Nuclear Power Plant and Radiation

Problems with Nuclear Power Plants

From an environmental standpoint nuclear plants are a great solution, that is, as far as releasing radioactive waste into the atmosphere is concerned. Generally a coal power plant will spew out tons of carbon, sulfur, and other nasty elemental particles into the atmosphere. A nuclear plant is still far from perfect however.

1) Unfortunately we still have yet to find a clean process for mining and purifying the uranium used.

2) Like Chernobyl and the 3-mile Island incident have shown us, poorly designed plants can cause accidents that one just does not want to think about.

3) Fuel from a nuclear plant does not disappear when it is used such as fuel in a car, it must be disposed of. The used fuel rods are highly toxic for centuries and no one good method of storing or ridding the earth of them has been found.

4) It is rather difficult to transport fuel to and from the plants without great risk.

Nuclear power is the only energy source that takes full responsibility for its waste, and as of now, compared to other energy sources (fossil fuel), it is still much cleaner and environmentally sound.

Nuclear Waste

So thanks to the fission process, we are all left with a nasty by-product known as Plutonium or Pu-239. What makes this stuff so bad is fact that it is highly radioactive, otherwise toxic to you, and anything that is alive. As if that were not enough it has a half-life of roughly 24,000 years (a half-life is the time it takes for half of the material to naturally decay). Some measures of thought have been put into solving this issue, one is through ocean disposal (fig.1), and another is sending the Pu-239 down into the core of the earth in special caskets (fig.2). Before any of these things are even considered you must first reprocess the fission product, and there are many steps to this.

Fission products are extracted from the spent fuel, at this point they are in liquid form.

Next they are retained in special containers equipped with cooling systems until converted into a solid

Once they are safely put inside these temporary storage units they can be transported safely for disposal.

The purpose of all this is to keep the products away from the outside world, keeping the by-products dry and cool (which is usually a 20-50 year wait between the reactor and disposal). Now as tedious as this may seem, keep in mind the entire time this is taking place, coal plants are using up precious fossil fuels and spewing large amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere.

Coal Power Plant

Fig.1

geoserv.geology.wmich.edu/ dave/otln19.htm

Fig.2 Nuclear waste casket

www.bredl.org/nuclear/