So um, I hate this paper because I kept screwing up the prompt while writing it. So, I will attach the rubric with it, so you can see if it fails or not. I have a while before I HAVE to turn it in, so I want to make sure I don't smurf up this time. It's caused me a lot of heartache and turmoil soooo :x
BTW, MINDY, if you are reading this, hi, not plagarizing :D You'll notice that it is your rubric I've uploaded at the bottom, soooo~
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Allison Byrum
July 27th, 2009
Advanced Composition I
Problems With Nuclear Waste Disposal in the United States
Every year, the United States creates 1750 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. As of 2007, the U.S. had 54000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel in temporary storage.[1] When you consider that 1750 metric tons/year is only the current output, and not the average output since the nuclear power program began, it is clear that the U.S. has been creating nuclear waste for a long time. The United States began using building nuclear power plants in the 1950s, and currently 104 plants are in operation, which produce about a fifth of the country's electricity. Some people today want to make that percentage even larger in order to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by fossil fuel burning power plants. However, there are some problems with nuclear power that need to be addressed before more plants can be built. The biggest problems with nuclear waste are how dangerous it is, and how much of is generated.
The most important problem with nuclear waste is how dangerous it is. The same tremendous energy that we can harness into electricity has the power to do other things as well. The most obvious danger with nuclear waste is how radioactive it is. Radioactive material has only been studied for a century, and while scientists quickly discovered many properties of radioactive elements, it took a few decades for them to realize that radiation caused burns, cancer, and death. The discoverer of radium, Marie Curie, is one of the scientists who was killed by the material she worked with. It is evident today that humans and animals should not be exposed to radiation, but even the environment should be kept safe. If water or soil is contaminated, that contaminant will eventually make its way into the food chain back to humans and animals, therefore radiation is dangerous even if it is not directly exposed to living creatures. Used nuclear fuel gives off 20000 rems/hour of radiation even after it has been stored for a decade, but only 5000 rems is necessary to cause death.[1] Clearly, that sort of potent material cannot be left lying around, not when there is so much of it produced every year.
Not only is used nuclear fuel dangerous because it is very radioactive, but another danger of radioactive waste is the heat it gives off. Nuclear power plants do not magically extract energy from plutonium or uranium. They create a chain reaction that generates massive amounts of thermal energy which is used to heat water into steam which is used to turn turbines to create electricity. Not all of this heat can be used, so power plants either have a cooling tower, which is the big familiar concave shape, or use a near by lake or reservoir to remove the extra heat. This has to be done very carefully; if hot water is dumped back where it came from, subtle changes in temperature affect the underwater ecosystem: certain fish will die because the water is too hot, other fish will die because they ate the first type, and algae will take over because no fish is left to eat it. However, heat continues to be an issue even after the nuclear reaction has taken place. The reactions that create energy are very wild chain reactions, but after the chain reaction has stopped, nuclear fuel will continue to decay normally, still emitting heat. Because space is an issue at power plants, some fuel rods have been stacked very close together; however, if they are placed too closely, there is a chance a “criticality” could occur, where the fuel begins an unsupervised reaction. [2] Another solution needs to be found to store the fuel rods that either has a larger margin of safety before a criticality can occur, or where humans, animals, and the environment will be protected from the results of a criticality.
A third danger of radioactive waste that may not seem very obvious at first is the possibility that a group or nation that does not answer to the United Nations or other global regulatory bodies could obtain enough waste to make a crude kind of nuclear bomb. Not all of the radioactive material is used up in a nuclear power plant, so plenty remains in the spent fuel. In 1974, India created a nuclear bomb from fuel that had been “reprocessed”, which had two consequences. The first was that the global community realized how carefully their nuclear waste must be guarded, lest it be used against them. [2] The atomic weapons detonated in Japan in the 1940s had devastating effects on the people there, and the amount of radioactivity was very low compared to the amount that is handled by any individual power plant. Since so much usable material remains in spent fuel, it would seem a simple, if expensive and dangerous, method to create a weapon to wreak destruction on another country or faction. Nuclear weapons are already dangerous because of the sheer energy and heat they possess, but when that is coupled with the devastating effects of radiation on living beings, anyone who would use nuclear power, must take steps to prevent the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from occurring again.
The second consequence of India's 1974 detonation exacerbated the U.S.'s fuel storage problem. Because the device was constructed using materials separated at a reprocessing facility, reprocessing itself was essentially blamed for the incident, so when President Ford promised the American public that steps would be taken to prevent another incident like that in India, those steps were to ban reprocessing. When the United States' nuclear program began, the idea at the time was to reprocess all the nuclear fuel used to avoid having to mine for new supplies of uranium ore and to store the depleted ore. This is what most other countries that have a nuclear power program do. However, because that reprocessing is not currently an option, and because uranium is plentiful and cheap to mine, additional nuclear material is added to the stock of waste that needs to be stored.
In addition to adding more every year, another problem with having so much waste is that it will not decompose. Regular wastes like vegetable peels and paper products will eventually biodegrade in landfills. It does not happen quickly―being compressed tightly makes it difficult for bacteria and worms to reach the waste and work their biological magic―but within a few hundred years, today's waste products will be a memory or very changed in form. In contrast, in a few hundred years, the majority of nuclear waste that exists at this moment will still exist, and will continue to exist for another 10000 years. Radioactive elements have half-lives of thousands of years, meaning after thousands of years have elapsed, half of their weight will be changed into a less radioactive material. However, after twice a half-life has gone by, a quarter of the original material still remains, rather than none of it. This happens because the decomposition slows down as there is less and less material. Still worse is the fact that the new elements that the original waste decayed into can still be very radioactive and have long half lives of their own. So then, nuclear waste is not going to go away any time soon, nor will the United States stop adding to the supplies of waste any time soon.
The problems with nuclear waste almost seem to outweigh the benefits. However, other energy sources have their own problems that loom equally largely, so nuclear power will continue to be used for some time. Even if all nuclear reactors were shut off today, the problem with disposing the waste would not go away. The nuclear waste would continue to be dangerously hot and radioactive, potential weapon fuel, and it would continue to sit there, seeming to ignore the effects of weather and time. These problems must be solved regardless of future actions. They must not be deferred to a future generation, because to do so is irresponsible on the part of today's generation. If nuclear power continues to provide the world with electricity that is unconstrained by fossil fuels and does not emit greenhouse gases, the problem will continue to grow larger with time, so solving it must take place sooner rather than later.
References
[1] U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2002, “Radioactive Waste: Production, Storage, Disposal”.
[2] Lambert J. D. B., Lambert, R., 2007 “An Overview of Spent Fuel Storage At Commercial Reactors in the United States”, 4, Safety Related Issues of Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage, Lambert, J. D. B.; Kadyrzhanov, K. K. eds., Springer – Verlag.
