WHY NUCLEAR IS (PART OF) THE SOLUTION

CLOSE TO 0 CO2 EMISSIONS

Nuclear power plants don’t produce CO2 while running. The only reason why we can’t quite say they don’t produce CO2 at all is that the construction of said power plants as well has their maintenance do actually result in CO2 emissions. In this aspect Nuclear energy is very similar to renewables.

CONTINUOUS SOURCE OF ENERGY

Nuclear power plants work 24 hours a day every day creating a consistent energy output with very few and very insignificant fluctuations. It is incredibly reliable because of this. Renewable sources of energy on the other hand can’t even provide consistent amounts of power throughout a given day and these fluctuations are not only very significant but also very unpredictable.

INCREDIBLY SAFE

Contrary to popular belief, nuclear energy is one of the safest sources of power out there.As we have shown already it has one of the smallest ratios of deaths per unit of energy produced. There have only been three significant disasters in the history of the industry, all of them with few consequences both in a long term perspective and short term perspective. Chernobyl, by far the most significant one of the three, wasn’t as much of a catastrophe as people think, as we have already shown. With today’s technologies, even a new Chernobyl is incredibly unlikely to take place. France, which has operated power plants since the 1950’s and gets 75% of its power from nuclear never had a single event even remotely close to a meltdown in all its history.

OCCUPIES LITTLE SPACE

When compared with renewables and even fossil fuels, nuclear energy takes up a lot less space per unit of energy produced. To fuel one-third of the United States’ 2050 electricity demand with nuclear power would require only 440 sq-km.

CONTAINABLE WASTE

Unlike fossil fuels like coal, whose waste is completely uncontrollable and is sent straight to the atmosphere in the form of toxic gases like CO2, nuclear waste is something that can be contained and stored away for long periods of time. High level waste which can last thousands of years is harder to contain simply because it remains dangerous for a very long time but structures have been proposed and designed to contain even this type of waste. In Finland for example, an underground facility has been built for the sole purpose of storing high level nuclear waste and it can remained untouched for 100 thousand years while shielding the outside world from the dangers of the waste.