2020/05/14
Nuclear power phase-out - Wikipedia
Nuclear power phase-out - Wikipedia
Nuclear power phase-out
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Eight German nuclear power reactors (Biblis A and B, Brunsbüttel, Isar 1, Krümmel, Neckarwestheim 1, Philippsburg 1 and Unterweser) were permanently shut down on 6 August 2011, following the Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster.[1]
A nuclear power phase-out is the discontinuation of usage of nuclear power for energy production. Often initiated because of concerns about nuclear power, phase-outs usually include shutting down nuclear power plants and looking towards fossil fuels and renewable energy. Three nuclear accidents have influenced the discontinuation of nuclear power: the 1979 Three Mile Island partial nuclear meltdown in the United States, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the USSR, and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
Following Fukushima, Germany has permanently shut down eight of its 17 reactors and pledged to close the rest by the end of 2022.[2] Italy voted overwhelmingly to keep their country non-nuclear.[3] Switzerland and Spain have banned the construction of new reactors.[4] Japan’s prime minister has called for a dramatic reduction in Japan’s reliance on nuclear power.[5] Taiwan’s president did the same. Shinzō Abe, the prime minister of Japan since December 2012, announced a plan to re-start some of the 54 Japanese nuclear power plants (NPPs) and to continue some NPP sites under construction.[6]
As of 2016, countries including Australia, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, and Portugal have no nuclear power stations and remain opposed to nuclear power.[7][8] Belgium, Germany, Spain and Switzerland plan nuclear phase-outs by 2030.[8][9][10][11] Globally, more nuclear power reactors have closed than opened in recent years but overall capacity has increased.[10]
As of 2020, Italy is the only country that has permanently closed all of its functioning nuclear plants. Lithuania and Kazakhstan have shut down their only nuclear plants, but plan to build new ones to replace them, while Armenia shut down its only nuclear plant but subsequently restarted it. Austria never used its first nuclear plant that was completely built. Due to financial, political and technical reasons Cuba, Libya, North Korea and Poland never completed the construction of their first nuclear plants (although North Korea and Poland plan to). Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ghana, Ireland, Kuwait, Oman, Peru, Venezuela have planned, but not constructed their first nuclear plants. Between 2005 and 2015 the global production of nuclear power declined by 0.7%.[12]
Timeline of commissioned and decommissioned nuclear capacity since the 1950s[13]
Contents
1Overview
2Countries that have decided on a phase-out
2.1Austria
2.2Belgium
2.3Germany
2.4Italy
2.5Philippines
2.6South Korea
2.7Sweden
2.8Switzerland
3Other significant places
3.1Europe
3.2The Netherlands
3.3Australia
3.4Asia
3.5Japan
3.6United States
3.7South America
4Pros and cons of nuclear power
4.1The nuclear debate
4.2Economics
4.3Environment
4.4Accidents
4.5Safety
5Energy transition
6See also
7Notes and references
8Further reading
9External links
Overview[edit]
120,000 people attended an anti-nuclear protest in Bonn, Germany, on 14 October 1979, following the Three Mile Island accident.[14]
A popular movement against nuclear power has gained strength in the Western world, based on concerns about more nuclear accidents and concerns about nuclear waste. Anti-nuclear critics see nuclear power as a dangerous, expensive way to boil water to generate electricity.[15] The 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster played a key role in stopping new plant construction in many countries. Major anti-nuclear power groups include Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and Sortir du nucléaire (France).
Several countries, especially European countries, have abandoned the construction of new of nuclear power plants.[16] Austria (1978), Sweden (1980) and Italy (1987) voted in referendums to oppose or phase out nuclear power, while opposition in Ireland prevented a nuclear program there. Countries that have no nuclear plants and have restricted new plant constructions comprise Australia, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Ireland and Norway.[17][18] Poland stopped the construction of a plant.[17][19] Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Sweden decided not to build new plants or intend to phase out nuclear power, although still mostly relying on nuclear energy.[17][20]
New reactors under construction in Finland and France, which were meant to lead a nuclear new build, have been substantially delayed and are running over-budget.[21][22][23] However, China has 11 units under construction[24] and there are also new reactors being built in Belarus, Brazil, India, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, Slovakia, South Korea, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States of America. At least 100 older and smaller reactors will "most probably be closed over the next 10-15 years".[25]
Countries that wish to shut down nuclear power plants must find alternatives for electricity generation; otherwise, they are forced to become dependent on imports. Therefore, the discussion of a future for nuclear energy is intertwined with discussions about fossil fuels or an energy transition to renewable energy.
Countries that have decided on a phase-out[edit]
Main article: Nuclear energy policy
Global status of nuclear deployment as of 2017 (source: see file description)
Operating reactors, considering phase-out
Civil nuclear power is illegal
Austria[edit]
See also: Anti-nuclear movement in Austria
A nuclear power station was built during the 1970s at Zwentendorf, Austria, but its start-up was prevented by a popular vote in 1978. On 9 July 1997, the Austrian Parliament voted unanimously to maintain the country's anti-nuclear policy.[26]
Belgium[edit]
Belgium's nuclear phase-out legislation was agreed in July 1999 by the Liberals (VLD and MR), the Socialists (SP.A and PS) and the Greens party (Groen! and Ecolo). The phase-out law calls for each of Belgium's seven reactors to close after 40 years of operation with no new reactors built subsequently. When the law was being passed, it was speculated it would be overturned again as soon as an administration without the Greens was in power.[27]
In the federal election in May 2003, there was an electoral threshold of 5% for the first time. Therefore, the Green parties the ECOLO got only 3.06% of the votes. , so ECOLO got no seat in the Chamber of Representatives. In July 2003, Guy Verhofstadt formed his second government. It was a continuation of the Verhofstadt I Government but without the Green parties. In September 2005, the government decided to partially overturn the previous decision, extending the phase-out period for another 20 years, with possible further extensions.
In July 2005, the Federal Planning Bureau published a new report, which stated that oil and other fossil fuels generate 90% of Belgian energy use, while nuclear power accounts for 9% and renewable energy for 1%. Electricity only amounts to 16% of total energy use, and while nuclear-powered electricity amounts to 9% of use in Belgium, in many parts of Belgium, especially in Flanders, it makes up more than 50% of the electricity provided to households and businesses.[28] This was one of the major reasons to revert the earlier phase-out, since it was impossible to provide more than 50% of the electricity by 'alternative' energy-production, and a revert to the classical coal-driven electricity would mean inability to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol.
In August 2005, French SUEZ offered to buy the Belgian Electrabel, which runs nuclear power stations.[29] At the end of 2005, Suez had some 98.5% of all Electrabel shares. Beginning 2006, Suez and Gaz de France announced a merger.
After the federal election in June 2007, a political crisis began and lasted until the end of 2011.
In the 2010–2011 Belgian government formation negotiations, the phase-out was emphasized again, with concrete plans to shut off three of the country's seven reactors by 2015.[30]
Before the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the plan of the government was for all nuclear power stations to shut down by 2025.[31] Although intermediate deadlines have been missed or pushed back, on 30 March 2018 the Belgian Council of Ministers confirmed the 2025 phase-out date and stated draft legislation would be brought forward later in the year.[32]
Germany[edit]
See also: Anti-nuclear movement in Germany and Nuclear power in Germany § Closures and phase-out
Nuclear power plant at Grafenrheinfeld, Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition announced on May 30, 2011, that Germany’s 17 nuclear power stations will be shut down by 2022, in a policy reversal following Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.[2]
Nuclear power is getting replaced with renewables in Germany
In 2000, the First Schröder cabinet, consisting of the SPD and Alliance '90/The Greens, officially announced its intention to phase out the use of nuclear energy. The power plants in Stade and in Obrigheim were turned off on 14 November 2003, and 11 May 2005, respectively. The plants' dismantling was scheduled to begin in 2007.[33]
The year 2000 Renewable Energy Sources Act provided for a feed-in tariff in support of renewable energy. The German government, declaring climate protection as a key policy issue, announced a carbon dioxide reduction target by the year 2005 compared to 1990 by 25%.[34] In 1998, the use of renewables in Germany reached 284 PJ of primary energy demand, which corresponded to 5% of the total electricity demand. By 2010, the German government wanted to reach 10%.;[27] in fact, 17% were reached (2011: 20%, 2015: 30%).[35]
Anti-nuclear activists have argued the German government had been supportive of nuclear power by providing financial guarantees for energy providers. Also it has been pointed out, there were, as yet, no plans for the final storage of nuclear waste. By tightening safety regulations and increasing taxation, a faster end to nuclear power could have been forced. A gradual closing down of nuclear power plants had come along with concessions in questions of safety for the population with transport of nuclear waste throughout Germany.[36] This latter point has been disagreed with by the Minister of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.[37]
In 2005, critics of a phase-out in Germany argued that the power output from the nuclear power stations will not be adequately compensated and predict an energy crisis. They also predicted that only coal-powered plants could compensate for nuclear power and CO2 emissions would increase tremendously (with the use of oil and fossils). Energy would have to be imported from France's nuclear power facilities or Russian natural gas.[38] Numerous factors, including progress in wind turbine technology and photovoltaics, reduced the need for conventional alternatives.[39][failed verification]
In 2011, Deutsche Bank analysts concluded that "the global impact of the Fukushima accident is a fundamental shift in public perception with regard to how a nation prioritizes and values its populations health, safety, security, and natural environment when determining its current and future energy pathways". There were many anti-nuclear protests and, on 29 May 2011, Merkel's government announced that it would close all of its nuclear power plants by December 2022.[40][41] Following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany has permanently shut down eight of its 17 reactors. Galvanised by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, first anniversary anti-nuclear demonstrations were held in Germany in March 2012. Organisers say more than 50,000 people in six regions took part.[42]
The German Energiewende designates a significant change in energy policy from 2010. The term encompasses a transition by Germany to a low carbon, environmentally sound, reliable, and affordable energy supply.[43] On 6 June 2011, following Fukushima, the government removed the use of nuclear power as a bridging technology as part of their policy.[44]
In September 2011, German engineering giant Siemens announced it will withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry, as a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, and said that it would no longer build nuclear power plants anywhere in the world. The company’s chairman, Peter Löscher, said that "Siemens was ending plans to cooperate with Rosatom, the Russian state-controlled nuclear power company, in the construction of dozens of nuclear plants throughout Russia over the coming two decades".[45][46] Also in September 2011, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said the Japanese nuclear disaster "caused deep public anxiety throughout the world and damaged confidence in nuclear power".[47]
A 2016 study shows that during the nuclear phaseout, the security of electricity supply in Germany stayed at the same high level compared to other European countries and even improved in 2014. The study was conducted near the halfway point of the phaseout, 9 plants having been shut and a further 8 still in operation.[48][49]
In early-October 2016, Swedish electric power company Vattenfall began litigation against the German government for its 2011 decision to accelerate the phase-out of nuclear power. Hearing are taking place at the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington DC and Vattenfall is claiming almost €4.7 billion in damages. The German government has called the action "inadmissible and unfounded".[50] These proceedings were ongoing in December 2016, despite Vattenfall commencing civil litigation within Germany.[51]
On 5 December 2016, the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) ruled that the nuclear plant operators affected by the accelerated phase-out of nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster are eligible for "adequate" compensation. The court found that the nuclear exit was essentially constitutional but that the utilities are entitled to damages for the "good faith" investments they made in 2010. The utilities can now sue the German government under civil law. E.ON, RWE, and Vattenfall are expected to seek a total of €19 billion under separate suits.[52][53][54] Six cases were registered with courts in Germany, as of 7 December 2016.[51][55]
A scientific paper released in 2019 found that the German nuclear shutdown led to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions around 36.2 megatons per year, and killed 1100 people a year through increased air pollution. As they shut down nuclear power, Germany made heavy investments in renewable energy, but those same investments could have "cut much deeper into fossil fuel energy" if the nuclear generation had still been online.[56][57]
Italy[edit]
Nuclear power phase-out commenced in Italy in 1987, one year after the Chernobyl accident. Following a referendum in that year, Italy's four nuclear power plants were closed down, the last in 1990. A moratorium on the construction of new plants, originally in effect from 1987 until 1993, has since been extended indefinitely.[58]
In recent years, Italy has been an importer of nuclear-generated electricity, and its largest electricity utility Enel S.p.A. has been investing in reactors in both France and Slovakia to provide this electricity in the future, and also in the development of the EPR technology.
In October 2005, there was a seminar sponsored by the government about the possibility of reviving Italian nuclear power.[59] The fourth cabinet led by Silvio Berlusconi tried to implement a new nuclear plan but a referendum held in June 2011 stopped any project.
