The Issue With Nuclear Power
Nuclear fission is a way of making energy that is highly looked upon because it doesn’t produce greenhouse gases. Instead of the combustion of oil like energy made from fossil fuels, nuclear power is fueled by a radioactive element, usually Uranium. The element is placed in a reactor that splits apart the atoms, which releases a high amount of energy. This energy is used to heat water until it turns to steam. The steam than pushes turbines which makes metal coils react with water to form a magnetic field, producing energy. Nuclear power seems to be the ideal way of solving the world’s energy needs, but unfortunately it comes with a high price; Nuclear Waste.
Nuclear waste is the material that nuclear fuel becomes after it is used in the reactor. It is dangerously reactive; it can be reactive for thousands of years. It is so dangerous that it must be shielded from life and the environment. The best way of dealing with nuclear waste is dumping it into packaged metal drums and then storing them in various facilities.
In Ontario, facilities and transportation of nuclear waste are monitored and licenced by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The facilities are required to provide regular reports and updates as well as following the Code of Conduct as well as all regulations under the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. Ontario has various storage facilities for radioactive waste. The Western Waste Management Facility stores all of Western Ontario’s nuclear waste in above-ground concrete warehouses. Other storage facilities include; Darlington Waste Management Facility (which stores dry fuel) and Pickering Waste Management Facility. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission also provides rules and regulations for all of Canada’s nuclear waste. Aside the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, Canadian nuclear facilities must be licenced and report to the government. They also need to follow various rules such as the Radiation Protection Regulation (which regulates the amount of radiation that each company can store) and the Nuclear Substances and Radiation Device Regulation (which states that each company must provide licence and registration for the facilities).
There are many other ways of storing nuclear waste, other than simply in facilities. A popular way of storing nuclear waste in the 1940’s was to package it in metal drums than dispose of it in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The bins would sink to the ocean’s abysses and there sediment would form around them, which could lock them in for thousands of years. This method was highly frowned upon, however, because of all the dangers the radioactive waste could hold if it ever leaked into the surrounding environment. Even though water was a great shield from the radioactive waste and the radioactive waste that has already been dumped haven’t seemed to leak, the risks are too high. When studies were performed in the late 1950’s they found that no trace of radiation had been found, except there had been high levels of caesium and plutonium (two radioactive elements that were also used in nuclear fission) close to where the nuclear waste had been dumped. If the bins were to leak, it would kill all sea life and contaminate the water supply. It is also a costly method; the United States alone have spent over $30 million simply just researching the idea of disposing the waste in the ocean. Nowadays dumping nuclear waste in the ocean is still being debated, although it seems like the simplest method to get rid of radioactive waste, it comes with too big of risks.