Transcript Nuclear energy vs. Coal energy.

Nuclear energy vs. Coal
energy.
A Presentation by James Murphy.
How does nuclear power work?
Nuclear power uses the fuel uranium
with the isotope of 235 to heat water
and drive steam turbines.
Naturally occurring uranium usually
has the isotope of 238 which makes it
non-fissionable, so the uranium is
enriched in an enrichment plant which
separates the fissionable uranium from
the unfissionable uranium (depleted
uranium), the uranium then undergoes
the fission process that breaks it up
releasing large amounts of energy and
the waste that is created afterwards is
contained and placed at the bottom of
a large pool.
Safety of mining.
Coal mining over the years has been a
dangerous affair. In the industrial
revolutions children worked in the
mines to earn money just to stay alive
and cave ins and rock falls were
common which killed many. As
technologies have improved coal
mining is still a dangerous task.
Although most rock falls can be
contained and child labour is
forbidden, miners have the problems
of dust and gas inhalation which leads
to lung disorders in the future. There
have been more deaths in coal mines
then there have been in uranium
mines but with modern technology
improving, fatalities have decreased, in
developed countries.
Ranger uranium mine-
Uranium
mining
is
considered
dangerous because of the possible
‘severe’ radiation poisoning that could
be acquired while working down there,
of course anything that the media says
is usually biased. Radiation is
continuously monitored by ‘mini Geiger
counters’ so to speak. Hardly any
miners have died in uranium mines as
opposed to coal mines.
Safety of waste disposal.
In Australia all our waste from coal
burning goes into the atmosphere as
CO2 which adds to the problem of
climate change. A solution that the
Australian government has proposed is
clean coal technology. It works by
pressurising the CO2 into a liquid, this
liquid is pumped into aquifers and stored
there
(this
is
known
as
Geosequestration). However there are a
few problems with this method of waste
management 1. This technology isn’t fully
compatible and may not be available for
many years yet. 2. Faulting activity could
disrupt the containment aquifer and allow
the CO2 to leak out and 3. These
containment aquifers may not be
available. Despite the possible problems
the Australian government wants to keep
the coal industry alive and will keep
funding this project.
Dealing with radioactive waste is more
simple. The waste is sealed in
containers
and
then
buried
underground near the plant while the
spent fuel rods are placed in a pool
located in the plant itself. Members of
the general public don’t like having
nuclear waste buried “in their
backyards” and tend to complain and
protest about it but radioactive waste
is much easier to contain compared to
liquid CO2.
Economics of running both types of
power plants.
Coal burning power plants compared
to nuclear plants are cheap to build yet
expensive to run. To run a coal plant,
coal has to be purchased and with
prices of fossil fuels skyrocketing by
the day coal has become more
expensive. With the addition of a
carbon pollution tax, this adds to the
costs which means higher energy bills
for the public. At the end of the power
plants life, there is a cost to
decommissioning it because the plant
has to be dismantled.
Running a nuclear plant on the other
hand requires certain capital to make it
run efficiently (eg. Fuel rods) and this
doesn’t come cheap. Running costs
include the uranium itself (according to
UX consulting, uranium is estimated at
75 US dollars a pound), the
enrichment of the uranium, security
and waste disposal. Decommissioning
a nuclear plant is more complex
because the radioactive materials that
are contained in the plant (eg. Spent
fuel rods) need to be dealt with in a
manner before the plant can be
dismantled. Entombing the plant may
be a better option but is a costly
procedure.
Greenhouse emissions.
According to a 2007 news story on
catalyst, in Australia alone, we burn
250000 tonnes or more of coal per
day. If we’re burning all that coal then
that means this country is releasing
tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere
every single day. Mining the coal and
transporting it produces CO2 as well
which adds on to the stockpile in the
atmosphere.
Uranium produces no greenhouse
emissions when used for power
generation.
However
uranium
mining requires power so the coal
power plants are producing more
power, the trucks that transport the
uranium use petrol which produces
CO2 when burned. If the uranium
is being exported then the ship or
plane it’s being transported by
requires a lot of fuel so more fuel
burned, more CO2 produced.
Proliferation of nuclear weapons.
At the Australian Earth sciences
convention in Perth in 2008, Dr Ian
Lambert explained that in 2007,
Australia exported 10232 tonnes of
uranium. Some people are questioning
these exports especially to countries
such as India and Russia who still
have nuclear weapons in their
possession. People around the world
are intimidated by nuclear weapons
and are uneasy about where exported
uranium goes due to the rise in global
terrorism. However the construction of
nuclear weapons isn’t related to
nuclear power unless the electricity is
used for enriching the uranium for
military purposes.
Coal on the other hand has
absolutely nothing to do with
nuclear weapons unless the
electricity produced by it is
involved with the construction of
the weapon in question.