Does the UK need nuclear power stations?
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I have found out about some facts based on the following questions, they
may be useful to me when trying to answer the questions. These are shown in
the following list:
 What is nuclear power?
 What is the greenhouse effect?
 How will nuclear power help, how will it not?
 Cost of constructions’?
 What are the alternatives to nuclear power?
 What are the UK electrical supplies at the moment?
This information is important for me to have when answering the question as
they are all to do with nuclear power stations which will help me because I will
know more about them. It also means I will have plenty of information to come
to a useful conclusion to whether or not the UK needs nuclear power stations.
So…what is nuclear power you ask and how is it generated, well, “Nuclear
power is generated using Uranium, which is a metal mined in various parts of the
world. The first large-scale nuclear power station opened at Calder Hall in
Cumbria, England, in 1956. Some military ships and submarines have nuclear
power plants for engines. Nuclear power produces around 11% of the world's
energy needs, and produces huge amounts of energy from small amounts of fuel,
without the pollution that you'd get from burning fossil fuels.”1 fossil fuels are
running out, a large percent of the UK’s power stations are fuelled by fossil
fuels, these being coal, oil, and natural gas, over 70% of the UK’s electrical
supply is coal and natural gas, this is shown in the diagram bellow.
37.5%
Natural gas
5.2% other
UK Electricity
supplies.
34.9% from
coal
22.4% from
nuclear
The pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels is helping towards the green
house effect. This is one other down side to the UK using fossil fuels to
generate power. The greenhouse effect is the heating of the earth and
damaging of the ozone layer this is helped along by the burning of fossil fuels
causing pollution of the air and a high level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
“ The "greenhouse effect" is the heating of the Earth due to the presence of
greenhouse gases. It is named this way because of a similar effect produced by
the glass panes of a greenhouse. Shorter-wavelength solar radiation from the
sun passes through Earth's atmosphere, and then is absorbed by the surface of
the Earth, causing it to warm. Part of the absorbed energy is then reradiated
back to the atmosphere as long wave infared radiation. Little of this long wave
radiation escapes back into space; the radiation cannot pass through the
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The greenhouse gases selectively transmit
the infared waves, trapping some and allowing some to pass through into space.
The greenhouse gases absorb these waves and reemits the waves downward,
causing the lower atmosphere to warm. “2
There are many advantages and disadvantages of using nuclear power.
Advantages
 Well-constructed power plants are extremely clean.
 Nuclear power costs about the same as coal, so it’s not expensive to
make.
 Does not produce smoke or carbon dioxide, so it does not contribute to
the greenhouse effect.
 Produce huge amounts of energy from small amount of fuel.
 Produces small amounts of waste.
 Nuclear power is reliable.
 Little pollution produced.
 Safer.
 More reliable.
Disadvantages
 Although not much waste is produced, it is very, very dangerous. It must
be sealed up and buried for many years to allow the radioactivity to die
away.
 Nuclear power is reliable, but a lot of money has to be spent on safety IF is does go wrong, a nuclear accident can be a major disaster.
 Meltdowns could cause serious problems.
 Waste disposal – uranium remains radioactive for thousands of years,
having nuclear power stations would need safe disposal of the waste.
It cost quite a lot to construct these power stations and the following shows
the costs of the constructions and the variations of cost between nuclear
power and wind power.
Cost to provide 20% UK electricity (over 30 years)
Nuclear Power
Wind Power
Construction
Running costs
Decommissioning
Permanent storage of
waste
Total
Construction
Running costs
Restoring countryside
Total over 30 years
Cost
£26 billion
£6 billion
£1.8-6 billion
unknown
£33-38 billion
£25 billion
£3 billion
£500 million
£28.5 billion
Wind power stations costs less than nuclear power stations to construct but
nuclear power is a lot more efficient than wind power.
There are many alternatives to using nuclear power these are the following: wind, wave, tidal, solar, geothermal, biomass, hydroelectric and coal.
 Wind farms are likely to become more economic.
 Wave farms have already begun to move from the experimental stage to
the heavily subsidised stage.
 Tidal energy, using the predictable power of marine currents looks likely
to be a good addition to wind power.
 Solar panels are increasingly being filled to the roofs of buildings.
 Geothermal energy provides local heat and power for small communities.
 Biomass is an alternative fuel but still produces CO2
 Hydroelectric in some mountainous areas.
In conclusion, currently I feel that the best way to help our problem of global
warming and to get a better way of producing electricity we should try to help
raise more money to put towards building new power stations. I also feel that in
future if we could ever help make wind or wave power more efficient this would
be very efficient, cheaper and a lot safer than using nuclear power. But this will
probably not happen very soon as they only account for 5.2% of our electrical
supplies.
1. http://www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg/nuclear.htm
2. http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/greenhouse.htm