Nuclear Power Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy and Essay

Nuclear Power

Disadvantages of nuclear energy and its comparison with other sources of energy

Comparison of nuclear energy with other sources of energy

Nuclear energy does have advantages over other sources of energy like fossil fuels (coal, gas etc.) because nuclear energy makes less pollution and nuclear energy supplies more power than any other source of energy. All sources of energy do have some disadvantages. Some of them are discussed here;

Fossil fuel

It makes emit a huge quantity of green house gases and advanced technology is required to utilize them for energy purposes. For example, coal mining damages huge amount of land around it.

Hydropower

There are many disadvantages associated with hydropower. It includes high damage to local eco system; high cost of construction, the large size of dams poses a danger of breaking it down and can wreak the local population. (How to Power the World, 2010)

Wind and solar energy

Wind energy is not constant it can vary from zero level of wind to powerful storm. Secondly wind energy is noisy also and makes lot of noise. Large wind turbines are needed to produce little amount of energy. For example largest turbine available today can provide electricity to 475 homes, when running at full capacity how many turbines are needed to a large town and as they are not constant so they can pose problem of low power electricity when the wind is not flowing with good speed

Nuclear energy

Uranium 238 has an extremely long life of 4-5 billion years.U235 is decayed to u-238. U235 makes up about 0.7% of the remaining uranium found naturally. U235 undergoes fission, when a free neutron collides with a U235, the nucleus will absorb the neutron and become unstable and split immediately. A spinoff from this process is plutonium.

Nowadays nuclear energy is considered important alternative because it is more environmentally friendly source as compare to fossil fuel. However nuclear energy has certain drawbacks:

1- It has high construction costs due to complex radiation containment systems and procedures.

2- High subsidies needed for construction and operation.

3- Long construction time is needed to construct nuclear plant.

4- There is target for terrorism. Therefore, there is high level of security needed for nuclear plants.

5- Uranium sources are as finite as other sources of energy like coal, gas etc.

6- Shipping nuclear wastes internationally poses an increased potential threat as terrorists can utilize these wastes and cause nuclear terrorism (Presidio Buzz, 2009)

7- Nuclear wastes cause environmental contamination and health costs for miners….....