One: nuclear weapons proliferation.

Nuclear technology made a violent entrance onto the world stage:

just one year after the world’s first ever nuclear test explosion in 1944,

two large cities were destroyed by just two single bombs.

After that, reactor technology slowly evolved

as a means of generating electricity,

but it’s always been intimately connected with nuclear weapons technology.

It’s nearly impossible to develop nuclear weapons

without access to reactor technology.

In fact, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty serves the purpose of

spreading nuclear reactor technology without spreading nuclear weapons

with limited success.

In 40 years, five countries have developed their own weapons

with the help of reactor technology.

The fact of the matter is that it can be very hard to distinguish

a covert nuclear weapons program from the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

In the 1970s, the big nuclear powers were happily selling peaceful technology

to smaller countries, which then developed weapons of their own.

The road to deadly nuclear weapons is always paved with peaceful reactors.

Two: nuclear waste and pollution.

Spent nuclear fuel is not only radioactive, but also contains

extremely poisonous chemical elements like plutonium.

It loses its harmfulness only slowly over several tens of thousands of years.

And there is also a process called reprocessing, which means

the extraction of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel.

It can be used for two purposes:

to build nuclear weapons or to use it as new fuel.

But hardly any of it is used as fuel, because we don’t have

the right kind of reactors for that.

A milligram will kill you; a few kilograms make an atomic bomb; and even

an inconspicuous country like Germany literally has tons of the stuff

just lying around, because reprocessing sounded like a good idea decades ago.

And where will all the waste go?

After dumping it into the ocean was forbidden, we’ve tried to bury it—

but we can’t find a place where it will definitely stay secure

for tens of thousands of years.

Over 30 countries operate nearly 400 reactors, managing

several hundred thousands of tons of nuclear waste

and only one is currently serious about opening

a permanent civilian waste storage: tiny Finland.

Three: accidents and disasters.

Over 60 years of nuclear power usage, there have been seven major accidents

in reactors or facilities dealing with nuclear waste.

Three of those were mostly contained, but four of them released significant

amounts of radioactivity into the environment.

In 1957, 1987, and 2011, large areas of land in Russia, Ukraine, and Japan

were rendered unfit for human habitation for decades to come.

The number of deaths is highly disputed, but probably lies in the thousands.

These disasters happened with nuclear reactors of very different types,

in very different countries, and several decades apart.

Looking at the numbers, we may as well ask ourselves,

“Are 10% of the world’s energy supply

worth a devastating disaster every 30 years?

Would 30% be worth another Fukushima or Chernobyl

somewhere on Earth every 10 years?

What area would have to be contaminated so we say ‘no more’?

Where is the line?”

So, should we use nuclear energy?

The risks may outweigh the benefits, and maybe we should

stop looking into this direction and drop this technology for good.

If you want to hear the other side of the argument

or a short introduction to nuclear energy, click here.

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