Nuclear Energy Career Guide and Counseling

Question: Nuclear energy? Aside from being used for nuclear power stations and atomic bombs, what else is nuclear energy used for?

Answer: "It" (I'll explain what I mean by that at the end) is used a lot in medicine. Radioactivity is used to both cure some cancers (radiotherapy) and to produce the X-rays and other forms of radiation required for screening (x-ray photography, radio-isotopes ingested and traced etc) It is also used for dating things. Carbon dating examines the decay of certain carbon atoms in organic tissue. It is also used for lighting. (i.e. watches used to have slightly radioactive paint to allow the numbers to glow in the dark) As you can see, there are lots of uses. I would say however that saying "Nuclear energy" isn't very specific. There are lots of forces at work in an atom. Nuclear power stations "utilise" the power stored through the "strong nuclear force". Many other forms and uses of energy come from atomic nucleii though. All electronics and lighting rely on nuclear effects relating to the bonds between nucleus and electrons. I guessed you really meant radioactivity though?

Question: When is nuclear energy expected to be easily accessible to the general public? When is nuclear energy expected to be easily accessible to the general public?

Answer: It is right now in some parts of the US and the rest of the world. Despite the fact that there have been no new nuclear power plants built in the US in decades, there are some that are in operation and there are new plants being built in other countries now. If you are looking for a personal nuclear reactor to power your house, don't look for that in your lifetime.

Question: Is nuclear energy harmful to the enviroment? I have to do a science project for school and I'm researching the element Uranium. The project is to make a promotional poster for useage of your element, but I don't want to write stuff about nuclear bombs. I know you can use Uranium for nuclear energy but I wasn't sure if it was better than using petroleum. Please included a list of Uranium's other uses too if you can. Thanks!

Answer: Nuclear energy is harmful to the environment if the condensed radioactive material is released into it, such as through a reactor meltdown or waste spill. Whether uranium is better than petroleum is debatable. If you have equal volumes of uranium and petroleum, the uranium will generate more energy (way more, from what I remember), which is a good thing because it can keep costs down. Uranium doesn't emit greenhouse gasses or other atmospheric pollutants, also a good thing. However, there will be nuclear waste produced, so what do you do with it? Then there's the potential for disaster to consider (think Chernobyl). Check these wikipedia articles for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pla… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pow… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_d…

Question: How much nuclear energy is available and how long will it last? I need to know how much longer nuclear energy will last. I also need to know how much available of nuclear energy is left. Can you also name some disadvantages and advantages of nuclear energy? Please? Thanks so much!

Answer: Nuclear energy is what drives the stars themselves, so in the greatest sense, nuclear energy will last until the last star burns out. But I suspect you were asking about earthbound technology. The global supply of uranium is limited, and depends on both the rate of use and the portion of natural deposits that is considered recoverable. By one estimate, only about 85 years. (see link) But one of the options is to construct breeder (fast) reactors which use uranium more efficiently, and can also be fueled with thorium, which is more abundant than uranium. Even more important, they produce more fuel than they consume in the form of new radioactive elements. Thus the available uranium can be stretched to 2500 years or more.

Question: What are the candidates positions on nuclear energy? Don't we need to build new nuclear power plants now? In order to lessen our dependence on oil. From what I understand, it is impossible to find any spot on Earth that would be seismically inactive for the next 10,000 years. Aren't the Democrats just pandering to the Nevada vote? This should not deter the development of nuclear energy, as waste can be stored if it is "vitrified" (encased in borosilicate glass.)

Answer: Finally, someone asks a real question about the campaigns. Too bad I haven't had the chance to research this one yet. But as far as I know, most Democrats are pushing to make oil more affordable, while most Republicans are urging to let the market do its job, so from the looks of it, we're probably not going to see too many alternatives from either side, including nuclear. I do know that Mitt Romney is concerned with environmental health, and along with Giuliani, they're both concerned with global warming. The democrats are very passionate about the environment and the dependency on foreign oil, but they lost their best candidate in this area, Bill Richardson, who was at the top of my list. Richardson has been on governance boards for energy related corporations, including an offshore drilling company, plus he was Clinton's Secretary of the Department of Energy. So there you have a few factors to consider if any of them are running mates. But I wouldn't count on nuclear energy. It's a very sufficient source however it's costly and hazardous. I think our smartest candidate will look for the next best energy renewable power source, and not the next best place to bomb, or else we'll be paying $5 a gallon (which is less than Europe).

