Could anyone give any info about the fors and against of nuclear power in the UK?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

The obvious "Fors" are, "cleanliness" during generation, relative reliability and National Control.

Against are the issues of waste disposal, toxicity of fissile materials, expense and security.

Of these, expense is the greatest problem. Back in 1993, when the initial contracts were handed out for the decommissioning of current nuclear facilities, the company for which I worked, was looking a in excess of £30billion worth of business. That has now stretched to well over £100billion.

Security will always be an issue, but has not yet caused a real problem. There are now reactor designs, which are relatively cheap and do not produce fissile waste.

There is still the issue of what to do with the highly radioactive waste. At some time there is going to be an unavoidable log jam in waste containment resources, which is bound to precipitate other security problems.

Unfortunately the increasing propensity of OPEC and related Oil Producing Countries to use their resources as a political weapon, is leaving us with little choice. "Renewables" will never give us enough energy, so we are basically bound to tread the Nuclear Path.

However, there may be an alternative: Laser Furnaces.

Raising the temperature of water to temperatures of around 2000deg. causes the water to explosively decompose. In a purely aqeous environment, the reduction in temperature of the resultant plasma causes another explosive reconstitution into water, in the form of super-heated steam. There has to be a level of scale, in which such a clean, non nuclear process produces an energy surplus, which permits industrial levels of energy production.

Answer 2

The government can't even keep our personal details safe, imagine what they would be like with nuclear power.
Google nuclear misses.

Answer 3

For: Constant reliable electricity supply. No reliance on and consumption of finite fossil fuels, the supply of which may be subject to even greater political infuence in the future. No greenhouse gas emissions.

Against: Exceptionally expensive from inception to decommission, maybe uneconomically so without government subsidy. Highly dangerous waste products and risk of severe environmental damage. The NIMBY effect (Not In My Back Yard)

Answer 4

The arguments for and against are summarised, and given in detail at <debatabase>, which is an excellent site for researching the pros & cons of any argument.

The argument for relies basically on non-renewable resources, and argues that governments should invest more strongly in nuclear energy now, and support it as the energy source for the future.
There are two main arguments against - and these sometimes conflict - the arguments put forward by the fossil fuels lobby are distinctly different from those put forward by environmental groups.

Full details at
http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_…
which lays out the arguments very clearly, and links to a dozen useful sites.

Hope that helps!

Source(s):

http://www.idebate.org/debatabase

Answer 5

construction and running cost of nuclear power are a lot more than wind power .eg:the cost to build a nuclear power station is £26 billion and wind is £25 billion also nuclear power stations cost £6 billion to run over 30 years and wind is only £3 billion

Source(s):

oxford cambrige and rsa examinations hand out from the collage i attend