Vogt 1

David Vogt

Sandra Riley

English 1201

November 12, 2021

Nuclear Power Controversy

Climate change is a large issue in the world today, with many countries trying to reduce

their carbon footprint by reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses they produce. Climate

change is an issue that is being observed by many countries as the global temperature increases,

making seas rise. This all is due to how we live as a society and how we generate our power and

live our lives. Many of the greenhouse gasses being produced are being made from the source of

current power generation, that being the burning of coal, fossil fuels, and natural gas. Along with

the production of greenhouse gasses, many sources estimate that the reserves for coal and other

fossil fuels will run out within the next few decades, and we do not currently have set plans for

replacement for these power sources. While some people would suggest that solar panels, wind

farms and hydroelectric power become the new power source of the future, these options are not

currently feasible. While these types of power production are clean, they are not currently

efficient enough to keep up with demand. A power production now being brought back onto the

table to be looked at is nuclear power. While there is backlash from the community, it may be the

best solution available for now and years to come. Nuclear power is more efficient than other

forms of clean production and is already used in some places. The few nuclear power plants that

are running today are nearing the end of their lifetimes however, so it is important to consider

upkeep for them to keep running and the possibility of making more, or quickly finding a
 Vogt 2

solution to generating the same amount of power that these plants do. While some may still think

that nuclear power is too unsafe to use today, in the face of climate change it is important to

look to a new power source, nuclear power is the most efficient source available to us today

and is more than worth any risk. 

While talking about nuclear power it is important to understand what it is and how it

works. Currently there are two main types of nuclear power plants in use today. “Commercial

nuclear power plants in the United States are either boiling water reactors (BWRs) or pressurized

water reactors (PWRs).” (Palliser 16). These are the main types of reactors used around the

world and are very similar to how they work. Both types of reactors use fuel rods of uranium

isotope uranium-238 (U-238) enriched to 3%. These fuel rods are shot with neutrons and

undergo a process of a safe chain nuclear fission reaction where the molecules are broken down

releasing neutrons and heat. This reaction heats up surrounding water. From here is where the

two types of reactors differ. BRW's heats water to make steam directly which then turns a

turbine, crating electricity. PRW's heat water in a highly pressurized container to prevent it from

boiling, this high temperature water is then used to heat water in another tank to make steam and

turn a turbine (Dremel). Both reactors have a type of waste called heavy water which is just

water molecules that have gained an electron. BRW’s produce this as steam while PRW’s keep

the heavy water internally contained. While PRW’s are slightly less efficient, they do not release

the heavy water at all. Both types of reactors also produce the same type of waste, that being

heavy water and spent fuel rods which are usable for up to 18 to 24 months (Palliser 17). As of

now the waste is stored onsite in concrete containers that keep any excess radiation from leaking

out of the containment and facility. Using nuclear power as opposed to solar or wind is also

beneficial as the reactor can be running full time versus solar is only during days when the panels
 Vogt 3

are clean and wind only when there is wind. Nuclear power is also much more efficient than

coal, oil, and natural gas power. “One uranium fuel pellet contains the same amount of energy as

17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1,780 pounds of coal, or 149 gallons of oil.” (Palliser 16).

However, this power source does not come without its drawbacks.

This is where nuclear power becomes controversial, as there are some extreme dangers to

this power source. The biggest danger is a nuclear meltdown. This occurs when the fuel is not

properly cooled and the chain reaction is not kept in check and the fuel rapidly heats up and goes

what is known as supercritical. What this means is that the reaction is now completely self-

sustaining which is very dangerous. The fuel going supercritical transmits multiple particles

called alpha and beta particles that can tear apart living organisms on a molecular level. While

this happening in today reactors is very low, it has happened in the past. Looking at these safety

analysts have been able to find way to avoid what happened in previous reactors. One example is

the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine in 1986. “The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of

a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel.” (World Nuclear

Association). Due to this accident the surrounding area has been uninhabitable. The building

around the Chernobyl plant also failed to contain the radiation properly so many people also got

radiation poisoning and some died from it. However, today’s reactors are built and designed in a

way as to have automatic safety procedures to catch any possible operator mistakes and all

operators are rigorously trained on how to do their job for months before working (Dremel).

