Nuclear Power is our Best Option
As I was fixing breakfast and making coffee this morning, I overheard a story on NPR about how Bonnie Rait and several other artists were going to go to Congress and petition them to block the spate of new nuclear plant applications. Normally, I'm pretty chill in the morning, but this damn near made my head burst.
I don't know if they've noticed, but we've got a climate crisis looming, and we've got a pretty intense appetite for electricity. We're out of time: we need nuclear power, and we need it now.
Allow me to do some math. I'll even cite my sources.
- One watt-hour (Wh), a standard measure of energy consumption, is the amount of work that can be done by one watt of power over the timespan of one hour. This is normally equated as the amount of energy required to power a lightbulb. One kilowatt-hour (kWh) is the amount of work done by 1,000 watts of power over one hour, one megawatt-hour (mWh) is 1,000,000 watts of power over one hour, one terawatt-hour (tWh) is 1,000,000,000 watts of power, and so on. Source
- In 2005, Americans consumed almost 29,000 terawatt-hours of electricity. This is an across the board number -- it takes into account domestic use, industrial consumption, and commercial use, as well as infrastructure (parking garages, street lights, other civic usage). Source
- Right now, we supply our own power generation needs overwhelmingly through the burning of fossil fuels. Roughly 49% of our electricity in the US comes from burning coal, 19% from natural gas, and another 6% from other petroleum products (propane gas, distillation byproducts, etc.). Nuclear energy currently gives us 19% of our electrical energy, hydroelectric is 7%, and the remainder (solar, wind, geothermal, methane, etc.) is a paltry 3%. Source and chart
- The infrastructure we currently use is built up of large scale production plants, in the neighborhood of 500-2000 mW plants. The normal way of doing this: You create some heat, which boils water, which creates steam, which spins a turbine and its attached magnet inside a ferromagnetic coil, which produces electricity. Surprisingly, the most efficient ways of producing said heat are by burning fossil fuels or capturing the heat of a controlled nuclear reaction. Source and source
- By comparison, the average solar panel or wind turbine facility produces between 500 kW and 5 mW. It's also not a constant source, meaning that you need a backup source for a cloudy or calm day, and one for night-time in the case of solar power. You're going to blanket square miles of land with solar and wind turbines to make up for the drop in efficiency, especially if you want to power stuff like plug-in hybrids and electric lawnmowers. Source and source
- Although the initial capital cost is incredibly high, the operating cost for a nuclear power plant, including fuel price, makes it competitive with coal. Source
There are other benefits, such as the fact that unrefined uranium can be obtained domestically or from friendly countries like Australia, Canada, South Africa, and that in making a switch to nuclear power we would be able to wean ourselves off the Middle Eastern oil tap.
There are also definite drawbacks, such as the fact that any terrorist would absolutely love to get their hands on some depleted nuclear fuel, and we haven't exactly solved our nuclear waste disposal problem, but I would rather deal with those problems than having to find potable water to drink, or explaining to my kids what New York was. And for everyone that's afraid of having Three Mile Island happen in their backyard, there's new reactor designs and safety protocols that make your chances of winning the lottery twice in a row better than dying because of a nuclear accident.
I'm convinced this is a good, viable, and feasible solution. The only way we can replace our existing infrastructure without destroying our society as we know it is by moving to nuclear power. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sorely mistaken. And as soon as I figure out what, I'm going to do something about it.
Nuclear power isn't a good
Nuclear power isn't a good option. It's as simple as that. It's bad, it leaves a radioactive waste dump in its wake and it is potentially very dangerous what with terrorism, the potential for a meltdown, or a leak, or any number of other problems. It is a BAD option.
However, fossil fuels, gas, oil, and coal alike, have caused and will continue to cause tremendous environmental damage, if we keep using them. That makes them a VERY BAD option.
Alternatives, solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, biomass, etc. aren't ready. They just aren't. We cannot provide sufficient power using those sources yet. They would be a GOOD option, but they are UNAVAILABLE, which makes them VERY BAD.
Simply put, nuclear energy is not a good choice, I don't like it, it makes me nervous to no end. However, among our many bad options, it is the best. It is temporarily clean, and currently available, giving it a leg up on fossil fuels and alternative energy alike. For now, we need to go with the best of our bad options, because it's what we have.
Peace and love,
Joe!
I've lived within the
I've lived within the fallout zone of a nuclear power plant almost my entire life. Never once have I worried about fallout or the plant just blowing up, simply because I know it's a small likelyhood. Besides, there are reactor designs that minimize the meltdown risk to almost nil. I'd move next door to one long before I'd live by a factory, or a coal-fired power plant.
There's always a tradeoff. That's how things work. The responsible thing to do is look at the science, do the math, and be rational. If I thought about the possibility that I might get into a car accident every time I got in my car or went anywhere near a road, I'd never go anywhere. It has always surprised me that people are more afraid of screwing up their computer -- a small, home appliance that can't move on its own -- than they are of killing themselves or others while controlling a machine that weighs 3,000 pounds, holds 20 gallons of flammable and explosive liquids, and screams down a 25-foot-wide strip of asphalt at speeds that would make Isaac Newton piss himself.
Personally, I like electricity. I'd like to keep using electricity, even if I need to reduce my personal consumption of it. And it looks like I'm going to need to convince Bonnie Rait of that fact, too.
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"The difficulty of success does not relieve one of the responsibility to try."
- Bill Clinton
I'm not saying that a
I'm not saying that a Nuclear plant is going to explode without warning, I'm not saying that it will kill assuredly numerous people. I'm just saying that there is a risk, it is significant, and cannot be ignored. If something goes wrong in a nuclear plant, it goes very very wrong. Also, nuclear plants leave behind waste, that, as you said initially, we don't have a way of dealing with yet, which is a huge problem as well. Because of these issues, I feel that nuclear power would be best used as a Band-Aid solution, letting us reduce or eliminate our need for fossil fuels, but only being used as a primary source of power until we can get alternatives online. Wind, solar, tidal, and friends will be almost totally clean, leave behind very little environmental damage, and have almost no risk. They are the best options possible, and once we can implement them we should. Nuclear is the next best, and the best for now, but only for now.
Peace and love,
Joe!
Nuclear energy is produced
Nuclear energy is produced by a controlled nuclear chain reaction and creates heat—which is used to boil water, produce steam, and drive a steam turbine.
The Internet allows computer
The Internet allows computer users to connect to other computers and information stores easily, wherever they may be across the world. They may do this with or without the use of security, authentication and encryption technologies, depending on the requirements.
Technically, there appear to
Technically, there appear to be no show stoppers for a considerable expansion of Nuclear Power throughout the world. It is a low carbon energy source with abundant fuel supplies. The technology works and has much potential for improvement. Whether or not a large scale expansion eventuates depends on how it competes with coal on economic grounds.
There's always a tradeoff.
There's always a tradeoff. can't say 1 is the best but matter of opinion.
They think wind and solar is
They think wind and solar is the future, but they don't seem to realize how many solar and wind plants it would take to power the US.
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