Future Problems
There are many problems with nuclear power waiting to happen. These include hundreds of decaying, outdated nuclear weapons, submarines, and nuclear reactors. Every year, each fuel pellet becomes more unstable, harder to control and prevent catastrophes.
Many other issues are waiting to happen. For instance, the forest of Pripyat, now called the Red Forest due to the red color of the dead leaves, is a massive fire hazard. One spark could send the entire forest up in flames. The entire forest is full of radioactive particles, absorbed into the trees themselves. If the trees were to ignite, these particles would become airborn, and could cause the same radioactive cloud effect seen during the 1986 disaster.
Many things can be done to prevent future problems, such as safety improvements upon existing reactor designs, and the reprocessing of nuclear fuel so that it can be safely stored on land. An instance of safety improvements on existing reactors is the old RBMK design, which, after the Chernobyl disaster, was outfitted with many new safety features, and the SCR
AM, or emergency shut down time, was reduced by 8 seconds. The RBMK design has had no extra issues since the orignial disaster in Cherboyl, back in 1986. When problems do occur, however, it is very difficult to clean up the spills. Chernobyl took over 350,000 cleanup workers to lessen the damge from the Chernobyl disaster, many of whom have contracted cancer since then. It is crucial to prevent rather than fight when it comes to nuclear power. It is always better to stop a problem from happening then to allow a problem to occur and attempt to fix it.