Nuclear fission energy is now being advocated as the “clean” choice for terrestrial sustainable energy to replace fossil fuels. But, is it “clean”? In my book Astroelectricity, the three primary terrestrial sustainable energy options are assessed: ground solar, wind, and nuclear fission. With the increased focus on expanding the use of nuclear fission, I have expanded upon the book’s discussion of nuclear fission to explain nuclear energy and its pros and substantial cons.
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Our industrialized culture requires substantial energy per person to function. We are exhausting our affordable supplies of fossil fuels and we are emitting substantial quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere with the result that the atmospheric CO2 concentration is now abnormally high. (These issues are quantitatively discussed in Astroelectricity.)
To end the use of fossil fuels in an orderly manner, we need to build substantial new sustainable energy sources. Following up on promisies made during the 2018 Congressional elections, some Democratic members of Congress are calling for a “Green New Deal”. While this broad proposal emphasizes a socialist political agenda, it includes an extremely rapid end of the use of fossil fuels to be replaced by ground solar, wind, and nuclear fission. Quickly, the extent of ground solar and wind necessary to achieve this goal showed that these were not practical general replacements for fossil fuels. Advocates for nuclear fission energy took advantage of this opening to propose using nuclear fission energy to replace fossil fuels. They labeled nuclear fission as the “clean” choice. But is it?
My white paper, Why Expanding Nuclear Power is Not a Wise Choice, addresses nuclear fission energy in some detail. Written for a general reader, here is the table of contents:
- How many 1-GW nuclear power plants will be necessary to replace fossil fuels?
- What is nuclear fission energy?
- Why is nuclear fission energy considered a sustainable energy source?
- How does nuclear fission energy work?
- Isotopes
- Uranium fission
- Engineered nuclear energy
- How is U-235 used in commercial reactors?
- How much natural uranium is needed?
- How much natural uranium does the United States have?
- How much natural uranium is available in the world?
- Is it practical to recover uranium from seawater?
- Can the needed nuclear fuel be safely bred?
- What is nuclear breeding?
- How is breeding U-233 achieved?
- How is breeding plutonium achieved?
- What type of reactor would use the Th-U fuel cycle?
- Does breeding fuel increase the risk of nuclear weapon proliferation?
- What is the threat from U-233 breeding?
- What is the threat from plutonium breeding?
- Can these proliferation risks be avoided?
- Does spent reactor fuel reprocessing increase the risk of nuclear weapon proliferation?
- To locate and use a commercial nuclear plant, what are the key safety considerations?
- Plant waste heat disposal
- Earthquake damage
- Inland flooding
- What is nuclear radiation?
- How does a nuclear plant create nuclear waste?
- What options exist for the permanent storage of dangerous nuclear waste?
- Disposal of nuclear waste at sea
- Underground storage of nuclear waste
- Disposal into outer space
- Concluding comments on disposal
- What are the accident consequences and lessons-learned from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident?
- Japan’s historic energy insecurity
- Japan’s use of nuclear energy
- Consequences of the Great East Japan Earthquake
- How will new plant designs impact safety concerns?
- Improved current designs
- Next generation designs
- Small nuclear power plants
- Is there risk of nuclear plant abandonment?
- What would be the consequence of an EMP attack on nuclear power plants?
- What are the prospects for nuclear fission energy?
- What sustainable power source can replace fossil fuels?
(Note: The updated Version 1.1 paper is 85 pages with 36 figures. The update is a minor typo correction. As mentioned, this paper is written for a general audience. It has been formatted for reading on a large smartphone, tablet, or computer screen. It can also be printed.)
If not already following this blog, please click the “follow” button at the bottom right to sign up. Receiving notification via email is best to ensure that you do not miss a new posting. Sending notifications is the only use of your email address. It is not sold or used elsewhere. Besides, you can always unsubscribe. Please forward these postings to your friends who share your spacefaring interest. Also, please check out the Spacefaring Institute’s YouTube channel.
James Michael (Mike) Snead is an aerospace Professional Engineer in the United States, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a past chair of the AIAA’s Space Logistics Technical Committee. He is the founder and president of the Spacefaring Institute LLC (spacefaringinstitute.net) which is focused on space solar power-generated astroelectricity and the astrologistics infrastructure necessary to enable the spacefaring industrial revolution that will build space solar power energy systems. Mike Snead has been involved in space development since the mid-1980s when he supported the U.S. Air Force Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) studies, the National Aerospace Plane program, and the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) project. In 2007, after retiring from civilian employment with the Air Force, he began to study the need for (and politics associated with) undertaking space solar power. Beginning in the late 1980s, he has published numerous papers and articles on various aspects of manned spaceflight, astrologistics, and energy. His technical papers are located at https://www.mikesnead.com and https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Snead/research. His blog is at: https://spacefaringamerica.com. His eBook, Astroelectricity, can be downloaded for free here. He can be contacted through LinkedIn or through email sent to spacefaringinstitute@gmail.com.