As we move towards another presidential election year, we come along an important issue today as we did over the past 50 years. Should the United States implement more nuclear energy to replace the ever higher costs to produce electricity via oil and coal? Throughout history we have unlocked and discovered the true value of nuclear energy and how it could possibly save us from one facet of our oil and coal dependency. Coal, according to William Tucker, a well-respected journalist, has been used around the world for about 400 years. Our most common fossil fuel, coal is the compressed remains of vegetable matter that covered the earth 300-400 million years ago. Coal is superabundant and we will probably never run out of it. It was the fuel of the Industrial Revolution, and it is still the world’s largest source of energy. It is also the most environmentally destructive substance ever utilized. The EPA estimates that it kills 30,000 Americans each year through lung disease.
How It Works
Although the word “nuclear” causes and strikes fear into many people around the globe, atomic energy do not function much different from a coal-burning power plant. Both heat water and that turns it into pressurized steam, which creates force against a turbine generator. The important difference is how each plant warms the water enough to generate the steam. Older plants burn fossil fuels, while nuclear plants depend on nuclear fission, or when one atom splits into two and that reaction releases energy. This reaction actually occurs every day. Uranium is actually constantly undergoing spontaneous fission at a slow rate. This explains why this particular element emits radiation.
Uranium occurs naturally on Earth and has been around since the existence of Earth. There are several varieties of uranium, like all other elements. But for the production of nuclear power and bombs, only uranium-235 is used. It is used because it is one of the few elemtns that can undergo induced fission. The decay of a single U-235 atom releases approximately 200 MeV (million electron volts). That may not seem like much, but there are lots of uranium atoms in a pound (0.45 kilograms) of uranium. So many, in fact, that a pound of highly enriched uranium as used to power a nuclear submarine is equal to about a million gallons of gasoline. [1How Stuff Works] But for all of this to work, scientists have to first enrich a sample of uranium so that it contains 2 to 3 percent more U-235. Three-percent enrichment is sufficient for nuclear power plants, but weapons-grade uranium is composed of at least 90 percent U-235.
Nuclear Disasters
Japan's nuclear disaster is just another story in the long line of the misuse of nuclear energy. Some of the current nuclear reactors have been getting approved for continued running, even after there are certain vital components that we're skimmed over, needed restructuring, or to be completely replaced. In the article it states that, "Revelations from 2007 that the utilities had regularly doctored safety records were a repeat of a 2002 scandal that brought public apologies from Tokyo Electric, the resignation of its chairman and president, and a government shutdown of all 17 of the company’s reactors. The utility said in that year it had falsified reports on power plant repairs for two decades." [2 Clenfield] Now if you realize that some businesses are truly that cheap to cut corners and assume as long as it's intact and running decently, then we don't have to do anything about it and everything will be fine. Then we see disasters like the one after the tsunami/earthquake which just hit Japan because a more disastrous situation then there should be. A hydrogen-fueled explosion blasted the cement housing of reactor number 1 of the Fukushima plant, 135 miles (220 kilometers) north of Tokyo, at 3:36 p.m. on March 12, a day after the 8.9-magnitude quake also triggered a tsunami. Seven- meter waves slammed Japan’s northeast, devastating the towns of Minamisanriku and Matsushima and knocking out power at the plant, disabling the vital cooling systems. Even the most structurally sound buildings cannot for the most part be able to withstand some of the punishment nature can dish out. Our best architects building todays buildings are beginning to combat this, but people should realize that the tsunami did have a major role in the destruction of the power plant, and the lack of keeping up to code with their safety regulations was the deciding factor in whether or not the plant would be able to withstand such a destructive force.
Since for the reactors, if a company builds it properly up to code and it is maintained to that same standard, then even if the core melts down, there will be no collateral damage to any part of the world. Obviously most people will make the point about the fact of the Chernobyl disaster. But if you actually look into the reports of how the disaster happened, the USSR never built a concrete container around the reactor. Revelations from 2007 that the utilities had regularly doctored safety records were a repeat of a 2002 scandal that brought public apologies from Tokyo Electric, the resignation of its chairman and president, and a government shutdown of all 17 of the company’s reactors. The utility said in that year it had falsified reports on power plant repairs for two decades.
The disaster at Fukushima isn’t the first quake-related accident for Tokyo Electric. A 6.8 magnitude temblor on July 16, 2007, caused a fire and radiation leaks that shut down the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant, the world’s biggest. It took almost two years to restart.
Potential problems
First, some fear that a nuclear reactor might explode. Natural uranium is made of two isotopes—U-235 and U-238. Both are radioactive—meaning they are constantly breaking down into slightly smaller atoms—but only U-235 is fissile, meaning it will split almost in half with a much larger release of energy. Because U-235 is more highly radioactive, it has almost all broken down already, so that it now makes up only seven-tenths of a percent of the world’s natural uranium. In order to set off a chain reaction, as I’ve noted earlier in this paper, natural uranium must be “enriched” so that U-235 makes up a larger percentage. Reactor grade uranium, which will simmer enough to produce a little heat is three percent U-235. In order to get to bomb grade uranium, or the kind that will explode, uranium must be enriched to 90 percent U-235. Given this fact, there is simply no way that a reactor can explode.
