     Originally uploaded by Toxic Waste
     E-Mail: S088127 @ UMRVMA, Ken's BBS, 314-821-2815

     The following is  an excerpt from a University of Missouri --
     Rolla handout on nuclear engineering...

          NUCLEAR ENGINEERING

          Why Nuclear Energy?
     In the next fifty years the world population will double, and its energy consumption rate will triple.  Less than one-fourth of the energy demand can be supplied by renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, wave, tidal, hydroelectric, geothermal and biomass.  The world reserves of oil and gas  will be nearly exhausted.  Most of the world's energy needs must come from either coal or nuclear power.
     Nuclear energy already provides 15% of our nation's electricity, using abundant, inexpensive, uranium fuel. The fuel for a typical 1000 MW power plant requires only 0.38 tons of uranium ore per day, versus 6,800 tons of coal (a railroad train 70 cars long) every  day for a comparable coal plant.  Nuclear power is much safer and cleaner than coal power, and other power sources are inadequate to meet the demand.

          What about accidents?
     We believe that nuclear power has the best safety record of any energy industry.  Each year there are hundreds of people killed in coal mining accidents, tanker collisions, natural gas explosions,  etc.,  but nobody has been killed by nuclear power, except in the USSR, where safety standards are infamously low.  The world's worst accident (Chernobyl) could not happen here because our reactors have much safer designs. The worst US accident (Three-Mile Island) harmed nobody. According to the EPRI Journal, the population near that reactor would normally develop 300,000 cancers  during the next 20 years, and the total population dose from the accident (5300 person-rem)  has  at  most  a  50%  chance  of causing one additional cancer.

          What About Waste Products?
     The technology is developed to provide safe long-term storage of high-level radioactive  wastes, by casting them in glass pellets, storing the pellets in stainless steel canisters, and placing the cannisters in locations where they are not exposed to ground water.  If all our electricity were produced by nuclear  power  plants,  a tennis ball could hold one person's lifetime share of  the high-level wastes.  After 500 years, the high-level wastes will become less radioactive than uranium ore.   Lifetime shares of low-level and intermediate-level wastes would fit inside a shoe-box, respectively (Nuclear News, March, 1986).
     Wastes from  coal plants are more of a problem.   It is estimated that thousands  of  people  are dying annually from emphysema caused by  coal smoke   (P.  Beckmann,  The  Health Hazards of Not  Going  Nuclear, Ace Books, New  York,  1979).  About 60 truckloads per year can haul all the solid wastes from a nuclear plant (including re-usable lead casks, which constitute most of the weight), while 36,000 truckloads would be required to haul away the ash from a comparable coal plant.  The coal ash is also radioactive, because it contains uranium and thorium.   Acid rain caused by coal plant emissions is killing trees and fish, and scrubbers to reduce the emissions are expensive and unreliable.   If fossil fuel consumption continues to increase, carbon dioxide accumulation in the  atmosphere  may  also  cause  disastrous climate changes.  Thus,  the  world  needs nuclear  power  to protect the environment while providing enough energy to give everybody a high standard of living.