How nuclear energy is different from other source of energy (fuel, hydro, wind, solar) that makes uranium hazardous than those, and what justify nuclear energy is relevant in the first place?
Sorry if the questions don’t really relate to each other. They’re just running wild in my mind. Sorry for the bad english – english is not my first language.
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Most forms of electricity generation take something with potential energy and make it do mechanical work like turning a turbine that than gets translated into electricity.
You burn coal to boil water to turn a turbine with steam and the turbine works like a reverse electro motor and produces electricity.
You can also use radioactive material to heat boil water and do the same thing.
You can also have instead water flowing downhill turn a turbine or wind blowing past a windmill do the same.
Solar is different because it turns sunshine directly into electricity.
In theory you also have many different types of batteries that store electricity in for example chemicals and can release that anergy in the from electricity later.
Most of these things with the exception of solar and wind rely on storing something that holds a lot of energy before it can be converted into electrify.
There is always the danger that that energy is released uncontrollably all at once. Releasing lots of energy in an uncontrolled fashion tends to be catastrophic.
For example coal has energy that can be liberated by burning it, but if you store the coal you want to burn wrong and get a lot of coal dust that might result in a big explosion.
Natural gas is even worse in that regard, a gas leak and a spark is all it takes to go boom.
Water will not explode easily, but if you have a lot of it behind a dam that is a lot fo potential energy you are storing and a dam failure can have catastrophic effect if all the energy get released in the form of a flood wave killing large numbers of people downstream.
Even chemical batteries can release their energy all at once is mishandled causing small or not so small explosions and fires.
Wind and solar (and the occasional tidal power generators) are different because we don’t usually store wind and sunshine next to the power plant and just use what the planet already has as it comes up, so there is no danger of a catastrophic solar spill as a panel releases days worth of sunshine all at once.
So most ways we generate power and electricity have a danger of the energy we are trying to harness being released in ways we don’t want.
Nuclear is not that different from natural gas or hydro in that regard.
What is a big difference is the worst possible case and potential side effects of.
A dam bursting may kill thousands of people but in the end you just have water to deal with if you want to rebuild in the destroyed area.
Nuclear contamination is harder to deal with than most other stuff and the worst case scenario of things going bad can be quite bad depending on the type of reactor.
It doesn’t help that radiation is invisible while people can see water and fire and ash, which makes it a bit scarier.
Nuclear energy also has the problem of what to do with the used up nuclear fuel and the all the nuclear trash.
In theory we can bury it somewhere, but nobody want it buried near where they live so that most spent fuel rods just sit in a water tank next to the reactor they were used in waiting for collection for decades.
However nuclear power also had advantages or at least it used to have some, fewer today.
One advnatge is that you only need a small amount of uranium to run them and are independent of any oil and gas exporters trying to raise prices or blockade or boycott you. It gives you independence from striking coal workers and similar. It also means that you can’t easily be cut of from your fuel source during war time.
Another advantage is that some types of reactors can be used to create the material necessary to build nuclear bombs. This is a bonus if you want to build bombs.
An advnatge that used to be touted in the past was price. Nuclear was supposed to bring cheap electricity. Nowadays several other types of power plants, most notably solar power are cheaper to produce.
Newer nuclear power plant design are safer and better in many ways, but due to the cost involved in building one and the protests of the local population, many of the reactors currently running in developed countries tend to be mostly nearing their end of life.
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