Another catastrophic accident happened at the Fukushima plant in 2011 in Japan. What happened

at this reactor is that a tsunami and an earthquake hit the island the plant was located on and

wiped out the station’s power and backup generator, which shut down the cooling system of the

plant causing the towers to go supercritical and cause explosions and fires to release radioactive
 Vogt 4

gasses into the surrounding areas. This plant failure raised concern for nuclear power and some

countries even started wanting to phase out nuclear power all together. “Four months after the

reactor failure, the German parliament voted to phase out nuclear energy altogether by 2022.”

(Verma et. al. 200). After talking to a safety analyst of a plant here in America, Ray Dremel said

this “After the accidents on Fukushima and Chernobyl, plans for reactors planned with the

possibility of complete failure in mind in order to contain the full amount of radiation, and have

multiple backup systems in case of an emergency” (Dremel). He also said that in the case of the

plant he was currently at there were 3 sources of backups for power in case the site was to lose

power for whatever reason. As part of his job he must assess the probability of disaster

happening on site and must make sure that the plant operates within a tolerable amount of

danger. He told me “The probability of a plant failure, the probability of someone living in the

surrounding area dying from radiation must be lower than 1x10e^-9 percent, which is the highest

amongst other types of power plants” (Dremel). What this means is that in today’s nuclear

plants, they are extremely cautious to the plant failing and take a large number of measures to

make sure that if something did happen that the world outside the reactor is affected as little as

possible. According to the World Nuclear Association, nuclear power is actually a safer way to

product power than coal and natural gas. According to multiple occupational accident statistics,

the production of one TW.yr, the amount of electricity the world uses in about 5 months; coal

has around 120 deaths per TW.yr, natural gas has 71.9 deaths per TW.yr, but nuclear is >.01

deaths per TW.yr (World Nuclear Association). The other issue that people worry about other

than a nuclear meltdown is where to safely store nuclear waste the power plants produce. As

stated earlier the types of nuclear waste are the heavy water, which can be cleaned and reused,

and the spent nuclear fuel rods, along with old safety gear used while servicing the reactor. In
 Vogt 5

1978 Yucca Mountain in Nevada was proposed as a long-term waste storage site. However,

recently it was found that water moves through the mountain faster than previously thought

(Palliser 17). This poses a problem as the nuclear waste could leak small amounts of radiation

into the water, contaminating it and destroying the surrounding environment. Currently all

nuclear waste is kept on the site of the reactor in storage cells make of reinforced concrete to stop

radiation from being transmitted. This has been in place for a few years and currently poses no

problem to how the power plant operates. Currently there is talk with the US Government about

possible new places to store this waste, but this is not in a dire need today as nuclear plants do

not actually produce waste very quickly. Along with talk of new storage, there are designs

coming up for smaller plants. “Today many people believe that is the solution to climate change,

and are presenting newer ideas such as Small Modular reactors that could power up to 200,000

homes, but are much smaller than normal reactors, which could reduce disaster potential. (Verma

et al. 200). This would lead to more power being generated and could phase out natural gas and

other conventional power production in smaller cities and towns as the Small Modular reactors

would also cost much less than a large reactor. While having concerns for nuclear reactors is

understandable, in today’s world there are many safety precautions taken to prevent calamity

from striking.

Why does the general public fear nuclear power? While looking into public issues with

nuclear power, Jonathon Baron and Steven Herzog looked into whether the negative reaction to

nuclear power stemmed from a reaction to nuclear weapons and any connections between the

two. They also looked into oppositions to nuclear power plants that aren’t directly related to

nuclear weapons. “Existing research on US public opinion toward nuclear power points to three

potential drivers of down trending support. First, high costs of nuclear energy relative to fossil
 Vogt 6

fuels… Second, negative perceptions of safety—especially regarding accidents and radioactive

discharges… Third, concerns regarding waste storage may have ruled out nuclear energy as a

safe, long-term fuel option.” (Baron and Herzog 2). These are the three main oppositions to

nuclear energy that is stated in the paper. They do explain that nuclear power plants do cost more

than natural gas plants at the moment, however the potential power from plants exceeds that of

gas plants. To look further into the discourse of nuclear power they conducted studies to try and

find if there are inerrant connections between nuclear weapons and energy. “Given the

intertwined history of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, it is imperative to dissect their

connections in the US public consciousness” (Baron and Herzog 3). They conducted two studies

to try and find a connection. First, they asked opinion on a scale from 1 (very negative) to 7

(very positive) on nuclear energy, and weapons. Their questions consisted of future R&D in the

