Government Subsidies to Correct Externalities Essay

Oil, gas, and fossil fuels have been recent controversial issues. There are cleaner forms of energy that could be used, but it is unclear what sources should be used and how to

Disposal of the high level nuclear waste that comes from nuclear power plants continues to be a big problem. It has been challenging and costly to find safe ways to store this waste. According to a report from the U.S National Academy of Sciences, it will take 3 million years for radioactive waste stored in the U.S. as of 1983 to decay to background levels (thinkquest.org). Who wants this amount of waste stored in the environment where they live? Currently in the U.S. nuclear power plants produce 3,000 tons of this high level waste each year (thinkquest.org). If nuclear power continues to be produced, this amount of waste will only continue to increase, causing a bigger dilemma as to what to do with the waste. As the waste is removed from the plant it still contains a high level of radiation. Exposure to radiation whether it occurs in the moving process or leakage from storage not only has a negative impact on the environment but also can pose a major health threat to humans. Based on the level of exposure, symptoms to humans can range from nausea and headaches to damage of nerve cells, loss of white blood cells and even death (think .org). The potential risk of exposure is not worth human life.

The low price elasticity of demand for household energy given the lack of easy alternatives means that consumers will continue to purchase it even when prices rise drastically as we can see from extract A they did over the three year period. Furthermore the complex pricing structures in the energy market make it difficult for consumers to exercise any consumer sovereignty because they lack the information or indeed don’t know how to interpret it, to make a decision which is in their best interest.

Nuclear fission can be used to power the world, or it can be used to destroy it. That scientific knowledge of the process of fission is neither good nor bad ethically, but the way it is applied can have ethical and moral consequences. The scientists who developed the fission process are not responsible for the devastation caused by the atomic bombs; the people who chose to use the science in that manner are the ones responsible.

The United States must re-examine many policies previously accepted as reasonable, especially its own national energy policy. As the largest overall and per capita energy consumer in the world, the U.S. needs to decide upon a reasonable source of energy for the foreseeable future, especially since its energy needs will increase dramatically during that time. With political instability likely to remain the norm in the Middle East, oil continues to be an energy source of questionable reliability; in addition, current estimates of worldwide reserves suggest we may in fact run out of oil entirely in the next fifty years. Natural gas reserves are in fairly short supply too, and costs limit its

The United States is driven by capitalism, which is, “an economic system essentially based on the private ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange” (Free). This brilliant system allows for a prospering economy that is created by the people. In this system, it is common that businesses fail because profit is the driving force that keeps them going and only the strongest remain standing. While it may seem odd to link energy production to capitalism, the case can be argued that they share a connection. Energy production is a main avenue to the core of what capitalism represents. Each year, many energy producing companies profit millions of dollars since the world is dependent upon it. Considering this, these

Why then, is there virtually no interest in promoting alternative fuel technology? It is inevitable that at some point, sooner or later, we will not be able to make use of petroleum as a major fuel. The American public, as a whole, doesn't seem to be too concerned with this. Even the government fails to recognize the precarious nature of our energy future. Our own Department of Energy envisions a steady rise in oil, coal, and natural gas consumption for the next 25 years. The same graph shows only a nominal increase in the use of renewable energy technology and a flat-lining of hydroelectric energy generation.

When it comes to vast amounts of energy sources, natural gas in America is not something most people believe is plentiful. As resources are used up it then becomes time to look for a new supply elsewhere. America has always been dependent on foreign trade, including fuels, which in turn leaves us vulnerable to steep prices.

With many negative effects our overall society should make nuclear fission obsolete. In 2009 the U.S. lost over 10 billion dollars (along with very long construction times)just to create a few nuclear reactors. This shows that the actual nuclear reactors take the longest time to create and get up running. “There are many harmful effects of the mining of uranium in and near local populations”. Even though uranium is an essential part of the running nuclear reactor it is harmful when they are mining for it near local populations. When uranium is being mined for the rocks it releases harmful gasses that can cause cancer or other inner organs. Ultimately nuclear fission is very

The spent fuel rods and the other products produced by the nuclear fuel process are highly reactive. This waste must be stored in very safe and secure locations for tens of thousands of years, which is periods “longer than the history of most governments the world has seen” as the former Atomic Energy Commission put it (Carson). The uranium that is used in the reactors has a half life, that is long it takes for half the nuclei in the radioactive material to decay, of 10,000 years, while plutonium, another nuclear fuel, has a half life close to 25,000 (Carson). Some say that it is too much of a burden to place on future generations to be able to properly monitor and maintain waste dumps that will last 20 times the length of known civilization. As Michio Kaku put it in Nuclear Power: Both Sides “The controversy surrounding [nuclear] waste boils down to one question- can we trust and man made structure to isolate high-level waste for tens of thousands of years given our always-changing social institutions and the vagaries of war, revolutions, and social upheavals”

Petroleum, coal, and natural gas are not the only resources that we have. Problems arise from harming the sun's radiation. The threat of global warming is becoming more well known so scientists are trying to discover safer alternatives to fossil fuels for the environment.

When it comes to vast amounts of energy sources, natural gas in America is not something most people believe is plentiful. As resources are used up it then becomes time to look for a new supply elsewhere. America has always been dependent on foreign trade, including fuels, which in turn leaves us vulnerable to steep prices.

The U.S can began to mitigate its dependency on foreign oil increasing the fuel efficiency of our transportation system. Also, the developing of alternatives to fossil fuels, many of which are ready now and by using other fossil fuel resources to make fuel for vehicles. Wright and Boorse (2013) says “This leads us to some so-called non-conventional sources of oil – oil sand and oil shale – which are abundant in the United States and Canada” (p.

On the other hand, the problem is that nuclear fission has the consequence of producing radioactive waste, which in some cases will still emit radioactivity in several thousand years, and radioactivity is after all very hazardous and a permanent disposal site for this waste hasn’t been found till today, despite decades of searching for one. Another disadvantage is that the material for the fuel rods is finite, so it will be also just a temporary solution although possibly for some decades. The third disadvantage is the cost as all nuclear power plants, which I know of, needed substantial subventions to be build and to operate them. This will also not change, or just to the worse, as the material for the fuel rods gets scarcer.

Nuclear technology has been around for approximately a century and has provided a multitude of benefits that continuously make the world a better place. Nuclear power plants, for one, are a relatively safe and clean alternative to today 's most commonly used coal and gas plants. Other applications of Nuclear technology in pesticides and fertilizer could theoretically multiply agricultural production by inconceivable numbers. Nuclear technology could also be used in medicine to treat and diagnose illnesses such as cancer. Despite its positive implications, nuclear technology could potentially cause harm to ecosystems in the form of radiation. Regardless of this trivial danger, nuclear technology is truly great and has always been so since the day it was first discovered.