What is the Reliability of using nuclear energy?

Question

what is the Reliability of using nuclear energy?

how reliable is it?

Answer 1

Nuclear power is neither reliable nor unreliable.  It is the operators that make it safe and reliable.  I spent eleven years in the navy as a nuclear trained electrician.  I became an engineering watch supervisor.  As such I was qualified to operate the reactor and control powerplant use.  The reactors used in the United States for civilian power are usually uniquely designed.  This makes it hard to use equipment from one plant in another.  The Navy uses a few designs for all their needs.  This allows for ease of teaching personnel to do maintenance and operations.  

At the Idaho National Labs and other places we are now designing plants that are modular in design.  We are now getting into themindset to have a few preapproved sets the Nuclear Regulatory Committee will let us use.  This increases reliability and lowers maintenance training needs.  In France cities vie for the oppertunity to have a plant built near them.  A plant needs a large heat sink to get rid of excess heat during power operations.  Companies build large parks and lakes that can be diverted in time of need.  This makes great recreational facilities.  In the US we try to keep a minimum of ten miles to the public.  This is a "safety Buffer".  Chernobyl was caused by shutting off the cooling flow to the reactor immediately after shutting it down to see how much power could be produced from decay heat.  The graphite burned and the rest is history.  We do not allow this kind of idiocy in America.

Answer 2

We have had nuclear power for 50 years, there are hundreds of plants operating cleanly and safely.   It is extremely reliable.

But there are issues.  The spent fuel and old decommissioned reactor cores are very toxic with radioactivity and must be stored safely for thousands of years.

If things go wrong at an operational plant it can be a very large disaster as happened in Chernobyl in the 1980's  (That reactor design is not used elsewhere, so what happened there specifically can not happen anywhere else, but the chance of a disaster is never zero)

Answer 3

as long as nothing is faulty, it should produce energy at a fairly constant rate for little cost, but in the event of something serious going wrong you could destroy everything within tens of miles, and render most of the country uninhabitable for thousands of years

Answer 4

really really really good it could power a submarine 6yeears without coming up to the surface.But it is also really really dangorous