Nuclear

Ryan Guy Nuclear Fact Sheet • 16% of the world's electricity = nuclear energy, 85% of which is concentrated in industrialized countries. A total of 441 nuclear power plants were operating as of February 2003. There were also 32 nuclear reactors under construction (Nuclear Energy Institute). • In the United States alone, there are 103 nuclear power plants, which provide about 20% of the nation's electricity. • A new nuclear power plant has not been ordered in the U.S. since 1973. • President George W. Bush's energy policies call for a $15 billion federal subsidy to build six or seven new nuclear power plants. // Proliferation Risks // • Plutonium is a waste product of nuclear fission, which can be used either for fuel in nuclear power plants or for bombs. • In the year 2000, an estimated 310 tons (620,000 pounds) of civilian, weapons-usable plutonium had been produced. • Less than 8 kilograms (about 18 pounds) of plutonium is enough for one Nagasaki-type bomb. Thus, in tho year 2000 alone, enough plutonium was created to make more than 34,000 nuclear weapons. • • The technology for producing nuclear energy that is shared among nations, particularly the process that turns raw uranium into lowly-enriched uranium, can also be used to produce highly-enriched, weapons-grade uranium. //Risk of Accident// • in April 26, 1986 Chernobyl power plant exploded, causing the worst nuclear accident ever. /* ( 300+ dead instantly) / • Thousands of cancer deaths were a direct result of the accident. • The accident cost the former Soviet Union more than three times the economical benefits accrued from the operation of every other Soviet nuclear power plant operated between 1954 and 1990. • In March of 1979 equipment failures and human error contributed to an accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the worst such accident in U.S. history. Consequences of the incident include radiation contamination of surrounding areas, increased cases of thyroid cancer, and plant mutations. // Environmental Degradation // • All the steps in the complex process of creating nuclear energy entail environmental hazards. • The mining/refining of uraniumand the production of plutonium produce radioactive isotopes that contaminate the surrounding area, including the groundwater, air, land, plants, and equipment • Some of these radioactive isotopes are extraordinarily long-lived, remaining toxic for hundreds of thousands of years » wastes produced: in the reactor core, result of radioactive contamination, a byproduct of uranium mining, refining, and enrichment. And spent fuel rods. • A typical reactor will generate 20 to 30 tons of high-level nuclear waste annually. There is no known way to safely dispose of this waste, which remains dangerously radioactive until it naturally decays(100's to 1000's of years). • The rate of decay of a radioactive isotope is called its half-life, the time in which half the initial amount of atoms present takes to decay. The half-life of Plutonium-239, one particularly lethal component of nuclear waste, is 24,000 years. • The hazardous life of a radioactive element (the length of time that must elapse before the material is considered safe) is at least 10 half-lives. Therefore, Plutonium-239 will remain hazardous for at least 240,000 years. // SQ Disposal Plans // // • // There is a current proposal to dump nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The plan is for Yucca Mountain to hold all of the high level nuclear waste ever produced from every nuclear power plant in the US. However, that would completely fill up the site and not account for future waste. Transporting the wastes by truck and rail would be extremely dangerous. The best action would be to cease producing nuclear energy (and waste), to leave the existing waste where it is, and to immobilize it. There are a few different methods of waste immobilization. In the vitrification process, waste is combined with glass-forming materials and melted. Once the materials solidify, the waste is trapped inside and can't easily be released.
 * What: **
 * The Bad Stuff: **