Costs and Benefits of Nuclear Energy




Nuclear energy, which harnesses energy from the separation of atoms (a process known as nuclear fission), is used in nuclear reactors to heat water into steam, turning a turbine and thus generating electricity. There are 104 nuclear power plants in the United States that produce a total of 806.2 TWh of electricity generating around 20% of all commercial electricity used in America. Nuclear energy is often dubbed as an economically-beneficial "clean" power source, but like everything else, there are various upsides and downsides to going nuclear.

The foremost benefit of nuclear energy is its relatively low cost. Nuclear energy is cost-competitive, meaning that generating electricity in nuclear reactors is cheaper than electricity generated from oil, gas, coal, and many other renewable energy sources. Furthermore, the environmental effects of nuclear power are relatively light compared to other energy harnessing methods, as nuclear reactors do not release any carbon dioxide emissions. Nuclear fission reactions also release ten million times more energy than the amount released in burning a fossil fuel atom, making nuclear energy much more sustainable than non-reneweable energy sources.

The disadvantage of nuclear energy is the potential danger of radioactive waste. Unfortunately, when accidents happen there is significant environmental damage, and radiation leaks can be extremely dangerous to humans. For example, the infamous Chernobyl accident killed between 15,000 and 30,000 people, and the nuclear waste that leaked out affected the health of 2.5 million more Ukrainians. How well we can prevent future accidents from happening will determine the viability of using nuclear energy.


Source:
https://energyinformative.org/nuclear-energy-pros-and-cons/

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 23, 2019 at 10:07 AM

    Cool post! I looked further into the monetary costs of building a nuclear power plant and found that it costs $9 billion per unit. Instead of nuclear power plant prices decreasing over time, the costs have interestingly increased exponentially. It cost just ~$3 billion per unit in 2002. The article I read argued that tax payers should no longer be helping fund the industry. In fact, the first commercial US nuclear company had to be bailed out twice. I thought that the discussion of where our tax money is going was very interesting. While we've talked generally about taxes in class, we haven't focused on exactly what they're funding -- that was covered more in Civics. Do you think that our taxes should go to supporting an industry when costs are increasing with seemingly no stop in sight?

    Source: https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/cost-nuclear-power

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 23, 2019 at 10:20 AM

    This was a really interesting post and I enjoyed how I was able to see both sides of the story. When I looked into the topic further, what I found out is that the issues with Nuclear Energy are not just within the reactors, but the process of creating nuclear energy. Most reactors rely on uranium to produce energy, and mining for such products is harmful for the environment. Not only is the mining itself harmful, but the waste produced from mining is large. The waste that comes from converting mined uranium into usable uranium is also a large amount. When all the waste produced from the process of creating nuclear power, the results are over 644 tonnes of solid waste and 1343 tonnes of liquid waste. The issue of nuclear energy really isn't simple and a clear evaluation of its cost and benefits is necessary to determine whether or not is a feasible source of energy in the long term.

    Source : http://www.westvalleyfactsofwny.org/Guardian-12-5-08.htm

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 23, 2019 at 9:56 PM

    This is an extremely interesting post, and I think it ties together both the theory that we learn in economics, as well as the more humanitarian side that pulls many people in one direction or the other, on many issues. Simply in terms of money and efficiency, while it is expensive to initially make nuclear power, as you said it is overall not very high cost for how much energy is produced. However, with the possibility of damage that it can cause to the environment and people near a nuclear power plant, it makes sense that people weigh this hand in hand with the benefits of using the "clean" energy source with extremely high levels of potential output.

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