Nuclear Waste free essay sample

Environmental impacts of nuclear waste. Nuclear waste or radioactive waste is the residue of nuclear reactors, nuclear researches, nuclear projects and nuclear bomb reaction. Nuclear wastes, also known as spent fuel, are dangerously radioactive and could exist for thousands of years. The release of nuclear waste from its reactor could easily cause a lot of diseases like acute radiation sickness. The injection of nuclear waste to underground water causes water pollution and could contribute to extensive contamination of large marine areas. Some of these nuclear wastes injected to underground water could seep through and mix with underground water supplies used for drinking. Some pollutants or nuclear wastes have already penetrated underground water supplies of Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Oklahoma. Also, there was intentional dumping of nuclear waste done by the Soviets into the Techa River in 1949. It caused the people of Mayak yearly dose of 350 rems, an estimated amount of one hundred twenty-four thousand of people were affected by the radiation from the nuclear waste thrown to the Techa River. We will write a custom essay sample on Nuclear Waste or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The radiation that affected the people of Mayak did also spread out to the arctic waters of Northern Russia. Another example to site is the Western Soshone Land issue: â€Å"Over the last forty years, many Native American communities have been constantly exposed to low-level doses of radiation from a variety of different sources. Since more than half of all United States uranium deposits lie under indigenous lands, uranium mining, milling, conversion, and enrichment have become common activities, especially on Western Shoshone Land. In 1978, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) was passed.This Act reaffirmed the right of Native Americans to free access to religious lands and natural resources, even when these lands and resources extend beyond present tribal boundaries. In 1982, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This Act proposed to safely dispose of nuclear wastes, bearing in mind the environmental and cultural impacts on Native American communities. Of three sites investigated for this use, DOE has given Yucca Mountain the greatest consideration. Part of the conflict rests in whether DOEs actions at Yucca Mountain impinge on the right of Native Americans to gain access to sacred natural resources.According to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACOHP), formed by the National Historic Preservation Act, these resources can be defined as any property that has traditional value to the tribe in question. That property need not have been consistent use since antiquity. It has been confirmed by the Western Shoshone and other tribes that Yucca Mountain has traditional value, despite spatial separation from it use due to invasion by private individuals and the federal government (Stoffle et al, 1990).In addition to the potential threat of power plant wastes, these communities are also being exposed to radiation from the Nevada Test Site (NTS), also located on traditional Shoshone land. The NTS has been used by the U. S. and Britain to test nuclear weapons for many years. The Western Shoshone National Council considers these tests to be more like bombs, because of the destruction that results from these experiments. Since 1951, approximately 1,350 square miles of their 43,000 square mile territory have been destroyed by hundreds of craters and tunnels that are no more than unsupervised nuclear waste dumps.There have been environmental monitoring reports issued throughout the years concerning the status of NTS, dated all the way from the 1950s to 1991. These reports prove the presence of substantial low-level radioactive releases of iodine, strontium, cesium, plutonium, and noble gases in outlying areas, with higher concentrations found in reservation communities in close proximity to NTS. Residents have reported unusual animal deaths, human hair loss, the soil in the area turning a dark black color, along with increases of cancer and birth defects. These are only few actual incidents that substantiate the detrimental effects of nuclear leftover to people. It is true that nuclear energy forms part in the industrialization that brings economic growth. And that is needed in a third world country like ours. However, will this be likewise beneficial to the country’s inhabitants as far as health is concerned? To whom is the development for? What is there to modernize if there’s no more beneficiaries to enjoy. 2. Is nuclear power the answer to our country’s energy needs? Nuclear power is the energy that is produced by controlling nuclear reaction, nuclear fusion or nuclear fission.These kinds of reactions are used to heat water to produce steam that could be converted to generate electricity. The first operations of commercial nuclear power plants started in 1950’s and there are currently 440 nuclear power plant reactors in 30 countries. These power plants have a total capacity of 376,000 MWe and provide about 14% of the world’s continuous, reliable, and efficient power used to produce electricity. Also, nuclear power plants require small space and can also be built in restricted areas. Nuclear power, compared to other energy-producing plants, has a main advantage of clean way of producing energy.It doesn’t emit toxic gases like carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide. As compared to the chemical that do not decompose like arsenic