Monday, February 7, 2011

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.

2 comments:

  1. Nuclear energy will be our future. I believe this. However I have some questions. Yes, the price of Uranium is cheap when compared to coal. But you have to also consider the price of what it takes to build all the reactors, the cooling systems and everything else that goes into nuclear power. I'm sure it a little more than the price of coal. So this must be taken into account when deciding which is cheaper. Other than that I agree with you one hundred percent. Nuclear energy has many pros that far outweigh the negative.

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  2. I completely agree with Zach Jernigan. Truly, in my opinion, the only way our country is going to survive through all the increase in prices will be through nuclear energy. And the questions he presents at hand are very true to consider as well, but although the prices of the reactors are something to consider and may be expensive to build and start up at first, but the overall price of the reactors due to the yearly price effect of coal may add up to the coal being a lot more expensive and have a larger impact on our environment.

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