4e+Nuclear+--+Disadvantages


 * Nuclear energy Disadvantages **


 * Nuclear power plants take 18-24 months to shut down and remove or replace used radioactive fuel.
 * Nuclear waste is highly radioactive and less than one gallon of toxic waste would be enough to put every human on earth at the danger level of radioactivity.
 * People use two different ways to get rid of nuclear waste:
 * 1) Low-level waste is put in containment barrels which are then put in ditches and mountains.
 * 2) Nuclear waste is sealed in concrete and dumped into the ocean.
 * If one of these concrete containers were to leak it could disrupt an entire ocean food chain.
 * Nuclear reactors need a lot of water to cool.
 * An underwater ecosystem could collapse if the water returned to the body of water at a higher temperature from the nuclear power plant.
 * This water may be full of salt and metals.



this picture is from the World Nuclear Assoiation
 * Sometimes a nuclear accident will happen and cause a lot of damage to the surrounding area.
 * That happened in Idaho in 1951 when the first experimental fast reactor, named EBR-1 nearly exploded because of a runaway chain reaction. A scientist pressed a button that dropped the reactor core safely away from the chain reaction right before the reactor blew it's top.
 * A nuclear accident happened recently in 2011 at Fukusima nuclear power plant in Japan. On March 11, 2011 when an earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck Japan shutting down a nuclear reactor at the power plant, releasing radiation. people withen a twelve mile radius were evacuated from the area.

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