Philippines[edit]
See also: Anti-nuclear movement in the Philippines
In the Philippines, in 2004, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo outlined her energy policy. She wants to increase indigenous oil and gas reserves through exploration, develop alternative energy resources, enforce the development of natural gas as a fuel and coco diesel as alternative fuel, and build partnerships with Saudi Arabia, Asian countries, China and Russia. She also made public plans to convert the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant into a gas-powered facility.[60]
South Korea[edit]
In 2017, responding to widespread public concerns after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, the high earthquake risk in South Korea, and a 2013 nuclear scandal involving the use of counterfeit parts, the new government of President Moon Jae-in has decided to gradually phase out nuclear power in South Korea. The three reactors currently under construction will be completed, but the government has decided these will be the last built, and as the existing plants close at a 40 years end-of-life they will be replaced with other modes of generation.[61][62]
Sweden[edit]
Main article: Nuclear power phase-out in Sweden
A year after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 the 1980 Swedish nuclear power referendum was held. It led to the Swedish parliament deciding that no further nuclear power plants should be built, and that a nuclear power phase-out should be completed by 2010. On 5 February 2009, the Government of Sweden effectively ended the phase-out policy.[63] In 2010, Parliament approved for new reactors to replace existing ones.[64]
The nuclear reactors at the Barsebäck Nuclear Power Plant were shut down between 1999 and 2005. In October 2015, corporations running the nuclear plants decided to phase out two reactors at Oskarshamn[65] and two at Ringhals,[66] reducing the number of remaining reactors from 12 in 1999 to 6 in 2020.
An opinion poll in April 2016 showed that about half of Swedes want to phase out nuclear power, 30 percent want its use continued, and 20 percent are undecided.[67] Prior to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, "a clear majority of Swedes" had been in favour of nuclear power.[67] In June 2016, the opposition parties and the government reached an agreement on Swedish nuclear power.[68] The agreement is to phase out the output tax on nuclear power, and allow ten new replacement reactors to be built at current nuclear plants.[69]
Switzerland[edit]
Beznau
Gösgen
Leibstadt
Mühleberg
Lucens
Switzerland Nuclear power plants (view)
Active plants
Closed plants
See also: Nuclear power in Switzerland and Anti-nuclear movement in Switzerland
An emergency switch-off button of the Beznau Nuclear Power Plant. In 2011, the federal authorities decided to gradually phase out nuclear power in Switzerland.
As of 2013, the five operational Swiss nuclear reactors were Beznau 1 and 2, Gösgen, Leibstadt, and Mühleberg—all located in the German speaking part of the country. Nuclear power accounted for 36.4% of the national electricity generation, while 57.9% came from hydroelectricity. The remaining 5.7% was generated by other conventional and non-hydro renewable power stations.[70]
On 25 May 2011, the Federal Council decided on a slow phase-out by not extending running times or building new power plants.[71] The first power plant, Mühleberg, will stop running in 2019, the last in 2034.[72]
There have been many Swiss referenda on the topic of nuclear energy, beginning in 1979 with a citizens' initiative for nuclear safety, which was rejected. In 1984, there was a vote on an initiative "for a future without further nuclear power stations" with the result being a 55 to 45% vote against. On 23 September 1990, Switzerland had two more referenda about nuclear power. The initiative "stop the construction of nuclear power stations", which proposed a ten-year moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants, was passed with 54.5% to 45.5%. The initiative for a phase-out was rejected with by 53% to 47.1%. In 2000, there was a vote on a green tax for support of solar energy. It was rejected by 67–31%. On 18 May 2003, there were two referenda: "Electricity without Nuclear", asking for a decision on a nuclear power phase-out, and "Moratorium Plus", for an extension of the earlier-decided moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants. Both were turned down. The results were: Moratorium Plus: 41.6% Yes, 58.4% No; Electricity without Nuclear: 33.7% Yes, 66.3% No.[73]
The program of the "Electricity without Nuclear" petition was to shut down all nuclear power stations by 2033, starting with Unit 1 and 2 of Beznau nuclear power stations, Mühleberg in 2005, Gösgen in 2009, and Leibstadt in 2014. "Moratorium Plus" was for an extension of the moratorium for another ten years, and additionally a condition to stop the present reactors after 40 years of operation. In order to extend the 40 years by ten more years, another referendum would have to be held (at high administrative costs). The rejection of the Moratorium Plus had come as a surprise to many, as opinion polls before the referendum had showed acceptance. Reasons for the rejections in both cases were seen as the worsened economic situation.[74]
Other significant places[edit]
Europe[edit]
See also: Anti-nuclear movement in Spain
In Spain a moratorium was enacted by the socialist government in 1983[75][76] and in 2006 plans for a phase-out of seven reactors were being discussed anew.[77]
In Ireland, a nuclear power plant was first proposed in 1968. It was to be built during the 1970s at Carnsore Point in County Wexford. The plan called for first one, then ultimately four plants to be built at the site, but it was dropped after strong opposition from environmental groups, and Ireland has remained without nuclear power since. Despite opposing nuclear power (and nuclear fuel reprocessing at Sellafield), Ireland is to open an interconnector to the mainland UK to buy electricity, which is, in some part, the product of nuclear power.
Slovenian nuclear plant in Krško (co-owned with Croatia) is scheduled to be closed by 2023, and there are no plans to build further nuclear plants. The debate on whether and when to close the Krško plant was somewhat intensified after the 2005/06 winter energy crisis. In May 2006 the Ljubljana-based daily Dnevnik claimed Slovenian government officials internally proposed adding a new 1000 MW block into Krško after the year 2020.
Greece operates only a single small nuclear reactor in the Greek National Physics Research Laboratory in Demokritus Laboratories for research purposes.
The future of nuclear power in the United Kingdom is currently under review. The country has a number of reactors which are currently reaching the end of their working life, and it is currently undecided how they will be replaced. The UK is also currently failing to reach its targets for reduction on CO2 emissions, which situation may be made worse if new nuclear power stations are not built. The UK also uses a large proportion of gas-fired power stations, which produce half the CO2 emissions as coal, but there have been recent difficulties in obtaining adequate gas supplies. In 2016 the UK government committed to support the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.[78]
The Netherlands[edit]
In the Netherlands, in 1994, the Dutch parliament voted to phase out after a discussion of nuclear waste management. The power station at Dodewaard was shut down in 1997. In 1997 the government decided to end Borssele's operating license, at the end of 2003. In 2003 the shut-down was postponed by the government to 2013.[79][80] In 2005 the decision was reversed and research in expanding nuclear power has been initiated. Reversal was preceded by the publication of the Christian Democratic Appeal's report on sustainable energy.[81] Other coalition parties then conceded. In 2006 the government decided that Borssele will remain open until 2033, if it can comply with the highest safety standards. The owners, Essent and DELTA will invest 500 million euro in sustainable energy, together with the government, money which the government claims otherwise should have been paid to the plants owners as compensation.
Australia[edit]
See also: Anti-nuclear movement in Australia and Uranium mining in Australia
In Australia uranium is mined and exported for power generation though nuclear power plants are illegal domestically. Australia has very extensive, low-cost coal reserves and substantial natural gas and majority political opinion is still opposed to domestic nuclear power on both environmental and economic grounds.
Asia[edit]
Renewable energy, mainly hydropower, is gaining share.[82][83]
For North Korea, two PWRs at Kumho were under construction until that was suspended in November 2003. On 19 September 2005 North Korea pledged to stop building nuclear weapons and agreed to international inspections in return for energy aid, which may include one or more light water reactors – the agreement said "The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor" [sic].[84]
In July 2000, the Turkish government decided not to build four reactors at the controversial Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, but later changed its mind. The official launch ceremony took place in April 2015, and the first unit is expected to be completed in 2020.[85]
Taiwan has 3 active plants and 6 reactors. Active seismic faults run across the island, and some environmentalists argue Taiwan is unsuited for nuclear plants.[86] Construction of the Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant using the ABWR design has encountered public opposition and a host of delays, and in April 2014 the government decided to halt construction.[87] Construction will be halted from July 2015 to 2017 in order to allow time for a referendum to be held.[88] The 2016 election was won by a government with stated policies that included phasing out nuclear power generation.[89]
India has 20 reactors operating, 6 reactors under construction, and is planning an additional 24.[90]
Vietnam had developed detailed plans for 2 nuclear power plants with 8 reactors, but in November 2016 decided to abandon nuclear power plans as they were "not economically viable because of other cheaper sources of power."[91]
Japan[edit]
See also: Anti-nuclear power movement in Japan
Three of the reactors at Fukushima I overheated, causing meltdowns that eventually led to hydrogen explosions, which released large amounts of radioactive gases into the air.[92]
Anti-Nuclear Power Plant Rally on 19 September 2011 at Meiji Shrine complex in Tokyo. Sixty thousand people marched chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, calling on Japan's government to abandon nuclear power, following the Fukushima disaster.[93][94]
Once a nuclear proponent, Prime Minister Naoto Kan became increasingly anti-nuclear following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In May 2011, he closed the aging Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant over earthquake and tsunami fears, and said he would freeze plans to build new reactors. In July 2011, Kan said that "Japan should reduce and eventually eliminate its dependence on nuclear energy ... saying that the Fukushima accident had demonstrated the dangers of the technology".[95] In August 2011, the Japanese government passed a bill to subsidize electricity from renewable energy sources.[96] A 2011 Japanese Cabinet energy white paper says "public confidence in safety of nuclear power was greatly damaged" by the Fukushima disaster, and calls for a reduction in the nation's reliance on nuclear power.[97] As of August 2011, the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is still leaking low levels of radioactivity and areas surrounding it could remain uninhabitable for decades.[98]
By March 2012, one year after the disaster, all but two of Japan's nuclear reactors were shut down; some were damaged by the quake and tsunami. The following year, the last two were taken off-line. Authority to restart the others after scheduled maintenance throughout the year was given to local governments, and in all cases local opposition prevented restarting.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government, reelected on a platform of restarting nuclear power, plans to have nuclear power account for 20 to 22 percent of the country’s total electricity supply by 2030, compared with roughly 30 percent before the disaster at the Fukushima complex.
In 2015 two reactors at Sendai nuclear power plant have been restarted.[99] In 2016 Ikata-3 restarted and in 2017 Takahama-4 restarted.
United States[edit]
See also: Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
The United States is, as of 2013, undergoing a practical phase-out independent of stated goals and continued official support. This is not due to concerns about the source or anti-nuclear groups, but due to the rapidly falling prices of natural gas and the reluctance of investors to provide funding for long-term projects when short term profitability of turbine power is available.
Through the 2000s a number of factors led to greatly increased interest in new nuclear reactors, including rising demand, new lower-cost reactor designs, and concerns about global climate change. By 2009, about 30 new reactors were planned, and a large number of existing reactors had applied for upgrades to increase their output. In total, 39 reactors have had their licences renewed, three Early Site Permits have been applied for, and three consortiums have applied for Combined Construction-Operating Licences under the Nuclear Power 2010 Program. In addition, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 contains incentives to further expand nuclear power.[100]
However, by 2012 the vast majority of these plans were cancelled, and several additional cancellations followed in 2013. Currently only five new reactors are under construction, and one, at Watts Bar, was originally planned in the 1970s and only under construction now. Construction of the new AP1000 design is underway at two locations in the United States in Georgia and South Carolina. Plans for additional reactors in Florida were cancelled in 2013.
Some smaller reactors operating in deregulated markets have become uneconomic to operate and maintain, due to competition from generators using low priced natural gas, and may be retired early.[101] The 556 MWe Kewaunee Power Station is being closed 20 years before license expiry for these economic reasons.[102][103] Duke Energy's Crystal River 3 Nuclear Power Plant in Florida closed, as it could not recover the costs needed to fix its containment building.[104]
As a result of these changes, after reaching peak production in 2007, US nuclear capacity has been undergoing constant reduction every year.
South America[edit]
In Brazil, nuclear energy, produced by two reactors at Angra, accounts for about 4% of the country's electricity – about 13 TWh per year.[105] Angra III is under construction and due to come online in 2018. Brazil plans to build seven more reactors by 2025.[106]
In Argentina, about 6% of the electricity comes from 3 operational reactors: The Embalse plant, a CANDU6 reactor, the Atucha 1 plant, a PHWR German design, and the Atucha 2 plant, also a PHWR German design. Argentina also has some other research reactors, and exports nuclear technology.
Pros and cons of nuclear power[edit]
The nuclear debate[edit]
Main article: Nuclear power debate
The nuclear power debate is about the controversy[107][108][109][110][111] which has surrounded the deployment and use of nuclear fission reactors to generate electricity from nuclear fuel for civilian purposes. The debate about nuclear power peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, when it "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies", in some countries.[112][113]
Proponents of nuclear energy argue that nuclear power is a sustainable energy source which reduces carbon emissions and can increase energy security if its use supplants a dependence on imported fuels.[114] Proponents advance the notion that nuclear power produces virtually no air pollution, in contrast to the chief viable alternative of fossil fuel. Proponents also believe that nuclear power is the only viable course to achieve energy independence for most Western countries. They emphasize that the risks of storing spent fuel are small and can be further reduced by using the latest technology in newer reactors, fuel recycling, and long-lived radioisotope burn-up. For instance, spent nuclear fuel in the United States could extend nuclear power generation by hundreds of years[115] because more than 90% of spent fuel can be reprocessed.[116] The operational safety record in the Western world is excellent when compared to the other major kinds of power plants.[117]
Opponents say that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment. These threats include health risks and environmental damage from uranium mining, processing and transport, the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation or sabotage, and the problem of radioactive nuclear waste.[118][119][120] They also contend that reactors themselves are enormously complex machines where many things can and do go wrong, and there have been many serious nuclear accidents.[121][122] Critics do not believe that these risks can be reduced through new technology.[123] They argue that when all the energy-intensive stages of the nuclear fuel chain are considered, from uranium mining to nuclear decommissioning, nuclear power is not a low-carbon electricity source.[124][125][126]
Economics[edit]
Main article: Economics of nuclear power plants
The economics of new nuclear power plants is a controversial subject, since there are diverging views on this topic, and multi-billion dollar investments ride on the choice of an energy source. Nuclear power plants typically have high capital costs for building the plant, but low direct fuel costs (with much of the costs of fuel extraction, processing, use and long term storage externalized). Therefore, comparison with other power generation methods is strongly dependent on assumptions about construction timescales and capital financing for nuclear plants. Cost estimates also need to take into account plant decommissioning and nuclear waste storage costs. On the other hand measures to mitigate global warming, such as a carbon tax or carbon emissions trading, may favor the economics of nuclear power versus fossil fuels.
In recent years there has been a slowdown of electricity demand growth and financing has become more difficult, which affects large projects such as nuclear reactors, with very large upfront costs and long project cycles which carry a large variety of risks.[127] In Eastern Europe, a number of long-established projects are struggling to find finance, notably Belene in Bulgaria and the additional reactors at Cernavoda in Romania, and some potential backers have pulled out.[127] Where cheap gas is available and its future supply relatively secure, this also poses a major problem for nuclear projects.[127]
Analysis of the economics of nuclear power must take into account who bears the risks of future uncertainties. To date all operating nuclear power plants were developed by state-owned or regulated utility monopolies[128] where many of the risks associated with construction costs, operating performance, fuel price, and other factors were borne by consumers rather than suppliers. Many countries have now liberalized the electricity market where these risks, and the risk of cheaper competitors emerging before capital costs are recovered, are borne by plant suppliers and operators rather than consumers, which leads to a significantly different evaluation of the economics of new nuclear power plants.[129]
Following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, costs are likely to go up for currently operating and new nuclear power plants, due to increased requirements for on-site spent fuel management and elevated design basis threats.[130]
Environment[edit]
Main article: Environmental impact of nuclear power
Nuclear power activities involving the environment; mining, enrichment, generation and geological disposal.
The environmental impact of nuclear power results from the nuclear fuel cycle, operation, and the effects of nuclear accidents.
The greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear fission power are small relative to those associated with coal, oil, gas, and biomass. They are about equal to those associated with wind and hydroelectric.[131]
The routine health risks from nuclear fission power are very small relative to those associated with coal, oil, gas, solar, biomass, wind and hydroelectric.[132]
However, there is a "catastrophic risk" potential if containment fails,[133] which in nuclear reactors can be brought about by over-heated fuels melting and releasing large quantities of fission products into the environment. The public is sensitive to these risks and there has been considerable public opposition to nuclear power. Even so, in comparing the fatalities for major accidents alone in the energy sector it is still found that the risks associated with nuclear power are extremely small relative to those associated with coal, oil, gas and hydroelectric.[132] For the operation of a 1000-MWe nuclear power plant the complete nuclear fuel cycle, from mining to reactor operation to waste disposal, the radiation dose is cited as 136 person-rem/year, the dose is 490 person-rem/year for an equivalent coal-fired power plant.[134]
The 1979 Three Mile Island accident and 1986 Chernobyl disaster, along with high construction costs, ended the rapid growth of global nuclear power capacity.[133] A further disastrous release of radioactive materials followed the 2011 Japanese tsunami which damaged the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in hydrogen gas explosions and partial meltdowns classified as a Level 7 event. The large-scale release of radioactivity resulted in people being evacuated from a 20 km exclusion zone set up around the power plant, similar to the 30 km radius Chernobyl Exclusion Zone still in effect.
Accidents[edit]
Main article: Nuclear and radiation accidents
The abandoned city of Pripyat with Chernobyl plant in the distance
The effect of nuclear accidents has been a topic of debate practically since the first nuclear reactors were constructed. It has also been a key factor in public concern about nuclear facilities.[135] Some technical measures to reduce the risk of accidents or to minimize the amount of radioactivity released to the environment have been adopted. Despite the use of such measures, human error remains, and "there have been many accidents with varying effects as well near misses and incidents".[135][136]
Benjamin K. Sovacool has reported that worldwide there have been 99 accidents at nuclear power plants.[137] Fifty-seven accidents have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster, and 57% (56 out of 99) of all nuclear-related accidents have occurred in the USA.[137] Serious nuclear power plant accidents include the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011), Chernobyl disaster (1986), Three Mile Island accident (1979), and the SL-1 accident (1961).[138] Stuart Arm states, "apart from Chernobyl, no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of exposure to radiation due to a commercial nuclear reactor incident."[139]
The International Atomic Energy Agency maintains a website reporting recent accidents.[140]
Safety[edit]
Main article: Nuclear safety and security
Nuclear safety and security covers the actions taken to prevent nuclear and radiation accidents or to limit their consequences. This covers nuclear power plants as well as all other nuclear facilities, the transportation of nuclear materials, and the use and storage of nuclear materials for medical, power, industry, and military uses.
Although there is no way to guarantee that a reactor will always be designed, built and operated safely, the nuclear power industry has improved the safety and performance of reactors, and has proposed safer reactor designs, though many of these designs have yet to be tested at industrial or commercial scales.[141] Mistakes do occur and the designers of reactors at Fukushima in Japan did not anticipate that a tsunami generated by an earthquake would disable the backup systems that were supposed to stabilize the reactor after the earthquake.[142][143] According to UBS AG, the Fukushima I nuclear accidents have cast doubt on whether even an advanced economy like Japan can master nuclear safety.[144] Catastrophic scenarios involving terrorist attacks are also conceivable.[141]
An interdisciplinary team from MIT have estimated that given the expected growth of nuclear power from 2005 – 2055, at least four serious nuclear accidents would be expected in that period.[145][146] To date, there have been five serious accidents (core damage) in the world since 1970 (one at Three Mile Island in 1979; one at Chernobyl in 1986; and three at Fukushima-Daiichi in 2011), corresponding to the beginning of the operation of generation II reactors. This leads to on average one serious accident happening every eight years worldwide.[143] Despite these accidents, the safety record of nuclear power, in terms of lives lost (ignoring nonfatal illnesses) per unit of electricity delivered, is better than every other major source of power in the world, and on par with solar and wind.[132][147][148]
Energy transition[edit]
Photovoltaic array and wind turbines at the Schneebergerhof wind farm in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz
Parabolic trough power plant for electricity production, near the town of Kramer Junction in California's San Joaquin Valley
Global public support for energy sources, based on a survey by Ipsos (2011).[149]
See also: energy transition, 100% renewable energy, nuclear power debate, and green movement
The Energy transition is the shift by several countries to sustainable economies by means of renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable development. This trend has been augmented by diversifying electricity generation and allowing homes and businesses with solar panels on their rooftops to sell electricity to the grid. In the future this could "lead to a majority of our energy coming from decentralized solar panels and wind turbines scattered across the country" rather than large power plants.[150] The final goal of German proponents of a nuclear power phase-out is the abolishment of coal and other non-renewable energy sources.[151]
Renewable energy encompasses wind, biomass (such as landfill gas and sewage gas), hydropower, solar power (thermal and photovoltaic), geothermal, and ocean power. These renewable sources serve as alternatives to conventional power generation from thermal power stations run on nuclear or fossil fuels. A significant part of energy transition is reducing consumption by energy conservation and improvements in energy efficiency, an example is improved insulation for buildings; or improved energy efficiency by cogeneration of heat and power. Smart meters are able to charge higher prices at the time consumption peaks during the day, thereby causing electricity demand to drop slightly when the price increases.
Issues exist that currently prevent a shift over to a 100% renewable technologies. There is debate over the environmental impact of solar power, and the environmental impact of wind power. Some argue that the pollution produced and requirement of rare earth elements offsets many of the benefits compared to other alternative power sources such as hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear power.[152] According to the 2013 Post Carbon Pathways report, which reviewed many international studies, the key roadblocks are: climate change denial, the fossil fuels lobby, political inaction, unsustainable energy consumption, outdated energy infrastructure, and financial constraints.[153] However, according to a research paper published in 2014, renewable energy by itself, will not be able to stop climate change.[154]
Google spent $30 million on their RE<C project to develop renewable energy and stave off catastrophic climate change. The project was cancelled after concluding that a best-case scenario for rapid advances in renewable energy could only result in emissions 55 percent below the fossil fuel projections for 2050.[155] Current developments towards a 100% renewable energy policy require solutions to low storage capacity, low energy density, and high cost.[156]
See also[edit]
Nuclear renaissance
Anti-nuclear movement
Energy conservation
Energy development
Fossil fuel phase-out
List of energy topics
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Nuclear energy policy
Nuclear power controversy
Nuclear power in France
Renewable energy commercialization
Wind power
Notes and references[edit]
^ IAEA (2011). "Power Reactor Information System - Highlights". (subscription required)
^ Jump up to:a b Annika Breidthardt (30 May 2011). "German government wants nuclear exit by 2022 at latest". Reuters.
^ "Italy Nuclear Referendum Results". 13 June 2011. Archived from the original on 25 March 2012.
^ Henry Sokolski (28 November 2011). "Nuclear Power Goes Rogue". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 18 December 2012. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
^ Tsuyoshi Inajima & Yuji Okada (28 October 2011). "Nuclear Promotion Dropped in Japan Energy Policy After Fukushima". Bloomberg.
^ He is fighting a continuing economic crisis with Abenomics
^ "Nuclear power: When the steam clears". The Economist. 24 March 2011.
^ Jump up to:a b Duroyan Fertl (5 June 2011). "Germany: Nuclear power to be phased out by 2022". Green Left.
^ Erika Simpson and Ian Fairlie, Dealing with nuclear waste is so difficult that phasing out nuclear power would be the best option, Lfpress, 26 February 2016.
^ Jump up to:a b "Difference Engine: The nuke that might have been". The Economist. 11 November 2013.
^ James Kanter (25 May 2011). "Switzerland Decides on Nuclear Phase-Out". New York Times.
^ http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review-2017/bp-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2017-nuclear-energy.pdf
^ "The Database on Nuclear Power Reactors". IAEA.
^ Herbert P. Kitschelt. Political Opportunity and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four DemocraciesBritish Journal of Political Science, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1986, p. 71.
^ Helen Caldicott (2006). Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else, Melbourne University Press, ISBN 0-522-85251-3, p. xvii
^ Netherlands: Court case on closure date Borssele NPP, article from anti-nuclear organization (WISE), dated 29 June 2001.
^ Jump up to:a b c Nuclear Power in the World Energy Outlook, by the Uranium Institute, 1999.
^ Anti-nuclear resolution of the Austrian ParliamentArchived 23 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine, as summarised by an anti-nuclear organisation (WISE).
^ Nuclear news from Poland Archived 16 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine, article from the Web site of the European Nuclear Society, April 2005.
^ Germany Starts Nuclear Energy Phase-Out, article from Deutsche Welle, 14 November 2003.
^ James Kanter. In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble New York Times, 28 May 2009.
^ James Kanter. Is the Nuclear Renaissance Fizzling?Green, 29 May 2009.
^ Rob Broomby. Nuclear dawn delayed in Finland BBC News, 8 July 2009.
^ "Nuclear power in a clean energy system". www.iea.org. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
^ Dittmar, Michael (17 August 2010). "Taking stock of nuclear renaissance that never was". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
^ "Coalition of Nuclear-Free Countries". WISE News Communique. 26 September 1997. Archived from the original on 23 February 2006. Retrieved 2006-05-19.
^ Jump up to:a b Ruffles, Philip; Michael Burdekin; Charles Curtis; Brian Eyre; Geoff Hewitt; William Wilkinson (July 2003). "An Essential Programme to Underpin Government Policy on Nuclear Power" (PDF). Nuclear Task Force. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
^ Henry, Alain (12 July 2005), Quelle énergie pour un développement durable ?, Working Paper 14-05 (in French), Federal Planning Bureau.
^ Kanter, James (10 August 2005). "Big French Utility Offers a Full Buyout in Belgium". The New York Times.
^ "Belgium plans to phase out nuclear power". BBC News. 31 October 2011.
^ Addicted to nuclear energy? < Belgian news | Expatica Belgium Archived 19 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine. Expatica.com. Retrieved on 2011-06-04.
^ "Belgium maintains nuclear phase-out policy". World Nuclear News. 4 April 2018. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
^ German nuclear energy phase-out begins with first plant closure. Terradaily.com (2003-11-14). Retrieved on 2011-06-04.
^ PDF Archived 13 September 2004 at the Wayback Machine
^ [1]
^ [2][dead link] Kommunikation Wissenschaft Archived22 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine
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^ "Germany split over green energy". BBC News. 25 February 2005.
