What purpose is nuclear power?
Image Credit:tony
A student from Africa asks the scientists about nuclear energy.
Niezied: Greetings ladies and gentlemen. I’m Niezed from Cote d’Ivoire, and I’d like to know the purpose of developing nuclear programs.
Several countries around the world are now building or planning to build nuclear plants. To understand the purpose, EarthSky asked Erich Schneider in the Nuclear and Radiation Engineering program at the University of Texas. He spoke of energy as key to humanity’s future.
Erich Schneider: Everybody needs to have access to energy. It’s a fundamental need for humans to live good, long, productive, happy lives.
Schneider said, in Africa right now, fewer than 25% of people have reliable access to electricity. He said scientists are working toward smaller-scale power plants for small cities or towns, or even a cluster of villages. He said he’s not advocating for or against nuclear power, but that nuclear plants are safer now. The problem of radioactive waste disposal hasn’t gone away, but small amounts of uranium do provide a lot of energy.
Erich Schneider: In the case of coal, to supply me with electricity for one year, I would need enough coal to fill a small room. In the case of nuclear power, the uranium that I need is the size of a tablet of aspirin.
Schneider added that nuclear power has other advantages, too. For example, it doesn’t contribute to global warming.
Erich Schneider: Nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases. If we want to fight climate change, we can adopt nuclear power.
He said for Cote d’Ivoire to go from getting 80% of its energy from coal to 80% from nuclear might take several decades.
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I disagree with Erich Shneider that nuclear power does not create greenhouse gases. When you consider the entire process from construction of nuclear plant to the dumping of radioactive waste, a lot of CO2 is emitted.
Just think of all those vehicles used in transportation of the building materials and the uranium – last time I checked they don’t run off water!
Furthermore, the studies that show radioactive waste to be “safe” on based on the effects on a healthy adult male, and do not take into account the vulnerabilities of children.
It’s amazing how ignorant the 1970’s era folks are about nucelar power. To claim that nuclear plants are dangerous is a lie, especially if coupled with claims that current (or even past) non-Communist nuclear plants are in any way comparable. They are not, and those who claim otherwise are either really, really dumb, or
liars. Nuclear wastes are a problem only in the minmds of the anti-nukes. The Scandanavians, unencumbered as we are by anti-nuke obstructionists, have had no problem constructing and running nuclear waste disppsal sites, putting the lie to claims that such relatively simple engineering is beyond the capabilites
the U.S. All of the other non-carbon alternatives to nuclear power suck, with the exceptions of solar thermal, geothermal and hydroelectric. Wind power is basically uncontrollable, unpredictable, very expensive (cost to construct per MWhr actually produced is over 5 times more than nuclear, which is now the cheapest form of electrical production, at less than 2 cents per kilowatthour). The costs of nuclear fuel can be less than .39 cents per kilowatthur. That is trivial. There ARE NO dangers worth worrying about associated with nuclear power. Environmentalists seem almost universally brainless when it comes to electrical power technologies. They make false and misleading claims, such as those who compare technology costs on the basis of “rated capacites” and then compound the error by not acknowledging the side effect costs of crappy technologies like wind, which has no ability whatsoever to replace peak demand capacity. Build all the windmills you might want, but next year when power requirements increases, you will still need to build the same number of dispatchable (controllable) power generators, resulting in totally inefficient duplicate power geenration capability. Fear mongering is the only strategy left for the anti-nukes. If the news media would do its job and explain all of the safety technology built into nuclear plants, the anti-nuke folks would be seen as the deceivers they are. The anti-nukes have failed everywhere else, even in formally (very) anti-nuke Germany, where nucelar power now has a majority approval, and previous plans to shut down reactors has been reversed. The rest of the world is already going nuclear. And nuclear power has recently been cited as the safest power generation technolgy available. Fear strikes out.