Nuclear Planet

[SeriousMoney]

Do we need nuclear power plants?

A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is one or more nuclear reactors generating nuclear power.

As of 2005 there are 443 licensed nuclear power reactors in the world [1], of which 441 are currently operational [2]. Together they produce about 17% of the world's electric power.

Advantages of NPPs are:

- Essentially no greenhouse gas emissions
- Does not produce air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, - sulfur dioxide, mercury, nitrogen oxides or particulates
- The quantity of waste produced is small
- Small number of accidents
- Low fuel costs
- Large fuel reserves
- Ease of transport and stockpiling of fuel
- Future designs may be small and modular (SSTAR, etc.)

Disadvantages are:

- Nuclear waste produced is dangerous for thousands of years
- Consequences of an accident might be disastrous
- Risk of nuclear proliferation associated with some designs
- High capital costs
- In the past long construction periods, imposing large finance costs and delaying return on investment
- High maintenance costs
- High cost of decommissioning plants
- Current designs are all large-scale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_plant