Nuclear Energy

I will be presenting my arguments then address the points brought up by my opponent. My argument is going to break down into three separate categories. Effectiveness, Safety, and Cost. == My Arguments == 1)Effectiveness of Nuclear Energy Nuclear reactors generate electricity though good ol' fashion steam driven generators (the two most common reactors are the PWR [1] and the BWR [2]). The only thing that the nuclear material is used for is heating up the water and turning it into steam. This may sound like old technology, but with modern technology, it is quite capable of generating immense amounts of usable energy with very little input. Since the water that is turned to steam can be cooled and condensed, the water can be reused, and so never needs to be replaced. This means that the only thing that needs to be replaced is the nuclear fuel and parts through general wear and tear (usually the generator, since it has the most moving parts). The nuclear fuel can last about 2 years before needing to be replaced in modern power plants [3]. However, new designs, such as the TWR [4] are designed so that they can go decades between refueling and can even use fuel that was once viewed as waste (only using a small amount of U235, and a vast majority of U238). Your average nuclear reactor produces around 1,000 MW of power, and many power plants will have several reactors on site. The average American home uses 940 kWh per month [5]. This means that a single nuclear reactor (at 1,000 MW) can provide power for about 766,000 homes (exact number is 765,957.5). 2)Safety of nuclear energy and its waste Everyone knows that nuclear material can be dangerous to your health if you are directly exposed to it. This is why nuclear power plants go to crazy lengths to protect people for as much risk as they can. In PWRs, along with many computerized safety systems, the nuclear material is removed from the environment by two layers of the functioning reactor. While in the BWR, the water that the reactor is in is only removed by one layer. Emerging styles, like the PBMR [6] that use silicon carbide for friction protection, are essentially meltdown proof, as should the reactor lose power, the natural flow of the gases in the reactor would prevent a meltdown. When it comes to the waste, reprocessing can eliminate around 80% of it, though it isn't a flat 80% that is being removed. It is basically digging through the waste and gathering the remaining U238 and the Pu239 that forms and is not fissiled away. Originally, we only reprocessed to gather the Pu239 in order to make bombs, but that Pu239 can be used as fuel. What aren't reused in the waste are all the Cs, Rb, I, and other fissile products. While those are still dangerous and need to be handled with care, the biggest bad boy in the waste is actually the Pu239 (partially because it will turn to the super evil Radon gas). The rest is bad, but not nearly close to Pu. This means that by reprocessing it, it actually makes less waste, and more importantly makes it safer for the whole family (not recommended for children under 10, the elderly, pregnant women, or human skin in general). We also have a wonderful option in new technologies that are developing such as nuclear decay reactors (NDR) [8], which allow us to take radioactive waste, place it in a modified reactor and simply turn the heat that comes off of it into electricity. The other option is to take the waste away and bury it. Now, if the waste is reprocessed, all the Pu239, U238, and any U235 still in it, are removed. So all we have left is the fissile product. The most common of which is Cs133, I135, Zr93 and Mo99, but there are many different elements, all of which have a different half life. For U235 thermal nuclear reaction, 72.24% of the fissile product has a half-life of less than 100 years while only 27.76% is over 1,000 years (surprisingly none of it is between 100 and 1,000 years) [9]. So most of this stuff will naturally decay away into safe and stable elements (many in weeks), while only a little actually remains for thousands of years. 3)Cost of building and Maintaining Nuclear Power. Currently (as of 2010), the cost of nuclear fuel for a single reload was $40 million [10]. Now, that may sound like a lot of money. But given that it only needs to be reloaded once every 18 months makes it very cheap indeed (about 0.65 cents per kWh). And with TWR which can use all of the U238, and not just a portion of enriched Uranium, their cost would be lower. In 2010, the average cost of operation and maintenance for a US reactor came in at about 1.49 cents per kWh. And that is with all of the government regulations (some of which are needed, but some of which are not). There are some other costs (like the Nuclear Waste Fund and such), but they come in at around 0.1 cents per kWh. This makes the fuel for nuclear power much cheaper than conventional gas or coal. The downside, is that nuclear power plants are more expensive to construct. Currently around $4,500 per kW, compared to Coal's $3,400 per kW or Natural Gas's $1,000 per kW [11]. == My Opponent's arguments == My opponent addresses two main points, disposal and environmental. 1) Disposal Disposal can be looked at in two aspects, safety of disposal and the breakdown period. The safety of the disposal is really already top notch. We can see the kind of testing and abuse they had to stand up to decades ago in the linked youtube video [12]. If we look into the breakdown period, the numbers may seem staggering, but really, it is far from the case. Let us first realize the small amount of waste that a nuclear power plant produces. Only 20 tons per plant per year [13], and that is before reprocessing. Back in my section 2, I showed that 80% can be reprocessed. This leaves only 4 tons of waste per plant per year. If the US used 100% nuclear energy, that would be a little shy of 500 plants, which would be only 2,000 tons per year. That may sound like a lot but lets put it into perspective, the Roosevelt Regional Landfill processes 8,300 ton of garbage every single day [14], and that is for a single landfill in the US. It has a 120 million ton capacity, meaning if it was dedicated to nuclear waste storage, it could hold 60,000 years worth of waste, and that is not considering the fact that the waste breaks down over time. 2) Environmental Acid rain is caused by a number of things, but nuclear energy is not one of them. The burning of fossil fuels, however, is a major contributor, since SO2 or NOx are the main causes [15]. But none of these are released by nuclear power plants. With this being said, I will turn the floor over to my opponent. Thank you [1] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] . http://www-formal.stanford.edu... [4] . http://www2.technologyreview.com... [5] . http://www.eia.gov... [6] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [7] . http://www.world-nuclear.org... [8] . http://www.freedomforfission.org.uk... [9] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [10] . http://www.nei.org... [11] . http://www.nei.org... [12] see video [13] . http://www.nei.org... [14] . http://clui.org... [15] . http://www.epa.gov...