I have been given an essay to write with the title:
Discuss the arguements for and against the use of nuclear power
and I have asked my tutor if i can have an online debate on this and she has agreed to let me ask the question here and get some of your views so that I can use the information gathered to aid me and as proof of peoples opinions so let the debate begin lol
Thanks yes, we need it, that all folks the answer is no nuke ever. if we for example used it against whoever, someone else would push a button and so on. if you were not struck by the bomb, the fallout will kill you within 2 years. so who wins? simple stuff
FOR : cheap , reliable , low environmental impact
AGAINST : waste disposal , if operated improperly ( or poorly designed ) has the potential for massive environmental damage
all the rest is just expansion of these facts
WHAT'S WRONG NOW : the operators are poorly trained ( cause of all known accidents ) , waste disposal has become a political football and mismanaged because of it , Utility Companies are the ones in charge of the plant - that makes the priority profit not safety
SOLUTION : a government agency ( well run ) that not only regulates but operates the plant ( gives the public control that they do not have with a private company ) with the power generated sold at cost to the utilities ( power will cost more but it will be safer ) FOR THE NAYSAYERS - THEY CONTROL ATOMIC WEAPONS QUITE WELL and the government already has many reactors operating In my opinion, if mankind could avoid the use of nuclear power, and substitute its use for a clean source of energy, it would be much better, because even when it is used in peaceful equipment such as in medicine, measurement, when the radioactive substance wears out, it has been quite an issue the means to dispose the waste, once it contaminates the places where they are thrown awas.
But man are greedy, the fight for power, and so, they have used nuclear power as a means to control by force.
In a struggle for powere, people act as small egotistic children, they are quite shortsighted, and cannot envision on the long run.
All the money invested in nuclear power research could be directed to the development of clean energy production and sources, don't you think? We could think of our future much more optimistically. I think we should use nuclear power.
Ok there are downsides but the environmental impact of the waste it creates is still much less than that of conventional fossil fuel powered stations. Not onlt do fossil fuel power stations create a massive amount of CO2, they also make us dependant on supples of fuel from abroad. In an age when the price of this fuel, especially natural gas, has gone through the roof, anything which moves us away from it's use is a good thing.
Nuclear power isn't anywhere near as dangerous as people think and modern nulcear power stations are very safe. Relativley speaking the ammount of waste generated is only small and it can be dealt with safely.
In my opinion the most of the publics concerns of nuclear are based on misinformation put about by environmental groups and irrational fear. Advantages of Nuclear Power:
1. Nuclear Energy is a clean source of energy without polluting the environment.
2. Nuclear Space program recently launched in India will tremondously improve nuclear usage in India.
3. Best of all reusing the residue of nuclear energy is extremly helpfull in renewal of nuclear resources.
Disadvantages:
1. It can cause extreme damage to environment when improper storage of the residue occurs.
2. Nuclear war space program is posing threat to existence of Planet Earth.
3. There is no Nuclear waste disposal system which wont harm the environment. Against:
Nuclear power is always touted as being "clean". Yet, lest we feel too secure, remember Three Mile Island. There is a huge amount of nuclear waste that is right now making people and sea creatures sick. And more will be sick from it. And disposing of nuclear waste may sound easy; but consider this:Even burried deep in the soil in containers, the life of the radioactivity will be much longer than the containment. So between the time it is buried and 20,000 years later, it is still highly lethal.
And what is a nuclear power plant to a terrorist? I shudder to think.
Then, condsider how many nuclear power plants are built where earthquakes can demolish them and spew deadly radioactivity into the air.
For: It's easier just to keep the old plants going to to change to solar, wind and water power. People are not too worried about it anyway. Nuclear power Supplies a sixth of the world's electricity carbon free!
Claus Rolfs, a physicist at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, has shown that radioactive half life can be reduced using metals. Although at an early stage it might make disposal much more manageable.
A longer-term option could involve recycling all the transuranics (plutonium is one example of a transuranic element), perhaps in a so-called fast reactor. Nearly all the very long lived components of the waste are eliminated transforming the nuclear waste debate. Substantial research and development is needed with daunting technical and economic challenges to overcome but this scheme could work.
A new type of reactor - The pebble-bed modular reactor is much safer, cheaper and easier to maintain. Instead of building a massive 1,000-megawatt plant, modules each producing around 100 megawatts can be built. They are scheduled to be built in America and Africa.
Nuclear fusion is in the experimental stage and if proved to be workable would provide virtually limitless extremely cheap electricity with absolutely no waste at all.
If every trick in the environmentalists book is used the world will still produce far too much carbon emissions for the next fifty or more years. Nuclear is the only viable non polluting energy source available that could help drastically cut pollution. It would be silly to give up nuclear power. It is a clean way of producing large amounts energy.
As for its "downsides"
Technology exists to treat nuclear waste. While these technologies are not being used in the US, they are being used in France. As you may know France produces 90+% of the their electricity from nuclear power, and all of its waste is stored in a room the size of a large gym. And what waste France does have will all decay away in ~100 years.
Nuclear plants can be built and operated in such a way that it is impossible to get weapons grade material directly from the core. Any terrorist would need a large separation or enrichment facility to make weapons, and if they can do that, then then wouldn't have to steal the material anyways.
Final the chances of a meltdown are so small in a properly designed and maintained reactor that if compare the probability of the accident and the damage it could do, to the damage being done by all the coal, oil, gas burring plants that would be required to replace nuclear power, then you will see that the damage from the nuclear accident is far less. We know that these plants are causing global warming, and unless we do something the Earth will not be livable in a few hundred years. I believe we don't have much choice.
Fossil fuels will run out in the next 'x' years (so many different opinions on when), and then what? Wind power? Don't make me laugh, wind farms are a PR exercise, not a viable method of generating large quantities of energy. Solar energy? Fine for personal domestic use - helping to heat the hot water and so on, but can only ever be a secondary and personal energy source.
With no gas or coal power stations and wind or solar power as a distinct secondary supplier nuclear seems to be the only option (unless some clever scientist-types discover the secrets of cheap, efficient, safe and sustainable fusion reactors). |
