What are three disadvantages of a nuclear-fission reactor?

Question

What are three disadvantages of a nuclear-fission reactor?

Answer 1

High Capital Cost

Uncertain long term Waste Disposal Process/Facilities

Very long/Protracted Site Selection/Licensing Process

There are very many +'s to counterbalance these -'s

The rest of the world is expanding Nuke plants, we should too.

Astrobuf

Answer 2

1. There is less that a 25 year supply of known fissile materail on Earth at currrent rates of consumption

2. Radioactive bi products of fission are lethal for over 1000 years and have no known safe storage solution

3. Only gas cooled reactors are safe against catastrophic meltdown - and the UK is currently closing the last of those. All other forms have had catastrophic failures.

Answer 3

1.  They are very expensive

2.  They are hard to keep up

3.  The waste is hard to get rid of.

I sold mine on eBay months ago.  It was a pain.

Answer 4

Epidavros above is wrong about there been only 25 years worth of nuclear fuel. He is also wrong about the catastrophic failure of all other designs, the CANDU for instance, never had any catastrophic failure.

The 3 disadvantages are

- nuclear waste that has to be disposed of

- risk of proliferation (either the enrichment process to make nuclear fuel could be hijacked to produce weapon grade uranium; or spent fuel could be processed to extract plutonium)

- poor perception by the general public

Notice that risk of core meltdown is not listed, because the risk of a properly designed and operated reactor going Chernobyl is virtually zero.