Nuclear energy disadvantages compared to alternative power sources

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 and mines have been catastrophic. (Dulabab, 2011)

Most important disadvantage of nuclear energy is that it can get into the hands of terrorist or it may suffer accident. There are two most famous accidents that raises question about security of nuclear plants. These are;

Chernobyl Disaster

The Chernobyl disaster was nuclear accident that happened on 26 April 1986 in Ukraine which was under the control of Russia. Accident released large quantity of radioactive contamination. The accident cost Russia to a high deal and costs 18 billion rubles to contain the contamination and avert a great catastrophe, which in turn cripples the Russian economy. The accident raised concerns about security of nuclear plants in Russia.

Risk vs. Reward

Nuclear technology poses great threat to world now days. Fukoshima and Chernobyl disasters are indications that nuclear technology is prone to danger and can devastate the world. Nuclear technology can also go into the hands of terrorist. This nuclear technology has made the world more unsafe but there are certainly certain advantages attached to this technology like it fulfills the growing energy needs as nuclear technology has capacity to produce large amount of energy.

After comparing risks and rewards associated with the nuclear technology we can conclude that nuclear technology is necessary for the world as day by day energy demands are raising and other sources have their own limitations but there is certainly need of more safety plans to safely implement this technology.