Environmental impact of nuclear power
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nuclear power has various environmental impacts, both positive and negative, including the construction and operation of the plant, the nuclear fuel cycle, and the effects of nuclear accidents. Nuclear power plants do not burn fossil fuels and so do not directly emit carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide emitted during mining, enrichment, fabrication and transport of fuel is small when compared with the carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuels of similar energy yield, however, these plants still produce other environmentally damaging wastes.[1] Nuclear energy and renewable energy have reduced environmental costs by decreasing CO2 emissions resulting from energy consumption.[2]
This article's lead section may be too long. (October 2022) |
There is a catastrophic risk potential if containment fails,[3] which in nuclear reactors can be brought about by overheated fuels melting and releasing large quantities of fission products into the environment.[4] In normal operation, nuclear power plants release less radioactive material than coal power plants whose fly ash contains significant amounts of thorium, uranium and their daughter nuclides.[5]
A large nuclear power plant may reject waste heat to a natural body of water; this can result in undesirable increase of the water temperature with adverse effect on aquatic life. Alternatives include cooling towers.[6]
Mining of uranium ore can disrupt the environment around the mine. However, with modern in-situ leaching technology this impact can be reduced compared to "classical" underground or open-pit mining. Disposal of spent nuclear fuel is controversial, with many proposed long-term storage schemes under intense review and criticism. Diversion of fresh- or low-burnup spent fuel to weapons production presents a risk of nuclear proliferation, however all nuclear weapons states derived the material for their first nuclear weapon from (non-power) research reactors or dedicated "production reactors" and/or uranium enrichment. Finally, some parts the structure of the reactor itself becomes radioactive through neutron activation and will require decades of storage before it can be economically dismantled and in turn disposed of as waste. Measures like reducing the cobalt content in steel to decrease the amount of cobalt-60 produced by neutron capture can reduce the amount of radioactive material produced and the radiotoxicity that originates from this material.[7] However, part of the issue is not radiological but regulatory as most countries assume any given object that originates from the "hot" (radioactive) area of a nuclear power plant or a facility in the nuclear fuel cycle is ipso facto radioactive, even if no contamination or neutron irradiation induced radioactivity is detectable.