Sienna Jackson / Roundup
The nuclear energy industry in American has had its pitfalls and setbacks, ranging from fierce opposition to nuclear disasters like the ongoing Japan nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
In wake of the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear meltdown, 7,000 people are confirmed as dead and 11,000 are missing.
The radiation leakage from the damaged reactor cores has already seeped into the groundwater, irradiating foods like spinach and milk beyond levels safe for human consumption.
This disaster has triggered an international examination of the use of nuclear power, one that is long overdue.
While the use of atomic energy comes with the risk of humanitarian crisis, and high production costs without the return benefit of clean or energy-efficient production, the nuclear power industry remains tenacious in its self-support.
The nuclear energy lobby has pushed aggressively in the wake of the Japan disaster, with nuclear energy companies clamoring on the airwaves to mitigate any negative feelings the public might have on nuclear power.
Even so, President Obama has authorized a safety review of the 104 existing plants in the United States, an investigation that has uncovered over a dozen ‘near misses’ at plant facilities nearing 60 years of age.
Nuclear energy currently accounts for 8% of the total U.S. energy consumed, and that number is expected to decline in the coming decades.
Earlier in his presidency, Obama also approved the building of several new reactors, as part of his ‘green energy initiative.’
It is arguable that while nuclear reactors generate electricity, the means of production are not only wasteful but dangerous – too much risk with too little gain.
While electricity itself isn’t harmful to the environment, the refined uranium mined to fuel a reactor is. The process of refining this highly volatile radioactive element (which is also mined as a natural resource in this country) is as expensive as it is untenable.
There is only so much nuclear-grade uranium to go around, and it won’t be long until the U.S. will be forced to import it from other countries – much like we do with oil.
Transporting this uranium is costly, even without the issues of nuclear security and public safety to factor in.
It still takes gas or diesel to fuel the trucks that carry uranium across the country, and the vulnerability of these supply lines and indeed the nuclear facilities themselves are cause for concern.
Storing the excess nuclear waste is also an issue. After all, Uranium-238, the isotope used for nuclear applications, has a half-life of 4.46 billion years.
This accumulated waste will literally sit for thousands of years, and since no one has the technology to neutralize this waste, the best solution is to bury it underground and away from major population centers.
However, any proposed sites for such a repository would eventually become overfilled, and vulnerable to attack, natural phenomenon or just plain human error or technological failure.
Unless the nuclear industry can come up with a plant impervious to all these things, as well as provide a financially and environmentally viable way of producing nuclear power, we find ourselves in a puzzler.
Why invest in a technology so risky that disasters like Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi are a clear and present danger? Why invest millions in a technology that is so costly to produce, and yet so unsustainable at the same time? Why risk so much for so little?
The answer to the nuclear question isn’t unclear.
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