Most of the disadvantages with nuclear energy has to do with the inherent properties of nuclear fission. The energy and byproducts released by nuclear fission are health hazards--either because of being extremely hot, due to the highly energetic release of heat during nuclear fission, or because of the destructive effects of radiation poisoning.
Other disadvantages tend to be industrial in nature. Not only does nuclear power come with an extremely high initial expense, but the storage of waste products remains a difficult and controversial problem.
Radiation Poisoning
Radiation poisoning, formally known as acute radiation syndrome, is caused by the irradiation of all or a large part of the body. Its onset symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue and anorexia.
Radiation burns at only small parts of the body are not as lethal as an all-body exposure. Most fatalities caused by radiation exposure are because of a wholesale depletion of bone marrow due to extremely large radiation exposure, usually at the 70 rad range or higher.
If there is gastrointestinal and/or neurological damage to the victim, survival becomes drastically less likely, with death expected from two weeks to just three days.
Reactor Costs
One of the largest economic drawbacks to nuclear energy is its inherently steep price. Nuclear reactors are a multibillion-dollar capital project, with new ones expected to cost in excess of $15 billion to construct. This is due primarily to the greatly increased cost of labor and materials, exacerbated by the increasing demand for power. Nuclear power plants built in the 1970s were expected to run in the single-digit billions, with $5 billion as a high-end cost.
Nuclear Waste
The storage and management of nuclear waste has been a problem plaguing the nuclear industry since its inception. The waste products of nuclear fission have a half-life measured from decades to centuries to millennia, making their management very much a long-term prospect. The usage of the Yucca Mountain area as an American depository of nuclear waste was met with extreme controversy and was eventually canceled.
The storage and handling of nuclear waste has not been without incident. Containment failure at Chelyabinsk-65, a Russian reactor, led to increased incidents of leukemia and other symptoms of chronic radiation poisoning.
It is possible to reprocess nuclear waste for further use as an energy source. However, its relatively greater expense than unprocessed uranium and its unwelcome byproducts have not made it a priority of the nuclear industry.
Security and Safety
Due to the threat of militantly radical groups both domestic and foreign, and the inherently dangerous nature of radioactive materials, security for nuclear reactors is necessarily much stricter than that of conventional power generators.
The Russian Chernobyl incident demonstrated the risks inherent in a badly regulated, or even sabotaged, nuclear reactor on the surrounding environment and population.
Politics
There has not been a new nuclear facility in the United States of America since the much-publicized Three Mile Island incident. Furthermore, there are more than 40 special interest groups in the country that have been formed in protest and counter of the nuclear power industry. Although the increased demand for power and predicted peak oil has increased interest in nuclear power, it remains politically dangerous to implement.
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