^ Renewable Energy Germany
^ Caroline Jorant (July 2011). "The implications of Fukushima: The European perspective". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. p. 15.
^ Knight, Ben (15 March 2011). "Merkel shuts down seven nuclear reactors". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 15 March2011.
^ "Anti-nuclear demos across Europe on Fukushima anniversary". Euronews. 11 March 2011.
^ Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi); Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) (28 September 2010). Energy concept for an environmentally sound, reliable and affordable energy supply (PDF). Berlin, Germany: Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
^ The Federal Government's energy concept of 2010 and the transformation of the energy system of 2011 (PDF). Bonn, Germany: Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU). October 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2016. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
^ John Broder (10 October 2011). "The Year of Peril and Promise in Energy Production". New York Times.
^ "Siemens to quit nuclear industry". BBC News. 18 September 2011.
^ "IAEA sees slow nuclear growth post Japan". UPI. 23 September 2011.
^ "Supply security is even more stable despite nuclear phaseout — fossil reserve power is replaceable" (PDF)(Press release). Hamburg, Germany: Greenpeace Energy. 5 September 2016. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
^ Huneke, Fabian; Lizzi, Philipp; Lenck, Thorsten (August 2016). The consequences so far of Germany's nuclear phaseout on the security of energy supply — A brief analysis commissioned by Greenpeace Energy eG in Germany(PDF). Berlin, Germany: Energy Brainpool. Retrieved 8 September 2016. This reference provides a good overview of the phaseout.
^ "Showdown in Germany's nuclear phase-out". Clean Energy Wire (CLEW). Berlin, Germany. 10 October 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
^ Jump up to:a b "Nuclear plant operators continue lawsuits". Clean Energy Wire (CLEW). Berlin, German. 8 December 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
^ "German utilities eligible for "adequate" nuclear exit compensation". Clean Energy Wire (CLEW). Berlin, Germany. 6 December 2016. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
^ "The thirteenth amendment to the Atomic Energy Act is for the most part compatible with the Basic Law" (Press release). Karlsruhe, Germany: Bundesverfassungsgericht. 6 December 2016. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
^ "German utilities win compensation for nuclear phaseout". Deutsche Welle (DW). Bonn, Germany. 5 December 2016. Retrieved 6 December 2016. Provides a history of the nuclear exit.
^ "Atomausstieg: Konzerne klagen weiter – auf Auskunft"[Nuclear exit: corporations sue further - for information]. Der Tagesspiegel (in German). Berlin, German. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
^ "The cost of Germany turning off nuclear power: Thousands of lives". Grist. 8 January 2020. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
^ Jarvis, Stephen; Deschenes, Olivier; Jha, Akshaya (December 2019). "The Private and External Costs of Germany's Nuclear Phase-Out" (PDF). National Bureau of Economic Research. Cambridge, MA: w26598. doi:10.3386/w26598.
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 6 September 2005. Retrieved 17 August 2005.
^ "Prospettive dell'energia nucleare in Italia". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 5 May 2012.
^ [3] Archived 23 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine
^ Kidd, Steve (30 January 2018). "Nuclear new build - where does it stand today?". Nuclear Engineering International. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
^ "Korea's nuclear phase-out policy takes shape". World Nuclear News. 19 June 2017. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
^ Borgenäs, Johan (11 November 2009). "Sweden Reverses Nuclear Phase-out Policy". Nuclear Threat Initiative.
^ "Sweden to replace existing nuclear plants with new ones". BBC News Online. 18 June 2010.
^ http://okg.se/sv/Press/2015/Beslut-fattat-om-fortida-stangning-av-O1-och-O2/
^ https://corporate.vattenfall.se/press-och-media/engelska/r1-and-r2-in-operation-until-2020-and-2019/
^ Jump up to:a b "30 years after Chernobyl: Half of Swedes oppose nuclear power". Sveriges Radio. 26 April 2016.
^ "Sweden strikes deal to continue nuclear power". The Local. 10 June 2016.
^ Juhlin, Johan. "Klart i dag: så blir den svenska energipolitiken". svt.se (in Swedish). Sveriges Television. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
^ Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) Electricity statistics 2013 (in French and German) Archived 29 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine, 23 June 2014
^ «Mutiger Entscheid» bis «Kurzschlusshandlung» (Politik, Schweiz, NZZ Online). Nzz.ch. Retrieved on 2011-06-04.
^ Schweiz plant Atomausstieg – Schweiz – derStandard.at › International. Derstandard.at. Retrieved on 2011-06-04.
^ Bundesamt für Energie BFE – Startseite[dead link]. Energie-schweiz.ch. Retrieved on 2011-06-04.
^ [4] Archived 13 December 2004 at the Wayback Machine
^ "Spain halts nuclear power". WISE News Communique. 24 May 1991. Retrieved 19 May 2006.
^ "Nuclear Power in Spain". World Nuclear Association. May 2006. Archived from the original on 22 February 2006. Retrieved 19 May 2006.
^ "404 error". Archived from the original on 18 February 2005. Retrieved 19 May 2006.
^ "Government confirms Hinkley Point C project following new agreement in principle with EDF". GOV.UK. 15 September 2016. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
^ [5] Archived 23 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine
^ [6] Archived 12 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine
^ [7] Archived 23 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
^ EIA – 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20585. Eia.doe.gov. Retrieved on 2011-06-04. Archived 1 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine
^ [8] Archived 28 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
^ [9] Archived 20 September 2005 at the Wayback Machine
^ "Ground broken for Turkey's first nuclear power plant". World Nuclear News. 15 April 2015. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
^ Andrew Jacobs (12 January 2012). "Vote Holds Fate of Nuclear Power in Taiwan". New York Times. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
^ "Taiwan to halt construction of fourth nuclear power plant". Reuters. 28 April 2014. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
^ Lin, Sean (4 February 2015). "AEC approves plan to shutter fourth nuclear facility". Taipei Times. Retrieved 5 March2015.
^ "EDITORIAL: Taiwan bows to public opinion in pulling plug on nuclear power". The Asahi Shimbun. 31 October 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
^ [10]
^ "Vietnam ditches nuclear power plans". Deutsche Welle. Associated Press. 10 November 2016. Retrieved 11 November 2016.
^ Martin Fackler (1 June 2011). "Report Finds Japan Underestimated Tsunami Danger". New York Times.
^ "Thousands march against nuclear power in Tokyo". USA Today. September 2011.
^ David H. Slater (9 November 2011). "Fukushima women against nuclear power: finding a voice from Tohoku". The Asia-Pacific Journal. Archived from the original on 14 February 2014.
^ Hiroko Tabuchi (13 July 2011). "Japan Premier Wants Shift Away From Nuclear Power". New York Times.
^ Chisaki Watanabe (26 August 2011). "Japan Spurs Solar, Wind Energy With Subsidies, in Shift From Nuclear Power". Bloomberg.
^ Tsuyoshi Inajima & Yuji Okada (28 October 2011). "Nuclear Promotion Dropped in Japan Energy Policy After Fukushima". Bloomberg.
^ "Areas near Japan nuclear plant may be off limits for decades". Reuters. 27 August 2011.
^ "Kyushu restarts second reactor at Sendai plant under tighter Fukushima-inspired rules". The Japan Times Online. 15 October 2015. ISSN 0447-5763. Retrieved 19 October2015.
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 22 May 2006. Retrieved 29 April 2006.
^ "Some merchant nuclear plants could face early retirement: UBS". Platts. 9 January 2013. Retrieved 10 January 2013.
^ "Dominion To Close, Decommission Kewaunee Power Station". Dominion. 22 October 2012. Retrieved 28 February 2013.
^ Caroline Peachey (1 January 2013). "Why are North American plants dying?". Nuclear Engineering International. Retrieved 28 February 2013.
^ "Crystal River Nuclear Plant to be retired; company evaluating sites for potential new gas-fueled generation". 5 February 2013. Archived 22 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 23 May 2007. Retrieved 23 May 2007.
^ Brazil plans to build seven nuclear reactors — MercoPress. Mercopress.com. Retrieved on 2011-06-04.
^ "Sunday Dialogue: Nuclear Energy, Pro and Con". New York Times. 25 February 2012.
^ MacKenzie, James J. (December 1977). "Review of The Nuclear Power Controversy] by Arthur W. Murphy". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 52 (4): 467–8. doi:10.1086/410301. JSTOR 2823429.
^ Walker, J. Samuel (10 January 2006). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. University of California Press. pp. 10–11. ISBN 9780520246836.
^ In February 2010 the nuclear power debate played out on the pages of the New York Times, see A Reasonable Bet on Nuclear Power and Revisiting Nuclear Power: A Debateand A Comeback for Nuclear Power?
^ In July 2010 the nuclear power debate again played out on the pages of the New York Times, see We’re Not ReadyNuclear Energy: The Safety Issues
^ Kitschelt, Herbert P. (1986). "Political Opportunity and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies" (PDF). British Journal of Political Science. 16 (1): 57. doi:10.1017/S000712340000380X.
^ Jim Falk (1982). Global Fission: The Battle Over Nuclear Power, Oxford University Press.
^ U.S. Energy Legislation May Be `Renaissance' for Nuclear Power.
^ Rhodes, Richard (19 July 2018). "Why Nuclear Power Must Be Part of the Energy Solution". Yale Environment 360. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
^ Ling, Katherine (18 May 2009). "Is the solution to the U.S. nuclear waste problem in France?". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
^ Bernard Cohen. "The Nuclear Energy Option". Retrieved 9 December 2009.
^ "Nuclear Energy is not a New Clear Resource". Theworldreporter.com. 2 September 2010.
^ Greenpeace International and European Renewable Energy Council (January 2007). Energy Revolution: A Sustainable World Energy Outlook Archived 6 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine, p. 7.
^ Giugni, Marco (2004). Social protest and policy change: ecology, antinuclear, and peace movements in comparative perspective. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 44–. ISBN 9780742518278.
^ Stephanie Cooke (2009). In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age, Black Inc., p. 280.
^ Sovacool, Benjamin K. (2008). "The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907–2007". Energy Policy. 36 (5): 1802–20. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2008.01.040.
^ Jim Green . Nuclear Weapons and 'Fourth Generation' Reactors Chain Reaction, August 2009, pp. 18-21.
^ Kleiner, Kurt (October 2008). "Nuclear energy: assessing the emissions" (PDF). Nature Climate Change. 2 (810): 130–1. doi:10.1038/climate.2008.99.
^ Mark Diesendorf (2007). Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy, University of New South Wales Press, p. 252.
^ Mark Diesendorf. Is nuclear energy a possible solution to global warming? Archived 22 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
^ Jump up to:a b c Kidd, Steve (21 January 2011). "New reactors—more or less?". Nuclear Engineering International. Archived from the original on 12 December 2011.
^ Ed Crooks (12 September 2010). "Nuclear: New dawn now seems limited to the east". Financial Times. Retrieved 12 September 2010.
^ The Future of Nuclear Power. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2003. ISBN 0-615-12420-8. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
^ Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2011). "The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle" (PDF). p. xv.
^ "Comparison of Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Various Electricity Generation Sources" (PDF).
^ Jump up to:a b c Economic Analysis of Various Options of Electricity Generation - Taking into Account Health and Environmental Effects, based on EU ExterneE Project data Archived27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
^ Jump up to:a b International Panel on Fissile Materials (September 2010). "The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Energy" (PDF). Research Report 9. p. 1.
^https://www.ornl.gov/sites/default/files/ORNL%20Review%20v26n3-4%201993.pdf pg28
^ Jump up to:a b M.V. Ramana. Nuclear Power: Economic, Safety, Health, and Environmental Issues of Near-Term Technologies, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2009, 34, p. 136.
^ Matthew Wald (29 February 2012). "The Nuclear Ups and Downs of 2011". New York Times.
^ Jump up to:a b Benjamin K. Sovacool. A Critical Evaluation of Nuclear Power and Renewable Electricity in Asia Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 40, No. 3, August 2010, pp. 393–400.
^ The Worst Nuclear Disasters
^ Arm, Stuart T. (July 2010). "Nuclear Energy: A Vital Component of Our Energy Future" (PDF). Chemical Engineering Progress. New York, NY: American Institute of Chemical Engineers: 27–34. ISSN 0360-7275. OCLC 1929453. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
^ IAEA Publications
^ Jump up to:a b Jacobson, Mark Z. & Delucchi, Mark A. (2010). "Providing all Global Energy with Wind, Water, and Solar Power, Part I: Technologies, Energy Resources, Quantities and Areas of Infrastructure, and Materials" (PDF). Energy Policy. p. 6.
^ Hugh Gusterson (16 March 2011). "The lessons of Fukushima". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Archived from the original on 6 June 2013.
^ Jump up to:a b Diaz Maurin, François (26 March 2011). "Fukushima: Consequences of Systemic Problems in Nuclear Plant Design" (PDF). Economic & Political Weekly (Mumbai). 46(13): 10–12.[permanent dead link]
^ James Paton (4 April 2011). "Fukushima Crisis Worse for Atomic Power Than Chernobyl, UBS Says". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on 15 May 2011.
