The Pros And Cons Of Nuclear Power

The United States of America and the rest of the world are facing a serious energy dilemma. As energy demands rise, so do the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Global warming is a genuine issue for the generations of today and tomorrow, so the question becomes: how do industrialized countries produce more energy while reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions? While solar and wind power are innovative and clean, they face serious efficiency and geographic roadblocks. One solution stands out among the rest, the most heavily debated clean energy producer: Uranium. Nuclear Power is the ultimate source of energy production that can balance both efficiency and cleanliness. Nuclear power production can be hard to understand,

For comparison, one pellet of Uranium fuel contains the same amount of potential energy as: 149 gallons of oil, one ton of coal, or 17 thousand cubic feet of natural gas (Perego). Twelve ounces of the same Uranium fuel can power the entire city of San Francisco for five years uninterrupted, without any carbon dioxide emissions (Tucker). Nuclear plants run at 90.9% efficiency, while coal only averages a mere 58.9% running efficiency (Perego). Fossil fuels create waste, making them dirty and inefficient, while nuclear power has no waste if handled and recycled properly (Tucker). The fuel pellet is comprised of Uranium isotopes 235 and 238, with only 3% being fissionable (energy producing) Uranium-235 (Tucker). Even the spent fuel is recyclable and utilizable after its time in the reactor core, as 95% of the material is Uranium-238, which comprises 1% of the Earth’s crust, and releases the same amount of radiation as a granite counter top, or a coal burning power plant (Tucker). Only 1% of the “spent” rod is highly radioactive Uranium-235, after reprocessing it’s used in a reactor of similar make and model to the original reactor (Tucker). Another 1% of the used fuel rod is Plutonium, which can be repurposed for use in a “fourth generation” reactor, like the ones used in France (Tucker). The remaining 3% of material could be sent to hospitals

Today there is a huge social push to move towards clean energy, and nuclear power is a solution. Even Dominion, a 45-billion-dollar company that works in both oil and natural gas, has invested in nuclear power (Motavalli). The company has built two reactors in Virginia that together provide 30% of Dominion’s power to Virginia and 45% to Connecticut (Motavalli). Neither of these reactors contain smokestacks, as they are not necessary (Motavalli). Primarily because nuclear power produces no Carbon-Dioxide emissions, rendering smokestacks such as those built into coal burning plants useless (Motavalli). Nuclear power can not only keep smokestacks from ruining the beautiful views of rural areas, it can also force coal into retirement: by cleaning up views and the atmosphere by avoiding the use of 700 metric tons of one of the dirtiest fuel sources domestically (Motavalli). Worldwide, nuclear power has the potential to prevent the use of 2 billion metric tons of coal annually (Motavalli). One concern may be how much Carbon-Dioxide secondary processes such as mining and fuel pellet enrichment produce--the numbers add up to be about half of those of solar-powered electricity (Motavalli). What would become of the world if one of the major energy consuming countries abandoned nuclear power? If the United States of America allowed the nuclear power plants that