Nuclear Energy

1. Nuclear Energy Short how nuclear plant works how nuclear power works

2. Clean energy? Write down, and be able to answer at the end of class: How is nuclear power good/ bad for the environment, economy and society?

3. http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2012/highlights33http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2012/highlights33

4. Why has nuclear power made a comeback?

5. Global Total Primary Energy Supply, 2009 Nuclear provides about 6% of total energy (including transportation, industrial, residential commercial power) and 13.5% of global electricity generation

6. US leads the world in nuclear power generating capacity The United States, with 104 nuclear reactors generating some 19 percent of the country’s electricity, leads the world in nuclear generating capacity. France is a distant second in installed capacity, but its 58 reactors meet more than three quarters of the country’s electricity demand. (President François Hollande has pledged to reduce this dependence to 50 percent by 2025.)

7. World construction of nuclear is lead by China China, Russia, South Korea, and India account for 48 of the 64 nuclear reactors the International Atomic Energy Agency lists as under construction worldwide. Although these 64 reactors add up to some 62,000 megawatts of potential new capacity, fewer than one in four has a projected date for connecting to the electrical grid. Some reactors have been listed as “under construction” for over two decades.

8. U.S. Primary Energy Consumption by Source and Sector, 2010 (Quadrillion Btu) U.S. Primary Energy Consumption Source and Sector Data: Energy Information Administration

9. Where are they? And how old are they? California- Diablo Canyon, near SLOSan Onofre, offline since 1/2012

10. Getting old The average age of nuclear reactors operating today is 27 years; the 142 reactors that have already retired were just 23 years old on average when they closed. Many nuclear reactors have been granted operating extensions, usually for 20 years, beyond their typical design lifetime of 40 years. But since Fukushima, where the four retired reactors averaged 37 years in operation, this option has become less attractive.

11. Nuclear power is cheap power Nuclear slide show

12. Fukushima Daiichi- March 11, 2011 • Before and after pics • nuclear radiation reach CA FoxNews • Consideredto be the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl (1986), and only the second disaster to measure Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale • Reactors 1-3 were running, shut down automatically and emergency generator rooms flooded. Reactors overheated. • Flooded reactors with seawater to attempt to cool, but too late. • Reactors 1-3 had full melt downs, several gas explosions occurred, irradiated sea water returned to ocean • 1/10 amount of radiation released compared to Chernobyl

13. Chernobyl- April 26, 1986 • Consideredto be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history. • Reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant exploded. More explosions ensued, and the fires that resulted sent radioactive fallout into the atmosphere. • 100-400 times more fallout was released than had been by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. • Now a ghost town, the animals and plants start to move in. • Want to visit Chernobyl? Tours can take you! • Graphic victim video Chernobyl timeline video

14. Three Mile Island- March 28, 1979 • The partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear power plant was the most serious accident in the history of U.S. • Led to no deaths or injuries. • 2002 study conducted by the University of Pittsburgh, have determined the average radiation dose to individuals near Three Mile Island at the time of the meltdown was about 1 millirem - much less than the average, annual, natural background dose for residents of the central Pennsylvania region. • 25 years later, there has been no significant rise in cancer deaths among residents living near the Three Mile Island site. A new analysis of health statistics in the region conducted by the Radiation and Public Health Project has, however, found that death rates for infants, children, and the elderly soared in the first two years after the Three Mile Island accident in Dauphin and surrounding counties.

15. Accidents happen with nuclear power • 10 Worst Nuclear Disasters Video • Nuclear power is goodvideo • Research and prepare an answer to share: • How often have nuclear disasters occurred? • What is the real price of nuclear power? • How safe is nuclear power to live or swim near? • How much radiation are we exposed to with normal life activities? • Where does uranium come from? • Are there uses for the spent nuclear fuel?

16. Waste Storage • No permanent nuclear waste storage facility in US today! • “Temporary” storage option, if no longer need access to waste: • Dry cask storage- Kept in pool to cool before encasing the waste in concrete

17. In the past 40 years, U.S. nuclear power plants have produced an estimated 58,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, with much of that waste stored onsite at power plants in storage pools and dry casks.  http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/wanted-interim-nuclear-waste-storage-site

18. Yucca Mountain • Video • Plans cancelled, began studying property in 1978