Danger Nuclear Fuel Cycle

The Nuclear Fuel Cycle – Cycle of Pollution

Just as one can’t talk about coal plants without thinking about coal mining, the same is true for nuclear power plants.  The fuel cycle of nuclear power starts with the mining of uranium ore that next is milled through physical and chemical means.  The milled ore is then converted to nuclear fuel by a process called “enrichment,” which is followed by fabrication into fuel pellets.  These fuel pellets are placed into long metal fuel rods.  After a period of use in the nuclear reactor,  the fission process creates other radioactive isotopes and the fuel pellets lose their ability to react and generate the heat that is turned into electricity.  The now spent fuel rods are temporarily stored in spent fuel pools—essentially large swimming pools next to the reactor—awaiting the next step.  Each of these steps pollutes the environment.

For decades, we were told that this high-level nuclear waste would then go deep underground where it would pose no threat for 24,100 years.  But this is not how it has turned out.  Instead, spent fuel pools currently contain over five times as much radioactive material as is in all U.S. reactor cores, presenting a threat of terrorist attack.

When the nuclear industry sells its product as “clean energy” that means nuclear power plants don’t emit greenhouse gases while they are operating.  This narrow definition ignores the fossil fuels used throughout the nuclear fuel cycle.  As the U.S. Energy Information Administration points out:

If fossil fuels are used for mining and refining uranium ore, or if fossil fuels are used when constructing the nuclear power plant, then the emissions from burning those fuels could be associated with the electricity that nuclear power plants generate.

Unlike the really “clean energy” sources of wind and solar power, nuclear power emits and discharges radioactive and chemical pollution to the air and water.

The nuclear fuel cycle also adds costs to nuclear power.  During a recent 12-month period, the price for uranium alone increased a whopping 86 percent.  And the nuclear fuel cycle adds instability to our energy supply.  Right now we are dependent on foreign suppliers, including Russia, for uranium fuel.  But that would get even worse if the U.S. were to build new so-called advanced reactors because the only source of fuel for those reactors is Russia.

Below in the Resources section you will find papers, articles, videos, etc. documenting the nuclear fuel cycle.