^ Benjamin K. Sovacool (January 2011). "Second Thoughts About Nuclear Power" (PDF). National University of Singapore. p. 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 January 2013.
^ Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2003). "The Future of Nuclear Power" (PDF). p. 48.
^http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_168.shtml Dr. MacKay Sustainable Energy without the hot air. page 168. Data from studies by the Paul Scherrer Institute including non EU data
^ World Nuclear Association. Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors.
^ Ipsos 2011, p. 3
^ "The Bumpy Road to Energy Deregulation". EnPowered. 28 March 2016.
^ Federal Ministry for the Environment (29 March 2012). Langfristszenarien und Strategien für den Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien in Deutschland bei Berücksichtigung der Entwicklung in Europa und global [Long-term Scenarios and Strategies for the Development of Renewable Energy in Germany Considering Development in Europe and Globally] (PDF). Berlin, Germany: Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU). Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 October 2012.
^ "Advantages and Challenges of Wind Power". DOE. 12 February 2015.
^ John Wiseman; et al. (April 2013). "Post Carbon Pathways" (PDF). University of Melbourne. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 June 2014.
^http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf
^ https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change
^ http://www.engerati.com/article/energy-storage-development-still-faces-obstacles
Further reading[edit]
See also: List of books about nuclear issues
Cooke, Stephanie (2009). In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age, Black Inc.
Cragin, Susan (2007). Nuclear Nebraska: The Remarkable Story of the Little County That Couldn’t Be Bought, AMACOM.
Diesendorf, Mark (2007). Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy, University of New South Wales Press.
Elliott, David (2007). Nuclear or Not? Does Nuclear Power Have a Place in a Sustainable Energy Future?, Palgrave.
Falk, Jim (1982). Global Fission: The Battle Over Nuclear Power, Oxford University Press.
Lovins, Amory B. (1977). Soft Energy Paths: Towards a Durable Peace, Friends of the Earth International, ISBN 0-06-090653-7
Lovins, Amory B. and John H. Price (1975). Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy, Ballinger Publishing Company, 1975, ISBN 0-88410-602-0
Pernick, Ron and Clint Wilder (2007). The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity, Collins, ISBN 978-0-06-089623-2
Price, Jerome (1982). The Antinuclear Movement, Twayne Publishers.
Rudig, Wolfgang (1990). Anti-nuclear Movements: A World Survey of Opposition to Nuclear Energy, Longman.
Schneider, Mycle, Steve Thomas, Antony Froggatt, Doug Koplow (August 2009). The World Nuclear Industry Status Report, German Federal Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety.
Sovacool, Benjamin K. (2011). Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power: A Critical Global Assessment of Atomic Energy, World Scientific.
Walker, J. Samuel (2004). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective, University of California Press.
William D. Nordhaus, The Swedish Nuclear Dilemma – Energy and the Environment. 1997. Hardcover, ISBN 0-915707-84-5.
Bernard Leonard Cohen, The Nuclear Energy Option: An Alternative for the 90's. 1990. Hardcover. ISBN 0-306-43567-5. Bernard Cohen's homepage contains the full text of the book.
External links[edit]
German Energy Transition
Fairewinds Energy Education
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2020/05/13
Germany shuts down atomic plant as nuclear phase-out enters final stretch | News | DW | 31.12.2019
Germany shuts down atomic plant as nuclear phase-out enters final stretch | News | DW | 31.12.2019
Germany shuts down atomic plant as nuclear phase-out enters final stretch
The Philippsburg power station is one of the only plants still operating in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg. Germany has vowed to start decommissioning every nuclear power facility by the end of 2022.
Operators began shutting down the Philippsburg nuclear power plant in southern Germany on Tuesday, as the country puts into motion its plan to begin decommissioning all 17 of its atomic energy facilities by the end of 2022.
After 35 years on the grid, Block 2 of the Philippsburg station was fully turned off. Neckarwestheim 2, the other remaining nuclear plant in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, is not set to be turned off until the end of the nuclear phase-out plan.
Philippsburg had previously supplied 6% of Baden-Württemberg's energy. However, nuclear power has long been unpopular in the region, which has a Green party leader in State Premier Winfried Kretschmann.
The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan led to widespread anti-atomic-power protests across Germany. Two months after the accident, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that all plants would be closed over the next decade, making Germany the second country after Italy to shut down all of its atomic energy stations.
The German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) welcomed the news. A BUND spokesman said the group hoped to see the end of nuclear power being "conjured up again and again as a supposed healing charm and climate savior."
From the point of view of safety, Wolfram König — who heads the German government's office for the phase-out — welcomed the fact that more nuclear power stations were being taken offline. However, König also warned that the country still faced a great "challenge" in trying to phase out both coal and atomic energy at the same time.
es/rc (dpa, AFP)
DW RECOMMENDS
What happens to nuclear waste from power plants?
African countries looking to invest in nuclear energy as a source of clean electricity should consider Europe's struggles with disposing of radioactive waste. (13.11.2019)
Germany demolishes cooling tower of former nuclear power plant
A cooling tower emblematic of Germany's nuclear aversion has been toppled near Koblenz. Seven reactors are still operational in Germany, with the last due to be phased out in late 2022 amid a drive to renewables. (09.08.2019)
Date 31.12.2019
Related Subjects Fukushima, Germany
Keywords Germany, nuclear power plant, Fukushima
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Print Print this page
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3VXPc
RELATED CONTENT
France shuts down first reactor of Fessenheim nuclear plant near German border 22.02.2020
French energy company EDF has confirmed that it has turned off one reactor of its oldest nuclear power plant. The plant, located directly on the border to Germany, has drawn frequent protests in recent years.
Fukushima: How the ocean became a dumping ground for radioactive waste 11.03.2020
The nuclear disaster at Fukushima sent an unprecedented amount of radiation into the Pacific. But, before then, atomic bomb tests and radioactive waste were contaminating the sea — the effects are still being felt today.
Germany demolishes cooling tower of former nuclear power plant 09.08.2019
A cooling tower emblematic of Germany's nuclear aversion has been toppled near Koblenz. Seven reactors are still operational in Germany, with the last due to be phased out in late 2022 amid a drive to renewables.
Germany shuts down atomic plant as nuclear phase-out enters final stretch
The Philippsburg power station is one of the only plants still operating in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg. Germany has vowed to start decommissioning every nuclear power facility by the end of 2022.
Operators began shutting down the Philippsburg nuclear power plant in southern Germany on Tuesday, as the country puts into motion its plan to begin decommissioning all 17 of its atomic energy facilities by the end of 2022.
After 35 years on the grid, Block 2 of the Philippsburg station was fully turned off. Neckarwestheim 2, the other remaining nuclear plant in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, is not set to be turned off until the end of the nuclear phase-out plan.
Philippsburg had previously supplied 6% of Baden-Württemberg's energy. However, nuclear power has long been unpopular in the region, which has a Green party leader in State Premier Winfried Kretschmann.
The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan led to widespread anti-atomic-power protests across Germany. Two months after the accident, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that all plants would be closed over the next decade, making Germany the second country after Italy to shut down all of its atomic energy stations.
The German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) welcomed the news. A BUND spokesman said the group hoped to see the end of nuclear power being "conjured up again and again as a supposed healing charm and climate savior."
From the point of view of safety, Wolfram König — who heads the German government's office for the phase-out — welcomed the fact that more nuclear power stations were being taken offline. However, König also warned that the country still faced a great "challenge" in trying to phase out both coal and atomic energy at the same time.
es/rc (dpa, AFP)
DW RECOMMENDS
What happens to nuclear waste from power plants?
African countries looking to invest in nuclear energy as a source of clean electricity should consider Europe's struggles with disposing of radioactive waste. (13.11.2019)
Germany demolishes cooling tower of former nuclear power plant
A cooling tower emblematic of Germany's nuclear aversion has been toppled near Koblenz. Seven reactors are still operational in Germany, with the last due to be phased out in late 2022 amid a drive to renewables. (09.08.2019)
Date 31.12.2019
Related Subjects Fukushima, Germany
Keywords Germany, nuclear power plant, Fukushima
Feedback: Send us your feedback.
Print Print this page
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3VXPc
RELATED CONTENT
France shuts down first reactor of Fessenheim nuclear plant near German border 22.02.2020
French energy company EDF has confirmed that it has turned off one reactor of its oldest nuclear power plant. The plant, located directly on the border to Germany, has drawn frequent protests in recent years.
Fukushima: How the ocean became a dumping ground for radioactive waste 11.03.2020
The nuclear disaster at Fukushima sent an unprecedented amount of radiation into the Pacific. But, before then, atomic bomb tests and radioactive waste were contaminating the sea — the effects are still being felt today.
Germany demolishes cooling tower of former nuclear power plant 09.08.2019
A cooling tower emblematic of Germany's nuclear aversion has been toppled near Koblenz. Seven reactors are still operational in Germany, with the last due to be phased out in late 2022 amid a drive to renewables.
3 Reasons Why Nuclear is Clean and Sustainable | Department of Energy
3 Reasons Why Nuclear is Clean and Sustainable | Department of Energy
Office of Nuclear Energy
3 Reasons Why Nuclear is Clean and Sustainable
APRIL 30, 2020
Home » 3 Reasons Why Nuclear is Clean and Sustainable
When you hear the words “clean energy,” what comes to mind?
Most people immediately think of solar panels or wind turbines, but how many of you thought of nuclear energy?
Nuclear is often left out of the “clean energy” conversation despite it being the second largest source of low-carbon electricity in the world behind hydropower.
So, just how clean and sustainable is nuclear?
Try these quick facts for starters.
1. Nuclear energy protects air quality
McGuire Nuclear Station located in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.
Duke Energy
Nuclear is a zero-emission clean energy source.
It generates power through fission, which is the process of splitting uranium atoms to produce energy. The heat released by fission is used to create steam that spins a turbine to generate electricity without the harmful byproducts emitted by fossil fuels.
According to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the United States avoided more than 476 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2019. That’s the equivalent of removing 100 million cars from the road and more than all other clean energy sources combined.
It also keeps the air clean by removing thousands of tons of harmful air pollutants each year that contribute to acid rain, smog, lung cancer and cardiovascular disease.
2. Nuclear energy’s land footprint is small
A 25 megawatt solar power system in DeSoto County, Florida
NREL
Despite producing massive amounts of carbon-free power, nuclear energy produces more electricity on less land than any other clean-air source.
A typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear facility in the United States needs a little more than 1 square mile to operate. NEI says wind farms require 360 times more land area to produce the same amount of electricity and solar photovoltaic plants require 75 times more space.
To put that in perspective, you would need more than 3 million solar panels to produce the same amount of power as a typical commercial reactor or more than 430 wind turbines (capacity factor not included).
See more comparisons here.
3. Nuclear energy produces minimal waste
Graphic by Sarah Harman | U.S. Department of Energy
Nuclear fuel is extremely dense.
It’s about 1 million times greater than that of other traditional energy sources and because of this, the amount of used nuclear fuel is not as big as you might think.
All of the used nuclear fuel produced by the U.S. nuclear energy industry over the last 60 years could fit on a football field at a depth of less than 10 yards!
That waste can also be reprocessed and recycled, although the United States does not currently do this.
However, some advanced reactors designs being developed could operate on used fuel.
The NICE Future Initiative is a global effort under the Clean Energy Ministerial that makes sure nuclear will be considered in developing the advanced clean energy systems of the future.
Why Nuclear Power Must Be Part of the Energy Solution - Yale E360
Why Nuclear Power Must Be Part of the Energy Solution - Yale E360
Why Nuclear Power Must Be Part of the Energy Solution
BY RICHARD RHODES • JULY 19, 2018
Many environmentalists have opposed nuclear power, citing its dangers and the difficulty of disposing of its radioactive waste. But a Pulitzer Prize-winning author argues that nuclear is safer than most energy sources and is needed if the world hopes to radically decrease its carbon emissions.
In the late 16th century, when the increasing cost of firewood forced ordinary Londoners to switch reluctantly to coal, Elizabethan preachers railed against a fuel they believed to be, literally, the Devil’s excrement. Coal was black, after all, dirty, found in layers underground — down toward Hell at the center of the earth — and smelled strongly of sulfur when it burned. Switching to coal, in houses that usually lacked chimneys, was difficult enough; the clergy’s outspoken condemnation, while certainly justified environmentally, further complicated and delayed the timely resolution of an urgent problem in energy supply.
For too many environmentalists concerned with global warming, nuclear energy is today’s Devil’s excrement. They condemn it for its production and use of radioactive fuels and for the supposed problem of disposing of its waste. In my judgment, their condemnation of this efficient, low-carbon source of baseload energy is misplaced. Far from being the Devil’s excrement, nuclear power can be, and should be, one major component of our rescue from a hotter, more meteorologically destructive world.
