The United States is currently provided with nuclear power by a hundred and four nuclear reactors which are licensed to operate sixty five nuclear power plants and which produce a total of 0.806 terawatts per hour of electricity. The electricity produced from nuclear power makes up slightly more than nineteen percent of the total electricity production in the United States and this makes it the biggest supplier of commercial nuclear power in the world. The use of nuclear power in the United States began in earnest in the 1970s when most of the nuclear power plants were built but the changing economic situation and the Three Mile Island accident led to the cancellation of most of the projects that were intended to expand the use of nuclear energy. Since the year 1974, there has been no new ground breaking for the purpose of setting up new nuclear power plants although a number of nuclear reactor units have been constructed at these plants. However, there has recently been a revival of interest in nuclear energy and this new interest has largely been fostered by the Nuclear Power 2010 Program which was established in the year 2000.
There has been an increase in the number of nuclear reactors being constructed since 2010 in existing power plants such as the one at Watts Bar, Tennessee. In spite of the resurgence of interest in nuclear energy, most of the projects which have been set up for the construction of nuclear reactors have been recently cancelled. This is mainly due to the economic challenges that are currently gripping the nation as well as the negative reaction that came in the wake of the recent nuclear accidents in Japan. Officials in the nuclear industry state that they only expect about five new nuclear reactors to be working in the next eight years because of the hindrances which have made most of their projects to stall.
Since the beginning of its usage, there has been a lot of debate about the use of nuclear power in the United States and this has recently intensified due to talk of a coming renaissance in the use of nuclear energy. Some of the most hotly debated issues concerning the use of nuclear energy have been matters concerning the public safety and these have included the following: the possibility of the occurrence of nuclear accidents; ways through which the radioactive nuclear waste can safely be disposed of; the possibility of a race towards nuclear proliferation in the world; the cost of setting up nuclear power plants; and finally, the possibility of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear material and using it for their activities. Reservations about the use of nuclear energy have been expressed by a number of scientists and other experts with many of them questioning the safety of its use. Some have even gone as far as stating their disapproval of the new technology that has been developed for the purpose of ensuring that nuclear reactors produce more energy.
There have been concerns about people being exposed to low level exposure to radiation and the people who have expressed these concerns are completely opposed to the commercialization of nuclear energy in the United States. Some have said that the cost of building nuclear power plants as well as maintaining them is not worth it because other cheaper forms of clean energy can be developed for much less. Proponents of nuclear energy state that it is the only option which is available if we are to achieve our vision of fighting global warming through the development of clean energy. In fact, they state that nuclear energy is many times safer than other forms of energy and that the large amounts of energy small amounts of nuclear material produce offset the cost of the construction of nuclear power plants.
Most of the negative impacts of nuclear power on the environment arise from the nuclear fuel cycle as well as from effects which are brought about when a nuclear accident occurs. When compared to coal energy, the health risks and the harmful gas emissions to the environment associated to nuclear energy are quite minimal. However, although this occurs very rarely, nuclear power also brings with it catastrophic risks and one of these is the possibility of nuclear fuel that is over heated releasing large amounts of fission products to the environment. It is the large scale risks associated with nuclear energy which makes the public very much opposed to the use of nuclear power. When compared to coal energy, nuclear energy requires a resolution of the high level waste storage issue which is not a factor in the use of coal because it does not produce radioactive waste which can harm the environment. Nuclear accidents can be very harmful to the environment because it brings about large amounts of radiation which can affect the area involved for a very long time. However, when compared to coal, this energy source is very effective because it does not release large amounts of greenhouse gases into the environment.
Moreover, coal is one of the most environmentally unfriendly sources of energy because the gases it releases to the atmosphere not only cause global warming, but it also contributes to the formation of acid rain. It would therefore be best to continue with the development of nuclear energy because it is not only cost effective in the long term but it is also very environmentally friendly if handled correctly. In comparison to coal energy, which needs large amounts of coal to produce, nuclear energy requires only small quantities of uranium in order to produce large quantities of energy, perhaps even larger than what coal produces. It is a well known fact that mining is very detrimental to the environment and therefore, it would be preferable to mine uranium, which is needed only in small quantities to produce nuclear energy, than to mine coal which is needed in large quantities and leads to environmental degradation.
