INTRODUCTION

As of 2006, nuclear power plants have contributed 17% of the World’s power.[1] Currently,
there are 96 nuclear power plants that contribute to the electric grid in the US, where 441 are in
operation worldwide. [2] The draw of nuclear power is that the main fuel used to generate power
is easily fissionable radioactive material, most commonly uranium-235, which can be used to
generate heat in the process of nuclear fission. This heat is then used to heat water to generate
high pressure steam to drive turbines for a near zero carbon footprint. With current projections,
natural uranium deposits should last for the foreseeable future, with obtainable uranium reaching
over 4 billion metric tons, meaning while uranium is not renewable, it could be depended on for
years to come.[3]

There are some concerns, however, with the production of energy through nuclear plants. At the
top of these concerns is the general safety of these plants due to accidents such as those at
Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. These accidents shook the world and, in the case
of the accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima, released harmful radionuclides into the
surrounding communities. Not only is there a major safety risk with operating a nuclear reactor,
but there are also the questions of what to do with nuclear waste and, more importantly, if
countries have reactors will they use uranium refining facilities to make nuclear warheads.

Even with the concerns listed, the benefits have been considered greater by governments,
allowing nuclear energy to become a large part of our electrical grid. This report aims to take a
more in depth look at the pros and cons of nuclear reactors with the current technologies
available, focusing on power production, the nuclear fuel cycle, and safety, and then future
research for nuclear plants.

Current Overview of Nuclear Technology

Power Production

Nuclear has become an attractive source of energy due to reactors producing no CO and nuclear
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fuel being able to release 1 million times more energy per mass when compared to combustion
reactions. [1] The large magnitude of power released by nuclear fission and the long-life span of
nuclear plants reaching up to 60 years allows for feasible long term plans for energy production.
[4] Today, reliance on nuclear energy varies between each country, but some have really taken to
nuclear power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions like France, who has 75% of its energy
supplied by nuclear plants. [5]

To harness nuclear energy, there have been various reactors designed and implemented which
include, pressure water reactors (PWRs), boiling water reactors (BWRs), heavy water reactors
(HWRs), and fast reactors. In a general reactor, the unit is loaded with refined fuel that is close
enough so that the natural decay of uranium is sped up. If an atom of U-235 absorbs a neutron,
the nucleus will become unstable and will split, creating two larger nuclei, releasing a few
neutrons, and releasing heat. When other U-235 atoms take up the released neutrons, this is a
chain reaction. To prevent nuclear chain reactions from running away and generating too much
heat, a moderator is used, which absorbs some of the free neutrons. The heat from the fission
process heats a coolant which is then either boiled to move turbines with the gas flow or piped
out of the reactor to heat a water source to generate steam for turbines and then piped back to the
reactor.

In a PWR, the reactor is filled with H O as the coolant and the moderator is a set of control rods
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made from a blend of isotopes, such as B-10 and In-115, that can effectively absorb neutrons.
The coolant is pressurized in the reactor, so that it will not boil, and is piped to a water reservoir
to heat. For BWRs, the setup is the same as a PWR, but the water is boiled directly in the reactor
and then piped directly to the turbines. For the case of HWRs, the reactor is a PWR except there
are no control rods. The moderator in this case is D O, which acts as the coolant and the
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moderator. In the US, about 65% of the existing reactors are PWRs and roughly another third are
BWRs. [6]

Fast reactors are a special type of reactor that are designed with the purpose of using Pu and the
unwanted fission products of U-235 as fuel. While fast reactors are a novel way to use up
dangerous radionuclides and Pu, that could otherwise be made into weapons, not many countries
have put great funding into designing or building these types of reactors. [6]

It should be mentioned that while nuclear energy is touted as being “carbon free,” there is still
significant energy that is used to mine uranium and then refine the ore to a fuel that has a 5% U-
235 concentration. In a life cycle analysis of various power plant setups, it is estimated that 3-35
kg of CO is released per MWhr, but this pales in comparison to the footprint left by natural gas
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combustion, which comes in at 380-1000 kg of CO released per MWhr. [7]