United States, living close to sites containing them, if it an appropriate option for the US and

environmental impacts. These questions were given in 2 separate batteries, each consisted of the

questions above connected to either nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. What they found

through this study is that those who saw the questions about nuclear weapons first, made more of

a connection between nuclear energy and weapons and that was shown through their table. Their

second study was to solidify the findings from the first. The subjects were given either pro- or

anti- nuclear material pertaining to either energy or weapons. They then answered the same

questions as survey 1 and were asked for word association with the word nuclear. What they

found was similar to survey one, however they also noticed that reading pro-nuclear energy

material before answering the batteries made a more positive trend in questions pertaining to

nuclear power plants. However, the word association portion found that most people still put a

negative connotation to the word nuclear as the “finding suggests that perceptions of nuclear
 Vogt 7

weapons may drive this connection.” (Baron and Herzog 8). Their study focused on the

connection between how we perceive nuclear power and nuclear weapons. What is important to

take from this study is that the negative thoughts associated with nuclear power is a connection

between nuclear weapons of mass destruction and nuclear power. While this is very

understandable given the two incidents given earlier in this paper, that being Chernobyl and

Fukushima, there is a difference between nuclear power and weapons. The largest difference is

the material used. Nuclear power reactors use U-238 enriched to 3%, bombs also use U-238 but

enriched to up to 90%. (Dremel). This is a large difference in how the uranium is used, and

nuclear bombs also require other nuclear materials to function that a reactor does not use.

Knowing that there is a negative connotation around the word nuclear, if there was

another name for it would people be willing to introduce it more into society? In the paper

“Limits to Deployment of Nuclear Power for Decarbonization: Insights from Public Opinion”

researcher A. Abdulla and their team wanted to answer this question. They looked into how the

public feels on nuclear power and also seeing if there is a way to eliminate the dread associated

with it. “Extensive research has consistently found that the public perceives nuclear power's risks

to be dramatically higher than suggested actuarially by its accident statistics.” (Abdulla et al.

1340). They conducted an experiment where people were asked to make an electricity portfolio

for the US in 2050 with five choices of power sources. These sources included nuclear, wind,

solar, coal, natural gas, and coal css. For half of the experiment the names of the power sources

were hidden but key statistics were given such as carbon dioxide emissions, cost of air pollution

damage, and fatal accidents caused by those sources. The subjects then had to meet the energy

need while cutting greenhouse emissions by 50%. What they found out in their results were this:

“Respondents who were administered the blind survey instrument opted to have nuclear power
 Vogt 8

serve a 6.6%… larger share of total U.S. electric load than those for whom technology labels

were exposed.” (Abdulla et al. 1343). This lead them to the conclusion that people are willing to

have nuclear power but that the thing holding it back from being more popular is the dread

surrounding nuclear power itself. With the title nuclear power hidden, it was chosen more than

when it was revealed, even with the same statistics available. What the team found was “the role

that dread plays in the opposition to nuclear power is large” (Abdulla et al. 1344). As you can see

from this research the name of nuclear is what drives people away from it. However, even

knowing the possible risk of a reactor but not the name, as administered in the blind test, people

still opted to include more nuclear power in the plan that they made. This shows that nuclear

power is a viable option for future power, all that needs to happen is the main public needs to see

how they are different from weapons. The distance between nuclear weapons and nuclear power

is greater than most people know, especially today. Nuclear power is a safe option and a very

efficient option to have a no carbon emission source of power.

After hearing about the possible cons of nuclear energy and some public opinion on it,

what is so good about nuclear power? As stated earlier nuclear power is very efficient. “One

uranium fuel pellet contains the same amount of energy as 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1,780

pounds of coal, or 149 gallons of oil.” (Palliser 16). Each reactor uses multiple of these fuel

pellets to produce power and produces this power around the clock. Comparing nuclear power

generation to other types of power generation on a global scale we see “Worldwide, more than

