What are the cons for Nuclear Power Stations?

Answer 1

The principle con, or problem with nuclear power plants in the US, is that there is no permanent solution to the spent fuel that is the result of operations. Spent fuel assemblies are about 12 feet long and about a foot square, made up of metal tubes which are about 1/2" in diameter. The actual fuel is in pellet form inside the tubes, about 1" long. It is extremely radioactive when it comes out of the core and must be stored under water to keep it cool for about 10 years. It decays rather quickly - relatively speaking - and can be removed from the water for air cooling after 10 years. It decays down to background radiation levels in about 600 years and it's a good idea to keep it locked up for at least a few hundred.

The federal government agreed in the 1970's to build a permanent storage facility and to have it operational by about the year 2000. That was supposed to be Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada, has opposed Yucca since he got into office and has done everything he can to block it's opening. As a result, all the nuclear sites in the US (something like 70 sites for 103 power plants) store their fuel inspent fuel pools or in above ground storage until a permanent solution is accepted.

The French have an extensive nuclear power program (80% of their electricity from nuclear power) and have been reprocessing their spent fuel for about 30 years. We were originally going to reprocess ours, but the program was cancelled by Jimmy Carter in the 70's in favor of long term storage.

The principle problem with nuclear power is political, not technical. What few understand is that Coal plants generate over 100 times the radioactive waste but this is not documented and published because it does not fit the image. Partly because of these concerns about radioactivity and the cost of containing it, the American public and electric utilities have preferred coal combustion as a power source. Today 52% of the capacity for generating electricity in the United States is fueled by coal, compared with 14.8% for nuclear energy. Although there are economic justifications for this preference, it is surprising for two reasons. First, coal combustion produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are suspected to cause climatic warming, and it is a source of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, which are harmful to human health and may be largely responsible for acid rain. Second, although not as well known, releases from coal combustion contain naturally occurring radioactive materials--mainly, uranium and thorium. that is a paragraph from this web site : http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html So the issue with Nuclear is what to with its radioactive waste the issue with coal is how to hide that it has radioactive waste

Answer 2

Nuclear fission is a process which occurs because of the way the universe works. As such it does not have pros or cons, it's just the way things are. Nuclear fission used for various purposes may very well have pros and cons; asking a more specific question may yield valid (or not so valid; remember, any monkey can edit these things) insights.

Answer 3

1. growing number of spent fuel rod 2.