Nuclear power greener/A Critique of Recent Advances in Nuclear Power: A Review

(Review Paper) Cited in

Points Made
Nuclear power is currently economically viable which is why it has grown to meet greater than 20% of the worlds electricity needs.

The level of CO2 emissions generated through the use of nuclear power are significantly lower (two orders of magnitude) than the amount generated through the use of fossil fuels.

China alone has a huge demand for power and by the year 2050 it is estimated that they would require the equivalent of 3360 million tons of oil to meet their demands. This illustrates the need for nuclear power to offset the tremendous CO2 emissions that would be generated.

Currently there is three common ways to contain immediate waste:

1) Vitrification       2) Ion exchange 3) Synroc - An Australian synthetic rock.

As well there are several long term solutions:

1) Storage facilities       2) Geological Disposable 3) Transmutation       4) Reuse of waste 5) Space disposal

There is a very small amount of waste that is generated when compared with the amount of energy that is created.

Currently, the United States Department of Energy's Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative is developing new ways of disposal through separation technologies. This is basically an attempt to more efficiently remove large amounts of spent fuel and heat generating elements.


 * Economically viable is not synonymous with greener technology or being environmentally friendly. What is economically viable has historically been extremely detrimental to the environment. It is often ignored that humans are part of the global environment, as we usually view ourselves simply as manipulators of the environment. While nuclear power may not create as much CO2 waste, it does create a different type of waste- nuclear waste. This could be especially harmful as we have not had long to study the long term effects of this type of waste on humans and the environment. Much like other technologies that were adopted too quickly, such as refrigerators cooled with chlorofluorocarbons, we do not know what will happen with our nuclear waste in 100 years.
 * Alaxative (talk) 03:19, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Methods
This article is a review that was created by Mazen M. Abu-Khader in which he interprets the results of many academic papers and consolidates the information regarding nuclear power into several categories. He examines the factors of nuclear economics, nuclear safety, reactor designs, waste management, and spent fuel processing.

Results
New technological advances in the reduction and management of nuclear waste are promising as there are storage, disposal and conversion strategies in place that turn nuclear waste into a non-toxic product, and there are a variety of relatively non harmful long-term disposal options available for the remainder of nuclear waste. Due to the anticipated necessity of energy in the not so distant future, nuclear power is a practical option in regards to safety and the environment when taking CO2 emissions into consideration.


 * The new way of storing the nuclear waste is very important and it should continue to be stored very well so that it could never be able to harm a human body.Bomor394 (talk) 02:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)