Ges advantages and disadvantages environmental problems. Pros and cons of hydroelectric power stations

Everyone has heard about the main disadvantage of nuclear power plants - the severe consequences of accidents at nuclear power plants. Tens of thousands of dead and many fatally ill people, powerful radiation exposure affecting the health of a person and his descendants, cities that have become uninhabitable... the list, unfortunately, can be continued endlessly. Thank heavens that accidents are rare, the vast majority nuclear power plants around the world have been operating successfully for decades without ever encountering system failures.

Today, nuclear energy is one of the fastest growing areas in world science. Let's try to move away from the persistent myth that nuclear power plants are a danger of nuclear disasters and learn about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants as sources of electricity. In what ways are nuclear power plants superior to thermal and hydroelectric power plants? What are the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants? Is it worth developing this area of ​​electricity production? About all this and more...

Did you know that you can get electricity using an ordinary potato, lemon or indoor flower? All you need is a nail and copper wire. But potatoes and lemons, of course, will not be able to supply electricity to the whole world. Therefore, since the 19th century, scientists began to master methods of generating electricity using generation.

Generation is a process of transformation various types energy into electrical energy. The generation process takes place in power plants. Today there are many types of generation.

You can get electricity today in the following ways:

1. Thermal power generation – electricity is produced through the thermal combustion of organic fuel. To put it simply, oil and gas burn, release heat, and the heat heats the steam. Pressurized steam causes the electric generator to rotate, and the electric generator produces electricity. Thermal power plants in which this process occurs are called thermal power plants.
2. Nuclear energy - the operating principle of nuclear power plants(nuclear power plants receiving electricity using nuclear installations) is very similar to the operation of thermal power plants. The only difference is that heat is obtained not from the combustion of organic fuel, but from the fission of atomic nuclei in a nuclear reactor.
3. Hydropower – in the case of hydroelectric power plants(hydroelectric power plants), electrical energy is obtained from the kinetic energy of water flow. Have you ever seen waterfalls? This method of generating energy is based on the power of waterfalls that rotate the rotors of electric generators that produce electricity. Of course, waterfalls are not natural. They are created artificially using natural river flows. By the way, not so long ago scientists found out that the sea current is much more powerful than the river current, and there are plans to build offshore hydroelectric power stations.
4. Wind energy – in this case, the kinetic energy of the wind powers an electric generator. Remember the mills? They fully reflect this operating principle.
5. Solar energy - in solar energy, the heat from the sun's rays serves as the conversion platform.
6. Hydrogen energy – electricity is produced by burning hydrogen. Hydrogen is burned, it releases heat, and then everything happens according to the scheme already known to us.
7. Tidal energy - what is used to produce electricity in this case? The energy of the sea tides!
8. Geothermal energy is the production of first heat and then electricity from the natural heat of the Earth. For example, in volcanic areas.

Disadvantages of alternative energy sources

Nuclear, hydro and thermal power plants are the main sources of electricity in modern world. What are the advantages of nuclear power plants, hydroelectric power plants and thermal power plants? Why aren't we warmed by wind energy or tidal energy? Why did scientists not like hydrogen or the natural heat of the Earth? There are reasons for this.

Wind, solar and tidal energies are usually called alternative due to their rare use and very recent appearance. And also due to the fact that the wind, sun, sea and heat of the Earth are renewable, and the fact that a person uses the solar heat or the sea tide will not cause any harm to either the sun or the tide. But don’t rush to run and catch the waves, not everything is so easy and rosy.

Solar energy has significant disadvantages - the sun shines only during the day, so at night you won’t get any energy from it. This is inconvenient, because... The main peak in electricity consumption occurs in the evening hours. IN different times Years and in different places on Earth the sun shines differently. Adapting to it is costly and difficult.

Wind and waves are also capricious phenomena; they blow and tide when they want, but not when they want. But if they work, they do it slowly and weakly. Therefore, wind and tidal energy have not yet become widespread.

Geothermal energy is a complex process because... It is possible to build power plants only in zones of tectonic activity, where maximum heat can be “squeezed” out of the ground. How many places with volcanoes do you know? Here are some scientists. Therefore, geothermal energy will most likely remain narrowly focused and not particularly efficient.

Hydrogen energy is the most promising. Hydrogen has a very high combustion efficiency and its combustion is absolutely environmentally friendly, because combustion product is distilled water. But, there is one thing. The cost of producing pure hydrogen is incredible big money. Do you want to pay millions for light and hot water? Nobody wants to. We wait, hope and believe that scientists will soon find a way to make hydrogen energy more accessible.

