The Pros And Cons Of Nuclear Power Plants

Some nuclear power plants benefit humans by creating a needed supply of electricity. They are usually built near water to remove the heat the reactor produces. The way that this happens is the power plants heat water to produce the electricity. With the steam that’s produced from the heated water, large turbines begin to spin that essentially generate the electricity. The nuclear power plants use the heat that is produced during nuclear fission to heat the water. A nuclear fission is when the uranium atoms split into two smaller atoms, giving off a large amount of heat. According to the ME Mechanical team (2016), the nuclear power plants use uranium and plutonium as a source of fuel. These atoms are radioactive in nature, but when they …show more content…
These power plants supply about one-fifth (20%) of the United States electricity since the 1990’s. There are incidents when accidents involving nuclear reactors can occur. With these accidents, they can lead to substantial unplanned radiation exposure for humans and the environment (Sherer, Visconti, Ritenour, & Haynes, 2014, p.27).
Nuclear power plants first must be built, in preference near a body of water. With this, the area will need to be cleared, which disturbs the natural habitat of the creatures that live there leading to the gradual upset of the ecological balance of the region. With the heat that the plants produce, it’ll reject into the body of water that it’s near, causing significant drops in the populations of several species of fish. There’s also an increase in the levels of sulfur dioxide in the air, which tend to cause acid rain to develop. The rain then leads to the contamination of the surface of the bodies of water. The soil productivity reduces, and the sulfur dioxide has a negative effect on the vegetation and human health in that region. Some social impacts of nuclear power plants begin to come forth when the set up starts. People