Nuclear Power: for or Against?

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.

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

often seen as heath and safety hazards, the nuclear fission based facilities offer the current best

From the electricity that kept my home warm and powered the lights at school to providing employment to both my parents for the past 30 years, nuclear power has been at the center of my life growing up. In Wadsworth, Texas, the South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company has been a way a life thousands of people by providing nearly 1200 jobs and providing carbon-free electricity for over 2 million people. However, this is just one example in just one state in the United States. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, 11 percent of the world’s energy comes from nuclear power plants and for 13 countries it provides more than 25 percent of their country’s energy. However, even though nuclear power has made its mark as a global competitor in the realm of green energy, incidents such as 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima have created a global sense of uneasiness. On top of this underlying fear, the huge building costs of new nuclear plants has lead to a stunt in the growth of nuclear energy even though operation costs for nuclear energy at $0.0219/kW is less than that of coal ($0.023/KW) and almost half that of gas ($0.0451/kW) (IER). Even though nuclear energy has had some setbacks, it is still safer (short-term and long-term) than the carbon-producing alternatives. The question at hand is whether we should take an utilitarian perspective by giving more serious consideration to the long-term effects of the carbon-emitting energy sources and whether we can overcome our

Moreover, though some may argue that radiation exposure in the US is mostly from natural sources and not man-made, why add to this exposure by building more nuclear plants. For example, a graph named, “Sources of Radiation Exposure in the United States” notes that about 82% of radiation exposure is not from man-made sources like nuclear plants, but from natural sources like Radon. Nevertheless, even with this being the case, we can not forget that just one incident with nuclear reactors killed off thousands, so it would be senseless to use this data to build more nuclear bombs (or nuclear power

Although nuclear energy has many upsides, there is one most commonly worried about problem with these facilities, the danger of radiation. Radiation poisoning can severely handicap people, animals, plants, and with bad exposure to high radiation it can cause death. A good example of the dangers of nuclear energy is Chernobyl. This was a place in the Ukraine where there was a steam explosion which in turn lead to a fire in the nuclear reactor. This produced a cloud of deadly radioactive gas which is a called a plume. This plume can get into waterways, get in the rain cycle, and be taken by weather all over the

Also, what if a nuclear meltdown occur what will we do then? However, according to World Nuclear Association states, “worker are supposed to work not too long and work at a bare minimum time so they won’t be expose”. Also, workers wear protective equipment so they won’t get exposed based from World Nuclear Association. If a nuclear meltdown would happen then the people who built them are responsible, in the meantime, nuclear power should be used to produce electricity. The reason, for this is because this world need electricity to power everyone and everything, if not use uranium, then we will miss on using the top efficient energy. In the article, “Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: IF The Disposal Method Could Succeed Technically, Could It Also Succeed Legally?” by Amal Bala states, “As of January 2014, 435 nuclear reactors were operational in thirty nations around the world with seventy-one reactors under construction”(Amal). Uranium is a top resource in our possession and we use this to provide electricity to the people, if people say that no if a nuclear meltdown could happen, if a polluted area with no wind and water power source then I say nuclear power is a way to

Albert Einstein quoted, “the release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.” (Famous) The human species foolishly has made the decision to use nuclear power, first used sixty-six years ago, also in Japan, when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The power of nuclear energy is beyond our control therefore should not be used. The art of nuclear power is to boil water with the incredible heat generated by a nuclear chain reaction. But such temperatures necessitate continuous cooling. Cooling requires pumps. Pumps require conventional power. These are things regularly go wrong and have done so in Japan. The problem isn’t that another backup generator is needed or that safety rules aren’t tight enough. It is that imperfect creatures like ourselves are unfit to use the stellar fire released from a split

When asked about the number of active nuclear power plants most people in the United States would probably guess a like ten or twenty when in actuality “there are currently sixty one commercially operating nuclear power plants with ninety nine nuclear reactors in thirty states in the United States. Thirty-five of these plants have two or more reactors.”(eia.gov) In America nuclear power has a stigma of just negative effects among these is ,“radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors which needs to be disposed of at a safe place since they are extremely hazardous and can leak radiations if not stored properly. Such kind of waste emits radiations from tens to hundreds of years. The storage of radioactive waste has been major bottleneck for the expansion of nuclear

Nuclear power was the world’s fastest growing form of energy in the 1990’s. However, presently it is the second slowest growing worldwide. Considering that nuclear power accounts for eleven percent of the world’s energy supply, one must ask what happened [Nuclear Power]. Why is it that the growth of nuclear power has almost completely stalled? The simple answer is that after meltdowns such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, many people are afraid of nuclear power plants, which causes great opposition to the expansion of the industry. Unfortunately, most people are not well informed about nuclear energy; many do not take the time to view its positives and negatives.

The disastrous meltdowns that cause whole cities to become uninhabitable, as well as leaving families homeless and laborers without jobs, have defined the negative perspective of what people see in nuclear power. However, even after such catastrophes, the pure raw energy output makes nuclear power essential for the future of the human race. As time passes, the world’s energy usage has grown an increasingly massive size every year due to the consumption swell of energy. Despite nuclear plants being a heavily controversial topic internationally, its advantages are very well recognized and it’s causing nuclear plants to slowly become the basis of our growing society.

Provided that countries can acquire uranium, they can create clean and safe energy. Generally nuclear power stations are safe. The various barriers and numerous safety measures make it very unlikely for catastrophes to transpire. The most up-to-date plants have a reactor core failure 1 in 1 million years. The proposal of building a plant has to be scrutinized intensely so that the barriers and structure ensure a redundant job in

Just five pounds of plutonium, a component of nuclear waste, is enough to make a

The needs for alternative energy are present today with China and India growing in population and increasing their oil consumption. In addition, the demand and competition for oil in a near future will eventually be too great for the supply; indeed, our lifestyles are currently based on inefficient energy devices. This includes automobiles and electric appliances that

Global demand and consumption of energy is at an all time high; the world needs a safe, efficient, clean, and high producing source of energy production. The solution is something we already use for energy production, Nuclear power. From the beginning of nuclear energy there has been concerns over the safety of the power plants and its impact on the environment. With climate change and more accurate information on nuclear power the tide is shifting in its favor. This paper will explore the positives of nuclear power, political change on nuclear power, safety of the energy source and new technologies associated with the nuclear power process. Most importantly are the risks associated with nuclear power worth it? Research suggests that nuclear power is safer now more than ever and has less of an impact on the environment than coal or oil. Public support and misconceptions over the years have been up and down due to political agendas and those who are misinformed about nuclear power. Individuals who are involved in the energy field are in favor of nuclear power and building more plants with newer technology.