Nuclear energy today

According to various sources, nuclear energy today provides from 10 to 15% of electricity worldwide. 31 countries use nuclear energy. The largest amount of research in the field of electric power is carried out on the use of nuclear energy. It is logical to assume that the advantages of nuclear power plants are clearly great if, of all types of electricity production, this is the one that is developed.

At the same time, there are countries that refuse to use nuclear energy and close all existing nuclear power plants, for example, Italy. On the territory of Australia and Oceania, nuclear power plants did not exist and do not exist in principle. Austria, Cuba, Libya, North Korea and Poland have stopped the development of nuclear power plants and temporarily abandoned plans to create nuclear power plants. These countries do not pay attention to the advantages of nuclear power plants and refuse to install them primarily for reasons of safety and high costs for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants.

Leaders in nuclear energy today are the USA, France, Japan and Russia. It was they who appreciated the advantages of nuclear power plants and began to introduce nuclear energy into their countries. The largest number of nuclear power plant projects under construction today belong to the People's Republic of China. About 50 more countries are actively working on the introduction of nuclear energy.

Like all methods of generating electricity, nuclear power plants have advantages and disadvantages. Speaking about the advantages of nuclear power plants, it is necessary to note the environmental friendliness of production, the refusal to use fossil fuels and the convenience of transporting the necessary fuel. Let's look at everything in more detail.

Advantages of nuclear power plants over thermal power plants

The advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants depend on what type of electricity generation we compare with nuclear energy. Since the main competitors of nuclear power plants are thermal power plants and hydroelectric power stations, let us compare the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants in relation to these types of energy production.

TPPs, that is, thermal power plants, are of two types:

1. Condensing or briefly CESs serve only to produce electricity. By the way, their other name comes from the Soviet past, IESs are also called GRESs - short for “state district power plant”.
   2. Combined heat and power plants or CHP plants only allow producing not only electrical, but also thermal energy. Taking, for example, a residential building, it is clear that CES will only provide electricity to the apartments, and CHP will also provide heating in addition.

As a rule, thermal power plants operate on cheap organic fuel - coal or coal dust and fuel oil. The most popular energy resources today are coal, oil and gas. According to experts, the world's coal reserves will last for another 270 years, oil - for 50 years, gas - for 70. Even a schoolchild understands that 50-year reserves are very small and must be protected, and not burned in furnaces every day.

IMPORTANT TO KNOW:

Nuclear power plants solve the problem of shortage of organic fuel. The advantage of nuclear power plants is the elimination of fossil fuels, thereby preserving endangered gas, coal and oil. Instead, nuclear power plants use uranium. World uranium reserves are estimated at 6,306,300 tons. No one is counting how many years it will last, because... There are a lot of reserves, uranium consumption is quite small, and there is no need to think about its disappearance yet. In extreme cases, if uranium reserves are suddenly carried away by aliens or they evaporate on their own, plutonium and thorium can be used as nuclear fuel. Converting them into nuclear fuel is still expensive and difficult, but it is possible.

The advantages of nuclear power plants over thermal power plants include a reduction in the amount of harmful emissions into the atmosphere.

What is released into the atmosphere during the operation of thermal power plants and thermal power plants and how dangerous it is:

1. Sulfur dioxide or sulfur dioxide– a dangerous gas that is harmful to plants. When entering the human body in large quantities causes coughing and suffocation. When combined with water, sulfur dioxide turns into sulfurous acid. It is thanks to sulfur dioxide emissions that there is a risk of acid rain, which is dangerous for nature and humans.
   2. Nitrogen oxides– dangerous for respiratory system humans and animals, irritate the respiratory tract.
   3. Benapyrene– is dangerous because it tends to accumulate in the human body. Long-term exposure may cause malignant tumors.

The total annual emissions of thermal power plants per 1000 MW of installed capacity are 13 thousand tons per year at gas and 165 thousand tons at pulverized coal thermal stations. A thermal power plant with a capacity of 1000 MW per year consumes 8 million tons of oxygen to oxidize fuel; the advantages of nuclear power plants are that in nuclear energy oxygen is not consumed in principle.

The above emissions are also not typical for nuclear power plants. The advantage of nuclear power plants is that emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere at nuclear power plants are negligible and, compared to emissions from thermal power plants, are harmless.

The advantages of nuclear power plants over thermal power plants are low fuel transportation costs. Coal and gas are extremely expensive to transport to factories, while the uranium needed for nuclear reactions can be placed in one small truck.