Like all energy sources, nuclear power has advantages and disadvantages. What are nuclear power’s benefits? First and foremost, since it produces energy via nuclear fission rather than chemical burning, it generates baseload electricity with no output of carbon, the villainous element of global warming. Switching from coal to natural gas is a step toward decarbonizing, since burning natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide of burning coal. But switching from coal to nuclear power is radically decarbonizing, since nuclear power plants release greenhouse gases only from the ancillary use of fossil fuels during their construction, mining, fuel processing, maintenance, and decommissioning — about as much as solar power does, which is about 4 to 5 percent as much as a natural gas-fired power plant.
Nuclear power releases less radiation into the environment than any other major energy source.
Second, nuclear power plants operate at much higher capacity factors than renewable energy sources or fossil fuels. Capacity factor is a measure of what percentage of the time a power plant actually produces energy. It’s a problem for all intermittent energy sources. The sun doesn’t always shine, nor the wind always blow, nor water always fall through the turbines of a dam.
In the United States in 2016, nuclear power plants, which generated almost 20 percent of U.S. electricity, had an average capacity factor of 92.3 percent, meaning they operated at full power on 336 out of 365 days per year. (The other 29 days they were taken off the grid for maintenance.) In contrast, U.S. hydroelectric systems delivered power 38.2 percent of the time (138 days per year), wind turbines 34.5 percent of the time (127 days per year) and solar electricity arrays only 25.1 percent of the time (92 days per year). Even plants powered with coal or natural gas only generate electricity about half the time for reasons such as fuel costs and seasonal and nocturnal variations in demand. Nuclear is a clear winner on reliability.
Third, nuclear power releases less radiation into the environment than any other major energy source. This statement will seem paradoxical to many readers, since it’s not commonly known that non-nuclear energy sources release any radiation into the environment. They do. The worst offender is coal, a mineral of the earth’s crust that contains a substantial volume of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium. Burning coal gasifies its organic materials, concentrating its mineral components into the remaining waste, called fly ash. So much coal is burned in the world and so much fly ash produced that coal is actually the major source of radioactive releases into the environment.
Anti-nuclear activists protest the construction of a nuclear power station in Seabrook, New Hampshire in 1977. AP PHOTO
In the early 1950s, when the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission believed high-grade uranium ores to be in short supply domestically, it considered extracting uranium for nuclear weapons from the abundant U.S. supply of fly ash from coal burning. In 2007, China began exploring such extraction, drawing on a pile of some 5.3 million metric tons of brown-coal fly ash at Xiaolongtang in Yunnan. The Chinese ash averages about 0.4 pounds of triuranium octoxide (U3O8), a uranium compound, per metric ton. Hungary and South Africa are also exploring uranium extraction from coal fly ash.
ALSO ON YALE E360
Industry Meltdown: Is the era of nuclear power coming to an end? Read more.
What are nuclear’s downsides? In the public’s perception, there are two, both related to radiation: the risk of accidents, and the question of disposal of nuclear waste.
There have been three large-scale accidents involving nuclear power reactors since the onset of commercial nuclear power in the mid-1950s: Three-Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in Ukraine, and Fukushima in Japan.
Studies indicate even the worst possible accident at a nuclear plant is less destructive than other major industrial accidents.
The partial meltdown of the Three-Mile Island reactor in March 1979, while a disaster for the owners of the Pennsylvania plant, released only a minimal quantity of radiation to the surrounding population. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
“The approximately 2 million people around TMI-2 during the accident are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only about 1 millirem above the usual background dose. To put this into context, exposure from a chest X-ray is about 6 millirem and the area’s natural radioactive background dose is about 100-125 millirem per year… In spite of serious damage to the reactor, the actual release had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment.”
The explosion and subsequent burnout of a large graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactor at Chernobyl in 1986 was easily the worst nuclear accident in history. Twenty-nine disaster relief workers died of acute radiation exposure in the immediate aftermath of the accident. In the subsequent three decades, UNSCEAR — the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, composed of senior scientists from 27 member states — has observed and reported at regular intervals on the health effects of the Chernobyl accident. It has identified no long-term health consequences to populations exposed to Chernobyl fallout except for thyroid cancers in residents of Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia who were children or adolescents at the time of the accident, who drank milk contaminated with 131iodine, and who were not evacuated. By 2008, UNSCEAR had attributed some 6,500 excess cases of thyroid cancer in the Chernobyl region to the accident, with 15 deaths. The occurrence of these cancers increased dramatically from 1991 to 1995, which researchers attributed mostly to radiation exposure. No increase occurred in adults.
The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, located near Avila Beach, California, will be decommissioned starting in 2024. PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC
“The average effective doses” of radiation from Chernobyl, UNSCEAR also concluded, “due to both external and internal exposures, received by members of the general public during 1986-2005 [were] about 30 mSv for the evacuees, 1 mSv for the residents of the former Soviet Union, and 0.3 mSv for the populations of the rest of Europe.” A sievert is a measure of radiation exposure, a millisievert is one-one-thousandth of a sievert. A full-body CT scan delivers about 10-30 mSv. A U.S. resident receives an average background radiation dose, exclusive of radon, of about 1 mSv per year.
The statistics of Chernobyl irradiations cited here are so low that they must seem intentionally minimized to those who followed the extensive media coverage of the accident and its aftermath. Yet they are the peer-reviewed products of extensive investigation by an international scientific agency of the United Nations. They indicate that even the worst possible accident at a nuclear power plant — the complete meltdown and burnup of its radioactive fuel — was yet far less destructive than other major industrial accidents across the past century. To name only two: Bhopal, in India, where at least 3,800 people died immediately and many thousands more were sickened when 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant; and Henan Province, in China, where at least 26,000 people drowned following the failure of a major hydroelectric dam in a typhoon. “Measured as early deaths per electricity units produced by the Chernobyl facility (9 years of operation, total electricity production of 36 GWe-years, 31 early deaths) yields 0.86 death/GWe-year),” concludes Zbigniew Jaworowski, a physician and former UNSCEAR chairman active during the Chernobyl accident. “This rate is lower than the average fatalities from [accidents involving] a majority of other energy sources. For example, the Chernobyl rate is nine times lower than the death rate from liquefied gas… and 47 times lower than from hydroelectric stations.”
Nuclear waste disposal, although a continuing political problem, is not any longer a technological problem.
ALSO ON YALE E360
In Fukushima, a bitter legacy of radiation, trauma, and fear. Read more.
The accident in Japan at Fukushima Daiichi in March 2011 followed a major earthquake and tsunami. The tsunami flooded out the power supply and cooling systems of three power reactors, causing them to melt down and explode, breaching their confinement. Although 154,000 Japanese citizens were evacuated from a 12-mile exclusion zone around the power station, radiation exposure beyond the station grounds was limited. According to the report submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency in June 2011:
“No harmful health effects were found in 195,345 residents living in the vicinity of the plant who were screened by the end of May 2011. All the 1,080 children tested for thyroid gland exposure showed results within safe limits. By December, government health checks of some 1,700 residents who were evacuated from three municipalities showed that two-thirds received an external radiation dose within the normal international limit of 1 mSv/year, 98 percent were below 5 mSv/year, and 10 people were exposed to more than 10 mSv… [There] was no major public exposure, let alone deaths from radiation.”
Nuclear waste disposal, although a continuing political problem in the U.S., is not any longer a technological problem. Most U.S. spent fuel, more than 90 percent of which could be recycled to extend nuclear power production by hundreds of years, is stored at present safely in impenetrable concrete-and-steel dry casks on the grounds of operating reactors, its radiation slowly declining.
An activist in March 2017 demanding closure of the Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant in France. Authorities announced in April that they will close the facility by 2020. SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
The U.S. Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico currently stores low-level and transuranic military waste and could store commercial nuclear waste in a 2-kilometer thick bed of crystalline salt, the remains of an ancient sea. The salt formation extends from southern New Mexico all the way northeast to southwestern Kansas. It could easily accommodate the entire world’s nuclear waste for the next thousand years.
Finland is even further advanced in carving out a permanent repository in granite bedrock 400 meters under Olkiluoto, an island in the Baltic Sea off the nation’s west coast. It expects to begin permanent waste storage in 2023.
A final complaint against nuclear power is that it costs too much. Whether or not nuclear power costs too much will ultimately be a matter for markets to decide, but there is no question that a full accounting of the external costs of different energy systems would find nuclear cheaper than coal or natural gas.
ALSO ON YALE E360
Rocky Flats: A wildlife refuge confronts its radioactive past. Read more.
Nuclear power is not the only answer to the world-scale threat of global warming. Renewables have their place; so, at least for leveling the flow of electricity when renewables vary, does natural gas. But nuclear deserves better than the anti-nuclear prejudices and fears that have plagued it. It isn’t the 21st century’s version of the Devil’s excrement. It’s a valuable, even an irreplaceable, part of the solution to the greatest energy threat in the history of humankind.
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Richard Rhodes is the author of numerous books, including the recently published Energy: A Human History, and is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Appearing as host and correspondent for documentaries on public television’s Frontline and American Experience series, he has also been a visiting scholar at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford University. MOREABOUT RICHARD RHODES →
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Why Nuclear Power Must Be Part of the Energy Solution
BY RICHARD RHODES • JULY 19, 2018
Many environmentalists have opposed nuclear power, citing its dangers and the difficulty of disposing of its radioactive waste. But a Pulitzer Prize-winning author argues that nuclear is safer than most energy sources and is needed if the world hopes to radically decrease its carbon emissions.
In the late 16th century, when the increasing cost of firewood forced ordinary Londoners to switch reluctantly to coal, Elizabethan preachers railed against a fuel they believed to be, literally, the Devil’s excrement. Coal was black, after all, dirty, found in layers underground — down toward Hell at the center of the earth — and smelled strongly of sulfur when it burned. Switching to coal, in houses that usually lacked chimneys, was difficult enough; the clergy’s outspoken condemnation, while certainly justified environmentally, further complicated and delayed the timely resolution of an urgent problem in energy supply.
For too many environmentalists concerned with global warming, nuclear energy is today’s Devil’s excrement. They condemn it for its production and use of radioactive fuels and for the supposed problem of disposing of its waste. In my judgment, their condemnation of this efficient, low-carbon source of baseload energy is misplaced. Far from being the Devil’s excrement, nuclear power can be, and should be, one major component of our rescue from a hotter, more meteorologically destructive world.
Like all energy sources, nuclear power has advantages and disadvantages. What are nuclear power’s benefits? First and foremost, since it produces energy via nuclear fission rather than chemical burning, it generates baseload electricity with no output of carbon, the villainous element of global warming. Switching from coal to natural gas is a step toward decarbonizing, since burning natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide of burning coal. But switching from coal to nuclear power is radically decarbonizing, since nuclear power plants release greenhouse gases only from the ancillary use of fossil fuels during their construction, mining, fuel processing, maintenance, and decommissioning — about as much as solar power does, which is about 4 to 5 percent as much as a natural gas-fired power plant.
Nuclear power releases less radiation into the environment than any other major energy source.
Second, nuclear power plants operate at much higher capacity factors than renewable energy sources or fossil fuels. Capacity factor is a measure of what percentage of the time a power plant actually produces energy. It’s a problem for all intermittent energy sources. The sun doesn’t always shine, nor the wind always blow, nor water always fall through the turbines of a dam.
In the United States in 2016, nuclear power plants, which generated almost 20 percent of U.S. electricity, had an average capacity factor of 92.3 percent, meaning they operated at full power on 336 out of 365 days per year. (The other 29 days they were taken off the grid for maintenance.) In contrast, U.S. hydroelectric systems delivered power 38.2 percent of the time (138 days per year), wind turbines 34.5 percent of the time (127 days per year) and solar electricity arrays only 25.1 percent of the time (92 days per year). Even plants powered with coal or natural gas only generate electricity about half the time for reasons such as fuel costs and seasonal and nocturnal variations in demand. Nuclear is a clear winner on reliability.
Third, nuclear power releases less radiation into the environment than any other major energy source. This statement will seem paradoxical to many readers, since it’s not commonly known that non-nuclear energy sources release any radiation into the environment. They do. The worst offender is coal, a mineral of the earth’s crust that contains a substantial volume of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium. Burning coal gasifies its organic materials, concentrating its mineral components into the remaining waste, called fly ash. So much coal is burned in the world and so much fly ash produced that coal is actually the major source of radioactive releases into the environment.
Anti-nuclear activists protest the construction of a nuclear power station in Seabrook, New Hampshire in 1977. AP PHOTO
In the early 1950s, when the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission believed high-grade uranium ores to be in short supply domestically, it considered extracting uranium for nuclear weapons from the abundant U.S. supply of fly ash from coal burning. In 2007, China began exploring such extraction, drawing on a pile of some 5.3 million metric tons of brown-coal fly ash at Xiaolongtang in Yunnan. The Chinese ash averages about 0.4 pounds of triuranium octoxide (U3O8), a uranium compound, per metric ton. Hungary and South Africa are also exploring uranium extraction from coal fly ash.
ALSO ON YALE E360
Industry Meltdown: Is the era of nuclear power coming to an end? Read more.