and mercury and to poisonous gases like acid rain and smog, nuclear waste is much easier to dispose to a geological site. This geological site helps the nuclear wastes decay over time. Nuclear power plants also have an average life time of 40 yrs. , and could be extended to 20 yrs. Nuclear power plants use uranium that is abundant in Canada and Australia. Another advantage of uranium is that 1 truck of uranium used for production of energy is as much as the energy produced by 1000 truck of coal.Another advantage of nuclear power is that nuclear energy is the most concentrated form of energy compared to other energy produced by power plants. Nuclear energy can be produced in large quantities over short periods of time. Nuclear energy is also cheap as the cost of fossil fuel. And nuclear emery’s prices are always stable. Though nuclear power plants do not emit greenhouse gases, it produces nuclear wastes that are hard to store and this wastes produce harmful radiations. The radiations from nuclear wastes may cause cancer for humans. These nuclear wastes can either be stored in plants or be injected underground.Injection of nuclear wastes into underground water resources could cause water pollution. Nuclear wastes dumps could also combust without warning. These wastes products also could last for thousands of years. These nuclear wastes could also be used for nuclear weapons. A nuclear power plant could produce enough plutonium to produce about thirty nuclear bombs. Terrible accidents due to its core meltdown may also take place. An example of a devastating accident is the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The said cause of the accident was low quality safety infrastructure.Another happened at Three Mile Island in 1979 where there was a large amount of radiation emitted by the plant because of the failure of the cooling system of the reactor. Because of this incident, people near the reactor were needed to be evacuated and moved into another location. The radiation that produced by both reactors spread throughout a large area. Building and maintaining nuclear power plants is expensive. It costs between three to five billion dollars for building a nuclear power plant. More money could be spent for the security of these nuclear power plants.Nuclear power plants could be a good target for terrorist. Nuclear power plants could be used to control electricity supply and may be intentionally initialize a core meltdown that could devastate a lot of people. Uranium that is needed for processing of nuclear energy could be depleted. Uranium is not a renewable and because of the use of nuclear power plants, uranium could be depleted faster. Depending on the actual demand for uranium, uranium could be depleted in 30 to 60 years, and after that nuclear power plants will stop operating or would need to find an alternative for uranium.So, by weighing the pros and cons of nuclear power plants, I think nuclear power plant is not the solution to our country’s need for electricity. Nuclear power plants may provide us with clean, reliable, and cheap energy but it could lead to devastating accidents that could harm or kill many people. Nuclear wastes could also harm our environment and our people because they cannot be properly dispose and are very hazardous. Nuclear power plants also, could be no use after 30 to 60 years.Establishing a nuclear power plant now would be useless for it will be no use to our future descendant, and with the addition of upcoming nuclear power plants, the use of these plants may decrease to only 10 to 30 years. Aside from nuclear energy, there are other alternative sources of energy that are clean and do not emit green house gases. Examples of these are wind, solar, and geothermal energy. There are also hydropower, biomass, and bio-fuel that are renewable and are better than nuclear energy. Potential resources of energy in the Philippines are bagasse, coconut residues, wood, rice hulks, and municipal solid waste.The department of energy has identified a biomass of bagasse to have a potential of 250 barrels of fuel oil. Also, the Philippines consumes 27% geothermal energy. The production of geothermal energy is also cheaper compared to production of energy in nuclear power plants. There are also wind farms in the Philippines, example of this is the wind farm in Bangui, Ilocos Norte that has 25 Megawatt wind. Lately, DOE has found an ally to enhance and promote acceleration of our country’s mini-hydropower development program. According to Green Chip International, the Philippines has abundant underground energy resources. Also, as said by British ambassador, Stephen Lillie and by Dr. Walter Salzer, there is a potential of the Philippines in gaining investors in the production of wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass energies. This proves that we have a lot of renewable energy that we could use for many years. So instead of operating nuclear power plants in the Philippines, we must promote the use of renewable energy more. Renewable, clean and safe energy is what our country needs The Philippines is very rich in natural and human resources. We have more than enough elemental reserves and competitive local innovators.These two major elements are very essential in our own way of safe modernization. We have the right tools and materials however we lack one thing in order to carry out these aspirations. That is the support of our government. If only the Philippine government is supportive on local capabilities and most of all personal interest is set aside, we could achieve the best for our country.