There are many forms of energy that power our modern world, but there are many misconceptions about where energy comes from and how it’s produced, namely around nuclear energy. Nuclear is just one of the many forms of clean or renewable energy technologies that has received a bad name for itself, some parts are accurate while others are far from the truth. Hopefully this blog should clear up some misconceptions about nuclear energy and other forms of clean energy.

So, what energy sources does the industrialized world run on? Excellent question! It started in the 19th century where wood, charcoal and especially coal was used for almost all early machines, that changed in the early twentieth century with the development of oil refinement for fuel. Since then the world has been hooked on fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. These sources of energy are extremely easy to use because they are energy dense and can be stored in their solid, liquid, or gaseous form for later use. 

Fig. 1 (Ritchie, H)

Looking at Fig. 1 shows the deaths and greenhouse emissions per 1 terawatt hour and 1 gigawatt hour respectively. According to the graphs coal, oil, and natural gas generare 61% of global electricity and produce the largest amount of greenhouse gas emissions by a great margin. 

A surprising fact that can be gathered from Fig. 1 is that hydroelectric power actually has caused more deaths than nuclear power. This seems false because when we think of nuclear energy we instantly think of Chernobyl or Fukushima which were among the most devastating nuclear accidents in history, but they do not compare to hydroelectric accidents like that of the Banquio Dam failure. The accident happened in 1975 when a typhoon moved to the interior of China and dumped high amount of rain water, and due to mismanagement of the dam lead to the Banquio dam and 61 other dams along the river failing and leaving around 250,000 dead due to the flood and the following famine and disease (Banqiao Dam Failure). Hydroelectric accidents like the Banquio Dam failure happened for the same reasons the Chernobyl accident happened, government mismanagement of the cite and old technology. It would be very rare that any major accident would happen in the future due to tighter regulation and new technologies in nuclear reactors. 

Now, let’s talk about nuclear waste. It’s a hot topic (no pun intended) when it comes to green energy, and many misconceptions come along with it. After the nuclear rods spend around 5 years in the reactor, they are moved to a cooling pool for 5 more year (which expends about 87% of its radioactivity safely). Then the spent rods are put into a cask which is made of steal and concrete to be stored as a solid in a facility (Hickman, H). 

At the end of the day, no one renewable or green energy source can fill the gap of fossil fuels, that’s why experts suggest a combination of nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal among other green energy sources. Only the combination of these energy sources can get our societies to transition to a clean form of energy so we don’t have to sacrifice our modern way of life in order to preserve earth’s climate. But we need to keep in mind the dangers of both renewables and fossil fuels, and see that fossil fuels contributes to more deaths than all renewables combined. we should not stray away from clean energy just because we are scared of the dangers they pose.

Digital Flyer:

Fact sheet:

Resources:

Banqiao Dam Failure: Series of events. Will Hausmann Imagining Disaster. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://courses.bowdoin.edu/history-2203-fall-2020-whausman/narrative-of-the-event/ 

Hickman, H. (2019, November 19). What happens to nuclear waste in the U.S.? Nuclear Energy Institute. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.nei.org/news/2019/what-happens-nuclear-waste-us 

Ritchie, H. (2020, February 10). What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy? Our World in Data. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy