be killed if a reactor melts down. The nuclear industry has more rules and regulations than any other industry. Every nuclear facility has containment walls that work very well.

As far as its spent nuclear fuel, fast breeder reactors have been used by France with success ever since the early 80’s. The Super-Phenix is a large scale breeder reactor can produce 20% more fuel than it consumes.