What are some of the obstacles to the wider use of nuclear energy?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: The rising costs of fossil fuels and concerns about global warming are stimulating interest in alternative sources of energy, especially those that produce electricity. Nuclear power supplies about one-third of all electricity in Europe, and about 20 percent in the U.S. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan also rely on nuclear-generated electricity. Despite the fact that nuclear power is relatively clean when power plants are functioning correctly, it presents serious problems of potential accidents and the generation of radioactive waste.

Potential for accidents: Three major incidents have had dramatic influences on the nuclear power industry. In March 1979, a power plant at Three Mile Island experienced a loss of coolant that contributed to a partial meltdown of the reactor core. The incident was relatively minor in terms of radioactive releases and no one was injured, but it caused a dramatic increase in public awareness of the hazards involved. The second one is considered the greatest nuclear catastrophe to date. It occurred in 1986, in a nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, near the border with Belarus. The accident has caused over 3,500 deaths, and potentially many more from subsequent cancers. The impact of this accident extended through Europe, causing bans on the sale of milk and fresh vegetables because of possible contamination by radioactive fallout. The third is the catastrophe at the Fukushima plant in Japan in March 2011, which has once again raised fears surrounding nuclear power. It came at a time when, in many areas including the United States, interest in building new nuclear power plants was starting to grow. It remains to be seen whether public faith in nuclear power will recover sufficiently to justify building new plants, and whether enough guarantees can be put in place to justify such restored faith.

Nuclear waste disposal: At the present time, there is no effective way for disposing of nuclear waste besides storing them on, or off-site. Some countries reprocess spent nuclear rods, but we still have not come up with a definitive way of dealing with the eventual waste that is generated.