And how do we prevent it?
Other than not doing any fission 
:P
#
THANKS
First of all there are risks, safety concerns, with any energy resource. We in the nuclear industry have made safety our top priority. If you look at the statistics, nuclear has been one of the safest industries to work in over the last 40 years, not just safest power producers.
Dams break, ice falls from wind towers, heavy metals are used in solar panels, fossil fuels release byproducts to the environment.
Nuclear Safety Concerns:
1. Nuclear accident due to operator or maintenance error. Operators & maintenance personnel train incessantly to prevent and mitigate the occurrence, every US nuclear power site has a simulator. The nuclear industry takes a pro-active approach sharing any information learned from experience at sites across the world to minimize risk at nuclear facilities. (See INPO/WANO) A strong Safety Conscious Work Environment is fostered.
3. Nuclear accident due to sabotage/terrorism. Nuclear facilities are considered "hard" targets, with heavily armed and highly trained guards, response plans, fences, robust barriers to prevent unauthorized access to vital areas. Many of the same features designed to keep the primary plant safe in the event of an accident make it very difficult to attack (example 1 meter thick reinforced concrete containment structure) All personnel with access to vital areas have a FBI background check and psychological examination.
4. Release of radioactivity from used fuel, nuclear waste. Used fuel is in the same physical shape as new fuel, a ceramic pellet contained within a stainless steel tube formed into a fuel assembly. (most common design) this is not likely to release its contents very easily. We keep these fuel assemblies in a spent fuel pool safely under water and eventually place it into robust casks for storage, transportation and retrieval. Volume wise this is a fairly small amount of waste, we have all the fuel used in our 500 Mw plant’s 40 year life in a 40′x40′x40′ pool.
5. Nuclear proliferation by rogue nations terrorists from used fuel. There are much easier ways to obtain fissile material than taking it from used fuel from a Commercial nuclear power plant.
Jan
11
3 Responses
Leave a Comment
January 12th, 2012 at 1:20 am
i work for the nuclear industry, and as far as i can see, the only draw back is the accumulation of nuclear waste.
nuclear power plants have become very safe in the recent years. after some huge incidents in the 70s, safety precautions have been stepped up significantly in the past 30 years. all safety related components have redundant systems, such as the cooling water, safety injection to cool the reactor vessel to prevent a melt down. all accident scenarios are analyzed and mitigation strategies are developed to minimize the damage from each accident. the containment domes are constructed to withstand earthquakes, explosions, even an air plan crashing. and plus, nuclear power has low air pollution emission compared to a fossil or natural gas powered plants. therefore, as you can see you are in good hands with nuclear power.
like ive siad before, the only concern is the accumulation of nuclear waste. it is illegal to re process these waste to recycle them into new fuel rods at this point, but i believe in the future, there will be new processes and they will be made legal, so this part of the problem would also go away.
hope this answers ur question
References :
January 12th, 2012 at 1:35 am
1 word
Chernobyl
But yeah as the guy above said the safety has improved alot recently
References :
January 12th, 2012 at 2:08 am
First of all there are risks, safety concerns, with any energy resource. We in the nuclear industry have made safety our top priority. If you look at the statistics, nuclear has been one of the safest industries to work in over the last 40 years, not just safest power producers.
Dams break, ice falls from wind towers, heavy metals are used in solar panels, fossil fuels release byproducts to the environment.
Nuclear Safety Concerns:
1. Nuclear accident due to operator or maintenance error. Operators & maintenance personnel train incessantly to prevent and mitigate the occurrence, every US nuclear power site has a simulator. The nuclear industry takes a pro-active approach sharing any information learned from experience at sites across the world to minimize risk at nuclear facilities. (See INPO/WANO) A strong Safety Conscious Work Environment is fostered.
3. Nuclear accident due to sabotage/terrorism. Nuclear facilities are considered "hard" targets, with heavily armed and highly trained guards, response plans, fences, robust barriers to prevent unauthorized access to vital areas. Many of the same features designed to keep the primary plant safe in the event of an accident make it very difficult to attack (example 1 meter thick reinforced concrete containment structure) All personnel with access to vital areas have a FBI background check and psychological examination.
4. Release of radioactivity from used fuel, nuclear waste. Used fuel is in the same physical shape as new fuel, a ceramic pellet contained within a stainless steel tube formed into a fuel assembly. (most common design) this is not likely to release its contents very easily. We keep these fuel assemblies in a spent fuel pool safely under water and eventually place it into robust casks for storage, transportation and retrieval. Volume wise this is a fairly small amount of waste, we have all the fuel used in our 500 Mw plant’s 40 year life in a 40′x40′x40′ pool.
5. Nuclear proliferation by rogue nations terrorists from used fuel. There are much easier ways to obtain fissile material than taking it from used fuel from a Commercial nuclear power plant.
References :
http://www.inpo.info/
http://www.nuclearsafety.org/
http://www.nucleartourist.com/basics/inpo.htm
http://www.iaea.org/
http://www.nrc.gov/
http://nnsa.energy.gov/
http://www.nei.org/keyissues/
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter11.html
http://www.world-nuclear.org/why/default.aspx