So now that Ive written about how much nuclear energy has cost us money-wise, I want to take a look at how its costing us in other ways. The one of the big things about nuclear energy is that it is an alternative to oil, a foreign dependency that has gotten us into a lot of trouble in recent months.
But alternative does not mean that same thing as renewable. Lets go over the first common-sense reason as to why nuclear is not the best option: it takes millions of years to produce the plutonium and uranium that is converted into energy, just like oil. Which means that, at the rate that we consume, that other countries develop, and that the world population grows, we are effectively in short supply. Down the roadit may be 50 years, it may be 200we will have to deal with the scarcity of plutonium or uranium, and be caught back in the same boat we are sinking in now. The resources are just not producing themselves as fast as we are consuming them.
That can be said for lots of things, though, so now its a question of costs versus benefitsare the benefits of nuclear power enough to outweigh the costs? Im already leaning towards no, now that Im aware of how much money the country has spent on this energy source, but the kicker for me is the environment.
Aside from the plutonium shortage in the future, there are other costs to the environment. Who knew that water was so important?
Nuclear power needs water for two things: to convey heat from the reactor core to the steam turbines, and to remove and dump surplus heat from this steam circuit. That means a lot of water, usually freshwater (except for those plants right on a body of salt water)up to 60,000 gallons per mega Watt hour (MWh).
This may sound like a lot, and it is, but the water that does not evaporate while cooling the reactor cores is put back into the body of water. And now we have two problems: the water resource use, and the water discharge. According to the EPA, removing water at large amounts can be dangerous for aquatic life, as well as discharging spent water back into the environment at higher temperatures and with traces of radioactive elements. A 2005 study showed that one nuclear power plant in California was responsible for killing 3.5 million fish in just one year.
In fact, messing with the water systems on such a large scale may exacerbate the effects of global warming, specifically weather patterns. Removing large amounts of water from one area can lead increased and prolonged drought. And thats a problem for nuclear power plantsif there is a drought, there wont be enough water to run the reactors, and electricity cannot be generated. If this seems far from possible, plants in Alabama and Tennessee have been shut down because of drought, and more will shut down if a drought continues.
In short, I think the costs of nuclear power are starting to add up. It is very irresponsible to waste water on energy production when we need it for, oh, I dont know say, animals? Fish? Agriculture? We dont need water to produce energyand if we decided to, there are ways to use it without working against two of replyforalls causes, global warming and clean water.
Stay tuned for my last segment on radioactive waste. Hopefully Ill have convinced you by then to be anti-nuclear, and we can get out there and convince the Obama Administration, too.
Fight the Good Fight,
Johanna Hudgens
Wellesley College 2009
Tags: alternative energy, clean water, global warming, Johanna Hudgens, nuclear power, Renewable Energy