Question: How can nuclear energy benfefit our environment? I'm doing a project on nuclear energy and I need a bunch of facts about it. So can u guys please help! Thanks!

Answer: Energy cleaner compared with others, the problem are the toxic wastes generated by it.

Question: What is the importance of wave energy and nuclear energy to the Caribbean? Even if you don't come from the Caribbean, please help. In fact, you can just tell me the importance of wave and nuclear energy to any country and I'll find a way to use it.

Answer: Nuclear power, in general,I believe is the best, safest, most reliable, current technology to provide energy. The plants operating now are safe and the new designs are even safer. Building new nuclear power plants would improve the economy, reduce or eliminate dependence on foreign oil, create jobs, reduce pollution, and provide for future technological advancement. I have been working with nuclear power for about 30 years, I would be glad to have a Nuclear power plant or high level waste disposal facility in my backyard. My family and I live in a home within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant. (where I work) I have a great understanding of the risks involved and am completely comfortable with a plant "in my backyard". I have confidence that my grandchildren’s grandchildren will be smart enough to treat the nuclear "waste" as a valuable resource or at least smart enough to handle it safely . If the cavemen thought their children would be too stupid to use fire safely, where would we be now? Using Chernobyl as a reason not to build is like saying because of the Hindenburg I will never fly in a commercial airliner. Nuclear power has the smallest environmental impact of any current energy production method per unit of energy produced. One fuel pellet about the size of a pencil eraser produces the same energy as about 1 ton of coal, and if reprocessed 2/3 of whats left can be reclaimed. Nuclear power is our best option for reliable, environmentally friendly base-load electrical power. The same reasons that nuclear works well for the US Navy would make it work well for a Caribean island I don't know much about wave energy, but it seems like a good way to provide power as long as it did not affect the tourism which is such a large part of the economy.

Question: What are the potential consequences of using nuclear energy? I'm answering questions for one of my classes and this is one of them: What are the potential consequences of using nuclear energy? Help Please

Answer: I believe the potential consequences are: 1. Energy Independence 2. Improved economy 3. Technological advances due to reliable, plentiful, energy 4. Reduced greenhouse gas emissions / air pollution 5. Increased use of hydrogen power 6. Increased need for secure storage of high level radioactive waste 7. Improved fuel reprocessing process 8. Reduction in fear of all things nuclear due to improved understanding (reactors are made to go "critical" it is how the heat is produced and sustained) of the fission process. 9. Improved reactor design / maintenance practices due to increased experience 10. Decreased unemployment / more high paying jobs I have some very good resources listed below for details / explainations and reference. Good luck on your class!

Question: How can Nuclear energy be used in peace ? I no that nuclear energy can be used to form distructive nuclear bombs but it can be also a very useful way to treat some diseases. Please explain to me this fact or support me with a website that dicusses this issue. Thank you for your help.

Answer: Radiation therapy is often used to treat cancer. Nuclear energy also produces much power.

Question: How do i find the return on cost for a nuclear energy plant? I found out that a nuclear energy plant charges a household 1.7 cents/kw-h and it costs around 2 billion to build the nuclear energy plant but I don't know what to do with that information.

Answer: You need a little bit more information. Primarily operating costs. To find out the return on any investment, you have to know: *investment cost *revenue To get the revenue you have to know how much electricity the plant will sell (besides the price they will sell it at) and you need to know all the costs (operating, distribution, sales, etc) In this case the revenue is the money that you make selling the electricity minus the cost of producing and distributing the electricity. That cost is going to include fuel, manpower to operate the facility, maintenance costs, etc Now, if you know how much electricity the plant will produce and sell, say an average rate of 10,000,000 kw That means that your gross revenue (before subtracting costs) is the 1.7 cnts/kw-hr*10,000,000 kw*24 hr/day That comes to 4,080,000 $/day Now if it cost $80,000/day to operate then you have a net revenue of 4,000,000 $/day Thats about 1.46 billion $/yr Economic returns are usually expressed as a percent of the capital cost. Often there are farily complicated formulas used that take into account the time value of money (revenue two years down the road is not as valuable as immediate revenue) but you can get a simple return estimate from a simple percentage. 1.46 billion / 2 billion = .73 or a 73% return each year That would be a very high return, but remember, I made up many of the bases numbers because they weren't provided in your question (also, I may have made an arithmetic error) Hopefully this was some help in understanding how to go about making a simplified economic return calcualtion.