What Are The Ways That Solar Energy Is More Environment-friendly And Feasible Than Nuclear Energy?
Nov 20, 2009 in
diy
The more, the surpass. The opinion should be at least remotely realistic. I’m looking for ecological opinion why Solar Energy is a surpass alternative than Nuclear Reactors.
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4 comments
Neill O on November 20, 2009 at 5:29 am
Nuclear reactors yield uranium that is perilous to living things and must be buried in deep underground or mountain caves. This unusable uranium must be stored for hundreds of years; meanwhile the earth gains 100 million people for the next 20 years, and persons perilous equipment have to be transported through areas where people live to the storage space areas.
Solar energy has no such after effects at all, and the sun is a plentiful source of energy for most of the earth (not so much at the poles!).
There are no radioactive equipment needed or produced as a waste material. Solar panels are easily and steadily transported from their place of manufacture to where they’re needed and are steadily installed without unique clothing to protect installers from radiation.
Wawa on November 20, 2009 at 5:53 am
They both have their place, so if you’re plotting for a debate, you’ll have to take this into consideration. Your argument should be for solar, but not against complete replacement of nuclear. If you argue the latter, you’re sure to lose, unless your opponents are incompetent.
But to answer your question directly:
- Solar can provide heat directly, without being converted to mechanical motion and then electricity. It is thus more efficient at heating (say) water.
- Solar scales down well, so a single house system can be feasibly installed. A nuclear reactor needs at least an apartment-building load to be realistic. And they would only do that in Russia, because
- Nuclear reactor technology can be used to breed weapons equipment. And even if you couldn’t construct an A-bomb, if you could order fuel for your home reactor, a terrible person could grind it up into a fine power that would make a hazardous mess when blown up in a public place.
- The nuclear waste and radiation hazard also make nuclear unsuitable for single-home usage. These are not as much of a problem for a centralized sow.
Galen Alexis on November 20, 2009 at 6:14 am
Its all about the “after life” of the energy source. With solar panels there is some carbon and other things that can (hopefully) be reclaimed and recycled. With nuclear power you get things like Yucca Mountain. But, unless we invest in breeder reactors and breeder nuclear fusion to enrich the uranium waste into plutonium. This is fantastic because the waste that would other wise be carted off to Yucca Mountain gets recycled.
Plutonium caries a stigma due to the fact that it can be easily weaponized. More over breeder plants use liquid sodium. Liquid sodium is highly volatile when exposed to air or water. They can also be cooled using helium.
The down falls of solar are that the productivity will decrease with the age of the panels. disposal (nothing like radio-active storage space). And power generation at night (overcome with the use of solar towers).
Solar power generation has very small environmental impact beyond mining the resources, manufacturing, and disposal.
Best of luck.
roderick on November 20, 2009 at 6:49 am
Well, as far as I know there is no waste. But the problem with solar is that it is impractical in many places in the world. It depends really on the sun and the weather. Nuclear energy is not “evil” like many people might say it is. It is very highly synchronized, and most of that waste is just things like clothing worn by people. The waste usually has very low doses of radiation and is steadily stored where it can not look the environment. It’s not at all like you might see on the Simpsons with green sludge being dumped into lakes and streams, causing mutations. But the problem is that it has to be there for thousands of years before it can be removed.
If I had to pick which energy source was going to power my city I would definately go with solar, but it just won’t work in most places. I don’t know for sure, but I reckon I have heard that solar energy is not all that efficient. I saw a thing on TV once about a solar energy sow in southern Spain. It was a pretty large state of the art solar sow, but it only powered the small town nearby.
Maybe in the future there will be surpass technology allowing us to harness the suns power in a surpass way.