Disadvantages of nuclear power plants over thermal power plants

1. The disadvantages of nuclear power plants over thermal power plants are, first of all, the presence of radioactive waste. They try to recycle radioactive waste at nuclear plants as much as possible, but they cannot dispose of it at all. The final waste at modern nuclear power plants is processed into glass and stored in special storage facilities. Whether they will ever be used is still unknown.
   2. The disadvantages of nuclear power plants are their low efficiency compared to thermal power plants. Since processes in thermal power plants occur at more high temperatures, they are more productive. This is still difficult to achieve in nuclear power plants, because zirconium alloys, which indirectly participate in nuclear reactions, cannot withstand extremely high temperatures.
   3. The general problem of heat and nuclear power plants stands apart. The disadvantage of nuclear power plants and thermal power plants is thermal pollution of the atmosphere. What does it mean? When generating nuclear energy, it releases large number thermal energy that is released into environment. Thermal pollution of the atmosphere is a problem of today, it entails many problems such as the creation of heat islands, changes in microclimate and, ultimately, global warming.

Modern nuclear power plants already solve the problem of thermal pollution and use their own artificial pools or cooling towers (special cooling towers for cooling large volumes of hot water) to cool water.

Advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants over hydroelectric power plants

The advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants over hydroelectric power plants are mainly related to the dependence of hydroelectric power stations on natural resources. More about this...

1. The advantage of nuclear power plants over hydroelectric power plants is the theoretical possibility of building new nuclear power plants, while most rivers and reservoirs capable of working for the benefit of hydroelectric power plants are already occupied. That is, the opening of new hydroelectric power stations is difficult due to the lack of necessary places.
   2. The next advantage of nuclear power plants over hydroelectric power plants is their indirect dependence on natural resources. Hydroelectric power plants directly depend on the natural reservoir, nuclear power plants only indirectly on uranium mining, everything else is provided by the people themselves and their inventions.

The disadvantages of nuclear power plants compared to water stations are insignificant - the resources that a nuclear power plant uses for a nuclear reaction, and specifically uranium fuel, are not renewable. While the amount of water, the main renewable resource of a hydroelectric power station, will not change in any way from the operation of a hydroelectric power station, and uranium itself cannot be restored in nature.

Nuclear power plants: advantages and disadvantages

We examined in detail the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants over other methods of generating electricity.

“But what about radioactive emissions from nuclear power plants? It is impossible to live near nuclear power plants! This is dangerous! - you say. “Nothing like that,” statistics and the world scientific community will answer you.

According to statistical comparative assessments carried out in different countries, it is noted that the mortality rate from diseases that appeared from exposure to emissions from thermal power plants is higher than the mortality rate from diseases that developed in the human body from the leakage of radioactive substances.

Actually, all radioactive substances are firmly locked in storage facilities and are waiting for the hour when they will learn to reprocess and use them. Such substances are not emitted into the atmosphere; the radiation level is populated areas near nuclear power plants there is no more than the traditional level of radiation in large cities.

Speaking about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants, one cannot help but recall the cost of building and launching a nuclear power plant. The estimated cost of a small modern nuclear power plant is 28 billion euros, experts say that the cost of thermal power plants is approximately the same, no one wins here. However, the advantages of nuclear power plants will be lower costs for the purchase and disposal of fuel - uranium, although more expensive, can “work” for more than a year, while coal and gas reserves must be constantly replenished.

Accidents at nuclear power plants

Previously, we did not mention only the main disadvantages of nuclear power plants, which are known to everyone - these are the consequences of possible accidents. Accidents at nuclear power plants are classified according to the INES scale, which has 7 levels. Level 4 and higher accidents pose a risk of exposure to the population.

Only two accidents in history were assessed at the maximum level 7 - the Chernobyl disaster and the accident at the Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant. One accident was considered level 6, this is the Kyshtym accident, which occurred in 1957 at the Mayak chemical plant in the Chelyabinsk region.

Of course, the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants pale in comparison with the possibility of nuclear disasters that claim the lives of many people. But the advantages of nuclear power plants today are an improved safety system, which almost completely eliminates the possibility of accidents, because The operating algorithm of nuclear reactors is computerized and with the help of computers, reactors are switched off in case of minimal violations.

The advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power plants are taken into account when developing new models of nuclear power plants that will operate on recycled nuclear fuel and uranium, deposits of which have not previously been brought into production.

This means that the main advantages of nuclear power plants today are the prospects for their modernization, improvement and new inventions in this area. It seems that the most important advantages of nuclear power plants will be revealed a little later, we hope that science will not stand still, and very soon we will learn about them.