Most people think using nuclear energy is a clean, safe way to make electricity. Some people don’t think we should use nuclear energy, though, because they think it is too dangerous. That’s because heat isn’t the only thing that’s released during the fission process that produces electricity from nuclear energy. Rays of energy, like x-rays, are also given off. These rays of energy are called radiation and can be dangerous.

Small amounts of radiation are harmless, but large amounts of radiation can kill our cells and poison our food and water. Power plants are careful to keep radiation from escaping. Nuclear power plants in the United States are very safe. (Read more about radiation in the “Things You Thought You Knew” section.)

Environmental Safety

Nuclear power plants have very little impact on the environment. Generating electricity from nuclear energy produces no air pollution, because no fuel is burned. Most of the water used in the cooling processes is recycled.

Since nothing is burned when producing electricity from nuclear energy, nothing harmful is vented into the atmosphere. This is why nuclear power plants do not have smokestacks like fossil fuel facilities. Some nuclear power plants use large cooling towers to remove excess heat from cooling water before it is returned to the waterways. What you see come out of the cooling towers is water vapor, not smoke or radioactive material.

Power Plant Safety

The fuel used in nuclear power plants becomes extremely hot and radioactive. For this reason, nuclear power plants have many barriers to guard against the accidental release of this radioactive material. These barriers include the ceramic form of the fuel pellets; the metal encasing the fuel pins; the reactor vessel with 8- to 10-inch-thick walls of steel; and a containment building with a lining of ¾-inch steel and walls of reinforced concrete three or more feet thick. This containment building is strong enough to withstand earthquakes, violent storms, and even the direct impact of a large aircraft. The design prevents radioactive material from escaping into the environment even if a serious problem occurs at the plant.

Some people think a nuclear reactor can explode like an atomic bomb. This cannot happen! A nuclear explosion requires a very high concentration of fissionable uranium—the kind that makes the atoms split apart—and the fuel used in nuclear power plants has only a small amount.

Utilities in the United States have operated nuclear power plants since 1957. During this time, no one in the United States has died or been injured as a result of operations at a commercial nuclear power plant.

What about Nuclear Waste?

In the process of day-to-day living, people produce waste. Consider the amount of food scraps, used paper, and other trash that you and your family throw into the trash every day. Just think of how much waste one visit to a fast food restaurant creates – leftover food and drinks, bags, straws, cups and containers.

Industries also create trash as a result of doing or making something. The leftovers of an industrial process are called waste.

Like all industries, nuclear power plants produce waste. But nuclear waste is not like normal garbage. The challenge with nuclear power plants is not the amount of waste they make, which is quite small compared with the amount of waste produced by many other industries. The challenge is that some nuclear power plant waste is radioactive. This means that disposing of the waste requires special care to protect workers and the public. The way it is disposed of depends on how radioactive the waste is.

All nuclear waste is radioactive. It gives off invisible energy rays that can make people sick and even die if they are exposed to it. Nuclear waste will stay radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.

Right now, we store nuclear waste in the United States in special buildings and containers that are safe for a certain amount of time.

For over forty years, some of the world’s top scientists have been working to figure out the safest way to dispose of nuclear waste. They have looked at many different options such as shooting it into outer space, putting it into the ocean floor, or burying it in polar ice caps. After much study, they decided the best way to dispose of nuclear waste is to put it deep underground. The place they decided on was Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Scientists are studying where to put our nuclear waste where it can never harm people or the environment.

> Visit Yucca Mountain Johnny to learn more about safely storing nuclear waste