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Asked by jakey to Daniel, Jon, Louise, Sharon, Zoe on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
Question: do you think nuclear power shoule be used?
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Daniel Richardson answered on 14 Jun 2010:
Probably yes. If we could figure out what to do with the waste, it would be one of the cleanest and least damaging power sources available. But right now, it’s very expensive and very dirty. So, ideally, I’d like to see the money going into building nuclear power stations go towards researching better power stations instead. In particular, we should fund nuclear *fusion* research like the ITER project. If that worked, then it uses sea water for fuel and produces almost no pollution.
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Jon Copley answered on 14 Jun 2010:
For me, there are two concerns about using nuclear power to generate electricity. Firstly, there’s reactor safety – there have been accidents that have caused a great deal of harm to people, and the environment, such as Chernobyl. Then there’s the problem of what to do with nuclear waste, which needs to be stored for thousands of years.
Modern reactors are designed to be much safer than the ones that suffered accidents in the past, so that’s becoming less of an issue (but would you want to live next to one?).
The waste disposal problem is still a big one. In America, for example, I don’t think they actually have a plan for what to do with their nuclear waste. They were going to seal it underground in a place called Yucca Mountain, but that idea got scrapped. So right now their power plants are still making nuclear waste, but there’s no plan for what to do with it. That sounds a bit irresponsible to me – until you’ve figured out and agreed what to do with the waste, perhaps it’s not a good idea to keep producing it…
But in favour of nuclear power, its environmental impact (unless there is an accident) is about the same as for “renewable” energy sources like wind turbines. And it reduces our addiction to foreign oil supplies, which is good for global politics and international relations.
Of course, if we figure out how to use nuclear fusion (rather than fission) as a power source, then most of the problems with nuclear power would be solved. But until then, the fact is nuclear power is here to stay – we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Even if one country decides not to invest in new nuclear power plants, others will do so – and Chernobyl shows that any problems with nuclear power can stretch across borders between countries. But until fusion and better renewable energy technology arrives (and we all get more efficient in using less energy), I think we do need some nuclear power, if we are going to cut our CO2 emissions.
So overall, yes – but only as a temporary measure while we develop something better…
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Louise Dash answered on 14 Jun 2010:
A good question, and one I could probably write a whole essay on! It’s not just a scientific question, but also one of economics and politics. From a scientific point of view, nuclear power is quite safe, the problems that have happened in the past, like with Chernobyl, have been as a result of human error – but of course nuclear power stations will always be subject to this!
I would like to say that we don’t need nuclear power. The safety risks are very small, but if there was an accident at a nuclear power plant it could be catastrophic. Plus at the moment we still don’t have a solution to the problem of disposal of nuclear waste – successive generations have left it for something for the next generation to sort out!
But our government (and other countries too), since at least the 1980s, hasn’t put as much as I think it should have done into researching and developing clean, renewable energy sources, so at the moment we can’t use these technologies to solve our power problems in the immediate future. I hope that renewable technologies will be much better in the future and this will change. My research is quite closely related to solar energy so this is a pet topic of mine – I actually share an office with some nuclear physicists so we often have interesting discussions about this!
So currently we’re in a situation where we have a choice between new coal or gas fired power stations (which are very dirty), or nuclear power, which is clean, but has the drawbacks above. It’s a tricky one, but I think I’d have to (very reluctantly) go for nuclear power over coal or gas. Hopefully though it would just be a temporary solution until we can sort out renewable sources.
There’s also the possibility of nuclear fusion power, instead of the fission (atom-splitting) power we have at the moment – the problem with this is that no-one’s got it to work yet!
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Sharon Sneddon answered on 15 Jun 2010:
Hi, well I think that there is a place for nuclear energy, I think that people should be looking for ways to make more renewable, cleaner and environmentally friendly sources. Nuclear energy will eventually run out in the same way fossil fuels will so we need to act now to sort out our energy sources for future generations.
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Zoe Duck answered on 15 Jun 2010:
nuclear power is a very costly source of energy- uranium is expensive to mine and the safety precautions needed are expensive. The waste produced is toxic for many many years and so far there is no good way of disposing of it safely.
Coal and oil are very dirty sources of energy- lots of pollution is created that affects us now and also many greenhouse gases are produced which contributes to global warming and climate change. They are dangerous to mine and the supplies are close to running out. Oil is important in many medicines and perhaps should be saved for more important things.
Renewable energy is clean and does not run out but can be expensive and some people think wind turbines are ugly. These types of energy are also localised to certain places eg sunny or windy places.
All options should be considered when thinking about the energy problems. Ultimately, I think we should be concentrating on renewable energy, but where that is not possible we should definitely consider nuclear power
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