Nuclear Energy Worldwide

As I have said in recent blogs, the United States needs to realize that nuclear energy will help a country become self sufficient.  Take China for example; they are now becoming more self sufficient in the fuel cycle due to their rapid conversion to nuclear energy.  The recent conversion to nuclear power is due to their high population.  In 2006, China was much like the United States today having 80% of their energy come from fossil fuels.  Due to their high population and high energy demands, they have experienced power shortages have realized that they have too high air pollution.  The Chinese are now beginning to work towards more nuclear power plants and this is allowing them to have higher energy production.  France has also been a very large advocate of nuclear power.  The French's energy comes from about 3/4 nuclear power, far outreaching any other country.  USnews.com states that France is the "poster child" of nuclear energy, making them see an opportunity to build better generators in order to allow for better production of energy.  Japan comes in second with about 34% of their energy coming from nuclear power, being far out-passed by the French.  These are only three examples, but they make a clear idea that the United States needs to upgrade its output of nuclear energy.  All that is coming from these countries is good, less power shortages, more jobs, and healthier environments.  With the environmental that our country is seeing now, change is needed and should be embraced before it is too late.
http://www.usnews.com/news/energy/articles/2009/03/10/how-france-sees-its-nuclear-powered-future
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html

So how much is this gonna cost me?

     As I have been advocating for the past couple of blogs, nuclear energy is affordable and cheaper than other forms of energy.  According to http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html, the amount that 1 kilogram of uranium in U.S. dollars is about $2555.  This may not make sense, but given that 1 Kg of uranium produces about 360,000 Kilowatt hours at about $0.71 an hour, not a bad deal.  Again, why nuclear power.  Well, about 1 Kg of uranium gives about 20,000 times more energy than the same amount of coal.  As the graph to the right shows, nuclear energy has always cost so little compared to all other forms of energy, which have all been on the rise.  It is also important to note that nuclear energy has always been at the lower points of graphs when it comes to fossil fuel emissions. 
     It is also possible that this cost could go down a bit.  If used nuclear fuel rods are recycled, then it is possible that we would be able to reuse these fuel rods, thus making more uranium available.  This would make some cost large, but would reduce costs in the long run because enrichment processes would not have to go again, because the uranium is already enriched and therefore ready to be used again.

Environmental Issues Right Now

     Going back to what I have been preaching in previous blogs, it is about time that we talk about the environment and what it is like right now.  No matter what other people may say about it, Global Warming, climate change, whatever you want to call it is going on right now and it is time for a change.  For the past 60 years, the atmosphere has had CO2 building up, and today we are looking at about 390 parts per million in our atmosphere.  That is to say that for every millionth of air in the atmosphere, 390 parts of that is CO2, not to mention other pollutants that are in the air along with CO2.  This in turn causes for higher temperatures and is heating up the planet.  In order for a healthy CO2 content in the atmosphere, we would want only about 350 ppm of CO2, the numbers back from 1990, 21 years ago.
     There is also the energy balance of the Earth that we must take into consideration.  Our planet takes in and also re-radiates the energy from the sun back out into space.  However, due to the Greenhouse effect that our planet has, more and more of this energy is being taken in instead of being either reflected or re-radiated.  If this radiation process works the correct way, then the Earth should only be at about -18 degrees Celsius, but in fact our planets heat is at about 15 degrees Celsius. (when i use these numbers, I am talking from 0 degrees Celsius being just the zero point for the temperature.  I am not implying that the Earth should be below the freezing point, just that the earth should be at about -18 degrees Celsius below the zero point for determining Global Warming.)
     So what does this have to do with nuclear energy?  Well, despite what people think, it is actually utilities from the production of electricity that produce the most CO2 (35% globally), not from automobiles.  As I have pointed out before, this country gets about 80% of its electricity from coal, which is the most pollutant causing form of energy.  Nuclear energy, the most efficient and clean form of energy (at the same time) only amounts for about 20% of the electricity that this country produces.  Again, if we reverse those numbers, the pollution in our atmosphere would drop immensely.  I would also like to point out that our country is also the largest producer of CO2 in the world. 
     As you can see, our planet is in great danger, despite what some politicians might say.  CO2 is rising and will only continue to rise at the pace that we are producing it at.  One way to bring down the production of CO2 would be to move out of our comfort zone of coal produced electricity to the more environmentally friendly nuclear energy that produces exponentially less pollutants than coal does.