Nuclear power is produced through the use of nuclear reactions to produce nuclear energy that can then be harnessed to generate heat and create superheated steam to drive turbines. The most common nuclear reaction is that of nuclear fission, which is the splitting of an atom’s nucleus into smaller nuclei. Nuclear reactions are incredibly energy dense and thus allow nuclear reactors to make a tremendous amount of electricity. There are only 61 nuclear power plants in the United States, but they account for 19 percent of the entire country’s electricity production. 8][14]
There are 7,304 total power plants in the United States, so nuclear plants on average produce over twenty-eight times as much energy as another plant in the U. S. Nuclear powers biggest drawback is the radiation produced that requires large amounts of shielding in order to protect workers and the surrounding areas. When nuclear plants have meltdowns, the melting of nuclear fuel rods, they can experience massive explosions or breaches in the containing walls which leak the deadly radiation and nuclear materials out into the surrounding areas.
These scenarios have led to nuclear power having a very bad public reputation despite numerous statistics showing that other energy sources have been much more deadly. Between 1969 and 2000 there were 40,494 immediate fatalities recorded in the coal and oil energy chains while there were only 31 people immediately in the one nuclear accident, Chernobyl. Obviously a large part of the public’s fear of nuclear reactors has nothing to do with the 31 immediate deaths at Chernobyl, but rather the 9,000 to 30,000 latent fatalities estimated over the next 70 years.
To put this in to perspective however, the OECD (Organization for Economic Co operation and Development) estimates the latent deaths from particulates in air pollution that can be attribute to polluting energy sources in the year 2000 alone was 288,000! [15] Clearly nuclear power is not as bad as public perception has made it out to be, but even so in wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011 many nuclear reactors have begun closing. Germany, who relied on nuclear power for 23% of its energy in 2010, slated all of their nuclear reactors to be shut down by 2022 after the Fukushima disaster. 16] Simply due to the current public perception of nuclear power, it is highly unlikely nuclear cars would ever be embraced or funded to a meaningful extent. Even though having seemingly infinite range (hundreds of thousands of miles) sounds like a great idea, there are many issues that go along with a nuclear powered car. The first is the radiation. In order to protect the occupants of the car in any meaningful way you would need a massive amount of shielding.
The smallest Gen IV reactors produce approximately 25 megawatts, but still weigh an astounding 50 tons, most of which is shielding. While that is almost two hundred times more energy than a car would require to move it shows just how much shielding is needed to adequately protect occupants of a car, and if there’s one thing to try and avoid in cars and transportation it is adding massive amounts of weight to the vehicle. In order to adequately protect passengers from radiation, especially in the case of crashes, the extra weight would render a car practically immovable. 17]
Also all of the fuel from old cars, or spent reactors (engines) would need to be safely disposed of. This is an issue that currently faces nuclear power plants, but if every car on the road relied on nuclear power it would create a much larger mass of materials to be disposed of safely and properly. While cars may never come to be powered by nuclear power for very practical reasons, nuclear power as a source for electricity generation is both extremely practical and extremely efficient.
Nuclear powers biggest threat is from the public’s perception of it. As seen in Germany as well as throughout Europe, if the public deems something too unsafe and does not want to live near it, the governments will have no choice but to shut down the plants and look for different sources of energy. Compared to biofuels and solar power, nuclear power is already extremely established and generates a large share of the worlds’ power, and faces most of its issues in the political realm instead of the practical world.