Advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power/energy.

Question: Advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power/energy.

Asked by anon-201900 to Sophia, Sarah, Meirin, George, Emily, Andy on 8 Mar 2019.
- Sarah O'Sullivan answered on 8 Mar 2019:
  
  So nuclear gives a very high yield of energy for much less volume of the uranium fuel and they’re very consistent, not dependent on the local weather like some renewables. It’s also very established, we’ve been using nuclear about 70 years now. It’s also low carbon, most the CO2 production in nuclear is actually in the concrete and cement usee to make the buildings. Where it struggles is that it takes a lot of money to build a reactor which means a private company can’t/won’t do it alone so the government has to be involved. Nuclear also doesn’t have the best public reputation.
  
  This all relates to fission, the current nuclear power stations use fission. Fusion would have its own advantages and disadvantages
- Emily Lewis answered on 8 Mar 2019:
  
  As sarah says-
  Advantages:
  Doesn’t produce carbon emissions while it’s running! So doesn’t contribute to climate change.
  Produces constant controllable power so we don’t have to worry about storing energy somewhere
  Profitable
  
  Disadvantages:
  Expensive and takes a long time to build, need to get the government involved
  Produces waste that must be handled safely
  Public opinion tends to be against it
- Andy Buckley answered on 8 Mar 2019:
  
  Advantages of current nuclear power: more-or-less carbon neutral; high energy yield for input material; continuous power source (unlike renewables)
  
  Disadvantages: (mostly) dependent on uranium mining; many layers of safety systems to allay public concern and satisfy standards driven by those concerns = expensive to build & operate; handling of radioactive waste is also sensitive and complex.
  
  I would be interested to know the statistic on the radiation danger posed by nuclear fission waste vs. that from coal-fired waste. There’s so much of the latter that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it’s actually more radioactive, just far less concentrated! For sure, there are far, far more deaths from fossil fuel pollutants than from nuclear power station waste.
  
  For nuclear fusion, the safety and radioactive waste issues are far, far smaller, and so those power stations could be the ideal mix of low-carbon, high yield, continuous, and low-waste. In that situation, maybe renewables would make less sense… but right now they make a lot of sense, particularly in a mix with nuclear to give continuity when the wind isn’t blowing, sun isn’t shining, and tides are turning.
- George Fulton answered on 8 Mar 2019:
  
  Great question EmBen.
  
  The key advantages of nuclear power are: high energy yield (nuclear fusion has the potential to be the best), it doesn’t rely on burning carbon containing fuels to get energy so it has much much less carbon emissions, which is a real benefit over the non-renewables. Power output is constant and relatively stable, as the others have said – you don’t have to wait for the sun to shine or the wind to blow!
  
  The main disadvantage of nuclear power is the initial cost. This means that investors would only see a return after around 20-30 years. For most investors, this isn’t that inviting. As the other scientists have said, that is one of the reasons why governments often get involved. However, government regulation is also very important due to the inherent risk of nuclear power. Nuclear power is low risk, but high hazard. Governments need to regulate nuclear licensed sites to check for proper practice to avoid accidents leading to public harm. I personally think one key disadvantage of nuclear fission power is the nuclear waste that needs to be stored. Nuclear fusion has greater potential in this respect because it has much less nuclear waste and crucially the waste is much shorter lived. The half-life for fusion radioactive fuel – tritium – is 12.3 years, the half-life of uranium-238 fuel is 4.5 billion years.
- Sophia Pells answered on 11 Mar 2019:
  
  There have a lot of really good answers so far! One limitation of nuclear fission that hasn’t been mentioned yet is that we don’t have an unlimited supply of uranium fuel. Scientists predict that there is enough uranium on Earth to last us around 70-80 years but after that we will need to come up with another fuel source. Another advantage is that, once the nuclear power plants have been built, they are relatively cheap to run compared to other energy plants so the cost of energy for the general public is often lower for nuclear power than for most other energy sources (in the UK at least).

Question: Advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power/energy.

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