Nuclear Energy has been touted as an alternative to mainstream electricity production from fossil fuel sources. But how does Nuclear compare to fossil fuels in the long run?
Undoubtedly fossil fuels have serious issues associated with them. Peak Oil production is one such problem which will very soon make its presence felt at both the national and individual level. Another even more serious concern is the possibility of serious and perhaps irreversible climate change brought about by pollution primarily in the form of Carbon Dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
So how does Nuclear energy stand up as an alternative to fossil fuels in terms of a sustainable source of electricity production? There are several concerns about Nuclear energy that have given it a bad name. Reactor problems such as those that caused the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl incidents, along with several others, are far fewer in number relative to the scale of electricity production than compared to casualties in the mining sector associated with oil and coal.
Storage of Nuclear waste is also largely an issue of the past with technology now available to store Nuclear waste in solid form, reducing virtually to zero the possibility of leakage, ground water contamination and so forth.
Use of fuel enrichment to produce weapons grade nuclear materials such as Plutonium-239 is an unfortunate but essential part of the economical use of nuclear fuel. It is worth remembering that no aggressive nuclear strike has been carried out since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War Two, and that many millions of casualties have occurred in conventional warfare since that same time.
The reality for us though is that nuclear power relies upon supplies of Uranium and Plutonium that are themselves limited. While these resources may have only begun to be exploited, it is certain that if our current level of increase of energy consumption continues then Nuclear fuel will also face the prospect of its own peak production level.
It cannot be a responsible decision to replace fossil fuels with another energy source that is also doomed to run out in the foreseeable future. While those proponents of Nuclear power proclaim it as the salvation of our current situation they are not looking far enough into the future.
To make correct, responsible decisions that take into account not only our own welfare but also that of our children and their children, we need to adopt wide scale renewable energy in the form of Solar and Wind power. These proven technologies have the capacity to meet our energy demands TODAY with no adverse future effects, assuming they are implemented in an intelligent way.
It is time for Governments around the world to stop looking for excuses and start making moves that assure the coming generations a safe, energy rich and pollution free world. We need to begin implementing massive scale renewable energy immediately.
