Nuclear energy is the bogeyman of energy production. Everybody fears it, and country after country is taking steps to get rid of it completely, because it's allegedly so incredibly dangerous and detrimental to the environment. For example Germany has taken as their mission to get completely rid of nuclear energy by 2022, and have already decommissioned dozens of nuclear plants. Currently only about 6% of the energy produced by Germany comes from its remaining nuclear plants.
How great! They are on the forefront of saving the planet! How exemplary!
Or are they?
On the other end of the spectrum we have a very similar country, France. They have 58 active reactors, and more than 80% of their energy consumption comes from nuclear energy.
According to World Bank statistics, Germany produces 8.9 metric tonnes of CO2 per capita, while France produces 4.6 metric tonnes of CO2 per capita.
One extraordinary thing about nuclear power is that it produces almost no CO2 emissions at all, yet is the most efficient way of producing vast quantities of energy. Moreover, this energy production is constant and steady, and does not depend on things like weather or time of year.
"But nuclear waste!!!" scream the Greenpeace zealots.
The thing is, there is no other form of waste in the entire world that's handled and stored as carefully as nuclear waste. When was the last time you heard of nuclear waste contaminating the environment and causing vast amounts of environmental damage and killing people and wildlife and destroying natural habitats? You haven't, because it doesn't happen. Sure, nuclear waste is a problem, but it's a problem that we take care of very meticulously and carefully. (There are also ways in which nuclear waste can actually be partially recycled. There are methods, which are being perfected, to enrich nuclear waste to be reused as nuclear fuel again. But even when it's completely unusable, it's still managed carefully so as to not pollute the environment.)
In contrast, what exactly is done to manage the waste produced by renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines? Absolutely nothing! And the thing is, eg. solar panels often contain more than just metal, glass and plastic. They often contain toxic substances. These are not handles in any way by the vast majority of the world. They are just tossed to landfills. And solar panels break all the time. (The highest-quality solar panels have an expected lifetime of about 15 years. The cheapest ones can go as low as 5 years.)
"But Chernobyl! And Fukushima!"
The thing is that nuclear plant accidents are extraordinarily rare, because like nuclear waste, nuclear plants themselves are some of the most carefully constructed things we do, with so many safety features that you can't even imagine.
The nuclear plant at Chernobyl was constructed during Soviet Russia, which didn't care much about safety, in 1972, and the plant was grossly mismanaged, which ended up causing the disaster. Modern nuclear plants are not constructed like that, nor are mismanaged like that.
Fukushima was caused by a tsunami. It caused only relatively minimal damage to people or the environment. The tsunami itself killed several orders of magnitude more people than the Fukushima reactor. And humanity is capable of learning from such accidents, to take measures against it happening again, and lessening the amount of damage if it does happen.
The fact is that nuclear disasters are extraordinarily rare, taking into account how many nuclear plants there are in the world, and how long they have been in operation in total. You are much more likely to die in a passenger plane accident than being affected by a nuclear disaster.
"But mining of nuclear fuel is very polluting!"
Yes, that's the most valid argument. It is quite polluting, and produces quite a lot of CO2 and other pollutants... if we examine it all by itself, without comparing it to the alternative.
The thing is, nuclear fuel mining is actually the least polluting in relation to the amount of energy that's being produced by nuclear plants, compared to all the other forms of energy production.
Solar panels and wind turbines don't appear by magic. They have to be built and manufactured too, and their materials must be mined as well. And the amount of panels and turbines that need to be constructed is staggeringly large. And both solar panels and wind turbines, and all the other forms of renewable energy gathering methods, have relatively short lifespans, and break all the time, requiring building more of them all the time.
When we look at the amount of CO2 produced by the manufacturing all those devices, and how much CO2 they produce during their use, in relation to the amount of total energy that they produce, they actually cause more CO2 emissions in total for the same amount of energy production than nuclear power ever does.
So yes, nuclear power is not completely free of CO2 emissions because of the mining of nuclear fuel. But the problem is that none of the alternatives is any better, as they produce even more CO2 for the same amount of energy production than nuclear power does.
