As much as the title seems like an oxymoron it's not. Whoever thought nuclear energy could save our fossil fuels and our environments. Now many of you pessimists and environmentalists out there must be thinking I am crazy but I'm not. While nuclear power is obtained from splitting the radioactive uranium and plutonium atom, it's not as dangerous as people think. In fact, it's actually safer than burning fossil fuels. Seriously, the containments built for protecting the nuclides are pretty intense; they can withstand a jet crashing into them (which is pretty good since our nation has a history of planes crashing into buildings). And fossil fuels put out way more pollutants that harm the environment when nuclear does not emit many. Plus the French have discovered a way to recycle nuclear materials. recycling nuclear material... pretty impressive if you ask me. With the only dangers of nuclear really being transportation and what to do with the waste, I think I see more nuclear power in our future. Some might think that accidents like Chernobyl, Three mile island, and a recent plant shut down in Miami will cause a halt in using nuclear but it won't. Most accidents are caused by human and mechanical error, but morely human. EPA has also cracked down on the training of employees so human errors are occuring less. Also in the past decade only one shut down has occured. And Chernobyl was an example of poor design and facility which is not a problem here. By switching to nuclear we will not only save the environment (especially those polar bears since the fossil fuel pollutants are effecting the ozone and lowering the polar bear population) but we will create a better future for everyone. Now if we could just do something about gas prices...
Going Nuclear to Save the Environment?
By justplainkatie1234 - Posted on May 21st, 2008
In that nuclear power is much cleaner, much more efficient, and much safer than our current sources of fuel. It would also be extremely easy to ship the minimal amounts of waste off of the planet, into the sun or wherever we choose. It doesn't have to be buried, which right now is the only environmental worry. Chernobyl was actually caused by the Russian scientists deliberately screwing with the safety mechanisms to see what the reactor could handle. A modern day facility is extremely safe. Why we aren't using nuclear power isn't really clear, it makes a lot of sense. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Put your best foot forward, just watch what you step in..."
We had another Katie a couple of years ago who used to blog here who was into nukes.
The fact that the AGW types have not seriously gotten behind nuclear power as as an alternative to carbon based fuels makes me believe that they are way more serious about raising taxes and controlling the daily lives of people then they are about saving the environment. The various green tecfhnologies they push as alternatives are just not a serious or viable solution. They are incapable of providing enough power to provide anything but a primative lifestyle. On the otherhand, nuclear power is a serious alternative that with a big push from the government could make more than enough power to sustain industry and our standard of living.
I live in Wyoming near some of the largest coal mines in the world. Everyday, year in and year out, five (5) "Unit Trains" full of coal pass through my town headed either East or South. A Unit Train is 100 cars long (about 1 mile) and each car holds 100 tons (200,000 lbs) of coal. That coal is close to pure carbon and when it is burned and combined with oxygen it amounts to about 1 million lbs of CO2 in that atmosphere per train car. Recall that 500 of those train cars pass through my town every single day.
(I personally don't accept that CO2 which is plant food is a dangerous pollutant but I will agree with anybody that burning coal is filthy business and that there are a number of other nasty emmissions resulting from impurities other than carbon that are truly poisonous and then there is the ash which is also bad stuff.)
On the otherhand, ALL of the nuclear waste that we have created in the 50 years that we have had a nuclear power industry would fit on ONE of those trains. And of that, only a tiny fraction of the waste would be significantly "hot" with highly radioactive material. Most of it would be very low level waste that was only minimally dangerous and with short half-lives that meant it became even less dangerous quite rapidly.. And if the French fuel re-processing technology (that we invented but was outlawed by Jimmy Carter) was used, the amount of hot waste would be negligble because we would keep putting in back into the plant over and over again and generating nice clean electricity with practivally no waste.