Why are so many people needlessly afraid of nuclear power?

Question

As far as I know Nuclear power is the cheapest, cleanest and safest. So tell me why it's been demonized?

Try to come up with somehting better than the 21 year old "soviet" Chernobyl story, Or the The Three Mile Island accident ( The worst accident in American history, no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community)

Answer 1

It's because when a mistake takes place with this form of energy production, the results are the most devastating. When human error can be eliminated, people will feel much more at ease.

Answer 2

why do you think U.S.A. dont want, iran, iraq, north korea to have nukes? because they hate us and ofcourse, one terrorist got a hold of them without us knowing it, im sooo sorry if it killed millions of americans. we might end up retaliating too by nuking them and start the end of the world.

Answer 3

Well that's it exactly, even though it may be safe now, some people still see the possibility of a meltdown, it's what a lot of people think about when they hear nuclear power plant.

Answer 4

The 21 year old Chernobyl story is still going on. There is a 30 km radius "nuclear exclusion zone" around the power plant, which is strictly monitored, and where people are only allowed to go for limited periods.

Can you imagine if something like that happened in a major metropolitan area in the US?  Particularly in the densely populated areas of the East Coast... The exclusion zone is 60 kilometers across after 21 years. A much larger area had to be evacuated at first.

Also, nuclear power is not the cheapest form of electricity. As a longtime resident of the Pacific Northwest, we used to have nuclear power from the Trojan power plant. We also had (and still have) hydroelectric power from the dams on the Columbia  River.

The utility which was responsible for the Trojan power plant has some of the most expensive electricity in the region. On the other hand, electricity in Oregon and Washington is among the least expensive in the nation because of our access to hydropower.

Nuclear power plants are expensive to build, and expensive to decommission. If you ignore those costs it's cheap, but if you include those costs it is not cheap.

Answer 5

Either in the late 1970s or the early 1980s anti-nuclear activists--influenced by the "Three mile island incident"--began falsely spreading that nuclear power is not eco-friendly. Sadly, because of their horrifying claims the words of the misled activists went to the media.

Because of the power of the media many people were prone to believe the fallacies. While in truth nuclear power is the future and is in truth eco-friendly.

I believe nuclear power is the replacement of fossil fuels/coal/oil--seeing as those are running out and was proved 40 years ago contaminated..

Nuclear power is great because of the above and:

Nuclear power is not as dangerous as the media states.

Nuclear power is infinitely safer than fossil fuels/coal/oil(pollution from these burnings are killing tens of thousands a year.)

Meltdowns and coolant defects are rare espescially with today's precautions.

Nuclear reactor explosions are impossible. Nuclear reactors holds only 3% of Uranium235 a nuclear explosion requires at least 90%.

Solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectic, tidal, etc cannot produce enough energy for even just a good percentage of the U.S.(summed up they still cannot)

Answer 6

The reason it is demonized is because no matter what they tell you, if they s***w up and something goes wrong it kills and or harms a lot of people and because of atomic half-lifes it will continue to affect lives for a very long time. Also, it is not as clean as you think, its waste is not easy to dispose of and remains radioactive for a very long time.

People may demonize it but in every tirade there is a grain of truth and I dont care how cheap it is I would prefer not to gamble on our ability to produce enough safeguards.

Here's to your glow in the dark house :)

Answer 7

One issue is that decommisioning nuclear power plants is an expensive and time-consuming project.  Another issue is what to do with all the waste.  Over time more and more waste accumulates and needs to be securely stored for very long periods of time.  That waste also needs to be transported from the plant to a secure place which means it could be traveling through your neighborhood.  Also, do you live near a nuclear power plant?  I do and it's not very fun knowing that if there ever were an accident there is no way to get away quickly enough.  I would much rather see clean renewable energy used.

Answer 8

It's mostly a lack of understanding.  People fear things they don't understand.

But there are some significant downsides:

1.)  Failure of the safety features is BAD

2.)  The spent fuel remains radioactive and dangerous to humans for longer than any of us will ever live.  And it is dangerous enough to be used in a "dirty bomb"

3.)  Construction of a nuclear power plant is incredibly expensive.

4.)  After 50 years, they must be decommissioned.  Nobody really knows what we'll do with the expired plants at that point.  And they will never be total clean of radiation.

All that being said.  It's very environmentally friendly and extremely efficient.  I can't wait till the next wave of plants get built, now that we've had 30 years of experience to get better at designing and building the plants.

Answer 9

First of all, when something goes wrong with nuclear power the potential exists for a major catastrophe.  Although it is unlikely,  the worst thing that is going to happen to a fossil fuel plant is catch on fire whereas a nuclear disaster can cause catastrophic issues.

On a serious note...People are afraid of what they don't understand.  Nobody likes placing trust in somebody (scientists)  who may or may not have an agenda, so if they don't understand it themselves than it is no good.  Right or wrong, that is how people in a free and open society react.

Answer 10

You may not believe where my source comes from, that is, my source to consider nuclear power the biggest oops in human development: Stephen King's The Tommyknockers.

As I can't go on and on in here, the basic thing goes like this:

1. Human Factor. Humans make mistakes, and I am a firm believer in Murphy's Law. Now, if you consider how easy human mistakes are made over here at Mexico, you look at Laguna Verde and shudder.

2. Disposal. I don't know the specifics, but given the cases of sudden findings of nuclear waste hush-hush depots IN 3RD WORLD COUNTRIES (but of course), and you multiply by all those things that we haven't find out... well, you get paranoid.

I'm sure mankind and its knowledge has advanced since the early days of nuclear research, but if the legend is true, the Big Boys and their Toys are always in that scenario where, well, either it works or a chain reaction starts and we burn the whole nitrogen forever and ever, or until it all burns out, whatever happens first...

Answer 11

Good question. I mostly think that some people who claim to be those who want the environment safe are just not educated enough on the other side of nuclear power. All they hear is the bad stuff never the good stuff.

All the other stuff, wind power, solar power, hydro power are on the low and would make our economy suffer. Wind and solar power is just not enough and hydro powering stuff, it'll all be wishy washy, especially since water is not to the same volume it used to be. We waste a lot of it. Most of natural resources like that aren't as rich as most people think.

Pointing out, not all nuclear power stuff is bad; maybe dangerous if you do something silly. As said by my chemistry teacher, look at French or Europe. They're natural leaders with nuclear power especially since they can safely take uranium from the earth and recycle it back in. Besides every single bit of atoms and such stuff are part of it one way or the other. So it's all bound to go back.