Energy - Environmental Science - page 301

More than 100,000 people had to leave their
homes. Most were not evacuated until at least 10 days
after the accident. In 2003, Ukraine officials down-
graded the 27-kilometer (17-mile) area surrounding the
reactor to a “zone with high risk” to allow those willing
to accept the health risk to return to their homes.
Chernobyl taught us a hard lesson: A major nuclear
accident anywhere has effects that reverberate throughout
much of the world.

T rade-Offs

Conventional Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Advantages Disadvantages

Large fuel
supply

High cost even with
large subsidies

Low
environmental
impact (without
accidents)

Low net energy yield

Watch how winds carried radioactive fallout around the
world after the Chernobyl meltdown at Environmental
ScienceNow.

High environmental
impact (with major
accidents)

Emits 1/6 as much
CO 2 as coal

Catastrophic
accidents can
happen (Chernobyl)

Moderate land
disruption and
water pollution
(without
accidents)

Trade-Offs: Advantages and Disadvantages
of the Nuclear Power Fuel Cycle
The nuclear power fuel cycle has a fairly low
environmental impact, an ample supply of fuel,
and a very low risk of an accident, but costs are
high, radioactive wastes must be stored safely for
thousands of years, and facilities are vulnerable to
terrorist attack.
Figure 13-19 lists the major advantages and disadvan-
tages of the nuclear fuel cycle. Using nuclear power to
produce electricity has some important advantages
over coal-burning power plants (Figure 13-20, p. 302).
Because of the built-in safety features, the risk of
exposure to radioactivity from nuclear power plants in
the United States and most other developed countries
is extremely low. However, a partial or complete melt-
down or explosion is possible, as the accidents at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine and the
Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania taught us.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
estimates there is a 15-45% chance of a complete core
meltdown at a U.S. reactor during the next 20 years.
The NRC also found that 39 U.S. reactors have an
80% chance of containment shell failure from a melt-
down or an explosion of gases inside the containment
structures.
In the United States, there is widespread public
distrust of government agencies' ability to enforce nu-
clear safety in commercial (NRC) and military (DOE)
nuclear facilities. In 1996, George Galatis, a respected
senior nuclear engineer, said, “I believe in nuclear
power but after seeing the NRC in action I'm con-
vinced a serious accident is not just likely, but in-
evitable.... They're asleep at the wheel.”
The 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Cen-
ter and Pentagon raised fears that a similar attack by a
large plane loaded with fuel could break open a reac-
tor's containment shell and set off a reactor meltdown
that could create a major radioactive disaster.
Nuclear officials contend that these concerns are
overblown and that U.S. nuclear plants could survive

No widely
acceptable solution
for long-term storage
of radioactive
wastes and
decommissioning
worn-out plants

Moderate
land use

Low risk of
accidents
because of
multiple
safety systems
(except in 35
poorly designed
and run reactors
in former Soviet
Union and
eastern Europe)

Subject to terrorist
attacks

Spreads knowledge
and technology for
building nuclear
weapons

Figure 13-19 Trade-offs: advantages and disadvantages of
using the conventional nuclear fuel cycle (Figure 13-18) to pro-
duce electricity. Critical thinking: pick the single advantage and
disadvantage that you think are the most important.

such an attack because of the thickness and strength of
the containment walls. But a 2002 study by the Nu-
clear Control Institute found that the plants were not
designed to withstand the crash of a large jet traveling
at the impact speed of the two hijacked airliners that
hit the World Trade Center.
An even greater concern is insufficient security at
U.S. nuclear power plants against ground-level attacks
by terrorists. During a series of security exercises per-
formed by the NRC between 1991 and 2001, mock at-
tackers were able to simulate the destruction of
enough equipment to cause a meltdown at nearly half
of U.S. nuclear plants. A 2002 study also found that
many security guards at nuclear power plants have
low morale and are overworked, underpaid, under-
trained, and not equipped with sufficient firepower to
repel a serious ground attack by terrorists.
The NRC contends that the security weaknesses
revealed by earlier mock tests have been corrected.