What type of pollution is caused by nuclear power reactors?

Answer 1

Since "pollution" is stuff you don't want in a place where you don't want it then the answer is pretty much "none". Nuclear reactors produce several tons of spent fuel each year which is highly radioactive but it is kept under tight controls as the radioactivity decays and the spent fuel cools thus it isn't "pollution" in this sense because it doesn't get out where you don't want it.

Nuclear plants do discharge slightly warmer water than they intake which could be described as pollution if it were shown to harm the environment. Generally, the local animals appreciate the warmer water.

Answer 2

There are several kinds of pollution associated with nuclear power.

One is radioactive materials spilled or released. Usually these are low level nuclear waste, such as tritiated water. Sometimes high level nuclear waste is released, such as radioactive Iodine, 131I, and radioactive Krypton gas. Sometimes spent fuel is lost or spilled. Accidents with high level waste are very unusual, but over a quarter of nuclear reactors in the United States have tritiated water in the ground water beneath them. Of course, since high level nuclear waste is regarded as unsafe for about 1,000,000 years, figures for what has happened in the last 50 years do not tell us much.

Nuclear power also has a carbon footprint. Early studies on the nuclear carbon footprint did not include construction, decommissioning, and waste disposal, which are included in total carbon footprint calculations. Part of the problem with such a calculation for nuclear power is that no one knows how the high level nuclear waste will be disposed of, so the actual values can only be guessed at. Nevertheless, the consensus among eight studies reported in 2006 and 2007 places the nuclear carbon footprint at about 90 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt hour (gCO2e/kWh). By comparison, wind and hydro power are about 15-20 gCO2e/kWh, modern photovoltaic cells are about 40 gCO2e/kWh, combined cycle natural gas is about 575 gCO2e/kWh, oil is about 900 gCO2e/kWh, and coal is about 1000 gCO2e/kWh

Answer 3

Not directly. It is as close to a safe, non-polluting machine as anything. BUT, when the used-up radiating reactor rods need to be put somewhere, they then have the potential to being damaged in a way that releases radiation as a pollutant.

Answer 4

Althoguh nuclear energy creates no direct pollution, such as greenhouse gases, it does produce 'Nuclear Waste' a material, that gives off nuclear radiation (alpha, beta, and gamma). This waste is only dangerous until it has decayed to a stable material, at which point, it's harmless

Answer 5

the dangerous waste is a way of pollution.

Answer 6

Hot water that cools the power plant, radioactivity from nuclear wastes that might be contaminated for thousands of years.

Answer 7

next to nothing