U.S. Nuclear power - more pros and some cons?
Location to residential areas: They could be built on the same location to replace conventional coal and oil power plants. Nuclear plants don't not pollute the local air.
Terrorist attack: Unlikely- they were designed during the cold war to withstand nuclear missile attacks.
Nuclear waste disposal: U.S. has plenty of unpopulated areas for this. Not the greatest solution, but better than having Florida underwater in a few hundred years due to global warming.
Electromagnetic radiation: no more that current elctric power plants.
Solar and wind energy are not feasable since neither would provide suffieceint power to heat your home and drive your car. With Nulcear both would go electric.
Let me preface this with I LOVE green generation and promote it.
However, I power up 20% of Virginia from nuclear powered generation. We operate as base load plants. That means we are always at 100% power. Why? Because even with the cost of all the regulatory required oversight, training and licensing, engineering and security measures; we are simply the Lowest cost producer of electricity in the industry. Yes, this includes the cost of storage for our waste fuel. One day the Federal government will make good on the promise of a final storage place and our cost per Mega Watt Hour will go down even further.
(P.S. there is no such thing as super heated water...its steam and we don't release it, some places may evaporate a lot of water in cooling towers but it comes right back when it rains)
Recap:
Nuclear plants cost less to operate than fossil plants.
Nuclear plants cost less to build (per unit of electricity generated) than renewable sources of the same capacity such as solar or wind.
Nuclear plants can produce much larger amounts of generation in the same environmental area as a wind farm/solar plant.
Nuclear plants have higher capacity factors (more likely to be making electricity) than most other plants.
Nuclear plants do not affect the environment around them such as some hydro power networks.
Waste nuclear fuel storage has a smaller footprint than your trash, is less hazardous than your medical waste, and once in its final resting place can never be more dangerous than a big hunk of hot steel.
