Nuclear Power
Nuclear power stations produce cheaper energy than coal power stations, which helps keep the size of electricity bills down. However, just the burning of coal produces wastes that pollute the environment, nuclear power stations too produce a slightly different waste. These wastes are know as “radioactive wastes” which are very harmful to any type of life and can take hundreds of years to become harmless.
Nowadays, great care is taken to dispose of these wastes in a safe way, but because the waste is stored or buried in particular sites, the dangers of radiation may be greater in these areas. Perhaps the most damaging environment consequences of nuclear power are the potential for accidents. Nuclear power stations are built to be as safe as possible, but humans make mistakes. Although accidents of nuclear plants are statistically very rare, the damage that they would cause is devastating. For example, on April 26th, 1986, two explosions destroyed one of the four nuclear power reactors at Chernobyl, a small town in Russia. Many governments consider the risk to be worth taking, but not everyone agrees with this view.
Radioactive Waste
Nuclear power production produces radioactive waste, which may be a gas, liquid, or solid. These radioactive wastes are normally classified according to their level of radioactivity; high, intermediate and low.
High levels waste remains very dangerous for tens of thousands of years. At present it is turned into glass blocks and stored. Eventually it may be buried.
Intermediate level waste needs to be isolated for thousands of years. It too will probably be buried.
Low levels waste used to be dumped at sea in drums until this was thought to be too dangerous and was stopped in 1983. In Britian, radioactive waste was buried at Drigg in Cumbria. Other low level waste, from the nuclear plant at Sellafielel was released into the Irish Sea. Some people say this is safe but others disagree since the occurrence of leukemia, a disease which attacks red blood cells, is very high around Sellafielel.