In Defense of: Nuclear Power

This is gonna be the first in a series of me defending things.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I've actually already gotten into this subject before, briefly, but this'll be my first comprehensive post about it.

So, as you all probably know, Australia has tonnes of uranium lying around that isn't being used. Some of it is being exported but for the most part it's stuck underground because nobody wants to use it.

The truth is that nuclear power is far safer and more efficient than fossil fuels. Almost 80% of France's energy is produced with nuclear power. The sheer amount of energy produced in a single reaction is far more than that from burning that weight of fissile material as coal.

The main fear that people have is that nuclear power is unstable and will cause accidents, often citing Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. These accidents are few and far between, and have only happened because the proper safety measures were breached or not followed (the workers at Chernobyl on that day were in breach of over fifty safety rules). In the Chernobyl case, the reactor tried to shut itself down multiple times but it was overriden by the overzealous workers. Nuclear power plants, especially these days, have a plethora of safety measures in place to ensure that leaks and breaches do not occur. Furthermore, there have been many more accidents occuring from coal or oil plants, due in part to the incredible flammability of fossil fuels and the large amounts in place in such plants.

Another problem that people seem to have with nuclear power is nuclear waste. Due to the vast amount of energy that can be harnessed with nuclear power, nuclear waste is very small. Also, the majority of radioactive waste is low-level radiation which has a very short half-life. This type of radiation is also found naturally occuring in the earth's crust and in clothing and paper. Thus it does not pose a threat to human health. However, intermediate- and high-level radioactive waste is produced in nuclear plants which must be treated and isolated until radioactive decay ensures it is safe to handle, or transformed into a non-toxic form. Amazingly, Australia has already produced a material called Synroc which has proven most effective in neutralising nuclear waste.

Some people also object to uranium being exported or transported (I talked about uranium mining earlier, so you can just read that one instead).

tl;dr nuclear power is fucking awesome and better for the environment