Running head: NUCLEAR POWER PLANT SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 1

Nuclear power plant should not be shut down,

instead, researchers should conduct more study to stabilize it

Aiden Lin

UC Santa Barbara
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 2

Abstract

The incident of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster caused many countries to shut

down their nuclear plants soon or later. However, researchers like Kunsch and Friesewinkel,

through their studies, found out that doing will cause many countries to have a dramatic

depletion in the available power resources. Likewise, other researchers like Nazlioglu, Woo, and

each of their team, also found that such actions will not only significantly reduce the productivity

of the country but also cause influence the economy negatively. The main part of the paper is

going to be a literature review about the issues causing by shutting down nuclear power plants

and replacing it with other energies. In addition, by using what is learned from the review, the

paper is going to argue that countries should continue to invest in nuclear energy and attempt to

develop technology to reduce the risk of using nuclear energy instead of just eliminating the use

of it.

Keywords:​ Nuclear Energy, Shutdown of Nuclear Power Plant

NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 3

Nuclear power plant should not be shut down,

instead, researchers should conduct more study to stabilize it

Introduction

Nuclear Energy is an energy that has an extremely high energy density, and this caused

many countries to use nuclear energy as a new source of energy. However, the high energy

density also brings a high risk: if natural disasters or human mistakes cause just part of the

nuclear power plant to stop working as the part is intended to, the nuclear reactor can potentially

release an enormous amount of radiation and energy to the surrounding environment, which can

kill hundreds of lives. While using nuclear energy may have some risk, many pieces of evidence

have shown that nuclear energy has become an irreplaceable resource for almost all countries

that use nuclear energy if the country wants to keep its living standard. Therefore, I propose that

we should still continue to use nuclear power plant instead of shutting down them, and in order

to reduce the risk of using nuclear energy, countries should support their researchers in finding a

solution to ensure the safety of using nuclear energy.

Background information about the massive shutdowns of nuclear power plants

The Fukushima nuclear disaster happened in Japan was the most influential incidents in

the history of nuclear energy. After the incident, the average percent favored the use of nuclear

energy in 42 different countries dropped dramatically from 52.7 percent to 45.4 percent, and as a

result, almost all countries that are currently using nuclear energy to slowly shut their nuclear

power plants down and replace them with other power plants (Y. Kim, M. Kim, W. Kim, 2013).
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 4

However, stop using nuclear energy would also bring other issues to human society, and the two

primary problems are lower productivity, higher electricity prices, more environmental damage.

Problems

1. Issues coming along with the shutdowns of nuclear power plants.

Despite how opposer of nuclear energy keeps using incidents like Fukushima disaster as

evidence that Nuclear energy is not safe and should no longer be used, the study of Kunsch and

Frieswinkel suggests that the energy lost due to the shutdown of nuclear power plants can be

really hard to recover (2013). Kunsch and Frieswinkel’s report focuses on the change in nuclear

policy in Belgium after Fukushima, which is primarily about shutting down nuclear power plants

and replacing them with fossil-fuel plants, and how such change can affect the Belgian electricity

system in long run. Through the analysis, Kunsch and Fries found that about 56 percent of the

total electricity of Belgium came from its seven nuclear power plants, and it would take about 30

years to restore the supply of domestic electricity back to the time before the policy was

changed.
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 5

Supply of domestic electricity vs. Time. Retrieved from

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513011427?via%3Dihub

Similarly, the economy will also be affected if nuclear power plants are shut down.

According to the research conducted by Woo et al., after the shutdown of San Onofre plant in

California was shut down in 2013, over about 2 years, the electricity market prices were raised

“by $6/MWH to $9/MWH”(Woo et al, 2014).

Environment-wise, in order to make up the difference, a large amount of carbon dioxide,

which is the major factor of global warming, will have to be produced as a result of using

thermal power plant. According to Qvist and Brook, in Sweden, in order to keep up with the

electricity consumption, 2.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide will be emitted, and this will be a

“highly retrograde step” for climate protection (2015).

While shutting down nuclear power plants does make sure there will be no more nuclear

power plants incidents, it’s clear that doing so will slow down the development of human society

as well as producing many other issues.

2. Nuclear energy vs. other kinds of energy

Some people who support the shutdown of nuclear power plants believe that replacing

nuclear power plants with other power plants can compensate for the loss of energy, but this is

not actually the case.

In order to compensate the energy lost due to the shutdown of nuclear power plants, most

countries decided to use either coal or natural gas as a replacement. Meanwhile, both of these

resources have a disastrous impact on the ecological system. Disregarding nuclear energy, coal is
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 6

the most used resources for producing energy, especially for electricity, however, using it has

many side effects such as landscape destruction, air pollution, greenhouse effect, and water

pollution. ​The use of coal in the thermal power plant will release a large amount of carbon

dioxide and thus aggravates the greenhouse effect; the other two products of burning coals,

nitrogen oxide, and sulfur oxide, likewise, are the major causes of acid rain, which will pollute

the air, landscape, and even the rivers ​(​Bosselman, 2009). Coal burning pollution also causes

lung cancer. In China, the country that uses coal the most, more than 31 million people suffered

from health issue caused by airborne fluoride pollution in China (Ando et al., 2001).