On the other hand, a reactor can “melt down.” This is what happened at Three Mile Island. A valve stuck open and a series of mistakes led the operators to think the core was overflowing when it was actually short of cooling water. They further drained the core and about a third of the core melted from the excess heat. But did this result in a nuclear catastrophe? Hardly. The public was disconcerted because no one was sure what was happening. But in the end the melted fuel stayed within the reactor vessel. Critics had predicted a “China syndrome” where the molten core would melt through the steel vessel, then through the concrete containment structure, then down into the earth where it would hit groundwater, causing a steam explosion that would spray radioactive material across a huge area. In fact, the only radioactive debris was a puff of steam that emitted the same radiation as a single chest x-ray. Three Mile Island was an industrial accident. It bankrupted the utility, but no one was injured. [6 Tucker]
This of course was not the case in Chernobyl, where the Soviet designers didn’t even bother building a concrete containment structure around the reactor vessel. Then in 1986, two teams of operators became involved in a tussle over use of the reactor and ended up overheating the core, which set fire to the carbon moderator that facilitates the chain reaction. (American reactors don’t use carbon moderators.) The result was a four-day fire that spewed radioactive debris around the world. More fallout fell on Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, from Chernobyl than from Three Mile Island. With proper construction such a thing could never happen.
Another objection to nuclear power is the supposed waste it produces. But this is a mischaracterization. A spent fuel rod is 95 percent U-238. This is the same material we can find in a shovel full of dirt from our back yards. Of the remaining five percent, most is useful, but small amounts should probably be placed in a repository such as Yucca Mountain. The useful parts—uranium-235 and plutonium (a manmade element produced from U-238)—can be recycled as fuel. In fact, we are currently recycling plutonium from Russian nuclear missiles. Of the 20 percent of our power that comes from nuclear sources, half is produced from recycled Russian bombs. Many of the remaining isotopes are useful in industry or radiological medicine—now used in 40 percent of all medical procedures. It is only cesium-137 and strontium-90, which have half-lives of 28 and 30 years, respectively, that need to be stored in protective areas.
The government failed to conduct sufficient checks for seismic faults before approving Kashiwazaki as the site, Trade Minister Akira Amari said a week after the quake. The ministry approved the reactor site based on surveys Tokyo Electric conducted in the 1970s, he said. The quake generated seismic acceleration as high as 606 gals at the reactor structure, triple the quake impact the plant was designed to withstand, Tokyo Electric reported at the time. One gal, a measure of shock effect, represents acceleration of 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) per square second. [5 Des Moines Register]
The people will want to forever stop nuclear energy because of the disaster it caused, but as long as people understand that it could have ultimately been prevented, I'm more then sure the world will still continue to use nuclear energy, but nowadays the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a tighter grip on keeping buildings up to code. For japan, there is no other solution since the oil it uses, is completely 100% imported. So then the Oil producing nations will take advantage of it and do the same thing they did to the U.S. The question is, how do we ensure we do not suffer an accident like the one in Japan? It is a serious concern and it is one the nuclear industry is taking more seriously than anyone. What we must do is to not build future plants in earthquake-prone areas and make certain those already in such areas have the best safety systems and are as structurally-robust as possible. For facilities in places like Florida however, the threat of an earthquake is very remote. Other natural disasters or acts of terrorism are almost certainly not going to have an adverse effect on these plants.
Works Cited
1. Clenfield, Jason. "Japan Stricken Reactor Just Completed Inspection for Next Decade of Power - Bloomberg." Bloomberg - Business & Financial News, Breaking News Headlines. Web. 10 Apr. 2011.
2. "HowStuffWorks "How Nuclear Power Works"" HowStuffWorks - Learn How Everything Works! Web. 18 Apr. 2011.
3. "Mike Walker: Keep Crystal River Nuclear Plant Open | Gainesville.com." Gainesville.com Gainesville FL News, Sports, Weather and More | Gainesville.com | The Gainesville Sun. Web. 19 Apr. 2011.
4. "Storage of Used Nuclear Fuel Rods at TVA Plants, Elsewhere Stir Concern | The Tennessean | Tennessean.com." The Tennessean | Nashville News, Community, Entertainment, Yellow Pages and Classifieds. Serving Nashville, Tennessee | Tennessean.com. Web. 22 Apr. 2011.
5. "With Nuclear Power, Fear Is Easy to Inspire | The Des Moines Register | DesMoinesRegister.com." The Des Moines Register | Des Moines News, Community, Entertainment, Yellow Pages and Classifieds. Serving Des Moines, Iowa | DesMoinesRegister.com. Web. 18 Apr. 2011.
6. Tucker, William. "The Case for Terrestrial (a.k.a. Nuclear) Energy." Hillsdale College. 02 Feb. 2008. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.
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