What are nuclear’s downsides? In the public’s perception, there are two, both related to radiation: the risk of accidents, and the question of disposal of nuclear waste.
There have been three large-scale accidents involving nuclear power reactors since the onset of commercial nuclear power in the mid-1950s: Three-Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in Ukraine, and Fukushima in Japan.
Studies indicate even the worst possible accident at a nuclear plant is less destructive than other major industrial accidents.
The partial meltdown of the Three-Mile Island reactor in March 1979, while a disaster for the owners of the Pennsylvania plant, released only a minimal quantity of radiation to the surrounding population. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
“The approximately 2 million people around TMI-2 during the accident are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only about 1 millirem above the usual background dose. To put this into context, exposure from a chest X-ray is about 6 millirem and the area’s natural radioactive background dose is about 100-125 millirem per year… In spite of serious damage to the reactor, the actual release had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment.”
The explosion and subsequent burnout of a large graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactor at Chernobyl in 1986 was easily the worst nuclear accident in history. Twenty-nine disaster relief workers died of acute radiation exposure in the immediate aftermath of the accident. In the subsequent three decades, UNSCEAR — the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, composed of senior scientists from 27 member states — has observed and reported at regular intervals on the health effects of the Chernobyl accident. It has identified no long-term health consequences to populations exposed to Chernobyl fallout except for thyroid cancers in residents of Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia who were children or adolescents at the time of the accident, who drank milk contaminated with 131iodine, and who were not evacuated. By 2008, UNSCEAR had attributed some 6,500 excess cases of thyroid cancer in the Chernobyl region to the accident, with 15 deaths. The occurrence of these cancers increased dramatically from 1991 to 1995, which researchers attributed mostly to radiation exposure. No increase occurred in adults.
The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, located near Avila Beach, California, will be decommissioned starting in 2024. PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC
“The average effective doses” of radiation from Chernobyl, UNSCEAR also concluded, “due to both external and internal exposures, received by members of the general public during 1986-2005 [were] about 30 mSv for the evacuees, 1 mSv for the residents of the former Soviet Union, and 0.3 mSv for the populations of the rest of Europe.” A sievert is a measure of radiation exposure, a millisievert is one-one-thousandth of a sievert. A full-body CT scan delivers about 10-30 mSv. A U.S. resident receives an average background radiation dose, exclusive of radon, of about 1 mSv per year.
The statistics of Chernobyl irradiations cited here are so low that they must seem intentionally minimized to those who followed the extensive media coverage of the accident and its aftermath. Yet they are the peer-reviewed products of extensive investigation by an international scientific agency of the United Nations. They indicate that even the worst possible accident at a nuclear power plant — the complete meltdown and burnup of its radioactive fuel — was yet far less destructive than other major industrial accidents across the past century. To name only two: Bhopal, in India, where at least 3,800 people died immediately and many thousands more were sickened when 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant; and Henan Province, in China, where at least 26,000 people drowned following the failure of a major hydroelectric dam in a typhoon. “Measured as early deaths per electricity units produced by the Chernobyl facility (9 years of operation, total electricity production of 36 GWe-years, 31 early deaths) yields 0.86 death/GWe-year),” concludes Zbigniew Jaworowski, a physician and former UNSCEAR chairman active during the Chernobyl accident. “This rate is lower than the average fatalities from [accidents involving] a majority of other energy sources. For example, the Chernobyl rate is nine times lower than the death rate from liquefied gas… and 47 times lower than from hydroelectric stations.”
Nuclear waste disposal, although a continuing political problem, is not any longer a technological problem.
ALSO ON YALE E360
In Fukushima, a bitter legacy of radiation, trauma, and fear. Read more.
The accident in Japan at Fukushima Daiichi in March 2011 followed a major earthquake and tsunami. The tsunami flooded out the power supply and cooling systems of three power reactors, causing them to melt down and explode, breaching their confinement. Although 154,000 Japanese citizens were evacuated from a 12-mile exclusion zone around the power station, radiation exposure beyond the station grounds was limited. According to the report submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency in June 2011:
“No harmful health effects were found in 195,345 residents living in the vicinity of the plant who were screened by the end of May 2011. All the 1,080 children tested for thyroid gland exposure showed results within safe limits. By December, government health checks of some 1,700 residents who were evacuated from three municipalities showed that two-thirds received an external radiation dose within the normal international limit of 1 mSv/year, 98 percent were below 5 mSv/year, and 10 people were exposed to more than 10 mSv… [There] was no major public exposure, let alone deaths from radiation.”
Nuclear waste disposal, although a continuing political problem in the U.S., is not any longer a technological problem. Most U.S. spent fuel, more than 90 percent of which could be recycled to extend nuclear power production by hundreds of years, is stored at present safely in impenetrable concrete-and-steel dry casks on the grounds of operating reactors, its radiation slowly declining.
An activist in March 2017 demanding closure of the Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant in France. Authorities announced in April that they will close the facility by 2020. SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
The U.S. Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico currently stores low-level and transuranic military waste and could store commercial nuclear waste in a 2-kilometer thick bed of crystalline salt, the remains of an ancient sea. The salt formation extends from southern New Mexico all the way northeast to southwestern Kansas. It could easily accommodate the entire world’s nuclear waste for the next thousand years.
Finland is even further advanced in carving out a permanent repository in granite bedrock 400 meters under Olkiluoto, an island in the Baltic Sea off the nation’s west coast. It expects to begin permanent waste storage in 2023.
A final complaint against nuclear power is that it costs too much. Whether or not nuclear power costs too much will ultimately be a matter for markets to decide, but there is no question that a full accounting of the external costs of different energy systems would find nuclear cheaper than coal or natural gas.
ALSO ON YALE E360
Rocky Flats: A wildlife refuge confronts its radioactive past. Read more.
Nuclear power is not the only answer to the world-scale threat of global warming. Renewables have their place; so, at least for leveling the flow of electricity when renewables vary, does natural gas. But nuclear deserves better than the anti-nuclear prejudices and fears that have plagued it. It isn’t the 21st century’s version of the Devil’s excrement. It’s a valuable, even an irreplaceable, part of the solution to the greatest energy threat in the history of humankind.
Richard Rhodes is the author of numerous books, including the recently published Energy: A Human History, and is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Appearing as host and correspondent for documentaries on public television’s Frontline and American Experience series, he has also been a visiting scholar at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford University. MOREABOUT RICHARD RHODES →
TOPICS
Energy
GREENHOUSE GASES
NUCLEAR
PUBLIC HEALTH
ACTIVISM
POLITICS
REGIONS
North America
Asia
Europe
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What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy? | Let's Talk Science
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy? | Let's Talk Science:
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy?
Digital Development Team
January 23, 2019
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Video, Text, Images
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9.1
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Environmental Science, Pollution, Climate change, Physics, Nuclear Energy, Technology & Engineering
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy?
Digital Development Team
January 23, 2019
Format
Video, Text, Images
Readability
9.1
Subjects
Environmental Science, Pollution, Climate change, Physics, Nuclear Energy, Technology & Engineering
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy? | Let's Talk Science
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy? | Let's Talk Science:
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy?
Digital Development Team
January 23, 2019
Format
Video, Text, Images
Readability
9.1
Subjects
Environmental Science, Pollution, Climate change, Physics, Nuclear Energy, Technology & Engineering
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy?
Digital Development Team
January 23, 2019
Format
Video, Text, Images
Readability
9.1
Subjects
Environmental Science, Pollution, Climate change, Physics, Nuclear Energy, Technology & Engineering
Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy - Conserve Energy Future
Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy - Conserve Energy Future
Nuclear Energy Pros and Cons
As of today, nuclear energy is considered as one of the most environmentally friendly source of energy as it produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions during the production of electricity as compared to traditional sources like coal power plants. Nuclear fission is the process that is used in nuclear reactors to produce high amount of energy using element called uranium. It is the energy that is stored in the nucleus of an atom.
While being environmentally friendly is the big plus of nuclear energy, disposal of radioactive waste and protecting people and environment from its radiations is a big cons of nuclear energy. Therefore, expensive solutions are needed to protect mother earth from the devastating effects of nuclear energy.
When we think about this resource, many of us think about nuclear bombs or the meltdowns that have happened at a number of nuclear plants around the world. That being said, nuclear energy is definitely a type of renewable energy that we need to look at. In this article, we’re going to explore the pros and cons of nuclear energy.
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Pros of Nuclear Energy
1. Low Pollution: Nuclear power also has a lot fewer greenhouse emissions. It has been determined that the amount of greenhouse gases have decreased by almost half because of the prevalence in the utilization of nuclear power. Nuclear energy has the least effect on nature since it doesn’t discharge any gasses like methane and carbon dioxide, which are the primary “greenhouse gasses.” There is no unfavorable impact on water, land or any territories because of the utilization of nuclear power, except in times where transportation is utilized.
2. Low Operating Costs: Nuclear power produces very inexpensive electricity. The cost of the uranium, which is utilized as a fuel in this process, is low. Also, even though the expense of setting up nuclear power plants is moderately high, the expense of running them is quite low low. The normal life of nuclear reactor is anywhere from 40-60 years, depending on how often it is used and how it is being used. These variables, when consolidated, make the expense of delivering power low. Even if the cost of uranium goes up, the impact on the cost of power will be that much lower.
3. Reliability: It is estimated that with the current rate of consumption of uranium, we have enough uranium for another 70-80 years. A nuclear power plant when in the mode of producing energy can run uninterrupted for even a year. As solar and wind energy are dependent upon weather conditions, nuclear power plant has no such constraints and can run without disruption in any climatic condition.
There are sure monetary focal points in setting up nuclear power plants and utilizing nuclear energy in lieu of traditional energy. It is one of the significant sources of power all through the country. The best part is that this energy has a persistent supply. It is broadly accessible, there is a lot in storage, and it is believed that the supply is going to last much, much longer than that of fossil fuels that are used in the same capacity.
4. More Proficient Than Fossil Fuels: The other primary point of interest of utilizing nuclear energy is that it is more compelling and more proficient than other energy sources. A number of nuclear energy innovations have made it a much more feasible choice than others. They have high energy density as compared to fossil fuels. The amount of fuel required by nuclear power plant is comparatively less than what is required by other power plants as energy released by nuclear fission is approximately ten million times greater than the amount of energy released by fossil fuel atom.
This is one the reason that numerous nations are putting a lot of time and money into nuclear power.What’s nuclear power’s greatest benefit, above any other benefit that we may explore? It doesn’t rely on fossil fuels and isn’t influenced by fluctuating oil and gas costs. Coal and natural gas power plants discharge carbon dioxide into the air, which causes a number of environmental issues. With nuclear power plants, carbon emissions are insignificant.
5. Renewable?: Nuclear energy is not renewable resource. Uranium, the nuclear fuel that is used to produced nuclear energy is limited and cannot be produced again and again on demand. On the other hand, by using breeder and fusion reactors, we can produce other fissionable element. One such element is called plutonium that is produced by the by-products of chain-reaction. Also, if we know how to control atomic fusion, the same reactions that fuel the sun, we can have almost unlimited energy.
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Cons of Nuclear Energy
1. Environmental Impact: One of the biggest issues is environmental impact in relation to uranium. The process of mining and refining uranium hasn’t been a clean process. Actually transporting nuclear fuel to and from plants represents a pollution hazard. Also, once the fuel is used, you can’t simply take it to the landfill – it’s radioactive and dangerous.
2. Radioactive Waste Disposal: As a rule, a nuclear power plant creates 20 metric tons of nuclear fuel per year, and with that comes a lot of nuclear waste. When you consider each nuclear plant on Earth, you will find that that number jumps to approximately 2,000 metric tons a year. The greater part of this waste transmits radiation and high temperature, implying that it will inevitably consume any compartment that holds it. It can also cause damage to living things in and around the plants.
Nuclear power plants create a lot of low-level radioactive waste as transmitted parts and supplies. Over time, used nuclear fuel decays to safe radioactive levels, however this takes a countless number of years. Even low level radioactive waste takes hundreds of years to achieve adequate levels of safety.
3. Nuclear Accidents: The radioactive waste produced can pose serious health effects on the lives of people as well as the environment. The Chernobyl accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine was the worst nuclear accident in the history. Its harmful effects on humans and ecology can still be seen today. Then there was another accident that happened in Fukushima in Japan. Although the casualties were not that high, but it caused serious environmental concerns.
4. High Cost: At present, the nuclear business let waste cool for a considerable length of time before blending it with glass and putting away it in enormous cooled, solid structures. This waste must be kept up, observed and watched to keep the materials from falling into the wrong hands and causing problems. These administrations and included materials cost cash – on top of the high expenses needed to put together a plant, which may make it less desirable to invest in. It requires permission from several international authorities and it is normally opposed by the people who live in that region.
5. Uranium is Finite: Just like other sources of fuel, uranium is also finite and exists in few of the countries. It is pretty expensive to mine, refine and transport uranium. It produces considerable amount of waste during all these activities and can result in environmental contamination and serous health effects, if not handled properly.