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The Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Once nuclear fuel has been spent, no longer efficiently generating power, there are two options
for what to do with it. The cheapest and most common method is to dispose of the spent fuel by
placing it in a geologic depository, commonly called the open fuel cycle. [1] The second strategy
is to take depleted fuel and reprocess it, with the main purpose of reclaiming any unused U and
Pu, this being the closed fuel cycle. [1] The reason why the closed fuel cycle is beneficial is that
only 1-3% of fuel is used by the reactor, so reprocessing it limits the amount of waste that needs
to be disposed of, which could seriously hurt the environment and communities if a spill or other
accident happens. [8]

The nuclear plants in the US operate on the open fuel cycle, since currently it is cheapest, and the
infrastructure has not been built to reprocess depleted fuel. [1] France, which is very reliant on
nuclear energy, uses the closed fuel cycle to limit the amount of waste that builds up in the
country. [cite] In order to reprocess this material, the PUREX process is primarily used to
recover U and Pu, but leave out products such as Np, Am, and Cm. [1] The PUREX process uses
nitric acid, tributyl phosphate, and mineral spirits to extract the desired material and leave the
unwanted fission products. [9] The U and Pu are then mixed into mixed oxide fuel, which can be
used similarly to the normal U-235 enriched fuel and the fission products are then mixed into
glass to be safely transported. [9]
Safety in Nuclear Power

