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The Pros & Cons of Using Nuclear Energy

Both pros and cons exist for the use of nuclear energy to produce electricity. Across the globe, as of 2007, 439 nuclear power plants (NPPs) were operating in 30 countries. France generates the most of its electricity through nuclear energy, 80 percent; and the United States, over 20 percent. Most of the NPPs under construction are in Russia and China. According to the Wall Street Journal, China, which currently gets 2 percent of its electricity with 11 nuclear reactors, is planning a "massive buildup" of NPPs and may take the global lead in "developing cutting-edge nuclear technologies." The country is planning to build three times the number of NPPs the rest of the world is preparing to build.

  1. Pro: Clean Energy

    • Foremost among the advantage of using nuclear energy is that it is clean. Little to no greenhouse gases -- gases which trap heat in the atmosphere and increase global warming -- are emitted. Carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas contributing most to climate change, is emitted from the use of fossil fuels: coal, gas and oil. According to the world-nuclear website, China, for example, currently derives 83 percent of its electricity through fossil fuels (most of which is coal, the worst pollutant). Nuclear energy would eliminate a significant amount pollutants in this highly polluted country.

    Pros: Sustainability and Cost

    • Nuclear energy is a sustainable energy, unlike that derived from fossil fuels. The world is not likely to run out of uranium -- used to trigger the nuclear reaction that ultimately produces the electricity -- the way it will run out of fossil fuels. This is especially true if nuclear waste are recycled as it is expected to be in the most advanced NPPs. Another advantage is cost: once a NPP is operational and the high construction cost is recovered, the price to produce electricity is lower than that of fossil fuels.

    Con: Accidents

    • The fear of future accidents -- replicating past disasters, like the ones at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979 and at Ukraine's Chernobyl in 1986 -- is perhaps the greatest negative surrounding NPPs. No one died in the Three Mile Island meltdown of a reactor -- the heavily encased chamber containing the nuclear chain reaction necessary to produce electricity -- but radioactive material escaped, causing severe illnesses. Even worse, 31 workers died and countless others contracted severe diseases at the Chernobyl disaster. However, these accidents, attributed to poorly trained NPP operators, are less likely today with safer NPPs engineered with redundant systems for cooling, containment and shutdown.

    Con: Waste Disposal

    • The disposal of nuclear waste remains a problem. According to Greenpeace, there is "still no solution" to its disposal and the potential for radioactive contamination of the air and water still exists. More research needs to be done. Radioactive waste is usually stored in cooling pools at the NPP site for 30 to 50 years and then buried deeply elsewhere where it may be stored for 1,000 years, the duration of the radioactivity in spent fuel. Depending on the amount of exposure, radiation can cause skin burns, radiation sickness, cancer and death.

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