Why is it that nuclear science is not used as an alternative source for fuel in the USA?

Question

Why is it that nuclear science is not used as an alternative source for fuel in the USA?

Answer 1

Tree huggers are concerned about the Nuclear waste.

I read recently that France has a handle on theirs but there are obstacles to implementing here. What they were was not discussed

Answer 2

The answer is very simple: a legal barrier

The responsability for the nuclear waste in the US has been transfered from the federal level to the companies operating the plant and nobody knows for sure the cost related to the wastes.

Answer 3

We do use nuclear power about 13% of the national output is nuclear if I remember correctly. However we don't want them in cars or planes because those crash to much and nuclear waste isn't very good for humans or anything else.

Answer 4

Environmentalists resisted it heavily in the 70's & 80's.

Answer 5

The U.S. uses nuclear fuel as much as possible. The U.S. is currently taking nuclear material left over from the cold war from Russia and using it in Nuclear power plants and they ships that the U.S. uses.  Actually all naval vessels that the U.S. currently is using have nuclear powered engines which only need refueled  every 10 years.  I have a nuclear power plant in my town that produces lots of energy.  Also in my state we have field of Wind Turbines to produce even more energy.  But all in all nuclear energy can't be used everywhere because of health hazards and such. I would have to say that maybe they have reached the full potential for nuclear power but who knows, maybe some day they will use it for lots more.  Like space ships.

Answer 6

Because the environmental lunatic fringe (ELFs) convinced people that nuclear power plants are dangerous.

Answer 7

- A nuclear plant produces 1/3 of the greenhouse gases when compared to the conventional plant, however, this is barely worth dealing with significant amounts of dangerous radioactive waste that will be around for hundreds of thousands of years. For example, Iodine-129, which is one of the nuclear waste products, has a half-life of 15.7 million years.

- As long as there is a potential for a nuclear accident – the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of people are at stake. In addition, we risk facing radioactive contamination of our soil, food and water supplies, which would cost billions of dollars.

- Accidents with nuclear reactors are STILL happening (last one in Canada in 1994). In the last few years, a number of previously unanticipated safety problems have occurred at Gentilly-2 (a CANDU reactor), all of them requiring expensive corrective action costing millions of dollars each.

- Some argue that Chernobyl’s accident is attributed to an outdated technology of the time, however, modern nuclear reactors are not fundamentally different from the Chernobyl’s nuclear reactor. In principal, a similarly catastrophic accident can happen at any nuclear reactor.

The following are some of the few reasons why an accident CAN happen at a modern nuclear plant:

• Inability to generate emergency electrical power to remove heat from the core of a reactor

• Steam line accidents

• Pressure tube ruptures that cause Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA)

• Pressure relief valves malfunctioning

- A used nuclear fuel bundle is the most lethal object on earth. A one-hour exposure (within a radius of 1 meter) to a used fuel bundle is fatal. 85,000 fuel bundles are present at all times in a nuclear reactor.

Answer 8

because,it is a very high risk that we should not take due to accidental explosions.

Answer 9

Cost.  By the time you pay all the costs of zoning, siting, years and years of construction, licensing, regulation and disposal of nuclear waste...

... wind power is cheaper.

Also faster.   A wind farm can be built in a year or two.  It'll have earned its pay and gotten its business loans paid off before the nuke plant even gets finished.

It would save a lot if you could eliminate the "Not In My Back Yard" type of people, but if you did that, this wouldn't be America.

Answer 10

We do, but people do not like nuclear energy and are scared of it because of 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl. Although it is historically safe. More coal miners have died in the last year than all the nuclear power plants in the USA combined since the first one opened. In fact I do not believe there has ever been a fatality from a nuclear accident in the USA.

Answer 11

That depends on what you are talking about. THe is a reason we dont use nuclear power for cars is that the radiation would kill the driver and and the passengers. We can use it for submarines since the walls of the reactor are thick enough to stop the radiation from spreading. We do use it as an energy source for normal power. There are people who are scared of nuclear and refuse to listen to proven facts about nuclear power.

Answer 12

We do.  All those nuclear power plants are evidence of that.  But it only works well on a very large scale.  You can't make a small nuclear plant to run a car, for example.  The amount of shielding, turbines, etc are just too bulky to make it work.

Answer 13

The biggest problem is that we haven't really figured out an acceptable means of disposing of the radioactive waste that it produces. WTF are we supposed to do with stuff that'll be dangerous for longer than mankind has even existed???

Answer 14

Fear of a disaster, and disposal of the radioactive waste.   Nuclear power plants are homeland securities worry area of a terrorist attack.

However, weighing the risk benefit of coal fired plants and natural gas/oil fired plants, nuclear power is looking better every day.