400 nuclear power plants produce 16% of the world’s electricity” (Palliser 14). While at the

same time “coal plants produce around twice as much electricity for the world, but have more

than five times the number of plants” (Dremel). Looking at nuclear power on a global scale one

can see that it is a much more efficient source of power and since it emits no carbon gasses into
 Vogt 9

the atmosphere it is also a clean resource. Other countries are starting to implement nuclear

power into their societies, such as Poland. Poland is trying to reduce the amount of carbon that

they are releasing from their power plants and are looking to nuclear power to do so. “A very

important element of the Polish energy policy is the introduction of nuclear power. In terms of

the future Polish energy mix, nuclear power plants could ensure the stability of energy

generation with zero emissions of air pollutants” (Gierszewski et al. 6). This change could

encourage other neighboring countries to do the same in time after seeing the efficiency of the

plants, and how safe they have become to operate. You can see this happening since in Europe

most countries today have reactors and are following in the same steps as Poland. Many

countries in Europe use nuclear power for 20% to 30% of power generation, and in France

nuclear power generated 70% of the countries power (World Nuclear Association). Most reactors

running today were built in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Since reactors have a long service life, the

energy output would be stable across this time. They also have a somewhat low system cost

while running. This could keep the cost of electricity from creeping up due to maintenance, and

since there is no environmental impact. (Gierszewski et al. 12). While there are other forms of

zero carbon power, they only work at full capacity for small amounts of time. For example solar

power requires the rays of the sun to hit them directly, during the night they would produce little

to no power and would have to either rely on generating enough during the day to last overnight,

or another backup source for the night time. Solar panels would also have to either lose

efficiency during parts of the day when the sun doesn’t hit them directly, or have to turn with the

sun using power that either they produce, reducing efficiency or relying on a generator, which

would use conventional means of power generation. Wind farms also have a similar problem

where they can only produce power when there is wind turning their turbine. The wind also
 Vogt 10

needs to be blowing the right direction for them to be at their full potential. In the study done by

Abdulla and their team they also stated in the conducted experiment, “Solar and Wind must be

backed up Natural Gas to ensure that demand is met at all times” (Abdulla et al. 1342). Both of

these methods of power would also need a lot of land to be fully efficient to power a grid, more

land than a nuclear power plant takes up (Dremel). The main type of reactor being used today is

the PWR’s. These types of reactors offer a few benefits along with clean energy. PWR’s, and all

of its benefits such as a competitive market making it a cheaper solution, having no failures with

releases into the environment, being a very common reactor technology, common knowledge of

what the technology is, and lower cost of operating them compared to boiling reactors

(Gierszewski et al. 7-8). Being in a competitive market will mean that the cost of building the

reactors will go down, but due to national safety rulings on how reactors are built there would

not be a decline in how safe they are nor how efficient they would be.

In conclusion, while nuclear reactors may have some drawbacks and dangers to

them, current designs and practices mitigate those risk to an extremely rare chance of them

happening. Current safety procedures would also make working in a nuclear plant very safe.

These combined with the fact the nuclear power is extremely clean and efficient makes it an

excellent option for a zero carbon future. This change would push the world forward in a way

where we can grow as a society and not poisoning the world with carbon emissions from power

plants. While this is not a solution to climate change it would be a large step forward from where

we are today. The only thing stopping nuclear power from being more popular is the

subconscious connection between nuclear power and weapons. However through proper

education of the difference between the two and how different they are, nuclear power can

become a source to power the world.

 Vogt 11

Bibliography

Abdulla, A., et al. “Limits to Deployment of Nuclear Power for Decarbonization: Insights from

Public Opinion.” Energy Policy, vol. 129, June 2019, pp. 1339–1346. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2019.03.039.

Baron, Jonathon, and Stephen Herzog. “Public Opinion on Nuclear Energy and Nuclear

Weapons: The Attitudinal Nexus in the United States.” Energy Research & Social

Science, vol. 68, Oct. 2020. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.erss.2020.101567.

Dremel, Ray. Interview. Conducted by David Vogt, 26 Oct. 2021.

Palliser, Janna. “Nuclear Energy.” Science Scope, vol. 35, no. 5, Jan. 2012, pp. 14–

18. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.libproxy.udayton.edu/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=eft&AN=69926290&site=eds-live.

Gierszewski, Janusz, et al. “Nuclear Power in Poland’s Energy Transition.” Energies

(19961073), vol. 14, no. 12, June 2021, p. 3626. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3390/en14123626

Verma, Aditi, et al. “Nuclear Energy, Ten Years after Fukushima.” Nature, vol. 591, no. 7849,

Mar. 2021, pp. 199–201. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1038/d41586-021-00580-4.

World Nuclear Association. “Information Library.” Information Library - World Nuclear

Association, https://www.world-nuclear.org/Information-Library.aspx.