The study conducted by Qvist and Brook also shows how burning coal often generates health

issue. On average, the production of each TWh of electricity from coal would cause the deaths of

28.67 workers who work in a thermal power plant; in comparison, the death caused by nuclear is

about 0.074 per TWhm, which is almost negligible (2015).

NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 7

Deaths/TWh vs electricity source. Retrieved from

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421515001731

Another common resource is natural gas. While obtaining energy from natural gas isn’t

as destructive as using coals, burning natural gas is still bad for the environment. Natural gas

primarily consists of methane and other hydrocarbons, and burning natural gas will release a

large amount of carbon dioxide, which is the major cause of the greenhouse effect (​Bosselman,

2009); what’s more important is that natural gas is not as abundant as other resources and can

run out quickly.

On the other hand, while there are still renewable resources that almost cause no harm to

the environment, they are either not producing enough electricity or geographically constrained.

The primary renewable resources currently are hydro, wind, and solar energy. First of all,

compared to the amount of electricity produced by those three renewable energies, the initial

investment is simply too expensive (​Bosselman, 2009). Even if the cost can be lowered with the

technology development, the locations of renewable resources power plant are still quite limited.

For instance, wind, solar, and hydro plants have to be built “where the wind blows, the sun

shines, or the dam can be built”, and the location can’t be too far from cities, otherwise, it would

be hard to transfer electricity. (Bosselman, 2009). Another problem with renewable energy is that
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 8

they are not physically reliable. Taking wind power plant as an example, “wind power only

produces 30 to 40 percent of its potential energy output” due to the fact that the strength of the

wind can vary from time to time (“​Reliability of Renewable Energy: WIND”, 2017). Since the

reliability of energy source is important to the development of a society, it’s simply not possible

for renewable energy to be the major power resource.

Conclusion​ ​and Proposal

Many countries are now shutting down their nuclear plants and replacing them with other

power plants in order to ensure the safety, however, I do not believe such action is beneficial to

humans’ society in the long run. Although nuclear energy can be risky to use, it really is an

irreplaceable resource. Since nuclear energy is such an efficient energy source, shutting down

nuclear power plant will cause a huge drop in the available electricity of a country, and can cause

the price of electricity to increase, which will hurt the economy of a country in long run. In

addition, replacing nuclear energy with other energy sources can also be a problem. The

renewable energy power plant isn’t reliable enough in producing energy and cannot provide

enough electricity to support the society alone. The thermal power plant that uses either natural

gas or coal can accelerate the global warming effect and pollute the environment.

Therefore, I propose to conduct research in studying how to stabilize nuclear reactor and

make sure it doesn’t get out of control when a natural disaster, such as earthquake, happens in

the area where the power plant is built as this is the major cause of the nuclear disaster. I also

propose that, for governments, instead of shutting down nuclear power plants directly, they
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 9

should invest more in conducting research about how to stabilize the nuclear reactor so that more

engineers and scientists would be encouraged to find a reliable solution of controlling nuclear

energy which can eliminate the risk of using nuclear energy or make the risk negligible. In terms

of the cost of this proposal, the investment of money required is definitely going to be much

smaller than the loss as a result of shutting down nuclear power plants, and in the long run, if a

safe solution is found, the society will receive a boost in both living standard and technology

development.
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 10

References

Ando, M., Tadano, M., Yamamoto, S., Tamura, K., Asanuma, S., Watanabe, T., . . . Cao, S.

(2001). Health effects of fluoride pollution caused by coal burning. ​Science of The Total

Environment,271​(1-3), 107-116. doi:10.1016/s0048-9697(00)00836-6

Bosselman, F. P. (2009, December 13). ​The Ecological Advantages of Nuclear Power​.

Retrieved April 22, 2019, from

https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1728&context=fac_schol.

Kim, Y., Kim, M., & Kim, W. (2013). Effect of Fukushima Nuclear Disaster on the Global

Public Acceptance of Nuclear Energy. ​SSRN Electronic Journal​.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2322394

Kunsch, P. L., & Friesewinkel, J. (2014). Nuclear energy policy in Belgium after Fukushima.

Energy Policy,66​, 462-474. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2013.11.035

Qvist, S. A., & Brook, B. W. (2015). Environmental and health impacts of a policy to phase

out nuclear power in Sweden. ​Energy Policy,84,​ 1-10. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2015.04.023

Reliability of Renewable Energy: WIND. (2017, March 09). Retrieved from

https://www.strata.org/reliability-of-renewable-energy/wind/
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS SHOULD NOT BE SHUT DOWN 11

Woo, C., Ho, T., Zarnikau, J., Olson, A., Jones, R., Chait, M., . . . Wang, J. (2014).

Electricity-market price and nuclear power plant shutdown: Evidence from California.

Energy Policy,73​, 234-244. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2014.05.027