hi so im doing a school project thing and they have a lot of different questions for us that help us decide whether we would rather a city have a nuclear reactor, or solar panel. But i cant seem to get the last 2 questions...help please???so question ........What types of emissions, if any, are produced by each type of generating station? Do these emissions affect human health?question 2.....What are the long term financial costs associated with maintaining each type of generating station?thanks!
You should research nuclear reactors and their emissions. Mostly it's waste heat, and if they use a water-based cooling reactor, there can be significant emissions of water vapor. Some might consider the spent fuel an emission too. Waste nuclear material disposal is a problem. Research it. Solar panels have no emissions during operation, but there is some nasty stuff emitted when they are manufactured. 2: Maintenance of solar panels is pretty straightforward: keep them clean, trim overhanging trees, shrubs, etc., check for and clean corrosion, contaminants, etc. regularly. Maintenance of nuclear power plants, so far, is a full time job for many technicians and engineers. The recently developed portable (the size of a shed) nuclear generators claim zero maintenance for 20+ years. That's a big improvement.
: Mostly produce heat 2: Keep Clean, trim branches, over hanging shrubs, and things like that.
There's no standard nuclear reactor, but if we take a GW nuclear plant, it can generate about 8 terawatt-hours/year. A 200 watt solar panel can generate about kilowatt- hour/day, or 365 kwh/year, so that's about 2 million 200 watt solar panels. However, the power output from the nuclear plant is controllable by the operators, where solar panels only operate at full output for a few hours/day (on clear days - less if there's cloud). Therefore, to compare the two, you have to factor in some kind of energy storage or backup which will increase the cost of the solar installation (perhaps by a factor of two or more). Despite claims of solar being cheaper than coal now, when one compares apples to apples (i. e. total energy produced, and controllability) solar is still several times more expensive than coal, and about twice as expensive as nuclear even in the U. S. A gram of U-235 can make usable energy equal to three metric tons of coal. Solar energy production has no hazardous by-products, but manufacture of the panels can involve some very hazardous materials like fluorine (for silicon panels) or cadmium (for CdTe panels). This is part of the reason panel manufacture has gone to Asia - they have fewer environmental regulations and it's easier to dispose of the byproducts of production. DK
