Nuclear energy is the subject of intense debate about its environmental impact and sustainability. Is nuclear energy really clean and ecological? In this article, we take a closer look at this topic and examine its impact on the environment and its implications for the energy future. Similarly, industries such as online pin-up casinos are also assessing their environmental impact in order to adapt to more sustainable practices.
The ongoing debate about nuclear energy
Nuclear energy accounts for about 10% of the world’s energy, with the majority coming from burning fossil fuels. While renewable energies such as solar and wind are on the rise, their production comes with significant environmental costs and no sustainable way to manage their life cycle has yet been found.
Since the Chernobyl accident and more recently Fukushima, the debate about nuclear energy has returned to the public agenda. Citizens, politicians and the media regularly discuss the use and future of nuclear energy and question its safety, profitability, effectiveness and sustainability. Should nuclear energy be further developed or dismantled? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of increased nuclear production?
At the heart of these debates is a question that often sparks debate: Is nuclear energy clean and green? Opinions are divided. On the one hand, there are those who claim that nuclear energy is clean and does not emit carbon or any kind of air pollution. On the other hand, there are those who consider it polluting and dangerous in an unacceptable way. To help you form an informed opinion on this issue, we will look at the nuclear problem from an ecological perspective. So is nuclear energy really green? Let’s find out.
The ecological dangers of nuclear energy
First of all, it must be made clear that nuclear energy, like all forms of energy, is not 100% ecological. For an energy to be truly green, it should have no impact on the environment at all.
The truth is that all energies have more or less serious consequences for our planet. Nuclear energy works thanks to infrastructures such as nuclear power plants. For example, to build them requires previously mined and transported raw materials, which undoubtedly has non-zero impacts. The same goes for fossil fuel systems or solar panels that use rare metals. So the idea here is that there is no energy that is 100% green, and nuclear energy is no exception.
As for pollution, there is no denying that nuclear energy causes some types of pollution, starting with radioactive pollution. What exactly is it made of? Well, when handling radioactive products (the by-products created during the fission reaction), if handled improperly, there is a risk that the radioactivity will be transferred into the environment.
In fact, the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine in 1986 resulted in significant radioactive contamination in several European countries, causing between 9,000 and 90,000 deaths. The environment was damaged as biodiversity was contaminated over more than 200,000 km2, increasing animal mortality and contaminating some water reserves. Despite all this, the radioactive contamination of a facility is generally considered to be low in normal circumstances, unless a serious nuclear accident occurs.
This means that if there are no problems, radioactive contamination in a nuclear power plant is negligible. But yes, if a serious accident occurs, the radioactive contamination can be very serious. Since the 1950s, two accidents at civilian nuclear power plants have resulted in significant releases of radioactivity from production sites (i.e. into the wild) at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
The problem of nuclear waste and recycled water
On the other hand, the production of nuclear energy requires large water consumption to cool the reactors. For example, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a nuclear power plant uses slightly more water than coal or solar thermal power plants (between 133 and 190,000 liters of water per MWh of electricity generated). This water is then released into the environment, where its high temperature can have impacts on surrounding ecosystems (e.g. algae blooms or impacts on biotopes).
On the other hand, the use of this water to operate the systems raises two additional problems. Firstly, the availability of this resource for other uses decreases, which can be problematic in the event of a drought, for example. The second reason is that in some cases it can destroy living organisms in the water you drink.
Finally, the main source of nuclear energy “pollution” is the production of nuclear waste. Most of these wastes are relatively harmless because they have low radioactive activity and a short lifespan (they quickly become inert). But a small fraction still has significantly high radioactive activity (about 3%), which is sometimes associated with a long lifespan. These wastes therefore remain dangerous for a long time (several hundred or even thousands of years) and can contaminate the environment or humans.
