By: Chia Kylie 21 April 10
The news in recent days has had its fair share of issues on nuclear power potential; from exploitation of nuclear power for weapons of mass destruction to research for clean energy in power plants.
Obama held the Nuclear Security Summit 2010 last week in order to expound on the dangers of nuclear threats. ‘Today, we are declaring that nuclear terrorism is one of the most challenging threats to international security,’ said President Obama on April 13.
Following that, the Iran Disarmament Conference extended publicity on a worldwide policing of nuclear-armed countries.
Just five days before, after the Summit, PM Lee even played with the idea of Singapore turning to nuclear power to reduce reliance on foreigners in empowering our economy.
So what’s the big deal about nuclear power?
Here’s the low-down: it replaces coal and natural gases in power plants from a ratio of 20 metric tons of nuclear fuel to 2 billion metric tons of fossil fuels! That’s a lot of CO2 to almost no CO2 and little radiation released into the atmosphere. Plus all that steam used to rotate turbines which generate electricity are re-used. The rest of the steam that are released are non-pollutant.
A very clean fuel indeed.
It works using multiple Uranium atomic particles being split into halves by a Uranium neutron approaching at high speeds. And upon impact, this Nuclear Fission releases approximately 200 MeV (million electron volts).
That is not much. The splitting of an atom releases an incredible amount of heat and gamma radiation, or radiation made of high-energy photons. However, packing 0.45 kg of Uranium together would provide the desirable result you see in the bombs when they were dropped over Nagasaki and Hiroshima (or, in a less crude fashion, it is equal to the energy of a million gallons of gasoline).
On the other hand though, building a nuclear power plant and to keep it air-tight from within would mean lots of cash, more than it takes to have a coal-fuel power plant. Also, the effects of a Chernobyl accident could mean lose of countless lives through exposure to high-level radioactive waste and cancer. Thousands died while 30,000 became homeless when it occurred in 1986.
Radioactive waste stored in power plants will have to be decayed till their radiation emissions reach safer levels, but that would mean tens of thousands of years. And until then, they have to be sealed away and not be let fallen into the wrong hands: nuclear fuels can be re-used in warheads.
The gravity of the downside to nuclear energy is hefty, and consequences are long-term.
And so, when it comes to clean energy and saving the earth, now that you are that bit more knowledgeable on nuclear power, would you peruse it? Is it really worth it to have our very own nuclear plant right smack in our island because everyone else has it? Where do you stand on this when it boils down to us to decide? It might not be long now.
