Going nuclear

It’s clean and efficient, but reservations to using nuclear power have kept this energy alternative from growing.

Nuclear plant accidents, the accidental release of radiation into the environment, although rare, make headline news, as in the 1979 accident at Pennsylvanian's Three-Mile Island reactor and the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl reactor in the former Soviet Union.

A larger concern is how to dispose of the radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants. This waste will remain radioactive for hundreds or thousands of years. Improved technologies and new materials can help to minimize these concerns, still, our generation faces the considerable challenge of designing a radioactive waste disposal plan that will endure for many generations to come.

Illustration: schematic diagram of a nuclear power plant. From http://www.hk-phy.org/energy/power/print/nuclear_phy_print_e.html