NPPs to protect the atmosphere

Everyone may justly claim a comfortable life and the proper fulfilment of their everyday necessities. During the past century, mankind has come up with remarkable achievements in this field. If we disregard the unfortunately large social inequalities between countries, we can say that technological progress has made it possible for us to live in comfortable, heated apartments, in which we are provided with light even at night, and television, refrigerator, video player and computer make our life more pleasant. Distances have been reduced: we gained access to remote geographical locations with the appearance of cars, trains and airplanes.

If we take a look at a couple of randomly selected objects of comfort, we will see that all of them run on energy. Progress is determined, to a significant extent, by our ability to produce sufficient quantities of energy. At the same time, people also have the right to wish to spend their free time in nature, to hike in the woods and to enjoy fresh air and the beauty of nature.

However, as we all know, human activity has seriously damaged our natural environment, unfortunately. Foliage and vegetation is nowhere as rich and green as it was before industrialization started, for it is being destroyed by acid rain. The number of birds and other animals has also decreased significantly in the continuously decaying nature. One of the most important factors in the destruction of the natural environment is atmospheric pollution, and the blame is, among others, on energy production. The protection of the atmosphere has gradually become a major concern for those who are worried about the future of the Earth.

Let us look at some facts! The older type fossil fuel power plants consume an astonishingly large amount of oxygen from the atmosphere. In exchange, they release big quantities of carbon-dioxide and sulpfur-dioxide into the atmosphere, which has already caused a lot of harm.

This produces a graver and graver situation: for instance, the increasing carbon-dioxide content, in the form of the so-called greenhouse effect, has caused the warming of the Earth’s climate, the consequences of which are still unpredictable. Having recognized the threatening danger, developed countries immediately forced themselves to decrease the amount of harmful emissions, but since energy demand is growing all the time, analysts predict that they will not manage to fully observe those self-regulations. Furthermore, countries of the third world never assumed any obligations. What is more, as a consequence of their accelerating development, their power demand is expected to become seven times as much as today by the year 2040.

What is the solution? The direction recommended by green movements for the use of renewable energy sources and intensive power saving is a good one, but is not enough for the solution of all the problems. Even if power supply from renewable energy sources was developed to the maximum, by 2040, they would still be able to cover only 20 per cent of current power demands. Today this proportion is less than 3 per cent. This does not include hydroelectric power, but the extension of its use is limited: the amount of exploitable hydroelectricity resources on the Earth is finite. 

There is, however, another energy development method, which is already at our disposal in sufficient quantities, whose performance can be enhanced with certain investmenst, and which, unlike other generally used energy production methods, has hardly any harmful effects. This is nuclear energy. It has quite favourable properties in terms of atmospheric pollution, as well. 

 Note: at certain power plant types, depending on the fuel used, waste of different kind and quantity is produced, whose handling requires further costs.

It is difficult to imagine these amounts. With the help of the four units (2000 MW) of Paks Nuclear Power Plant, we save as much oxygen as all the woods of Hungary can produce annually. This is actually half of what the population of the whole country inhales during a year.

Up until a new, still unknown energy development technology appears or until some new, unexpected progress occurs in the field of renewable energy sources, nuclear power remains indispensable in covering the growing power demands. Being indispensable, our duty is to use it for everyone’s good with maximum expertise and in conformity with modern safety requirements. This is what we do at Paks Nuclear Power Plant. According to international experts, professionals at Paks are highly-qualified, and the power plant is safe.