Nuclear Waste ABSTRACT
Nuclear waste Name
The nuclear power has been the new culture to the developed countries, and
the need to adopt the technology has been inevitable. The benefits that have
come along with the nuclear power are vast and realistic for the beginners
who aim at establishing the nuclear plants. However, the nuclear power has
had some of the negative impacts that have come along with the generation of
the power from the reactions in the main nuclear plants. It is at this point
whereby, it is critical in examining the essence of the nuclear waste that has
been a challenging factor to the nuclear plants. In the project, a clear
definition of the nuclear waste is given as well as analyzing the varying
categories of the nuclear waste critically so as to understand the most
complex and easiest to handle and dispose of. The project will also try and
outline the best applicable measure that can be used in protecting the
environment and the human beings from the nuclear waste (Scarborough
2003)
INTRODUCTION
The first commercial nuclear power stations were initiated in the 1950s with
over 400 hundred commercial nuclear power stations operating to date in
over thirty countries. The nuclear power has been essential in providing
reliable base-load power and
NUCLEAR POWER/NUCLEAR WASTE 3
electricity. Some of the key countries involved in the nuclear power
development include China, India, Russia and the United States being the
foremost country in the nuclear power production as indicated in the diagram
below.
However, the nuclear power has had a negative impact on the environment
with the resulting waste from the reactors. It is a situation that has led to
many scholars question the relevance of the nuclear power to the
environment as well as criticizing the measures taken by the governments in
mitigating the negative impact of the nuclear power.
RESULTS Nuclear waste
Nuclear waste has largely been depicted as the components that result from
the nuclear fuel after it is utilized in a reactor. The nuclear waste resembles
the initial fuel that is loaded into the reactor but since there is nuclear reaction
taking place, the content eventually differs. Before the production of the
power, the fuel constitutes the uranium, oxygen, and steel but after the
reaction occurs, the uranium atoms are split into different isotopes that depict
all the transition metal elements. It is also significant to record that the
nuclear fuel composition varies in accordance to what was inducted into the
reactor, the duration that the reactor was functioning as well as how long the
waste has been reserved in the reactor. The amount of the radioactive waste
that is produced is always in small quantity compared to the waste produced
by fossil fuel electricity generations (Streissguth 2001)
At each fuel cycle, there exist technologies that should be applied in
disposing of the radioactive waste in a safer way. Unlike other wastes from
various industries, the level of hazard of all the nuclear waste fades with time.