So, ironically, getting rid of nuclear power is going to increase the total amount of CO2 emissions, not decrease it. All this anti-nuclear hysteria is actually hurting the environment, not helping it.
How great! They are on the forefront of saving the planet! How exemplary!
Or are they?
On the other end of the spectrum we have a very similar country, France. They have 58 active reactors, and more than 80% of their energy consumption comes from nuclear energy.
According to World Bank statistics, Germany produces 8.9 metric tonnes of CO2 per capita, while France produces 4.6 metric tonnes of CO2 per capita.
One extraordinary thing about nuclear power is that it produces almost no CO2 emissions at all, yet is the most efficient way of producing vast quantities of energy. Moreover, this energy production is constant and steady, and does not depend on things like weather or time of year.
"But nuclear waste!!!" scream the Greenpeace zealots.
The thing is, there is no other form of waste in the entire world that's handled and stored as carefully as nuclear waste. When was the last time you heard of nuclear waste contaminating the environment and causing vast amounts of environmental damage and killing people and wildlife and destroying natural habitats? You haven't, because it doesn't happen. Sure, nuclear waste is a problem, but it's a problem that we take care of very meticulously and carefully. (There are also ways in which nuclear waste can actually be partially recycled. There are methods, which are being perfected, to enrich nuclear waste to be reused as nuclear fuel again. But even when it's completely unusable, it's still managed carefully so as to not pollute the environment.)
In contrast, what exactly is done to manage the waste produced by renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines? Absolutely nothing! And the thing is, eg. solar panels often contain more than just metal, glass and plastic. They often contain toxic substances. These are not handles in any way by the vast majority of the world. They are just tossed to landfills. And solar panels break all the time. (The highest-quality solar panels have an expected lifetime of about 15 years. The cheapest ones can go as low as 5 years.)
"But Chernobyl! And Fukushima!"
The thing is that nuclear plant accidents are extraordinarily rare, because like nuclear waste, nuclear plants themselves are some of the most carefully constructed things we do, with so many safety features that you can't even imagine.
The nuclear plant at Chernobyl was constructed during Soviet Russia, which didn't care much about safety, in 1972, and the plant was grossly mismanaged, which ended up causing the disaster. Modern nuclear plants are not constructed like that, nor are mismanaged like that.
Fukushima was caused by a tsunami. It caused only relatively minimal damage to people or the environment. The tsunami itself killed several orders of magnitude more people than the Fukushima reactor. And humanity is capable of learning from such accidents, to take measures against it happening again, and lessening the amount of damage if it does happen.
The fact is that nuclear disasters are extraordinarily rare, taking into account how many nuclear plants there are in the world, and how long they have been in operation in total. You are much more likely to die in a passenger plane accident than being affected by a nuclear disaster.
"But mining of nuclear fuel is very polluting!"
Yes, that's the most valid argument. It is quite polluting, and produces quite a lot of CO2 and other pollutants... if we examine it all by itself, without comparing it to the alternative.
The thing is, nuclear fuel mining is actually the least polluting in relation to the amount of energy that's being produced by nuclear plants, compared to all the other forms of energy production.
Solar panels and wind turbines don't appear by magic. They have to be built and manufactured too, and their materials must be mined as well. And the amount of panels and turbines that need to be constructed is staggeringly large. And both solar panels and wind turbines, and all the other forms of renewable energy gathering methods, have relatively short lifespans, and break all the time, requiring building more of them all the time.
When we look at the amount of CO2 produced by the manufacturing all those devices, and how much CO2 they produce during their use, in relation to the amount of total energy that they produce, they actually cause more CO2 emissions in total for the same amount of energy production than nuclear power ever does.
So yes, nuclear power is not completely free of CO2 emissions because of the mining of nuclear fuel. But the problem is that none of the alternatives is any better, as they produce even more CO2 for the same amount of energy production than nuclear power does.
So, ironically, getting rid of nuclear power is going to increase the total amount of CO2 emissions, not decrease it. All this anti-nuclear hysteria is actually hurting the environment, not helping it.
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