Does anyone else think that there needs to be a very large anti-nuclear energy movement?

Question

Seems like I hear all kinds of plans being drawn up for new nuclear power, but the thing is it doesn't even need to be built we can use green clean energy instead. Besides the danger from accidents and natural disasters nuclear is a prime target for terrorists, so why should these things be built? I feel like a ban on them would help kickstart green energy production allowing that industry to grow and it's prices to drop.

Answer 1

Absolutely not! Nuclear power is really the only viable solution to global warming we have right now.

Other energy sources like solar and wind are fine, but they can't even come close to providing the amount of energy needed. They can only be used to supplement a more reliable source like nuclear or coal.

I also think you're drastically overstating the dangers of nuclear. Accidents like Chernobyl were due to older, low budget, Soviet-era construction. There has never been a single death from a modern reactor..

And I think the risk of terrorists obtaining uranium is far less than the almost certain dangers of climate change.

Green energy is and will continue to expand, but it won't become a viable replacement for decades to come. We need clean energy now, before it's to late. Nuclear can provide us with that.

Answer 2

What do you want? There are no CO2 emissions from a nuclear plant. That's what you green people want isn't it? Seems like you people want to argue with what ever takes your fancy. What other alternative energy source can reliably supply as much energy as a nuclear power station? Solar? Wind? There are reasons why these sources of energy haven't been exploited. Because they are too expensive and are unreliable. Not everyone wants to live in the dark under a rock like you.

Answer 3

Don't know where you live Stan but there are some large wind turbine fields in the USA.  The problem is that they are in the middle of nowhere and the people want the power where they are AND, they don't want any new power transmission lines.  The need for power keeps growing and people don't want any of generation or transmission equipment built.  All power generating systems have the potential for disaster and it is simply necessary to find the one with the least potential or consequences.  I don't disagree with the concept of reducing nuclear generators but there needs to be more effort put into building other generating systems.

And while we are on the subject, why can the nuclear power rods no longer produce power when they are still radioactive?  Storing them is a bigger problem than new generating systems.

Answer 4

The risk of global warming is far greater than the risk of nuclear power.  We can engineer good plants, safe and safe from terrorism.  The waste problem is a political one, not a technical one.  We know how to bury the waste safely, the problem is designating a location.

There should be work on solar, wind, and bio fuels also.  But we can't fix global warming without nuclear.

Answer 5

Why is it that everybody that expects to have all these green energy sources developed are always waiting for someone else to develop them. The reason they aren't there is that it's very difficult to come up with all these green energy sources. If you want heat and light in your house this winter it will have to come from fossil fuels. Sorry but there really are no easy answers to all of this. Look at all the problems caused by rising corn prices because of the increased ethanol production with many of the new production facilities yet to come online.

Answer 6

Good question. Here is one reason why nuclear is so popular against green energy even though it has a lot of problems itself.

Fun With Solar & Wind

A group of companies are planning a 3,200 acre, 300MW solar farm in the New Mexico desert. 3,200 acres of solar to generate 300MW boils down to about 11 acres per MW. For Southern US we get the equivalent of about 6 hours of full sunshine every day due to seasonal sun angle and darkness. Central Australia gets about 5.5 - go figure. So, 6/24 being about ¼ of a day the average output needed is about 44 acres/MW to make up for dark periods if we want 24 hr operation. This way we generate 4x the amount of power we need while the sun is out and rely on batteries for remaining ¾ of the day when it is dark or at twilight. If we assume that charging and discharging batteries is about 80% efficient then we need about 55 acres for every MW we want to be supplied over 24 hours. So if we have 55 acres of solar we can generate an average of 1 MW/hr daily.

If a three unit nuclear plant generates 3,000MW (Palo Verde NPS = 3,800) then at 55 acres per MW we would need 165,000 acres to equal the production of a nuclear plant 24 hours a day. With 640 acres per square mile we would need about 258 square miles of solar. That would be a square about 16 miles on a side.

Now since a solar plant only works during daylight we will need batteries to be able to supply balanced power over a 24hr period. To supply battery power for 24 hours means we need a rack of batteries. Assuming 12v 104Ah (24hr) batteries we will need about 75 million batteries according to a handy dandy battery calculator I found on the net. If each battery, its housing, inverter, cables and access path takes up 3 square feet then we need about 225 million square feet of space for our batteries. That would be a square almost 3 miles on a side, or about 2,500 Wal-mart Super Centers. If you wanted to build a skyscraper for your caps you could store them in 50 Sears Towers.

Of course batteries only last 5 years so we would be replacing 15 million batteries a year or about 1 million per month. If we continue with this and assume each battery weights say 20 pounds and half of that is lead and half is acid then we are disposing 500,000 pounds of lead and 500,000 pounds of acid a month.

The 300MW plant listed at the beginning of this article is priced at $1.5B. Now we are going to build a 15,000,000,000watt plant (to get the equivalent of 3,000MW/hr/day in only 6 hr of full daylight) and using that as our yardstick we can guess our plant would cost about $50B. By comparison it costs about $6B to build a nuke and about $300M to decommission. So we could build and decommission 8 nuclear plants for the same price it would cost us to build one solar plant. Are we having fun yet?

A casual survey of 4 wind farms on the net finds that the average maximum capacity of a wind farm is about 70acres/MW but that the average wind generator produces only about 33% of its capacity over time. This means the actual average output of a wind farm is about 210acre/MW.

To replace our typical nuclear power plant at 210 acre/MW it would take 630,000 acres of wind farm. With 640 acres per square mile we would need about a thousand square miles of wind or a square 31 miles on a side with at least 1/3 of the units spinning on average. We would still need a battery storage facility since the wind tends to blow in winter when you don’t need the power and does not blow in the heat of summer when you do need it.

Answer 7

The problem is that the options for green clean energy in the amounts needed for a thriving economy are very limited.  Solar and wind can't simply generate as much energy as we need.  Ethanol isn't clean, because it generates about 90% as much carbon dioxide as oil.  

I believe nuclear is the only "clean" alternative for an economy as strong as ours.  France generates about 80% of its energy from nuclear reactors.