Is nuclear power worth the risk? This question has been the topic of discussion time and time again. Usually it will be brought up more often after a type of nuclear scare, or disaster. .
First off nuclear power consists of about twenty percent of the worlds power supply, with(as of 1993) four hundred plants worldwide with one hundred and nine of them being in the United States. Also with the amount of uranium left in it's natural form in the world it is estimated that nuclear power will be possible for hundreds of years, and with "breeder reactors" that number could be easily put into the millions.
With only one accident to the public being reported (Chernobyl),the risk to the public is minimal. Also the accident at Chernobyl would not of happened if the reactor was built to US standards instead of the former Soviet Union's. Yet another point in the argument for that would be not to turn the power plant up to 150 percent, usually that does tend break things. The effects of this disaster only killed 31 people, more people have died in plane crashes and coal mines collapsing. There is also only about twenty square miles that will be uninhabitable for a long period of time, which if you look at the size of a nation the size of Russia, isn't a whole lot.
Now I mentioned "breeder reactors" before, these reactors are essentially the same as a normal reactor (which runs off U-235) except it runs off of U-238. U-235 is only a small part of natural uranium(.7%), thus making a large amount of waste(99.3%), and in that amount of waste is U-238. The only problem with getting the U-238 to become usable is to run it through a normal reactor. There was a program to set up one in the United States, but during the Clinton administration it got cancelled.
Still yet another point in the argument is what to do with all the radioactive waste once it has been reprocessed so many times that it cannot be used.
