Would you rather live next to a nuclear power plant or a coal burning plant?

Question

The question was found in an interview with Hunter Lovins, who said of nuclear power:

"Again, it is not clean in carbon terms. If you count the entire fuel cycle of nuclear̶digging the stuff up, enriching it, transporting it, building the very concrete intensive reactors which as they cure release CO2—nuclear is not carbon neutral."

Her answer to the question is towards the end of the interview.

http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2008/05/interview-hunter-lovins.html

Answer 1

Neither!

I would prefer to live next to a solar collector, or a wind farm!

Answer 2

Gosh they both have bad effects but if ya dont mind i need to stay away from both.They sound too scary for me

Answer 3

Nuclear--  

Answer 4

Nuclear is very clean, but if there was a meltdown (does not often happen) there would really be big problems. Coal is extreamly dirty so I would rather live by a nuclear power plant.

Answer 5

I have lived within a couple of miles of each type.  

With scrubber technology coal fired plants can be relatively clean, but they still pollute more than nuclear plants for no other reason than the government enforced emissions limits for the harmful emissions from coal fired plants is much higher than the emissions limits for the harmful emissions from nuclear power plants.  

My questions in response to Hunter Lovins would be:

- Don't they dig up and transport coal as well?  

- Aren't coal fired plants also made with concrete?

- Unless all the trucks and mining machines and cranes and the entire economy stops running on oil tell me one method of electricity production which doesn't in some way depend on fossil fuels?

- And finally, to produce the equivalent energy from coal takes 8000 times the volume and produces 8000 times the waste as Uranium, wouldn't it be a bit more expensive to dig up, process and manage 8000 times more fuel over the lifespan of a generating station?

I think I would choose the nuke plant or at least somewhere which was consistently upwind of the coal fired plant ... and consistently upwind of Hunter Lovins!

Answer 6

Life cycle analysis of nuclear power shows it to have around the same emissions as wind power (when you don't take account of the fossil fuel backup wind needs) and much lower emissions than solar PV and that's when you bias the comparison towards wind and solar (but not taking account of the fact that they usually end up as mostly fossil fuels).

The study that some people cite as showing that nuclear has high emissions has been shown to be based upon unrealistic assumptions and should be treated as a worst case (if even that), not how things are actually likely to happen with nuclear power, and even it shows nuclear to be better than coal.

But really, who wants to breath the mercury, uranium and thorium that comes up the smokestack of a coal power plant?  I'd personally be quite happy living right next to a nuclear power plant (I'd prefer it not be an RBMK though although with the post-Chernobyl upgrades they probably wouldn't be much of a risk, even pre-Chernobyl they were safer than coal and hydro) but not next to anything burning fossil fuels (for reasons you probably already know), not downstream from a hydroelectric dam (you also probably know the reason for that) and I would not want to be near a wind farm (the noise (infrasonic at that) and light strobe effect is not something I'd want to put up with).

Answer 7

I'd rather be next to the nuclear power plant, unless it was built by the Soviets.

Answer 8

Obviously a nuke plant would be cleaner but I wouldn't want to live by either and fortunately we still have the freedom to chose where we live.  Hunter Lovins is a great example of a religious wacko, that fits in Dana's previous question.  The idea of paying China for it to develop clean coal is an idea that only a religious zealot could come up with.  Her, or his fear of carbon seems more like a psychosis to me than anything anywhere near rational.    

Answer 9

Nuclear, hands-down.  Coal plants have all kinds of nasty emissions - particulates, mercury, arsenic, etc.  Plus they have far higher CO2 emissions than nuclear.

The primary concern with living next to a nuclear plant would be safety, but they have very good safety records.  I wouldn't be worried about it.  But if I had to live near a power plant, I would want it to be renewable (i.e. solar, wind, geothermal, etc).

Answer 10

By that same logic you could say any energy source--renewable or not--is not "carbon neutral" (as she puts it). With current technology and manufacturing processes, all energy sources emit carbon at some point in their lifetime. But really, we know that nuclear emits far less GHGs than coal, which is what counts.

Would I rather live next to a coal plant or a nuclear power plant? Definitely the nuclear power plant. Coal burning plants emit vast amounts of toxic chemicals and pollutants--more than just mercury. Nuclear power plants have very good records and are very safe, despite what some would have you believe.

Answer 11

Nuke

Answer 12

Preference would be near the rectenna for a space based solar system, second for a nuclear facility.

Answer 13

Definitely a nuke plant. more energy and less waste. There is a negligible radiation affect to surrounding areas of a nuke plant. A coal plant is likely to produce mass amounts of soot (not to mention metals) even after going through the air emissions scrubbing process. Although both contribute to thermal pollution.

so defnitely a nuke plant.  

Answer 14

I would MUCH rather live next to a nuclear power plant than a coal one. Coal plants emit way more radiation in the fly ash than you would ever get from a nuclear power plant. Heck, you would get more radiation from a brick house than a nuclear power plant. Also, coal plants do spew out a lot of other junk into the air. I'm not saying nuclear is perfect, but it is a lot better than coal.