Is Nuclear power really damaging to the environment?

Question

What about in France, where eighty per cent of their power is generated through Nuclear means, with little or no impact and no wasting of fossil fuels?

Is replacing gas, coal and oil a bad thing?

Answer 1

If the main reason for not using nuclear is the waste, may I suggest rocket ships to hurl it into the sun or into open space.  Sure, the rockets would burn up some atomosphere, but what the heck, it's burned and depleted already anyhow.

Answer 2

No it is not.  Left wing whackos and ultra liberals are the greatest danger.  Thy don't want oil drilling, are against all fossil fuels, are against nuclear power yet they don't come up with a solution.  They want solar power etc. which is good but not cost effective and not yet really viable.  I wish they (the liberals) would come up with an answer rather than condemn all current known technologies.

Answer 3

well in the nuclear power stations carbon dioxide is emitted from the process of turning natural resources into energy for the homes. I heard that though carbon dioxide is emitted, only a little is emitted. But still, this carbon harms the environment by making global warming a bigger problem.

The solution: reforestation (the trees take in the carbon and release healthy oxygen) and environmentally-friendly objects (e.g. cars that dont run on petrol which pollutes..... etc etc. )

Answer 4

The main drawback is what to do with the waste.  It's radioactive, and won't degrade to safe levels for thousands of years.  But since the quantity of waste is relatively small and easy to isolate, it's feasible to stash it away somewhere out of the way, like deep underground in an area away from the water table (so it won't contaminate it) and somewhere geologically stable.  That being said, finding somewhere to bury the waste can be a political nightmare because no one wants it in their back yard.

The other potential danger is from a meltdown or other accident, which can poison the environment (think Chernobyl).  But France for example has an excellent safety record, in part because they standardized reactor design for all their reactors.  A lot of plants in the US and Russia are unique, meaning that they could have hidden flaws.  With a standardized design there is much more cumulative experience and knowledge, plus any problem that comes at one plant up can be fixed and applied to all other plants relatively quickly and easily.

Properly and safely run nuclear energy has the advantage of not contaminating the environment in any way - no green house gases whatsoever.  And it can generate electricity on a large scale and for competitive costs, which give it an advantage over wind and solar generation.  

Nuclear energy in the US fell out of favor in the 80s after the 3 Mile Island and ChernobylI accidents, and since oil prices were low.  A lot of environmental groups protested nuke plant construction with lawsuits, making it hard to get a new plant built.  

But I agree with you, it's something we need to look at again in the States.  It's one of the only ways to generate large scale power without degrading air quality.

Answer 5

actually it could solve another problem we have.

if we dumped all the nuclear waste on our borders it would make illegal infiltrators a lot easier to find at night.

Answer 6

If nuclear waste is the big problem with nuclear power, I'm wondering why we can't send the waste to some kind of processing plant where they would change it into something harmless or something reusable.

For example, what would happen to the waste if they nuked it?  Or put it through some kind of nuclear reaction that would change it into something with a much shorter half life.  Or whatever process might change it most economically into something harmless or useful.

Answer 7

Nuclear power has the least impact on the world of all the other mainstream energy generators

IT COULD BE REALLY SAFE but as with most things its money profit and bomb-making that gets in the way of cheap safe plentiful power

Answer 8

Although with coal and natural gas, another energy source often suggested is nuclear power. Nuclear power does not have coal's soot and does not add to greenhouse gases in the same way. This has led some people to define nuclear as a "clean" power.

However, the issues with nuclear are not the same as the fossil fuels of oil, coal and natural gas. Nuclear power brings a new set of problems. The major problem with nuclear is not that the plant will suddenly turn into a nuclear bomb and explode. The major problem is what to do with the waste.

Spent nuclear fuel is too spent to power the power plant but not too spent to be dangerous. Nuclear waste is dangerous for thousands to millions of years, depending on the isotope, but our storage solutions are all for twenty, fifty, maybe one hundred years. Those kinds of storage solutions are just shifting the problem to another generation. The hope is that the future will have a solution but the odds are just as good that the waste facilities could be forgotten or neglected. Imagine how our present government would want to deal with a hazardous waste problem from one hundred years ago, assuming they were aware the waste site existed. Time and political changes sometimes mean that information gets lost.