19 Responses

1. Did someone say that it was?? that was dumb of them- its common sense to know that nuclear energy puts off nuclear waste. Wow…

2. Yes…ASSUMING accidents don’t happen.

3. no its not safe .. according to wikipedia “The safe storage and disposal of nuclear waste is a significant challenge. The most important waste stream from nuclear power plants is spent fuel. A large nuclear reactor produces 3 cubic metres (25-30 tonnes) of spent fuel each year.[25] It is primarily composed of unconverted uranium as well as significant quantities of transuranic actinides (plutonium and curium, mostly). In addition, about 3% of it is made of fission products. The actinides (uranium, plutonium, and curium) are responsible for the bulk of the long term radioactivity, whereas the fission products are responsible for the bulk of the short term radioactivity.”

4. nuclear energy might radiate minute radioactive substance in the environment. and waste is dumped in land may also pollute minute the soil.

5. Not even close.

   Nuclear waste is the most toxic substance ever. and with a half life of 500,000 years, where are you going to put it all?

6. Firstly, whilst nuclear energy used for electricity does not directly emit carbon dioxide, the process of extracting and enriching uranium does, and this process is getting even more carbon dioxide as the ore grades become less concentrated.

   If you would like to know more, I suggest looking at the research by the Oxford Research Group listed on the resources page of the website greenfreedom

7. nuclear energy is clean but its waste is harmful.it is a renewable source of energy

8. Nuclear energy is clean as far as emissions. In other words it does not emit dangerous gasses, like coal, and natural gas, which are some of the gasses causing global warming, otherwise known as carbon dioxide. So in the near term it is necessary to harness nuclear energy along with all possible renewable energies. Although nuclear is no solution, it produces dangerous spent fuel. New technologies will be able to reduce this dangerous spent fuel and other radioactive waste by 40%. In the long run I hope we will be able to get all our energy needs from sources like, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, wind, and other renewables. As for decomposing, technically it will decompose, all nuclear waste has a half life. Half life is just the time it will take for the radioactive waste to reduce by 50%, but this will take thousands of years, so yes there are obvious negatives to this source.

9. It’s low on carbon emissions, and it’s relatively cheap – that being said, this generation of Nuclear Power still can’t help but produce hazardous waste that needs to be disposed of safely and sequestered away for generations. And since Yucca Mountain won’t be open for nuclear waste sequestration before 2015, this issue still has to be dealt with locally for each reactor.
   The future looks a little brighter, according to some articles I’ve read. It should be possible to get more energy from a given volume of nuclear material, and leave remains that have a much shorter half-life.
   Unfortunately, I can’t put my hands on a linkable article for you – at least not one that is free: If you get to it, there’s an article in Jan 2002 Scientific American: “Next Generation Nuclear Power” – unfortunately, it doesn’t make this generation any cleaner.

10. If we could find a way to send the nuclear waste to a nother planet, nuclear energy would be safe and efficient, but the current disposal of waste is absolutely dangerous.

11. The first thing to understand is that Nuclear Energy has to be defined better. Most people think of Nuclear Energy as only the fission reactions, in which Uranium or Plutonium are broken apart and the breaking apart of these atomic nuclei releases a large amount of energy (in the form of EM radiation). There is another form of Nuclear Energy known as fusion in which two or more atomic nuclei join together and when they combine there is a little bit left over which is released as EM radiation.

    EM radiation (short for electromagnetic) is the primary source of energy for all life on earth. Both types of nuclear reactions occur naturally and at the same rate whether man harnesses them or not; the only difference is that when we harness fission we first concentrate the material, use it, then need to dispose of it. Naturally the fissile reactions are not concentrated. Either way this energy is released to the environment, as are the same waste products.

    When man carries out a fission reaction, there is the need to control how much energy is released and how quickly it is released, followed by the need to convert it from pure energy to a transportable form. This means control rods, left over granite, and some spent “fuel” are going to be left; this is the solid waste and per power plant this is less waste than a conventional plant and scalably just as dangerous to the environment as the remnants from the coal plants. What we perceive as toxic waste is however just heavy water that has been irradiated over a short time span while it under pressure and heat; the leftover particles and energy in this waste does take some time to settle out and needs a storage vessel that will absorb the “harmful” bits.

    The other type of reaction is the fusion reaction, this is a clean reaction. The starting material is radioactively inert and so is the finished material, the radiation is released as the nuclei form together and become a different substance. The radiation that was emitted was essentially extra nuclear glue. The nearest fully functional and sustained reaction of this type is Sol, and there are projects trying to maintain a truly sustainable reaction in lab.

    Both of these reactions produce exponentially more energy than conventional methods do, for a fraction of the environmental cost. It is due to accidents such as Chernobyll, 3 Mile Island, and Bhopal (which was not a nuclear issue at all but a chemical releasing) and the devastation seen at the end of the second World War that Nuclear Energy has received such a bad reputation.

    And as a point of interest, MRI’s and many medical technologies fall under that category of Nuclear Medicine as they are the direct results of Nuclear Energy.

12. True, but it much more efficient that the fossil fuel method. Nuclear is not THE answer, but it is a viable part of the answer. Water, wind, and other natural sources need to be used as well.

    The one thing about “waste” is even though it does have to be disposed of its useful life is long enough that it makes it a reasonably decent trade off.

13. It doesn’t cause carbon dioxide or other smog. Breeder reactors can produce more fuel, the fuel can be reprocessed. The waste does decompose over a long period of time – half decays after its “Half-life”. Even after an accident, the area around Chernobyl is a good wildlife preserve because it is uninhabitable.

14. ABSOLUTELY!

    It is the cleanest source of energy out there and most enviro friendly.

    Unfortunately the other posters here have bought hook, line and sinker the propaganda from the militant enviromental whacko’s that scream Nuclear energy is “dangerous”.

    In fact, your own question shows that you have bought in to the lies and propaganda from the green whacko’s and the lies perpetuated by the media (i.e. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, time, Newsweek, etc)

15. If proper precautions are being taken then only Nuclear Energy should be considered to be clean & environmentally friendly.

16. I will not repeat many of the excellent points above, but will reiterate that mining uranium and concentrating uranium is very energy intensive and environmentally unfriendly. And we can’t forget about the waste, which also requires lots of energy inputs to transport and store and a lot faith that it won’t pollute some groundwater etc.

    Energy inputs into reactor construction and maintenance are high.

    Has anyone ever seen the huge diesel generators at a power plant? They are used in case of power failure etc. to keep the plant from melting down. Well, they run them a lot. These things are the size of locomotives.

    And nuclear power is not renewable. It uses a resource that is limited in quaint and does not reproduce itself. So by definition, it is not a renewable resource.

17. Nuclear waste is harmful but France has a way to recycle that waste. A lot of the country is run on Nuclear energy so I think they really do recycle nuclear waste.

18. Anything nuclear scares me.

19. Actually, there is a way to “recycle” it that has been around since nuclear reactors were invented. France and Britian currently recycle their nuclear waste; however, the United States stopped in the late 1970’s because a policy developed by Jimmy Carter. Further, when the Unitied States did reprocess it did not do anything with the liquid waste that the process generated. This waste, although no where nears as dangerous as the original spent nuclear fuel, is still pretty hazardous; however, there are also methods that are currently used that will treat the liquid waste to where it will have little impact to the environment. Also, several nations are currently working on making this waste even less toxic.