What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy?

Nuclear energy is America's second largest source of electrical power ahead of oil, gas or hydropower. Here we ask what are the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy and how is it made? Nuclear fission is used by nuclear power plants to create electricity, and uranium is the most widely used fuel for nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is also released as a result of nuclear fusion. The release of nuclear energy can be controlled or uncontrolled. Nuclear energy makes just as much if not more green house gases as a fuel oil or coal power facility. Your have to take the ore out the ground (which we having to dig deeper and deeper for), refine, transport it in secure containers under guard, and house it when it is waste.

Nuclear energy is clean, largely safe (with new technologies), and very low cost (after the plant is built). But nuclear energy is not renewable - it relies on nuclear fuel which must be mined out of the earth, much like coal. Some people consider nuclear energy to be green because it does not produce carbon dioxide. Nuclear energy, at present supplying 20 per cent of our electricity, provides a reliable, safe, cheap, almost limitless form of pollution-free energy. The Government says it is too expensive.

Nuclear energy has also proven to be a protector of the environment because of the lack of CO2, greenhouse gasses, and other gases it emits into the atmosphere. There are, however, some major drawbacks to using nuclear energy. Nuclear energy, as the term says, is released from the very nucleus of an atom. This happens as a result of its mass being converted to energy. Nuclear energy is energy in the nucleus (core) of an atom. Atoms are tiny particles that make up every object in the universe.

Nuclear energy was first researched in the early 1900, and by the world war, reached its greatest peak by demonstrating the world its power to destroy things. We all know the story of the Hiroshima, how it put an end to the World War II. Nuclear energy immediately became a military weapon of terrifying magnitude. For the physicists who worked on the atom bomb, the promise of nuclear energy was not solely military.

Nuclear energy accounts for no less than 15%, with water power contributing 16%. All other sources of energy? Nuclear energy is important in GEH's long-standing ties with India. Today, GE's global businesses participate in a wide range of manufacturing, services and technology sectors in India, as GE seeks to be a partner in the nation's growth. Nuclear energy could also be used to produce synthetic fuels that could run America's cars. While these technologies are not commercially viable today, they are the types of things that could be possible if the federal government would develop a regulatory and policy structure that was more conducive to growth in the nuclear sector.

Nuclear energy is similar to renewable energy in that its viability is driven largely by the cost of its competitors. The fortunes of nuclear are therefore inverse to the fortunes of coal and natural gas (though the increase in demand for energy around the world will likely lift all boats in the near term). Nuclear energy comes from nuclear fission, the splitting of the atom. Only a few naturally occurring isotopes, such as uranium-235 and plutonium-239, are easily fissionable. Nuclear energy is only safe when properly managed.

Given the scale of global emission reductions that are required, and the likely cost, no cost-effective low carbon technology must be off limits. The complete life cycle emissions from nuclear power, from uranium mining to waste management, are only between 2 and 6% of those from gas for every unit of electricity generated. Given the long lead-in phase for any energy creation plant, it is high time the government stopped talking about renewing nuclear power production and just got on with it. If 10% of the wasted energy in-talking about policies was allocated to energy production we would have ample energy for the foreseeable future.

Renewable energy does not create any substances which are harmful. Burning fossil fuels on the other hand creates carbon dioxide which is harmful for the environment. Renewable energy sources are cleaner, cheaper, better able to address climate change and proliferation risks, and safer. The government's own data show that wind energy now costs less than half of nuclear power; that wind can supply far more energy, more quickly, than nuclear power; and that by 2015, solar panels will be economically competitive with all other conventional energy technologies. So now we know the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy!