Why is nuclear energy a danger to the environment and to the human life?

Answer 1

The dangers of nuclear energy revolve primarily around three factors: the production of the nuclear fuel, operation of the nuclear power plant, and disposal of radioactive wastes.

Producing the nuclear fuel in the first place is by far the largest danger, from both a probability standpoint and the potential environmental impact. Mining uranium ore (via large open-pit mines) is quite messy, with serious risks to miners from radon gas and inhalation of (slightly) radioactive dust. It has all the bad environmental impacts of other open-pit mines (such as copper mines). Even more dangerous, is the processing/refining of the uranium ore into fuel rods. This is a very toxic, expensive, and complex process, one that can easily result in considerable environmental contamination if proper disposal of the toxic by-products isn't done. Additionally, use of a fuel-production facility to produce weapons-grade fuel is simple, and a considerable political problem.

Operation of a Western-style nuclear power plant is exceedingly safe, especially the newest designs, which are designed as "fail-off"; that is, such plants automatically (and irreversibly) turn off if anything at all goes wrong. Such plants are designed with a huge number of redundant subsystems and containment vessels. This is not to say that they aren't vulnerable to attack (whether intentional by outsiders, or by unintentional major mistakes by operators), nor that they can withstand all possible threats. However, the track record of the world-wide nuclear industry in terms of number of people actually harmed by any failure of a nuclear power plant is outstanding, and is so far below that of any other industry it is ludicrous. More importantly, the worst-case scenarios for a nuclear power plant are extremely unlikely, and the actual impact of any reasonably likely scenario is easily (though not cheaply) contained. Overall, the environmental and human danger of a nuclear power plant, taking into account the possible failure scenarios and the likelihood of such scenarios, is far less than ANY other current power generation technology, including such "green" technologies as wind, solar, wave, and geothermal.

Disposal of radioactive waste is mainly a political issue, not a technical one. Current technology to properly dispose of the three main types of radioactive waste is both well-tested, and reliable, if not cheap, though less expensive than disposal methods for other dangerous materials, such a toxic chemicals. Low-level waste (primarily, ordinary objects contaminated with radioactivity, not actually radioactive themselves) is simple and safe: burial in a well-lined landfill. High-level waste which is highly radioactive has a very short half-life (days or weeks), so the proper method is sequestering in a sealed, shielded facility for a decade or so, then "normal" disposal. High-level waste which has a long half-life (low radioactivity, high toxicity) requires permanent sequestering with proper precautions against water leakage, but does not otherwise present major technical challenges or dangers. The danger of nuclear waste disposal is entirely a human-created problem: we have viable (and safe) solutions that are not excessively dangerous, but there are significant political barriers to implementing such solutions. Those barriers are based almost exclusively on fear-mongering and a misunderstanding of the nature of the wastes and the risks involved in the various disposal methods.

Including the entire nuclear power cycle, nuclear power is far less dangerous to the environment than any fossil fuel; to be equivalent to the danger posed by burning fossil fuels, the world would have to experience a Chernobyl-style massive accident on a yearly basis. When compared to hydro-electric power, the environmental impact is about the same, while the threat to human life is much less for nuclear power. Geothermal is significantly more safe in all terms. The relative dangers to human life for wind, solar, and wave power production are noticeably less than for nuclear power, but the direct environmental dangers presented by wind/solar/wave are about the same (or slightly less) than nuclear power.