It’s no secret that a huge challenge that nuclear power currently faces is how safe it is perceived
to be. For a large portion of the public, the first thing that comes to mind when nuclear power is
mentioned are the nuclear accidents that have occurred in recent history. Chernobyl, Fukushima,
and 3 Mile Island are all fairly well known nuclear power plant incidents that have had drastic
consequences on not only those who were involved, but on the environment and surrounding
public. Although each of these accidents had adverse side effects on the workers, public, and the
environment, it is important to note that these are the only three major accidents that have
occurred in the nuclear power industry in all 33 countries that have operating power plants [15].
Only two events in history have been classified as a level seven nuclear accident by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and both were nuclear power plant disasters:
Chernobyl and Fukushima. Three Mile Island was designated a level five. The IAEA scale is
based on the effects the accidents have on public health and the environment. Level’s one
through three are designated as “incidents” with level one being an “anomaly.” The scale
progressively gets worse until level seven, which is designated as a “major accident” [10].
Chernobyl is commonly referred to as the worst nuclear power plant accident that this world has
ever seen. Many factors contributed to the Chernobyl accident, including what some deem to be
a “flawed” reactor design, incompetent personnel, and lack of a safety culture [10]. Serious
mistakes were made during a routine maintenance check involving the turbines that controlled
the main circulating pumps responsible for cooling the reactor rods. The resulting generation of
steam caused the massive explosion and subsequent catastrophic release of radioactive material. 
Thirty-one workers and firefighters were killed initially due to acute radiation sickness, and
perhaps hundreds of thousands more were directly affected by the accident [13].
It took over two weeks for hundreds of thousands of deployed military personnel and civilians to
just put out the fires caused by the reactor’s explosion, all during this time radiation is being
constantly released and poisoning not only those working on the containment, but the hundreds
of thousands of people living in the area. A 19 mile exclusion zone was originally put in place,
but has since been expanded to an area of about 1000 miles, which is still off limits to the public
today [13]. A concrete enclosure was quickly constructed around the remains of the reactor to
help alleviate the spread of contamination, but this was only designed to last for two to three
decades. In 2004, a new structure was planned, one that would be able to last for at least 100
years, and this one was completed in July of 2019. With this new structure in place, cleanup will
likely continue for probably another 50 years [11].
The accident at Fukushima was largely a result of a tsunami caused by an earthquake off the
coast of the eastern coast of Japan. A 15 meter (50 foot) wave pummeled into the shoreline,
causing three of Fukushima’s reactors to explode after the power supply was cut off to the
cooling system. When the earthquake hit, the reactors at Fukushima shut down automatically, as
did the reactors at three nearby power plants. The reactors stood up well to the earthquake, but
were ultimately brought down by the tsunami which wiped out 12 of the 13 back-up generators.
Three of the six reactors melted down immediately after the generators lost power, the fourth
reactor melted down on the fifth day as a result [11].
A nuclear emergency was declared the evening of the accident, a little over 3 hours after the
tsunami hit. An evacuation order was put in place for those within 2 km of the power plant, but
was quickly extended to 20 km by the following day. Tracking the release of radiation proved
difficult due to all but one radiation monitoring station being shut down from the tsunami. It was
originally estimated that the release was about 15% of what was released at the Chernobyl
accident, but further analysis has lowered that estimate. Construction for a structure to cover the
reactors, much like the one originally put in place at Chernobyl, was started in three months after
the accident and officially put in place 5 months later. A more permanent replacement was put in
place in 2016 [13].
The accident at Three Mile Island was rated a level five by the IAEA, an “accident with wider
consequences.” A malfunction in the system caused the coolant’s temperature to rise, resulting in
an automatic shutdown to the reactor. A relief valve failed to close once the system was shut
down, which resulted in the coolant being drained and causing major damage to the core. The
operators were unaware that the relief valve was open because of inadequacies in their
instrumentation. Radioactive gases were released, but doses to local residents remained below
normal background levels. The public’s health concerns lead to a study conducted over 18 years
following the accident on more than 30,000 people who were nearby when the accident occurred,
but no evidence of major health effects as a direct effect of the accident were found [14].
The amount of radiation dose received by those within 10 miles of the accident was less than 1
millisievert (mSV) to any one individual. To put this in perspective, this is equivalent to about
what is received by an individual during a routine chest X-ray, and also about a third of normal
background radiation received by an individual in a year [14].
Following each of these accidents, further safety measures, new and improved reactor designs,
and more comprehensive training were put in place to increase the safety of these operations and
prevent the same, or similar, accidents from occurring. Following Chernobyl, many international
agencies were formed to oversee the safe design, construction, and operation of nuclear power
facilities [14]. The IAEA is a prime example. Focusing on safety improvements and initiatives
that promote radioactive releases to the public and to the environment, the IAEA promotes
nuclear cooperation and safe practices in nuclear technologies worldwide [10]. For the Three
Mile Island accident, further training on operations improved the reliability of the industry, and
even led to a decrease in significant events (from 2.38 to 0.10 per reactor) from 1985 to 1997
[14].
While these accidents were by no doubt catastrophic, when the numbers are put in perspective it
is hard to argue that nuclear power poses more of a threat to safety, or to the environment, than
other forms of energy. In fact, when the effects of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are
taken into account, as well as accidents in the workplace, nuclear energy is widely regarded as
the safest energy source available, especially compared with coal and gas.  Air pollution from
fossil fuels and biomass burning contributes to an estimated five million deaths each year, while
greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly increasing the effects that climate change has on our
planet. Including the three accidents mentioned above, it is estimated that nuclear power has
caused 5000 deaths, from worker accidents and radiation fallout [15]. While this number may
seem large, nuclear power has been shown to result in roughly 330 times less than energy from
coal, 250 times less than energy from oil, and 38 times fewer than energy from gas. These
numbers are illustrated in figure 1.
 Figure 1: Death rates from coal, oil, adn gas greatly outnumber those from nuclear and
renewable energy alternatives [15].
The stigma surrounding nuclear power, possibly obtained from the creation and destruction
brought about by nuclear weapons, breeds false illusion into the safety of nuclear power, when
the numbers are examined, nuclear power is by far a safer alternative than coal, oil, and gas
power that are most commonly used today. Even comparing modern renewable energy sources,
nuclear power is not much more unsafe than hydropower dams, solar panels, or wind turbines.
[15].

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