Energia nuclear

So what are advantages of nuclear energy?

Fissile atoms contain vast amounts of energy

Nuclear fission, the splitting of a heavy atom’s nucleus, releases great amounts of energy. For example the energy it releases is 10 million times greater than is released by the burning of an atom of fossil fuel. Besides it would take many hectares of land covered with solar collectors, wind farms orhydro-electric dams to equal this power.

No greenhouse gases are released by nuclear power plants.

Less than one-hundredth of carbon dioxide gas is produced by nuclear power plants compared to coal or gas-fired energy plants. This means nuclear energy also emits less greenhouse gas than renewable energy sources such as hydro, wind, solar and biomass. Of course, others have contrary views tothese claims about the advantages of nuclear energy. Cost.

In the American nuclear power industry the cost of producing electricity has fallen from 3.63 cents per KW-hr in 1978 to 1.68 cents per KW-hr in 2004.

Availability of uranium

Uranium is obtained from open-cut mines and is not expensive to mine. World reserves are estimated to last anywhere between 6 to 150 years, to even hundreds ofcenturies, depending on who is the commentator, and depending on the type of reactor they have in mind.

Present reactors only use some 1% of the energy available in uranium but in future fast breeder reactors could recycle spent fuel rods at a 99% efficiency rate. The potency and quantity of radio active waste material from such reactors is much less than that of current thermal reactors.Other advantages include:

- Nuclear fuel is inexpensive

- Waste is highly compact, unlike carbon dioxide

- The compact fuel is easy to transport

The benefits of nuclear energy

There are many benefits of nuclear energy:

1. It's environmentally clean - no emissions of greenhouse gases CO2 or other nasty gases. CO2 - carbon dioxide - is produced when we burn any fossilfuel; it is one of the main gases contributing to the greenhouse effect and leading to atmospheric warming. Polar caps and glaciers melt and the sea level raise drowning seacoasts and port cities. Coal and oil (petrol) have sulfur impurities and when they are burned sulfur dioxide goes up the stack - it's responsible for acid rain. When any fossil fuel (coal, oil or natural gas) is burned, nitrogenoxides are also produced - they cause smog and city pollution. Nuclear fuel is pure (no sulfur), it is not in contact with the air (no nitrogen), and it produces no smoke or exhaust (System consisting of the parts of an engine through which burned gases or steam are discharged): everything is confined in the fuel element.

2. Nuclear energy is cheap. Even when oil and gas prices are low, nuclearelectric energy is competitive with fossil fuel. In 1973, 1987 and 2000 we had oil crises with the price doubling and more in a few days or a few weeks. Gasoline and fuel oil (and eventually electricity) had to follow the price rise. This goes with:

3. Nuclear energy prices are stable. A country (or an electric company) can buy years of supply of uranium when the price is low; it doesn't takeup much space and can be easily stored until needed. Most countries (or utilities) don't have space to store more than 3 or 6 months supply of fossil fuels.

4. Uranium is plentiful - there's enough to last most of a century if we use just the U-235 (0.7%). When we develop Fast Neutron Reactors, we will convert the U-238 (99.3%) to plutonium which is also a nuclear fuel; that means the uraniumwill last 50 times longer or more. Natural gas and oil reserves are estimated in decades; there's lots of coal, but it's nasty (see 1 above).

5. Nuclear energy is safe. All human activities are risky, especially those involving large amounts of energy: transportation, construction, mining and oil well exploitation, etc. In the half century of the Nuclear Age, about one or two deaths per...