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6. Hot Target for Militants: Nuclear energy has immense power. Today, nuclear energy is used to make weapons. If these weapons go into the wrong hands, that could be the end of this world. Nuclear power plants are prime target for terrorism activities. Little lax in security can be brutal for humankind.
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Mark Brooks , Global Panorama
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Rinkesh
A true environmentalist by heart ❤️. Founded Conserve Energy Future with the sole motto of providing helpful information related to our rapidly depleting environment. Unless you strongly believe in Elon Musk‘s idea of making Mars as another habitable planet, do remember that there really is no 'Planet B' in this whole universe.
Nuclear Energy Pros and Cons - Energy Informative
Nuclear Energy Pros and Cons - Energy Informative
Nuclear Energy Pros and Cons
Below you will find a nuclear energy pros and cons list, which covers the most important aspects of typical nuclear power plants.
There are 104 commercial nuclear power plants in the United States producing a whopping 806.2 TWh of electricity, in other words about 20 % of the entire electricity generation (2008). There is no doubt that the potential of nuclear energy is huge, but there are also downsides.
Before we get further into the pros and cons list, what exactly is nuclear energy? The basic gist is this: By separating an atom into two lighter atoms, there is a net loss of mass. This mass is not exactly lost, but rather transformed into massive amounts of energy. This is what is referred to as nuclear fission. By controlling these reactions we can harness the energy.
I’ve made a separate article going deeper into how we harness nuclear energy called Nuclear. If this is not entirely clear yet; you might want to consider reading this before you start with the pros and cons list below.
Advantages of Nuclear Energy
1 Relatively Low Costs
The initial construction costs of nuclear power plants are large. On top of this, when the power plants first have been built, we are left with the costs to enrich and process the nuclear fuel (e.g. uranium), control and get rid of nuclear waste, as well as the maintenance of the plant. The reason this is under advantages is that nuclear energy is cost-competitive. Generating electricity in nuclear reactors is cheaper than electricity generating from oil, gas and coal, not to speak of the renewable energy sources!
2 Base Load Energy
Nuclear power plants provide a stable base load of energy. This can work synergistic with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. The electricity production from the plants can be lowered when good wind and solar resources are available and cranked up when the demand is high.
3 Low Pollution
It is in most cases more beneficial, in terms of the climate crisis, to replace other energy harnessing methods we use today with nuclear power. The environmental effects of nuclear power are relatively light compared to those. However, nuclear waste is potential harmful for both humans and the environment.
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4 Thorium
Reports show that with the yearly fuel consumption of today’s nuclear power plants, we have enough uranium for 80 years. It is possible to fuel nuclear power plants with other fuel types than uranium. Thorium, which also is a greener alternative, has lately been given an increased amount of attention. China, Russia and India have already plans to start using thorium to fuel their reactors in the near future.
It looks like nuclear fuel is of good availability if we combine the reserves of the different types together. In other words, hopefully enough time for us to find cost-competitive greener ways of harnessing energy.
5 Sustainable?
Is nuclear energy renewable or non-renewable? This is a good question. By definition, nuclear energy is not a renewable energy source. As I mentioned above, there is a limited amount of fuel for nuclear power available. On the other hand, you could argue that nuclear energy is potentially sustainable by the use of breeder reactors and fusion reactors. Nuclear fusion is the holy grail of harnessing energy. If we can learn to control atomic fusion, the same reactions as those that fuel the sun, we have practically unlimited energy. At the moment, these two methods both have serious challenges that need to be dealt with if we are to start using them on larger scale.
6 High Energy Density
It is estimated the amount of energy released in a nuclear fission reaction is ten million times greater than the amount released in burning a fossil fuel atom (e.g. oil and gas). Therefore, the amount of fuel required in a nuclear power plant is much smaller compared to those of other types of power plants.
Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy
While the advantages of using nuclear energy seem to be many, there are also plenty of negative effects of nuclear energy. The following are the most important ones:
1 Accidents Happen
The radioactive waste can possess a threat to the environment and is dangerous for humans. We all remember the Chernobyl accident, where the harmful effects of nuclear radiation on humans can even be witnessed today. Estimates conclude that somewhere between 15 000 and 30 000 people lost their lifes in the Chernobyl aftermath and more than 2.5 million Ukrainians are still struggling with health problems related to nuclear waste.
Just last year, on March 18, a major nuclear crisis happenend again in Japan. While the casualties were not as high as with the Chernobyl accident, the environmental effects were disasterous.
History shows that we can never really protect us 100% against these disasters. Accidents do happen.
2 Radioactive Waste
Does nuclear power cause air pollution? The nuclear power plants emit negligible amounts, if any, carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, the processes in the nuclear fuel chain such as mining, enrichment and waste management does.
There are many arguments both for and against nuclear power. All in all I would say that the future of nuclear power looks promising. With new generations of reactors, potential major breakthroughs such as nuclear fusion, the methods we use to harness nuclear energy will get better in the next coming years. The question is: Do we need nuclear power or are the renewables a better choice?
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If you want to read more on nuclear energy, go to the nuclear category in the top menu. To get a broader picture on the non-renewables and their importance in today’s society read Non-Renewable Energy Sources – Advantages and Disadvantages. Feel free to leave comments below.
Looking for lists of pros and cons for more types of energy sources?
Solar Energy Pros and Cons
Wind Energy Pros and Cons
Geothermal Energy Pros and Cons
Biomass Energy Pros and Cons
Tidal Energy Pros and Cons
Wave Energy Pros and Cons
Fossil Fuels Pros and Cons
Hydroelectric Energy Pros and Cons
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy? | Let's Talk Science
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy? | Let's Talk Science
What are the Pros and Cons of Nuclear Energy?
Digital Development Team
January 23, 2019
Format
Video, Text, Images
Readability
9.1
Subjects
Environmental Science, Pollution, Climate change, Physics, Nuclear Energy, Technology & Engineering
2020/05/12
Resurrection (novel) - Wikipedia
Resurrection (novel) - Wikipedia
Resurrection (novel)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to searchThis article is about the Tolstoy novel. For other uses, see Resurrection (disambiguation).
First US edition | |
Author | Leo Tolstoy |
---|---|
Original title | Воскресеніе |
Country | Russia |
Language | Russian |
Genre | Philosophical novel, political fiction |
Publisher | First published serially in Niva then Dodd, Mead (US) |
Publication date | 1899 |
Published in English | 1900 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) and English-language Audio Book |
Pages | 483 (Oxford World's Classics edition) |
Resurrection (pre-reform Russian: Воскресеніе; post-reform Russian: Воскресение, tr. Voskreséniye), first published in 1899, was the last novel written by Leo Tolstoy. The book is the last of his major long fiction works published in his lifetime. Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of the injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of the institutionalized church. The novel also explores the economic philosophy of Georgism, of which Tolstoy had become a very strong advocate towards the end of his life, and explains the theory in detail. It was first published serially in the popular weekly magazine Niva in an effort to raise funds for the resettlement of the Doukhobors.
Plot outline[edit]
The story is about a nobleman named Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, who seeks redemption for a sin committed years earlier. When he was a younger man, at his Aunts' estate, he fell in love with their ward, Katyusha (Katerina Mikhailovna Maslova), who is goddaughter to one Aunt and treated badly by the other. However, after going to the city and becoming corrupted by drink and gambling, he returns two years later to his Aunts' estate and rapes Katyusha, leaving her pregnant. She is then thrown out by his Aunt, and proceeds to face a series of unfortunate and unpleasant events, before she ends up working as a prostitute, going by her surname, Maslova.
Ten years later, Nekhlyudov sits on a jury which sentences the girl, Maslova, to prison in Siberia for murder (poisoning a client who beat her, a crime of which she is innocent). The book narrates his attempts to help her practically, but focuses on his personal mental and moral struggle. He goes to visit her in prison, meets other prisoners, hears their stories, and slowly comes to realize that below his gilded aristocratic world, yet invisible to it, is a much larger world of cruelty, injustice and suffering. Story after story he hears and even sees people chained without cause, beaten without cause, immured in dungeons for life without cause, and a twelve-year-old boy sleeping in a lake of human dung from an overflowing latrine because there is no other place on the prison floor, but clinging in a vain search for love to the leg of the man next to him, until the book achieves the bizarre intensity of a horrific fever dream. He decides to give up his property and pass ownership on to his peasants, leaving them to argue over the different ways in which they can organise the estate, and he follows Katyusha into exile, planning on marrying her. On their long journey into Siberia, she falls in love with another man, and Nekhludov gives his blessing and still chooses to live as part of the penal community, seeking redemption.
Popular and critical reception[edit]
The book was eagerly awaited. "How all of us rejoiced," one critic wrote on learning that Tolstoy had decided to make his first fiction in 25 years, not a short novella but a full-length novel. "May God grant that there will be more and more!" It outsold Anna Karenina and War and Peace. Despite its early success, today Resurrection is not as famous as the works that preceded it.[1]
Some writers have said that Resurrection has characters that are one-dimensional and that as a whole the book lacks Tolstoy's earlier attention to detail. By this point, Tolstoy was writing in a style that favored meaning over aesthetic quality.[1]
The book faced much censorship upon publication. The complete and accurate text was not published until 1936. Many publishers printed their own editions because they assumed that Tolstoy had given up all copyrights as he had done with previous books. Instead, Tolstoy retained the copyright and donated all royalties to the Doukhobors, who were Russian pacifists hoping to emigrate to Canada.[1]
It is said of legendary Japanese filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi that he was of the opinion that "All melodrama is based on Tolstoy's Resurrection".[2]
Adaptations[edit]
Operatic adaptations of the novel include the Risurrezione by Italian composer Franco Alfano, Vzkriesenie by Slovak composer Ján Cikker, and Resurrection by American composer Tod Machover.
Additionally, various film adaptations, including a Russian film Katyusha Maslova of director Pyotr Chardynin (1915, the first film role of Natalya Lisenko); a 1944 Italian film Resurrection; a 1949 Chinese film version entitled "蕩婦心" (A Forgotten Woman) starring Bai Guang; a Russian film version directed by Mikhail Shveitser in 1960, with Yevgeny Matveyev, Tamara Semina and Pavel Massalsky, have been made. The best-known film version, however, is Samuel Goldwyn's English-language We Live Again, filmed in 1934 with Fredric March and Anna Sten, and directed by Rouben Mamoulian. The Italian directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani released their TV film Resurrezione in 2001. The Spanish director Alberto Gonzalez Vergel also released his TV film "Resureccion" in 1966. Kenji Mizoguchi,s film "Straights of love and hate" (1937) was also inspired by "Resurrection".
A 1968 BBC mini-series Resurrection, rebroadcast in the US on Masterpiece Theatre.[3] The Indian movie Barkha Bahar (1973) was based on this novel.
Notes[edit]
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Ernest J. Simmons, Introduction to Tolstoy's Writings http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/smmnsej/tolstoy/chap12.htm
- ^ Shindo, Kaneto (1975). Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director.
- ^ Resurrection on IMDb.
External links[edit]
Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
- Resurrection at Project Gutenberg translated by Louise Maude
2020/05/10
알라딘: [전자책] 나와 가족을 살리는 기전수
알라딘: [전자책] 나와 가족을 살리는 기전수
[eBook] 나와 가족을 살리는 기전수
이용설 문광호 (지은이)유페이퍼2012-09-26
기본정보
제공 파일 : ePub(948 KB)
TTS 여부 : 지원
책소개
[책소개]
명상(瞑想)으로도 많이 알려진 참선(參禪)과 뇌 호흡을 통한 신체의 리듬과 상태가 어떻게 변하는가를 관찰하기 위해 한국과학기술원 물리학과 뇌 연구실에서 기 수련자 14명의 뇌파를 측정한 결과,
[eBook] 나와 가족을 살리는 기전수
이용설 문광호 (지은이)유페이퍼2012-09-26
기본정보
제공 파일 : ePub(948 KB)
TTS 여부 : 지원
책소개
[책소개]
명상(瞑想)으로도 많이 알려진 참선(參禪)과 뇌 호흡을 통한 신체의 리듬과 상태가 어떻게 변하는가를 관찰하기 위해 한국과학기술원 물리학과 뇌 연구실에서 기 수련자 14명의 뇌파를 측정한 결과,
무드 증대 및 통증 완화와 관련이 있는 호르몬인 베타엔돌핀이
수련 전에는 평균 11.21pg/ml이었다가 수련 중에는 25.08로 약 2.3배 늘어나고,
스트레스에 민감한 부신피질 자극 호르몬(ACTH)은 평균 46pg/ml에서 44로 줄어든다는 놀라운 사실이 관찰되었습니다.
이는, 1997년 1월 15일 미국 하버드대학교 의과대학 심신의학연구소에서 열린 학술세미나에 발표된 바 있습니다.
2020/05/09
『반일 종족주의와의 투쟁』을 출간했습니다.
25:0
여운택 이야기
이발사, 무학, 일본인 고객이 소개
끌려간 것이 아니라 연고를 동원하여 일본제철소에 취직
그러나 강제로 끌려갔다, 한푼도 받지못했다, 혹사당했다, 하고 이야기 하고 있다.
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